This segment concludes the
chapter on the Kingdom of God, as authored by Gary North in his book
“Unconditional Surrender.” It clearly calls into question some of the present
teachings of the church and the resultant ineffectiveness not only of the
church, but leadership at all levels in the whole world.
·
Why is the church so pessimistic about its role - in time and on earth? Who
wants to be a commander in a losing cause?
·
When Moses selected Joshua to lead ancient Israel, what happened to the rest of
his generation which resisted and mistrusted God? Are we the modern version of
them by resisting God’s dominion assignment?
·
How do we justify our inaction?
·
What are we in effect doing when we continually pray for miracles without
laboring for victory under God’s revealed law-order?
·
When will we decide to leave the wilderness of doubt, pessimism and confusion?
The biblical reasoning and
logic of this subject was detailed in the previous studies. Please review as
you need to do so. Also, I would strongly advise that you re-read the recent
Notes and Asides #4 – “Understanding What We Believe.” The following is from
“Unconditional Surrender.”
(If this is your first
exposure to CAP Lessons, you can backtrack the thread from here.)
For a successful program
of delegated responsibility to persevere, the church must become convinced that
such delegated authority can produce long-term benefits. The church must become confident
in its own earthly future. The church must become convinced that it
is an honor to bear new responsibilities, in time and on earth, in every area
of life. The church - and I mean the multitude of Christians acting as dominion men - must become
convinced that we aren't God's cannon fodder, that we aren't destined to defend
the last outpost. Who wants to take responsibility for commanding despondent
troops who won't take responsibility themselves? Who wants to lead an army of
incompetents whose own Supreme Commander has supposedly told them that the army
is destined for temporal defeat? Who wants to be a commander in a losing cause? Who wants to
command troops when it isn't safe to delegate authority to any of your
subordinates a lesson which you learned from your Supreme Commander, who made
this mistake at the very beginning of the war? Nobody sensible would do it. I submit that this is a major
factor in explaining why Christians have nobody sensible leading them in
this century - or at least very, very few sensible people.
What
should be our first step in locating a generation of competent leaders? Moses
selected Joshua to lead Israel into the land because Joshua was one of only two
spies who had returned to Israel, 40 years before, to recommend that they march
in right then and take the land that had been promised to them (Numbers
14:6-10). Caleb, the only other spy to agree with Joshua, also entered the
land, as God had said he would (Numbers 14:24). Only two men were optimistic.
Not an auspicious beginning for Israel in the wilderness. But God has all the time necessary
to achieve His goals. He simply waited for all of the older ones to die off,
except Caleb and Joshua. Then they marched across the Jordan River
and began the conquest.
The
younger generation took God's word more seriously than their parents had.
They entered Canaan believing that God would give all the nations of Canaan
into their hands. They didn't remain true to this faith; they were unsuccessful
in dislodging several of the tribes (Judges 1). They were, however, far more
confident than the generation of the exodus had been, and far more successful.
Therefore, the first step in locating reliable leaders is
to reverse the paralyzing pessimism of contemporary Christianity. We
must take God seriously. When God gave man his dominion assignment,
God meant business. He was serious. He built the dominion impulse into man, and
only a progressive demonization of men can begin to thwart that impulse. In
hell and in the lake of fire, the dominion impulse cannot find expression. Part
of hell's horrors is the eternal thwarting of that impulse. For regenerated men, the adopted
sons of God, there can be no question concerning the continuing nature of the
dominion assignment. Since it was built into man's very being the task
which defined man's purpose from the beginning - the progressive ethical untwisting of the
presently distorted image of God in man will bring the dominion impulse into
the forefront of the life of man. The kingdom of God is an ethical
imperative, but since man bears God's image, and his built-in purpose is to
exercise dominion over God's creation, the kingdom of God is also an ontological
imperative an inescapable aspect of the being of regenerated mankind.
Israel was defined in
terms of God's promise to
Abraham (Genesis 15:13-16). God would give the seed of Abraham the
land. This was an unconditional
promise, for Abraham had surrendered to God unconditionally. God had
dragged Abraham to Himself. He had dragged Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees
and Haran. He told Abraham what He would do for Abraham's heirs, and He would
fulfill His promise (Galatians 3:16-19). Israel would enter Canaan. Israel was destined to enter
Canaan. Yet Israel was also commanded to enter Canaan, and the older
generation refused to obey. Their punishment: to die in the wilderness.
But Israel did enter the land eventually.
Redeemed mankind must subdue the earth. It is God's
dominion assignment. We cannot evade its implications without suffering
punishment.
Our generation may try to evade its responsibilities in this regard. Our generation
may continue to deceive itself, arguing that the Bible's promises of victory,
in time and on earth, are to be interpreted as spiritual victories only, the
internal victory over sin, but with endless defeat in the external world of
culture, until Christ finally returns to deliver us from destruction. Men may
try to justify their failure in the external world by pointing to their own
hypothetical victory over sin in their spiritual lives. Christians who do this
will view the institutional church as a haven of refuge, God's port in the
storm, and they will turn inward, concerning themselves with endless
bureaucratic ecclesiastical squabbles, signifying practically nothing.
Christians may take
another approach, and try to postpone the establishment of God's visible
kingdom until after Christ returns physically to give us total direction,
placing us in various bureaucratic positions where we will be allowed to follow
detailed orders from the cosmic Command Post. General Headquarters will issue
comprehensive orders, and we will obey them to the letter. We won't ever again
have to make responsible decisions, fit ting the letter of the law to external
circumstances without deviating from the spirit of the law a difficult, though
responsible, process. The future external, visible kingdom will therefore not
be our responsibility to build, but Christ's.
By using either of these two approaches, today's
Christians seek to justify their own cultural impotence, their own lack of
dominion. They internalize
the kingdom, pointing to supposed victories inside their souls
victories that never result in cultural influence. Or else they point to a coming discontinuous event,
which will bring power to them only in terms of the creation of a massive supernatural
bureaucracy. In the meantime, both views preach pessimism concerning
this age. Both views
prophesy the defeat of the church externally in this age. Both views
create a desire to escape from the responsibilities of this world the
comprehensive responsibilities of cultural dominion. Both views reinforce our rebellious tendencies to defy
God, deny the dominion assignment, and retreat into a closed, isolated
society to sing our hymns, pray our prayers for deliverance, and eat our mess
of pottage.
We have tried to sell our birthright to the devil.
Let him exercise dominion! Let him bear the responsibilities! Let
him rule in time and on earth, if only he will give us a little more
time to pray and sing. Maybe if we grant him his right to rule temporarily,
he’ll be nice and let us alone. Let Satan rule, if Satan lets us alone: this is the "battle
cry" of contemporary Christianity.
We need
to revive our hope in God. We need to revive our hope in His good
judgment. We need to revive our hope in ourselves, as redeemed men, so that we
can face the dominion assignment with confidence. We need to regain our
confidence in the power of God's revealed law as a tool of dominion. We need an eschatology of
victory, in time and on earth an optimism concerning our ability to extend
dominion and subdue the earth, making manifest the comprehensive kingdom
of God, in time and on earth, before Christ finally comes in victory to remove
His people from a world whose potential has been used up because God's people
have fulfilled the terms of God's dominion assignment.
This requires unconditional surrender. We
must surrender to God's absolute sovereignty. We mustn't mouth the words,
"the sovereignty of God," if we really mean, "The sovereignty of
God, with a little sovereignty to man." We have to read Job 38-41, Romans
9, and Ephesians 1 again and again, until we recognize God's total sovereignty. Then,
once we see who is really sovereign, we can have faith in ourselves, as
redeemed and progressively restored ambassadors of God on earth. Then, and only
then, will we bring God's peace treaty before the citizens of Satan's
shrinking and defensive kingdom, calling them to sign the treaty now, to submit
unconditionally to its terms of surrender, and to make a covenant with the God
of the invading kingdom. Those
who are meek before God shall inherit the earth.
The kingdom of Satan is
very much like Jericho in Joshua's early days. The church of God has its
marching orders. It is to conquer the land, driving out the inhabitants. This
time, we are not to use force, as the Israelites did, but we are to use the sword of the
Lord, the preaching of the gospel. We are ambassadors, not spies, this
time. We announce the coming of the kingdom. We warn the residents
of today's cities of the coming judgment. In Deuteronomy 20:10-15, God gave us
the command not to destroy a distant city without offering it the opportunity
to sign a peace treaty and to become tributaries. This is the same treaty God
sends to the nations today. Their time is running short. God's kingdom is
coming. They must capitulate now, or else spend eternity as fiery sacrifices to
God. It is to their advantage to become members of God's kingdom.
God
gave the people of Canaan time to think about His arrival, in the person of His
people. They
knew what was coming a generation in advance, and they trembled (Joshua
2:9-11). Perhaps they grew temporarily confident when the Israelites of Moses'
day grew fearful, and decided to remain in the wilderness, culturally impotent,
fed by God's miraculous manna (Exodus 16:15,31-35). God graciously spoon-fed these
pathetic former slaves until they died. The Canaanites were
given an extra generation to fill up their cup of iniquity (Genesis 15:16). But
the day God parted the waters of the Jordan River, the manna ceased forever
(Joshua 5:12). God would spoon-feed these people no longer. The miraculous
manna would never again appear on their land. The land was now permanent land;
they would have to subdue it under God's law. That spelled the end of the road for
most of the Canaanites, and had Israel been more faithful, it would have been
the end for all of them.
This leads us to a crucially important principle: when God's people seek
continual miracles from God, rather than victory by means of labor under God's
revealed law-order, they are admitting defeat. When God's people prefer
to be spoon-fed rather than to exercise responsible dominion, the kingdom of
Satan is given another stay of execution. It is this
continual praying for miracles, for discontinuities in history rather than the continuity
of victory under law, which has paralyzed the expansion of God's kingdom. Pessimism
concerning the church's ability to extend God's comprehensive kingdom,
coupled with the slave's hope in miraculous, discontinuous deliverance, have
kept the church wandering in the wilderness for several generations. Should we be surprised at the second-rate officers we
have today, given the state of mind of the troops? Should a generation of
slaves, who wait trembling for their master to tell them exactly what to do
next, expect anything better than third-rate bureaucrats to lead them? When men
flee from the burdens of responsible self-government as men of both kingdoms
are doing all over the world today, should we expect to see Christians demand God's
freedom under God's law?
Let us flee the wilderness. Let us abandon hope in our
daily manna, our daily miracles. Let us abandon the need to be spoon-fed by
God. Let us begin to act like shepherds. Let us begin to accept the burdens of
responsible self-government under the guidelines provided by God's law. Since
the law is no longer a threat to us eternally, because we are delivered by
Christ from the curse of the law, let us approach God's law as a
master craftsman approaches a tool that he understands and respects, and
not as apprentices who are afraid of the tool and the responsibilities of using
that tool in their labor.
When Christian leaders see that they are called to lead
confident troops who understand the responsibilities of self-government, and
who are willing to bear these responsibilities because they understand the law
of God, their tool of dominion, we will find better quality leaders accepting
their positions of responsibility, not just in the institutional church, but in
every institution, in every walk of life.