The Counsel of the Nations
Psalms 33:10-12 ESV
“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!”
The USA is touted as a Christian nation, but is it, in
reality? And can a physical nation be Christian? And do we, as a nation, truly
trust in the One True God – Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit? Do we,
as a people, honestly give God our worship, our reverence, and our obedience?
First off, only individual people can be Christians, and we
are only Christians by personal God-given faith in Jesus Christ. Via faith in Jesus
Christ, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we are raised with
Christ to walk in newness of life in him, created to be like God in true
righteousness and holiness. So, we must no longer live in (walk in) sin.
Only individual people can trust in the One True God, and
this trust in God, in Jesus Christ, involves us denying self, and daily dying
to sin and self, and us walking (in conduct, in practice) according to the
Spirit, in obedience to our Lord. It involves us leaving our lives of sin
behind us and us walking in purity of devotion to our Lord with our lives surrendered
to him.
Now collectively, those of us who believe in Jesus, who
trust him with our lives, as described above, are the church, the body of
Christ. We are a nation, but it is not a physical nation, but a spiritual
nation. For the church is not a physical building, but a spiritual building,
not built with human hands, but with individual believers in Jesus Christ (as living
stones).
Therefore, a physical nation, such as the USA, cannot be a
Christian nation. The individual people within that nation can be Christians, but
only the body of Christ collectively is the nation whose God is the Lord, the
people whom he has chosen as his heritage.
But the body of Christ is not everyone who professes faith
in Jesus Christ, but it is those who walk in that faith, who honor Christ as
Lord, who obey his commands, who leave their lives of sin behind them, and who
are walking according to the Spirit, and who are not walking according to the
flesh.
A False Hope for Salvation
Psalms 33:13-17 ESV
“The Lord looks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
from where he sits enthroned he looks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds.
The king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.”
Now, the USA does have a large majority of people within its
borders who claim faith in Jesus Christ and/or Christianity as their religion
of choice. But that doesn’t make one a Christian. Only through dying with
Christ to sin and living to Christ and to his righteousness, in obedient walks
of faith in our Lord, are we truly the Lord’s. And we are in the minority.
The USA is a physical nation of people of all walks of life
who believe in many different gods, and who practice many different faiths,
even if many of them claim Christianity as their religion. The USA is also a
very worldly nation, it is extremely powerful, but it is not what it appears to
be on the surface. The de facto government of the USA is the elite of the
world.
And these elite of the world do not have the mind of God,
nor do they worship the one true God, but they are of Satan and of the beast of
Revelation whose goal it is to conquer the entire world and to bring the entire
world under a one world government (of the beast) and a one world religion (not
faith in Jesus Christ).
And so, they devised a plan for the destruction of
Christianity so that they could get professing Christians to be no different
than people of other faiths. They convinced the church at large to become
corporations of the state and to turn their gatherings into businesses to be
marketed to the world just like any other business, appealing to the fleshly
desires of humankind.
And they convinced them to alter the gospel of Jesus Christ
to make it more acceptable to human flesh and to the people of the world so
that the people don’t turn away from their sins, but they continue walking in
sin, only now without guilt or fear of punishment. Therefore, they are not born
again of the Spirit of God, but they are still headed to hell, only now on the
promise of heaven when they die.
So, they are convinced that faith in Jesus Christ forgives
them of their sins regardless of how they treat the Lord and regardless of how
they live their lives from that moment forward. And if they do feel guilty
about their sin, they are told to just “claim who you are in Christ,” and that
is supposed to alleviate the guilt and to make them feel better about
themselves.
Or, if they do have somewhat of a conscience about their
sin, they may take steps, in the flesh, to try to resolve their own sin issues.
But since they never surrendered their hearts to Jesus, they will keep going
back to their idolatries and adulteries. They will try to convince themselves that
they are free from their addiction to sin, but it is all a façade. They aren’t!
Some people will turn to human counselors and to computer
software packages to help them overcome their addictions to sin, and they may
be able to help to a point, but if they are of the flesh, empowered by the
flesh, and not by the Holy Spirit, they will fail, for only Jesus Christ has the
power to deliver us from our bondage to sin and to set us free!
On Those Who Fear Him
Psalms 33:18-19 ESV
“Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
that he may deliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine.”
Only the true gospel will lead us to genuine faith in Jesus
Christ, which then results in lives which turn away from sin and which
surrender our hearts to Jesus Christ. The gospel that many are teaching today
only goes half-way, but it doesn’t teach death to sin and living to righteousness
as part of obedient faith in Jesus Christ, so it has no power to change lives.
So, those who are buying into this “cheap grace gospel” are
only fooling themselves when they convince themselves that they are now forgiven
their sins and headed to heaven. They are only fooling themselves that they are
no longer under condemnation and that heaven is their destiny. For there can be
no freedom from sin without dying with Christ to sin.
In other words, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t hold
on to your sinful practices and think eternal life is guaranteed you. You can’t
keep on living in deliberate, habitual, and premeditated sin against God and
convince yourself that you have been set free from your sin. For we are slaves
of the one we obey, and if it is sin, it ends in death, not in eternal life
with God.
So, if you are believing in a gospel which is telling you
that you can believe in Jesus and be guaranteed heaven when you die, but that
you can continue walking according to the flesh and not according to the
Spirit, please know you are believing a lie.
For, if we walk according to the flesh, we will die in our
sins. We will not inherit eternal life with God. But if by the Spirit we are
putting to death the deeds of the flesh, we will live with Christ eternally.
Oh,
to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer
Lyrics
by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music
by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897
Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s
treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.
O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy
love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.
Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy
fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg
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