“Untying the Custodian”

God’s Word has the answers for all of man’s problems. Jesus didn’t just say that those in the Church should live by every word from God, but that man, meaning every single human being, can only live successfully by God’s word (Matthew 4:4). God’s Word is the door to blessing and liberty. The key to that door into God’s blessing has been given to the Church to lead the nations into true freedom. Our problem is that we haven’t used those keys to solve the problems that are killing the world.

Matthew 12:29 warns that plunder is only possible when the “strong man” has been bound: “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.” Jesus tells us how to steal another’s property: bind the strong man. Christ’s property is the world, the nations (Psalm 2:8; 24:1; 82:8)  We, the members of His body, the Church, are the “strong man” who is to guard and protect Christ’s nations. To steal the nations from God, the Church must first be bound. False doctrines of abandonment and deception chained us and made us powerless to stop the decay of the nations. Our enemies didn’t have to kill Christianity; they only had to get us to abandon our responsibility for others and give us an obsession with “pie-in-the-sky” escapism. With us preoccupied with other things, God’s enemies can do with the nations what they will.

The enemy’s lies are chameleon-like in their varieties of expression, but the core of each is the same. These false teachings tell us:

Give us the real world, and you Christians can do what you want with the “spiritual” future! Leave the nations alone. They belong to Satan. Take heaven and be content. Besides, Jesus said His Kingdom was “not of this world.”

Everywhere in Scripture, the world is described as wicked, evil, and to be shunned at all costs. We are to flee from it. The earth belongs to Satan. Involvement in the affairs of this world, especially politics, will corrupt you and distract you from saving souls for the heavenly Kingdom. When Christians forsake evangelism and the saving of souls for involvement with the social gospel, they totally miss God.

Do arguments like this sound familiar to you? Can you think of other Scriptures that the “abandonists” can take out of context to prove to you that you should keep your hands off society and the nations? Does it shock you that the most powerful spiritual attacks come from the misuse of Scripture? It shouldn’t. Reread the temptation of Christ in Matthew 4:1-11. Jesus and Satan banged heads in the wilderness with the correct use of Scripture at the core of their battle. Satan continuously uses Scripture against the Christian to keep him convinced that “real-world” problems are not the Church’s business.

Since the earth is to burn, does that mean Christians should leave the care of it and its nations to the enemy? No. Never! Christians are told to disciple and care for the nations by teaching them to obey God’s laws and prosper. We should have the same care and concern for our transitory earth as we do for our corruptible bodies. Our bodies will decompose when we die, but we haven’t stopped eating, sleeping, bathing, clothing, and caring for ourselves, have we? Why then should we abandon the care of our Father’s earth? That, my friends, is…

THE BOTTOM LINE.

This month’s Bottom Line is excerpted from Chapter 1 of Dennis Peacocke’s book, Winning the Battle from the Minds of Men, available in the following formats: Paperback | Kindle | eBook | Spanish eBook

Katherine interviews Dennis on the re-release of Winning the Battle for the Minds of Men: Watch YouTube Video or Listen on Podcast