Gospel Coalition - This is the ONLY way to Avoid Political Idolatry

In this video, I'm going to show you the only way for a Christian to avoid being a political idolater like Joe Carter. Alright, well before I get into the video today, I wanted to just point out that I am currently wearing the official A .D. Robles No Despair t-shirt.

I've got two designs. I've got this one that's kind of more of a general design, no despair. A good conversation starter for anyone who asks. You can say, look, there's no despair, baby. No despair at all.

God's rules and God's expectations and his marching orders for his followers are quite simple. And he promises to bless his people. I also have another design. It says no despair 2020. It's more suited for the political season that we come up against, which could be a very helpful thing, especially as the pressure gets increased on Christians to come out very strongly against Donald Trump.

But anyway, go check out Confessional Wear. Search A .D. Robles for those two shirts. It's a good way to support this channel if you want to get something tangible in return. So I appreciate it. Anyone who buys a shirt, definitely show a picture of you wear it.

That would be awesome. I'll share it on Twitter and all that kind of stuff. Again, no despair in 2020 or ever, ever at all. Anyway, this is a book called Millennialism and Social Theory. It's one of my favorite books ever.

And as you notice, it does not have a cover. I hate those jackets. I really do. The first thing I do when I get a new book is I throw away the jacket. I don't want to see them. I don't even want to see them.

But anyway, this is a great book. Millennialism. Yeah, Millennialism and Social Theory by Gary North. Now, if you don't know who Gary North is, Gary North is actually Joel McDermott's father-in-law and Rush Dooney's, R .J. Rush Dooney's son-in-law.

And he was part of the whole Christian reconstruction movement, theonomy, all that kind of stuff. And I was rereading this book. I'm not reading the whole thing, but there's a few sections that I'm kind of keying in on.

Covenantal Progress and Trial-and-Error in History

And I found this section on page 69 in a chapter about covenantal progress. Because Gary North is one of these people that believes that Christians ought to be making progress in culture within every area, including the government.

And here is something that I thought was extremely interesting. He says this, Even in the world beyond the final judgment, there will be trial and error and progress. Man cannot comprehend God. Man can never surround God's being or his mind.

Man is a creature. Thus, life in this world is at best a never-ceasing striving toward perfection. Step by step, we are required to learn from our mistakes and improve ourselves. Basic to this learning process in history is a system of sanctions, positive and negative.

We call God's negative sanctions against his people chastening. That's interesting. That's interesting. Because a lot of people would point to this as a drawback of believing in God's law for civil society.

They would say, well, we're all sinners, Adam. And it's nothing more horrible than trying to follow God's law as a sinner. You won't follow it perfectly. You'll make mistakes. And that'll be horrible.

Theocracy is horrible. And that's what people will say. And the reality is, though, Gary North acknowledges this, and this is obviously true. This is unavoidable. Human beings have sin natures, and then they turn to Christ, and God changes your heart, changes your desires from the inside out.

But we're imperfect. We're not perfect. We're not going to be able to apply God's law perfectly in our lives, in our personal lives, in our home. No despair, baby. No despair. Even if you apply God's law imperfectly, God promises to bless obedience and curse disobedience.

And so the reality is this is unavoidable because we really only have two options, right? We can try to imperfectly apply God's perfect law. Excuse me. Or the other option we have is to try to imperfectly apply some other law, some pagan law.

And what do you think is going to have better results, right? What do you think is going to have better results, being imperfect in your application of God's perfect standards or being imperfect of the application of some other standards that are not perfect?

Obviously, trying to apply God's standards is a better thing. And God is not unreasonable. So here's the thing. God is not unreasonable. He's not stupid. He knows what He's doing. He knows that when He gives us this law, He knows that people aren't Him.

They're not perfect. We can't comprehend the mind of God in all of its faculties perfectly the first time. And the reality is, Gary North here is saying, look, it's all about progress. It's all about progress.

So maybe we weren't applying God's law perfectly back in slave times, which we can all agree we weren't. Because stealing people, man stealing, is a death penalty offense. We can all look at that and say, how could they have missed that?

And it's like, well, yeah, how could they have missed that? But then think about what you're missing right now. That's the thing. What scares me is thinking, OK, well, how could they have missed that back then?

And wonder to myself, what am I missing right now? See, the only hope that we have is to count on those blessings for obedience. Because God promises to bless those who obey Him. And so here's what I think.

I don't think God requires perfection from His people. I think God requires a repentant heart, a heart that seeks to obey Him, a heart that is really doing it, like for real, for real. Not like the heart that says, yeah, well, you know, God, I know you say that you don't permit a woman to speak and be a pastor and stuff like that.

But, you know, Deborah, that's not what I'm talking about. That's phony. That's fake. God can see. If I can see through that, God can see through that. You know what I mean? It doesn't require perfection.

But seeking after perfection, be holy as I am holy, like seeking after following God in every area of your life, that is required. That repentant heart that looks to do everything God says in its totality, in perfect application.

That's what I'm hoping to do. I know I'm going to fail. But I think God blesses that effort. I really do. And He chastises when you don't do that, when you get it wrong. See, that's what Gary North was saying at the end there.

You know, when we mess things up, right, and I totally believe this. I know the guys across politics have said this a number of times. But I think that the Civil War and some of the aftermath of the Civil War was God's chastisement of the South for doing things not correctly, for not applying God's law perfectly.

It doesn't mean He hates them. It doesn't mean that they're unbelievers. It doesn't mean that they're pagans. It doesn't mean that. But it's a correction. It's a God's correction of a major error. I would say that not punishing man-stealing is a major error.

You see what I'm saying? So, again, it's all about progress. We're going to have trial and error. We're going to make mistakes. But I'd rather make mistakes pursuing God's perfection, God's perfect standards, His perfect law, than make mistakes following my own law.

Because that's a mistake in and of itself. We've got people that are saying that we should do this and that. Basically, socialism, right? God's not going to bless that. That's not even an attempt at being obedient.

When you say stupid, idiotic things like, well, God's law doesn't address socialism and capitalism. God's law doesn't address these things. And then you expect me to go along with it. You are putting yourself in the place of God.

I say God's law does address these things. And I insist that you follow those standards. When you say God's law doesn't address these things and then insist on me following your standard, that's the heart of what a Pharisee is.

You understand what I'm saying? Anyway, I hope this video was helpful. Maybe I'll do more on this. It's definitely something that I think is important because a lot of people like to say, well, we're imperfect.

And so how can we be expected to attempt to follow all of God's law? Like Beth Moore said something similar the other day about the conservative network. There's not a single person that obeys God's law.

Yeah, there isn't. But that gives you an excuse to disregard it. Like, yes, there's not a single person that does it perfectly. But that's not a good excuse to say we shouldn't follow it. You understand what I'm saying?

Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless. I just realized that I promised to show you the only way to avoid being a political idolater. And really, this is the only way to attempt to follow and apply God's standards.

If you're trying to follow and apply other standards, you will always be in a political idolater. Because whatever the law giver is, that's your God. That's who you follow. That's who you assign weight to their words.

That's who you fear. And so if you're going to say stuff like, well, God's law doesn't speak to economic theory or social theory or things like that, then you've got a problem because you're an idolater, my friend.

Because God's law does speak to those things. And that's the only way to avoid political idolatry is to be laser-focused on that scripture, on that law, and figure out to yourself, well, how do I best apply this law, this specific detailed law?

How do I best apply it today? What's the general equity of that law is a good question to ask. Anyway, I hope this video was helpful. God bless.