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WARNING SIGNS OF IMPENDING JUDGMENT

JOHN KNOX WAS BORN in Scotland around 1513, and he began serving as a Catholic priest around 1540. After studying the claims of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the other Reformers, he began to openly question dogmas of the Catholic Church such as the veneration of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

When a friend, Reformer George Wishart, was arrested by Catholic officials, Knox was ready to go to prison with him. Wishart persuaded him not to. “One is sufficient for a sacrifice,” Wishart said. Wishart was later tried and burned at the stake by the Catholic Church. If not for Wishart’s advice, Knox would have suffered the same fate.

John Knox became known as a great Reformation preacher who trusted God’s Word as his sole authority. Salvation, he preached, was by grace through faith alone. He rejected all unbiblical beliefs and practices, including purgatory and prayers for the dead.

In 1547, a fleet of French galleys—sailing ships propelled by oarsmen—invaded Scotland and took a number of Protestants, including Knox, as prisoners. The Catholic French considered Protestants to be heretics, and heretics were, in their minds, fit only to be imprisoned or enslaved. So Knox and his fellow Protestants were chained to benches as galley slaves and forced to row the oars under the lash of a slave master.

After a year of imprisonment as a galley slave, Knox was ill nourished and often sick with fever. The French galleys returned to the Scottish coastline, scouting for ships to attack. Once, as the galley sailed past the village of St. Andrews, Knox saw the spires of the parish church where he had once preached. A fellow prisoner asked him if he recognized the place. Knox replied, “I know it well. That’s the steeple of the kirk where I first preached. I’ll not die until I have preached there again.”

In 1549, after spending more than a year and a half as a galley slave, Knox was released. History does not record how he obtained his freedom, but we know he went to England, where the church under Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was friendly toward Protestants. Knox preached in the reformed Church of England, and his simple gospel, rooted in Scripture alone, attracted many new people to his congregation. But when Mary Tudor was crowned queen and reestablished Roman Catholicism in England, Protestant preachers were endangered. Knox fled to Europe.

In 1559, Knox returned to Scotland, where he was declared an outlaw, subject to summary trial and execution. Undaunted, Knox returned to the church at St. Andrews and preached boldly, fulfilling the promise he had made as a galley slave.

The following year, the Scottish Parliament asked Knox and five other Reformed ministers to draw up a new confession of faith. The Scots Confession was critical not only of Catholicism but of the English Reformers who were content to have the queen of England as the head of the Lord’s church.

In August 1561, eighteen-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, arrived from France to take the throne of Scotland. The young queen had been in France since the age of five. A devout Catholic on the throne of Protestant Scotland, she knew almost nothing about the political and religious realities of the land she ruled.

When Knox preached a sermon critical of the Catholic Church and the Catholic monarch, Mary summoned Knox to the Palace of Holyroodhouse and accused him of inciting rebellion. The queen believed that a monarch had absolute authority over the conscience of the people. Knox insisted that monarchs are accountable to God and subject to the authority of Scripture.

So the preacher and the queen were on a collision course. Their conversation went much like this:

“Do you think,” the queen asked, “that my authority as queen of Scotland is unjust?”

“I am content to live under Your Grace,” Knox said, “as the apostle Paul was content to live under Nero. So long as you do not persecute Protestants, I will not oppose your authority. I am not opposed to you, but to that wicked Jezebel, the queen of England, being head of the Church of England.”

“And yet,” Mary said, “you have taught the people to receive another religion—Protestantism—which I cannot allow. How can that be a godly doctrine, since God commands subjects to obey their rulers?”

Mary was probably referring to Romans 13:1, where Paul wrote, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Or perhaps to 1 Peter 2:13–17, where Peter wrote, “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority…. Honor the emperor.”

Knox replied, “Madam, rulers often ignore the Scriptures, and there are numerous examples in the Old Testament to prove that subjects are not bound to obey an unjust and ungodly command by their rulers.”

“You seem to be saying,” Mary said, “that my subjects must obey you instead of me, and that I must do what my subjects command—and be subject to them and not they to me.”

“God forbid,” Knox replied, “that I would ever command anyone to obey me. I only want rulers and subjects to obey God. There is no humiliation for a monarch to submit to God’s authority. By submitting to the will of God, rulers will gain everlasting blessing.”

Mary said that the Roman Catholic Church was the true Church of God, to which John Knox replied that the Catholic Church, which he called “that Roman harlot,” was corrupt. Their conversation went downhill from there.1

Sometime later, Mary, Queen of Scots, tried to have John Knox charged with treason, but Knox successfully defended himself before the Privy Council. Knox went on to serve as minister of the High Church of Edinburgh from 1560 until his death in 1572. Though Mary, Queen of Scots, wanted Knox beheaded, he died of natural causes—and it was Mary herself who was later beheaded (she was implicated in a plot against her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I).

At his funeral, John Knox was eulogized with these great words: “Here lies one who never feared any flesh.”² A true citizen of the City of God, Knox lived and died standing for God’s truth.

John Knox exemplifies a two-sided question that has raged from Old Testament times to this very day: What is the role of the government with regard to the church? And what is the role of believers in relationship to the government?

CORRUPTION IN THE GOVERNMENT—AND THE CHURCH

Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or you align yourself with some third party, there is a good chance you may not like what I’m about to say. While it’s never my intention to offend anyone, sometimes an offense cannot be helped. The truth itself often causes an offense.

In recent years, our American civilization has retreated from the biblical values and principles it was founded on. As our culture drifts further and further into secularism and hedonism and postmodernism, Christians are increasingly confronted with a choice: Should we speak out, loudly and clearly, for godliness and biblical truth in this dying culture? If we do, we may find ourselves challenging—and even abandoning—our former political allegiances and alliances.

When we take an unflinching look at the corruption of our leaders, we have to ask ourselves—why does the church have so little influence over our government? Why are we forced to choose a lesser evil instead of the greater good? Why isn’t the church raising up vast numbers of godly leaders to serve in our city councils, statehouses, and in Washington, DC?

If we lived under the oppression of a dictatorship or a monarchy, the church might have a good reason for having little impact on the government. But we live under a democratically elected representative government. Our national character should strongly reflect the character and influence of the church. And here is a troubling thought: perhaps it does.

What if the corruption in our government is merely a reflection of the corruption in the church? What if the abysmal candidates we are offered on election day are God’s judgment against our country and against the apostasy of the church? One of the most frightening principles in Scripture is found in both the Old and New Testaments, in the recurring phrase “[God] gave them over.” God, speaking through the Psalmist, said, “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices” (Psalm 81:11–12).

The martyr Stephen, in his speech to the Jewish ruling council before he was stoned to death, spoke God’s response to Israel after the people made a golden calf and worshipped it in the desert: “But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars” (Acts 7:42).

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, wrote about the ungodly people of the world, saying, “God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts” (Romans 1:24). There are numerous other Scripture passages describing this concept that I could cite. In each case, we see this principle at work: When people persist in their sin, God eventually removes His hand of protection from them and allows the consequences of sin to take their natural course.

So, if we in the church do not live out godliness in our own lives and if we do not demand godliness from our leaders, then we will get the leaders we deserve. We will get the government we deserve. God will give us over to the consequences of our own ungodliness.

“A LACK OF GREAT STATESMEN”

In Nazi Germany, the German state church became a willing accomplice of the Nazi Party. A minority movement of German Christians formed what they called “the Confessing Church,” led by people of conscience, such as theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and youth evangelist Wilhelm Busch. The Confessing Church challenged and confronted Hitler and the Nazis. They tried to warn their fellow German churchmen that God would judge Christians who supported the godless Nazi regime.

Writing from prison, awaiting execution for opposing the Nazis, Bonhoeffer wrote, “One may ask whether there have ever before in human history been people with so little ground under their feet—people to whom every available alternative seemed equally intolerable, repugnant, and futile.”3

When our American political system coughs up only candidates who seem “intolerable, repugnant, and futile,” we should ask ourselves if God is trying to get our attention—or worse, if He has already handed us over to the consequences of our ungodliness.

On June 8, 1978, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian dissident, gave the commencement address at Harvard University. Solzhenitsyn had suffered greatly at the hands of the Soviet government, and he worried about the direction Western governments were taking. Speaking prophetically, he said, “There are meaningful warnings that history gives a threatened or perishing society. They are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen.”⁴

It’s clear that we are witnessing what Solzhenitsyn foretold—a “lack of great statesmen,” signaling a warning that our civilization is threatened or already perishing. Solzhenitsyn, a devout Christian, was warning us that these cultural and political symptoms are warnings of God’s impending judgment.

WHAT MAKES AMERICA EXCEPTIONAL?

Some Christians are under the mistaken impression that it is unpatriotic to criticize our government and our leaders. In reality, holding our country’s leaders accountable is one of the great responsibilities we have, both as citizens and as Christians. Demanding honesty and integrity from our governmental leaders is one of the most patriotic things we can do.

We need to understand what we really mean when we say America. We need to understand that America is not the American government. America is not the American people. America is not a piece of real estate bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. America is a set of ideals and principles, embodied by its founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Most of us have heard of an idea called “American exceptionalism.” What do people mean when they say that America is “exceptional”? Is America exceptional because of its great wealth and military might? No, that’s not what makes this nation exceptional. Is America exceptional because its people have always behaved righteously? No—we have to confess that America’s legacy of slavery, the mistreatment of Native Americans, and the injustices of the segregation era prove that America is as prone to wickedness, bigotry, and moral blindness as any other culture.

What, then, makes America exceptional? The answer is: American ideals. The principles embodied in the American founding documents are as flawless and righteous as any governing principles could be. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” asserts the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

“We the People of the United States,” declares the Constitution, “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

And the First Amendment to that Constitution, the first pledge of the Bill of Rights, reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

These are exceptional principles, exceptional guarantees, exceptional declarations. They create a form of government that is unlike any government anywhere else in the world. When we say that America is exceptional, it’s not a statement of pride or arrogance. It’s a statement of humility and awe that God would bring together a group of fallible men and lead them through a contentious process of arguing and compromising, to produce these amazing documents.

Some of those who signed the statement that “all men are created equal” were, in fact, slave owners. There was a huge blind spot in their thinking. Yet the words they ratified rang in the conscience of a nation. Finally, on June 16, 1858, a man rose up and declared, in a speech before a thousand delegates in the statehouse in Springfield, Illinois, “‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” Those are the prophetic words of Abraham Lincoln.

The founding documents—the Declaration, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the commentary on those documents, the Federalist Papers—seem almost divinely inspired. And in a sense, they are. Why? Because they were directly influenced by the principles of God’s Word, both the Old and New Testaments. For example, it is commonly understood that the three branches of our government were inspired by Isaiah 33:22, which tells us that the Lord is our judge (judicial branch), our lawgiver (legislative branch), and our king (executive branch).

In those documents, We the People declared that our Creator is the source of our rights and liberties. We the People rejected the dictatorship of a king across the water. We the People established a government of limited authority, in which our leaders are bound by the law and the Constitution, and accountable to the people. We the People have a right to openly criticize those in power, and even to remove them from office when they abuse their power.

And We the People have a right to practice our religious faith and obey our own conscience, without being accountable to, or censured by, the government.

WHAT BELONGS TO CAESAR, AND WHAT BELONGS TO GOD

Some time ago, I felt compelled as an American citizen and a minister of the gospel to criticize the actions of the president of the United States. After considerable prayer and soul-searching, I became convinced that the president’s actions were a violation of the Constitution and of God’s moral law. So I spoke out from the pulpit.

I received letters from Christians who took me to task, saying, “Don’t you know that the Bible says we must honor the president and obey what he says?” They cited such Scripture passages as Romans 13:1–7 and 1 Peter 2:13–17. We need to always remember that Scripture interprets Scripture, and the passages that require us to obey the law and honor the king need to be weighed against those passages that require us to oppose unrighteous actions of the government. The same Bible that says, “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities” (Romans 13:1) also says, “We must obey God rather than human beings!” (Acts 5:29).

And there is another principle we need to understand as Christians in America—not a biblical principle but a constitutional principle. In America, the ultimate legal authority is not an emperor. The ultimate authority is the Constitution. In the United States, all public servants, from the highest to the lowest, take an oath to protect not a person but a document—the Constitution. The wording of the oath of office for the president of the United States is specified in Article 2, Section 1, Clause 8 of the Constitution: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

The military oath of enlistment begins with similar wording: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

Our civil allegiance is to the Constitution, not to a person. So when anyone in the government, up to and including the president, violates the Constitution, We the People have a right and an obligation to confront and disobey the government.

Our government officials regularly violate their oath and disobey the Constitution—and we as Americans and as Christians have a solemn responsibility to call them on it. One of the most blatant examples is the Johnson Amendment, a 1954 law that muzzles churches and gives the IRS the power to dictate what ministers of the gospel can preach from their pulpits. This is clearly a violation of two key provisions of the First Amendment—free speech and freedom of religion.

The Johnson Amendment was proposed by then senator Lyndon B. Johnson, who was angered over criticism he received from conservative preachers. By giving the IRS the power to take away the tax-exempt status of churches that spoke out on political issues and candidates, Senator Johnson silenced his opponents.

Christian commentator Cal Thomas has called the Johnson Amendment “the Berlin wall between church and state.”5 The government has no business telling ministers what they can and cannot preach about, whether the subject is salvation, abortion, or the corrupt behavior of politicians. God’s Word has authority over every sphere of human activity, including the political sphere, and it is government that must be accountable to God, not the other way around.

Another unconstitutional action by our government, which I have spoken out against from the pulpit, is a joint statement released by the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Education on May 13, 2016. This statement was released a few days after the Justice Department filed suit against the state of North Carolina over a state law prohibiting people of the opposite sex from using public facilities.

The joint order requires every public school in America to allow any student claiming to be transgender (that is, having a self-identity not consistent with his or her physical sex) to use whichever restroom or locker room he or she chooses to use. According to that statement, school officials must not question that person’s claim, must not require a medical or psychological diagnosis or documentation, and must accept that person’s claim at face value.6

Though this joint letter from the US Departments of Education and Justice is technically nonbinding, states and school districts that fail to comply could lose millions in federal funding. Though this order is intended to respect the “feelings” of the tiny percentage of people who call themselves “transgender,” it violates the constitutional rights and the feelings of the vast majority of people. No one—and especially not schoolchildren—should be forced to share restroom and locker room facilities with people of the opposite sex.

“Transgender rights” laws provide cover for voyeurs and predators—almost entirely men—who want to prey on women and girls. These laws give them the unquestioned right to enter any women’s restroom or locker room. Anyone asking them to leave would risk a crippling lawsuit. There are already cases on record of men claiming to be transgendered women who have used these laws to commit lewd acts and secretly record their victims.

And there’s a larger issue at stake: This order is a clear violation of the Tenth Amendment, which reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The federal government does not have the constitutional right to tell the states and the people how to regulate their restrooms. That right is reserved to the states and to the people.

The wording of the Tenth Amendment is absolutely clear. The president, the legislators, and justices of our courts all take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution—yet they regularly violate that oath. We the People have a duty to hold our leaders’ feet to the fire whenever those feet trample on any portion of the Constitution. That is our right as citizens. That is our obligation as Christians.

It’s important to always put principle ahead of party affiliation. We should treat our leaders with the same respect—and demand the same accountability—whether we voted for them or not, and whether they are members of our own party or the opposition party. In April 2016, when my state’s Republican governor vetoed the Georgia Religious Liberty Bill (HB 757), I spoke out from the pulpit. And when Atlanta’s Democratic mayor unjustly fired Atlanta fire chief Kelvin J. Cochran, I again spoke out from the pulpit. It’s principle, not party, that matters.

Chief Cochran was fired because he wrote a book about a biblical view of sexuality. I have read the book, and it proclaims the orthodox Protestant view of sexuality. Before he published the book, Chief Cochran asked for advice from the city’s top ethics officer, who told him that as long as the book did not make any reference to city government or the fire department, he was free to write it.

Here is a man who hired many firefighters, reopened fire stations, reformed Atlanta’s fire-rescue doctrine, and enabled Atlanta to achieve (for the first time ever) a Class I fire-protection rating (which only sixty American cities out of more than forty-nine thousand have earned). He has never been accused of discriminating in his hiring practices. Yet the mayor fired him for writing a Christian book. The mayor’s actions violate the Constitution, and we as believers need to speak out against all injustice of this kind—not out of disrespect toward the mayor but out of respect for the Constitution.

Regardless of party affiliation, we must love and pray for our leaders, and always wish them well. But we cannot be silent when they abuse their power and their office. Jesus said that we are to “give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” (Matthew 22:21). In other words, we are to obey our governmental leaders and pay our taxes as responsible citizens—but whenever Caesar’s laws are in conflict with God’s law, we must obey God before Caesar.

The Word of God is neither Republican nor Democratic nor Libertarian nor Green. The Word of God has authority over all kingdoms, nations, and political affiliations.