Selling Out Christ

The conflict of the early church with Rome was over the issue of con­trols. Rome was ready to accept and license almost any religion on examination, because it believed that religion provided the necessary so­cial cement to the social order, but it would tolerate no unlicensed reli­gions. The early church rejected all certification, licensure, regulation, or controls on the grounds that Jesus Christ is the universal emperor, “the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords (1 Tim. 6:15). In due time, all men would confess Him, and all men bow before Him (Phil. 2:9–11). Caesar was therefore under Christ, not Christ under Caesar. Rome fought the church bitterly as an empire within the empire; the church and Christian groups increasingly provided better government than Rome in areas of health, education, welfare, law courts, and more.

Religious freedom and tax exemptions are the results of this struggle. The Christian ministries should be immune to statist controls as branch­es of a supernatural Kingdom.

All this some churchmen are ready to surrender. What some medieval popes, Protestant reformers, and some Puritan leaders fought for is now being forgotten by many.

There are increasing numbers of churchmen favoring some kind of vouchers plan for Christian schools. But the courts have uniformly main­tained that, whatever any legislative act may decree, where tax funds go, state controls must follow. This will put the Christian school movement in the hands of the states.

Many state officials favor this move, and why not? They see the chil­dren slipping out of their hands; 40 percent now are in Christian and home schools, and it could be over 50 percent by the end of the decade. What better way to regain control over them than by means of some kind of vouchers plan? What better way to nullify a great Christian movement than a payoff?

The churchmen who advocate vouchers are not honest enough to ad­mit that this is a form of socialism. They virtually salivate as they de­scribe what all they can do with the thousands upon thousands of extra dollars. They are going to do the enemy’s work for him, and all in the name of Christ!

Judas sold out Jesus Christ for thirty pieces of silver, good, old-fash­ioned hard money. Our modern Judases are ready to sell out our Lord for paper, for debt money! Worse, they will not believe that they are selling out Jesus Christ.

If Christians will not support their churches and schools, they do not deserve to exist. Getting something for nothing is the premise of social­ism, and the “something” that people get is the death of freedom and of faith.

The early church, an underground movement meeting in homes, cre­ated churches, schools, homes for orphans and the aged, courts of arbi­tration, and more. They were not a wealthy people. They simply believed that their faith was worth living, dying, and paying for. Our latter-day churchmen want the state to do the paying.

There will be a pay-off later, from Jesus Christ.