“And on that day, declares the Lord of hosts, I will cut off the names of the idols from the land, so that they shall be remembered no more. And also I will remove from the land the prophets and the spirit of uncleanness.” Zechariah 13:2
It’s a mistake, an epic and terrible one, for us to think that history and the events of modern life aren’t controlled by the Lord. These are “biblical times” just like any time. We are God’s; all is the Lord’s. Specifically, this is the day of the church, the era of grace. This means that we should see our lives as servant-soldiers of Christ, alive to know Him and to exercise dominion over every field and every endeavor. A broken and compartmentalized view of life is sinful as it rejects God’s authority (in our minds, not in reality) over every aspect of living. Like all sin, this will lead us into diverse pains – depression, despair, divorce, vocational confusion and frustration. To be alive is to be alive for Christ. In everything we do we are to be as Joshua, bending the knee to Christ outside those mighty walls of Jericho that were soon to fall and say, “what will the Lord say to His servant?” We are to report for duty and then enjoy our lives as the divine school that it is – each and every period, every episode, every trial and triumph, bringing us closer and closer to becoming mature in Christ. Christian living is the school of Christ, not filled with anxiety and trepidation over the future, but with abundant eagerness to see how He will transform us through His perfect guidance.
To reject this life philosophy out of hand is to accept the world’s dominion. It’s to live half a life as a private Christian but a public servant of the world. It shatters the peace of the soul that rests in not knowing the future comprehensively but knowing the Lord that knows that future. It robs the energy of the heart that knows that the simplest act of obedience – personally and vocationally – in the spirit of faith, with trust in Christ, rises to the heavens where the witnesses rejoice and praise God. The accolades we chase here on earth, from the corrupt and petty lips of men, are poison praise. Real life is the life that glorifies God by serving Him with the talents one has as these talents serve others and cause them to see Christ in us.
Do you, Christian mother, homeschool your children instead of chasing worldly wealth and turning those gifts from God (your precious children) over to the state? Then know that your work has eternal consequences. Do you work as a police officer? A factory worker? A landscaper? In all that you do you should know that it is the Lord that you serve and your reward, your portion, is the Lord and His glory. You are a priest of the Lord in what you do! Put his flag down where you are and work for Him. Others will see your devotion, your excellence and care, which is used to their benefit and they will know His name. More still, you will have your purpose and your peace. You will find contentment with Godliness – that precious gift that evades us when we don’t remember God’s radical authority over everything.
The idols of our time are those that draw our attention away from God’s authority. They entice us to believe that God isn’t Lord over this field and that. They lie to us and convince us that His principles (derived from Scripture alone) don’t guide and provide context for some particular. We commit spiritual adultery when we grant ultimate authority – epistemologically and/or ethically – to anything but God. We play the whore when we see some goal or achievement as our highest and best rather than Christ.
In this past year of pandemic the Christian church has shown itself to be shot through with insolent idolatry. It never bothered to question how an infectious disease specialist had the wisdom and authority to basically control civil liberties and economics. America’s idolatry of science, which is the discipline of discovering what things are has been used to judge her. Watch the headlines now, trickling out reluctantly by a media that pretends to be objective, and see how the evidence strongly supports (as logic has shown us all along) that the pandemic was man-made (proof: https://nypost.com/2021/06/06/damning-science-shows-covid-19-likely-engineered-in-lab/). The implicit trust that Americans gave the “experts” is now shown to have been grossly in error. Such trust – faith really – is what one only owes the Lord, not any man or institution. The mantra, “trust the science” or “believe in science” is religious language. To say that the discipline of defining a fact of reality is one’s ultimate guide in all matters is supremely foolish and we’re seeing the results of that all around us.
To define the “fact” of a reality such as a virus is the realm of medical science. What to do with this fact is then in the realm of ethics, not medical science. And ethics without theology is a contradiction because one has no standard of good and evil. Is a radiologist an ethicist too? Is a surgeon a theologian? The idolatry of the day is that the white lab coat confers, ignorantly, sage like powers upon the wearer in the minds of the deluded. We should be appalled that America – and its churches – never bothered to consider the Word of the Lord and its principles throughout the past year. It never bothered because it assumed, wrongly, that the principles of Scripture had nothing to say about what the authorities could and could not do. By what authority? That is the question that dawned on few because they’ve given ultimate authority to government and science, not God. Does anyone have true moral authority to quarantine the well with the sick? Does anyone have the moral right to order people not to work? Does the Lord grant authority to literally print money in order to pay people for not working? The answer to all of these is a solid and unequivocal no. But the cry of the self-oppressed was the same cry of idolators throughout history: save us and care for us! Our generation said this to the white lab coats and politicians, not the Lord. Our generation threw hard won liberties away without ever asking serious questions because they trust blindly in their idols.
For this we are being judged and will be judged. We must understand this and repent because just as the Lord judged Egypt’s idolatry with each specific plague hammering one of their false gods, America is in the early phase of similar judgment. Judgment against our idolatrous faith in our economic power and military might is still to come. The Lord will expose our foolishness and hubris and then America will be truly humbled just like all other nations that have rejected Him throughout history. We must understand this lest we be swept up in that judgment. We should pray for our nation, yes, but America is not the church and you are not an American first, but a Christian. Did Joe Biden or Donald Trump die for your sins? Did Abraham Lincoln rise from the dead? America will have no revival unless repentance, true and Biblical repentance, starts with the apostate church. Churches that stopped worshipping because the government said so should not re-open because they were not true churches of Christ. Only Christ tells us how to worship Him. There is no Scripture that reads, “do not neglect the gathering of yourselves unless the government tells you to.” Wal-mart was open. Grocery stores were open. Churches were closed. Apparently, the church now believes that men can live by bread alone.
To see this clearly is to see the path of history, in all its amazing particulars, as God’s work. It keeps us from thinking like Republicans or Democrats by focusing us on the true goal of our lives, which is to bring every thought captive to Christ and make disciples of Him wherever we are. So, these headlines of shame and coverups, of this evil thing called gain of function research (of making diseases deadlier to humans), shouldn’t cause us dismay because we are in Christ but at America. We should see ourselves in this world but not of it. We should view our lives both as ambassadors from the Kingdom of Heaven and soldiers of Christ behind enemy lines. By holy living and knowledge of His word, we’re to “take back territory” from the forces of the enemy. The preaching of the gospel isn’t happening because it’s adulterated with worldliness. As Richard D. Phillips said, “what we save them with, we save them to.” We must preach the gospel that’s biblical and speaks of God’s radical sovereignty, man’s sin, and forgiveness in Christ. And how will we do this if no one knows the Scriptures? We are weak and powerless not because we have the wrong person in Washington but because we don’t know the power of God! Our prayers are pathetic and petty half-measures offered to a God we don’t truly know, nor desire to know, through study of His Word.
A person and a church in love with His Word, dedicated to Him through faithful living and eager to pray at all times – that yearns to pray! – is a fire that won’t be quenched on this earth. God will fan it into a conflagration.
So, don’t be shocked by it all. Don’t be confused. Fix your eyes and heart on Christ and set all your hope upon Him and know that he will not ever be found to be lacking like our puny little tin gods of today. Do not surrender any part of your life or mind to anyone but the Lord and endeavor to apply the principles of His Word to every fact, every detail, and every discipline. The truths of Scripture aren’t against science. They provide the context for it. This is wisdom – something we haven’t seen from any of the so-called experts (false saviors) throughout our pandemic era. Our savior doesn’t wear a white lab coat – His white robes of righteousness are so bright that they’re blinding. Serve and follow Him, Christian, and you will be saved.
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