THE SAVING OF THE NATION

Copyright 2012, Steven R. Jones, The Missionary Church Ive been reading a powerful little book entitled, How Do You Kill Eleven Million People? The premise of the book is that one evil man (such as a Stalin or a Hitler) can take over a country and eventually murder millions of his own people if (and only if) the citizens of that country decide to blindly trust their government to fix all of their problems. The book is not written from a Republican or Democratic perspective, but simply asks the question Is it possible that we in America are beginning to look to our government to solve all of our problems, like those nations that fell prey to evil dictators? It is a dangerous mistake to passively expect that politics and politicians will solve the challenges that we face as a nation. Why? Because government is not the heart of the problem. My father used to say, The heart of every problem is the problem of the heart. And in truth, the real problem we face is the heart of man, not the government of man. Fixing government will not fix our problem; our problem is the human heart. When we look hopefully to our government to help save us from disaster, we are ignoring the fact that it is made entirely of flawed humans. The doctor is as sick as the patient, and if he has no medicine to cure his own disease, he certainly has no medicine to spare for ours. But politics isnt the only area infected with the problem of the broken human heart. Take education, for instance. Educators are as likely as anyone else to write the suicide note and prop it where someone will find it. Our problem is not lack of knowledge. It is deeper than that. So dont look to our universities. Or our psychiatrists. Or our scientists. We find messed-up humans everywhere, messing up our attempts to clean up our messes. The pandemic is complete. All of us are infected, and we continually infect each other with this incurable disease called sin. This is why a shiver of hope went through the entire human race when (as our Bible tells us), there came a day when a man named Jesus strode onto the stage of history and declared himself to be uninfected. He even

declared himself to be sent from outside of humanity into humanity to cure humanity. As you can imagine, He was under surveillance immediately. The government monitored Him as a possible traitor, and the teachers tried to poke holes in his teachings, and the leaders investigated His healings. Still, the more people looked into His claims, the more followers He had. Finally the government leaders said, This is getting us nowhere! Look how the whole world has gone after Him! Their fear of Him was so intense they got their security forces involved, and even ended up bringing in the military to kill him. But heres the twist in the story. It turns out that killing Jesus brought the cure for the fatal disease that has infected every human that has ever been born. His death for us had been the plan all along. When Jesus took on the problem of sin in our hearts, He put the axe to the root of all our problems. And in so doing, He turned our thinking right side up. Government cannot rescue humanity: Redeemed humanity is to rescue government. And education. And everything else. God had one plan: Rescue and transform a few who will fan out with the power of Jesus and rescue some more who will be recruited to rescue others until eventually there will be enough rescuers to conquer the many aspects of our problems. God still has only one plan for the healing of the nations. You and your brothers and sisters all getting involved (with the love of Jesus and in the power of the Spirit), to complete the work He began so long ago. So what should we Christians do? 1. STOP BLAMING government for all the worlds problems. Place the blame squarely where it belongs; in the heart of every fallen man, woman and child. Yes, that includes those in government positions. But dont forget to step into the circle of responsibility yourself; you are a part of the problem. And so am I. 2. STOP HOPING that the government passes legislation to make our lives easier. Our faith is not now (and never will be) dependent upon government support. Instead of hoping that the government will prop up our faith, we need to live in such a Christ-

honoring way that our godly influence shores up the inherent failings and inadequacies of government. 3. STOP MISUNDERSTANDING the limited role of government. The role of government is to restrain evil, but it has no power to cure evil. For example, when government sticks a murderer behind bars, he hates still, and plots his escape. But when Jesus transforms the heart of a murderer into the gentle heart of a saint, he who murdered others gives the rest of his life to meet the needs of people he used to hate. It is the role of the church (not the government) to transform the hearts of man through a relationship with Jesus Christ. 4. STOP WAITING for the government to fix the worlds problems. Expecting help to arrive (in the form of newly elected officials) is dangerous, addictive and paralyzing. No help is coming, other than the Lord. And please dont think that our job as Christians is simply to raise awareness. Our generation tends to think, Lets raise awareness about child prostitution in Africa or breast cancer in the United States. But simply raising awareness of problems is still expecting others to solve them. It is the same old failed solution; They out there will fix this for us, if we just cry out enough. John Perkins, the great civil rights champion and writer, told me one time that he believes that God has built into every community the power to heal itself through the Christians in that community. So roll up your sleeves and get involved, in Jesus name. We Christians are the answer to the worlds problems. We are the body of our Lord Jesus. We are His hands and feet, the active agents of His transformation of society. If we actually find our car keys and leave our homes to do His work, hearts will be transformed and society will be reconstructed. If we do not, it will not. Should Christians ignore government, then? Of course not. Christians involved in government can do a great deal of good, but never forget that it is the presence of Christ through Christians, not the presence of the government, that is the hope for the healing of the nations. Isaiah said it best: The government shall be upon His shoulder.