Hi Staff
I couldn’t help but notice this post of yours and so I went off and listened to the YouTube video you mentioned.
What strikes me about the message by Carter Conlon is that he is confusing Israel with other nations. When God deals with Israel He deals with Israel according to Israel and not according to another nation. In seeking to find even one person to stand as a hedge to serve God’s purposes in showing mercy to Israel, God still judges Israel according to Israel. As the Law was given to Israel long before it became a nation in the land everything that Israel undertook in the land came under the overarching requirement of God according to Law. This included business transactions as well as religious duties.
In speaking about nations, whether in the east or the west God deals with them according to their individual activities and not according to His Law. No doubt some nations have been exceptional in their season in that they have openly determined to live according to God’s Laws and for that reason and the Gospel of Grace, these nations have know times of blessing which have surpassed other nations. Two obvious examples of this are the USA and Britain. Yet despite this blessing one cannot assert that a nation is anything other than a nation. No nation is Israel except Israel.
Mr Conlon says that the ministry of the church is to stand in the gap, or to be the hedge that will withhold the hand of God. This and his failure to see that God does not reckon Israel as “amongst” the nations; nor that the nations are not as Israel, leads him to believe that the purpose of the church is some how collectively equal to the “one man” who God looked for in Israel in the time of Ezekiel. Surly the problem with any nation is firmly fixed in that nation. God does not judge a nation “unrighteous” according to the Law; He judges a nation according to its activity without the Law. God always judges righteously so He will judge according to the deeds of the nation. Individuals who have rejected the Gospel of Grace are judged no less the same way. The church however is judged according to Christ Himself. This is true of all churches and may be evident in one or all nations at any moment in time.
Standing in the gap for the church in a nation, or the nation itself must be a matter of God’s leading. Who is able to go before God and ask Him to stay His hand, when He has said “I will judge”, except the one He has raised up for that purpose? If such a one is raised up no doubt God will stay His hand. But to say that the ministry of the church is to be that “man” is wrong. The church is to be light and salt to the world. If the church looses its light and salt how will there be any restraint on wickedness of nations and men, or how will they believe or how will they see? I personally don’t comprehend the real focus being on a nation, I see it as being on the church in that nation. Persecution does not produce revival of the saints; revival of the saints produces persecution. Revival with a few will through persecution become revival with the many. We should not confuse a nation with the church in that nation no matter what that nation vainly imagines of itself.
