The answer is always simple

On Monday evening I read a G+ post that essentially called me an idiot who didn't care about babies being murdered because I didn't vote against our president in the last election.  (For the record, I abstained from voting, because no candidate was acceptable.  As Charles Spurgeon said, "When faced with a choice of two evils, choose neither.")  Aside from reminding me of the constant bickering that drove me from Facebook, it drove home once again the desperate need for professing Christians to understand the way the world actually works.




I've heard a lot of people dismissed out-of-hand by saying that they're "so heavenly-minded they're no earthly good".  I've been accused of it on more than one occasion myself.  The alternative, I've noticed, is to be earthly-minded -- to use the ways and means of the world -- in order to achieve some heavenly good.  After all, if worldly people achieve worldly ends by worldly means, then surely God's people, no doubt with his blessing, can do the same.  And shouldn't we "redeem" those worldly means by using them for God's purposes?  Why shouldn't we use the devil's tricks against him?  Some would even say it's a sin not to.

"Some" are profoundly wrong, at best.  The fact is that we've become so earthly-minded we're no earthly good, let alone heavenly.

It's often said that complex problems require complex solutions.  This isn't what the Bible teaches.  In Scripture, the answer is always simple, because the problem is always simple.  The problem isn't political, or economic, or military, or social.  The problem is sin.

Why is abortion legal?  Because people are, at heart, sinners.  Men and women flaunt God's law regarding sex, and consequences result.  They don't want to accept responsibility, but sin-steeped Western culture gives them a way out.  Courts come along and enshrine the whole sinful system as a "basic human right", completely disregarding the millions of humans who lose their rights along with their lives as a result.

And then "saints" look at a broken system and try to come up with new ways of trying to make it break in their favor.  The irony, the mind-blowing, heart-wrenching irony, is that they never tried the old way of changing the world.  They never tried what that Book they want everyone else to respect tells them to do in these situations.

Jesus told his followers to be different.  He said to love, rather than hate.  He said to serve, rather than rule.  He said that the last would be first and the first last, and yet people who profess to be his followers pin all their hopes on making sure their guy comes in first.  We look at Christ's ways and can't see how they could ever conquer Caesar.  That's because we see them with Caesar's eyes.  Worldly eyes.  Sinful eyes.

We see things as sinners do.  We behave as sinners behave.  We chase the same goals sinners chase, in the same way.  So what does that make us?

The answer is simple.  It makes us damned fools.

You can't fight fire with fire.  You can't fight evil with evil.  You can't fight evil at all, and Christ never told us to.  He did tell us to do good, though.  He told us to defeat lies with truth, and hate with love.  He told us to suffer, rather than retaliate.  He told us that he'll take care of the vengeance, because he is the ruler of all and the sword is his to bear.  And you know what?  He meant what he said.

The answer to the problems of the world is simple:  obedience to God.  And that obedience has to start with the people who claim to be his.  It's stupidity to think that we can force others to do what we refuse to do ourselves.  It's damned foolishness.  Refusal to obey God is what damns people, and thinking that you're not damned while you refuse to obey him is just foolish.

At root, the problem is always sin.  At root, the answer is always Christ.  We can't have both.  I pray we choose the right one.