First of all, let me say that I do not think that we should abandon political solutions. No, we are in this world, we are afforded the opportunity to participate in society and in government (to some extent) and thus we need to make rational and well-formed decisions that seek best to further good behavior and right living in our land. After all, we are called to be salt and salt is to have an effect on those around. Salt preserves and adds good taste as well as covers over some of the bad taste. It also has medicinal effects in that it keeps bacteria and rot from growing.
So, yes, we as Christians are to do all that.
But in our society the depth of rot has progressed, the level of degradation has only increased and the extent of depravity has only plummeted. At what point does someone look at a dish of food and say, "It is too far gone; salt cannot help this!"
We need something more. We need the unmistakable hand of God doing what only the Divine can do: change hearts.
Why does the sinner sin? Because he chooses what his nature wants. We are reaping the last century of increased disregard for God, His Laws and His standards. We have evicted God from the marketplace of ideas, first in politics, then from public schools and now to a large extent even from churches themselves. Thus we have charlatans and false prophets preaching half-truths or out-right lies. These pedal a different gospel and a different Jesus by means of a different spirit. And since church-goers are so unfamiliar with what the Bible actually says, they just sit and soak it in, having their itching ear tickled to their hearts' content. These are the ones that Paul warn the Ephesian elders about in Acts 20 when he said that grievous and savage wolves would enter to devour the flock. But he told the Galatians that anyone who preaches a different gospel is under a divine curse: Anathama!
So we have a huge problem. People are increasingly running after more and more sin, worse and worse perversions, and glorying in their chosen depraved life styles to an insanely blatant level. The dog returns to its vomit and the pig to its filth. Politics alone will not work. We can argue all we want but there is a fundamental world-view problem. Our set of assumed values and default priorities are not necessarily the same as other people in society.
We have a government of the people and by the people. They will only vote for what they want. Their nature is to want more and more things and entertainment and pleasure and stuff. The only way to turn this country and society back to making Godly moral choices is to change the nature of its people. That cannot ever be done through politics, though we should work hard to influence society for good. Nor can it be effected through better education, though we should strive to make sure that our children are properly trained in all academia and godliness. Can the leopard change its spots? No, it takes the Great Physician to perform a great work within the heart of each individual.
The Lord God, the "heart-knower," must work in us again. He must start in His church, for judgment begins in the house of the Lord. He must remove the false prophets and wicked shepherds who teach antinomian ways, who lead their flocks straight in through the gates of hell. To those workers of iniquity He will say, "depart from Me."
But we are still afforded opportunity for it is still called "today." He said if we hear His voice "today" we should not harden our hearts. That means that He still is in the business of speaking and softening hearts and giving the gift of repentance.
He told His disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers. That must mean that He still is seeking a harvest.
Even though the kingdom of Judah was wicked and had a wicked king, God told Jeremiah to go and speak once again to the people:
“This is what the Lord says: Stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s house and speak to all the people of the towns of Judah who come to worship in the house of the Lord. Tell them everything I command you; do not omit a word. Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from their evil ways. Then I will relent and not inflict on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done. Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: If you do not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you, and if you do not listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I have sent to you again and again (though you have not listened), then I will make this house like Shiloh and this city a curse among all the nations of the earth.’”
Jer. 26:2 - 6
The Lord was giving Judah yet one more chance to repent and turn away from sin. Can we not pray to this same great God and ask for one more chance? One more awakening? One more revival?
We should pray for the real God-called pastors and godly teachers that God Himself would strengthen them and outfit them and equip them for the task of declaring the Word of God boldly to a society that increasingly does not want to hear anything that would condemn their sin.
But we should also pray for an out-pouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh. We should not buy into the cessationist argument that said that all the special stuff died out with the original Twelve Apostles. No, don't put God into a box defined by your own limited experience. Church history is filled with examples of real men and women of God doing mighty things that can only be explained by the Holy Spirit doing works with and through them. (Try googling the Welsh revival, the many revivals on the Isle of Lewis, and the revival at Asbury College, Kentucky in 1970.)
So this post is a challenge to all Christian to start praying seriously. Pray for true men of God to have Holy Spirit unction and divine protection to be able to deliver the Word of God clearly, forcefully, powerfully and correctly. Pray also that people's hearts would be softened to hear the Word of God and that people would be changed. Pray also that God would grant an outpouring of His Spirit so that people will want to leave their lives of sin and misery.
The alternative is to keep on doing the same ol' same ol'. And we can see just how far down the drain that is getting us. No! We need God to perform a miracle. A mighty miracle of revival! Not a man-made, conjured up cheap trick on a certain date, but a genuinely divine out-working and in-working of His Spirit, by His Spirit for His glory.
Pray!
See also this related post.
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