8/15/79; 11/16/80
A. Definition and Description.
1. Problems of life demand solution. These problems are both individual and collective. Self-righteousness is the motivator for power politics, which is the Satanic system for problem solving on earth.
2. While man cannot solve his personal problems, he likes to compensate by trying to solve collective problems in his society or nation.
3. There are two approaches to problem solving on a national scale: pivot and power politics.
4. Pivot politics is the divine solution to problems of life.
5. Pivot politics includes regeneration, advance in the plan of God through perception and application of doctrine, attaining maturity, and becoming part of the pivot which preserves a locale (city, state, nation).
6. Pivot politics adheres to principles of freedom and advocates the function of the laws of divine establishment in the national entity.
7. Power politics is the human and Satanic solution to problems.
8. Power politics is the concept of social action practiced by the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, and the Communist Party.
9. Power politics uses peace and love propaganda to achieve its goals. It stops people from thinking. Self-determination must not function on emotion. If this doesn’t work, they resort to violence, tyranny, terror, and revolution to achieve their ends when people resist their propaganda.
10. Many believers become distracted from the plan of God by power politics. They become involved in Communist socialism, the welfare state, and other Satanic plans for the establishment of the pseudo-millennium.
B. Pivot versus Power Politics.
1. Historical crisis clarifies the difference between pivot politics and power politics.
2. Unless the situation is hopeless, there is no historical crisis. Crisis means there is no apparent solution.
3. The crisis finds antithetical solutions from pivot politics and power politics.
4. Because the crisis finds power politics unable to cope with the situation, the crisis is intensified by irrationality, confusion, and violence on the part of the believer.
5. Pivot politics prepares the believer for the crisis through perception of doctrine, so that the faith-rest drill functions in claiming promises, reversing concentration, and coming to doctrinal conclusions.
6. Doctrine is utilized in reverse concentration under the second stage of the faith-rest drill. God uses prepared people in the crisis who know how to apply doctrine to the situation for divine solutions.
7. Pivot politics represents personal solution to disaster through personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ.
8. Power politics represents collective human viewpoint. Its approach to crisis includes alliance and compromise with evil, the welfare state, and communism.
9. In pivot politics, the means (doctrine) justifies the end (maturity). But in power politics, the end (e.g., communist conquest) justifies the means (terrorism, revolution, violence).
10. Pivot politics emphasizes thought, reverse concentration, and grace; while power politics emphasizes action, e.g., violence, tyranny, arrogance, evil, self-righteousness, revolution and change.
11. Grace glorifies God; change glorifies man. We need unchanging doctrine for the changing world.
C. The Conflict of History.
1. There is a continuous battle between pivot and power politics. There is a difference in their modus operandi.
2. Bible doctrine demands that the believer reject power politics. For example, he must never approve of assassination or revolution. The solution in pivot politics is perception of doctrine, remembering the fact that Jesus Christ controls history, and advancing to spiritual maturity.
3. The larger the pivot, the greater the blessing, prosperity and effectiveness of the client nation.
4. By emphasizing change, power politics destroys establishment authority and the proper use of freedom.
5. Change upsets establishment and destroys freedom in the name of the common good. Therefore power politics, in the name of human good, destroys the essential characteristics of the angelic conflict: freedom.
6. Whatever the form of government, the practice of establishment principles sponsors human freedom in monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy.
7. The change of power politics destroys human freedom by attacking establishment authority, personal privacy, property and free enterprise. 8. Pivot politics offers solutions to crisis without tampering with human freedom.
9. A pivot of mature believers breaks no laws, sponsors no violence, confiscates
no one’s property, does not intrude on privacy, but turns the world upside down through the invisible force of Bible doctrine and the function of the royal family honor code.
10. Power politics tries to change the leopards spots, while pivot politics only tries to change his direction.
11. Power politics exchanges establishment evil for non-establishment evil. Therefore tyranny prevails, e.g., the French and Russian revolutions.
12. Power politics is the believer on a crusade, full of scar tissue of the soul, with locked in arrogance, filled with self-righteousness, parlaying human good into evil, and distorting law through the advocacy of terrorism or revolution.
13. Power politics means disruption of normal life in the name of human good, self-righteousness; it is the use of arrogance and self-sacrifice to destroy freedom.
14. With power politics, responsible government is changed to irresponsible tyranny.
15. Power politics uses human good to produce evil. Pivot politics uses doctrine to produce divine good.
D. The Elijah Compromise.
1. 1 Ki 18:1-16 states the Obadiah compromise, which was the failure of a reversionistic believer involved in power politics. This context also tells of the failure of a mature believer related to power politics.
2. Obadiah’s compromise is the malfunction of the faith-rest drill, because he had no doctrine for reverse concentration.
3. Elijah’s compromise with power politics is the abuse of power after great spiritual victory.
4. The believer is most vulnerable to defeat after great victory.
5. Obadiah entered power politics by rejecting Bible doctrine at a critical moment. He built up scar tissue of the soul, which intensified arrogance. This resulted in self-righteousness when in prosperity and self-pity when in pressure, which combine to form a guilt complex. Elijah entered power politics by abusing his spiritual authority and distorting the proper use of power when he had the 450 prophets of Baal executed.
6. Elijah used violence to enter the sphere of power politics. He made himself vulnerable to intimidation from some greater violence that might exist in the sphere of power politics.
7. Once the mature believer resorts to violence, he places himself in the power politics system, so that greater power, authority, and potential violence intimidates, threatens, and finally causes fear in the soul. Therefore he is neutralized.
8. Obadiah received his authority from Ahab, but Elijah received his authority from God.
9. Obadiah rejected logistical grace even though supported by it, while Elijah abused logistical grace.
10. Obadiah was a reversionist; Elijah was a mature believer. One compromised because he was ignorant of doctrine; the other compromised because he distorted doctrine.
11. Both reversionistic Obadiah and mature Elijah failed in relationship to power politics. The compromise is that they went into power politics. Yet both were sustained by logistical grace.
12. Obadiah forgot that he was supported from the integrity of God. Elijah enjoyed logistical grace but abused his privilege.
13. Fear destroyed Obadiah’s occupation with Christ. Success destroyed Elijah’s occupation with Christ. One was destroyed by fear, which is lack of faith-rest, while the other was destroyed by success, which is the distortion and malfunction of the faith-rest drill.
E. Conclusion.
Each believer must choose for involvement in the plan of God or try to improve Satan’s world through human systems. Pivot politics uses doctrine to produce divine good. Power politics uses human good to produce evil
.
____
R. B. Thieme, Jr.
Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740
© 1992, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------