Politics and theology - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him and what came to my mind and heart in Judges 7:2,

"The Lord said to Gideon, 'You have too many men for me to deliver
Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me
that her own strength has saved her...'"

Israel suffered under the oppression of the Midianites for seven
years. The Lord himself brought this suffering upon Israel due to her
straying from him, abandoning him. He did it to bring Israel back to
him.

Israel's purpose, the reason the Lord raised her up, was to engage the
world through this nation that came from the offspring of Abraham, the
man of faith. God would use Israel as an instrument through which he
would pursue the building of his kingdom - a building project that
continues on today through the church.

At this point in her history, having abandoned the Lord, Israel was no
longer useful to him in his purposes to reach out to the world and so
he brought this suffering to Israel. His effort in bringing suffering
to Israel with his subsequent deliverance of her, when they got to the
point of crying out to him for relief, was to re-engage Israel in his
agenda to reach out to the world. The whole exercise would have been
for a loss if Israel missed the point that their fate was in the
Lord's hands and needed to remain devoted to him and his agenda.
Consequently, when the Lord delivered Israel from the Midianites, he
did so with a ridiculously small handful of men. The Israelites would
have to recognize the Lord did it - they did not do it through their
own strength, their own efforts apart from him.

National pride is often thought a good and healthy thing. However,
when a nation, any nation, displaces God, with a subsequent conceit
that assumes it can pursue a promising prosperous future is an
invitation to disaster. Just as the people at the Tower of Babel
discovered, when folks begin to assume they can achieve peace and
prosperity through their efforts apart from God, they cease to be
useful to him and find that their pursuit ensures his judgment. The
Bible is full of accounts of how the Lord interacts with nations as he
seeks to build his kingdom.

I am firmly convinced that theology and politics do not exist apart
from one another. It is my perspective that a person's political
perspective is not arrived at on the intellectual level, but on the
spiritual. It is clear to me that one's political stance flows from
his theological perspective. That is the simple reason why two people
with the same set of facts arrive at political differences. The
assertion of one that the other is "stupid" does not address the
differences we see. I am entirely convinced this is where the origin
of our "culture war" is found.

Those who pursue politics that seek to remove God from the culture and
replace him with social safety nets, those who feel that every
disaster can be remedied by new laws and new government assistance
apart from seeking God's help and acknowledging him are only inviting
further disaster. In Isaiah 9:8-12 we read how Israel, following
disaster, sought to rebound, rebuild, make itself strong and resilient
apart from embracing God, "The Lord has sent a message against Jacob;
it will fall on Israel. All the people will know it— Ephraim and the
inhabitants of Samaria— who say with pride and arrogance of heart,
'The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone;
the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars.'
But the Lord has strengthened Rezin's foes against them and has
spurred their enemies on. Arameans from the east and Philistines from
the west have devoured Israel with open mouth."

Anyone who reads the Old Testament will have to acknowledge that
nations only exist for God's purposes and agenda, and when any nation
drifts from God, makes itself un-useful for the building of his
kingdom, it can expect the kind of pain and suffering that only God
can bring. Just a brief reading of Judges helps us see just how
horrific the pain is that God can bring.

"If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted,
torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its
evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had
planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is
to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does
not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for
it." Jeremiah 18:7-10. Every nation on planet Earth is accountable to
the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Every nation on planet earth has
as its purpose the building of God's kingdom. "From one man he made
every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he
determined the times set for them and the exact places where they
should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach
out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us."
Acts 17:26-27.

The United States was founded upon an appeal to God to bless the
creation of this new nation. I think many would be astonished to see
how impassioned many of the founding fathers of our nation were in
their pursuit of God for his blessing on this fledgling new nation. No
one can argue this nation has not been exceptional among any nation in
the history of mankind. If we continue to move away from God and find
our national well-being apart from God through the exercise of
government in the many social programs, efforts of global
arrangements, regulatory agencies, laws and policies, we will
certainly find our demise as we cease to serve the purpose of God for
any nation: the building of God's kingdom.

To seek God as a nation is not to force its people to join a
government-mandated church. To not seek God as a nation is to insure
its demise.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to
hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com