hrist has commissioned His church to disciple the nations. The modern church has replaced this vision for the nations with a drive to salvage nothing more than a remnant from the world.
God is not only concerned with people individually, but also with groups of people. He has established churches, families, and nations, and demands faithfulness of each of them. It is certainly true that individuals must come to see their need for grace; it is also true — though frequently ignored — that nations must obey God as well. Nations are created by Him, and they are sustained by Him:
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us . . . (Acts 17:26-27).
Our calling is the same as that of every nation: to seek the Lord. And we are called to seek Him as a nation.
Seeking the Lord is absent from our agenda, and the evils of our nation are plain for all to see. Theft in various forms has been legalized (inflation, excise taxes, etc.); blasphemy is not only tolerated — it is applauded (secular politics, arts, psychology, and education); capital crimes are utterly ignored and often made light of (homosexuality, adultery, etc.); envy is an institutionalized virtue (public welfare, public health, etc.); and the list could go on.
We are in desperate need of reformation, and this can only come by the grace of God in Christ, who is the Head of all nations. Like Ninevah of old, we need corporate repentance, or the Lord's hand will fall heavily upon us.
It is important to remember the corporate nature of nations. When we ponder the evils of our day — in our government, in our economy, in our marketplace of ethics and attitudes — we must not point fingers at the sins of our neighbor. National sins are national. We all bear the guilt every time a guilty man runs free (see, for one example, Deut. 21:8). Ezra and Daniel were upright before God as individuals, but they dwelt among a guilt-ridden people. Notice how Daniel identifies himself as under the guilt of Israel's corporate sin, though he was righteous as an individual:
And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, "O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments. Neither have we heeded your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings and our princes, to our fathers and all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us shame of face, as it is this day — to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those near and those far off in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of the unfaithfulness which they have committed against You. O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You" (Daniel 9:4-8).
God withheld His wrath from the Amorites until their sin came to its fullness (cf. Gen. 15:16). Our nation stands today, but only because it is God's pleasure that it should. We are doomed to destruction unless He grants repentance. To God we are a drop in the bucket, and destruction will be upon us unless we turn from our offenses (Is. 40:15-17). We do not deserve to stand, but our God is merciful. Perhaps, if He wills, we may be saved.
The saints of our nation must unite under God in humble confession. When we consider the state of our nation, we may not point to "those sinners over there." We are members of an apostate corporation, a body of citizens that persists in rebellion against the Almighty. Like Daniel, we must identify ourselves as members of this wretched nation.
The same principle applies to the church. Paul put this clearly to the Corinthians:
Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God works all in all . . . that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another (1 Cor. 12:4-6,25).
As we consider the theological and moral compromises in the church that are clearly evident to us today, we have no right to stand aloof and say, "We have no part of it." To do so denies the apostle's teaching: And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it (v. 26).
Ours is a time when many true believers have fallen into severe doctrinal error. We do not have the right to ignore this problem; we suffer. Many congregations refuse to protect their purity by practicing biblical discipline. We suffer. Again, the call for confession is urgent. God deals with His church severely, and He sometimes removes lampstands. With nothing to offer Him to our credit, let us bow down and confess. Now.
