The Church’s Role in Establishing Justice
One of the great challenges to becoming a healthy Christian with a full orbed Biblical worldview is to comprehend the fullness of God’s attributes, virtues, and characteristics. This demands faithful study of the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation.
I’ve been blessed to train my 13 children for the last 30 years to read through the Scriptures each year. The purpose was to inculcate in them the knowledge of the God of the Bible, who He was, is, and always shall be in the fullness of His character. I would encourage every father to set up the family altar and do the same.
If the church of the living God is not faithful to present the whole counsel of God, the Apostle Paul warned, “After my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” (Acts 20:29, 30). Moreover, the church will misrepresent God to the world. We will end up bearing false witness against Him. The church will also become anemic with an over emphasis of certain virtues and characteristics at the expense of others.
The American church for the most part has emphasized the love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness of God. I do not make light of these blessings, for none of us would be here without them. However, if most sermons preached today determined the diet of the church, most of the church has been more accustomed to desserts, rather than the meat and potatoes of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
The Apostle Paul taught a need for spiritually maturity “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food” (Hebrews 5:12).
Spiritually and morally, this has damaged the immune system of the church to combat the truth decay, moral anarchy, and civil tyranny afflicting our nation by refusing to be salt and light in our poor fallen world.
Tragically, one of the major erroneous accusations against the abolitionist movement that seeks to no longer regulate baby murder, but actually end it, is we hate sinners and criminals. Why this fallacious accusation? We merely seek to fulfill God’s demand for justice in order for our land to be cleansed of blood guiltiness.
Misguided Christians unduly influenced by the pro-life movement have pitted God’s justice against God’s mercy. God’s justice and mercy are not mutually exclusive. They are not enemies of each other, but allies as we seek God’s Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
We know no babies are being butchered in heaven. No one is parading their sin like Sodom in heaven. No one is confused about the differences between a boy and a girl at the Throne of Grace. God desires that reality in heaven to manifest itself on earth. God demands His church pray, believe, and act upon these truths in to fulfill the Great Commission in our poor-fallen world.
The Order of God
Micah 6:8 states, “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
The order of God is critical in this battle to abolish abortion and advance God’s Kingdom in the earth. There are certain principles that are to lead and certain virtues that will follow. For instance, God’s Word declares in Proverbs 28:13, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” Confession and the forsaking of sin are seen leading as mercy follows.
Even in the beloved Psalm 23, we find goodness and mercy following not leading. Most Christians desire goodness and mercy to lead us in life. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It is the battle, which leads us in life. Each Christian in the church is to be led by the Spirit of God. Keep in mind, the Spirit of God led Jesus into the battle and afterwards angels came to minister to Him. The battle led Him, and mercy followed.
The same thing is true with signs and wonders. Signs and wonders follow not lead. Jesus said it is a perverse generation that seeks signs, but the Scriptures also attest that signs and wonders followed the faithful preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
Micah 6:8 reveals the great Biblical principles and the triad virtues that are summed up in the law, the prophets, and most importantly, in the life of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is evident in the Gospels that our Lord was on mission to establish the “Micah Mandate” in the New Testament. Jesus boldly confronted the religious leaders of His day for neglecting these Kingdom directives that transcends covenants.
He denounced their religiosity for rendering useless the virtues of justice, mercy, and faith, which the mandate requires. He cried out, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone” (Matthew 23:23).
In pondering these truths, one wonders what Jesus would say to the modern American church concerning these very issues. Have we pursued money, reputation, and comfort at the expense of justice, mercy, and humility before God? Do we by our silence, neglect, and abandonment of this culture of death strengthen the oppressors in our society and prolong the suffering endured by the victims of their oppression?
Do the poor, the needy, the afflicted, and those being led to slaughter take a low role as a priority in the Church? Has the pursuit of theological escapism, cultural retreatism, and a “feel-good” religion within the church help to contribute to the demise of America?
In our pursuit of being relevant to our crooked and perverse nation, have we become increasingly irrelevant? Has the church traded being the “salt of the earth” for being the sugar of the earth in our beleaguered nation and inadvertently promoted truth decay? Has our mismanagement of divine priorities dimmed the light of Christ in our darkened world? Are we violating and rendering useless the “Micah Mandate” like our religious predecessors? I believe it is vital we answer these questions honestly and make the necessary adjustments to fulfill the “Micah Mandate” to abolish abortion in our day.
The term “Micah Mandate” was a phrase first coined by President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1917, the New York Bible Society asked the former president to inscribe a message to our boys going to fight in WW1. He graciously complied. He started his text by quoting Micah 6:8.
This passage facilitated the theme he wanted to impart to those who were about to risk their lives on the battlefields of France and Belgium. The following is the brief message he encouraged the soldiers with as they went off to war:
“The teaching of the New Testament is foreshadowed in Micah’s verse, “What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
To do justice; and therefore, fight valiantly against those who stand for the reign of Moloch (The demon idol associated with child-sacrifice) and Beelzebub on this earth. Love mercy: treat your enemies well, suffer the afflicted, treat every woman as though she were your sister, care for the little children, rescue the perishing, and be tender with the old and helpless.
Walk humbly; you will do so if you study the life and teaching of the Savior, walking in His steps, and remember, the most perfect machinery of government will not keep us as a nation if there is not within us a soul, no abounding of material prosperity shall avail us if our spiritual sense is atrophied.
The foes of our own household will surely prevail against us unless there be in our people an inner life which finds its outward expression in a morality like unto that preached by the seers and the prophets of God when the grandeur that was Greece and the glory that was Rome still lay in the future."
The word for justly that Micah utilizes means, “The way prescribed, the rightful action, or the appropriate mode of life.” God demands proper weights and balances. He hates partiality. God loves justice. His throne is supported by righteousness and justice. He is displeased when justice is not manifest in the earth. Thus, He expects his creatures to act justly.
In the pursuit of abolishing abortion by establishing justice, it is important to note our nation has committed a two-fold abomination. Proverbs 17:15 states, “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.” How should the church respond to such injustice?
Amos 5:21-24, along with other similar passages, point the way, "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I do not savor your sacred assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them, Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings. Take away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments. But let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream."
We must remember that abortion is a counterfeit worship system. It is a bloody sacrament offered to a false idol, Moloch. This is why part of the true worship of God is not just songs at a church service, but the establishment of justice and righteousness in the gates of our land.
Finally, one of the reasons why Christ came to earth is to lead justice to victory in every nation. He came to destroy the works of the Devil, chief among them, are lies and murder. It therefore behooves all those who follow the Lord to establish justice and abolish all abortions, chemical and surgical, in our defiled and polluted land! Then perhaps, God will extend mercy for our children and grandchildren.
Keep pressing on saints to the high call and prize and God bless you as you do in Jesus’ name!
IN KING JESUS’ SERVICE,
Rusty
Here is a video of this message preached recently in PA: Watch Here
