The Power of the Sword

 In his recent work, 'Letter to the American Church", Eric Metaxas points out that the Christian community in Germany almost entirely missed out the warning signs in the 1930's regarding how National Socialism would take and abuse the levels of power to bring a process of control to completion. Abusing these means to bring every aspect of the national order, including the spiritual dimensions of life, into the sphere of direct control beneath an ideology currouption, sealing the culture in a cult of death, thus nothing was outside the sphere of their influence.

Metaxas notes that this was achievable due to 1: The social fracturing of the county caused by the war, 2: The Fusion that existed in the country between the secular powers and the influence these brought upon the structure of the church and 3:  The impoverished spiritual state of the German church itself, which had given so much away to secular approaches to the message and place of the message of Christianity. It is no wonder then that the church generally proved to be a bent force when facing the far more strident and advancing creed of the new social strident messages of the day.

This work, however, makes an even more vital observation in respect to the sorrowful state of the church in our times.

In an earlier section, Metaxas also touches upon the radical changes that commenced in the American church in the 1950's, when the state, which according to the American constitution, is supposed to be something entire separate to the church in the nation, begun to introduce policy which impacted directly upon what a minister was allowed to say and teach from his pulpit on Sunday's if he wished to remain in post. Here we see how the supposedly 'healthy' nature of 'democratic' sate influence has continue to grow and control the role of Christianity in a fashion that is tightly controlled and restricted for the last 60 years amidst Western society.

The depths and spans of such control became fully evident in 2020, when these states closed the churches entirely in respect to there normal functions, and since that period, the direct influence of what is deemed state dogma continues to feed directly into the regular nature of church life, meaning that further restrictions can be introduced when deemed necessary by the state.

This process of the use of the sword of state to curtail and steer church authority is of course not new. In his excellent study of the nature of the church in relation to this issue, The Subversion of Christianity, Jucques Ellul shows how such processes have been at work amidst the Christian community in an obvious and corruptive manner since the 4th century onwards, meaning that the Spiritual nature of the message and significance of the faith has so often become subverted to other political and economic ends, where the power of the sword of the state has become the primary focus and the crucial truth of the Gospel has become buried in the process of placing secular power and position first.

The same is so often the case today, especially in respect to the war Christian belief systems so often interpret present concerns or events through the lens of a secular requirement to see that certain 'powers' are defined as 'good' (godly) in what they say or do,  even what this means ignoring the actual need and suffering of other Christians who are effectively ignored in the manner that certain events are defined and understood through such partial analysis.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy in all of this, as Ellul and Metaxas both state, is the manner in which the church continually looses sight of its true message and role as a result of effectively siding with powers and ideas that leave the culture bereft of a vital spirituality which Christ brings to save a truly change this fallen world.

It has, no doubt, always been the case, and the kingdom comes in spite of such troubles, but it would be something if Christians at least woke up to the realty of this estate.

Excellence or Folly.

 "But in a great household, there are not only vessels of Gold and Silver, but of wood and clay - vessels for honour and dishonour". 2 Timothy 2:20.

Back in the heady days of my youth in the mid 1970's, whilst being at a boarding school in West Sussex, I had the opportunity to attend for a couple of summers the developing "canvas" of 'new' notions expressed at the Caple Bible weeks held in the grounds of what was then Elim Bible College. There, I  witness first hand the sprouting of the "renewal" movement which would become identified with the Restoration teachings of the likes of Ern Baxter,  Derick Prince (of the Fort Lauderdale Five) from America, and the likes of Bryn Jones, Arthur Wallis and Terry  Vergo from the UK as they brought "Restorationism" to the Charismatic Movement with a fresh wave of enthusiasm. 

Whilst I swam amongst these waters for a few years, I was never comfortable with the various spiritual emphases of the movement as a whole, especially as certain spiritual requirements came to the fore and the teaching took a far more dispensational and zionist stance, leaving those of us who asked why such things were right when they argued with scripture looking for another home. That lead me to seek a home for a time in the reformed wing of Christianity, but I soon discovered this to be just as moribund by extreme Calvinism and legalism as its Charismatic relation. This lead to my digging deep into church history to find those believers who were truly worth listening to both in the past (The Apostles, Irenaeus) in the Reformation (Martin Luther) and in our own age (C S Lewis) who sought to point correctly to Christ and the exclusiveness of His unique and entirely saving work.

Whilst my particular experiences may have been particular in some respects to myself, the general tenor of the last four decades of what has occurred amongst many church groups will be familiar to many. As the general "direction of travel" of all of this is known,  where it has lead - the "downgrade" as Spurgeon referred to it in the 19th century, has most certainly lead to a large 'going to seed' of the spiritual crop of our times. Many have become bewildered with the political nature of the direction of what was deemed 'godly' became squared to a very particular interpretation of the nature of Spiritual anointing amongst the social well being of the national population of a region of the Middle East, often to the entire expense of the rest of the global church and other considerations.

What this, in effect means, is the Gospel itself and the very work of God as Saviour becomes subservient to other, more supposedly immediate concerns and needs (in the news and in the 'presenting' nature of what is currently defined as 'spiritual'), leaving the church without its true voice and the world bereft of the vital call of the good news as a consequence. The violence of this estate, which has grown like a cancer over the last century, leaves Christianity buried at the very hour that the world so deeply needs the vital light it is meant to bring.

Service in this hour means raising a voice that will never prove popular as it calls us to refuse the easy road of perceived 'anointing' that others loudly proclaim, and walk the far harder pathway 'less travelled'  if we really want to bring actual worth and value to this generation. May Christ enable us to do so!

The Darkness of an eternal winter.

 Scripture speaks profoundly of the emptiness of the soul and the world without God, and we are about to experience that realm in a deluge of blackness spreading for our called 'leaders', as experienced this week in England -

So as we reach the end of some very candid exchanges in the Covid enquiry this week, what conclusions can we reach about where we are and where the new incoming bolicvies of the World Health Organisation and the UN are taking us next…

1. There is no recognition that the policies employed (especially the use of lockdowns and an experimental vaccine) were in any way incorrect, so they will be we employed again continually in the years ahead, and will be even more draconian than last time.

2. Those independent minded media groups and individual experts that sought to question these approaches - and were proved RIGHT by the findings to do so! - have been thoroughly criticised and marked as a trouble to be corrected/surpassed this week, so will clearly be even more 

3. The New On Line Safety Act is already being employed to curtail any opinions which are not mainstream. There is clearly going to be far more censorship on mainstream platforms in the months ahead, and with the WHO being given the authority to call for lockdowns anywhere they determine there to be a threat, never mind an actual problem, bringing with that severe restrictive methods upon anyone, the world is about to enter a new phase of authorities unseen in many places before.

2020 was the moment that the genuine freedoms of our country died, along with the established church giving way to total authorising, and we are about to begin to experience the full consequences of this on a massive level.

This is just the first real implementation, however - what is coming in the next 12-14 months as the full ramifications of A I implementation begin to bite into our society is going to be fare more horrendous as humanity becomes incarcerated by a new and far despotic manner of total submission to something without any sense of basic goodness than has been experienced in the moral social restraints of everyday life.

The days coming are going to be black.

In parts of the country already, growing numbers of people are already without the basic necessities of everyday life, and this is increasing each day.

Those who role us are involved in the most malevolent forms of evil when it comes to the genuine needs of the neighbours.

The Official cover reposonse has spread a blight of wickedness and evil amongst us, and that savage pall of savage darkness is about to become much, much thicker in all of our lives.

When these things unfold, dear Christian, look up, for your redemption is drawing near, not in the false hope of dispensationalism, but in His glorious coming to establish a new eternal creation as the Kingdom of Heaven renews creation into it's eternal state as the Home of Christ's reign forever.

In CHRIST Alone...

THE Message for today, and these troubled times.

God's Saving work in Christ! 

The Current Context. - where we must stand.

Where we start. -

“I mean that the heir - as long as being a child - is no better than a slave (though being the owner of everything. They are still under a ‘guardian-ship’ and being managed by the conditions set upon them by the owner (the Father).

In this manner, we also were as children, were managed by both the elementary principles of this present world (order) until fulness came to us in our being clothed in the work of God in His only Son, who redeems us from being under the law.

True liberty, then singularly belongs to those He has adopted who truly are His children, who have His spirit in their hearts (thereby know Him as their true Father) and are therefore no longer slaves to any of the former things which bound them, but heirs of the Son, and therefore heirs of God!”  (Galatians 4:1-7).

Notice here the condition of those who are NOT free in respect to the actual inheritance of God - they are like children, without any true awareness of what is meant to be theirs, and are therefore compared to slaves, because they are actually still without what is necessary to be inheriters.

At present, they are very far from the actual riches which God is desiring for them. Our own natures and even the law in effect prevent us from seeing what is truly provided and leave us stranded in a place far from where the unmerited work of grace wants us to be.

We must, then, see the Church for what it is - the only save harder, able vessel, to deliver us safely from our certain demise and calamity to the shores of the new creation. If we determine that any other method or message must be pursed to give us clarity and purpose, we will entirely miss the singular means of rescue that the Father provides through His only Son.

The work of God alone takes us to safety - a confidence and living must be within the confines of that care alone.

I doubt many Christians would have felt at home most evenings in the smoke-filled lounge of the Kilns in Oxford during the 1950s and early 60s, where the likes of two brothers world sit most evenings smoking as they discussed everything from the news to the arts and science, and how to view life through the lease of what had been established by a man who had come some 2,000 years earlier, but anyone who has seen the film Shadowlands will know in that very context, miracles of all manner occurred, and God established a work that continues to endure and thrive nearly a century on. In my recent visit to that same house, I quickly recognised the telling divide between what we so often view as ‘vital’ to our religious frameworks and the true and profoundly deep work of God amongst His people - something which endures and is enhanced by the storms and troubles, and leans that these are indeed so often the very means that God introduces to lead us deeper and further into the unfathom-lall depths of His un-exhastive Love.

The arm of flesh is not our ‘aid’ - our working well must derive from a deeper and richer source than our own derived beliefs or intentions - true righteousness is the fruit only the cross and the life which grows from this in Christ’s resurrection.

The means God chooses to build His work so often appears futile in the view of the world. Who would chose the means of a man and woman naked in a garden as the method by which one day the entire order would become populated with a race that will be viceroys to express genuine might and majesty of the eternal Almighty. Who would judge it good that these same persons be allowed to truly choose their path and by their error, be clothed in an unwarranted mercy by their maker, who would ensure that their offspring would be made complete by simply trusting in the depths of that same maker’s unfathomable goodness.

True virtue is not some mechanised scheme that we can calculate and assimilate in some robotic manner - it is union and communion in a living relationship with a person closer and richer than our very own blood and scales.

The world we inhabit is indeed one inhabited by darkness and corruption because of the fall, and yet, time and again we learn that it amidst this very calamity that God sees fit to make His particular mark of unmerited mercy, using the very means that have been so marred to establish what will endure forever, and thereby write large the truth that His great redemption envelops all things - not merely those that our division-ist schemes define as acceptable and approved.

What begins as we meet in worship around the word and the supper, permeates out from there into every sphere and aspect of life - from sweeping the floor, to deigning a masterpiece of art - every facet of every area of life is ‘sacred’ territory’ which the Lord desires to make stamped with the mark of His presence and splendour, and we as His ambassadors are provided to the world to see that this is so - we fall so woefully shoot when we deny the vital nature of this goal.

The creed of true faith takes root in our entire dependance and communion within a norther - he who marries Himself only to us by being our Lamb, our food our sustenance and sufficiency that entirely satisfies us.

The church cannot be a place which merely echos or reflects what a lost culture rants as being vital - it must always speak from a calmer, deeper source of rightness and good care for all that is genuinely value.

Worship both stems from and leads us to a vision of the Lord that is holier and greater than the blindness of this moment, bringing a radiance that is as transforming as the moment when the Lord unveiled to Job that His was were more profound than a men could ever truly contain or comprehend.

This is the Lord with whom we have to do, and our beings, communion, giving of worship, service and Joy are all bound into His being Himself amongst us, however extraordinary and overwhelming that proves to be. The error comes when we seek to confine such marvel to the poverty of our impoverished desires or ambitions and thereby fail to allow Gods magnificence to find its true expression.

God must never be confined to the thoughts and ways of angry sinners!

Ours must always be a faith informed and energised by the Jesus of Calvary and the empty tomb - the God who has torn the veil from heaven on down to the earth, and there, raised the dead. The people He assembles have only come from amidst the precious shed blood of Christ, and thereby, on that Holy ground alone, give true worth and sacrifice in response to His giving all. No other ground, no other estate is worthy or acceptable, so let us be people who forever confess and express only that which He has declared good, for nothing but judgement is found outside those courts of true righteousness.

The Widow to Heaven is open - the Dove has brought the first fruits of a renewed world to us - feed upon the rock, and find true health, dear ones, in His eternal table.

State of Things

 "A man planted a vineyard, dressing it with a fence and a place for the wine - press as well as a tower. Having so established the lot, he hired those who would work the lot to provide the results of the crop, and left for another district. When the time arrived for him to claim the due results of his investment, he sent one of his servants to collect these from the tenets, but instead of paying what was due, they took this servant and mistreated him, and sent him away empty handed" (Mark 12:1-4).

How do we take Jesus words here in the light of the current state of Christianity?

How would we apply them to the present?

THE ESTATE.

Condition 1 - The “immersed”

Entirely submersed by the prompts of the culture.  See no need pragmatically,  to be anything else than what the current culture requires of you. In effect, hoarding the actual calling we have, to produce fruit worthy of our calling, and adulterating this into something entirely self-serving. We become those who dress the vineyard only to aggrandise ourselves.

Condition 2 - The Partially aware.

Beginning to emerge - aware of at least some of what actually counts and beginning to be altered by that awareness.

Such life in a troubled state. They know more is required - that the cost may be high, now they must chose which direction they will take - who they will truly serve.

Condition 3 - Those made genuinely free by truth, who are in the midst of the fray.

Like those 'helpers' Christian met on the road in Pilgrim's Progress, they are commonly berated and abused by those who use the Lord's instruments only to ingratiate themselves or taint good means and ends.

The 'down curve' of the spiritual condition of the message and estate of the church was noted by C H Spurgeon in the the 'downgrade' controversy of the 1900's, but Martin Luther informed his associates that the rich, untainted strength and significance of the Gospel of justification would be lost 'within a generation' of its re-discovery, simply because men would arise quickly who would proclaim themselves of the same cloth as those who had re-discovered the truth, but in their aims and intentions, their essential message, would be very different to the vital truth He proclaimed concerning the work and means of Christ.

The consequences of these troubles became crucially apparent during the 17th century and the feeding of the West upon the nursing milk of the Enlightenment and its accompanying 'liberating' revolutions of human ascendance against the vital role of genuine Christ-centred truth, leading in its wake the bloody confusion that has come to dominate human existence for over a century.

The church has proved to be the hireling, either miss-managing the owners interests, or having no real means to supply to the Lord what is rightfully due when sent to provide and facilitate this, and the reason is simple. Since at least the middle of the 20th century (as noted in the work, 'Letter to the American Church'), the modern church has relented to laws and associated requirements that have effectively silenced his speaking to the wilder sections of the contemporary society, which has introduced such legislation as  the means to silence the voice of the faith amongst the world - to make faith merely a 'private' matter, with no capacity to impact upon the behaviour or thinking of the contemporary closure of the message which calls us to the vital reckoning before God.

The belief is that such an estate brings escape from the day of consequence (it does not), but what of those 'servants' who chose to live "passive" through this day, who in effect entirely fail in their true service and perhaps even seek to use such an estate purely for their own ends?

If the last few years have surely taught us anything, it is that such duplicitous living cannot continue, and we must detach ourselves from this, or all indeed will be lost for good.

Megam Basham

 A superb introduction to one of the most important Christian journalistic voices of the last few years. Watch, and enjoy.