“My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight…” (John 18:36)
The fact that Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world is enough to keep me out of the world’s politics. If I participate in politics, then I am casting a vote of confidence in the system’s ability to solve the world’s problems. But frankly I have no such confidence because I know that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).
Politics has proved singularly ineffective in solving the problems of society. Political remedies are nothing but a Band-Aid on a festering sore; they do not get at the source of the infection. We know that sin is the basic trouble in our sick society. Anything that fails to deal with sin cannot be taken seriously as a cure.
It becomes a matter of priorities, then. Should I spend time in political involvement or should I devote that same time to the spread of the Gospel? Jesus answered the question when He said, “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60). Our top priority must be to make Christ known because He is the answer to this world’s problems.
“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4). This being so, we come to the daring realization that we can shape national and international history through prayer, fasting and the Word of God more than we could ever do through the ballot.
A public figure once said that politics is by its very nature corrupt. He added this word of warning: “The church should not forget its true function by trying to participate in an area of human affairs where it must be a poor competitor…It will lose its purity of purpose by participating.”
God’s program for this age is to call out of the nations a people for His name (see Acts 15:14). Rather than making people comfortable in a corrupt world, He is committed to saving people out of it. I should be committed to working with God in this glorious emancipation.
When the people asked Jesus how to work the works of God, He answered that the work of God is to believe on Him whom God had sent (see John 6:28,29). This then is our mission—to lead men to belief, not to the ballot-box.