Rev. James Dick
The Webster Dictionary defines idolatry as “the worship of idols or excessive devotion to, or reverence for some person or thing.” God forbids idolatry, ‘you shall have no other gods before me’ Exodus 20:3.
We have idols in our society for national identities and others for political ideologies and institutions. Little gods, which the electorate and elected alike want to please; at all costs. We see our politicians sacrifice loyalty to King Jesus on the altars of these gods to great praise and adulation from the electorate.
In recent months there has been more concern about political institutions and ideologies (e.g. unionism, nationalism and the European Union) than God ordained marriage and the lives of the most vulnerable: infants in the womb. Protest has been replaced with silence and apathy. Offence has been taken at procedure not being followed rather than the seriousness of legislating to violate the 6th and 7th Commandments. Pragmatic decisions have been made to keep politically beneficial agreements in place. Power has been chosen over piety.
But is this not the natural outworking of our representative democracy? These politicians who we might rightly criticise, may represent us more than we would like to admit. Have we reduced the Kingship of Christ to having the right view of marriage and abortion? Do we support candidates and parties whose policies are not informed and shaped by God’s word? Have we voted for the lesser of two evils? Are we happy to compromise in order to win, rather than be faithful and lose? Have we put our political preferences above our moral obligations to King Jesus?
In this excerpt James Dick shows that idolatry in all its forms is a national problem, sin that has entered every area of life. There is only one way to remove national sin and idolatry from our nation; ‘Serve the Lord with fear.’ Psalm 2:11.
Civil Rulers serving the Lord (Rev. James Dick, 1842 - 1916)
The kings and judges and governments whom God mercifully invites to “be wise” are not learning wisdom; they are not serving the Lord with fear; they are not kissing the Son; they are continuing to brave the kindling of His wrath and courting speedy destruction. They seem to think that the precedents for national indifference to Christ’s authority are now so firmly established, that He must give up all His claims and leave the nations to their own way. His authority over the nations may have been useful once, but it would be superstition to recognise it now. National disregard for Christ’s authority has grown into an almost venerable custom in the popular estimation; and the idol of political expediency, which immoral custom has put in the place of the Divine law, is worshipped by both rulers and ruled, with few exceptions, as the nation’s God. Even the great body of professing Christians either consent to the idolatry and join in it or, which comes practically to the same thing, they think it is hopeless to attempt its abolition. And so the nations become more and more hardened in that sin which is an invariable and essential element in their public policy.
Persistent sin may sear the national conscience and destroy the sense of obligation, but cannot diminish the obligation itself. God’s command here to kings to “serve the Lord with fear” is no less binding now than it was from the beginning. It has been forgotten by the nations but never for a moment by the Governor among the nations. It expresses the will of the King of kings with as much freshness of solemnity and interest, to those who are wise enough to understand it, as if it were uttered in an audible voice from heaven this very hour in every place, and parliament, and senate upon earth. “Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings.”
Having seen that this 2nd Psalm is applied in the New Testament to the hostility of the rulers of Jesus Christ we do not need to prove that the command, “Serve the Lord with fear” is addressed to kings and rulers respecting official homage to Christ as Mediatorial King, to whom the Father has given all nations for His inheritance. There would be no force in the mention of official titles if the command were meant only for their private life. Moreover the true import and application of the command can be at once determined by a reference to the evils against which it is directed. The kings are setting themselves and the rulers are taking counsel – that is, in their official character and making use of their official power and influence they are consulting how not to serve the Lord. This is their sin; their duty is exactly the opposite of this. This command requires them in the same official capacity to serve the Lord. And this is, we think, so obviously the meaning that we wonder it has ever been questioned. Nothing but the credulity of error could believe, and nothing but the ingenuity of error could ask us to believe, that God addresses kings as kings, when condemning their rebellion, and that He addresses them only as private persons when He requires them to cease their rebellion. It is quite clear that in the same official capacity in which they have been opposing Christ they are commanded to change their rebellion for faithful allegiance and spontaneous service...
...His dominion is not mere physical control such as he exercises over earth and sea and air, or over the sun, moon, and stars in the their courses. If it were only this there could be no national sin. No national action could be morally wrong, because the nation in that case would not be required to observe any fixed moral standard. And He could not punish any nation for taking its own way if He does not require it to take His way, or even requires it not to take His way, according to the position taken by many professing Christians who hold that “religious equality” is only political justice. Nor is His dominion merely the authority of a holy Creator and Law Giver .... It is expressly said that God “gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church.” That is, every creature in heaven and earth, and under the earth, is placed under his dominion to be subservient to the accomplishment of His purposes as God’s Anointed Mediatorial King. From the Scriptural doctrine of Christ’s universal Lordship we can understand the nature and the extent of the service which nations are required to render to Him. He is their King, possessed of absolute authority over them, the rightful Lord of every person, everywhere, at all times, in every relation, and so the rightful Lord of all the persons in a nation when they are joined together in the capacity of rulers and ruled...
... That every act of national policy should be an act of obedience to that law of Christ which is broad enough to cover every human relation and every human action, is the ideal of national duty frequently prescribed in Scripture, and the ideal of national glory frequently predicted...
... To realise the practical recognition of Christ’s authority now, in a nation like our own, would require a sweeping moral revolution. A nation newly sprung up would have much to do in the effort to comprehend all its detailed duties to the Anointed of God. A nation that has for many generations been proceeding on wrong principles and withholding its strength from its Divine Head, has all to do and much to undo. A complicated system of idolatry has grown up, and grown old, around the ventral idol of political expediency. The worship of that idol has been sanctioned and almost sanctified by the prevailing custom of the nation for two hundred years. It will be difficult to abolish it now. It is hard to pull up a tree that has struck its roots deep and sent them out far into the earth. As people have come to consider it a right thing, and even a holy thing – for they plead liberty of conscience for it – to effect an entire separation “between civil duty and religious belief,” it will be difficult to uproot their convictions and prove to them that there can be no proper discharge of “civil duty” at all, unless there be proper “religious belief ” to shape the motives, determine the ends, and choose the means. It will be difficult also to have State abuses reformed, because people have come to regard them as necessary State institutions.
Nevertheless the very first measures of national service to Christ in Britain (and Ireland) must be measures of reform. National rebellion has entrenched itself behind a constitution that does not contain the formal subjection of the nation to Christ, and behind many a law and custom and principle art variance with Christ’s will. The constitution, its fatal defect in leaving out the moral supremacy of Jesus Christ, admits of almost anything in the shape of legislation, however shocking to the religious sense, for which a misguided popular sentiment may clamour; almost anything, however immoral and unjust in the sight of God and godly men... in violation of the most solemn national obligations to the contrary in the public covenants... add more over the prevalent spirit of the legislation and administration, which ignores the law of Christ, and exalts to supremacy mere political expediency or the will of the people, and the result is a mountain of national sin that must be levelled and become a plain by decision reformation or revolution, to make way for national return to God and national homage to God’s Son.
In the days of the reforming kings of Judah, their zeal first attacked the idols that had been set up to receive the people’s worship. The image of Baal was not allowed any longer to usurp the place of Jehovah. Images, altars, groves, and all other monuments of degrading idolatry were swept away and the temple cleansed, that the worship of the true God might be restored. So it must be with our own land if it would return to God’s covenant and service. The Baal of mere political expediency must be ground to powder; the will of the people must bend or break in the presence of the will of the Lord of hosts; iniquitous legislation must be repealed; unscriptural concessions to false systems must be recalled; endowments given to error, to idolatry, to Antichrist, must be withdrawn, and, for the maintenance of truth and true religion, they must be laid at the feet of Christ.
