“CITIES, CITIZENS, AND NATIONAL LEADERS IN OPPOSITION TO GOD’S GOVERNANCE”?
July 31-August 1, 2017
By J. Farrell Fisher
Don’t ‘crucify’ me yet or say I need to be “restrained in a mental institution” because I seek to expose “ungodly governments, dictatorial leaders, even, yes, conscienceless citizens and ‘church compromisers’ out to bind Truth, block the Light of Eternal Revelations, or wash out any evidences of God’s love, grace, and mercy, since ‘we are capable and enlightened enough in our own discernment to know what kind of community we want to live in, raise our kids by, and fulfill our natural natures and fleshly desires! So leave us alone and leave your biblical principles behind your homes’ closed doors. We don’t want your consciences, your beliefs, your Bibles defining for us a God-blessed city, state, or nation!’”
Do you remember Moses and Aaron going in to confront Pharoah of Egypt in Exodus 5? It says, in Verse 1-2, Moses and Aaron making a stand for the honor of God: “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.” Pharoah said: “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.” Pharoah didn’t last long, but eventually led his ‘fleshly army’ into battle and died, which is the destiny of cities, citizens, or national leaders who resist Holy God and the Loving, merciful Savior and Lord! They do come to “nothing” but the torture chambers of ‘self-governing lives’ that ‘limp’ through eternity captured by Satan rather than liberated by God’s gracious government!
It was the prophet Jeremiah who recorded Holy God’s indictment of Israel in Jeremiah 2:11-13, “Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But My people have changed their glory for what does not profit. Be astonished, O heavens, at this, AND be horribly afraid; be very desolate,” says the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, AND hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Have you considered that Israel, nations, governments, families, and individuals have ‘broken cisterns’ with no water of the Word of God?).”
Later, in Jeremiah 2:17-19, compassionate God, yes, confronted their “sinful ways” because of His love for them! God said: “Have you not BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF, in that you have forsaken the Lord your God when He led (Leads) you IN THE WAY? And now why take the road to Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? (Sihor means “blackness” or “darkness”). Or why take the road to Assyria, to drink the waters of the River? (Or seek “help” other than God and His promises!).
Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, AND the FEAR OF ME is not in you,” says the Lord God of hosts.
Are you aware of how easily men in our modern day, just like Israel, want to dismiss Holy God for any consideration of their need of Him, since, in and of themselves, they declare ‘fallen self and Satan’s lies’ the foundation of a good, promising, dependable source of “prosperous living”? Yet, faulty foundations of “faithlessness”, upon which unbelievers seek to live apart from redemptive faith, are like ‘houses’ built in a ‘storm region’ unprepared when hellish hurricanes, destructive winds of Wordlessness, and absent of the “storm-stopper – the Lord Jesus Christ”! Godless, Christless lives are like “impulsive thoughtlessness” with no answers in overcoming the irreparable past, destructive present, or doors of the future wide-open for only Hell’s way but not God’s Way, His Truth, and His Life in Christ!
“Cities, Citizens, and National Leaders” in “Opposition to God’s Government”? If the Holy Word speaks about lives and hearts and homes AND nations “transformed by the renewing of their minds, proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”, why is it sanctified, common sense, nation-leaders will ignore Divine Revelation as the “Guide” of their daily choses when many, like America, describe themselves as “one nation under God”?
At least Agur, in Proverbs, was ‘wise’ enough to state where he had stood when in Proverbs 30:2-9 he wrote: “Surely I am more stupid than any man, and do not have the understanding of a man. I neither learned wisdom NOR have the knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, if you know? Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.
Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar. Two things I request of You (Deprive me not before I die): Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches – feed me with the food allotted to me; lest I be full and deny You, and sat, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of My God.”
How clear is it to you that men, yes, have the willful choice of ‘fleshly desires and fleshly interpretations, and “proud” of them, but willfully choose to reject the loving counsel, extended arm of mercy and grace and love, crucifying Christ on the Cross, when God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever trusts in Him would not perish but have everlasting Life?
In Isaiah 53:1-6 the prophet was given the view of the Coming Messiah and Savior of the world hundreds of years before He came, born of the Virgin Mary! It says: “Who has believed our report? (Still as relevant today as when Isaiah was given the vision!). AND to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is DESPISED and REJECTED BY MEN, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs (sickness, sin-sickness, diseases) and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. BUT He was wounded for OUR transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one, to his own way; and the Lord (God Almighty) has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
And how do YOU respond when you read further in Isaiah 53:11-12 what else the prophet recorded, understanding “it pleased Father-God to bruise Him”? “He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.” [Do YOU understand “crucified with Christ”?].
“Cities, Citizens, and National Leaders” in “Opposition To God’s Governance”? It’s mind-boggling to me to read Jeremiah 29:11 and view those in opposition to our Lord and Savior! It says, God Himself speaking: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Yet many refuse to acknowledge Him, call upon Him, or pray to Him, satisfied with their ‘captivity’ to themselves, the world around them, and to Satan!
Oh, but then in Jeremiah 29:12-14a, God says, for “the scattered” today: “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, AND I WILL LISTEN TO YOU. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I WILL BRING YOU BACK FROM YOUR CAPTIVITY” to His warm embrace as sons and daughters of repentant faith trusting ONLY in the finished work of Christ in the empty tomb and eternal residence at the right hand of Father-God interceding for YOU AND ME!
“Cities, Citizens, and National Leaders” in “Opposition To God’s Governance”? Thank God for the “wisdom” of Proverbs 30:32 when we’re told: “If you have been foolish in exalting yourself, or if you have devised evil, put your hand on your mouth.” And, certainly, it is exposing the “self-righteous”, exalting God’s righteousness as our only hope, saying in Proverbs 14:34, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
Without a doubt, cities, citizens, and national leaders have a choice: Self-indulgence or “saved by grace through faith,” self-governing or affirming the declaration, dependence, and destiny of the Lord Jesus as the True Shepherd of your soul! Psalm 23 says, David singing, King David rejoicing: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with Me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me,” then declaring in Verse 6, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord FOREVER!”
But, dare I tell you? Believe I will! Escaping Cities, Citizens, and National Leaders in Opposition to God’s Governance IS CONDITIONAL!! In 1 John 1:6-7 the beloved John wrote: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, WE LIE AND DO NOT PRACTICE THE TRUTH. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Best effort citizenship, best effort contributions to ‘godless governments’, even best effort husbands and wives without the necessity of “God’s interference”, or best effort discipleship as “I believe in Jesus” but have no need of His Master-ship over my life, is a “dead-end street” empty of His abiding Presence and eternal will being fulfilled in available vessels! In Romans 8:12-14 Paul wrote: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh (old sin nature), to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if BY THE SPIRIT you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
Don’t you find it extremely interesting to read 1 Peter 4: 17 where the Apostle wrote: “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; AND IF IT BEGINS WITH US FIRST, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?”, followed by Verse 18, “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Oh, and in Proverbs 11:31 the wise man wrote: “If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner?”
“Blood Atonement” through Christ Jesus introduces a lost world to the reality of “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), OR is it not also the “royal priesthood” introducing to their godless societies the King of kings and Lord of lords who IS the author and finisher of true redemptive, saving, transforming faith? There’s nothing strange, morbid, or ‘self-centered’ about the true gospel that births “a royal priesthood”! It was Oswald Chambers, in his writing, “My Utmost For His Highest,” (p.125-126), who wrote:
“Are we prepared to leave ourselves resolutely alone and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual grubbing on the inside to see whether we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, morbid type of Christianity, not the robust, simple life of the child of God (and that’s under God’s awesome Fatherhood ministry!). Until we get into a right relationship to God, it is a case of hanging on by the skin of our teeth, and we say – ‘What a wonderful victory I have got!’ There is nothing indicative of the miracle of Redemption in that. Launch out in reckless belief that the Redemption is complete, and then bother no more about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ said…,” which is COMPLETE IN CHRIST, LACKING NOTHING! Why limp when you can soar? Why doubt when you can trust? Why attempt if you’ve already been atoned for? Why struggle in doubts and fears when “in Christ you are more than conquerors”?
In Matthew 8:26 Jesus said to the disciples in the boat when the storm raged around them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Do you live with the victorious faith of an already won war over the powers of darkness in your daily walk or, like the early disciples with Jesus, do you live in fear like them or faith in Him who is able to calm the stormy seas of your life-circumstances?
It amazes me when I look to Matthew 8! A leper is cleansed because Jesus was willing to heal him, a paralyzed servant of a centurion is healed, Peter’s mother-in-law sick with a fever is healed, many demon-possessed are freed, stormy seas are calmed, two demon-possessed men are freed ! Oh, but notice, in Matthew 8:34, it says: “And behold, the whole city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw Him, they begged Him to depart from their region.”
It still happens today in modern-day America, yes, even in some churches! There are those who gather who are satisfied only with a “meek and mild Jesus”, but if He desires to be Himself in their gatherings, they’ll cast Jesus out and keep their demons!
Isaac Watts wrote long ago a hymn that asks: “Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” It says: “Am I a soldier of the cross, A follower of the Lamb? And shall I fear to own His cause, Or blush to speak His name?
Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize, And sailed thro’ bloody seas?
Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend of grace, To help me on to God?
Sure I must fight, if I would reign; Increase my courage, Lord; I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain, Supported by Your word.”
IS THAT YOUR SONG OF FAITH IN THE MIDST OF CITIES, CITIZENS, AND NATIONAL LEADERS, FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH, YES, AGAINST THOSE IN OPPOSITION TO GOD’S GOVERNANCE AND REIGN THROUGH CHRIST JESUS ONLY?