EDITORIAL Electing an MP BY THE TIME our next APC News advance. appears we will have a new If we were a truly Christian government. It is the Christian’s nation, then individual Party policy duty to vote. How should we vote? would perhaps be worth con- What principles should we apply? sidering. However, in practice we To say that there is no point in are very far from being a Christian voting because they are all a ‘bunch nation. Although our financial of crooks’, is not only untrue but situation is in a very serious state, it very silly reasoning. If they are all a is not the most serious matter in our ‘bunch of crooks’, then it is because land. The most important crisis in we, the electorate, have put them our country is the spiritual decline into power, either by our vote or by in Christian values and ideals. Until our indolence in not voting. this is recovered, Party policy The present concern about should not dominate our choice. sleaze and corruption among MPs, Our poor financial situation is ought to stir us up to be sure that we due to our neglecting the spiritual are not responsible for such people and moral aspects of life. Immor- holding such power. We ought to be ality is costing our nation billions of more industrious than ever that pounds each year. Because we have good people hold important office in abandoned God and His Word as the land. the only rule to direct us in our For the Christian, the primary journey through life, our nation has concern ought to be the upholding lost it’s role of leadership in the of God’s laws and the spiritual and world and is struggling to survive moral welfare of the people. with huge amounts of debts. Nothing, but absolutely nothing, The Bible insists that should deter us from that primary “Righteousness exalts a nation but object. Each Christian ought to find sin is a reproach to any people” out which candidate, no matter [Pro 14:34]. In the last two decades, what Party he may belong to, will our nation has legislated in preserve our Christian heritage and opposition to the very fundamental allow the kingdom of God to and basic standards of God’s Word. ! APC News No 140 Page 1 Mar/Apr 2010 Our laws are no longer in unison is not a necessary evil, politics is with God’s revealed will. We are necessary because of evil. Personal carving out a course after our own revenge is forbidden, but God has imagination. As Isaiah complained sanctioned the State to take revenge in his day regarding Israel, we “call on the wicked. That is why “The evil good, and good evil, who put Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any darkness for light and light for who found him should attack darkness” [Isa 5:20]. him” [Gen 4:15]. There was no State We are a “sinful nation...laden to take revenge against Cain, so he with iniquity...children who deal was to go free. We need the State to corruptly” and “have forsaken the protect us from the wicked. Lord” [Isa 1:4]. We are under We wholeheartedly agree that judgment, God has blinded our there are separate boundaries for eyes. Both church and state are in both Church and State, but they are spiritual poverty - our eyes are to work together in their respective blinded from seeing what the realms. God’s law relates to the civil problem really is “For the Lord has magistrate in that it must restrain poured out upon you a spirit of and punish evil doers and protect deep sleep, and has closed your human life and property and to eyes (the prophets), and covered provide justice for all people. That is your heads (the seers)” [Isa 29:10]. why Paul says the law was not made Our electorate system provides for the righteous but for the lawless us with ‘machinery’ to remove those [1 Tim 1:9,10] we do not wish to rule over us - the The civil magistrate cannot ballot box. We have a wonderful regenerate the heart. No group of opportunity to put into power the men can “by any means redeem his best person available. And if there brother or give to God a are no suitable candidates, perhaps ransom” [Psa 49:7]. Only God can we should offer our own services! renew the heart. Keeping the law Our Confession states clearly ‘It is cannot make people good - but it lawful for Christians to accept and can be a means of suppressing execute the office of a magistrate’. wickedness and protecting innocent It is impossible to separate people from suffering at the hands religion from civil matters. We are of evil doers. The Church is the constituted religious beings. We all organ God has appointed to have souls as well as bodies. proclaim His Word and truth and Religion and politics are along with the Holy Spirit, promised inextricably merged together and to the Church, God will bless His just cannot be separated. Politics is Word and it will not return to Him not dirty, it is politicians, and only void. some at that, who are dirty. Politics We are called to pray for our ! APC News No 140 Page 2 Mar/Apr 2010 civil rulers. God has appointed the for, their nation. We still have law State, and as Paul puts it “there is and order and there are procedures no authority except from God, and for rectifying abuses. Let us grasp those that exist have been instituted them before it is too late. by God” [Rom 13:1]. One reason As Christians we ought to be why we should pray for our civic unashamed of what we believe, and rulers is in order that we, the when opportunity presents itself we Church, can live a quiet and ought to state where we stand peaceable life and preach the gospel regarding spiritual and moral values [1 Tim 2:2]. The civil magistrate is and ideals. We ought not to be “the servant of God an avenger who apologetic about our convictions. carries out God’s wrath on the We have nothing to be ashamed of wrongdoer” [Rom 13:4], and ought and everything to rejoice in. to be prayed for as much as There are thousands of people ministers of the gospel. We need to milling around us today who are remember that God raised up Moses looking for the answers that and Daniel to be great Statesmen Christians can give them. The Bible and were used mightily in bringing is full of wisdom - yes, wisdom for blessing to their nations. They were this world as well as the next. God not priests but civic rulers. has not abandoned this world - He It is naive to think there could aims to make it a wonderful place not be revolution in our country. If which will bring glory and honour to that happens, as it has happened in Him. All nations will yet bow before other countries in the last few King Jesus. All nations will call Him decades, we could find ourselves ‘Blessed’. We are commanded to under the hands of a dictator. Such “Declare His glory among the judgments would not be the first to nations, His marvelous works come on a nation. among all the peoples” [1Chr 16:24] Having abandoned God as our All nations shall serve the Lord, Rock, our nation looks to the State and as each nation has it’s own to ‘save’ it from the troubles of life, identity and culture, and as we are and when the State fails to deliver, told that “the kings of the earth will there is no where to turn. The bring their glory into” the New hungry dictators of the world will Jerusalem [Rev 21:24], we need to not be slow to detect where there recapture our Christian identity and are opportunities to exploit a people remake our culture one of honour who are vulnerable and searching and glory to God. At the end of the for leaders who will promise them day, that is all that truly matters. what they want to hear. May God enable us all to choose All Christians have a duty to candidates who are most likely to pray earnestly for, and seek the best bring that honour about. ❐ ! APC News No 140 Page 3 Mar/Apr 2010 God is Always Good (2) by J Cameron Fraser AS STATED IN MY previous article, soon before hers had prepared me I intend in this one to illustrate how to have at least some understanding my experience of cancer, and of what she and her family were particularly of a stem-cell going through. A close bond transplant, has helped me relate to developed, and many conversations one particular member of my were held, in person and by e-mail, congregation. Since I first wrote on what God’s purpose in all this that, however, several other might be. members have been diagnosed with August 2009 was spent by my cancer or other life-threatening wife, Margaret, and me (and for part illnesses. In particular, the woman of the time, by our younger son who loaned me the book A Bend in James) in Scotland. Right up until the Road, which I found so helpful, the time of departure from Canada, has herself been diagnosed with the I wondered if I would need to stay same type of lymphoma I had, behind to conduct Cassidy’s funeral.