A Warning to the Unwary in the Aftermath of the Storming of the US Capitol

 

Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

While a number of Trump supporters who are identify themselves as Christians and even as pastors and who took part in the storming of the US Capitol are claiming that it was a peaceful demonstration, forcing entry into a building and occupying it is not the act of peaceful demonstrator. A number of these individuals are now promoting the false narrative that Trump supporters were infiltrated by the antifa and the antifa were responsible for the violence perpetrated against the police. 

Those who are perpetuating this false narrative need to remember in bearing false witness, they are breaking the Ten Commandments. Our Lord also warned the Pharisees and ourselves that those who tell lies and half-truths are allying themselves with the father of lies—the devil. They are revealing themselves, not to be the children of God but of the devil. Our Lord also warns us that there is no place in the new heaven and the new earth for liars. They will be cast into the lake of fire with the devil and his angels.

These self-identified Christians had no place entering a building that had been barricaded to prevent their entry to the building. Their beliefs do not justify their behavior. 

Nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus tell his followers to illegally enter and occupy government buildings. When one of his disciples produced a sword on the night of his arrest, he did not condone the use of the sword against those who came to arrest him. Jesus did not countenance the use of physical violence against them. 

Those who entered the building were behaving in an unlawful manner no matter what their motives were. Jesus does not need self-identified Christians to enter and occupy a building to claim it for him. Jesus is already Lord over everything in the heavens, everything on the earth, and everything under the earth. He is the one whom every tongue must confess and to whom every knee must bow. 

Jesus listens to our prayers wherever we are. If they had wished to pray for more people to recognize Jesus’ lordship, they could have prayed at home. They did not need to go to Washington D.C. to pray, much less enter and occupy the US Capitol building.

President Trump lost the election. He did not lose the election because of a conspiracy to deny him re-election as he claims. He lost because God who permitted his election for reasons that we cannot fathom also permitted the election of his opponent. 

In permitting Trump’s election, God may have been testing the faithfulness of those identify themselves as Jesus’ disciples in this country. We may not like hearing it but many of us did not well on that test. A number of us failed it altogether. In perpetuating a false narrative, we continue to fail it.

The chatter on the internet is now of farther demonstrations, armed demonstrators, and even insurrection. Those who are genuine followers of the Lord Jesus should distance themselves from those who fomenting what can only turn into violence. They will be allying themselves with the devil. He revels in human suffering and death. As our Lord himself has warned, the devil was a murderer from the beginning. Wherever you hear the talk of taking back the country by force of arms, you will find a busy devil, if not the evil one himself, one of his minions. 

The evil one was defeated when our Lord suffered and died for us on the cross on Calvary. Although he was defeated, the evil one still seeks to cause as much injury to our Lord’s cause and to Jesus’ disciples as he can. Embroiling them in the kinds of schemes that those who claim to be Trump supporters but who in all likelihood have other motives, creating civil unrest which they can exploit for their own purposes, destabilizing and weakening the United States, and the like, is the sort of thing that the evil one relishes. He not only can do injury to Jesus’ followers but also to our Lord’s cause. As well as damage our witness to Jesus, he can cause more people to depart this life into a godless eternity.