We have entered a moment in history where a great opportunity has been presented to the Church – an opportunity to display wise and sane decision-making. This display must first take place within our ranks before we will see a righteous change take place in our nation. This will offer people a stark contrast between Spirit-inspired solutions for the issues we are facing and what has been offered by partisan politics and its slave, a religious spirit.
The influence of religious and political spirits that have stumbled the potential of individuals and nations are now being seen as failures. People are suffering under the leadership of those who perpetuate those influences. If we, as followers of Jesus, do not manifest the wisdom of God in our personal lives and our communities of faith, our nation will become what Isaiah described when he wrote about Egypt submitting to deceiving spirits representing false gods – gods of deception and delusion that were leading the nation. This is important because to not make decisions based on the wisdom of God is not loving our neighbor as ourselves.
As a result of their foolish choice to follow and submit to evil, Egypt would experience a savage conquest by the Assyrians, internal civil war, and an extended drought that would decimate their food supply. Their foolishness would eventually cause them to fall under foreign subjugation. Because of the choices made by the nation of Egypt, “The Lord has sent a spirit of foolishness on them, so all their suggestions are wrong” (Isaiah 19:14).
The word “foolishness” has been translated as a work of distortion, deprivation, and perversion. Foolish people distort truth presenting error as truth and truth as error. They deprive people of justice and pervert the truth to accomplish their goals. This happens because biblical truth has been replaced with the rebellion of human wisdom. What was once stable will begin to collapse because foolish decisions led people to places of compromise where they became the arbiters of what is true and just.
A societal collapse caused by foolishness will become an opportunity for God’s intervention and redemption. This is always the underlying reason for the Lord giving people over to the sin of their foolishness. What some have mistakenly called the judgment of God is really Him giving us over to the consequence of our sin. It was never His intention. It was our choice. That consequence, when it runs its course, will create in us a hunger for the mercy of God that follows our repentance.
We have entered a season of great opportunity for the Church. Before we experience the fullness of that opportunity we need to first get our house in order before we try to change the course of a nation. If we can model the wisdom and mercy of God within our own ranks, we will become a magnetizing presence drawing people to a message of hope instead of the foolish and failed promises of the past that have kept us in an orbit of death and despair.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Garris Elkins
Featured Image by Sergio Cerrato – Italia from Pixabay
