onor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king (1 Peter 2:17).
To understand our political responsibilities as Christians, we must understand where we are -- and how we have come here. This is necessary so that the honor we render will be biblical, as opposed to the kind of honor offered by confused or cowardly sycophants.
The first thing we must understand is that we are currently living under a political tyranny, and that Mr. Clinton is a tyrant. (The tyranny did not begin with him, but it is getting more obvious all the time.) Now the use of the term tyrant is not a resort to political mudgobbing and deadcatting -- this is a word that has meant something historically, and the definition fits.
When we hear the word tyranny, we usually think of some oriental despot chopping heads off, or storm troopers breaking down doors in the middle of the night. In reality, this sort of thing is only the last and most visible manifestation of tyranny. Long before this happened, however, the future victims of such activities sat quietly by while their liberties were taken from them. Such tyranny always follows a similar course; we are not far from the end of that course in our nation.
Tyranny, whether overt or implicit, must be defined and understood as the direct result of rulers who reject the authority of God over them. When rulers declare that Almighty God does not rule over them, they are claiming, in effect, to be Almighty God. And that is tyranny.
If this is clear in our minds it will protect us from the folly of "honoring our existing authorities because they are not all that bad." They are all that bad. But if the ruling authorities are so bad as that, then why should we honor them? The answer is that we are Christians, and we are commanded by God to honor the authorities He has established. How are we to do this?
God has established civil authorities, and in 1 Peter 2:17 (cited above), He has commanded that we render honor to them. How should this be expressed? First, we are to pray for those in authority over us. Specifically, we should pray for relative civic calm so that we may spread the gospel (1 Tim. 2:1-2). We should also pray for the salvation of our rulers (1 Tim. 2:3-4).
Secondly, we must speak of our rulers respectfully. Mr. Clinton is an evil and wicked man. But to say that we may therefore heap abuse on him is an invalid inference. Christians fall into this trap when they assume that wickedness in a ruler is grounds for reviling him. When Michael contended with Satan over the body of Moses he did not rail at him (Jude 9). Nor should we rail at the president -- regardless of his hatred for God's law.
Third, we should carefully obey all laws where such obedience does not constitute disobedience to God (Rom. 13:1-7; Acts 4:19). Christians must not be scofflaws. At the same time, we must not assume that compliance with various governmental tyrannies
is biblically legitimate simply because we are biblically illiterate.
This does not make the church a doormat -- the reason we are currently walked on is that we have not obeyed the Word of God. So we must start with obedience. Christians are not to act politically on the basis of common sense. We are to do what we are told, whether or not it makes sense to us initially. As we obey, political maturity and understanding will be given to us by God.
But having made the decision to honor the existing authorities, this still leaves many Christians with multitudes of practical questions. After all, we say, these authorities of ours are at war with the God of the Bible. So what are we to do?
First, we must accept the current state of affairs as a chastisement from the hand of God. Our liberties are imperiled, not because the secularists took them away, but because the Christian church walked away from them. Our Laodicean church does not love the Word of God, does not understand biblical politics, and is willing to mix Christ-words with various pagan political philosophies. Our first practical step is therefore that of confession. What we are getting is a lot better than we deserve.
Second, we must turn away from our confusion. There are many North American evangelicals who will, in fact, go to heaven when they die. But this does not mean they have an adequate Christian worldview. Consequently, they cannot understand anything they see on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. The reason they do not have this Christian worldview is that they do not have the doctrinal foundation for it. I am afraid that the following statement may appear too blunt for some, but our nation is lost unless Christians repent of their various man-made traditions and wholeheartedly return to a pure and unvarnished gospel of a sovereign God and His free grace bestowed on His people in Christ. In short, the Christian church must return to what Paul calls "my gospel" -- others may call it whatever they like. When the secularists take on the mainstream evangelicals, the evangelicals get their lunch eaten. We are in a fight, and it has been well-said that Christians who understand these truths of God's sovereignty are "the only fighting Protestants." As Boettner states, "Put the truth of the sovereignty of God into a man's mind and heart, and you put iron in his blood." We need Christians who can and will consistently appeal, Bible in hand, to the God of battles.
This brings us to the third step of confrontation. The fact that we are to honor the king does not prevent the church from rebuking him for his transgressions of the law of God. When John the Baptist confronted Herod about his sex life, this was no violation of the biblical requirement to honor the king. In the same way, we must pray that God would raise up the kind of Christian leaders who would be willing to confront the wickedness of our rulers -- say, for example, at the National Prayer Breakfast. What we have there now is a religio-schmoozefest, and more than ample evidence that our evangelical leadership is fully house-broken.
In summary, we must admit we deserve the government we are getting -- so we must confess our sins. And, we must give ourselves to a thorough study of the Word of God, resolved to affirm, teach, and die for whatever we find there.
When we have done this as a church, we will then be prepared for a political confrontation, and not a day before. May the Lord hasten that day; may He soon have mercy on us, rise up and scatter all His enemies.
