CHRISTIAN ACTIVISM

A. Definition.

1. There is a tremendous emphasis among evangelical Christians today to enter into activism, to practice social and political engineering. This arrogance manifests the fact that most Christians don’t have a clue about the Christian way of life.

2. Christian involvement in vigorous and often illegal activity to achieve political goals is another manifestation of this arrogance.

a. Christians stick their nose into other people’s business.

b. Christians intrude into the privacy of other people.

c. Christians violate the constitutional rights of other people.

d. Christians destroy property, e.g., abortion clinics.

B. Client Nation versus “Christian Nation.”

1. There is therefore little or no understanding of the role of the believer in the client nation to God.

2. This lack of understanding is often predicated on the erroneous theory that we have a so-called “Christian nation.” There never has been a Christian nation and there never will be. This is a misunderstanding of the priest nation or client nation to God.

3. In a priest or client nation to God, there exist all the concepts of freedom, including privacy, the sacredness of property and life, free enterprise, and little government with big people.

4. Yet evangelicals today want to pass laws which would, in effect, make all unbelievers outlaws. This is wrong and evil.

5. Under freedom, people have the right to believe in Christ, to be evangelized, and to say no or yes to the Gospel. People’s rights must be protected whether we agree with them or not.

6. Furthermore, believers in a client nation should be free to find their right pastor and learn the details of the protocol plan of God from him, and as a result, to have a fantastic historical invisible impact.

7. In any client nation there are both believers and unbelievers, as well as many other religions besides Christianity.

8. There is no such thing as so-called “Christian laws.” The standards for Christianity are found only in the protocol plan of God and in our portfolio of invisible assets.

9. Therefore, we have no right to interfere in the lives of others and dictate what they should wear, how they should think, or what they should say. The impact of Christianity is found only in evangelism, yet few believers understand salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

10. Therefore, to outlaw a certain segment of society because they do not adhere to Christian principles is a disaster. To force a superficial theory of Christianity on all people becomes tantamount to tyranny.

11. We have the right to our opinions, but so do other believers and others who are involved in cults and religions. People have the right to believe what they want to believe. We have no right to persecute or imprison such people.

12. The Bible clearly emphasizes that the impact of Christianity on a nation is definitely spiritual.

13. Christians have civil responsibility in military service, paying taxes, and in fulfilling certain civic responsibilities. But this does not include violence, destruction of property, intrusion on the privacy of anyone, or any form of civil disobedience. Yet Christian leaders in evangelicalism today are advocating civil disobedience.

14. The separation of church and state demands that the believer understand his role in society in terms of the will, plan, and purpose of God for the Church Age believer as a member of the royal family of God.

15. The spiritual impact of the protocol plan of God not only opposes the present modus operandi of Christian activism, but assigns it to the arrogance of the cosmic system.

16. Activism among Christians is a sign of a fragmented life in the cosmic system.

17. As goes the believer, so goes the client nation to God. A client nation to God is defined in terms of spiritual activity under establishment freedom.

C. The dual responsibility of the Christian does not include activism.

1. Our Lord Himself anticipated the Church Age when He said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s." So we as believers have a dual responsibility, but it does not include activism.

2. “Render unto Caesar” refers to establishment activity.

a. It includes the function of the divine institutions.

b. It includes freedom, the right of self-determination, the sacredness of property and life.

c. It means freedom through military victory and therefore the responsibility to serve in the military.

d. It means free enterprise, and the inevitable existence of wealth and poverty side by side, the healthy sign of the proper working of free enterprise. The only interference into free enterprise should be that of law enforcement where criminality exists.

e. It means the separation of business and state, as well as church and state.

f. It includes civil authority to protect us from criminality.

3. “Render unto God” includes:

a. The execution of the protocol plan of God.

b. The manufacture of invisible heroes.

c. The establishment of a pivot by which the client nation is blessed by association.

d. Manifest destiny demands blessing by association with the mature believer.

D. Illustration: The Fall of the Northern Kingdom.

1. There were five Jewish client nations in the past.

a. The theocracy from Moses to Saul.

b. The United Kingdom from Saul to Solomon.

c. The Northern Kingdom from Jeroboam to Hoshea.

d. The Southern Kingdom from Rehoboam to Zedekiah.

e. The Kingdom of Judah from Zerubbabel to 70 A.D.

2. All five of these client nations started out great, and all five were destroyed due to the shrinkage of the pivot of mature believers. Instead, most believers were involved in activism, failing to execute God’s plan for the dispensation of Israel.

3. When the Northern Kingdom had an alcoholic and drug problem, there was no activism, but simply a statement of the problem and the ultimate solution in Isa 28:8-11. “All the tables are full of filthy vomit, and there is not even a clean place in any of the joints. To whom shall he teach the knowledge of doctrine? To whom shall he cause to interpret the message? Those just weaned from milk [little children]? Those just taken from the breast, or those who had just been born? Principle added to principle, principle added to principle; line added to line, line added to line [exegetical and expository teaching of doctrine]; a little here and a little there [consistent post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation]. For with alien articulation, and by means of a foreign language, he will speak to this people. But they would not listen.”

a. This message is sanctified sarcasm, for reversionistic believers are just like babies.

b. But even if there is hope in the next generation, it’s too late because the cycles of discipline have already begun.

c. Verse 10 is one of the greatest Hebrew monosyllabic imitations of both drunken speech and the babbling of those who reject doctrine. It is also an imitation of those who would legitimately speak in tongues from 30 to 70 A.D.

d. So the monosyllabic babbling of drunks is imitated to give the solution, which is not activism, but consistent teaching of Bible doctrine, line upon line, precept upon precept, a little doctrine here, and a little doctrine there.

e. The babblings reminded the prophet of speaking in tongues, which would be the final warning to the final and fifth Jewish client nation.

f. Having had five client nations, the Jews were responsible for evangelism, for maintaining freedom in their own nation to that people could be evangelized. They were responsible for executing God’s plan for the dispensation of Israel and for missionary activity. Yet they failed completely in all these areas.

g. So what was the sign to the Jews that they would no longer function as a client nation to God? By being evangelized in their own country by Gentile languages. This was the sign that there would never again be a Jewish client nation in history until the Second Advent of Christ.

h. Therefore, Isaiah’s message was a prophecy of the gift of tongues.

i. 1 Cor 14:21 quotes from Isa 28:11-12. “In the Torah [Old Testament] it stands written: `"With foreign languages and by lips of strangers [Gentiles], I will speak to this people.’ [Isa 28:12] `And even so, they will not listen to Me,” says the Lord.’ Therefore, the gift of tongues is for a sign, not to those who believe, but to those who do not believe.”

j. Notice that no activism was involved here, but only the teaching of the Word of God line upon line, precept upon precept, a little doctrine here, a little doctrine there.

k. That was the answer in Israel’s day, but they would not listen. Today, we do not have the warning of the gift of tongues.

l. Though there is a Jewish nation that exists today, it cannot be a client nation until the Second Advent. These are the times of the Gentiles when only Gentile nations are client nations.

4. All client nations of history, Jewish and Gentile, have gone down in the fifth cycle of discipline. Today, our United States of America is about to follow the same pattern. The manifestation of our decline is seen in the failure of born-again believers to learn and execute the protocol plan of God, to utilize the ten problem solving devices, and the fantastic invisible assets in our portfolio.

5. For forty years, the gift of tongues was used to warn Israel of the coming of the fifth cycle of discipline, from 30 to 70 A.D. Israel failed completely, and will never again be a client nation to God until the Millennium.

6. Hosea 4:1-6, “Hear the word of the Lord, you citizens of Israel [Northern Kingdom], because the Lord has a lawsuit against the inhabitants of the client nation; because nothing of doctrine is being taught, and nothing about grace is being applied. There is no true knowledge of God in the land. Instead, there is lying, dishonesty, deception, murder [homicide], rape, therefore violence. Therefore, the land mourns, and all who live in it languish [loss of national courage, strength, vitality, power], along with the beasts of the field [domestic animals suffer]. Yet, let no one find fault [become an activist], let no one offer criticism [activism], for your citizens are like those who contend with the [Levitical] priests. Therefore, you have stumbled in the daylight [cosmic involvement], and even the prophets will stumble with you in night darkness. Therefore, I will destroy your mother [nation]. My people are destroyed by lack of knowledge. Because they have rejected knowledge of doctrine, I will also reject you from being My priest [client] nation.”

a. The Levitical priesthood were still teaching doctrine, like some pastors today, and avoiding activism. They were faithful in teaching the Word of God as it existed then.

b. The people stumbled because believers had become activists instead of Biblicists.

c. The prophets who were supposed to be warning the people had also pulled the pin of arrogance, and they, too, were involved in activism.

d. A nation without absolute truth is a nation without solutions. Believers have absolute truth. As they accept it, they begin to grow in grace and become invisible heroes. When the pivot of mature believers expands, the nation is delivered.

e. As goes the believer, so goes the client nation to God.

f. Both Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in B.C. 721 when the Assyrian armies overran the Northern Kingdom.

E. How can activism be described?

1. Activism in the client nation to God is a terrible cancer. Christian activism is arrogance and a sign of a fragmented life.

2. Rom 12:2-3, “Stop being conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renovation of your thought, that you may prove what the will of God is, namely the good of intrinsic value achievement [advance to spiritual maturity], the well-pleasing to God [execution of the protocol plan], the mature status quo [manufacture of invisible heroes]. For I say through the grace which has been given to me to everyone who is among you: stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance beyond what you ought to think, but think in terms of sanity for the purpose of being rational without illusion, as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from doctrine.”

3. The devil sponsors Christian activism, which is the believer involved in the improvement of the devil’s world. This becomes tantamount to the Church Age believer being involved in the temporal solutions to the problems of life when spiritual solutions are available.

a. 2 Cor 2:11, “In order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his strategies.” One of Satan’s strategies is to get the believer involved in Christian activism.

b. 2 Cor 11:3, “But I’m afraid, lest the serpent, who deceived Eve by his craftiness, deceive your minds, and that you should be led astray from the purity and virtue which belongs to Christ.”

c. Jas 4:6, “He gives greater grace. Therefore, the Scripture says [Prov 3:34], `God makes war against the arrogant, but He gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore, submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” The resistance of the devil referred to here means to avoid Christian activism. Christian activism combines arrogance with legalism, or self-righteous arrogance with crusader arrogance.

d. 1 Pet 5:6-8, “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may promote you at the proper time. Casting all your cares [worries] on Him, because He cares for you. Be vigilant [alert], for your enemy the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking some believer to devour. But resist him, firm in doctrine.”

(1) To wait on the Lord’s promotion is the antithesis of activism.

(2) You are to be firm in doctrine, not in activism.

4. Activism finds the cosmic Christian becoming humanistic in his philosophy. Therefore, in reversionism he becomes occupied with temporal solutions. He advocates systems to improve man’s environment rather than his relationship to God.

5. Christian activism includes the social Gospel, social engineering, social crusades related to moral degeneracy, civil disobedience, violence, destruction of property, and even revolution.

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