Why do Christians try to impose their values on others?

So it is not our business to rule the world, or even to attempt to improve the world. The Lord Jesus Christ alone can set the world right, and if we attempt to do it before the time, we only display our folly, for it is impossible to impose Christian behaviour on those who are not Christian in any vital sense. Only the true believer possesses the divine nature, from which such behaviour would flow.

Now this appears to me a fact of very great importance. The use which the Gentile makes of his power is to set up a religion connected with the polities of the kingdom, a religion for present earthly purposes. Where this is the case, religion cannot be left between God and the conscience. It is no longer a question of having a real conviction as to God and His truth, nor is there liberty to judge the imposture. The worship devised by the Gentile king is bound down upon the subject under penalty of death.

There may be certain things which hinder, for a season, the natural results of the world's will in having its religion condemned. And this has been the case for some time. For the last fifty years and more, every one knows there has been a certain system of opinion, commonly called "liberalism." This has got hold of men's minds. In no way does it respect God and His word as such. Its great stock-in-trade is the rights of man. Its cardinal virtue is, that all should be left free to think, act, and worship as they please. As long as the idea of man's rights is allowed to have play, the mercy of God turns it into an occasion for Christians, having a conscience towards Himself, to pass quietly through, and worship God according to His will. And as it was always unquestionable that God claimed the right over His own people; as His revealed will alone can rightly govern them; so, as the Father, He now seeks His children, that they may worship Him in spirit and in truth. The renewed heart and conscience delight in His will and find the chief blessedness here in exalting Him. To the believer, that will is more peremptory than the absolutism of the heathen king. Liberalism really dislikes this exclusive claim over the conscience. Still, it has led to a sort of calm in the world; and the full exercise of its authority, as to religion, is in abeyance for the time. For, apart from temporary circumstances, none can deny that, wherever there is a religion introduced by the monarch, for the guidance of his realm, necessarily it does not admit of difference, contradiction, or compromise. This would defeat the purpose for which it is imposed. But it is to fight against God. The monarch himself may have a conscience, and he is, of course, bound to worship God according to His will. But the using the authority of the realm to coerce others is the denial, practically, of God's direct control over the individual conscience.

The thought is all too common even amongst true believers that the mission of the Christian is to improve, and in this way, if possible, convert the world; hence they fling themselves, often with great ardour, into all sorts of schemes for the betterment of humanity, and plunge earnestly into political controversy, endeavouring to further the cause which they deem to be right.

A strange sight indeed it is to see the nominal church attempting by political influences, legislation, police activities, to force the world to keep the Sabbath day on the first day of the week. As if it were the calling of the church to enforce laws and as if the world could be made to keep the Sabbath. What a deplorable mixture! What an awful confusion!

Another thing that doubtless drew forth the enmity of the people against the Christians, was the aggressive character of Christianity. When any one is converted to the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, he naturally desires that others shall share in the blessing. It has always been so, and we may be sure that the Roman converts were always pleading with their relatives and friends that they were not really gods which the people worshipped; for they now knew the only one true God and His Son Jesus Christ. Their gods could not save them.

Christianity, unlike all other religions that preceded it, was aggressive in its character. Judaism was exclusive; the religion of one nation; Christianity was proclaimed as the religion of mankind or the whole world. This was an entirely new thing on the earth. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," was the Lord's command to the disciples. They were to go forth and make war with error, in every form and in all its workings. The conquest to be made was the heart for Christ. "The weapons of our warfare," says the apostle, "are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. 10:4-5) In this war of aggression with existing institutions, and with the corrupt habits of the heathen, the disciples of Jesus had little to expect but resistance, persecution, and suffering.

In every Christian heart that is not withered and cramped by carnal things there is the desire to save others, it is one of the chief instincts of the divine nature that is in them. They do not desire, as God does not desire, that any should perish, they want all, as God wants all, to come to the knowledge of the truth. "The damnation of hell" is not a question of words with them, it is a reality, terrible and everlasting, and they want to save men from it and to serve God in doing it; but they know, if they are intelligent, that if men are to be saved from this final doom, they must be saved from the snares and seductions of the devil that lure them on to it: to save them from these is to save them from that. So they will endeavour to save men from the blinding doctrinal errors of the day, the profane and vain babblings (2 Tim. 2:16) and doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1), by which the faith of some is overthrown; they will endeavour to save men from the pollutions and enmity against God that are native to the flesh, and from the seductions of the world and from placing their hopes in the false dreams of man's ability to evolve himself and his world into all that he and it should be.

In every Christian heart that is not withered and cramped by carnal things there is the desire to save others, it is one of the chief instincts of the divine nature that is in them. They do not desire, as God does not desire, that any should perish, they want all, as God wants all, to come to the knowledge of the truth. “The damnation of hell” is not a question of words with them, it is a reality, terrible and everlasting, and they want to save men from it and to serve God in doing it; but they know, if they are intelligent, that if men are to be saved from this final doom, they must be saved from the snares and seductions of the devil that lure them on to it: to save them from these is to save them from that. So they will endeavour to save men from the blinding doctrinal errors of the day , the profane and vain babblings (2 Tim. 2:16) and doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1), by which the faith of some is overthrown; they will endeavour to save men from the pollutions and enmity against God that are native to the flesh , and from the seductions of the world and from placing their hopes in the false dreams of man's ability to evolve himself and his world into all that he and it should be.

You do not well to be angry if those who enjoy eternal life and peace in believing desire the same for others who are either insensible to their misery, or intensely sad, as I trust some of Israel are in their present desolation under the evident judgment of God. I admit that Jews might try to spread their Judaism or Gentiles their heathenism, and that Christians ought to compassionate efforts so futile for those who have faith. It is however no question of any right of ours, but of His authority who commanded His servants to preach the good news to every creature. It is one of the many points of contrast between the law and the gospel.

It is not, be it observed and well remembered, that any man or any number of men have any right to demand subjection to their decisions or decrees; this would be most strongly deprecated. No man has any right to enforce his opinions upon his fellow. This is plain enough, and we have to bless God for the inestimable privilege of civil and religious liberty, as enjoyed under the government of England. But what we urge upon our readers, just now, is plain decision for Christ, and implicit subjection to His authority, irrespective of everything, and regardless of consequences. This is what we do most earnestly desire for ourselves and for all the people of God, in these last days. We long for that condition of soul, that attitude of heart, that quality of conscience, which shall lead us to bow down in implicit subjection to the commandments of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. No doubt there are difficulties, stumbling blocks, and hostile influences to be encountered. It may be said, for instance, that "It is very difficult for one, now-a-days, to know what is really true and right. There are so many opinions and so many ways, and good men differ so in judgement about the simplest and plainest matters, and yet they all profess to own the Bible as the only standard of appeal; and, moreover, they all declare that their one desire is to do what is right, and to serve the Lord, in their day and generation. How, then, is one to know what is true or what is false, seeing that you will find the very best of men ranged on opposite sides of the same question?"