Societal Decay and the Great Redeemer

Christians often deceive themselves by vaunting undesirable, even cursed, things because they test character and prove the robustness of the faith and the sovereign power of God.

For example-

Poverty

Poverty is a consequence of sin and often a curse itself. Yet, deliberate poverty or contentment in the face of poverty can help one detach from earthly things to aide their heavenly devotion.

Poverty is not good. It is pretty much objectively bad. But contentment is a “narrow road” state of being, and it is better to gain the whole world than lose your soul. If your right hand offends you cut it off. You cannot serve God and mammon. Wealth, so long as it is not ill-gotten, is a blessing. But it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich man to enter heaven.

So poverty may help quiet the damnable carnal nature, but poverty is not a pursuit. It reveals the precarious nature of the flesh and the sovereign intervention of God to use the bad or hard things to bring about sanctification.

Persecution and Martyrdom

It would be self-destructive and foolish to pursue conditions that lead to persecution and martyrdom. And yet, if the world hates us it is because they hated Christ first. We bear in our bodies the marks of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone must take up His cross and follow Him. And as the Christians of old said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Stephen’s death was a commencement for the proliferation of the early church.

This does not suggest that persecution and martyrdom are good, but rather that God is good. In the face of evil and death He brings forth glory and new birth. It is a fact that there is evil in the world, and to varying degrees we will all face it. And in the face of it we know that God will move. As all things work together for good for those that love God and are called according to His purposes.

So we do not want to intentionally create the conditions of our persecution or eventual martyrdom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. We want to create a virtuous and free society- one that models the kingdom of Heaven.

Where our treasure is, there will our heart be also. Our preoccupation with earthly pleasures and comforts at the expense of our heavenly-mindedness and obedience will lead us astray from God. So we have to be deliberate with our freedom just as we must be with our wealth so that these earthly things do not become idols.

Throughout history God has raised up His people militarily and politically to overwhelm satanic rulership and oppression. But not every person in every such environment at every point in history has the expedient opportunity to overthrow tyranny. Or they may be in a microcosm of a larger society where tyranny rules. It is within these contexts that the Christian can be a faithful witness even in the face of certain death, knowing that his reward is in heaven.

Immigration and Melting Pots

For many years now Christian missionaries have highlighted the notion of the 10/40 window. This is the geographic region that sits between 10° and 40° north latitude. It extends from North Africa, through the Middle East, and to Asia.  Two thirds of the world population sits here, as does some 90% of unreached people groups.

Many Christians have come to see western mass migration into western nations as a missions opportunity to bring the 10/40 window home. They simultaneously remark on the international nature of the kingdom of heaven and see the (heavily propagandized) concept of America (and now the west) as a melting pot of world people and cultures.

I don’t wish to diminish the idea, so much as I wish to put it in context. America was never intended as a melting pot. It was the founding of a new nation born in liberty. Our founders took the very best they could from historical societies and brilliantly crafted a form of governance that borrowed from the wisdom of past civilizations while accounting for the excesses of men and power.

While this nation would technically make possible a cooperation with people from all over the world (if they could adopt and adapt the customs necessary to maintain liberty), being a melting pot was not the end goal.

America was primarily founded by English and Dutch men and was always disproportionately white and Christian (or in the very least Christian informed or adjacent). The fact that America is white and Christian and also the wealthiest and most powerful nation in history is not a mere coincidence. Men of different provenance would not have built such a nation. And although the structure of government is robust enough to withstand some diversity, diversity was not the goal. The melting pot is a myth.

God Himself tells Moses that it is a curse to be supplanted by the foreigners in our midsts, as we have seen in the preferential treatment of many foreigners in western nations.

So there’s no sense in which we can see third world immigration or population replacement of white founding stock as good, even if it reveals the goodness or robustness of America, her founders, her people, and her God. Diversity is a liability, not a strength.

And yet, the 10/40 notion rings true. God told us to redeem the times because the days are evil. Jesus said to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness so that all the earthly concerns can be added unto us. Mass immigration legitimately does present a historic opportunity to reach the once unreachable people.

This is not a testament to the idea that America is a melting pot, nor is it a testament to the idea that importing so many from that 10/40 window is good. It is yet another thing, like poverty or persecution, that results in a society from poor stewardship that God nevertheless is willing to use to sanctify His people, purify Christ’s Bride the Church, and proliferate the kingdom of God.

In ending, why do I bring up all of these things? Because I observe this pendulum swinging back and forth. When the people of God are not temperate and informed and motivated by both truth and love, we fall into ignorance, destruction, and excess.

For those Christians who would celebrate persecution, poverty, or mass immigration and all its effects; they must keep in perspective that just because God is faithful to use difficult or suboptimal things in life or just because good things in life can become idols to sinners does not mean that we ought to call good evil or evil good.

And for those Christians who see the foolishness and danger and ignorance of celebrating poverty, persecution, or mass immigration; we must not forget that Jesus Christ is King eternal and delights in doing wonderful and redemptive works in the face of pending calamity.

Let us redeem the times in these evil days. Let us be loved by and used by God in all situations, because in Him we live and move and have our being. We do not have to call evil good or good evil to recognize the power of the Great Redeemer to do His redemptive work in all things.

It is good to see what is wrong with the world and desire to fix it, but we must not let our love grow cold. And we must be faithful to whatever task God is calling us to on earth. And we must remember that God moves often in the eleventh hour and does that impossible thing that demonstrates He alone can do it.