Monday 3 August 2009

King of the Saints

They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: "Great and marvellous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! - Revelation 15v3

No one can deny that this world is a political mess. Very few countries can lay claim to having a godly leader who places an emphasis on the word of God and governs according to godly principles. Godly political leadership is surely an oxymoron.

Christians all over the world, but especially in the US, seem to be infatuated with human politics. If you visit any number of Christian internet discussion forums you will find politics on the hot list. You go to church and, especially in election years, politics is at the forefront of the discussions. In many churches the gospel must share pulpit time with politics. Christian friendship and fellowship can be determined by political stands.

It is a sad state of affairs when the body of Christ is divided over politics. It is tragic when brothers and sisters in Christ fight who they voted for and why. My mind starts wondering when I think of wars like the American Civil War where members of the body of Christ killed each other on the battlefield over political differences.

I think we have a key to why this happens in this section of scripture. Sometimes we can forget who our King is. I was recently reminded of a portion of a message preached by S.M. Lockeridge. This section has been converted into a video clip readily available on You Tube. It is called. “That’s My King!’ and he preached the message in 1976. I am not going to reproduce it here, but I would encourage you to look it up.

Bro. Lockeridge reminds us of who our King really is. While we are enjoined to submit to, honour, and pray for our political leaders we must remember that they are only our leaders because of where we live geographically. Yes, we must obey the laws and respect our leaders to be a good testimony amongst others, but our King reigns on a whole different level.

Jesus is the King of the Saints. We are unified as His subjects. While we must live in two realms, let us be careful that we don’t let the earthly kingdoms and our views on that divide us who are united under the King of the Saints!

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