Dear Friends,
The story of the current French election is the story of our times. What people expected would happen, didn’t happen. Imagine a situation where an election is held in Australia and both Liberal and Labor are defeated and neither party is eligible to run the country. This is the situation in France. Both the ruling political parties are out of the race and one moderate candidate and one right-wing candidate are competing for the Presidency. It makes for fascinating viewing – as did Brexit and Trump!
It also makes for fear and worry. Many French commentators are seriously concerned; the very same sort of commentators who were seriously concerned about Trump and Brexit. In the face of this, what should Christians do?
Christians ought neither fear nor worry, but cultivate patience.
I have been working through the book of Revelation with our Wednesday morning congregation and it has been a delight to unveil the mysteries and see Jesus. We have gazed time and again behind the curtain of the world to the spiritual powers that besiege our society and are opposed to the growth of God’s Kingdom.
In Chapter 17 we meet a prostitute dressed in purple and scarlet, riding a 7 headed beast with horns, drunk on the blood of God’s people that she is drinking from a golden cup. She rules over kings and nations and people and guides them away from God with her own authority and tempting words. What on earth is she meant to represent?
Well, a careful reading of the chapter reveals that she is all that calls people to organise themselves independently of God. She is everything that works against God’s Kingdom and for the destruction of the Gospel and those who hold true to it. She is a vast power that has turned and is turning everything against Jesus.
An example of her power was summarised by Professor Haidt of NY University when he said, “The rising intolerance of secular fundamentalists is akin to a new religion rising to consume or eradicate all religion.” In such a movement the woman with the golden cup is rising up to destroy clear Gospel preaching and replace it with vacuous philosophies that promise much and deliver destruction.
We could list a myriad of people and activities that all have the scarlet clad woman as their driving force but the message of revelation is not “expose evil” but “be patient because Jesus wins!” Christian people don’t put their trust in society to fix society’s problems. They patiently wait for the return of Jesus who will replace this world with a perfect new world and thus fix all its problems.
To this end, in response to the promise of Jesus that he is coming soon, we pray the words of Revelation 22:20, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
In Christ
Nigel