About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman

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Unholy Alliances       

"Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.  And the LORD's anger burned against them" (Numbers 25:3). Christians, "do not be yoked together with unbelievers.  For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?  Or what fellowship can light have with darkness" (2 Corinthians 6:14)?  Yoke means to align, to fuse, or to join.  Yoking is historically seen when God's people are seduced or willingly align themselves with ungodly, self-promoting, power-starved politicians, thinking that such yoking will benefit their godly cause. 

Israel confirmed its covenantal relationship with God by saying "we will do everything the LORD has said" (Deuteronomy 19:8).  Israel seldom lived up to its covenantal vow by yoking itself with the ungodly.     

To promote his name, around 20 BC King Herod the Great began a massive rebuild of God's temple in Jerusalem .  It became a wonder of the world.  Although Herod's ethnicity wasn't Jewish, somewhere in past generations his family converted to Judaism.  The Roman senate appointed him as its client king of Judea in 40 BC when he gained favour with Rome through a political alliance.  In modern terms, Herod cozied up to Roman dominance to benefit himself.  In Biblical terms, he yoked himself with the ungodly to benefit himself. 

When Jesus began His earthly ministry, God's temple was called Herod's Temple, just one example of an ungodly yoke between Israel and Rome.  That angered Jesus. "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.  But you have made it a den of robbers" (Mark 11:17).  So Jesus pronounced Israel's fall.  "As for what you see here [the temple], the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down" (Luke 21:6).  In 70 AD sixty thousand Roman soldiers obliterated Jerusalem  and the temple as what was an act of divine judgement on Israel.  The very Rome Jews yoked themselves to, destroyed them.    

The church is now God's New Testament temple.  "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you" (1 Corinthians 3:16)?  Like Israel, God's people, His temple has often yoked itself with the ungodly, thinking it would benefit their cause.  It's happening with the present unholy yoking of Christians with an ungodly political movement in the United States and elsewhere.  Those claiming to be Christian are yoking or aligning themselves with self-promoting, power-starved politicians, thinking it will support their godly agenda. 

As with Israel, could judgment come upon that part of the church that is yoking with an ungodly regime?  It has before and can happen again.  "For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God" (1 Peter 4:17)? 

The Bible says little about democracies, but it says lots about ungodly governments and how we are to respond to them.  It's up to you to decide where to draw the line between how to support and how not to support such a government I've described.  It's a present debate, as it always has been.  As one who has had some political involvement in the past, I can't join, standing beside, openly promote and actively participate in an ungodly regime.  We need to seriously think through what the 2 Corinthians 6:14 yoking means to us.  Included in that thought process I ask.  "Does the church really need help from an ungodly administration to assist it in administering its godly cause?"  My answer is "no".

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