Matthew
4:8-10 NLT
Next
the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him
all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. “I will give it all
to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.”
“Get
out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say,
‘You
must worship the Lord your God
and
serve only him.’”
God's
wrath: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him....In doing this you will
heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but
overcome evil with good.” (from Romans 12).
In
the middle of the Civil War, President Lincoln attended a reception
where he spoke about the Southerners. He referred to them as human
beings who had committed grave errors, rather than his enemies to be
completely destroyed.
One
woman fiercely committed to the Union cause, chastised President
Lincoln for humanizing the foes to the south instead of seeking to
destroy them. Lincoln responded to her calmly: "Why, madam, do
I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
We
can defeat our enemies by the sword and thereby create even more
enemies. Or we can love them into submission.
President
Lincoln had to do the former sometimes, but he much preferred the
latter. And the latter, of course, is the path of Christ.
(From
the President's Devotional by Joshua Dubois, January 30th).
There
is certainly no exclusivity if we speak of God's man or God's
country. We can compile our own lists of God's men and God's
countries. For example, I think many see Billy Graham as God's man.
I will discuss someone I know better—my own father. Daddy was a
Godly man who put worship of God first. He was a follower of Jesus
and he believed and exercised the disciplines of love. I say this
knowing full well that he would make no claims to perfection. One of
his roles was being the father of our family. Now, he would not
claim perfection in this role. We can even go far as to say the role
of father (any father) is inherently imperfect. Just so, no country,
not even one considered God's country should claim perfection for
imperfection is inherent in the role of any country.
The
Jehovah Witness point out that Satan's temptation of Christ to become
an earthly ruler supports the idea that all governments are
inherently evil for the powers were Satan's to give away. I suppose
you could include a father's role as in part a governmental role—a
father has obligations in the governance of his family. If all
government is of Satan, it cannot be of God. Therefore all
governance of any entity is of the devil.
I
suppose anyone looking at Washington right now might be inclined to
agree. Certainly perfection and governance seem eternally estranged.
It is good to understand this because this forms the foundation of
all that's good in government. I do not believe that the US
Constitution and Bill of Rights are of the devil, I think they are of
God. I think governments are institutions ordained by God. Now this
is a neutral statement and does not imply that governments are always
good, always just, always righteous, and certainly does not imply
that they are to become unlimited objects of worship.
Likewise
the role of government is not uniform but this is determined by the
institution it serves. For example, the ruling body of a state has
a role quite different from the ruling body of a family. It is
important not to confuse these roles, for as Bonhoeffer so aptly put
it, if one institution tires to usurp the role of another, it will
forfeit it own proper role.
Governance
always entails power—if not the police power of the state, a
semblance of it. This power is essentially what Jesus declined at
the temptation. He would not rule by power, but by Spirit.
Therefore I warn all those who look forward to an end-time when Jesus
will rule by power (some imagine even ruthless bureaucratic and
military power) that this is a contradiction to the Spirit of Christ
as he consistently revealed it.
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