Redeeming a Nation (Timeless Teaching)

by Philip Quenby

  If true worship involves giving ourselves, it follows that it must primarily be about service. For us to serve effectively, we must recognise and accept where we stand in relation to God and our fellow man. This requires a proper appreciation of our place in the scheme of things, and an understanding not only of our worth in the sight of God but also of the fact that others have equal worth. St Paul makes clear that there is no room for conceit : “For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith that God has given to you.” (Romans 12:3). Later he emphasises the point: “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of lowly position. Do not be conceited.” (Romans 12:16).

  Not everyone is called to serve in the same way. There are reasons for the differences between us. These should not be the occasion for point-scoring or competition, but should rather cause us to wonder at the wisdom of the one who made us: “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.” (Romans 12:4-6).

  The important thing is that the gifts we have been given should be used, and used properly. They should be deployed for the purpose that God intended and they should be exercised in a way that brings glory to his name: “If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.” (Romans 12:6-8).

  Transformation.

  True worship and selfless service will lead inevitably to transformation. We are called to be revolutionaries, not conformists. This involves an act of will on our part and an act of grace on the part of God. Once we choose no longer to conform to what is bad, then God will cause us to be renewed: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2). The transformation and renewal will be mental and spiritual in nature, with the result that: “Then [we] will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2).

  This bears investigation. St Paul is saying that conformity to the ways of thinking of the world around us affects our minds so that we are no longer able to reason clearly. It removes us so far from God’s way of thinking and acting that we cannot begin to comprehend what he is doing, still less how and why he acts as he does. Only when we take our blinkers off can we then test God’s will, see that it is “good, pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:20) and therefore approve it. Hence we must break the link to “the pattern of this world” (Romans 12:2) that holds us in thrall. To do this, we have to be far more critical in judging the things that belong to our culture which are not in accordance with God’s laws. It is perhaps unrealistic to imagine that we can blot these out altogether but we can choose what to watch on television, we can choose whether to go along with certain kinds of behaviour and we can decide to reject ideas that are inconsistent with our beliefs. Above all, we can choose to ask for God’s help in renewing our minds.

  St Paul describes things that are at one and the same time evidence of what transformed thinking and a transformed life look like and the means by which these comes about:

  • “Love must be sincere.” (Romans 12:9).

  • “Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.” (Romans 12:9).

  • “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.” (Romans 12:10).

  • “Honour one another above yourselves.” (Romans 12:10).

  • “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.” (Romans 12:11).

  • “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” (Romans 12:12).

  • “Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” (Romans 12:13).

  Some of these are easier than others. To “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15) demands empathy with and concern for others, but many will find that this injunction does not tax them too greatly. It is another thing entirely to be told: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” (Romans 12:14). More often we are apt to react as did Winston Churchill, who in 1941 said of the Germans: “We will mete out to them the measure, and more than the measure, that they have meted out to us.” Yet although it does not come naturally, we must do all we can to staunch our propensity to revenge, self-righteousness and self-justification. These things merely stoke conflict and tie us to the ways of the world.

  Conclusion.

  With each year that passes our society draws further from the attitude of mind and heart that is needful if we are to worship God and serve as he wishes. Our relentless self-promotion and self-indulgence are amongst the symptoms of a culture that gives in to the self at every point, but finds it almost impossible to give of the self. Our own desires are increasingly the object of our worship and the one who made us is forgotten. All thought of self-sacrifice falls by the wayside. It is an ugly spectacle and one that is set only to grow worse unless urgent steps are taken.

  Change cannot come about unless we alter what is in our hearts. Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord has told us what to do: “Stop bringing your meaningless offerings! ... wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:13 and 16-17).

  What we believe affects how we behave. The practical outworking of the Christian faith involves surrender and service: service of God and service of our fellow men. For every act of service that is required of us, there is a corresponding enabling gift from God. The trick is to identify our gifts and then to make sure that we use them for godly purposes. We must sit on our hands no longer. For sure, life can be a slog. Everyone experiences times of pain, hardship, discouragement and despair, but we must stick it out and see it through as did previous generations. It will involve sacrifice on our part, but there is not a shadow of a doubt that, of all the sacrifices that might be asked of us, this is the one most worth making.

  54. A New Jerusalem

  Amos 5:21-27.

  Key word: justice.

  Britain was still at war with Germany when a report by the Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services was published in 1942. It is known from the name of the Committee’s chairman as the Beveridge Report and became the basis of the post-war Welfare State. Ambitious in its scope and breathtaking in its vision for a country with a long slog to victory still ahead, its aim was no less than to banish forever what it called the Five Giants: of Illness, Ignorance, Disease, Squalor and Want. The language was almost messianic. Now the nation was fighting not merely to defeat Nazism but to usher in a new era of justice. The hope engendered gave echo to Blake’s words and spawned a conviction that there might after all be a new “Jerusalem builded here, amongst these dark, satanic mills.”

  A start was made almost straightaway through the Education Act of 1944, which for the first time compelled local authorities to provide free schooling for all children, and threatened imprisonment for recalcitrant parents. After the landslide victory by the Labour Party in the post-war election of 1945, further steps were implemented, leading to creation of the National Health Service and nationalisation of large sectors of the economy. In the course of time, a wide degree of consensus was reached across the political spectrum as to the role of the state in making a new society. It was to be more equal than before, with the hard edges of capitalism smoothed by unemployment pay, a state pension, free health care and free education for all.

  Ar
guments continue to this day about whether, in its pursuit of this dream, Britain missed the chance to re-tool and re-equip her industry and thereby forfeited greater long-term prosperity. Certainly, there were some in America who looked askance at what they saw as the misuse of Marshall Aid. On this view, Britain was featherbedding her workers rather than doing what was really needed for post-war reconstruction.

  At home, too, there were concerns about whether the country could afford generosity on this scale. Right from the start, national insurance contributions proved inadequate – the initial assumption was that use of the National Health Service would decline as the nation’s health improved: the elasticity of demand was not foreseen. Neither was the tendency for some foreigners to come to England for free medical treatment. As Britain slid into the turmoil of the nineteen seventies, the utopia seemed to be turning distinctly sour.

  God’s politics.

  Attempts to create just societies abound. They have been inspired by all manner of creeds and credos, covered the entire gamut of political views and been both religious and secular in their inspiration. Lollards, Diggers and Levellers all provide examples from English history of groups whose egalitarianism was self-consciously grounded in Scripture. Elements in modern-day socialism, too, have Christian roots. Others, most notably Marxism and its offshoots, deny the very existence of God. Yet progressive policies have by no means been a purely left-wing phenomenon: the world’s first social insurance programme was implemented not in democratic Britain but in autocratic Germany, not by a socialist regime but by the decidedly reactionary Otto von Bismarck. Whatever the inspiration and its expression, though, our longing for justice is a constant.

  We know that God yearns for justice, too. His desire is that we should “let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24). Time and again we are told to “defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17, also forming a prayer to God in Psalm 82:3). The Lord instructs his people to “follow justice and justice alone” (Deuteronomy 16:20). The devil, however, is in the detail. Each society needs to work out for itself how to translate this into the circumstances of its own time and place. God provides the template of ideas and the desire in our hearts, but Scripture does not prescribe a detailed programme. In this Christianity differs markedly from Islam, for example, where the Koran contains rules and regulations for all aspects of daily life that many Muslims claim apply to every age, regardless of changing circumstances.

  We face a different situation and a tougher challenge. At various stages Christianity has tended to be identified with particular political standpoints. Modern instances include the so-called Religious Right in America or the Christian Democracy movement in continental Europe. Yet when we look dispassionately at what the Almighty says in the Bible, we are driven to the conclusion that, much as we may wish it to be otherwise, God’s approach cannot be shoehorned into any human philosophy or the manifesto of any political party. The Lord’s vision for humanity is simply above and beyond anything that we can conceive. It straddles and surpasses the narrow confines of our imagination. It goes far beyond all slogans and electioneering. Elements of it surface from time to time in most mainstream parties, but none are able to realise its fullness. We would do well to remember this in our political discourse: no man and no party have a monopoly on wisdom.

  Christianity is intensely political in the sense that God’s concern for the world and its people demands engagement with the issues of the day. It is distinctly apolitical in the sense that it should not be identified solely with any one standpoint, nor constrained within the bounds of any organisation but the church. We are called to give effect to the whole of God’s Word in all its richness and variety, not to pick and choose those parts that conform to our own prejudices and pet schemes.

  What God is concerned about is not form but substance, not outward show but inward disposition, not whether we wear a particular badge of allegiance but whether we have hearts that seek the things which he esteems.

  God’s religion.

  This emphasis applies equally to religious affairs. In the days of Amos, the Israelites continued to perform the rituals prescribed in the laws of Moses. They would therefore have been astonished to be told: “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.” (Amos 5:21-23).

  There are echoes in this of God’s differing reactions to the sacrifices made to him by Cain and Abel: “Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour.” (Genesis 4:2-5). The book of Hebrews clarifies the reason why this was so: “By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did.” (Hebrews 11:4). It was not that one type of sacrifice was intrinsically better than another, merely that Abel’s heart was right with God and Cain’s was not. Our motivation is of the utmost importance.

  The Israelites of Amos’ time probably thought that they had avoided one of the traps into which Cain fell. Their sacrifices involve “choice fellowship offerings” (Amos 5:22), whereas Cain did not bring the best of his produce, only “some of the fruits of the soil” (Genesis 4:3). This bringing of the firstborn, the choice offering and the “lamb without spot or blemish” (Leviticus 22:21) is important only to the extent that it evidences a state of mind, however. The real issue is that “if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:7).

  The fact that the attitude of the heart is what matters, not the form of the sacrifice, is emphasised again when God says: “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings for forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?” (Amos 5:25). They did not. Israel’s right relationship with God was never founded primarily on sacrifices. It was based instead on obedience.

  Far from having the right attitude towards God, the Israelites have become idolaters: “You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god – which you made for yourselves.” (Amos 5:26). Whilst keeping all the outward forms of religion, they have therefore infringed the most basic of God’s laws in the Ten Commandments: to “have no other gods before me ... [and ] not make for yourself an idol” (Exodus 20:3-4).

  We have also become idolaters. We have become a society that elevates form over substance. Political correctness has taken the place of a search for truth. Slavish adherence to a welfare system put in place over sixty years ago has taken the place of proper engagement with the real social justice issues of the present. An ideology of equality regardless of merit replaces relationships based on love for God and for our neighbours. This is far from what God means when he asks for “justice [to] roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24).

  God’s rewards.

  The fact that God concentrates on substance rather than form should cause us daily to examine our hearts and to reconsider whether what we do and say is really honouring to God and in conformity with his laws. God is not religious in the sense that we often tend to use the word. Jesus had no time for the organised religion of his day: “do not pray like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matthew 6:5-6).

  The only reward that the hypocrites receive is such pleasure as they derive from being seen by men and judged by them to be religious –
they will receive nothing from God. Whilst men may account them righteous, God does not. He sees things differently: “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7). Reward from God comes for those whose hearts are in the right place.

  Correspondingly, those who do not do right will be repaid for their wrongdoing. The Israelites are told that their continued apostasy has a price: “‘Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,’ says the LORD, whose name is God Almighty.” (Amos 5:27). As for religion, so for justice, truth, mercy, forgiveness and all the other things commanded by God. There is a price to be paid by people and by societies which do not seek these things. We are paying that price at this very moment.

  Conclusion.

  We need to ask ourselves: in what ways do our individual conduct and the behaviour of our nation fall short of the justice and righteousness for which God longs? An honest evaluation will not assume that we must be achieving the desired result just because we have a Welfare State, nor because we have laws against discrimination, nor any of the other things that form the panoply of modern life. These are but forms and outward show. If the inner disposition of our hearts is wrong, they will never bring about justice and righteousness. Neither should ways of doing things be accepted uncritically merely because they conform to the prejudices of the day. We must heed the warning that God gave his people when he brought them out of Egypt: “Do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd” (Exodus 23:2).