Politics Is Stinking Up The Pulpit And The Pew In Many Churches

Politics is stinking up the pulpit and

the pew in many churches. That's our

message. The text is taken from Mark 12:13

to 17. There I was on the line going to

cast my vote during my country's general

election which takes place every 5

years. I have never been a card carrying

member of any political party, but in the

past I had been very vocal in my support

of one in

particular. And on this day I was wearing

the hat of my party of choice and might

have also been wearing a T-shirt

advertising that party. Suddenly right

there on that line the Lord convicted me.

He reminded me that as a servant of the

Most High God my public show of support

for a particular party was not

acceptable to

Him. Immediately I began feeling very

uncomfortable and even odd in my

appearance and made up my mind never to

do this

again. And that was the last time that I

wore any emblem that represented a

political

party. The problem is that politics is an

unforgiving

taskmaster. As strange as it may sound

political leaders get along civily

but their followers often cannot stand

each other and are at each other's

throats. In almost every nation politics

is so divisive that it destroys families

and family relationships. It destroys

friendships, business relationships. It

has destroyed church fellowships and

caused denominational

splits. Most importantly it has diluted

worship that belongs to the Lord thereby

robbing Him of the honor and Glory that

belongs only to

Him. And yet the first commandment says

you shall love the Lord your God with

all your heart with all your soul and

with all your

mind. However more often the people love

their politicians and their political

party with all their heart, with all

their soul, and with all their mind. And

they hate their neighbor unless their

neighbor belong to the same political

party. Father we thank You for Your word

today. Bless it. Give understanding to

Your children we pray in the precious

and the holy name of Jesus Christ. We

thank You and praise You that You are

the God of heaven and we are the sheep

of Your pasture. Bless us now in Jesus

name we pray

amen. The Lord has shown us how a servant

of God should only have one master

because Jesus Christ said and I quote, "No

one can serve two masters, for either he

will hate the one and love the other

or else he will be loyal to the one and

despise the other. You cannot serve God

and mammon. In other words you cannot

serve God and the pursuit of the wealth

and power of the

world. And politics like many things that

the world boasts of is indeed a hard

taskmaster. He showed us how His servants

alignment with a political party may

prevent a soul from coming into the

kingdom of God. Is God divided? Does any

particular political party own the

Lord? Here are some other questions the

servant of the Most High God might

consider. Are you only going to try and

save those who are in support of your

particular party? And what about those

who are turned off about hearing the

gospel of Jesus Christ that falls from

your lips because they saw you

supporting a party that was not their

party of choice? Is this not a spirit of

compromise? The politics of some nations

of the world is at times hijacked by

political parties that claim to be the

party of God. These rulers deceive the

people into thinking that they are the

voice of God. They have a deceitful

manifesto however that espouses and

boasts of Christian or Godly principles

and and they declared themselves to be

the party of God. As we saw in a recent election in

the US, the candidate printed his own

signature Bibles, displaying them

publicly and sold them

online. When in fact these leaders are

anything but Godly. And they are like the

Pharisees of old, having been deceived by

their rhetoric people of God have

flocked toward these leaders and their

political party, tipping the balance of

the electorate and giving these leaders

victory in local and general elections.

This trend is paving the way for the

Antichrist who will perfect this art and

will seize the control of the entire

world. He will go to the extreme of

declaring that he is God

Almighty. In Isaiah 5:20 the Lord sent

out a warning to the children of God

saying woe to those who call evil good

and good evil, who put darkness for light

and light for darkness. Who put bitter

for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to

those who are wise in their own eyes and

prudent in their own sight.

Unfortunately no political party is

perfect, neither are their leaders. Party

members and leaders are required to hold

the line on positions and directions

taken by their party. They are expected

to denigrate the posture taken by the

opposing party in order to win an

election. And if they cannot in good

conscience support the position taken by

their party they must keep their mouths

shut for fear of weakening or damaging

their party's

position. In the kingdom of God this is

called compromise and God is not a God

of compromise nor is He a God who is a

respecter of persons. In this party politics, evil men

are applauded as virtuous men of

integrity because they are a

member of a particular political party.

And very often good men are demonized

and called evil because they are leaders

or supporters of the opposing party. It

happens in every country on the earth.

Unfortunately there are demons on both

sides of the political

fence, in my country, in our neighboring

country the United States and in all

nations of the world. And so I put it to

you that those that do not even

recognize that Jesus Christ is Lord are

lesser demons than those who pretend to

be servants of the Most High God, and use

the name of the Lord God as a tool to

establish themselves in order to gain

money, power and fame. And very often

politics of today can be compared to a

rebirth of the Pharisees and the

Sadducees of

old. Who are these? They were the leaders

of the Jewish nation in the time of

Christ. They were the heads of the

political party that tried Him and

found Him guilty in the kangaroo court.

And then sent Him to the Roman

authorities for them to conduct a mock

trial and sentence Him to death. They did

this to the Messiah because He did not

support the values that they pretended

to support in their group. Their lives

were contradictions to the word of God,

and He called them out, they were thieves,

they were deceivers, they were

opportunists and they were politicians.

They were wicked to the core and Jesus

Christ referred to the Pharisees and

Sadducees as Whited sepulchres, which means

whitewashed

tombs. In Matthew 23:27 He said you are

like whitewashed tombs which indeed

appear beautiful outwardly but inside

are full of dead men's bones and all

uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly

appear righteous to men but inside you

are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Our great neighbor to the northwest of

us have a huge problem for the next four

years and for the foreseeable future.

Their leading politicians have taken the

Word of God captive by pretending to be

the party of Jesus Christ and

representatives of God Himself. When

indeed they are not. These leaders and

their followers confuse the issues by

conveniently using His name. The name of

the Lord that is, to push their greedy

agenda and to maintain power over the

people. Now they have turned to

mistreating their minorities, mistreating

neighboring countries that share a

border with them and mistreating age old

allies who have fought

shoulder-to-shoulder with them. Young and

old have been deceived by their rhetoric

and they join the movement throwing

their full support behind it, because

they believe that the political party

espouses the values that please Jesus

Christ. So how is the believer in Christ

and His servants supposed to navigate

the politically charged atmosphere of

their particular nation? How can they

possibly keep themselves clean from some

of the filth that attaches itself to

politics in every nation on earth? But

Jesus Christ made it very simple for us

according to Mark 12:13-17. One day the

Pharisees and the

followers of the Roman King Herod tried

to catch Him by causing Him to speak

against the Roman

authority. Christ immediately knew what

they were up to and He asked them why

they were trying to test Him. He told

them to bring Him a coin that He may

have a look at it, and when they brought

Him the coin He looked at it and then He

asked them whose image was on the coin?

And they of course said to Him it was

the image of the Roman Emperor who at

that time was Caesar.

Jesus Christ then gave them an answer

that blew their socks off. He said to

them, render to Caesar the things that

are Caesar. Which means give to Caesar

the things that are Caesars and to God

the things that are Gods. In other words

give to your government the respect and

obedience that belong to them and give

to God all the honor, all the glory and

all the praise that belongs to Him. In

this statement Caesar represents the

governments of the world.

And it speaks very clearly to the fact

that the followers of Christ are to pay

whatever is required by their government,

and to be obedient to the laws

established by the government of their

nation, no matter who is the leader of

the

government, or which party is the leader

of the government. However they are also

warned to give to the Lord all that

belongs to God and to He alone. Today

Israel is as political as any other

nation and they're embroiled in all

kinds of controversies that come with

the politics of the nation. Their

government is a multi-party

parliamentary democracy. They have a

ceremonial president but the prime

minister is the one who holds the

power. But Israel was a theocracy in its

purest sense when the nation was formed

in the desert of Sinai. Their government

was seamless and they were led with

integrity, justice and fair play. God was

his supreme leader and Moses was his

prime minister who ran the

nation. After entering the promised land,

and they saw the honor given by their

neighbors to their King with all the

pump and pageantry that goes along with

earthly royalty. They became jealous, they

demanded a king to rule them, a king who

would judge them, and who would go before

them and fight their battles. This amount

of to nothing more than a rejection of

God Himself as their King. But the Lord

warned them through the prophet Samuel

telling them that their king would take

their sons and their daughters and use

them as his servants. He would make their

sons serve him with his chariots and his

horse. And he would take a percentage of

their crops and their

flocks. In spite of the Lord's warning

they insisted on having a king, and He

gave them the wicked King

Saul. King Saul and most of Israel's

Kings after him did precisely what the

Lord had warned them about and often

made their burdens

heavy. Zedekiah king of Judah was their

last king and he was led away in chains

to Babylon after having his eyes plucked

out. Meanwhile the nation collapsed as

the Lord turned away from Israel because

of their

disobedience. One day the world will no

longer be divided by politics

and by wicked leaders who use the Word

of God as a stepping stone to wealth

power and

fame. According to Revelation

24, governments will rule with equity and

with justice. politics will no longer

divide churches. It will no longer divide

nations. It will no longer divide

families, and the people that belong to

them. And the courts of the world will be

just and fair. And one man will not

defraud another. And in that season Jesus

Christ the Son of the Most High God will

rule the world for a thousand years. And

this was revealed to the Apostle John on

the aisle of Patmos where he said, and I

saw thrones and they sat on them and

judgment was committed to them. And then

I saw the souls of those who had been

beheaded for their witness to Jesus

Christ and for the word of God who had

not worshiped the Beast or his image and

had not received his mark on their

foreheads or on their hands. And they

lived and reigned with Christ for a

thousand peaceful prosperous years. And

what a glorious time that will be when

we can all agree on the leadership that

is over us. When we can all honor the

King of Kings and the Lord of Lords with

purity, with integrity, with love in our

hearts for each other. God bless and keep

you in Jesus mighty name, amen.

You've been listening to this message

and perhaps you do not know Jesus Christ

as Lord and Savior. Well my friend we

want to give you an opportunity as usual

to make that

commitment. Please engage your heart and

say this prayer after

me. Father I am a

sinner. I am sorry for all my

sins and I crave Your

forgiveness. Thank You Lord

for Your forgiveness, for Your mercy unto

me.

Today I invite Jesus Christ into my

heart. Dear Lord Jesus make my heart Your

home. I give You the key to my heart

because I now belong to You

forever. Please give me the Holy Spirit

to lead me into all truth.

Thank You Lord for saving my

soul, amen. Welcome my friend to the body

of believers in Christ. There are so many

of us here awaiting the return of the

Good Master. In the meantime we want to

encourage you to become water baptized

as quickly as

possible. That is the fulfillment of all

righteousness. We encourage you to begin

reading the Word of God every day. Begin

in the book of John then go to Matthew,

Mark and Luke. Pray daily, attend at your

local church and one glad morning the

Savior will come and receive us all unto

Himself and we shall indeed forever be

with the Lord. God bless and keep you in

Jesus mighty name, amen.