Christ expects us to look continually to Him for our present role in administering salvation to the lost, in building His Church, and in bearing witness to the nations of the earth of the Kingdom that is coming.

Has it ever happened during the last two thousand years that an entire nation of people has been baptized and has sought to obey the commandments of Jesus? Yes, but ordinarily in the case of smaller nations or tribes, not the large nations of today. The tendency today appears to be to remove from national governments any suggestion that the Lord Jesus is the rightful King of every nation.

The rejection by the nations of the rule of Jesus is due to the rise of humanism, and also to the fact that the state churches, which in time past have influenced and sometimes sought to dominate the national governments, have often been as self-seeking as any secular government.

The proper rule of the Church is based solely on the authority of Jesus and the Presence of Jesus. The churches depend on money and politics in place of the Presence of Christ. As a result, the rule of the churches has often been wicked and self-seeking—altogether corrupt. The present desire of people to separate the churches from their government is a reaction against the evil that is in the churches.

There have occurred instances in which the command of the Lord to make disciples has affected an entire nation. Several of these national conversions are described in Don Richardson's book, Eternity in Their Hearts (Ventura, California: Regal Books, 1981). The evangelization of the Karen people of Burma (Chapter Two: "Peoples of the Lost Book") portrays the conversion of a whole nation.

The concept of "freedom of religion" offered by the "free" nations of our time, may be compared to a thief who breaks into your house and as a gesture of kindness gives you freedom to use your kitchen.

The saved nations of the Kingdom Age will enforce the commandments of Christ on its citizenry, making sin against God a crime.

On what legal grounds does any nation exist? On the grounds of the will of the people? The will of the people is not a legal basis for the conduct of a nation. Only Christ owns the people of the earth. All of them belong to Him by Divine declaration. Only Christ owns the natural resources of the earth.

The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. (Psalms 24:1)

No nation has a right before God to exist apart from submission to Christ and a willingness to enforce on its citizens the moral law of God. The nations of today that reject Christ and His laws will be destroyed when the true King of the nations comes to receive what God, His Father, has given to Him.

The hindrance to the Divine design is not primarily the sin and rebellion of the nations, it is the sin and rebellion of the Christian churches. God intends that His Church be the conscience of every nation. The churches, by seeking to do the work of Christ apart from union with Christ, are of no use to the nations. As a result, the large nations of today are morally adrift without a guiding star.

To be continued.