BREAD AND POLITICS
Politics stems from the Greek “politikos” and it means a citizen or polite and intelligent human being that acts prudently when called upon to serve in leadership. It is the root for police and politician and both people were trusted. Unfortunately desire and need control even the most prudent public servants and far too many quickly learned how to use bread as a means to an end. For instance, the powerful Roman Governor Pilate had to crucify Jesus just to keep his job, his bread, and even his life. Pilate was at the mercy of the Jewish leaders; namely, if he freed Jesus, Caesar would take the governor’s job and even his life as a traitor (John 19:12-14). Look at the power politicians had during the time of Daniel when they tricked king Darius to put him in the Lion’s Den (Daniel 6). The Book of Revelation predicts that toward the end of time, politicians shall be the most powerful people in the world situated in modern Babylon (United Nations) (Revelation 17).
Mr. Webster, a master in defining concepts and words, lists a large area of political activities, occupations and impacts. In his analysis, he hints at politicians like Aristotle and his knowledge of the Bible. Webster depicts them as crafty, diplomatic, expedient, practical, prudent, shrewd and unscrupulous. Jesus talked about a person like that in “The Parable of The Shrew Manager” (Luke 16:1-18). He secured his bread by wheeling and dealing with the people that could help him when his employer might let him go. In our time, politicians are very much like horse dealers; only we the buyers are not listening what they offer us. I read about an immigrant farmer with a limited use of English sell some horses. A buyer laid his eyes on one particular horse, but the seller kept repeating, “he not see so good.” He bought the horse and a day later he was back accusing the seller of selling him a blind horse. The seller repeated, “I tell, he not see so good.” We do not see nor do we hear “so good” when politicians tell us that they can feed all of us with one of their policies. Their feeding program depends on the taxes that they get from property owners. In my family, two of our sons lost their properties and the politicians lost about twenty thousand in revenue.
Webster also tells as that they are in the government and that allows them to control the economy and even the social life with legislating. They can condemn and endorse or legalize life styles and life itself. Same-sex marriages and abortions are two examples of their making. The national health plan was a vote getter for socialist politicians but not a bread maker. It will destroy by reducing the small taxpayer that is expected to pay for the health bill. Like the farmer, he will disappear from the landscape. The employers that paid part of the old health plan for their employees have been closed down and moved elsewhere. Those that still remain are being supplemented by taxes and with foreign partners in the industry. American companies like Boeing have become assembly lines for parts manufactured abroad. If the unions persist, these too will fold and the last union to go will be those that are paid with taxation. The politician of America is merely walking on the path that China and Russia have failed on and their recovery is still in the making. All of this has taken place and is in full gear in the USA in my lifetime.
Webster added a brief comment on political liberty and it has been a can of worms for Christians who believed that they were intended under the right to speak and not to be interfered with by government. This was the deception of deceptions. It was the shrewdest move of any politician in history because it protects them from being held accountable for all the bad choices, policies and promises they made and still make. The highest politicians are judges who can restrict and grant rights according to their application set forth by an ambiguous Constitution that is subject to amendments by a public that is being promised bread without having to earn it. The very people that were promised a nationally paid health plan are not trying to be exempt from it, because they voted to pay for it out of their own pockets. They practice their political freedom to vote for something they did not know they were voting for. These politicians have created a politically correct lifestyle that clashes with Biblical morals and values, and that has been their main reason to legislate against the Bible, the mirror of their own conscience.
The Bible is this politician’s worst enemy. It has much to say about deception and its consequence. It tells us that there are many deceivers in the world that practice the art of deception (II John 1:7). Two simple betrayals have had irreversible changes in history and food was the initial cause. The deception of Eve has changed man’s lifestyle of ease to earning his bread in drudgery. The first couple were driven from a garden to cursed land where sweat and toil and showed little progress (Genesis 3). The Jewish people were commanded to eat Sauer bread as a reminder how drugging it was to earn their bread while they were slaves (Exodus 5). The second betrayal was that of Judas betraying Jesus. Like Eve, he did it when Satan entered his life (John 13:27). This time, however, the father of deception, Satan himself had failed (Matthew 4:1-10)! Satan used Judas and failed again because Jesus, unlike Eve, knew who was behind the deception (Matthew 16:21-23; Luke 22-31). Jesus was very specific as to who wanted his demise and who the puppets of Satan were. Jesus’ shocking public accusation was against the top leaders in the nation. They were the children of the devil doing demonic work (John 8:42-47). They very the people that were to represent God, in stead they were representing Satan.
Jesus knew that leaders and politicians would use him as means to get public approval for their policies that will lift them up in the world. Jesus warned his follower, “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, I am a Christ, and will deceive many” (Matthew 24:4-5).
Once more Jesus warned in the same speech, “At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the chosen people, if at all possible” (Matthew 24:23-24). Yes, Jesus has been used by capitalist and socialist alike to legislate their benefits and policies into law. Their biggest accomplishment has been to silence the Biblical impact on America’s moral life by demolishing and devaluing the core foundation of civilization, namely the family. The father as the head and provider is being replaced by working mothers and public support by taxing property owners. It is the Village and not the Parents that bring up a child. The father hero is being replaced, even among Christians, by naming their own children after men and women that excel in the world. I was not named after the Daniel in the Bible, but after an uncle who swindled his own parents out of their daily bread. My sister named her first child, not after her husband, but after an astronaut. It was not her hero that fed her family, but the father of her children. The Bible tells us that a nation that dishonors a father or a mother is bound to fail (Exodus 20:12).
Politics is the biggest practicing religion in the world and it is expanding rapidly over the glob. It has become a world body or government run by man-made rules and humanitarian policies that appeal to the greater number of participating members. It is foremost hostile and insidious against Jews and Christians. The Book of Revelation has a name and a description for this global political system. It sounds like a fairy tale, but to one that had a tinny taste of it, it is the imagery of what is to come and is already in progress. John was given this vision: “The angel carried me away in the Spirit into a desert place. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and then heads. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hands, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. This title was written on her forehead: ‘MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.’ I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of those who bore the testimony to Jesus” (Revelation 17:3-6).
The description that follows explains the title. The word mystery is a camouflage for the system. The word prostitute is the outright denial of God’s existence and the world’s abominations are the sinful acts that pervert God’s laws. The woman’s main reason to exist is to destroy Judaism and Christianity. Ten nations will come into nationhood with theocratic tendencies with the assistance of the woman. They will join the woman for the purpose to hurt Jews and Christian and their friends like the USA. In the process they will come to realize that the woman was their enemy and not the Jews or the Christian, and they will turn on her and destroy her (Revelation 17:15-18). It is this system that will decide who can buy or sell, eat and live. Every adherent will be implanted with an identification mark and everyone will worship the dragon, the old serpent, the devil “Satan” (Revelation 12-13). It will be during this woman’s administration that humanity will experience the greatest shortage of bread the world has ever known.
Stop and Think - Rev Dr. Daniel Kolke 