The Present Kairos: Cultural Genocide, or Renewal?

For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time [kairos] as this?”

Esther 4:14

Israel was in captivity in Persia under king Xerxes (486–465 B. C.). Haman, the king’s official, had conspired to wipe out the Jews because of his personal animosity toward Mordecai. But Esther, Mordecai’s younger cousin and ward, had become Xerxe’s queen, although she had hidden from him that she was a Jew.

So, like us Esther was faced with a decision. She was either going to align herself with the covenant people and their fortunes or opt for self-preservation. As an echo of our Lord’s words – “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” – Mordecai’s wisdom provoked her to courageous action.

Buoyed by the conviction of God’s sovereignty, that she had in fact “come to the kingdom for such a time as this”, Esther intercedes with the king for the deliverance of her people. And this, she did at the risk of her own life.

Fortuitously, he showed her favour and, in short, God’s people were delivered from genocide. This became the origin of the Jewish Feast of Purim. In fact, the deliverance was so complete that Haman was hung on his own gallows. The very trap set for Mordecai became the one to destroy him.

Under God’s sovereign control of history and human affairs, the enemies of God overplay their hand. The consummate example of course is the cross of Christ. Godless men conspired to crucify the very Lord of glory, but in so doing, ensured the success of Christ’s mission—through his death the death of death itself is achieved:

this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.

Acts 2:23–24

So, how is this playing out today?

Our cultural moment is one of brazen hostility toward all things Christian. Like Haman, the global elites conspire against the Lord and his anointed (Ps. 2:2). Legislators, business moguls, and celebrities all stand in unison against Christ and his church.

But despite the conspiracies of the global elites, there is nothing more certain than the cultural resurrection of Christianity. Its victory in history is assured.

The overreach of the present elites will precipitate one of the greatest advances of God’s Kingdom in history.

But like Esther we must recognise our kairos—our “appointed time”.

Significantly, the word for “time” in the Greek translation of the OT (Septuagint) is rendered kairos in contrast to chronos. The latter signifying the general flow of time but the former, a specific moment of time. Kairos was used by the ancients to describe the narrow aperture of time and space through which an arrow must travel to hit its target. And so, the Bible uses kairos for the oft-used phrase “the appointed time”, signifying a special moment of divine favour and grace:

You will arise and have compassion on Zion;
For it is time to be gracious to her,
For the appointed time has come.

Psalm 102:13

So, like Esther we too live in a moment of existential threat. But unlike Esther, this is not a threat against merely one people group, but against the entire people of God – Jew and Gentile – the international church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this moment of existential threat is especially targeted against Christianity in the West, which has historically provided the resource for God’s mission to the entire world.

The Global Economic Forum’s Great Reset for 2021 (aka the Davos Conference) is, in effect, a declaration of war by the global elites against the Lordship of Jesus Christ over the earth. In their attempt to reengineer the world, these supranational elites not only usurp God’s authority over nations but also the delimited authority he delegates to the state. This is especially injurious for those nations functioning in the liberal western tradition—those grounded in the Christian heritage that respect the rule of law, freedom of expression, civil society, and representative government. These hard-won freedoms are easily lost.

It is therefore a moment of decision for the international body of Christ.

Will you, like Esther in obedience to Mordecai, align yourself with God’s agenda to deliver his people?

But how does this occur?

Not only through prayer but also the ministry of the Word. The Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, eternally lives to be our advocate before the Father. But only as we proclaim him as the living Word of God is the favour of God released to the nations. In this way God will not only deliver the church but also the world—“Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death” (Psalm 68:20).

But every kairos needs an arrow, every visitation of God demands a message.

And Paul’s Epistle to Rome is that message. Throughout Christian history it has been recognised as the premier Christian document. It speaks into the very centre of the pagan power-state and to every humanistic urge to recreate paradise without God. Romans is the quintessential declaration, therefore, of the Gospel of God in antithesis to the Gospel of man. It thus has political and cultural application.

But instead the world has been fed a shrunken gospel that aspires only to populate heaven. As a pale imitation, emptied of God’s vision for history, it has merely served to inoculate the world against the real thing—against the Gospel of God’s government on earth.

By contrast Paul’s Gospel is a total world-and-life-view that demands full allegiance and promises cosmic renewal. And this, in time-space history!

If we recover this Gospel, it will crush the serpent’s head (Rom. 16:20; Gen. 3:15) and bring down every proud reasoning raised against the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 10:4-5). Every false ideology and philosophy will be brought into the obedience of Christ. It will then play out in real human affairs and destroy every tyrannous use of power, whether political or occultic.

After 3 years and over 200,000 words we are pleased to announce we have broken the back of our new commentary on Romans, the first draft of the doctrinal chapters (1-11) is almost complete. All that remains is an overview of the practical chapters (12-16), with a special focus on ch. 13, the Christian doctrine of the State. This is a crucial issue for the church right now. Without understanding God’s design for the State as a “minister of God”, and thus as a support to the Gospel, we will be subjected to only more tyranny by the godless.

We are planning that Romans: God’s Manifesto for Paradise Restored will be in the hands of the publishers early 2021.

It is time for “God’s Great Reset!”