Page 51 - The Road from Babylon to Zion

tables of the hearts of new born men, who no longer keep the law
because they cringe in fear, but because the spirit of that law has
become their nature, the law of life within them...

So laws cannot change the inner man; nor can the best of natural men
follow the totality of any laws laid down in his behalf. That is why there
is such torment and slavery under the law, for we have become aware
now of what God defines as sin, yet we struggle with it nonetheless. But
when the law is written in the heart, no longer do men try to love God
contrary to nature, but now, because they possess the nature of God,
love, joy and righteousness flow like a river from the heart...

In the United States today we have the Fundamentalist and Charismatic
Christian movements whose burden it is to restructure government and
society in the name of the Lord, not by spiritual regeneration, but by
constitutional legislation. These are sincere Christians concerned for
the social problems confronting the modern world who are being
beguiled and deceived into accepting the premise that by partaking in
the Babylonish systems of this confused world, they will be able to effect
significant changes and bring about the Kingdom of God on earth. To
those on the "religious right" that seems to be envisioned as a political
government that will outlaw abortion, re-institute public prayer in
schools and legislate Christian morality on the whole of society. It is
their conviction that God's Word gives them a mandate to infiltrate and
exercise godly control over all the political, social, educational and
judicial institutions of the nation. They are convinced that the Bible
gives us a divinely revealed pattern for social and political action...

Once a man is born again, truly born again by the Spirit of God, you
need no laws to enforce righteousness upon him. Once a nation turns
to the Lord it will change the government — but changing the
government cannot turn men to the Lord! The so-called "Christian
Right" in America today has the cart before the horse. They have the
whole thing backwards. Their mission will fail. They cannot and will not
bring America back to God through the ballot box. I tell you as a
prophet of God that political action and organization by the religious
people in the United States or anywhere else will not return the nation
to its Christian roots and heritage. They are barking up the wrong tree.
Only the mighty saving, delivering, transforming power of God can
accomplish the work.

Let me illustrate. Suppose that there are two meetings going on at
opposite ends of the city. Both are led by preachers. One is engaged in