Last week we began to address how and why the governments of this world are starting to erode and what will ultimately cause their collapse, which to a large degree is the result of trying to build on socialism. Socialism almost always begins with good intentions, but the good side of the Tree of Knowledge will be just as deadly as the evil side, having the same basic root with the same basic poison. To simplify, the Tree of Knowledge represents man trying to attain on his own without God. Socialism, in its basic form, is man's attempt to be God to men, providing all of his needs. It is based on the pride of man that we can solve all of our own problems without God, and it seeks to be man's mediator in place of God.
As we saw during the Katrina crisis, when a government fails to provide for the needs of the people who are dependent on the government, they become terrified, and terrified people do terrible things. People who were on welfare could easily be distinguished in this crisis by the increased fear that was on them, and the rage that then surfaced when they did not immediately get what they needed or wanted. Their amazingly demanding attitude, even toward volunteers who were trying to help them, was a profound lesson to those who witnessed it. It was a meltdown of human dignity, which is what welfare does to people who are allowed to use it when they do not really need it.
This is what happens when civil governments promise more than they can deliver. It may be even more true in the church, which is, overall, one of the most socialistic institutions on the earth now, by trying to be many things to people that only God can be. We may think that the church is supposed to be the body of Christ through which He will do His works, but even when He physically walked the earth He did not heal everyone or provide everyone's needs. When we preach doctrines or make promises that are based more on our own idealism than the Word of God, we are setting ourselves and the people up for a terrible and faith-shaking disappointment. God is not obligated to fulfill our promises.
When the church tries to become all things to all people, it basically seeks to become the mediator in place of Christ. The church is a mediator, but not the Mediator. The job of the church is to lead people to Christ, not just to the church. Basically, if people are becoming more and more dependent on the church, the church is going the wrong way. If the church is leading people to be more and more dependent on the Lord, and to use the resourcefulness that He gave to us when we can, then we are going the right way. Any church that seeks to become the source for people in place of the Lord will collapse just like the civil governments will. Only God can carry that weight.
Therefore, we must beware lest our ministries cause people to depend on us instead of leading them closer to the Lord, who alone is the Answer to every human problem. Socialism will be the number one cause of the prophesied lawlessness in the end time. Because of the disappointment that will come with authority and governments, people are going to go wild, just as we had a taste of in New Orleans. Because of the prophesied meltdown of character into lawlessness as we read last week in II Timothy 3:1-5, we must also refocus on character, its development, its maintenance, and especially as a requirement of any who will be accepted in any position of leadership in the church.
As we have read in the first edict given by the council in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit and the leaders were insistent that believers not be put under the yoke of the law. However, it is also clear that the New Testament standards of conduct for leaders in the church were much higher than for general believers. If we compromise these, we are ensuring our own doom along with the world.
This is not to imply that there is not grace and a place for the restoration of those who stumble while in leadership. These are essential for the very basic integrity of our message of redemption and restoration, but they must never be built on the compromising of standards, but on repentance, which comes from acknowledging sin as sin, and turning from the sin. God does not forgive excuses, but sin, if we confess it. The blurring of the clear distinctions of sin is another one of the roots that is also causing the meltdown of authority and the release of lawlessness in the church and in the world.
Lawlessness will prove to be a far worse plague than anything else coming upon the world. However, the answer to lawlessness is not legalism—it is knowing and following the King. Those who really see Him, who really know Him, will not be so prone to water down His Word or compromise His standards. He is love, but the proof of His love is very different than the humanistic political correctness babble now eroding the foundations, as we read in Hebrews 12:5-13:
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives."
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,
and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
It is because the Lord loves us that He disciplines us. The reverse is also true, as we are told in Proverbs 13:24, "He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently." If we do not discipline our children, we are failing them in a most basic way, and they will despise us for it. If we do not discipline our children, we are setting them up for a terrible and miserable life. If we raise them in the wisdom of the Lord that He has made clear in the Scriptures, which is with discipline that is consistent and loving, but also uncompromising, they will not only endure the times, they will prevail through them, becoming the lights in the world they are called to be.
Now, to bring a little balance—a newborn baby is going to be totally dependent on its parents to meet all of its needs. As it matures, the baby should become less and less dependent and more and more able to provide for his own needs. A healthy church should likewise have a provision for helping new believers who have just been born again, whom like a newborn, may need almost constant care for a time. However, the goal is to help these new believers mature and start taking care of their own needs.
This should also be the plan of social programs of governments—to help people who really need it, when they need it, with the goal of helping them get to the place as quickly as possible where they no longer need the government's help. The reason we do not get this is because what is promoted is rewarded. Many program's budgets are based on the number of people dependent on them, not how many they help make independent. There are some other factors, but it really is that simple.
In the church, our goal should also be to produce strong Christians who know the Lord for themselves, know His voice, and even if the church were to be completely disbanded, would go right on growing and being increasingly effective witnesses of His gospel and kingdom.
