by Pastor Mark Downey
I once heard a tax protester say that there needs to be a tax revolt, because taxes are so revolting. If only Jimmy Durante were around today, he could look in any direction of the political spectrum and say that classic line, “What a revoltin’ development this is.” Our founding fathers said, “No taxation without representation.” Did Jesus pay taxes?
We have an important object lesson in Mt. 17:24-27 where Christ and Peter are in Capernaum and a tax collector comes up to Peter and asked him if his Master pays tribute. We can deduce from these passages that the annual collection had its origin in the maintenance of the Temple and thus an ecclesiastical tax, but over time had become a civil tax of earthly kings. This tax was voluntary, but expected to be paid or in modern terms “voluntary compliance’. Isn’t it strange that they would put people in jail for not volunteering?
Peter impulsively tells the tax man, “Oh, you can be sure my Lord pays his taxes, you betcha.” Modern preachers would tell their congregations that we must all pay our fair share. What’s fair? Half of what you earn? But Jesus makes a profound declaration by asking Peter, "Who do the kings of the earth collect their taxes from?" From their own sons and family members or from their own subjects of the kingdom? Peter replied that those not of the royal house had to pay the tax. And Jesus then confirmed that the sons are exempt. Royalty goes free – they don’t pay taxes. Peter understood his lesson well by saying in Acts 5:29, “We ought to obey God rather than man.” This should clarify who owes what to whom for the “render unto Caesar” crowd. We shouldn’t confuse royalty with the filthy rich.
Jesus is the Son of God and the temple was God’s house. We are the sons of God and the temple of God is now our bodies (I Cor. 6:19). We are the body of Christ, not the body of Caesar. We are bought with a price from our Kinsman Redeemer; therefore we glorify God in body and spirit, which are His. We are, “A chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that we should show forth the praises of Him who has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light” (I Peter 2:9).
This sermon isn’t about taxes, it’s about revolution. But someone might say, “Jesus didn’t revolt, He paid the tax.” Yes, He paid the tax and the reason He did, we are told, is so that He wouldn’t offend them. After all, the tax was the equivalent of 37 cents. It wasn’t the amount that mattered, but the principle of the thing. But, the Lord had clearly made His point: He didn’t have to pay the tax, because He was the Son of the owner of the Temple and as such, believers in Jesus become part of God’s exclusive family also.
The Old Testament saints believed in God and had to pay the tax. Now He is telling them that they don’t need to pay the Temple tax anymore. The Temple was going down and it did in 70AD. This is an illustration of the natural world making the transition to the supernatural. The analogy of how Christ paid the tax is miraculous and perfect. He told Peter to go fishing and that he’d find the exact amount of the tax in the mouth of the fish he caught. What are the odds? I’d pay a tax if I could catch a fish with the amount due, wouldn’t you? This is revolutionary symbolism. The fish has represented Christianity since the 1st century and we’re told in Mt. 4:4 that we don’t live by bread alone, “But by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” It’s taxing on our souls not to live by the Word. “The thief [tax collector?] cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy; I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” John 10:10. Governments are notorious for taking what people work for. Christians are ‘fishers of men’ and it’s better to give than to receive.
The old Levitical order is being replaced by the Melchisedec priesthood. 2000 years ago, Christ took the keys of the Kingdom from the jews and gave it to His disciples and followers in true Israel, to a holy nation bringing forth the fruits. The wandering cultural parasites known as the eternal jews have been in rebellion against God in perpetuity. Is it any wonder why God hath indignation against these revolting mongrels for ever (Malachi 1:4)? Ironically, jews want to tax us with a vicarious temple tax, a tribute to the synagogue of satan. It’s the 501c3 tax exempt church that renders its soul to Molech, the Canaanite god that Israel sacrificed their sons and daughters to. It’s not difficult to see why some judeo churches are pro abortion.
If a 15 year old girl walked up to you and asked, “Sir, would you give me $500, I need an abortion?” You might likely say, “Are you crazy, no way, go get some parental supervision and Christian counseling.” And yet, who knows if tribute isn’t going towards federally funded abortions from every American’s “fair share” of “voluntary compliance.” It’s a revolting development.
The media reported that the recent health care bill/Obamacare was passed behind the scenes over the abortion issue; that no money would be spent on killing the unborn. I think they’re liars and they’ll renege on the deal. And they’ll do so with the attitude: what are you going to do about it? You gonna start a revolution ha ha ha?
Do you know how Obamacare is going to be paid for? New federal mandates and tax increases totaling $400 billion are going to be integrated into more complicated tax returns. Most people are thinking this new health care reform means more doctors and nurses. Think again. Over 16,000 new IRS personnel are going to be hired to collect, examine and audit new tax returns. Families and small businesses will be forced to reveal personal medical information, provide proof of government-approved health care i.e. AMA quacks, detailed information on what you get from Big Pharma and comply with all the red tape of financial regulations on your tax return forms. The IRS will outsource to private agencies to collect “debts.” Maybe the New Black Panther Party, a revolutionary organization replacing ACORN with liaisons to the Obama regime will be knocking on your door. This is tantamount to quasi-governmental bounty hunters. What an incentive to give legalized carpetbaggers and not too distant descendants of African savages in the jungle a cut of the action. Talk about a communist paradise huh? Good morning ANC-America!
Let’s back up for a moment and bring our blood pressure back to normal levels. It’s easy to go off on tangents about what they’re doing to us, because it’s such a steady stream of diabolical rip-offs. It could be in Ripley’s ‘Believe it or not’. But the question is: is revolution Christian? This is an enormous proposition, because so many people have their own idea as to what it means. It can conjure up the old stereotype of peasants storming the castle with pitchforks to newer intellectual paradigms (bloodless coups like the digital revolution, which launched the ‘information age’).
The word ‘revolution’ comes from the Latin revolutio and means “a turn around.” There are 7 definitions for revolution in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary. Noah Webster, by the way, was a devout Christian and considered a revolutionary, having served in the Connecticut Militia during the American Revolution. Let’s look at the first 5 definitions:
1. In physics, rotation; the circular motion of a body on its axis; a course or motion which brings every point of the surface or periphery of a body back to the place at which it began to move; as the revolution of a wheel; the diurnal revolution of the earth.
2. The motion of a body round any fixed point or center; as the annual revolution of the earth or other planet in its orbit round the center of the system.
3. Motion of any thing which brings it to the same point or state; as the revolution of day and night or of the seasons.
4. Continued course marked by the regular return of years; as the revolution of ages.
5. Space measured by some regular return of a revolving body or of a state of things; as the revolution of a day.
If you will notice the hand of God in these 5 definitions, it appears God is a revolutionary: He gave man the invention of the wheel; the planetary orbits in our solar system; the circulation of day and night; the elliptical solar year; and the hands of a clock revolving 24 hours of the day. And people thought the earth was flat for how long? Well, I guess there’s still a Flat Earth Society. The sixth definition is:
6. In politics, a material or entire change in the constitution of government. Thus the revolution in England, in 1688, was produced by the abdication of King James II the establishment of the house of Orange upon the throne, and the restoration of the constitution to its primitive state. So the revolutions in Poland, in the United States of America, and in France, consisted in a change of constitution. We shall rejoice to hear that the Greeks have effected a revolution.
This is the definition that most people are familiar with, arising out of social violence. We’ll come back to this later. The seventh and last definition is only two words and was probably the concept most familiar to the American people in 1776:
7. Motion backward.
In other words, a return to a prior position. What does this remind you of? It reminds me of repentance, which means “to turn” or “change direction.” James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above.” One of the greatest gifts God can give us is the gift of repentance, so that we may move ever closer to His will. God’s will is that we bend our knee to His sovereignty. The problem arises when man rebels against God’s authority.
We might ask: how presumptuous was the Apostle Paul’s notion of authority when he was converted? A light came and slammed him on his back, the light shined in his eyes, and a voice out of heaven spoke to him. Put yourself in his shoes. Would you have said, “Uhh, thanks but no thanks”? Paul called himself the ‘chief of sinners’, which would make him a rebel. God saved the ‘chief of sinners’ by throwing him down on the ground, conscripting him, and saying, “You will follow Me from now on.”
Ask yourself this: what if God did this to every White person on earth? There wouldn’t be many non-Christians left would there? Well, that’s not really how God’s plan has been revealed to us so far, as one massive conversion. But, it makes the point of who’s in charge. God’s sovereignty addresses each and every one of us at His appointed time, not ours. It may be when you least expect it, you will be overwhelmed with the compelling Spirit of God to turn your life around. When you do an about-face, you are going in the opposite direction.
I’ve heard it said that all paths lead to God, but that’s no true. The Bible speaks of “The path of destruction”, ‘The path of Cain”, and a “Path of the wicked”, none of which lead to God. I believe God calls pathfinders and scouts to bring His people out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land. It’s a very narrow gate and way in which to enter unto a righteous life (Mt. 7:13-14). There’s so few that will find it. It’s easier to enter the very wide gate with good intentions that pave the proverbial road to hell. One can spend a lifetime traveling a dead end, thinking they’re going somewhere. But our calling from God is a manifest destiny, a Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Is revolution Christian? The question is not resolved by removing sovereignty from God; the question is resolved by understanding why God does things the way He does. Most people don’t want to think about it, any more than a rat in a cage strapped to their face. But the Christian is commanded to study and rightly divide the word of truth and to not be ashamed about it, in order to understand the real solution to the world’s problems. A revolution can be an idea or state of mind just as much as cannons being fired or bullets flying.
Over 200 years ago White Christian Americans were well versed in Scripture and the watch-words for the American Revolution were “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”; in contrast, the French Revolution called for “Liberty, equality and brotherhood.” They were two very different revolutions and ideologies and yet both mention liberty. We sought limited Christian government and free enterprise with God-given rights, whereas the French swept away the church in its progressive secular revolution of collective rights. I think it’s only fair, that if they’re going to remove the Ten Commandments from public places, then we will remove the Statue of Liberty… some day.
A real clue about the mischief inflicted upon early America was not a rebellion against the king of England per se, where several colonies had made contracts and charters with and were therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the crown; not to be confused with Parliament. After the French and Indian War in 1763, England was burdened with a huge war debt. Parliament began interfering with the colonies with the passage of a series of taxes to pay the debt and to control the Colonial Assemblies. The colonists resisted Parliament on the grounds that the charters did not grant any legislative power over them. They were not represented in Parliament. Thus, ‘no taxation without representation.’ The colonies were subjects of the king in exchange for his protection. The Americans desperately appealed to the king to return to the pre-1763 independence from Parliament, which the king ignored. The negro in the White House refuses to protect Arizona or America from alien invaders.
On July 6, 1775, the Continental congress issued notice to take up arms against England, even though they did not desire a separation. The colonists were endeavoring something unique; to preserve a government, not overthrow it. In 1775, revolution meant “motion backwards”, a return to a prior position. We’ve all heard the admonition that we need to get back to basics. Hebrews 5:12 puts it this way, “By now you should be teachers. But ye have need again that someone teach you the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.”
Today, revolution means replacement with violent force. The French Revolution, the Communist Revolution in Russia and many others were radical regime changes targeting the future. Perhaps it’s a misnomer to call the War of American Independence a ‘revolution’ (depending on how you define it) being that the same people were in power before and after the war. Our forefathers drove an enemy from this soil, who tried to extract monies from them without contracts, and a new nation was born. We have the same problem today when Congress abdicated to the Federal Reserve, which is no more federal than Federal Express. Didn’t Mayer Amschel Rothschild say, “Give me control of a nations money and I care not who makes the law.” It was parliament that declared war against the 13 colonies, declared all of America to be an independent hostile state. We were no longer citizens of Britain, but enemies. Today, we are no longer citizens of the original united States, but victims of newspeak and legalese that make us collateral of the state.
It was a maxim of common law, which derives from biblical law, that when the duties of a king to protect the inhabitants of his kingdom ceases, allegiance to the crown ceases to be the duty of his citizens. As of Dec. 22, 1775, the colonies were free of English rule and the subsequent Declaration of Independence was announcing that separation.
Let’s stop here for moment and understand the biblical principle of government. Before there were kings in ancient Israel, God used judges (who were both civil and military leaders under the authority of God) to deliver Israel from adversity. The typical pattern went like this: Israel would sin as a people and God would bring an enemy to judge them. This adversity caused Israel to cry for deliverance and God would respond to their repentance by sending an Israelite judge to defeat the enemy and heal the land of transgressions against God’s Law. Peace and rest were the immediate blessings.
We have a Bible story about rebellion, not to be confused with revolution – ‘motion backwards.’ After the death of Gideon, Abimelech conspired to make himself king by slaying 70 brethren. But, a king was not a judge. A judge was always appointed by God. Therefore, the rebellion was unlawful. Abimelech sought an unauthorized regime change and God cursed him and his co-conspirators with a self-destruct civil war. Rebellion is not blessed. If America was founded in rebellion, then we have to ask ourselves why George Washington and the colonial patriots were not judged the same as Abimlelech.
Perhaps it’s the idea of patriotism (another word that has lost its original meaning). The word patriot comes from the Greek patris, meaning fatherland. It is the love of one’s nation, their racial and cultural identity, to zealously support and defend it from invasion, protecting its rights, maintaining its laws and institutions with vigor and pure vigilance. I think these patriots of the American Revolution were well acquainted with the very last verse of the Old Testament found at Malachi 4:6, “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” This is revolution talk – ‘motion backward’, a return to a prior position.
Now we have to ask ourselves; are we crying for deliverance today? Some of us are. The motto of the Christian Identity movement has been II Chron. 7:14 for as long as I can remember; from the many gifted teachers whom God has bestowed upon us. Let me say something about a movement, because it relates directly to the Holy Spirit and a God inspired revolution. The Hebrew word for spirit is ruach, and its Greek equivalent is pneuma. Both words literally mean air in motion or breath. The word ‘spirit’ operates on several levels. When God breathed into man the “breath of life”, he came alive. Therefore, on a physical level it is simply air moving in and out of our nose.
On a mental level, it is the motivation(s) from God that animates our Christian character. The Holy Spirit or Spirit of God is the exclusive agency and property of God and means the purity or divine perfection of His will. Our DNA, in contradistinction to other races, has a predisposition to receive life and to have it more abundantly than other races. In other words, God has given us His Holy Spirit to have an understanding and ability to perform His will on earth (as it is in Heaven). Like Jacob, we become Israelites by a change in our character if we move in the right direction. When a plurality of spiritual Christians moves together, it is a movement prompted by God.
Like a wheel in motion, we are making a revolution and moving along a path of righteousness, the path of life, which leads the flock to the greenest pastures you could hope for. Our lives revolve around Jesus Christ. We are turning our hearts to the fathers, the patriarchs of Israel. We are called sheep for good reason. Sheep don’t know where to go without a shepherd. Sheep have a tendency to stray and get lost and when they do, they are vulnerable to wolves. They may think what a revolting development this is and wish for a return to a prior position of safety.
People say we just can’t go back to the happy days of the 1950’s when everything was honkey-dory. Liberals try to justify a “gay pride” parade or any other Talmudic cause by saying, “Get real, its 2010” as if the year on a calendar determines our moral barometer. But for 6000 years our race has been subjected to just about every vain imagination you can think of. And the people of God have fought this adversary of our souls for just as long and the Bible tells us, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” It’s always some wolf or wolves in sheep’s clothing that want to eat you for dinner. “Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers [#2114, zuwr, racial aliens]” Is. 1:7.
Why and how does this happen? Isaiah gives us the short simple answer: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me” (Is. 1:2). History or His Story is the time allotted to man to mature from his natural selfishness of childhood to the full maturity of the sons of God. God gave man the dominion mandate and this created authority in the earth. But, our race has a rap sheet for abusing this authority. Men have coveted authority as a means of accumulating wealth. Instead of looking to Jesus as our example, to be a more effective servant to our kindred, they have sold out our own kind to enslavement. They’ve redefined the authority from God as a privilege to do what others are not allowed to do, an abuse of power with immunity from the Law.
Governments in every age have mistaken authority for license. What mankind has yet to learn is that with all authority comes an equal level of responsibility. Would it not be a revolution in the history of mankind if we were set free from the bondage of tyrants and tyranny? In the Kingdom Age to come, the overcomers are the ones who have learned to exercise the dominion mandate, not as a lawless New World Order, but under God’s sovereignty. These are the saints (some of whom are beheaded) before the return of Christ, that learned obedience and to do only what Jesus would do. In other words, they have learned to overcome the natural desires of the flesh that perceives authority as a privilege.
Most White people have an innate desire to be free. Freedom is the most important motive behind all revolutions, whether they’re good or evil. Throughout the ages, men have struggled against bondage with their own self-serving motto that ‘might makes right’ or in modern terminology ‘superior fire power will prevail.’ Bondage is often like quicksand; the more you struggle, the deeper you sink. Why? Because there’s only two possibilities. You can either do it “My way” like Frank Sinatra or you can turn your life over to the care and protection of Jesus Christ… the way, the truth and the life. George Orwell said, “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” We’ll explore this and other aspects of revolution from a Christian perspective next time.
