Jesus will win! DYordy.com Christ in you!
Fulfilling the New Covenant

Christ or Anti-Christ?
By Fred Pruitt
The Single Eye

The evangelical commission Jesus left the Apostles with, which has come down to us also, was and still is, to "go into all the world and preach the good news to every creature."

In his time Jesus steadfastly resisted every temptation to take over or change the governments of men. It was one of the temptations offered him by Satan in the wilderness, when Satan showed Jesus all the nations of the world and offered Jesus the rulership of them, if he would bow his knee to Satan. Jesus rejected the offer.

From time to time disciples or others would attempt to get him to comment on the current state of the government, or to focus his attention toward doing something about the Romans running the country. But Jesus' focus was elsewhere, on the hearts of men, because He knew that even though they had governments and authorities, still mankind was as "sheep without a shepherd." He was the True Shepherd, but He did not come to take them by force of arms or mandate of law. Men's hearts could only open to Him through love by the drawing of the Holy Spirit, and He kept His face like a flint on that single path. "We love Him, because He first loved us." That was His principle, and it is ours also by virtue of being in and of Him, and He in us.

Certainly it was a human government that left much to be desired. No matter how we might perceive our current governments, few could hold a candle to the corruption and violence by which those ancient governments ruled their subjects. There were no opposition parties. If there were they either didn't last long, or by violence or subterfuge they overthrew the ones in power to take power themselves, only to recreate the same corruptions and violence as the ones they replaced.

Yet Jesus didn't even have any comments about them. He didn't even warn them. And when He was taken before Pilate and Herod, he made no statements or movements against their authority. In acknowledging Pilate's legitimate worldly authority over Him, He told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world. If it was of this world, He said, then would His servants fight.

Has something changed about that since then? Why do those who call themselves His servants now seem so anxious to fight? To this writer it seems the Prince of Peace has been supplanted in some by Mars, the god of war. I do not understand the bloodthirstiness and desire for revenge in so many who name the name of Christ. This is the Christ Who told us to love our enemies, to do good to them who ill treat us, to reward good for evil, to pray for those who persecute us. He said when we are struck on one cheek we are to turn the other and let them strike that one, too. If anyone asks a coat of us we are to give them our cloak as well. If anyone asks of us a loan we are to give without expectation of repayment. If we are asked to go a mile, the love of God goes two. Where is that spirit in this modern cult wrongly called "Christianity" in America? This is no Christianity I know. "Depart from me, I never knew you!"

Paul never told the rising church being birthed in his day to rebel against or even to try to take over the government authority -- though the Roman Empire was as corrupt as it could be. Paul's business, and the business of the converts of Paul and of the other disciples, was to "teach faithful men, who will teach others also," the good news of Life in Jesus Christ. They had no other business. They were to live in their towns and cities, still in their same occupations as before, still mingling with all the same people they mingled with before they were converted, and be the "light of the world," and the "salt of the earth." They were to show forth the "love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit." They weren't called to mob-mentality and rabble-rousing against the current moral evils (and there were MANY) and political corruptions of their day. They were called to bless and to do good, to help the poor, to visit the sick and in prison. To free those in bondage in spirit.

There is nothing in scripture to indicate that the Christian message is supposed to "take over" the world by ballot, political machinations, or by violent armed force. The prophets do tell of a new heavens and a new earth, but that will come by a gift of the Lord, and not by the hand and rancor of man. We don't "help" God do that. We cannot.

Nothing will be gained but death by the rancor and force of man, regardless of whose name they say it is in, whether a Taliban in the name of Allah or a "Christian world view" in the name of Jesus. A Taliban by any other name still has the stench of death. A Taliban desires nothing else than by violent force to destroy its enemies and by bondage and intimidation force its laws of good and evil on its conquered and cowering subjects. There is no difference between fundamentalist Muslim Jihad (holy war to rid the world of infidels) and extremist right wing so-called Christian jihad (holy war to rid the world of "evil-doers"). Christ does not join Himself to the covetousness and violence of men. We don't go off in glory to kill other men and ask God to bless our ventures. Didn't we learn that a thousand years ago in the first Crusades? If we MUST go to war do not call it holy! Weep and mourn instead that this necessity must be but do not seek it and do not instigate it! Seek to win friends instead of kill enemies. That is the heart of the gospel.

[Daniel Yordy: Note - There is certainly a faction in Afghanistan that is violent in a destructive way. However, the story about Afghanistan told in the American press has little relationship with reality. Any father, picking up a rifle to defend his family from rape and murder by American forces is immediately termed a "terrorist." It is convenient for Americans to use the term "Taliban" because anyone branded with such a term is automatically considered "evil." But it is the Pushtun people we are trying to subdue, first, to ensure the flow of heroin continues (the Taliban had ended it just before we went in to restore its flow), and to establish a base for the breaking of Russia and China. And, like all people everywhere, the vast majority of the Pushtun people want to live their lives in peace without the fear of being bombed by foreign invaders. Most people in Muslim lands are kind, friendly, and hospitable.]

The only Christian I know of (though surely there were more) who went to the Crusades truly and only for the gospel was Francis of Assisi. He received the Pope's permission to travel to the "Holy Land" to try to find and convert Saladin, the leader of the Islamic armies. He did find Saladin and while Saladin was not converted to Christ, he found Francis a friend and listened to him preach the gospel. The rest of Christendom had come to kill him, and Saladin responded in kind. But he let Francis go in peace, just as he had come.

This writer is far more fearful in this country of a self-righteous so-called moral majority who use the name of Jesus but do not know Him in love and see and broadcast only accusation and judgment of other men's hearts (which they cannot possibly know), than any government of man. "He who loves not knows not God." "If you say, I love God, but hate your brother, you are a liar, for if you do not love your brother who you do see, how can you love God who you do not see?" (1 John 4:20).

When people speak of having a Christian government on earth, let's consider what that would be. It would first of all reject the Old Testament system of conquering territory and killing its enemies. It would be a government founded on nothing but love, nothing but the good of each. It would support the poor and take care of the sick and dying. It would have as its principles the admonitions of Jesus stated above -- turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, returning good for evil, and sacrificing its own well-being to establish the well-being of others. This is the "Christian" life. This is the New Testament. To be Christian is to live the New Testament, not some mixture of Old and New Covenants, with those who call themselves "Christian" trying to establish by force or law (backed by the power of force) a supposed kingdom of God on earth.

There has never been a successful "theocracy" on earth. Even David's and Solomon's kingdoms were rife with strife, rebellion and the dissatisfaction of the people. Even the Bible examples of an attempt at "theocracy" should be enough to see that it must come as a gift of God, and not by the arm of man. Post-Biblical attempts at "Christian" government have been worse than their Biblical counterparts, beginning with the Roman Empire when Christianity became the only legal religion in the late 4th century. It was only a "Christian veneer" on normal human fallen behavior, and was no more "Christian"  (Christ-like) than any government before or since. The Holy Roman Empire that followed was a great force in Europe for a thousand years, but it was not "holy" and was not "Roman." "Christendom" was not ever the kingdom of God.

Likewise Luther's and Calvin's attempts at establishing a Christian Germany and Christian Switzerland were just as corrupt and violent. In northern Europe and the British Isles religious persecution by Protestants was as strong and virulent as any Catholic Inquisition. They may have shouted, "Lord Lord," but the answer was still, "Depart from me, I never knew you." FLEE THIS SNAKE! It is Anti-Christ!

Oliver Cromwell tried it in England by beheading King Charles I and setting up a theocracy ("the rule of God"). He dissolved Parliament and ruled as a dictator in the name of Christ. It was a corrupt and violent sham, and a short dozen years later the people had had enough of his so-called theocracy and invited the king's son, Charles II,  to come back and restore the Crown.

Jesus said, "The kingdom of God comes not with observation. Neither shall they say, 'Look, it is over there, or it is over here.' For the kingdom of God is within you."

That is the kingdom we are commissioned to preach. Not an earthly kingdom established by men's laws and the force of arms, but the kingdom of the peace of God in the hearts of men, established by love which seeks not its own, but the good of others.

Paul said that we are to pray for our leaders and for our societies. Not to fixate on the evils and faults of the world, for those will ever be. But to speak the good word of God, and to spread the vision of the true kingdom of Christ, that potentially exists within every man. He said we were not to find ourselves enemies of others, even though some may believe themselves to be our enemies.

In Christ, in love, no one is an enemy. If one crops us, one offers to die for it that it might receive life. Not kill it for my own security and self-protection. The Lord is my security. Christians are sent as lambs to the slaughter to manifest Christ in our mortal flesh, by loving where we are not loved, returning good for evil, and seeking the good of others over ourselves. Again, the LORD is our security and upholding, not human governments, with their programs and their systems.

There is no country or government on earth that is without corruption or fault, nor will there ever be until God brings a new heavens and a new earth. There is no Christian "system" of government established by God, and no political party in any country established and sanctioned by God, since God has manifested Himself in the midst of all human governments, no matter what the system. Even the best of them will never attain perfection, because until the restoration, the whole world lies in the lap of the wicked one. It is under the sovereignty of the Father, who is working all these things to His perfect end, but we are still in the devil's camp, and the angels still have not divided the wheat from the tares. It is HIS will that both of them grow together. We are admonished by Jesus to not try to separate them ourselves.

When a certain town would not receive Jesus and the disciples when they were traveling, John and James wanted to call down fire on their heads in retaliation for their snubbing of Jesus.

Luke says, "But he [Jesus] turned and rebuked them. You do not know what spirit you are of. The Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." (Luke 9:55,56)

John and James were in danger because their "trying to do good" was masking their self-for-self payback to the people in the town for snubbing them. The danger was that they were dabbling in the WRONG SPIRIT! The Spirit of man's vengeance on man is the WRONG SPIRIT, no matter how it is dressed up. It is the spirit of Anti-Christ!

Be not of that wrong spirit. FLEE IT! We are about saving men's lives, not destroying them. We are of the One who would not break off a bruised reed, or quench a smoking flax. We are little children in our minds and hearts who know only one thing -- the care of the Shepherd of our souls, whose love is so freeing, so light, so right, that we only want to give it away in the same free, light, joyful spirit in which we live in it. Paul's only one thing to know was the cross of Jesus, by which we are all crucified unto the world, and the world crucified unto us.

When Jesus went to the synagogue in Nazareth and announced Himself as the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy (61:1,2), it is interesting where He stops quoting the passage. Here is the passage as Jesus quoted it:

"The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

Here is the last part of the verse which Jesus left out, which I find very telling: "And the day of vengeance of our God."

Jesus did not come to declare the destruction of the world for its sins, but to SAVE the world from its sins! He did not come to destroy sinners, but to SAVE them! John the Baptist remarked to his followers when he saw Jesus walking, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." Now that is our commission also, since we are now in Christ expressers of His life, manifesting in our mortal bodies the life of Jesus.

Some say, "Well, Christians are being persecuted and killed all over the world by anti-Christian authorities." Yes, that is true, but is the answer then to go and destroy those people by bombs and bullets? Did not Christ die for them, too? Remember Paul persecuted the church. Yet the first martyr of the church, Stephen, did not call down fire from heaven, but as he was dying from stones pummeling his body, he prayed, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."

And at least one there heard Stephen's word, and though he did not grasp its import then, later on he knew when the Lord Himself appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

And even Jesus Himself, nailed to the Cross, did not beseech God to come down and destroy those who had shouted for his death, but prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Those who are being persecuted and martyred for Christ are being persecuted and martyred to bring Life to the very ones who are killing them!

Want to have a Christian nation? Then that is how it must be. It could be no less. And it will come -- but not by the efforts and strife of men, but by the gift of God, when God brings in "new heavens and a new earth." It will not come in any other way. And the wonderful thing about that is this: it is even now in our midst, in the Spirit, for those who have eyes to see. Anyone who wants to may live out of the new heavens and new earth right now, because it is found in the Lord Jesus in us, through the Holy Spirit, whereby our eyes are opened, and we see nothing but the kingdom of God functioning in the love of God, even in the middle of and behind the current strife that so weighs us down in our mortal world.

GO YOU, ALL OF YOU, INTO ALL THE WORLD, AND PREACH THE GOOD NEWS, THAT GOD LOVES THEM, THAT BY THE DEATH OF JESUS HE IS NOT IMPUTING TO MEN THEIR TRESPASSES AGAINST HIM OR AGAINST ONE ANOTHER, AND BY HIS RESURRECTION EVERYONE IS NOW, THIS MOMENT, RECONCILED TO GOD, AND MAY COME FREELY INTO THE JOY OF THE LORD. (2 Cor 5:19)

"And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those who oppose themselves, if peradventure God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." (2 Tim 2:24,25)