“Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with futile plans? The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one. “Let us break their chains,” they cry, “and free ourselves from slavery to God.” But the one who rules in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them. Then in anger he rebukes them, terrifying them with his fierce fury. For the Lord declares, “I have placed my chosen king on the throne in Jerusalem, on my holy mountain.””
Psalms 2:1–6 NLT
Lost in the dustup in the Oval Office last week between Ukrainian President Zelensky and President Trump (VP Vance too) is God’s judgment of the political left in America. It’s easy to see things only from political eyes. It’s easy to defend one’s political position and, therefore, miss the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ- and the serious consequences of rejecting Him – in all of it. What we’re seeing before our eyes are the very facts of judgement for unbelief promised and explained in Scripture.
“Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.”
Romans 1:21–25 NLT
We see – as the Lord lets us know via Scripture – that mankind knows God. There’s no such thing as an intellectually honest atheist. What happens is that we suppress the truth about God and refuse to worship and thank Him. This is probably one of the most ignored or, at least, misunderstood truths in all of Scripture. The Lord has revealed Himself through nature to all people. Unbelief is a sham that has catastrophic consequences to us personally, socially, and politically. Notice that unbelief brings with it a general thanklessness. Grumbling and complaining is quite literally the job of the modern left…but don’t be confused, this is due to their unbelief.
Refusing to worship the Lord and give Him thanks leads to our minds becoming “dark and confused.” Why? It’s due to our irrational insistence that God isn’t God. To reject God is to try and accept the philosophical absurdities such as everything came from nothing but things should make sense anyway. Or, we’re nothing but cosmic accidents but right and wrong exist. Rejecting God is not only a great offense to the holy God, it carries with it the consequence of intellectual absurdity since this is clearly His world.
God responds, as a first order of judgment, by “giving them over” or as the NLT translates it here, “abandoned them” to do whatever foolish things they want. The first order of business for reckless atheism is usually worship of things (wealth, power, sex, fame, or idols and false religions).
In other words, because of man’s willful truth suppression and refusal to acknowledge and thank the Lord, God gives them over to the consequences, bit by bit, to the foolishness of their premise. This is what the Divine Psychiatrist says of the human condition.
Thus, one thing we see – and we’re witnessing it right now – is an increasing level of vapidity and self-destructive ideology from America’s atheists. Christians should, therefore, remember this as we engage an often hostile and irrational culture. We will not be able to reason with everyone and yet we’re called to reason with them. Sounds contradictory, but the context is the key.
The early church had a habit of “reasoning” and debating with the unbelieving world. The book of Acts is replete with examples. Seven times it directly states this and in dozens of others it shows that the custom of Paul and the other disciples was to logically present the case of Christ over against the irrational foundations of unbelief. To wit:
“As was Paul’s custom, he went to the synagogue service, and for three Sabbaths in a row he used the Scriptures to reason with the people. He explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead. He said, “This Jesus I’m telling you about is the Messiah.” Some of the Jews who listened were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with many God-fearing Greek men and quite a few prominent women.” Acts of the Apostles 17:2–4 NLT
The custom was to reason! That needs to be our custom too! All our fulminating against the irrational woke left is unbiblical in that it doesn’t bring us to share Christ with them, but politics. If we use politics as the door to the cross, we do well; but if we submit to the temptation of calling names rather than calling to repent, we squander our literal calling (Matthew 28:18-20). But we’re too easily swayed by the vapid argumentation of those who reject God because we’re ignorant of what the Scripture says! Watch how the people responded to Paul’s divine reasoning:
“But some of the Jews were jealous, so they gathered some troublemakers from the marketplace to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag them out to the crowd. Not finding them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the other believers instead and took them before the city council. “Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world,” they shouted, “and now they are here disturbing our city, too. And Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all guilty of treason against Caesar, for they profess allegiance to another king, named Jesus.” The people of the city, as well as the city council, were thrown into turmoil by these reports. So the officials forced Jason and the other believers to post bond, and then they released them.” Acts of the Apostles 17:5–9 NLT
You see? This is the pattern. Even and especially today. The church must, therefore, not respond to political controversy merely trying to win at politics. We should and must see the true truth – that is, that the brazenly illogical positions of the political left are the consequences of their atheism (and, yes, this is the case even of professing believers who veer left, and/or confused and immature true believers in Christ who are confused). Of course they’re going to call us names and advocate for our ruination! This is a spiritual battle beneath and propping up all other battles. And we’re only effective if we see this and act accordingly.
Since it’s sinful truth suppression that starts the sad chain of irrationality we must remember this when debating anything. We must remember that everything has theological roots. Since that’s true, it also means there are eternal consequence too to all things. Getting angry at the vacuous nonsense of modern leftism is easy and, unless we stay focused on Christ, who is the answer to it all via faith alone and the repentance of sin, we’ll end up calling each other names across a great chasm of which there’s no bridge. How tragic!
If the sinless Son of God, Jesus Christ, could pray for those who were literally crucifying Him, we must pray to be like Him. If Stephen could pray for those who were stoning him to death, if Paul could say that he’d die so that his countrymen, the Jews, who were everywhere persecuting him, could live, how much can we be patient with unbelievers today?
So, (remember where we started?) back to Russia and all that.
It’s utter foolishness to think that Mr. Zelensky’s position is the rational one in light of the facts on the ground. Whether you like Mr. Trump or not, and it’s perfectly understandable that you might dislike his personality, you must reckon with his main points. As Christians, we’re called to be wise; we’re called to be salt and light in a world of sin-fueled confusion. Many on the political left literally hate Mr. Trump (a clear violation of Scripture itself) and can’t reason at all when it comes to him.
That said, president Trump’s search for peace amidst a horribly destructive war is the right way to go. It should go without saying that all Christians should desire peace – especially in light of a three-year war that’s claimed close to one million souls. For his part, Trump seeks an economic deal regarding minerals in Ukraine that’s worth around $350 billion, to be split evenly between the two countries. This would produce great wealth for both parties, of course, and it would also put American businesses and contractors in Ukraine. President Trump reasons that trying to guarantee a peace by bringing Ukraine into NATO would trigger World War Three. The Russians have said as much and it’s rational to believe them. The mineral deal is, therefore, a security agreement by another name. It lessens any chance of a post-deal Russian invasion due to such a large U.S. presence and interest there. Smartly, this would not be unnecessarily provocative.
Inciting further aggression and violence just because one is right is hardly a wise move. Yes, Russia invaded Ukraine, President Trump has said as much. But right now is about getting a deal done.
President Trump also sees a reality in which there must be some concessions to Russia in a negotiated peace. He’s willing to do this so long as the deal is fair.
Mr. Zelensky’s position is that Vladimir Putin of Russia is an atrocious and evil character who can’t be trusted. He’s so vile that the U.S. should continue to fund the war effort because Putin won’t abide by any truce for long.
At least, that’s the gist of it.
The problem is, this position is full of obvious holes and President Trump’s is more logical.
First, what’s the end game?
Do Mr. Zelensky and his supporters mean by this that we should take out Putin? That’s certainly a larger war that no one should want.
Second, Ukraine doesn’t have the manpower to continue this abominable struggle. Does he mean, therefore, that American troops join the fray? That’s also certainly a larger war.
And make no mistake: a larger war with Russia is the stuff of nightmares. They’re nuclear armed, for crying out loud. The same group – Democrats, that is – excoriated former president Bush for calling Iran, Iraq and North Korea the “axis of evil.” They likewise pilloried former president Reagan for calling the Soviet Union the “evil empire” after they shot down a commercial airline that had accidentally breached its airspace in 1983. Such language, Democrats said, was hostile and could lead to a larger war.
My, how times have changed!
The weird truth is that in no point over the last 75 years has the political left whole-heartedly supported American military power or war. Not in Korea or Vietnam, where we were fighting naked communist aggression, nor in the Persian Gulf where we faced the dictator of Iraq. They were even less than thrilled with action in Afghanistan after September 11, but dared not speak up too loudly. What gives now?
Why advocate for a potential World War Three? Well, like we said, sin is irrational and the more God judges willful unbelief, the more self-destructive unbelievers become in their thinking…even to the point where they’d clamor for a nearly suicidal war. What sane adult advocates for teens and pre-teens to make, in the throes of depression and youthful inexperience, lifelong medical decisions? It’s madness, yes…but it’s the wrath of God as detailed in Romans 1. What rational person thinks that Trump is literally worse than Hitler? Or that Putin is a greater threat to world peace than Stalin had been? Why is the woke left so irrational? Because God is giving them over to the consequences of their unbelief – and unbelief is always self-destructive.
If we understand this epistemic/moral chain, we can deal truthfully but lovingly with the atheistic leftism. Remember: our ultimate goal is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and preach the gospel of salvation through faith alone. Telling the truth about staying out of World War Three is downstream to that. This is our high and inestimable goal…let us not burn bridges. If others burn them, so be it. But we should be on that other shore with great tears in our eyes, and anguish in our hearts, saying,
“Father, forgive them…they know not what they’re doing.”
Clearly, advocating for World War Three is vacuous. But how much greater is it to say there’s no God and, therefore, to race headlong to eternal death?!
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