Welcome back my beautiful family! It's so good to be here talking to you and having conversations about Jesus, the Bible and our christian journey. I know, it's been a while since we last talked, mainly because my wife and myself were out on vacation (we needed it!). But hey, we're back. Time to go back to work for God (happy to do so!); God needs me and you especially during these tumultuous times. People need to hear God's warnings and word because if we keep going as a society at the rate that we're going... it will not be long before this all comes to an end.
It today's topic we're aiming to discuss more about the topic in the hot seat in recent news: Church and State. What are your thoughts? Should these two mix? More importantly, what does the Bible teaches about Church and State and what does a Church-and-State union means to us as Christians? Let's aim to answer these and other questions in today's discussion. First, let's take a look at this topic's summary, as it is our tradition :)
What are your thoughts? Please share! Whether you watched the video or not, I invite you to be part of this conversation coming up next!
Church, State and the Bible
History is the silent witness that if there is something that humans want over other humans... is power. The means by which many are willing to gain that power can be anything, including but not limited to, religion. I'm not going to dance around this issue; history is also a witness of what the consequences can be when the church and state decide to mix... last time we tried that at a major scale we fell into what is known as the dark ages. People died by the thousands and were persecuted, tortured and even killed. A quick Google search about the times when the Catholic church ruled over Europe will come to show the atrocities that were committed by men "in the name of God"... all because of thirst for power. Needless to say, the mix DOES NOT work.
The consequences were so terrible that, in fact, many fled from Europe towards the United States of America having lived the horribleness of a government influenced by religion beliefs and greatly influenced the establishment of a new form of government in the U.S:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." - U.S Constitution, first amendment
The U.S government vouched for maintaining state and church affairs separate and granted the freedom of individuals to practice religion, in their personal lives, as they saw fit. This was America's success recipe for many many years but, if there is something that we learn from history, is that we don't learn from history. Today seems like we are slowly drifting back into the dark ages. Talks of Church and State mixing are a 'thing' again and, as it was back then, many, including christians, seem to believe that a fusion between the church and the state is the solution to the caos we live in. The question is, is it?
As christians, true christians (yes, there are many hypocrites out there), we are to honor God by obeying His word which was given to us through the Bible. The question, then, turns obvious... what does the Bible say? Has God endorsed, at all, the union of the church and the state? Well, let's take a look at what the Bible says:
"The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.'"- Genesis 2:15-17
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." - 1 John 4:8
...and more direct verses:
"...and Jesus answered and said to them, 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.' And they marveled at Him." - Mark 12:17
"But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men." - Acts 5:29
"Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.'" - John 18:36
There are more less implicit verses but the idea is all the same, the Bible does not endorse, at all, a mix between the church and state. Over an over we see this throughout Jesus' ministry and evidently he recognizes that there is a man-made government to whom we owe obedience, and a God-government to whom we also owe obedience above that of men's (when men's government interfere with our obedience to God). You now might be wondering why I put the first two verses as part of the list. They seem to not have any relationship whatsoever with the main topic in discussion. Well, they are related and in a VERY important way.
Love = Freedom
Yup, you read it right. God loves us, and because He does, He gave us what we normally call "free will". We have the freedom to choose to do anything, whether that something is in accordance to His word or not. He does not want people to follow Him because they have to, but because they WANT to. Mixing church and state would be the exact opposite of what God's want. The government imposing laws that permeate into the spiritual realm would force people to "obey" God but... that's not the type of obedience that God is looking for. He wants us to love Him because we choose to do so, because He loved us first, because He is our Creator.... not because our government dictates it so... Get it?
God does not need nor wants the government to mingle with His realm. A modern Jesus would have said: "Give the government what is of the government and give God what is God's". Love can never be imposed and that's the beauty of it. We love because we freely decide to bond to someone; when relationships go south and one person begins forcing another to stay or to do certain things... love vanishes. Love only exists when it's freely experienced.
But wait... there's more:
I will be a little mean and leave you with this last thing which we won't go into full detail in this post, but it's something I definitely have on the back-burner for a future topic. Now we move into the topic of Bible prophecy...
It may not happen now, but the United States WILL, at some point in the coming history, mix church and state and force people to worship on a certain day... including forbidding to worship on another day. Challenge: can you guess which days fill the blanks there? You can read all about this in Revelations 12 and 13. Carefully note the parallel between the beasts there and Daniel 7 and carefully notice the sequence of events. We have already talked about Daniel 7 (see here), and we have talked about the little horn in Daniel 7 (see here). Now, try and see if you can identify the little horn in Revelations 13... SPOOKY! hahaha lol... not spooky at all, but God giving us all the tools we need to understand what's coming and to help us prepare for the final chapters of our history.
Let's just check the last portion of Revelations 13:
"He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666." - Revelations 13:15-18
Yup... the United States government will take us back to the Dark Ages. Stay in touch... we'll talk about this soon.
Closing
Friend, God does not endorse, wants or has commanded that church and state be joined... EVER. Any "christian" that says the opposite is exactly that, a "christian". God's entire salvation plan is one based on LOVE and FREEDOM.
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."- John 3:16
"whoever" can be translated to "those who choose to". A government imposing laws that only belong to God is not helping anyone but violating the freedom that God gave us from the very beginning. Do not be deceived, however, a union WILL happen and when it does you know the end just keeps drawing near. Prepare yourself, ask God strength to live what's coming and remember... Jesus is NeverFarEnough from you.
God bless you my friend!
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