By James Wilson
By secular standards Herod the Great is one of
the greatest kings Judea ever had. He
produced public works from aqueducts to arenas, kept most people working, and
had enough foreign policy savvy to keep Roman occupiers at arms’ length. Of course prophets reject Herod as an enemy
of God because he kills any who cross him and puts himself in the place of God
for all practical purposes. Jesus tells
his disciples to reject the influence of both Herod and the Pharisees in Mark
8:14-21. He rejects these influences
because they are idolatry, which is nothing but the elevation of our creations
onto a throne reserved for the real Creator.
The
Pharisees – dominant religious authorities – were no better. Their idolatry was to elevate their law,
inspired by Ten Commandments but bloated to nearly seven hundred commandments
of their own invention, to obsessively cross every T and dot every I they could
imagine. When Jesus heals on the Sabbath
– in fulfillment of God’s Old Testament admonition to show mercy at all times –
the Pharisees demand an accounting. He
violates their law – which they worship – mistaking it for the God they reject.
In
the Garden of Eden the first people disobey God by eating forbidden fruit
despite His admonition to leave it alone.
But their sin is to place their will to know and understand on the
throne of the One who already does.
Idolatry goes back a long way and it keeps on returning to the
prominence it demands for itself in California.
During California’s Gold Rush we placed our
will to strike it rich ahead of God’s commands to love one another, treat one
another honestly, and steward the environment of the most wonderful place on
the planet. We slaughtered Native
inhabitants – and any Euros we considered to be rivals – while we stole claims
and goods from one another and raped the environment to get at the gold. We enslaved Natives, Blacks and Asians even
after California was admitted to the Union as a free state because we decided
our legal rights (the 13th Amendment had not yet become law in 1850)
trumped God’s word that His Son sets all free.
Today the state government – through taxpayers – funds thirty thousand
annual abortions; we place our love of self-determination in all things above
the overwhelming witness of science that every pregnancy is against all odds. California leads the nation in abortion and
suicide disproportionately to our share of the population; this is the fruit of
militant self-determination. That’s
right – abortion AND suicide.
Today
we adopt laws denying young people seeking to escape same sex attractions the
right to counseling and – in the same spirit – adults the right to work if
advocates of small fish or opponents of fossil fuels are offended. We mandate the end of privacy for school-aged
young people in misguided efforts to help the gender dysphoric feel better
about themselves despite the fact these measures help none. And we preside over an economy so
dysfunctional through over-regulation that five of the ten most difficult US
cities for young people seeking work are in California. This is the fruit of idolizing the human will
to make things and people better. This
is sin of which we in the Rain and Reign Coalition repent on behalf of
ourselves and the state we love. But
what do we need to do; what is the practical outflow of repentance after
prayer?
That outflow should re-focus our attention on
God Himself and His vision for our state – any state – as a place that
maximizes opportunity for all and places a premium on permitting each of its
citizens to “work out your own salvation in fear and trembling,” as Paul writes
in Philippians. The outflow of that is
to stop honoring the expressions of our idolatries from the Gold Rush to
politically correct thought and from the slaughter of the unborn to the
excesses of the environmentalist movement.
Our laws should reflect stewardship of the human and physical
environment without the manipulation of it.
Thus ends the influence of Herod.
Those
churches and leaders who absent themselves from public affairs because their
concern is otherworldly need to get a clue: this is the influence of the
Pharisees – don’t look and don’t touch because you might make a mistake. Jesus calls us to walk on water; Peter is
repenting when he begins to sink and calls on His Lord to save him.
What
is required of us is both difficult and risky.
But it is not complex and it is our participation in the Kingdom of God
in California if we choose to believe.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living
As Ambassadors of Relationships and The
Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by
e-mailing him at
praynorthstate@charter.net
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