I have just seen the film Monumental, and would like to give my opinion of some parts of it. I like the film, especially the first half, but there were some things that disturbed me about the conclusions that were drawn. The Pilgrims were incredibly strong, character-filled people who stayed here even though almost half of them had died. They fought against incredible odds to get out of England, and then to get to America. The hardships they suffered are past imagining. I don't believe that they could have done that if they had not had a deep, intimate relationship with the Lord. I do not think that they did it because of their vision, I can't believe that they could have done what they did for a vision; the Lord had to give them strength to endure.
At one point in the movie, when Kirk Cameron was at Harvard, the man he was talking to said that a nation must be built on God's law. This is what I take issue with. I think that most Christians in America believe that the problem with our country today is that God's law is no longer being proclaimed and followed, and that the answer is to go back to the law. This is the conclusion that they seemed to be promoting in the film, but a lack of God's law is not the problem. The problem is a lack of a knowledge of Jesus and his truth. (Yes, I do not capitalize the pronouns. If you will look at your King James Version you will see that they didn't either.) Jesus fulfilled the law, and it no longer applies to us. We have the fulfillment of the law living in us in union with us (I Cor. 6:17), and God has written His law on our hearts, in the person of Jesus. We must not mingle law with grace, law with Jesus. Paul wrote two letters to correct that heresy, but the church today does it all the time. If you will search the scriptures, reading Hebrews and Galatians particularly, you will find that mixing the two is one of the worst things you can do. If we could live by the law, we wouldn't need Jesus. You can have one or the other, but not both! So the problem is not a lack of God's law in this country, the problem is a lack of people who know Jesus intimately, who understand that they are living in union with him, and who seek to introduce others to him. The only answer to the problems in this country is Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! It is all about him, not about the law, not about morality, not about imposing God's law on unsaved people. It is just about Jesus.
If people know the truth about Jesus and have a deep intimate relationship with him, and they are resting and trusting in him and cooperating with him as he lives his life through them, then we do not have to concern ourselves with politics beyond our duties as citizens. God will take care of us one way or another. Maybe it will be prosperity, maybe it will be persecution, but we are just being distracted if we spend our time wringing our hands over the state of the nation and the people and try to use law and civil action to fix things. The answer is this: love people and introduce them to Jesus, and teach your children to do the same. Watchman Nee, who wrote one of the greatest Christian books this world has ever seen, The Normal Christian Life, spent 17 years in a Chinese prison. God did not save him from that, he had to go through it. Bringing America back to its heyday of prosperity and freedom may not be his will for us, but I am not going to concern myself with that and work myself to death to try to prevent our losing what we have left and to bring back what we once had. I will do my duty as a citizen, and if God leads me to do more, I hope that I will cooperate with him. I certainly intend to, but I don't think that saving our bacon in America is on his agenda. I think his agenda is what it always was, introducing more and more people to Jesus so that he can express his life through them.
Right on Janis!
ReplyDeleteI think when people say God's law they are referring to a relationship with Jesus and his grace.
ReplyDeleteI think they are using God's law as a figure of speech more than the "law" as in the old testament. When you have a relationship with Jesus, you are living and acting according to Jesus' standards and/or commandants. Which in turn is what I think people mean when they say God's laws.
When people sees the life of a Christian they see us living by certain standards and the fruits of the spirit. If they didn't, then how would non-believers know that we are different. Even Christ says. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, 2 Cors. 6
Judy
Judy, when people such as the ones in the movie talk about God's law, they are talking about the law in the Old Testament, especially the 10 commandments. They want to impose this on everyone, which upsets the liberals, and rightly so. You cannot impose God'a law on a people who don't know God. And the passage from Corinthians was written to a specific people who had specific problems that he was trying to correct. We can't take every verse in the New Testament and make it a law for us, because a lot of it was for specific groups who were having certain problems that he was trying to correct. I just read that chapter, and I don't think it means what we have been taught that it means. I would have to study it in context, and I will try to do that this week.
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