The Turncoat

"...the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, 'All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Away with you, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only shall you serve."' ~ Matthew 4: 8-10


To Christ's human nature, this must have been a very tempting moment. What man, save for Jesus Christ, could have resisted such a proposition? Satan was offering the literal control over the entirety of human society: world domination. How many power hungry conquerors have dreamed of such an end? How many scheming politicians are, at this moment, sacrificing their lives and souls for such a goal? What's more, this was the very reason Jesus was on the Earth. He came to take the throne of this world and be our rightful King (Acts 2:30, Revelation 19:16), and here it was offered to Jesus for nothing more than a quick act of worship. In short, Satan was trying to tempt Jesus into skipping the pain and torture of the cross and to simply take his throne prematurely. His flesh must have been yearning deeply to avoid that painful fate. Thankfully, our wise and good King resisted this temptation and thus made a way for all of us to have eternal life under His lordship.


The subject of this post however, is not the amazing character Jesus exemplified in this account. It is the intriguing fact that Satan seemed to be under the impression that the kingdoms of this world were his to give. Jesus did not correct him on this claim, he simply rejected his offer. This leads me to believe that the kingdoms of this world do belong to Satan. What does that say about power on our fallen planet? If you want it, you've got to go to the source. Additionally, what does that say about the powerful? Can we rightly assume that those in positions of real power have compromised their character and allegiance in a way our Saviour did not? I think so.


Doesn't this make so much sense, though? Look at the way in which our societies interact with one another. The standard is violence and death, diplomacy is only tried when it can serve the selfish interests of the nation state. There is no self-sacrifice or Christlike humility when it comes to international politics. Some of you are probably thinking, "Of course not! Do you know what kind of world we live in? Nuclear weapons, terrorism, communists!" You're right, we live in a cut-throat and dangerous world run by evil men. This is exactly the kind of world you would expect to find after realizing that the figure behind it all is, in fact, the father of lies.


The point is, many of us are under the impression that there are good countries fighting bad countries. That the United States, for instance, is a Christian nation and therefore our wars are fought to make the world a better place. I submit that, if this were true, we would have responded to 9/11 much differently. A truly Christian nation, first of all, would probably never have been attacked in such a way. Second, if it were attacked, it would have sought to forgive and understand the attacker, to know their motivation for the attack and to take steps to create a relationship in which the attacker would not have that motivation any longer. Did not Jesus command us to "Love your enemies" and to "Pray for those who persecute you." Instead, the U.S. bombed and invaded two nations, creating more enemies for herself and making the situation much worse for everybody. That was not the mark of a Christian nation, that was the mark of a satanic kingdom. The response was understandable from a secular government with a tradition of militarism, but the tragedy was and is just how supportive Christians are of these wars of aggression which claim the lives of so many of God's children.


Christians need to understand that they live in an occupied world, that this place is a beachhead of rebellion against the almighty creator God, and that this will not change until Christ returns and destroys the kingdom of the Devil and sets up His righteous throne by His own hand. With this understanding, we are free from having to justify wars of aggression from a biblical perspective. We no longer feel the pressure to make our secular governments fit into the mold of a holy God's righteousness, because they never could. Instead, we can renounce our spiritual citizenship in Satan's kingdom and live as Godly expatriates among those who have yet to see the truth. We can become ideological saboteurs and try to convince others to withdraw their support from the works of the devil which have been so cleverly disguised. We can become Babylonian Turncoats and betray the kingdom of our birth, swearing allegiance to the coming Kingdom where we have been reborn.