RENDER UNTO CAESAR
Render Unto Caesar
“And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar‘s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at Him”
Also, see Matthew 22:21 and Luke 20:25
This verse is used by some, to give them an “excuse” not to stand up for Biblical Truth amidst the evil that is gaining ground in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
They say that we are not to get involved, or even to be knowledgeable about what is being done in our name in this “free” country, using our tax dollars. They say that we should just close our eyes, keep going to church, and trust God to take care of the “politics”. They claim it is the end times, and Jesus will be coming for His Church before things get too uncomfortable. After all, would God put His People through anything REALLY bad?
These people think that they are giving honor and praise to God by “trusting” Him with the situation. They think that they are blessing Him higher and higher, because they are focusing on Him and ignoring “the world”. They believe that is what Jesus was saying in these three verses above.
But, if we truly KNOW Jesus Christ as we are commanded to know Him, in the Word, we would see this situation entirely differently. Jesus saw everything around Him in the Light of Truth and through the Eyes of The Father. Lies, deception, abuse of people, treachery, ….all these things pierced His Heart.
We must look at our times, not in comparison to the times when Jesus was on earth, but as a whole, throughout the Word. When His Chosen People were fighting for their Promised Land, when He led them to throw off the yolk of oppression, and when He gave them times of peace, or punished them Himself through various means. It is a long and varied history of God inter-reacting with His people through Love and Justice.
The only way we can know how He wants us to react to our situation is to know Him, His Character, His Great Love, and His Justice.
He never coddled His people….in the Old Testament or the New Testament. There is absolutely NO evidence that He will shelter His Church from pain and suffering. In fact, He has told us we will have tribulation, but He will be with us.
If His people didn’t stand up for His Word, or if they didn’t obey exactly, they paid a great price….sometimes death for someone and sometimes captivity for the whole nation.
When Grace and forgiveness came through Jesus Christ, God’s Justice, and His plan of Redemption for the world didn’t change. That is a part of it. He still is a perfect and a Just God and Judge. We will each be judged on our own merits, but based on our relationship with Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We are in the End Times, but we don’t know how long they are. I believe they began when Christ was on earth, because He said He would come back before this generation (this age) passes away….before the New Covenant is totally fulfilled. He also said that the anti Christ was already in the world at that time.
So, how long before the Great Tribulation and other events, we don’t know. Only God knows. One thing is perfectly clear in the Word, and that is that Christians will be here for the Great Tribulation, and we need to have our relationship with Jesus Christ ABSOLUTELY FIRM for that time.(See my Category, “Lighting the Darkness of pre-trib “rapture” deception for Biblical truths of that) Deceptions are growing both greater in consequence, and more difficult to discern, and we need to draw daily closer to Our Lord to gain the discernment and wisdom from Him that we will need.
There is no way to hear from Him concerning these things if we aren’t aware of them, and most certainly if we don’t have our minds open to hearing from Him (the Holy Spirit) about things of that nature.
We cannot afford, in these times, to have any part of our lives and our world closed to His Still, Small Voice! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!!
When Jesus told His disciples the Truth (above), He wasn’t saying that Christians shouldn’t have anything to do with the world around them, He was opening the door to a complex Truth that many are not wanting to hear.
He was saying that we must separate our relationship with the world, and other people, from our relationship to Him. Separate the horizontal from the vertical.
Some Christians are joining with the unsaved world, in placing the government of whatever nation in which they live, in a vertical relationship. They are “rendering to Caesar” that which should be only for God. They are looking to their government to teach them how to think. We are told not to “offend” this group, or that group. We are told what to eat, and what not to eat. We are told when and how to pray, and to not offend anyone by praying to Jesus Christ. We are told what fuel to use in our houses, and what kind of cars to drive. We are told that if our situation fits “in the slot”, we will receive income, without working, and many are compromising their lives and that of their families, in order to fit into that “slot”. We are shown that we need not take responsibilities or common sense for our lives and that of our family. That responsibility belongs to the corporations from which we buy our products. We and our children are discouraged from being responsible, working, thinking, and responding on our own. We should always respond with the government-taught “procedure”, or be punished by that government.
We are told what moral standards to subscribe to, and they are certainly not what God has told us. We are being brainwashed into thinking the government will do everything for us, as long as we “obey” it.
In short, we are told, and encouraged, to treat the government as we should treat GOD!!!
Where does that leave our relationship with Our Lord? The people who subscribe to the above protocol have no choice but to place God on the horizontal level. He becomes secondary, even though they give lip service to Him being their Lord. He is blocked out from so many areas of their lives, because of their complacency and fear, the government has become their provider, their wisdom, their protector, and,…..very near to being their Saviour in their minds, as they ignore the evil that is manifesting itself in that entity.
As dangerous as this is now, it will be so much more dangerous when the Beast of the Tribulation comes and “shows himself” to be God. These people will be deceived because of their self-imposed blindness, and are doing the direct opposite of what they thought they were doing by ignoring the evil around them.
Yes, Christians, we MUST be educated as to what is going on, and if we are to endure to the end, we must keep Caesar and God in their rightful places!!!!
Live in the Light of Our Lord 