1 Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5 For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:
6 The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.
9 Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison:
10 Which perished at Endor: they became as dung for the earth.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna:
12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
13 O my God, make them like a wheel; as the stubble before the wind.
14 As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire;
15 So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.
16 Fill their faces with shame; that they may seek thy name, O LORD.
17 Let them be confounded and troubled for ever; yea, let them be put to shame, and perish:
18 That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.

AMEN!

Our Prime Minister needs prayer for wisdom. And those in opposition need prayer for the same. May God be pleased to spare us the rule of those who would seek to destroy our rights and freedoms.

But there is something that seems to literally jump off the pages of various Christian / fundamental and even Reformed web-sites and blogs. The collective sigh of so many Christians makes one wonder just how real is the faith of those - especially in the Reformed camp - in the doctine of God’s sovereignty.

Did God fall asleep in the days leading up to the election? Or worse yet, is He dead? Of course not!  But to read the despair emanating from the keyboards as the end-time prophets click away at their messages of doom and then post them on their websites, (which were ostensibly established to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ), one could be forgiven for thinking that not only is the end of the world here, but so is the active working of Almighty God!

Our confession of faith (1689 LBC) states this about God.

“God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree.”

Now either we believe that God is sovereign or we do not. And if God is not sovereign, then He really isn’t God.  Christians need never cease to rejoice because contrary to this ever-changing world, we have an unchanging God who is absolutely sovereign over all His creation … and yes that includes presidential elections in the United States. America may consider herself a super-power, but God holds and exercises supreme power.

 And Psalm 75:6,7 says “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.  but God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another”.  If the American voters have chosen to put another man in the presidential office, then let us never forget it was God who oversaw the election and thus there are reasons, known only to Him, as to why this was part of His sovereign will.

Personally, I can see a lot of good coming out of Obama’s election.  I think the open hostility towards Christians will serve several positive purposes.

(1) It should drive the Christian church to earnest, Christ-honouring prayer, (very little prayer today is that)

(2) It should move the Christian church to do some earnest soul-searching and bring it to repentance,

(3) It should take the focus of the Christian church from a worldly-minded focus to a heavenly-minded one,

(4) It should fill the hearts and minds of the Christian church to pray for revival,

(5) It should make Christians much more earnest and fervent in their personal witnessing and desire to see sinners brought to Christ,

(6) It should make the Christian church look to the Lord and His Holy Spirit to accomplish the work of building the church, rather than relying on worldly programs and sinful practices.

Now if anything could bring all this change about in the Christian church of Canada and the U.S., then surely we can see the hand of the Lord in it!  Let us never forget, that “Elijah’s God still lives, and answers still by fire!”  Let us pray and labour, serve and love the Lord with all our heart, soul and might.

And when Obama has fulfilled what God has purposed for him, God will put him down and set up another.  And all the glory will be the Lord’s.  And the all the praise will be to His sovereign grace.

“Not called!” did you say?  “Not heard the call,” I think you should say.  Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin.  Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help.

Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there.  Adn then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.

But seriously, parachurch groups can have all the above qualities.  And if they do not actually manifest them, they often inherently possess them.  That is because they usually are a result of concerned Christians seeing a lack in some area of activity in the local church.  While it is commendable that Christians see that, and want to do something about it, (that’s good!) the danger is that far too often parachurch organizations tend to become ‘issue-oriented’ and often it is ‘single-issue-oriented’ (that’s bad).

God’s purpose in this world is to be worked out in and through His Church - the local church. And while I would be in total agreement with those who believe that many, many churches have departed from biblical doctrine and practice (and it usually goes in that order), that does not mean that God has given up on His church.  Just because there is a high divorce rate in our society, does not mean we give up on the institution of marriage; and so it ought to be with the real and perceived problems with local churches.

The Church is mandated to proclaim the “whole counsel of God”.  It cannot be single-issue focussed without abdicating its responsibility to its Head - Jesus Christ.  Let me give two examples:

(1) A local church cannot focus on evangelism and neglect the discipling of new converts.  Many “evanglistic” parachurch organizations only “do evengelism” and almost totally ignore the equally important ministry of discipleship.

(2) Neither can the Church focus only on doctrinal teaching / apologetics and not give equal attention to practical teaching that gives down-to-earth practical helps for its members to put those great doctrines into practice.  Parachurch organizations tend to do one or the other.

Briefly then, while I thank God for the good that does come from those few parachurch organizations that understand their own limitations, are accountable to the elders of a local church, and do not in any way detract from the authority and mandate of the local church as God’s chosen way to carry on His work in the world, I am also very concerned that due to the over-emphasis of ’single-issues’ by parachurch organizations, that many well-meaning Christians are unwittingly undermining the real work of God, and in fact, may be doing more harm than good.  And one of the saddest manifestations of this is that, all too often, Christians often show more loyalty and zeal towards parachurch groups - which are created by fallible men and women, and take their involvement in them more seriously, than they do to the local church - which was instituted by God.  And that can never be good.