Even with the great increase of knowledge the world is now experiencing, there is not much understanding. Understanding means to “stand under” someone else’s situation, to put ourselves in their place. This comes mostly from learning to become a good listener, which is also very rare. Yet if we are going to fulfill The Great Commission to make disciples, we must be able to reach people where they are. We can’t teach first graders geometry, and we will lose senior citizens if we try to teach geometry to them. Therefore, to make disciples, or students, we must be discerning of where people are and what is next for them to learn. This takes understanding.
One example of this is how many Christians fail to understand why non-believers put so much of their faith and hope in government. Without faith in God, there is no place else for people to put their trust. So we should not be surprised by those who see the government as the answer to their problems. Because no human government is capable of bearing the weight of such trust, neither should we be surprised by the rising lawlessness that arises when people learn that their government cannot be trusted.
At our Hurricane Katrina relief base, we witnessed the helplessness of those who were accustomed to having the government provide for their needs. This helplessness gave way to gripping fear, and then the fear quickly turned into an insane rage, to the point that they even began to shoot at their rescuers.
We became engaged in the Katrina relief because I received a word from the Lord that we needed to experience what was happening there in order to understand the times. We got an education very fast. In that situation you could look at any group and quickly detect which ones worked for a living and which ones depended on the government. The difference was striking.
Those who worked for a living were usually amazingly resourceful and seemed to quickly get engaged in helping others even though they had their own losses. One of my greatest heroes of this tragedy was an elderly black man who came staggering into our base one night. Everyone thought he was drunk, but he had not been drinking. He had been caught offshore working on one of the oil rigs during the storm and had just gotten home to find that his family had been killed and everything he own washed away. He was drunk with grief. This had to be the worst thing that anyone could experience in life, but within a couple of days, he was helping in the kitchen, unloading trucks, and even trying to console others. He would stop at times to just cry for a few minutes and then carry on serving others. I still think of this humble elderly man when I think of true nobility.
In striking contrast to this, those who came to our base who depended on the government were some of the most obnoxious, demanding people imaginable. They could become outraged if they did not get their demands met immediately, or if they were asked to do anything like help serve meals or unload a truck. That is when I began to understand how the entitlement mentality that has been fostered by governments around the world would ultimately result in unprecedented lawlessness. No earthly government will be able to meet the needs of all their people the way they are now trying to do. An ultimate disappointment and disillusionment with government is coming.
Even psychology has determined that a human being will go insane if deprived of meaningful labor. Charity is a crucial aspect of the Christian life, but charity was always meant to be people helping people, whereas institutional charity dehumanizes people. How is it that so few seem to understand that our present welfare system puts the people we claim to be helping into a terrible bondage from which few are able to escape? It is right to help those who cannot help themselves, but it is wrong to give to those who can work and yet refuse to.
Why are we discussing this in relation to The Great Commission? The government of God is not going to be a welfare state. The Apostle Paul said that if we are not willing to work then we should not be allowed to eat (see II Thessalonians 3:10). Sounds harsh, but this is far more compassionate than making people codependent.
Governments are going to start melting like wax as we are told in Psalm 97. We need to be prepared for this. However, churches that try to become people’s source will fail just like socialist governments inevitably fail. A lot of Christian charity and missions is just as foolish and destructive as socialism. We are not called to become people’s source, but to lead them to the Source. No one will be saved because they know someone who has faith. They must have their own faith in God. Our goal must be to help people walk by faith, not depend on us.
