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 civilly 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 sepulchers, 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.