What if......

Last night I took part in a long, challenging, and thought provoking conversation about our new President, Barack Obama. Some one asked me about my Facebook status which said "Romans 13:1. Whether you like him or not he is our President. Respect him and pray for him." In case you were wondering Romans 13:1 says, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." Which means that President Obama was appointed by God to be our President.

The conversation started out with this question, "What if he (President Obama) is the anti-Christ?" All during the election I have heard these accusations and brushed them aside. No one knows for sure who the anti-Christ is so it does no good to go around throwing around these accusations. But lets be honest and open minded about this, he could be. The anti-Christ could be any one of several individuals living today. But, again no one knows for sure. The main point my friend was getting to was, should we still respect and pray for him IF he was the anti-Christ. Then the answer would be no. That individual would be some one we should resist, if we are around for his reign depending on if you hold to pre or post Tribulation theology.

More hypothetical questions began to arise. Mainly about the control of government and a Christian's response to this. These are good and challenging things to think about but things we should not worry about. God is in control. The truth is we should follow the laws of the land until they conflict with God's laws. These laws would be unjust and we are to oppose all injustice. Martin Luther King Jr. said that the way you know a law is unjust is if it contradicts a higher law, i.e. God's laws. Christians must remember that our allegiance is not with America, not with republicans or democrats, but with King Jesus. We are citizens of heaven not this world. (Philippians 3:20) We are to respect and submit to our government while understanding that we are to submit to God above all.

The scariest hypothetical question of the night was this, "what if the government tries to destroy faith in God and the government tries to become god (lower case "g" on purpose). The truth is this attempt has been made before. We have seen kings and leaders demanding the worship of their people and killed all those that opposed them. So this predicament is not as far fetched as it sounds. However, we choose who and what we worship. The government can try to become god, can try to destroy faith in God but it will only happen if individuals submit to this evil.

As bad as these hypothetical situations sound, I say this...so what. The government can take what ever they want. My money. My possessions. Whatever. I came into this life with nothing and will leave with nothing. But they will never take my faith. My soul. And most certainly they will never destroy my GOD. They tried to tell Peter what to do when it came to Jesus, he said no and was crucified upside down. Stephen was told to stop preaching Christ. He said no and was stoned. Through out history we see countless numbers of martyrs have their lives taken by their government. And IF our government comes to that. Well then they can go ahead and load up the firing squad.

To live is Christ, to die is gain.