Saturday, August 18, 2018

An Instrument of Evil



Revelation 13:4–7 “The beast . . . opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them”.

I came across this article on the separation of light and darkness. It stated that several principles, such as the separation of powers and our possession of certain inalienable rights apart from government say-so, formed the basis of the constitutional vision of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Two of these ideas, which motivated many people to flee Europe for America, are the freedom of religious expression and the separation of church and state. Rightly understood according to the U.S. Constitution itself and the Founding Fathers’ writings, the original intent of separation of church and state means only that the federal government may not establish a state church. Yet over the past century, godless judicial and legislative actions have often intentionally misapplied church-state separation as an instrument of evil to mean no one can speak of God in a public, secular setting, and that the church has no right to be heard except by its members. In God We Trust?

“The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man. The practice of morality being necessary for the well being of society, He [God] has taken care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in the obligation of the moral principles of Jesus and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in His discourses. I am a Christian in the only sense in which He wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others.” President Thomas Jefferson

When the Constitution’s disestablishment clause is properly understood to mean the civil government may not establish a state church, the separation of church and state is a net positive. The history of the Church of England in Great Britain proves this by way of a negative example. Union of church and state in Britain today is essentially true only on paper, but history shows that the established Anglican church often used the state to accomplish religious conformity, and to squash political dissent. In fact, many early Americans were Puritans who fled England to escape persecution from the established church when their consciences were bound by God’s Word. Because this history is frequently overlooked today, church-state separation is regularly perverted into the separation of God and state, in effect banishing religion from the public arena. In a country with Right to free of speech and freedom of religion, who would take away those liberties for restriction of speech in conformance and freedom from religion, except the established state church of humanistic naturalism in America?

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company: I mean hell.” President John Adams

Those who seek to separate the state from Almighty God and His authority are bound to fail. No matter how the government rails against our Sovereign Creator, it never escapes accountability to Him for fulfilling its responsibilities. Yet the separation of church and state, rightly understood, has been good for the church. Today’s passage indicates that the state can become a force for evil when it abandons its God-given responsibilities, and established churches have often compromised their witness of the kingdom of Heaven by supporting or refusing to stand against such evil.

The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ. This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government. The moral principles and precepts found in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. The Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government ought to be instructed. No truth is more evident than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Noah Webster 

Everything is defined by and measured against God’s definition of terms. The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “wicked” as: [The primary sense is to wind and turn, or to depart, to fall away.] Evil in principle or practice; deviating from the divine law; addicted to vice; sinful; immoral. This is a word of comprehensive signification, extending to every thing that is contrary to the moral law, and both to persons and actions. We say, a wicked man, a wicked deed, wicked ways, wicked lives, a wicked heart, wicked designs, wicked works. The wicked, in Scripture, persons who live in sin; transgressors of the divine law; all who are unreconciled to God, unsanctified or impenitent. Wicked men do at times reject God’s purpose for the state, transforming the good of civil government into an instrument of evil. The Christian church must never forget this, lest it be used by the state for wicked ends.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labour to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. President George Washington

The only being to whom we owe unquestioning allegiance is God Himself, and
confusing the roles of church and state can result in the church supporting and following the secular state in places where it should not. However, that does not mean the church is to be silent. Christians have a prophetic role in society and must speak out when the government becomes an instrument of evil by not protect the innocent, attach the godly and rewards wickedness. May the light of Christ shine into the darkness of sin and unbelief.


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