When Government Becomes God

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Hey, do you know there’s a movement in our country today where the government becomes God and the state becomes our savior? I’m going to tell you all about that on the next More Faith, More Life podcast. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. Your voice of revival. And we are going to talk about revival today. At least we hope to get to it at the end of this podcast to talk a little bit more about revival and what revival really is and what we need to do today. But I want to start off by talking about more what’s happening in our government.

0:00:30 – (Steve Gray): I’m not going to make this political. I know sometimes we get into arguments sometimes should the church be involved in politics or should it not be involved? And you know, the old separation of church and state, which is usually, you know, not. They didn’t interpret it right. But anyway, should we be in politics? And I say yes and no, because what I don’t think we need is for pastor, preacher, evangelist to only repeat what politicians are saying.

0:01:02 – (Steve Gray): So I went to a thing and there were pastors there. I may have told this story before, but there were pastors there and I was just there to see what they had to say. And they would get up and speak and every one of them got up and spoke exactly what a politician would say. This is wrong and these people are wrong and this is what’s going down. And our schools are bad and, and we need to pray. That was sort of their end thing. And we need to pray.

0:01:26 – (Steve Gray): So let’s get together and pray for our nation. So they got together and prayed. And the thing that got me was not one person, not one pastor, not one leader got up and brought us anything spiritual and said, what we need to do is we need to return to the Lord with all our hearts. We need to seek God with all our hearts and become an example to this nation and get the favor of God going and get revival power going. That changes hearts and, and changes lives and transforms people.

0:01:56 – (Steve Gray): Like revivals in the past and like move of gods do. But none of them mentioned spiritual things. And so I thought, okay, involved in politics, what does it mean? Well, if you or us, whatever you do, go to church or wherever you do, if you’re pushing the revival of the spirit or the things of God that transforms the heart, that is political. It doesn’t seem political, but it is. Because what happened when our.

0:02:25 – (Steve Gray): You often hear about our forefathers and the values and things of our forefathers and what their intentions were. Well, in that day, when our Forefathers were forming our country. Religion was influencing their decisions, religion was influencing their thoughts. And out of revivals came some great universities like Harvard or whatever. And they were founded on in religion. It was religious people that founded those colleges. Did you know that?

0:02:55 – (Steve Gray): Religious people. Now of course you can’t find a speck of it in some of them but, but religion was forming the opinions of people and, and forming how government was going to operate. And so religion was very much in to the thought patterns. And you know, we, we say that one nation under God and we see, we see in our, all the documents and speeches about how God is in what they said. And so now we realize that that’s where we should be going.

0:03:26 – (Steve Gray): So to be spiritual and to push spiritual ideas and push revival and we need a revival of the spirit of God. You know, we need to have a time when men and women can get together and talk about God and not be embarrassed or somebody says let us pray and everybody looks embarrassed and nobody wants to pray. And if they do, say brothers, would you pray? Okay. He can’t even think of anything, hardly to say. And he starts talking in Elizabethan English. These and thou’s and all that stuff, that’s not where it’s at. We need just regular folks. Talk to God and serve him.

0:04:02 – (Steve Gray): Seek the Lord while he may be found seeking with all your strength all those scriptures that are revival ish type. You seek God, you pray, you serve the Lord with gladness. You’re a servant of the Lord. Jesus is the center, not your feelings, not how you see things. But he’s the center. Well that is political because it’s revival that changes the hearts, that get them to make choices that will help our country and it’ll influence, will be influencing politicians as spiritual people.

0:04:37 – (Steve Gray): And I’m not saying those pounding the pulpit to try to get politicians to pass laws to get change. They’ve tried that for centuries and countries have and our country tried it too. We tried to pass a law to change what we thought was wrong or make it right. Well, you can’t do that. All you can do is make a law and if people don’t do it, send them to jail. But you didn’t change their heart. If you change their heart, nobody’d go to jail.

0:05:08 – (Steve Gray): Because they’d believe it with you. And so I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll mention it now. Like the Great Depression, you know what that was? The stock market crashed in 1929 and people were out of work. And when they were out of work, they were out of food, and they were out of homes, and they were, you know, out of everything. And we had to set up soup kitchens, and people would beg, they’d sell apples, they’d do whatever they could. But some people got along okay through it.

0:05:38 – (Steve Gray): My grandparents got along pretty well compared to everybody else. And so. But there were a lot of people didn’t. They didn’t even have bread. They didn’t have soup. They didn’t have anything. And they’d set up, like I said, soup kitchens and they’d hand out bread and things like that. And so when that happened, the Great Depression, well, now all of a sudden, everything has changed. And people began to not have stuff. But the difference is what they wanted was to work.

0:06:08 – (Steve Gray): They wanted a job. Can you give me a job? Well, if you didn’t have a job and you were out and you had kids, well, then you might ask for some food, okay? But the cure to it was, let’s get people back to work. And so today when we see this, we realize we have lost the. The desire to work. Because we think, well, if I can get something free from the government, then I don’t have to work or I don’t have to work as much.

0:06:37 – (Steve Gray): And so all of a sudden, then we begin to turn and the government replaces our thinking. Where in the early days of our country, people thought, God will provide, right? God will provide. Just like Abraham took Isaac up to the mountain, was going to sacrifice him. The angel said, don’t do it. But all the way going up the hill, Isaac is saying, where’s the sacrifice? Where’s the sacrifice? And Abraham said, God will provide.

0:07:07 – (Steve Gray): And so During World War II, you could feel the president would call a day of prayer and the whole nation would pray. Winston Churchill in Europe and Great Britain would get the people praying and how God’s on our side and going to help us. And today, now we’re losing that and. And we’re turning and we’re starting to make the government God and have that the government should now supply. The government should keep it fair for everybody.

0:07:35 – (Steve Gray): And the government then becomes God. And what that does, though, is it doesn’t change the heart. It just gives you something free or less. You pay less at least. Cause the government supplements it like that. And so I was reading here in Romans 13, Paul says, Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except which God has established. And people have taken that or either got confused saying, well, I don’t understand it, because this was the Roman Empire was in power.

0:08:09 – (Steve Gray): And now. And the book is called Romans, and now it sounds like, well, we’re supposed to just let them govern us and we’re supposed to support them. But that’s not what it means. Because we know in our day, like I said, the government, the religion is supposed to influence the government. And that’s why God can say these things. Verse 4 says it too. It says, for the one in authority is God’s servant for your good.

0:08:37 – (Steve Gray): So the government should be working for our good and protecting us. The part of government that he set up was to protect, to work for our good, to produce good under God. That was the original intention and to protect us from our enemies. And so that’s what we need today. We need a government that is serving good to us. And serving goods to us is not the same as serving good to us. To work is good.

0:09:07 – (Steve Gray): God created work. Did you know that? It was his idea to have Adam work. But before sin, work was supposed to be fun, you know, and it was good, good work, encouraging work, you know. But then sin came into the world. And God says, you know what? Work’s going to get hard now. They’re going to be easy now. Sin is making work hard. Well, we’re still under that. We’re redeemed by the blood of the lamb, but work is still work. That’s why we call it work.

0:09:36 – (Steve Gray): So, so in this Romans, then we have to find out what their problem was. And what he was getting them to understand was they were under the Roman Empire. Partially the Jews I’m talking about now, partially the Romans were. But in their government, they had Caesar is God. It was printed on their coins. So the government became God, okay? The government became God, the state became God, and they controlled everything.

0:10:09 – (Steve Gray): They also were a great supply because they were so successful. The people were blessed with a lot of goods. If you’re a Roman citizen, you know, you had a pretty good life. You could even be a slave and have a good life. You could be a soldier and have a good life compared to the rest of the world. And they began to provide. I was talking a little bit ago to someone about that. Rome controlled pretty tight, but it didn’t control its own citizens so tightly because its own citizens had favor and liked it. But they went in and took over another country and. And if those people in that country didn’t want Rome to rule them, they would rough you up pretty bad. And that’s where crucifixion came in. They would crucify those who rebelled against Rome, that was the final worst thing. And they would put them there so people would see them being crucified so they wouldn’t rebel against Rome. It was very terrifying, very scary.

0:11:00 – (Steve Gray): But there was another way. They controlled people. Get this. They gave them free food. Bread, Free food. We’ll just say gave bread. And entertainment, free entertainment. And how you say, what kind of what? The coliseums, the gladiators. They had other shows, too. They had a circus, you know, and so they. They would pass out free food, free bread and. And free entertainment. And, you know, one side could be like, you’re going to be punished if you don’t do what they say. And that’s bad.

0:11:31 – (Steve Gray): But they say, but you. You know, if we do do what they say, we get free food and we give free tickets. I told you. It’d be like saying, you know, in Kansas City, here we have the Kansas City Chiefs, and we now have Arrowhead Stadium. Back their name. And it’d be like they saying, you know, get. Elect me. If you elect me, I’ll get you free food. And everybody gets to go see the Chiefs for free. Free tickets and free food when you get there.

0:12:00 – (Steve Gray): And so they elect that guy because we’re going to give free stuff. It’s going to be a lot easier. And then reelection time comes, and what happens? We’re going to reelect this guy because we don’t want to lose that free stuff. It’s really great. And then you come along with someone that’s an evangelist, a real one, a spiritual person. And all of a sudden they say, we need to restore the spirit of God. We need revival. You say, well, how do you do that? Well, we need to get together and pray, and we’re going to pray and we’re going to seek God with all our heart. And when we seek God with all our heart, we will find him and God will begin to come down in our midst and he’ll bring his presence among us and his glory will begin to fill our lives and our homes and our hearts and all of us. And the person going, I don’t think so.

0:12:49 – (Steve Gray): I don’t think so. I’d rather have the free stuff. I’d rather have free food and maybe free movies and, you know, whatever, and free entertainment or free housing or 30% off as they’re doing now in grocery stores. And it all sounds so good, but it’s not free. Because if you’re a taxpayer, no matter, don’t be fooled that it’s going to be just the rich, rich, rich, even the people. I read it the other day people that one household between even two incomes, you’ve got two incomes.

0:13:24 – (Steve Gray): If you make $100,000, you’re going to fall into this tax bracket. And so all of a sudden, it’s free. And we’re being so kind, and people are so happy because they get to go to the grocery store and get a free, free groceries, or it’s a government store and housing. All that sounds so free until you get your tax bill. And all of a sudden you realize it wasn’t free except to them. To some people, it was free, but to us, we’re paying for it through taxes.

0:13:53 – (Steve Gray): So as you’re sitting there in Arrowhead Stadium in a good seat, eating in a free ticket, eating free food, and this is great, I’m going to elect that guy because this is great. We get to get things for free till you get the tax bill. And you realize, no, your taxes, you paid for that. You just didn’t pay it up front. You paid it. Eventually everything costs money. And so the system does not work. And what’s happening in our country today is rather than doing things that unify our country, we’re actually dividing our country between those that can pay and those that can’t pay.

0:14:28 – (Steve Gray): And now there’s that division. And the ones that can pay, they’re going to make you pay, and the ones that can’t pay, they’re not going to make you pay. And they’re going to have housing and all kinds of stuff. And so we do that. Now all of a sudden what happens is the things that God wants to provide for us, because God is a provider. God says, you know, if you give, it’ll be given to you. You’ll lay up treasures, for yourself in heaven, open the windows of heaven. So there’ll be too much that you can’t even contain. All kinds of scriptures about money and giving and prosperity and the blessings of God, but also other things like the joy of the Lord, the peace that passes, understanding, strength, peace of mind, you know, relationships. And then you get God to be in your life, the relationship with him that is not like anything else. You get all that. But the problem is you’re a participant.

0:15:28 – (Steve Gray): You have to participate, you have responsibility, and you have to be loyal to God, you have to serve God, and. And you have to want that, right? And so it’s very enticing today to find a church that is sort of under the fairness gospel and is sort of making God the supply, not God the supply, but, you know, the government. So you go to that church and it sounds so wonderful because there’s no requirement, there’s no serving, there’s no praying, and there’s just.

0:16:00 – (Steve Gray): You go there and it’s a nice service. You don’t have to give any money if you don’t want to, obviously. And you can enjoy it. You meet friends, you have good times, they have good programs. And all of a sudden you’re like, wait, this is very much like what our government does. Rather than say, you need to work, you need to serve in the kingdom, you need to work, do the works of God, serve in the kingdom, be a servant, give your money.

0:16:31 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, just like taxes, you tithe to the kingdom of God, generously giving all these kinds of things, dying to yourself and serving someone else. And so all these things are colliding when we realize we got a problem here, we got a problem in our country because people don’t understand that this has been tried in other countries and it doesn’t work. But it’s still. I get it, I get it. I mean, it’s a great sale.

0:16:57 – (Steve Gray): It sells easy, you know, but it’s not. It doesn’t work. But the same sale is going on in our churches. And that’s why I’m not talking about. I’m not being political, I’m not talking about it. I’m comparing it, okay? I’m comparing to what’s going on, where the people are making government the God or government the Savior, and comparing that to now, to the systems that. And the mindset of Christianities, of coming and enjoying a service, but no commitment, no cost, no serving, no volunteer, you know, no seeking the Lord.

0:17:36 – (Steve Gray): Nothing is expected of me. I just come to church and I get God out of it. I come over to the. In the government system over there, and I get free stuff now. I get a free God, you know, and so that mentality has entered. That’s why we need a true revival of the spirit of God that turns us into the people that want to serve the Lord, that want to know God. I want to know you. That wants to connect with God, that wants to make Jesus the sinner, wants to pick up their cross and follow Jesus and get the things that only the kingdom of God can.

0:18:11 – (Steve Gray): Can provide. Only the kingdom of God could provide the wisdom of God, the ways of God, the peace of God, the joy of the Lord, all these internal things. And so we need revival because otherwise we’re going to have a split or. Or we’re going to have a spiritual war which is possibly already happening, where those that want to go make government the God or government the Savior are now going to be against those who are trying to make Jesus savior and God himself. The government, because he has a government. You know, the Bible says the government will be on the shoulders of Jesus. On his shoulders, there’s a government of God and it’s colliding with the government of what we’ve talked about.

0:18:59 – (Steve Gray): Of. Maybe you just want to call it socialism or whatever you people call it, but this idea that government now is your supply and you’re taking care of you and you have no responsibility and we’ll just take everybody’s stuff and we’ll just split it up so everything’s fair and nobody has to be responsible because the government’s going to make sure it gets done. You don’t get a choice once this happens. You understand? You don’t get a choice.

0:19:26 – (Steve Gray): Everybody has to bend, everybody has to participate. And if you don’t, you will be in trouble. That’s at least that’s what they did in other countries. They would come and if you don’t participate in the system that I’ve described. And it was, you know, the most famous is probably Germany when Hitler took over. And he came and he took all their gold, all their jewelry, all the artworks, anything of value he took whenever he wanted to.

0:19:55 – (Steve Gray): And the people ended up with nothing. And if you rose up against it, you usually got killed or you just disappeared. And the same thing in the Soviet Union. They, when Lenin took over. Now all of a sudden it’s all, we’re all equal and we’re all going to share. Everybody understand that now we’re all going to share everything with everybody and we’re going to make the government God. We don’t. And they didn’t have. I grew up knowing that the, the government was God.

0:20:23 – (Steve Gray): And you know, some great people love God in Russia today, no doubt about it. But that’s what the attempt was. We’re going to make the government God. That’s what Roman Empire did. We’re going to make Rome the. And the government of God. You know, that Rome becomes God, right in the place of God. And so it pit that against it. Because now the Christians rise up, right? The believers in Jesus rise up. And what are they saying?

0:20:51 – (Steve Gray): Jesus is Lord. Well, if you say Jesus is Lord, that means Caesar is not. If you say God, our God is God, then that means Caesar is not God. You understand? So they collided. So what did they do to him? They persecuted him. They collided because you have to conform. It sounds great on the surface. We’ll all share. We’ll get free Tickets to the. To the Coliseum or whatever it was. We’ll get free stuff.

0:21:22 – (Steve Gray): The government will make our lives better. And food will be cheaper because gas will all. Everything will be cheaper and easier. And you don’t have to work. If you don’t work, you can still get stuff. If you do work, it’s okay. Cause you’re going to be helping to pay for people’s stuff. Isn’t that great? But if you don’t conform, then you’re in trouble. You have to conform to the system. You say. How do you know that? Well, what’s being done in our country is not new.

0:21:48 – (Steve Gray): It’s just being done. Well, what’s being done in our churches is not new. That’s my department. Don’t want to get off on the country too much because that’s not what you need to hear. You’ll hear plenty of that. What you need to hear is we need a revival of the spirit of God and the people of God to be revived in the things of God. Because we need what God can only supply. And. And that can change the heart.

0:22:10 – (Steve Gray): And if God change our hearts, we’ll unify this country. We’ll unify it. There’ll still be poor people around and we’ll want to help them. But we’re unified right now. We’re terribly torn apart and divided. Only God can unify this nation. And if we don’t go that way, if we don’t realize without the Spirit, we’re going to be lost in this. Because politics cannot change the heart and it cannot change a nation.

0:22:40 – (Steve Gray): You can write laws and make people do things right. That’s what people are trying to do. They’re trying to pass laws to make us do what they think we ought to do and run the country like they think we ought to run it. But they’re trying to pass laws. And laws do not change the heart. And laws cannot change a nation. It doesn’t work. So if you put the spirit of God first and the spirit of God and the wisdom of God and the word of God is.

0:23:06 – (Steve Gray): Is influencing our decisions all across the country. Now we get unified. Now we get the blessings of God and the blessings of our nation. We still get it. Cause it’d be a blessed nation that does help people and does help us and helps us hold together and protects us from our enemies. So it’s all good. But we cannot do it without God. We need a revival. And you’ve got to learn that. And I hope when this has helped you open your eyes to that.

0:23:34 – (Steve Gray): The movement in our Politics right now is not a good decision. But I’m not after them because the same mentality, I can get all of these things from God and the church and I don’t have to work for it. I don’t have to serve. I just come go, come and go. I don’t have to pursue God. I don’t have to do anything. Just be blessed, blessed, blessed. So that mentality is everywhere, wherever you look. So that’s why we need a revival of the spirit of God to unite this nation once again. And that’s, you know, I guess that’s my speech for today. Go to https://stevegrayministries.com, you’re going to find more and more materials that are going to help you and reveal things to you that. Because we’re rebuilding  the website and we’re getting the messages and information in to help you see clearly and, and help you keep your family safe and you safe from all these spiritual things floating around that are not from God, and not from the kingdom of God. All right, till next time, bye-bye.