Are You a Christian Nationalist — Anton Bosch

Revelation chapter 17. Revelation chapter 17. I've been speaking on Christian idols in a very short series. I'm not sure this may be the last in the series. We'll see how that goes. The subject this morning is very offensive to many, unfortunately.

Maybe not so much in this church because you've heard my stand on these things before. But for those who are online, I know there will be many who will be offended by this message. My purpose is not to offend.

My purpose is to call people to repentance, to call us back to the centrality of Jesus Christ and of the gospel. I'm going to show a few graphics along the way. Again, the purpose of the graphics is not to offend but to get a point across.

It's absolutely essential that we understand the issues surrounding the subject which is Christian nationalism. So please don't be offended. Please listen to the message. Unfortunately in the process, a lot of the time a good part of the message is devoted to speaking about the realities that we are dealing with in America and in the world today.

And it's easy, particularly for those who are online, to say, well, you know, this is not the Bible. I'll get to the Bible. Don't worry about that. Also, it's going to be a long message. I really wrestled with this message.

I put more time into it than I probably have in any other message for a long time simply because I have probably enough material for ten messages on the subject. And I'm trying to condense it into one message because I know it's such an offensive subject and it's a subject that many people don't want to hear on.

And so we're going to try and condense it and we're going to move pretty fast. So the video will hopefully be available afterwards and you'll be able to pick up on that. So the reading is from Revelation 17.

I'm not going to comment on it. I'm going to come back and close on Revelation 17. But let's read the first six verses. Revelation 17, verse 1. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication.

And the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with a wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written, Mystery Babylon, the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.

I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement. Just also, by the way, if you want a more detailed discussion on the subject, there are two videos on YouTube called Kings and Harlots.

Patriotism, Christian Nationalism, and Idolatry

Kings and Harlots, a two-part series. I did it several years ago from my office. I didn't preach it from the pulpit. Now, let me just begin by saying that I believe that there is a place for patriotism.

There's a difference between patriotism and Christian nationalism, and there's a difference between what is healthy patriotism and idolatry. Just the same as with the other things that we've talked about, there is a proper place for family.

Family is a good thing. You push it to its extreme, it becomes an idol. The same with money. Money is useful. We need money to live, but you take money to an extreme, it becomes an idol. Patriotism has its place, and I'm grateful to live in America.

I don't want you to, as we go through some very specific issues this morning, I don't want you to think that I'm against America. I'm against anything that detracts from Jesus Christ and the centrality of the gospel.

And so I'm glad that I live in America. There are hundreds of other countries I can think of that I'm very grateful I don't live in those countries. And so I'm not ungrateful for the liberties that we have here in America, but I'm also not blind to the problems that we have.

And so patriotism has a place. In fact, we're going to look at Paul to some extent this morning, but in Romans 9, verse 3, Paul says, I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen, according to the flesh.

Now, Paul obviously is dealing, speaking of Israel as his country. Israel has a special deal with God. Israel is different from every other nation. But I think that in this, there is an element of patriotism.

Paul wants to see his fellow Jews saved. But remember that he is the apostle to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected the gospel. Whenever he went to cities all over the world, he would begin to preach in the synagogue, but he would preach there once or twice, and they would kick him out.

And he would preach on the streets, and he would preach to the Gentiles. But his heart was still for Israel. I don't believe it's wrong for us to want to see Americans saved. Notice what I said. Americans saved, not America saved.

The point that we're going to make a little later is that a nation cannot be saved. Jesus did not die for America or for England or for Korea. Jesus died for individuals, and he saves individuals. Now, when we speak about Christian nationalism, also we must recognize, and I'm speaking obviously for those who are watching online, I'm speaking from an American perspective.

And I think that in a sense, America leads the way in this issue. But there is other forms of Christian nationalism. There is a British form. There is a South African form. There is an Australian form.

And so this is a problem in all countries. But I'm specifically dealing with it from an American point of view. And if you're watching from online, you need to adapt what we're saying to your particular situation.

Christian Nationalism as a Church-State Marriage

So the question is, what is Christian nationalism? Well, it's basically a marriage between the church and the state. This is an idea that you'll hear on the radio and the news and the talk shows all the time right now.

This particular video, this particular image, and I know it's a little bit not so clear, but this is an actual photograph from a church. This is a church in which the cross is draped with the American flag.

And this symbolizes Christian nationalism. It's a marriage between the church and the state. And you'll hear that many politicians are promoting this idea right now, saying that the church and state need to be married, that the division or the separation which the founding fathers put in the Constitution of separation between church and state is not a good thing, and that that needs to be abolished, and that the church and the state need to come together.

The problem is that in this relationship, one becomes the master and the other becomes the servant. And over the history, and in the two videos that I made reference to, I traced the history of this problem, going right back to Constantine.

Now, in Constantine's time, Constantine was a Roman emperor, and he married the church and the state. But in that relationship, the church was the master, and the state was the master, and the church became the servant.

That relationship changed. And as we go into the Dark Ages, in the times of the supremacy of the Catholic Church, the church became the master, and the state became the servant. In Calvin's Geneva, which is one of the places where they tried to put this into practice, the church was the master, the state was a servant of the church.

The form that we have today, the state is the master, and the church is the servant. In other words, the government uses the church. And I'm not saying the government in terms of the de facto government today, but the politicians use the church to achieve their purposes.

The church obviously uses the politicians to get done what they want, but at the end of the day, one is going to be the master and the other the servant. This is what we call syncretism. Syncretism is a word which is...

Roger's shaking his head. When we synchronize things, we get two things to run together. And so for those who are mechanically minded, and for those who still remember a stick shift gearbox, the gears were synchronized so that they would mesh together when you change the gears.

The old-fashioned gearboxes were not synchronized, and so they would grind, and you would have to get the two gears to run at the same speed so you can get the two to synchronize. Now, syncretism means meshing two things together that don't belong together.

We use it in Christian terms. And so what we do is we take things from the world, and we give it a Christian flavor, and we marry the things of the world and the things of the church. Music is an example.

And so modern music, modern Christian music, so-called Christian music, is simply worldly music that has been given a Christian flavor, and the two things are blended together. And we can go on and on and on.

There's all sorts of things that we synchronize. So it's syncretism. Now, here's one of the things you need to just think about. This idea of Christian nationalism is promoted by unsaved politicians and unsaved media personalities.

Now, just think about that. So if the unbelievers are promoting the idea, can it be a godly idea? Obviously not. Obviously not. Now, the roots of it, and let me just, I need to really just get through all of this stuff, but the roots of this thing is both has a Christian root, and it has a worldly root.

Dominionism and the Christian Nationalist Project

The Christian root is rooted in what we call dominionism. Dominionism teaches that the church will take over the world, basically. We will convert the kingdoms of this world, we will change the kingdoms of the world, and we will set up the kingdom of God.

Once the kingdom of God has been set up, Jesus will come back. Now, that's a clear contradiction of the scripture. The book of Daniel is very specific, that in the days of the last kingdoms, in the last empires, the last governments of the world, at the very end, Jesus will come.

It's a little stone. It comes against the great image, which represents the world's empires, and that little stone will destroy those empires, and it will be blown away, and you won't see it again. And that little stone, Jesus, will become big and will fill the earth.

And then Daniel is very specific in the interpretation of the vision, and he says that in the days of these kings, in the days of the last governments, God will set up his kingdom. God will set up his kingdom.

No church sets up the kingdom of God. We pray for his kingdom to come. We promote his kingdom by the preaching of the gospel. We must come back to the fundamental. I'm going to come back to this idea in a few moments.

Our job is to convert individuals. Our job is not to change the world. That's exactly what they had when Jesus came in the first instance. When Jesus came, the Jews had a semblance of being religious, but it was outward.

Their hearts were far from God. They had legislated every detail of societal life. What you ate, when you ate it, how far you could walk on a Sunday, how you did this, how you did that. Every detail of their lives were regulated by the religious authorities.

But did it make them good people? No, they crucified the Savior. And of those who lived in that country at that time, in Israel at that time, a handful believe on the Messiah. And so it's an attempt to change society through laws, rather than through the change of heart.

You know that in this church we don't have many rules. I don't want you to not do the wrong thing because you're scared of me. I want you to not do the wrong thing because your heart has been changed.

I want you to do the right thing, not because you're afraid of what others will say, but you do the right thing because your heart has changed. Everything else is a waste of time. Now, it has, so it has a Christian root.

American Exceptionalism and Christian Nationalist Ideology

It also has a root in the world in a thing called American exceptionalism. Anyone heard that term before? American exceptionalism is a few hands and a few shaking heads. It's not a new idea. It comes from the 1800s.

It was popularized in the 20s by, interestingly enough, the Communist Party in America. And the idea is that America is exceptional. America is unique in the world. And not only is America unique in the world, America is unique in God's economy.

And so America is superior to anything and everything else. And this is at the heart of the modern version of Christian nationalism. Because we are superior, we must enforce our views on everybody else.

Now, I don't want to be offensive, but I can remember, and it wasn't in my time, and I don't think it wasn't in Roger's time either, but there was a man who rose in Germany who said Germans are superior to everybody else.

And on that basis, we have the right to kill everybody else, including Jews and gypsies and anybody else, black people who were not Aryan, who are not white people, white Germans. This is the same idea.

And you say, well, how can you compare America to Hitler Germany? The comparisons are amazing. And I don't want to get into that in any detail this morning, because you may not be able to bear that. But here's the reality.

They are both driven by hate. Hate for anything that is not American, including minorities within America who may be American citizens. So it has two roots. It is born out of American exceptionalism, and it is the idea that America is a Christian nation.

America is a Christian nation. Now, I think that probably 80 percent of Americans, whether they're Christian or not, accept that idea. America is a Christian nation. And in the graphic, you'll see this little phrase, God and country.

God and country. And we say, well, that's good. That's right. Just think about it. Just think about the graphic. What we have is the Bible and the Constitution. The Bible and the Constitution stand side by side for those who are Christian nationalists.

The American flag and the cross stand side by side. This cannot be. We cannot put the cross and the flag next to each other. There is no comparison. Yes, the flag is important. The flag is important for a national identity.

It's under the flag that some of those who are here this morning have served in the armed forces and Blue is serving in the army right now. We have to defend ourselves, and we defend ourselves under the flag.

But the flag and the cross are two different worlds. They are two different things. The two things do not merge. So I want to, and this is where it really gets difficult, ask the question, when was America a Christian nation?

I'm not going to go into the history. There are books and endless books written on America's history. But I just want to ask you a few questions. And I met with a friend this week called Patrick, sorry, called Jordan.

And he actually brought us up in a conversation, and we weren't even talking about this particular subject. Was America a Christian nation when it killed the natives and took their land? Was America a Christian nation when it took up arms against the king, contrary to the clear teachings of scripture?

Was America a Christian nation when it enslaved in the most brutal way black people and treated them as just stuff that could be killed, beaten, sold, demeaned in every possible way? Was America a Christian nation when brother killed brother in the Civil War for political, for a political ideal on the side of the North, for economic reasons on the side of the South?

It was never about righteousness or justice. It was about politics and about money. Is America a Christian nation to this day when it discriminates against minorities, including people like myself who speak funny?

I've been discriminated against many, many times, simply even though I'm white, even because I don't speak American. Was America a Christian nation when it gave birth to every single cult in the world?

There is no Christian cult in the world that does not come out of America. Does that make America a Christian nation? And for those who are sensitive on these things, let me ask you this question. Was America a Christian nation on the 6th of January, 2021?

When the name of the politician and the name of Jesus appears on the same flag, the name of Jesus and the name of a politician can never be put side by side or be used in the same sentence. When was America a Christian nation?

Practical Tests for Nationalism as Idolatry

Now, let me speak about the practicalities. How do we know in these last two of the series, I've tried to get practical because here's the problem is we can listen to the theory and the philosophy and the theology and we say, well, yeah, yeah, I agree with that.

But when it comes down to brass tacks, the reality is that we may be guilty. And so, again, I want to be very specific, again, not to offend, but simply to get the point across. So when is nationalism an idol?

When you divide from other believers because they are not from the same party. People have left this church because Democrats are welcome at the Lord's table. I'm serious. That's a problem. When you feel superior to other Christians because they are not American.

Somebody else left this church. And the last time she spoke to me, she said, pastor, I appreciate your preaching. You know, was there, she heard the conversation. I appreciate your preaching, but I cannot receive from you because you're not American.

Folks, these are not isolated instances. These are things that are happening right now in churches all over America. People are being excluded because they don't belong to the right party. They can't join the church.

People are excluded from churches, from Christian churches, because they are not American. You're a Christian nationalist when your loyalty to your political views trumps your commitment to the Bible.

When your political views are more important than what the Bible says. You say, well, can anyone do that? People are doing this all the time, all the time. When you demand Christian laws be enforced on unbelievers.

I'm grateful that we, Roe versus Wade has been overturned, but Christians are rejoicing and saying, this is great because we're changing the world. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't change people's hearts.

In fact, it's going to make a very small difference on how many babies get killed anyhow, because we know exactly what's happening, how that pharmaceuticals will be shipped in and people will do DIY abortions and how people are being shipped to other states like California.

At the end of the day, it's not going to make any difference to the reality. But the real problem is it doesn't make any difference to people's hearts. And that's just one example. In fact, at the same time, not only does it not change people's hearts, it is contrary to the gospel or it opposes the gospel.

You say, well, how can having Christian laws be contrary to the gospel because of exactly what happened in Israel in Jesus's time? We're good. We don't have abortion. We don't have homosexuality. We don't do this.

We don't do that. We're great. No, you're still a sinner, but it creates a false sense of that we're okay because we have Christian laws. Now, please understand me. I would rather live in a country that has Judeo-Christian laws than a country that has no law.

Of course, that's comfortable, but it is not our God given right. The people in the New Testament, I'm going to come back to them in a moment, but the people in the New Testament, Jesus and Paul and the apostles lived under a government that was anti-God in every way, and yet they lived out their Christianity in those situations, and they never tried to change the world.

They simply tried to save individuals. You're a Christian nationalist when you support violence in order to establish your views. When violence becomes okay, whether it was in the Crusades or whether it was in the Civil War, or in any other war that was fought under the Christian cross, it's not Christianity.

You're a Christian nationalist when nationalistic songs are sung in the church, including my favorite hate, the Battle Hymn of the Republic. That's another story. I'll explain that. I have an article on that if you're interested.

You're a Christian nationalist when your preacher promotes a political party or candidates from the pulpit. There are people who shunned this church when I took over, because I refused to continue to preach the Republican Party, just naming it.

You're a Christian nationalist when you drape the cross with a flag. You're a Christian nationalist when you set the constitution next to the Bible. Oh, but the constitution is a Christian document. No, it is not.

The constitution is born out of humanism. It does not mention the name of Jesus. It only mentions the name of God in passing. Remember that the constitution, the First Amendment, does not enshrine Christianity.

It enshrines all religions and the freedom of religion, and I'm grateful for that. But you know that there are those who are saying, no, the First Amendment enshrines Christianity. Well, clearly they don't know their constitution, because the First Amendment says that the government, and I'm just paraphrasing, will do nothing to establish religion, will do nothing to establish religion.

In other words, the government allows any religion, it may not establish any particular form of religion. All right, let's move on. When the names of Jesus and a politician appear in the same sentence.

When the church displays nationalistic symbols, and that covers 99 of churches in America today. The last one, when you believe that God has a covenant with America. This is something that is very popular and being promoted by preachers and politicians all over America, that God has a covenant, that America has a covenant with God.

There is no record of such a covenant, and even if we made a covenant with God, God does not recognize that covenant. God has one covenant with one nation, and that is with Israel. He has never entered into a special deal with any other nation.

Now, folks, I don't have the time, but trust me when I tell you that I grew up and fought in the armed forces of my birth country. All of our politics was rooted in this understanding that we had a covenant with God.

In fact, a covenant was made on the 16th of December. I can't remember the year. Around 1880, 1890, the nation made a covenant with God. We were run as a Christian nation, Christian laws. The Christian pastor would be present at every occasion, whether you're opening a bridge or you're opening school.

The Christian pastor was there. Other religions were banned. All the laws were built on Christian ideas and ideals. It never made us a just nation. I think we all understand a little bit about what apartheid is, although there's a lot of misunderstanding.

But, folks, here's the problem. That same apartheid has come back into America today because we believe that we are superior because we are white Americans. And I understand that those who are present here this morning are maybe majority is not white.

Jesus’s Kingdom Is Not an Earthly Political Kingdom

So the question then is, what does the Bible say? Let's get to the word. John chapter 18, verse 36, a passage I've quoted over and over in the last three years. Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world.

I don't need to explain that to you. My kingdom is not of this world. In other words, his kingdom is not an earthly political or geopolitical entity. His kingdom is not Israel. And he had every opportunity to say, my kingdom is Israel.

No, he says, my kingdom is not of this world. It's not Israel. It's not Rome. It's not Greece. It's none of these countries. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight. So those who are fighting for American nationalism, by Jesus's definition, are not part of his kingdom because he says his servants don't fight.

And obviously he's speaking immediately of his own situation. He's speaking to Pilate. He's about to be crucified. And he says, if my kingdom was of this world, my servants would be defending me and rescuing me from your hand.

But he's also making a prophetic statement. And he's saying, my kingdom is not of this world. My servants would fight so that I should not be liberty to Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here. It's simple.

God's kingdom is a heavenly kingdom. And as we've said many times, it will become a physical kingdom. It will become a political kingdom one day when Jesus comes. And he will rule. And I believe that this is literal and this is physical.

That Jesus will rule from Jerusalem. And that the Old Testament will be the law of the country, of the world. And that we as Christians and the Jews who are saved will rule with him. That is what we're looking forward to.

But we're not there yet. So now his kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. It is in the hearts of the believers. Before we get to Corinthians, I did a study on Friday. And I looked at, I did a search for every verse in which Paul speaks about the government, speaks about Rome.

And I could not find one. When he mentions Rome, it's just a place. I'm going to Rome. When he speaks about Caesar, it's just a government. Not once does Paul ever, neither does Jesus, speak to the political situation in the world at the time.

Not once. Now I know that there are the detractors who are saying, well, preacher, you're preaching a political message. No, I'm not preaching a political message. I'm not preaching for Democrats or Republicans or libertarians or communists or whatever.

I'm preaching against these things. I'm preaching the gospel. And unfortunately, we need to speak about these things because these things have come into the church and have become an idol to the church.

But none of the apostles, nowhere in the New Testament will you find a single verse that speaks about changing the government, that speaks about taking arms against the government, that speaks about changing the laws.

The two things have nothing to do with one another. Yes, we're in the world, but we're not of the world. And Paul says we are subject to the laws. We know this, Romans 13, and Peter speaks about that.

We're subject to the laws. We keep the laws of the land as long as they don't conflict with the laws of God. We need to be good citizens. I see no problem in those who feel so called or so led to serve in the armed forces.

Personally, I have no problem with those who vote. There are some people who do. But when you vote, you vote according to your conscience. And if you don't vote, you don't vote according to your conscience.

But other than that, there is nothing in the Bible anywhere, and I can't emphasize this enough, there is nothing anywhere in the Bible that speaks to political action, except in the Old Testament. And this is the problem.

We don't live our lives by the Old Testament, we live our lives by the New Testament. Because if you go to the Old Testament, yes, the church and the state, if you will, were merged. Israel and their faith in God was the same thing.

The priests and the prophets and the kings were under God's authority. But we are not Israel. You see, here's something I just realized the other day. We have a thing called replacement theology, for those who know, which simply says that the church replaces Israel.

In other words, all the promises made to Israel now apply to the church. Israel is kaput, God is never going to fulfill his word to Israel, it's all the churches. That's replacement theology. But we now have a new form of replacement theology.

And I think you can guess if you're alert where I'm going. What replaces Israel? America. So all the promises, and folk, you'll see preachers preach from the Old Testament and say, this is the promise to Israel, and they claim those promises to America.

If my people who are called by my name, churches have it out front, they have it up on the wall. But it's a promise to Israel, it's not a promise to America. But we've replaced Israel, and whenever we read Israel in the Old Testament now, we read the United States.

Folk, that's crazy. All right, before I get too excited, 1 Corinthians 9, verse 19. We're making good progress. I'm not sure that we'll be in time, but we'll see. Folk, here's an important concept. Paul says, for though I'm free from all men, I've made myself servant to all, that I might win them all.

To the Jews, I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews. And to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law. To those who are without the law, as without the law, not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ, that I might win those who are without law.

To the weak, I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I've become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be partaker with you. What's Paul saying?

And of course, again, it's a controversial passage. It's a passage that people use to do all sorts of things they ought not to be doing. But the point is that he says, I'm not going to put up barriers that will limit my ability to preach the gospel.

And so if I come to a Gentile and I want to be too pernickety about my Jewish customs, will I be able to sit down with him and speak to him about the gospel? No, because his law says he may not have fellowship with a Gentile.

And Paul says, no, I will do what I have to do. Doesn't mean he says he's not going to break the law. He says he's still under the subject of the law of God. But if I have to sit with a Gentile to speak the gospel to him, I will do that.

At the same time, I don't want to offend the Jews that I might be able to reach everyone with the gospel. You remember, in fact, he found this young man called Timothy. I'm going to be speaking on Timothy next week in Zimbabwe.

I'm going through the two epistles of Timothy verse by verse. But he finds Timothy. Timothy is half Jewish. His mother is Jewish. His father is Greek. He's not circumcised. Paul circumcises him. Not because circumcision is anything.

Paul is very clear about that. In fact, Paul was sidelined by the Jews in Jerusalem because he said Gentiles don't have to be circumcised. But why does he get Timothy circumcised? So that Timothy would not be an offense to his Jewish brethren.

So that when Timothy preached the gospel to other Jews, they would not have an excuse to point the finger and say, but you're a Jew and you're not circumcised. That was the only reason. Now why is this important?

The Gospel Must Cross Political, Ethnic, and Cultural Barriers

It's important because Christian nationalism says that we live in our little ghetto called the church and America, and we will not reach out to anyone else. And in fact, what we have done and what the evangelicalism in America has done has put up a wall between evangelicalism and the rest of American society.

And liberals and Democrats need the gospel, just like conservatives and Republicans need the gospel. Jesus didn't just die for Americans. Jesus died for homosexuals. He died for abortionists. He died for every kind of person in the world, and he wants them to be saved.

But what has happened, folk, and we need to recognize this, what has happened in America is that Christianity has become, because Christianity has been married to a particular party, the rest of America says, well, I don't want to be a Christian because I can't be of that party.

And they will not receive the gospel because it's seen as a political thing rather than a religious thing, a Christian thing. Now, here's the scary thing. I had a discussion with someone, I think it was on Facebook, I can't remember, a couple of years ago.

And I said, but you're putting up a barrier to the gospel because you're identifying not as a Christian, but you're identifying as a Republican. And his response was, it doesn't matter because Democrats can't get saved.

Folk, God saved me. He can save anyone. Jesus died for everyone. And when we paint ourselves into a corner, whether it's an ethnic corner, and that's why I have problems with churches in Los Angeles that are ethnic churches, Korean churches, Chinese churches.

I understand the need for ethnic churches when people can't speak English. That's fine. But these churches are multi-generational. But they gather together, not because we are Christians, but because we are South African.

And there are South African churches in America. There's one in Wisconsin. I will not darken that place's door. The church is made up of all nations. In fact, there's a church a couple of miles from here called All Nations.

I can guarantee you it's not an all nations church. And I apologize if there are people from there watching. We might be all things to all men. We have one purpose, folk. And here's where we need to, and then I'm going to get to a revelation.

Jesus says, the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost. The church has no other mission but to seek and save that which is lost. Jesus had no political agenda. Yes, there was in God's plan thousands of years in the future.