And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Matthew 28:18 (KJV) Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin." John 19:11 (ESV) The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. Psalm 2:2-3 (KJV)
We often sing about Christ being the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Do we think as often about the institutions and agents through which he rules: the family, the church, and the state or civil magistrate?
The civil magistrate is God's servant, ordained by God to reward those that do well and to carry out God's vengeance on those that do evil (magistrate comes from the Latin meaning greater servant). [Romans 13:1-7]
The pastor is God's Shepherd ordained to teach and to feed Christ's flock (pastor is Latin for shepherd which itself comes from the Latin word to "feed") . The great commission given to the church is to go through out the world teaching people all that the Lord has commanded and baptizing them into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Parents are also God's servants, ordained to teach the next generation the fear of the Lord. Each of these three institutions are strategic strongholds in the establishment of Christ's kingdom and the propagation of the gospel, and each, as a consequence, are subject to Satan's most desperate attacks. The authority of parents to train their children in the fear and admonition of Lord is the means by which the gospel is propagated from generation to generation. If Satan can nullify the authority of parents to train their children it will destroy the family as effectively as Pharaoh's murder of the male infants in Israel. If Satan can induce the nations of the earth to blunt and pervert the civil magistrate so that those who do well are punished and those that do evil are rewarded, he will lead many people into sin as effectively as King Ahab led Israel into idolatry. If Satan can stop the church from preaching the gospel in its entirety and constrain her to preach it only as it applies to some areas, he will corrupt the pure milk of the word as surely as the Pharisees perverted scripture and thereby kept many out of the kingdom of heaven.
Indeed this is exactly what we do see when we look all around us. The church is prohibited from applying scripture to every area of life. She is told she can preach all she wants about Christ, just don't apply His word to the civil magistrate. In 1992 The Church at Pierce Creek in Binghamton, NY lost its tax exempt status for applying the scriptural qualifications for civil rulers to the presidential candidates (see When A King Speaks Of God; When God Speaks To A King: Faith, Politics, Tax Exempt Status, And The Constitution In The Clinton Administration).
The attack on the family is even more fierce.
In May 1949, the Bureau of Educational Research for Ohio State University published a test for children in grades 4 to 7 titled The Wishing Well. It contained statements in the form of wishes. The students were to check the ones that applied to them. This test contained wishes such as:
- I wish I did not feel so different from my parents.
- I wish I knew how you can believe that God is always right and at the same time believe that you should think for yourself.
A few months earlier the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization, often referred to by its initials as UNESCO, published a series of booklets titled, Towards World Understanding, in which we read, "Kindergarten has a significant part to play in the child's education … not only can it correct many of the errors of home training, it can prepare the child for membership in the world society."
A few years earlier in 1946 the director of the World Health Organization (Brock Chisholm) published an article in which he said that "For many generations we have bowed our necks to the yoke of the conviction of sin. We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents, our Sunday and day school teachers ... our priests ... and others with a vested interest in controlling us. " He went on to say that one of the objectives of the new education was the eradication of the concept of right and wrong as the basis for training children. (The Reestablishment of the Peacetime Society in Psychiatry, Vol. 9, No. 1, Feb 1946)
This man conspired against the Lord's Anointed. All the people who follow in his footsteps (they seem to congregate at places like the World Health Organization, the various child protective agencies, and the local government school systems) are also among those in Psalm 2 who are attacking the Messianic reign of King Jesus and seeking overthrow the Kingdom of God.
Today Christian parents are the point of attack by those who are fighting against King Jesus. These conspirators (in the words of Psalm 2) realize the supreme importance of who controls the training of the next generation. In the words of the same author:
The most important thing in the world of today is the bringing up of children.
On that point Dr. Chisholm and I agree. Herein lies the incredible irony of feminism which on one hand claims that intelligent woman can't reach their full potential by a life spent bearing and raising children and yet at the same time honors those who direct the rearing of other peoples' children - especially parents who are teaching their children Moses' version of history and not Jeroboam's (i.e. these golden calves delivered you from Eygpt). So when you see and hear stories like the Utube video above or the attempts to outlaw homeschooling and Biblical spanking in California, just remember the rest of the story:
He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. (Psalm 2:4-12)
Who do we fear more? The wrath and sore displease of the CPS or that of the Almighty God and King of Kings?
In whose hands are we truly safe? The hand of the One who has overcome the world (John 16:33) and from whose palm no one can snatch us, or the hands of those who will be smashed in pieces like pottery before an iron bar?
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