Death Pangs

Americas tend to identify their nation with the Kingdom of God. Many see the current economic problems as just a blip in the ongoing advance of their Kingdom. After a temporary setback, the credit markets and oil markets will return to normal. The president will nuke Iran and all the terrorists will disappear. Oil will go drop to $70 a barrel and the Kingdom of God (America) will continue onwards and upward.

Those with this view face huge disappointment. The reason is that America mostly advances the kingdom of man. This kingdom will have to be shaken before the Kingdom of God can come. That means that the American dream will have to be shaken too. The Western model will have to collapse, so that the Kingdom of God can be restored and real community restored.

Many peole in the West also assume that the expansion of liberal democracy is the same as the growth of the kingdom of God. This is not true. Liberal democracy advances the kingdom of man. For the Kingdom of God to come, liberal democracy and its humanistic bureaucracy will have to die.

I suspect that we could be seeing the birth pangs of the Kingdom of God. That means we must also being seeing the death pangs of the kingdom of man and the kingdom of the state. The events that are currently troubling the world:

• Credit crunch
• Rocketing food prices
• High oil prices
• Islamic expansion
• Terrorism.

These may not be temporary blips. They may be the beginnings of the death pangs of the kingdom of man. Those who are attached to the kingdom of man may be disappointed, but those who are seeking the Kingdom of God should lift up their eyes.

Even if these things are temporary, the recovery will not be permanent. The Kingdom of God is coming, so the birth pangs will eventually come.