Today is Palm Sunday and on this original day the Jewish people celebrated Jesus as their king and messiah as He came riding into Jerusalem on a Donkey and they shouted
“Hosanna[
b] to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”[
c]
“Hosanna[
d] in the highest heaven!”
They celebrated because they thought that Jesus was going to kick out the Romans and start an earthly rule on the throne in Jerusalem, but Jesus had a much better and greater plan.
Later that week most of the Jewish people rejected Jesus as their king and messiah and called for His death and shouted “we have no king but Cesar“.
Today does apart of the church have Jesus kingdom wrong too? Are they making the same mistake as the Jewish people did almost two thousand years ago? If so how will apart of the church handle it will some of them lose faith too?
Jesus plan was proven as a much better plan Jesus plan was and is the church.
An interesting question, but one that requires a "deeper dive." In short, yes, so-called "Christian nations" have the same experience that Israel, as a "chosen nation," had when they fell from grace. My thought is that since all men are sinners and incline towards sin, ultimately all nations fall into sin.
Not all, being sinners, have to "fall from grace." But since the tendency with sin is to push men towards sin, the sinful condition of man invites our capitulation to a weakness towards sin, towards failure. As a result, the vast majority of people within a nation capitulate to sin, and sin therefore "snowballs" in a nation until the entire nation is caught up in sin.
Does that mean nations have no hope in the end? No, but it does mean that at some point all nations will fall into apostasy and failure. Recovery, however, is possible, through judgment against the rebellious and mercy towards the repentant. Trouble in a nation tends to bring the people of a nation to repentance. Those, however, who are rebellious, will never repent, and must be removed.
But when we consider the Church, as distinguished from the nation, we cannot say that the entire organized Church will fall in precisely the same way that a so-called "Christian nation" would. However, we do see similarities. Christian organizations tend towards corruption the same way nations do because both consist of sinful men. The same tendencies towards sin is in the Church as in the nation.
But there is a constant purging that goes on in the Church more so than in a nation. The Church, by its very nature, is designed to regularly purge itself of sin, through a commitment to holiness, correction, and repentance. Repentance takes place at the start and continuing throughout the life of the Christian. It does not await judgment before we come to our senses!
And so, the decline of Christian organizations can certainly lead to a fall, when Christians within those organizations become more worldly like a nation as a whole, and less consisting of true Christians. As the organized Church corrupts, there are less genuine, practicing Christians to continue the program of reform that God has called Christians to.
We can see this in history. All Christian nations have fallen at some point, and a number of them have experienced spiritual recovery later. There have been reformations and revivals. At the same time we have witnessed Christian organizations lose a genuine Christian membership until the organization is just a hollow representation of true Christianity. And we have witnessed those same organizations become lifeless and corrupt. These dead organizations, however, can be regenerated just like nations, but how is this possible if there are no true Christians left within them?
