GOD ESTABLISHED BOTH THE CHURCH AND THE GOVERNMENT TO RESTRAIN EVIL

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Those who say that Christians should do evangelism and not politics overlook the fact that God gave both the church and the government to restrain evil in this age.

I agree with Wayne Grudem and others that one significant way that God restrains evil in the world is through changing people's hearts when they trust in Christ as their Savior (see 2 Cor.5:27). But we should not turn this one way into the only way.

Dr. Grudem has written an excellent book, Politics According To The Bible. It is a comprehensive resource for understanding modern political issues in light of Scripture.

God also uses civil government to restrain evil, and there is much evil that can only be restrained by the power of civil government. The reason is that there will always be many who do not trust in Christ as their Savior and many who do not fully obey him.

For example, we may want the Gospel to change society so there would not be things like drunk driving or slavery. But we know that if every Christian in the world set a marvelous example by never drinking at all that there would still be people getting drunk and driving. Christian influence alone didn't bring an end to slavery. It took the government to do it.

Some of my Christian friends say, "I am only going to be positive, preach Christ and influence the world for good." It's a good thing to be positive as much as possible, to preach Christ at every opportunity and to always be an influence for good. BUT sometime we have to say, "NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! THAT IS NOT TRUE. THAT IS WRONG AND EVIL."

Evil does exist and we better recognize it.

So, I don't care who is involved in the evil---my mother, my brother, my neighbor, my co-worker, my government. I am going to point it out for what it is and call for a change--repentance.

Doesn't this distract from the main purpose of preaching the Gospel? It could, but it doesn't have to.Chasing evil in the government and other places could become a hobby and you could spend all of your time doing that. But if you are determined to put first things first, God will enable you to do that.

So as for me, I press on with evangelizing as much as possible and standing against evil by pointing it out everywhere I see it and doing everything I can to stop it.