Christians Are Not of This World

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

It cannot be stated enough. Christians are not citizens of this world. We are merely here temporarily.

A verse popped into my inbox this morning from a Verse of the Day website that brought this home to me once again.

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” — Colossians 1:13

The dominion of darkness refers to the entirety of Satan’s kingdom that is being played out on earth and the heavens immediately surrounding it. Paul tells us that Satan is the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2).

1 John 5:19 states the following truth.

“We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”

Consider the strength of that statement by the apostle John. The whole world is held by the power of the evil one, aka Satan. What does that mean? It means that Satan controls the entire world. However, it does not mean that God is unable to exercise control. God is always sovereign. God allows Satan to control the world. If God allows this, He must have a good reason for doing so, correct?

I believe that it all stems from Satan’s desire to be like the Most High, as we read about in Isaiah 14. There, his five “I will” statements ended in “I will be like the Most High.”

We know that Satan fell because he harbored this belief and desire. So why didn’t God destroy Satan then since he had clearly given himself away? Why did God simply allow Satan to fall but stay in existence outside of the Lake of Fire that was created for Satan and his angels (cf. Matthew 25:41)?

God could have sent Satan immediately to the Lake of Fire, but I believe God had a better plan, one that would teach the entire universe an extremely valuable and eternal lesson. The lesson involved giving Satan as much leeway as possible so that he could attempt to bring his promise of becoming “like the Most High” to fruition.

God allowed Satan to gain control of this world (through the failure of Eve and Adam to obey God). That failure literally signed over the title-deed to earth from Adam to Satan. It would require “another” Adam to come and take it back and that could only be accomplished by living a perfect live, every step of the way, in total and complete submission to God the Father, as Adam was supposed to have done, but did not.

Once Satan fell, he kept watch on God’s movements and actions. Ultimately, God created a planet, with human beings, but Satan noticed that for these creatures, unlike all the previous creatures, God breathed life into them. These final additions to God’s Creation even had characters and similarities to the God of the universe! They could think, reason, experience emotions, and do all sorts of things. In fact, in many ways, they were like Satan before his own fall, but better! The one huge difference though was in the fact that God had not breathed life into any other created being, including Satan or the other angels.

This fact began to gall him. He grew to hate it because it proved God’s favor on these new creatures, called “man.” Satan then determined to throw a huge monkey wrench into God’s newly created perfection. In doing so, if Satan could successfully bring about the fall of humanity, he would actually wind up gaining the title-deed to this planet! If he could gain control of this planet and all that lived on it, he would be well on his way to becoming like the Most High. That’s exactly what he did and soon, he sat back, watching as God’s new creation changed ownership because of our first parents’ failure to obey God.

Since Adam was placed in God’s new Creation to tend it, care for it, and watch over it, it is clear that Adam acted in God’s stead, as overlord of earth. Yes, he answered to God, but Adam (and eventually Eve after creating her) had the ability to make his own decisions as caretakers over God’s planet as they saw fit.

But when Adam and Eve fell, they did more than simply sin. They actually rejected God and His leadership over them, exchanging His Lordship for another’s. Now, without fully realizing what had transpired, they soon learned that they had become slaves to Satan and sin itself.

But God was not taken by surprise. His plan of redemption went into effect to regain what Adam gave away. So God put His plan into effect by taking on the form of humanity (which temporarily clothed the majesty of His deity) in order to live as the Second Adam, but without sin. Because Jesus would never sin, but would be tempted by Satan just as Satan had tempted Eve, Jesus would gain the victory over Satan. Jesus then successfully regained the title-deed to earth (cf. Revelation 5). God could have immediately kicked Satan and his cohorts directly into the Lake of Fire, but He didn’t though.

Instead, God had a greater purpose. Yes, redemption of humanity, the planet, the heavens above was complete and being worked out in real-time. But Satan had sinned by making threats when he promised he would become like the Most High.

Because of that, I believe God has allowed Satan’s plan of dominance to continue. God is allowing Satan to do all that he can to bring his promises of Isaiah 14 to fruition. It was a triple-dog-dare-ya to God and God accepted.

This is why Satan is allowed to continue using earth and its denizens as though it was actually his for all time. He will do whatever he can to build a one-world empire over which his spiritual “son” Antichrist will rule. But if we look carefully at the final goal of Antichrist, it will be to essentially try to replicate Satan’s promises from Isaiah 14.

Further, Jesus told us that when He returns to this planet, every eye will see Him (cf. Matthew 24). What else will the entire world also see? The destruction of Antichrist! Thessalonians tells us that when Jesus returns to this earth, He will destroy Antichrist with the breath of His mouth (2 Thessalonians 2).

Though Satan was defeated at the cross, his final, real-time defeat will come at a future point and just as every eye will see Jesus return to this planet, every eye will also unmistakably see that Satan, in spite of his promises, his power, his ability to deceive, has absolutely no chance of becoming like the Most High! Nada! Zilch! Zero! He will fail miserably and when he does, God’s entire Creation will witness it!

What Satan whispered in his heart that caused him to fall before humanity took up residence on earth, will become his defeat that will be visibly and clearly displayed throughout all of Creation! Wow, are you excited about that?!

Colossians 1:13 noted above tells us that if we are truly saved, we no longer belong to this world. We have been transferred out of it into God the Son’s Kingdom.

But some might argue, yeah, but aren’t we still supposed to do what we can to save America? Isn’t that part of being a Christian?

Let me answer that this way. I find it fascinating that during the coming Millennial Kingdom where Jesus will reign for 1,000 years, the Bible says He will rule with a rod of iron (cf. Revelation 2:27). It would seem that even when Jesus physically rules, people will be always trying to push Him and this is while Satan will be locked into the bottomless pit during that same 1,000 years!

Some people living during the Millennial Reign will have lived through the Tribulation and will go into the Millennial Kingdom as saved individuals to become married and have children. Because these folks have not died yet, they will still have a sin nature and so will their children (Romans 5:12). That sin nature will often try to raise its ugly little head and Jesus will have to stomp it out immediately.

Even so, when Satan is released from the bottomless pit at the end of the Millennium (cf. Revelation 20:3), he will manage to deceive masses of people to follow him! Jesus will put down that rebellion and then the Great White Throne judgment will occur. It will be after this that Jesus will destroy and replace with new ones this earth and the heavens surrounding it. From that point onward, sin will never again infect any part of God’s new Creation. Everyone living then will understand that even when Satan was given every opportunity to become like the Most High God, he failed miserably. That will never be in doubt again. Ever.

Getting back to the present, folks, if we have been rescued out of the dominion of darkness (even though still here), what does that tell you? It should tell you that there are others who need to be rescued out of that same dominion of darkness into God’s wonderful Kingdom of Light.

We are here on earth, behind enemy lines. We are still physically here in Satan’s dark dominion, but we are actually walking around with Passports that indicate our true citizenship is not here, but in heaven.

God leaves us here after we become Christians to help rescue others out of Satan’s dark dominion. He does not leave us here so that we can become preoccupied trying to fight to get America (or any other nation) back. We have a mission to rescue other people by introducing them to Jesus. That is our mission in its totality.

Let me end this article by pointing out something that should make us stop and seriously consider God’s intent for us.

Take the time to read Ezekiel 38-39, known as the Northern Invasion. There is tremendous detail and we see a person named “Gog” who decides to attack Israel one day. So Gog gathers his troops and heads toward Israel. As soon as he steps foot on the Mountains of Israel, God goes into action. It is fascinating. Please read to see what God does to Gog.

In essence, note that God does all the fighting! It’s almost as though God steps in front of Israel does and deals with Gog personally, routing him and his forces bent on Israel’s destruction.

God takes on Gog and destroys him. God does it. Yet, there is this mentality that exists today that says we must fight for our rights, we must take America back. By doing “nothing,” we become complicit in its fall. But if our job is to rescue people out of Satan’s dark dominion, doesn’t that imply that we are rescuing people out of something that is going to fail eventually? As I think I’ve pointed out, the something that is going to fail is this world because it is Satan’s kingdom. Just like firefighters do their best to rescue people from burning buildings before they fully collapse, the Christians’ job is to rescue people out of Satan’s dark dominion by introducing them to Jesus and His gospel.

I’m not telling Christians to do nothing. I’m saying that rescuing people out of the dominion of darkness should be the Christian’s priority, above all things. If there is time left, then by all means, do what you can to straighten out America. My fear is that there is too much politicking today within Christian circles and not enough rescuing of souls.

We’ll talk more about this in upcoming articles. And by the way, we will be getting into Daniel 1 very soon

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective