From such passages as 1 Cor. 15:42 and 1 Thess. 4:15 we know that there will be Christians living on the earth when the Lord comes. The writer of the Hebrew letter says we have received a kingdom "which cannot be moved" (Heb. 12:28). Whatever benefits earthly governments may be able to bestow, whether lucrative positions or pauper's pensions, they are necessarily temporal and confined to this world. My mother was receiving an old-age assistance check each month when it became my sad duty to inform the proper authorities that she had passed from this life. No more checks came. She had passed beyond the reach of any earthly government to either help or harm. But the "kingdom which cannot be moved" knows no such boundary as death. "Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's" (Rom. 14:8).

In view of these well known facts, it would seem that members of the church would be more interested in prayer than in politics; more concerned about truth than taxes. But such is not always the case. A sizeable crowd of church members I have known are more concerned about liberalism in the government than they are about liberalism in the church. They will fight about their politics, but they couldn't care less about the error and apostasy that threatens the church. They can get as mean as an acre of snakes with a fellow who disagrees with their political philosophy, but with teachers of error in the Lord's church they are as gentle as an autumn breeze.

We need to be concerned about the church in every place, from the largest churches in the largest cities to the tiny struggling group in the far-flung reaches of civilization. Our first consideration should be, of course, to the congregation of which we are a part. And this concern should be positive as well as negative. We don't build and strengthen churches by merely fighting error. Truth has a positive side. You don't grow a garden by merely keeping the weeds down. The seed must be planted and the growth cultivated. The word of God is the seed of the kingdom. Let us see that it is planted and nurtured, and God will give the harvest.

Truth Magazine XX: 50, p. 792
December 16, 1976