CRAIGforCONGRESS
Missouri's 7th District, U.S. House of Representatives

  
 
 

 

Congressional Issues 2014
SOCIETY
Who Is Your King?
Congress should:
  • recognize that Christ, not man, is King
  • recognize that Christ is our only King (Executive), our only Lawgiver (Legislative), and our only Judge (Judicial); see Isaiah 33:22
  • abolish all pretenders to the Throne
  • obey the commands of the King
This campaign for "Liberty Under God" -- a movement to restore "the American Dream" of every one dwelling securely and Peacefully under his own Vine & Fig Tree -- represents a true break with the status quo, a change as momentous as that described by Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, upon hearing of Locke's rejection of the doctrine of "the Divine Right of Kings": 

Never before had I heard the authority of kings called in question. I had been taught to consider them nearly as essential to political order as the sun is to the order of our solar system.

Vine & Fig Tree really is a new "paradigm," a "Copernican revolution," a radical way of looking at politics and society. It is one step beyond the radical vision that motivated America's Founding Fathers. It is a vision so old that it appears to be utterly unprecedented.

The vision of Vine & Fig Tree gives energy and hope to those who work for it. It inspires dedicated action. 

American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876, 
NY: Harper & Row, 1980, p. 114-15.

Lawrence Cremin writes:

For Rush, who was present in the Congress as a representative of Pennsylvania, the events surrounding the creation of the Republic marked nothing less than a turning point in the course of human history. "I was animated constantly," he reflected in later years, "by a belief that I was acting for the benefit of the whole world, and of future ages, by assisting in the formation of new means of political order and general happiness."11
___________________ 
         11. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, edited by George W. Corner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948), p.161.

Vine & Fig Tree is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization that will contribute to the Glory of God and the greater happiness of mankind. It will animate future leaders and captivate the hearts and minds of many.

The Vine & Fig Tree vision is one of a society with no kings. No Presidents. No governors.

Only the King of kings.

If a nation will not be governed by the King of kings, then that nation will be under tyrannical despots.

The 25th chapter of Matthew's gospel can be found in "The Jefferson Bible." Some people mistakenly believed that Jefferson cut all miraculous and supernatural events out of his "Bible." Read a discussion of this here. Or just read Matthew 25:

Matthew 25:31-46

{31} "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. {32} "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.
{33} "And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
{34} "Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: {41} "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
{35} 'for I was hungry and you gave Me food; {42} 'for I was hungry and you gave Me no food;
I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink;
I was a stranger and you took Me in; {43} 'I was a stranger and you did not take Me in,
{36} 'I was naked and you clothed Me; naked and you did not clothe Me,
I was sick and you visited Me; sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.'
I was in prison and you came to Me.'
{37} "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? {38} 'When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? {39} 'Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' {44} "Then they also will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?'
{40} "And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.' {45} "Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' {46} "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

If you claim to be a Christian, you're claiming to be a follower of "Christ," a word which means "King."

Are you obeying your King? Every Word He says? If you're not obeying every Word, if you're just picking and choosing like a smorgasbord, then you are your own king.

Have you visited the sick or the imprisoned?

It's not enough to give money to an institution, although that's a fine thing to do. Imagine going to a doctor's office and instead of the doctor seeing you, he gives the receptionist a "How-to" book to give to you.

Jesus wants to talk to you, personally.

There came a point in my life when I realized I had never seen a person who was hungry, thirsty or in need of clothing or shelter.

Then I realized the suburban neighborhood in which I had grown up was self-consciously designed to shield me from such people. Whole cities are zoned in such a way that the "good people" never meet those  "undesirables" who are in need.

At that point I visited a Catholic Worker House of Hospitality, eventually moved in, and lived there for nearly ten years.

There are three extraordinary things about this passage (Matthew 25).

First, our eternal destiny would appear to depend on our good works, not just on whether we "went down the aisle" or "signed a decision card." Notice that the "good works" described by Jesus have little or nothing to do with ecclesiastical bureaucracies, hierarchies or rituals.

Second, any Christian who makes an effort to perform all of the works of mercy described in Matthew 25 will find his or her life turned upside down. After all, these works are not to be performed just once in a person's life. But even doing them just once will transform you.

Third, if Christians as a Body would take this passage seriously, it will transform culture.

Today America seems to be divided between the "Makers" and the "Takers."
• people who create goods and services (and jobs)
• and those who feel they are "entitled" to the fruits of the labor of the other 50%.

King Jesus says you have two options:

  • Give some portion of your time and income to the poor, the needy, the sick, and the imprisoned -- even if they (presently) believe they are "entitled" to more than you give them
  • Or else the government will take twice as much from you, and give some of it to the poor, sick, and the rest to the burgeoning prison industry.

If the poor are integrated into productive society, and begin to embody the character traits of productive people, they are less likely to engage in crime.

You will be poorer and less secure if you disobey King Jesus and ignore the poor, the sick, and the imprisoned.

If you are a Maker rather than a Taker, obey King Jesus, and make an appointment with one of the Takers to treat the Taker to lunch. You can share your values with the Taker and transform the Taker into a Maker.

It's a sure bet the government is never going to do this.

Private Christian Dollars could have pre-empted ObamaCare and transformed the world.

Compassionate Conservatism?

Consider the failure of many conservative Christians to follow King Jesus:

  • Abortion: a mother is being pressured to murder her own child by status-conscious parents, a greedy "doctor," and/or an irresponsible "boyfriend." "Compassionate conservatives" threaten to imprison or execute the mother. Conservatives initiated government regulation of adoption to prevent children from falling into the hands of dangerous non-conservatives. Like blacks.
  • Immigration: poor peasants seek to flee a drug-cartel controlled government and pursue happiness in America. Compassionate conservatives say, "Your papers, please," and threaten imprisonment or forcible deportation (kidnapping).
  • Someone is accused of a crime. Conservatives believe the police. They disobey Jesus, and will not visit criminals in prison.
  • There is a connection between true compassion and the Bill of Rights. A truly compassionate person does not initiate force against others, nor ask the government to do so.
  • Jesus shed his blood to make atonement for our sins, but "compassionate conservatives" believe more blood must be shed: "capital punishment."
  • Conservatives are willing to annihilate millions of innocent non-combatant civilians rather than work for nuclear disarmament. Jesus, speaking through the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah and Micah, said we should beat our swords into plowshares.
  • Conservatives believe in the "depravity of man," but not the depravity of conservative politicians.
  • Conservatives rightly oppose euthanasia, but won't allow those with terminal pain or other medical problems to use "illegal" drugs. "Give strong drink to him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that are of heavy hearts." Proverbs 31:6   
  • Conservatives will spend taxpayer money imprisoning a pathetic dope-smoking loser rather than helping an addict become confident and successful.
  • Conservatives rightly oppose homosexuality, but will not help anyone with AIDS for fear of appearing soft on homosexuality.
  • Conservatives favor armed invasions of mideastern nations like Iraq, killing thousands of people who didn't like Saddam Hussein any more than conservatives did.
  • I haven't yet covered issues M-Z.

The "Works of Mercy"

You Really Want Us to Keep Our Faith to Ourselves?

Compare and contrast personal service from the heart vs. government-coerced "national service"

The Nature of Christ's Kingship

Some Christians believe Jesus is not yet "the Christ" (the King), and won't be the King until after His "second coming." It's easy to prove this is a mistaken and unScriptural idea:

The Twelve Days of Liberty -  Day 7: Kingmas: Christ = King
The Twelve Days of Liberty -  Day 9: Christocracy

Christ is a King - This is His Kingdom

The Nature of Christ's Kingdom

Why Have a King?

Hodge, A. A.,  Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, (1887) 285–287.

In the name of your own interests I plead with you; in the name of your treasure-houses and barns, of your rich farms and cities, of your accumulations in the past and your hopes in the future,—I charge you, you never will be secure if you do not faithfully maintain all the crown-rights of Jesus the King of men.

And if Christ is really King, exercising original and immediate jurisdiction over the State as really as he does over the Church, it follows necessarily that the general denial or neglect of his rightful lordship, any prevalent refusal to obey that Bible which is the open lawbook of his kingdom, must be followed by political and social as well as by moral and religious ruin.

If professing Christians are unfaithful to the authority of their Lord in their capacity as citizens of the State, they cannot expect to be blessed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in their capacity as members of the Church. The kingdom of Christ is one, and cannot be divided in life or in death. If the Church languishes, the State cannot be in health, and if the State rebels against its Lord and King, the Church cannot enjoy his favor.

If the Holy Ghost is withdrawn from the Church, he is not present in the State; and if he, the only “Lord, the Giver of life,” be absent, then all order is impossible and the elements of society lapse backward to primeval night and chaos.

Who is responsible for the unholy laws and customs of divorce which have been in late years growing rapidly, like a constitutional cancer, through all our social fabric? Who is responsible for the rapidly-increasing, almost universal, desecration of our ancestral Sabbath?

Who is responsible for the prevalent corruptions in trade which loosen the bands of faith and transform the halls of the honest trader into the gambler’s den? Who is responsible for the new doctrines of secular education which hand over the very baptized children of the Church to a monstrous propagandism of Naturalism and Atheism? Who is responsible for the new doctrine that the State is not a creature of God and owes him no allegiance, thus making the mediatorial Headship of Christ an unsubstantial shadow and his kingdom an unreal dream?

Whence come these portentous upheavals of the ancient primitive rock upon which society has always rested? Whence comes this socialistic earthquake, arraying capital and labor in irreconcilable conflict like oxygen and fire? Whence come these mad nihilistic, anarchical ravings, the wild presages of a universal deluge, which will blot out at once the family, the school, the church, the home, all civilization and religion, in one sea of ruin?

In the name of your own interests I plead with you; in the name of your treasure-houses and barns, of your rich farms and cities, of your accumulations in the past and your hopes in the future,—I charge you, you never will be secure if you do not faithfully maintain all the crown-rights of Jesus the King of men. In the name of your children and their inheritance of the precious Christian civilization you in turn have received from your sires; in the name of the Christian Church,—I charge you that its sacred franchise, religious liberty, cannot be retained by men who in civil matters deny their allegiance to the King. In the name of your own soul and its salvation; in the name of the adorable Victim of that bloody and agonizing sacrifice whence you draw all your hopes of salvation; by Gethsemane and Calvary,—I charge you, citizens of the United States, afloat on your wide wild sea of politics, THERE IS ANOTHER KING, ONE JESUS: THE SAFETY OF THE STATE CAN BE SECURED ONLY IN THE WAY OF HUMBLE AND WHOLE-SOULED LOYALTY TO HIS PERSON AND OF OBEDIENCE TO HIS LAW.

“I charge thee in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and of Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed the good confession, that thou keep the commandment, without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in its own times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable; whom no man hath seen, nor can see; to whom be honor and power eternal. Amen” (1 Tim. 6:13–16).

Article reprinted from the Reformed–For His Glory blog.

Reclaiming the Crown Rights of King Jesus - Washington Insider Report

Who are the Reformed Presbyterians known as “the Covenanters”? - Bailiesmills RPC

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