And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Luke 19:42-44

Is Jesus speaking to a city here (Jerusalem), or to the inhabitants of the city? Yes, clearly to the inhabitants.

Make no mistake, the heart of Jesus breaks when His creation is led astray! How is it possible that a group of learned men who study scripture day in and day out could have missed something so obvious, so thoroughly prophesied and outlined? Yet they not only missed it, they also actively hindered and misled those around them so that future generations would miss it, too.  Even still, the prophecy Jesus spoke that day came to pass less than 40 years later.

Could it have been that this generation lost sight of the heart of God when they began to believe the only way that God’s Kingdom could be ushered in was through political control of the government?  They went from loving God to loving their laws and their traditions – using God to only to legitimize their position and status, but not to change their heart.

They had to have recognized the lack of spiritual fruit in their lives, I think, realizing the effort being put forth was not worth the yield in the end.  So much so that rather than embrace the heart and spirit of the law, they laden themselves and others with more laws – changing the fruit, in essence, into something they could outwardly see.  Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – all the things that centered on relationship with God and others – were replaced with titles, ministry, activity, and so on.

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:22-23

The following thoughts are partially excerpts I’ve been reading from a book titled “Prophets, Politics & Nations” by Emma Stark, and partially me displaying my learning curve in the form of a blog post. I find that I often learn better whenever I write things out and besides, I would love to hear your thoughts on all of this as well!

Shifting from the ancient political embrace of the Pharisees to the current political embrace of the Church, I pondered these questions:

Does the Church need a national state for its survival?   

Does a nation change simply because its politics change? 

I think I can safely say the answer to both is NO. Culture and politics should be downstream from the Church.  A strong, Christ-centered church that is actively out being salt and light in every sphere (or mountain) – including politics – will naturally result in a moral society.  The weaker the church, the more immoral a society becomes.  The truth is that nations change based on the strength or weakness of the Church, not by whatever political party happens to be in power in the moment.  

What happens when the Church swaps the power of God for the glory that satan offers through the systems of this world? When we partner with satan through the Babylon system rather than partnering with Jesus in the work of His Kingdom, that is idolatry! Essentially this idolatry is what Jesus rejected at His temptation:

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”  Luke 4:5-8

To me it is an indication that the Church has lost its understanding of the power of God and how the Kingdom of Christ works. 

There is a fine line between extreme nationalism and biblical nationalism that many cross over without realizing it, and I can include myself in that. But can a political party or structure accept Jesus as its Savior? Is the land ever made righteous because of the quality of a law? No, and those of us who care to do a bit of historical research realize just how nefarious and evil the best of governments and societies can be and we begin to understand there is a reason why we cannot allow political ideologies to fuel fires of division that risk driving many away from Jesus rather than towards Him.

Something I should have understood all along is that the new testament never teaches us to think in terms of salvation of a territory; and the judgement process of God is not looking at the righteousness of the land, but at the righteousness of the individuals who collectively make up the land (or city, for example, as in the opening scripture indicates). 

If you’re anything like me you might be saying “but wait, what about the sheep and goat nations”?  I now understand what a poor translation of scripture I had both read and had been taught from.  In some translations, this passage reads:

“And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.” Matthew 25:32

Considering the original Greek, I believe the more accurate translations read:

“All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”

He gathers all the nations, and from there he separates the individual people based on their relationship with Him, in much the same way a shepherd would separate sheep from goats.  The Kingdom of God is advanced only by personal relationship, increasing one individual at a time and in no other way. 

As Emma Stark so adequately points out, within each nation on earth are members of God’s Kingdom who are a chosen people; a royal priesthood and His special possession who proclaim His excellencies (1 Peter2:9).  We are all living godly lives in the midst of pagan societies, even in here in the US, as “foreigners and exiles, strangers in this world” –in the world, but not of it. Let’s not buy into the idea that a political system or elected representative is what will save us all and get us back to where we can once again bury our heads in the sand.  Instead, let us actively and always be salt and light, impacting and shaping and expanding God’s Kingdom around us, making our land a better place for everyone in the process.