I want you to imagine for a moment that you are walking down the street in your own neighborhood. The sun is shining, birds are singing, homeowners are out mowing lawns and weeding gardens. It’s the perfect picture of a warm, sunny day. Then you come upon a neighbor’s house. It’s on fire. Flames jut and stretch out of the windows of the top floor. You dash up to the house and peer into an open window to the kitchen. There sits your neighbor, eating corn flakes and watching YouTube on his phone. He is totally oblivious to the destruction going on around him, threatening to take his life at any moment. Just when you notice that he’s looking at you through the window, you yell, “Can you believe Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris for Vice President?” He acknowledges your words, shrugs, and goes back to his bowl of cereal and you walk away to continue enjoying your beautiful day.
I know that narrative sounds utterly ridiculous. In the face of great danger to someone, why would anyone care to bring up politics? Yet it happens every day, all day. In fact, most people see smoke coming from the homes of their friends, neighbors and families all the time, but they ignore it. Many will read this and say, “What a sick joke! If I saw even a stranger’s house on fire I’d bust down the front door trying to save whomever was inside!” Would you?
Jude Says Your Neighbor’s House Is On Fire
This is the era of Jude. At least that is what I am calling it. Jude depicts in his epistle a grim society of godless perversion, bent only serving themselves in whatever manner they please. The way Jude describes these people would make most Christians want to avoid them at all costs. But Jude isn’t asking us to dodge their company. He is asking us to do something quite different.
Jude 22 says, “ And on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.”
If you look carefully at Jude’s words, he dutifully describes a picture of the kinds of people we Christians interact with every day. He does a great job of illustrating for us with words what we see go on continually and with ever increasing force. Jude’s details are just another day in America, really. There is something that he doesn’t say directly, something he only alludes to in verse 12, “These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves.” They don’t know their own depravity.
If you look at verse 22 again, you see a perfect illustration. They are on fire and they don’t know it. They are no different from your neighbor in the above scenario; eating corn flakes and watching videos on his phone, totally unaware his house is on fire.
Jesus Isn’t Checking Our Political Views At His Door
No matter what your political views, one thing is sure; Jesus won’t be concerned with what your political affiliations were on earth. What Jesus will be anxious to discern though is whether or not He knows you. Let me say that again. Jesus doesn’t care about your politics. He cares about His. The politics of Jesus span much wider than Democrat or Republican, and America. It reaches wider than any ideology the world can come up with.
Jesus wants the world to know He is here to rescue them. He asked His followers in His final address to, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
When I think of today’s politics in America, I am reminded of what God said to Joshua. Joshua 5:13-15 depicts an exchange in which a man, a soldier, comes into Joshua’s view with his sword drawn. Not knowing this is no man but the Commander of the LORD’s army (or God Himself), Joshua basically asks, “Are you on our side?” God’s response? “No.”
You can imagine how that must have felt. God follows up by saying that He is here. God was there to deal with the situation at hand. In a few words, God implies that God is on His own side. We have to decide, like Joshua, if we are on His.
Too often we look at things the other way around. We try to figure out which side God is on with one political position on another. We need to know how each political position aligns with God’s word and decide who or what we want to support with that information.
Democrat Or Republican Doesn’t Matter When Your House Is On Fire
If you are really concerned about how your neighbors and social media friends are going to vote, shouldn’t you be sharing Jesus with them? After all, isn’t snatching them from the flames of this world more important than donkeys or elephants? God thinks so. A heart won to Christ is going to vote the way His word instructs them to, not by badgering people to take heed of your political rantings. And even so, we are commissioned to win souls to Christ, by Christ Himself. We’re not here to recruit folks to a political party.
How will you let someone know their house is on fire today? Will you tell them where the real dangers lie in this world? I hope this has convicted your heart. I pray you will share this with others. The world doesn’t need more politics. It needs Jesus.