Jesus made it clear - the kingdom of God is opposed to the Kingdom of man, which is the offspring of Satan. Matthew 16:23: "But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Matthew 5:33: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; . . . ." John 5:44: "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?"
If you seek the kingdom of God in politics, you will be in conflict. Matthew 10:34: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." If Christ expects you to be in conflict with your family, then why would you think you won't be in conflict with people - strangers - seeking the exact opposite of God's kingdom?
Politics involves a war of words. You have an automatic advantage if you rely upon the word of God. "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Hebrews 4:12. But people don't always appreciate that power. They mock it, they fear it, they don't want to submit to its authority. But always remember that it has great authority.
So, the question is not Republicans vs. Democrats, conservatives vs. liberals, constitutionalists vs. evolutionists, it is biblical kingdom supporters vs. the kingdom of man. If you compromise your biblical principles, you risk losing all.
Some argue that the kingdom of God is so other worldly that we have little if anything to do with the kingdoms of this world. But the saints of the Old Covenant always came into contact with the gentile kingdoms and the kingdom of God always conquered. Joseph took over the kingdom of Egypt, Daniel became the prime minister of the Babylonian kingdom, Moses' snakes swallowed up the snakes conjured up by Pharaoh's magicians. What did these men have in common? An uncompromising commitment to the word of God. Could anyone seriously contend that these men in leadership applied nothing of their godly world view when engaged with those gentile kingdoms?
If winning is the goal in politics, then serving faithfully the God of the covenant while in office would not contradict that goal. But what tactic must the official take in order to properly serve that God while in office? It would require serious knowledge of the bible and its application to civil life and law. But it would be important to remember you're part of an invading kingdom, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Otherwise, one could soon come to look little different from those serving the enemy.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Sunday, April 27, 2014
The Importance of Swearing 2
"The execution of the law is the life of the law." That was a saying among the Puritans of the seventeenth century. It means that if you don't execute the law, it eventually becomes dead letter. Think about the laws that are antique in the American system. Your local area or state probably have some of these on the books. Don't hitch your horse to this hitching post, no spitting on the sidewalk, etc. The police never enforce them, so hardly anyone even remembers or knows that they exist. They might as well not exist.
Some of those laws are so impractical that there's no reason to enforce them any longer, but God's law-word never expires, unless revoked by the lawgiver Himself. To swear before Him and then violate the oath is to call down serious punishment on oneself. Even if man never knows you swore falsely, God sees all. Therefore, the argument used at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 that a religious test oath could be violated with impunity by ambitious men who would swear to anything to advance their political career was wrong on two counts.
First, the living God would still hold that man to his oath, and so would the people. "What is an oath? It is the calling down on one's head the negative sanctions of God. If a person or covenanted institution disobeys the law of God, then God comes in wrath to punish the rebels. He comes in history. This was the warning of the Old Testament prophets." Political Polytheism, Gary North, p. 41 (Tyler, TX: ICE 1989).
Second, it was a hypocritical argument, for they did require an oath in the U.S. Constitution, the oath to defend and uphold the Constitution. Politicians swear to that all the time, then they violate it with nary a blink of an eye. So they left out the oath to believe in the one, true God and His word, but they replaced it with an oath to support and defend man's word! They used the hypocrisy argument hypocritically, opposing a religious test oath but supporting a humanistic constitutional oath.
What is telling about this decision on the part of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention is the fact that most of the states required a religious test oath before someone could serve in public office. These oaths were typically trinitarian, bible-centered oaths, not sectarian, that is, not based on a certain denomination. In other words, they were distinctly Christian in content. At most, these test oaths might have excluded Roman Catholics because the Reformation's many issues with that church would still have been fresh to those descendants of the reformers. The following are some examples.
Magistrates serving in Pennsylvania had to take this oath: "And I, A.B., profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ his eternal son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for evermore; and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration." By the way, Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers, like William Penn, who had a different concept of the Trinity than other Protestants.
The 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution required representatives to swear to the following: "And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz:
"I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration."
"And no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State."
In New Jersey, religious liberty had to be upheld, and every civil magistrate was required by law to affirm this upon oath to Jesus Christ. Fundamental Constitution for the Province of East New Jersey" (1683). In that same document was stated: "Nor by this article [the religious liberty article] is it intended that any under the notion of liberty shall allow themselves to avow atheism, irreligiousness, or to practice cursing, swearing, drunkenness, profaneness, whoring, adultery, murdering, or any kind of violence, or indulging themselves in stage plays, masks, revels, or such like abuses; ..." Compared to other state laws addressing the beliefs required of public officials, this governing document of early New Jersey had the most extraneous requirements in addition to simply upholding religious liberty.
1701 Delaware Charter: "that all Persons who also profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the World, shall be capable (notwithstanding their other Persuasions and Practices in Point of Conscience and Religion) to serve this Government in any Capacity, both legislatively and executively, he or they solemnly promising, when lawfully required, Allegiance to the King as Sovereign, and Fidelity to the Proprietary and Governor, and taking the Attests as now established by the Law made at Newcastle, in the Year One Thousand and Seven Hundred, entitled, An Act directing the Attests of several Officers and Ministers, as now amended and confirmed this present Assembly."
1776 Delaware Constitution: "ART. 22. Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall take the following oath, or affirmation, if conscientiously scrupulous of taking an oath, to wit:"
"***
"I, A B. do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."
1776 Constitution of Maryland: "XXXV. That no other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this State, and such oath of office, as shall be directed by this Convention or the Legislature of this State, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion."
1776 North Carolina Constitution: "XXXII.(5) That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State." One of the qualifications for voting in North Carolina was belief in the Christian religion.
1777 Vermont Constitution: "And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz."
"I ____ do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the scriptures of the old and new testament to be given by divine inspiration, and own and profess the protestant religion."
"And no further or other religious test shall ever, hereafter, be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State."
That oath was repeated in the 1786 Vermont Constitution.
So the states, at the time of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, required that public officials be believers in the bible and the God of the bible. However, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 went a different route, enacting an oath that required allegiance to the Constitution, not the God of the bible. Did that act mean the states automatically became unauthorized theocracies? There's no mention of a sovereign God in the document, and there's no reference to biblical law being the law of the American people. Those aspects excluded two points of the biblical covenant, one and three - the sovereign being the God of the bible, and His law being the law of the land. As for point two, hierarchy, the Constitution positively forbids any type of oath to the Trinitarian faith by elected officials. The first amendment forbids any law that would forbid the propagation of heresy or outright anti-Christian faiths. Thus, the fifth covenantal element, continuity/inheritance, is in jeopardy when the Christian character of the nation is allowed to be altered to the detriment of the faith.
The fourth element of the covenant as demonstrated in the oath to defend the Constitution, sanctions, cannot be called biblical except in part. Those serving in the federal government swear not to uphold God's word but man's word in the Constitution. Any swearing, even when done with one hand on the bible, is to call upon the living God of the bible to uphold the humanism enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Thus the Constitution adds insult to injury by not containing an oath to uphold the law of the living God but requiring an oath to defend the Constitution. Just about every aspect of a biblical covenant is denied or positively forbidden by the U.S. Constitution. However, that does not necessarily mean the states cannot continue to hold their officials to a religious test oath. Others will disagree, citing the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Some of those laws are so impractical that there's no reason to enforce them any longer, but God's law-word never expires, unless revoked by the lawgiver Himself. To swear before Him and then violate the oath is to call down serious punishment on oneself. Even if man never knows you swore falsely, God sees all. Therefore, the argument used at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 that a religious test oath could be violated with impunity by ambitious men who would swear to anything to advance their political career was wrong on two counts.
First, the living God would still hold that man to his oath, and so would the people. "What is an oath? It is the calling down on one's head the negative sanctions of God. If a person or covenanted institution disobeys the law of God, then God comes in wrath to punish the rebels. He comes in history. This was the warning of the Old Testament prophets." Political Polytheism, Gary North, p. 41 (Tyler, TX: ICE 1989).
Second, it was a hypocritical argument, for they did require an oath in the U.S. Constitution, the oath to defend and uphold the Constitution. Politicians swear to that all the time, then they violate it with nary a blink of an eye. So they left out the oath to believe in the one, true God and His word, but they replaced it with an oath to support and defend man's word! They used the hypocrisy argument hypocritically, opposing a religious test oath but supporting a humanistic constitutional oath.
What is telling about this decision on the part of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention is the fact that most of the states required a religious test oath before someone could serve in public office. These oaths were typically trinitarian, bible-centered oaths, not sectarian, that is, not based on a certain denomination. In other words, they were distinctly Christian in content. At most, these test oaths might have excluded Roman Catholics because the Reformation's many issues with that church would still have been fresh to those descendants of the reformers. The following are some examples.
Magistrates serving in Pennsylvania had to take this oath: "And I, A.B., profess faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ his eternal son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for evermore; and do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration." By the way, Pennsylvania was founded by Quakers, like William Penn, who had a different concept of the Trinity than other Protestants.
The 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution required representatives to swear to the following: "And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz:
"I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration."
"And no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State."
In New Jersey, religious liberty had to be upheld, and every civil magistrate was required by law to affirm this upon oath to Jesus Christ. Fundamental Constitution for the Province of East New Jersey" (1683). In that same document was stated: "Nor by this article [the religious liberty article] is it intended that any under the notion of liberty shall allow themselves to avow atheism, irreligiousness, or to practice cursing, swearing, drunkenness, profaneness, whoring, adultery, murdering, or any kind of violence, or indulging themselves in stage plays, masks, revels, or such like abuses; ..." Compared to other state laws addressing the beliefs required of public officials, this governing document of early New Jersey had the most extraneous requirements in addition to simply upholding religious liberty.
1701 Delaware Charter: "that all Persons who also profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the World, shall be capable (notwithstanding their other Persuasions and Practices in Point of Conscience and Religion) to serve this Government in any Capacity, both legislatively and executively, he or they solemnly promising, when lawfully required, Allegiance to the King as Sovereign, and Fidelity to the Proprietary and Governor, and taking the Attests as now established by the Law made at Newcastle, in the Year One Thousand and Seven Hundred, entitled, An Act directing the Attests of several Officers and Ministers, as now amended and confirmed this present Assembly."
1776 Delaware Constitution: "ART. 22. Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust, before taking his seat, or entering upon the execution of his office, shall take the following oath, or affirmation, if conscientiously scrupulous of taking an oath, to wit:"
"***
"I, A B. do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration."
1776 Constitution of Maryland: "XXXV. That no other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this State, and such oath of office, as shall be directed by this Convention or the Legislature of this State, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion."
1776 North Carolina Constitution: "XXXII.(5) That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State." One of the qualifications for voting in North Carolina was belief in the Christian religion.
1777 Vermont Constitution: "And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz."
"I ____ do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe, the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the scriptures of the old and new testament to be given by divine inspiration, and own and profess the protestant religion."
"And no further or other religious test shall ever, hereafter, be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State."
That oath was repeated in the 1786 Vermont Constitution.
So the states, at the time of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, required that public officials be believers in the bible and the God of the bible. However, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 went a different route, enacting an oath that required allegiance to the Constitution, not the God of the bible. Did that act mean the states automatically became unauthorized theocracies? There's no mention of a sovereign God in the document, and there's no reference to biblical law being the law of the American people. Those aspects excluded two points of the biblical covenant, one and three - the sovereign being the God of the bible, and His law being the law of the land. As for point two, hierarchy, the Constitution positively forbids any type of oath to the Trinitarian faith by elected officials. The first amendment forbids any law that would forbid the propagation of heresy or outright anti-Christian faiths. Thus, the fifth covenantal element, continuity/inheritance, is in jeopardy when the Christian character of the nation is allowed to be altered to the detriment of the faith.
The fourth element of the covenant as demonstrated in the oath to defend the Constitution, sanctions, cannot be called biblical except in part. Those serving in the federal government swear not to uphold God's word but man's word in the Constitution. Any swearing, even when done with one hand on the bible, is to call upon the living God of the bible to uphold the humanism enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Thus the Constitution adds insult to injury by not containing an oath to uphold the law of the living God but requiring an oath to defend the Constitution. Just about every aspect of a biblical covenant is denied or positively forbidden by the U.S. Constitution. However, that does not necessarily mean the states cannot continue to hold their officials to a religious test oath. Others will disagree, citing the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
The Consequences of Humanistic Swearing
What are the consequences of a document that enshrines a humanistic oath to support and defend man's word, the constitution, and not God's word? We're seeing them play out in front of our eyes. The country is polarized - not because of an irrational commitment to beliefs that should be compromised but because of the logical and foreseeable conclusions of people's religious commitments. The humanist, committed to an evolutionary view of the world, cannot subscribe to timeless principles, no matter how often Christians tell him that he must. The only timeless principle for the evolutionary humanist is change. So, when we tell the evolutionary humanist that murdering the unborn is a crime of murder, he thinks (no matter what he says), "There is a need to eliminate the unfit, the problematic; it's better the parent(s) decide than that the government decide." When we tell him that marriage is for procreation of the species and only between a man and a woman, he asks, "Why? Perhaps that's the wave of the future. Perhaps that will save mankind, whose population is exponentially increasing and using up too many resources."
Therefore, those who believe in God's law-word, His sanctions that He imposes on nations that deny Him, we are seen as adhering to the antiquated words of men long dead. We are seen as hinderers of progress, threats to the health of the nation which is moving forward into the future. Our arguments are not convincing to those who are committed to a completely different foundational meaning for life and existence. As for debate, we merely confirm the humanists' view that we are a threat to progress. We are prophets, like those of the Old Testament, whose words were mere entertainment: "Listen to that crazy mad man telling us God's judgment will fall on us for killing babies and enshrining perversions of sex in same sex marriage!"
Without sanctions, we are just the voice of another interest group trying to get our way with the legislators, the president, the governor, whoever. The Christian position is not that we have a better way as to which we are trying to convince people; we have the only way. It is not that one day people will wake up and decide that following the bible will result in the most prosperity and progress for the world; it is that they must submit to the all sovereign governor of the universe and His laws. Acts states: "God commands all men everywhere to repent."
Even when we compromise and say, "Let's just obey the Constitution and you don't command us with anti-Christian laws from Washington, D.C., and we won't demand you obey God's law," and that is a compromise, they say, "We do obey the Constitution, but not the way some white, slave-owning men, dead for over two hundred years, intended. If you don't follow us, you're hindering our country's progress! We can't have that. You drag everyone down with your parochial, antiquated ways. You will follow us, and we'll all prosper and evolve into the future."
So how do they do it? The liberals, I mean. They adopt a comprehensive view of life, and they go about implementing it, ignoring criticism. Hillary Clinton, wife of President Bill Clinton in the 1990's, wrote a book titled "It Takes a Village." It was mocked because it wasn't individualistic; it was communitarian, like her politics. However, education is where the future is taught how to think. The liberals can always count on a new crop of liberals, no matter how many failed policies they implement. Public schooling is faithful to produce "former" bible believers. They convince us Christians that "education" needs improving, more funding. And we say, "Oh yes, of course, we're not against education!" So, they fool us again and train up our children to be the future evolutionary humanists of the nation.
It also demonstrates the folly of relying upon natural law. Natural law says that there are fixed laws in the natural world and that we can find them there by being objective in our study of nature. Yet, the humanist observes nature and sees only change, not fixed laws. We support education, controlled by humanists, and we advocate for natural law, which supports the evolutionists view that nature teaches us, not the sovereign God of the bible. And we wonder why nothing changes, it only gets worse.
We also say that we should save souls not change society. Yet, the society's ways pervert people's souls. Not everyone will be saved, which reformed believers in the biblical doctrine of election know. However, just because not everyone will be saved, that doesn't mean that society has to from God and His law, thus dooming the society. Society is doomed by forsaking God's law, for they forsake the God of justice and judgment upon nations that deny Him. A smorgasboard legal system results in a pre-flood society when violence reigned, a Judges society when every man did what was right in his own eyes, a Roman empire polytheistic society when the civil government tried to accommodate everyone's viewpoint resulting in worship of man, the emperor, the state.
What happens when Christians, who are more than conquerors and with whom Christ promises to be forever, join with the humanists. Humanists win, and the world fails and is judged. If we align with Christ and His word alone, we have victory for Christ's kingdom.
Therefore, those who believe in God's law-word, His sanctions that He imposes on nations that deny Him, we are seen as adhering to the antiquated words of men long dead. We are seen as hinderers of progress, threats to the health of the nation which is moving forward into the future. Our arguments are not convincing to those who are committed to a completely different foundational meaning for life and existence. As for debate, we merely confirm the humanists' view that we are a threat to progress. We are prophets, like those of the Old Testament, whose words were mere entertainment: "Listen to that crazy mad man telling us God's judgment will fall on us for killing babies and enshrining perversions of sex in same sex marriage!"
Without sanctions, we are just the voice of another interest group trying to get our way with the legislators, the president, the governor, whoever. The Christian position is not that we have a better way as to which we are trying to convince people; we have the only way. It is not that one day people will wake up and decide that following the bible will result in the most prosperity and progress for the world; it is that they must submit to the all sovereign governor of the universe and His laws. Acts states: "God commands all men everywhere to repent."
Even when we compromise and say, "Let's just obey the Constitution and you don't command us with anti-Christian laws from Washington, D.C., and we won't demand you obey God's law," and that is a compromise, they say, "We do obey the Constitution, but not the way some white, slave-owning men, dead for over two hundred years, intended. If you don't follow us, you're hindering our country's progress! We can't have that. You drag everyone down with your parochial, antiquated ways. You will follow us, and we'll all prosper and evolve into the future."
So how do they do it? The liberals, I mean. They adopt a comprehensive view of life, and they go about implementing it, ignoring criticism. Hillary Clinton, wife of President Bill Clinton in the 1990's, wrote a book titled "It Takes a Village." It was mocked because it wasn't individualistic; it was communitarian, like her politics. However, education is where the future is taught how to think. The liberals can always count on a new crop of liberals, no matter how many failed policies they implement. Public schooling is faithful to produce "former" bible believers. They convince us Christians that "education" needs improving, more funding. And we say, "Oh yes, of course, we're not against education!" So, they fool us again and train up our children to be the future evolutionary humanists of the nation.
It also demonstrates the folly of relying upon natural law. Natural law says that there are fixed laws in the natural world and that we can find them there by being objective in our study of nature. Yet, the humanist observes nature and sees only change, not fixed laws. We support education, controlled by humanists, and we advocate for natural law, which supports the evolutionists view that nature teaches us, not the sovereign God of the bible. And we wonder why nothing changes, it only gets worse.
We also say that we should save souls not change society. Yet, the society's ways pervert people's souls. Not everyone will be saved, which reformed believers in the biblical doctrine of election know. However, just because not everyone will be saved, that doesn't mean that society has to from God and His law, thus dooming the society. Society is doomed by forsaking God's law, for they forsake the God of justice and judgment upon nations that deny Him. A smorgasboard legal system results in a pre-flood society when violence reigned, a Judges society when every man did what was right in his own eyes, a Roman empire polytheistic society when the civil government tried to accommodate everyone's viewpoint resulting in worship of man, the emperor, the state.
What happens when Christians, who are more than conquerors and with whom Christ promises to be forever, join with the humanists. Humanists win, and the world fails and is judged. If we align with Christ and His word alone, we have victory for Christ's kingdom.
Monday, March 24, 2014
The Victory of The Christian 2
Prayer is the key to the Christian's victory. Though He was God in the flesh, Jesus prayed often. He taught His disciples to pray, saying, "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We pray for God's kingdom and will to come and be done. Wouldn't that fit well with praying that godly men get elected to office? With praying that we might be godly men who could worship God and faithfully keep the sheep?
Paul exhorted us to pray for our rulers: "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." I Timothy 2:1-4. It is peaceful living under a godly civil government that is most productive of a Christian civilization. Godly authority supports, protects, and encourages law abiding citizens and punishes the law breakers. In this way, God's justice is mirrored in the civil realm, and Christians (law abiding) advance, while the wicked (law breakers) are retarded in their success.
We pray to understand, we pray to see God's power change the world, we pray so that we change to become more in the image of Christ. In this way, we prepare for leadership. And in the meantime, we serve those we are around. If we are promoted, it is merely for more advanced service so that we are better shepherds. It is not solely or primarily for our benefit, even though becoming like Christ and serving His people is always an honor and privilege. Paul had this attitude in Philippians 1:23-6:
"For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again."
Even though it was to his benefit to depart and dwell with Christ, he was willing, no, anxious, to abide with God's people and encourage them. Prayer acknowledges that there is a higher power, a higher authority, an appellate court above all human courts, if you will. The Christian politician knows that he need not compromise to accomplish half God's purpose. He can always appeal to the King of the universe, the Supreme Court of the universe to undo the injustices, and to grant success to the chosen politician who stands upon the truth of God's word. Such is prayer.
Paul exhorted us to pray for our rulers: "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." I Timothy 2:1-4. It is peaceful living under a godly civil government that is most productive of a Christian civilization. Godly authority supports, protects, and encourages law abiding citizens and punishes the law breakers. In this way, God's justice is mirrored in the civil realm, and Christians (law abiding) advance, while the wicked (law breakers) are retarded in their success.
We pray to understand, we pray to see God's power change the world, we pray so that we change to become more in the image of Christ. In this way, we prepare for leadership. And in the meantime, we serve those we are around. If we are promoted, it is merely for more advanced service so that we are better shepherds. It is not solely or primarily for our benefit, even though becoming like Christ and serving His people is always an honor and privilege. Paul had this attitude in Philippians 1:23-6:
"For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again."
Even though it was to his benefit to depart and dwell with Christ, he was willing, no, anxious, to abide with God's people and encourage them. Prayer acknowledges that there is a higher power, a higher authority, an appellate court above all human courts, if you will. The Christian politician knows that he need not compromise to accomplish half God's purpose. He can always appeal to the King of the universe, the Supreme Court of the universe to undo the injustices, and to grant success to the chosen politician who stands upon the truth of God's word. Such is prayer.
The Victory of The Christian 1
The model politician in the bible is King David. Before becoming King, he was chosen by God, anointed by the prophet Samuel, the Spirit of God came upon him, he took the opportunity to claim victory for Israel and the God of Israel against a seemingly invincible enemy, he won enormous victories for Israel and King Saul, and he was persecuted to the point of having to escape his own nation because the jealous king was intent upon killing him. Did he orchestrate any of this by consulting with his campaign managers and analyzing polling data? Did he choose to become king? Did he compete and scramble in competition with King Saul to claim his kingship after being anointed king by Samuel? Did he fight to defend himself against King Saul when he was facing death at Saul's hand? The answer is no to all of the above.
So, how did he become king? It was not by any humanly orchestrated means that King David became King. Nevertheless, we can still learn alot about David. First is his faith in God, meaning he did not consider himself fit for the job of King but knew if God wanted him in that position, then it would happen. In other words, why would David need to orchestrate what God already ordained? Why would he advance himself to become something for which he didn't think he was even fit? Why would he jeopardize his life, his soul, and his future by harming God's chosen king?
You say modern politics is different and you have to promote yourself. Is modern politics that different? Is God no longer able to advance a person to a chosen position? Or does God not care anymore about who serves in politics? Back then, God set up a theocracy, and now things are different. So what God sets up is not as good as what we can set up? Secularism is better than theocracy? Human government is better than God's? Which is it going to be?
But what if a group of people, the church, maybe, got the vision for God's government, run by God's men? First, they would need to know and understand God's method of civil government. Second, they would have to pray for God's men to become elected officials. Third, they would have to apply their faith to the process of getting elected. Lastly, they would have to apply their faith to being a governing official.
First, what are the principles, the standards for governing civilly? Before he even knew that he would become king, David began as a worshipper of God and faithfully keeping his father's sheep. He ended worshipping God, faithfully keeping his father's sheep, and instructing his son how to continue in the right way. He had the five elements of covenant down pat. Worshipping God, the sovereign and the authority over even the king - elements 1 and 2, sovereignty and hierarchy. He kept the law of love, guiding the sheep - element 3, law. He accepted God's discipline and sanctions upon him and his sin as what was true and just from his God's hand - element 4, sanctions. And he passed along instructions to keep God's covenant people going, keeping the continuity of godly rulership - element 5, succession or inheritance.
"Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man; And keep the charge of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself: That the LORD may continue his word which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee (said he) a man on the throne of Israel." I Kings 2:1-4.
David spoke right out of the law of Moses because he was a man after God's own heart. How else would we know that he loved God? "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." I John 5:2-3.
So how do we pray for these godly elected officials? That is for the next post.
So, how did he become king? It was not by any humanly orchestrated means that King David became King. Nevertheless, we can still learn alot about David. First is his faith in God, meaning he did not consider himself fit for the job of King but knew if God wanted him in that position, then it would happen. In other words, why would David need to orchestrate what God already ordained? Why would he advance himself to become something for which he didn't think he was even fit? Why would he jeopardize his life, his soul, and his future by harming God's chosen king?
You say modern politics is different and you have to promote yourself. Is modern politics that different? Is God no longer able to advance a person to a chosen position? Or does God not care anymore about who serves in politics? Back then, God set up a theocracy, and now things are different. So what God sets up is not as good as what we can set up? Secularism is better than theocracy? Human government is better than God's? Which is it going to be?
But what if a group of people, the church, maybe, got the vision for God's government, run by God's men? First, they would need to know and understand God's method of civil government. Second, they would have to pray for God's men to become elected officials. Third, they would have to apply their faith to the process of getting elected. Lastly, they would have to apply their faith to being a governing official.
First, what are the principles, the standards for governing civilly? Before he even knew that he would become king, David began as a worshipper of God and faithfully keeping his father's sheep. He ended worshipping God, faithfully keeping his father's sheep, and instructing his son how to continue in the right way. He had the five elements of covenant down pat. Worshipping God, the sovereign and the authority over even the king - elements 1 and 2, sovereignty and hierarchy. He kept the law of love, guiding the sheep - element 3, law. He accepted God's discipline and sanctions upon him and his sin as what was true and just from his God's hand - element 4, sanctions. And he passed along instructions to keep God's covenant people going, keeping the continuity of godly rulership - element 5, succession or inheritance.
"Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die; and he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man; And keep the charge of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of Moses, that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest, and whithersoever thou turnest thyself: That the LORD may continue his word which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee (said he) a man on the throne of Israel." I Kings 2:1-4.
David spoke right out of the law of Moses because he was a man after God's own heart. How else would we know that he loved God? "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." I John 5:2-3.
So how do we pray for these godly elected officials? That is for the next post.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
The Circle Square Debate
As I've viewed the debate over “homosexual marriage” since attending law school thirty years ago, it has appeared to me that the hundreds and thousands of law school review articles and debates in the press and pronouncements of the courts are like a shell game. However, just recently, I've noticed a pronounced difference between a real-life shell game and the marriage debate. The shell game is much fairer. In the shell game, the gamer and the mark (the one to be fleeced by the sleight of hand of the gamer) at least begin on solid footing, for the gamer shows the mark the three shells and the pea, which is supposed to be placed under one of the shells and then uncovered by the mark after the mark watches the gamer scramble the three shells. However, in the homosexual marriage debate, you never see the pea, and there’s only one shell. The mark has to ask himself, “Was there ever a pea at all?”
Consider the following debate as exemplary of the evolution of the homosexual marriage debate. This is a mirror of the legal debate, and you better believe that it rises no higher than the shrill scream of a person who wants their way no matter what. It is between the circle person, who is anti-homosexual marriage, and the square person, who is pro-homosexual marriage. For the sake of space on the written page, we’ll name them Pro-Circle and Pro-Square.
Pro-Square: “Do you believe that there’s a difference between circles and squares?”
Pro-Circle: “Well, yes, of course, there’s a difference.”
Pro-Square: “You’re a bigot!”
Pro-Circle: “Why do you call me a bigot? The difference is self-evident; squares have four corners, and circles have none. It has been that way for eons of time in practically every society that has ever existed.”
Pro-Square: “Well, there you have it. You prove you’re a bigot by excluding squares from the definition of circles!”
Pro-Circle: “So, let me get this straight. To say that a square is not a circle is bigotry, and to say that the definition of circle should include squares is what you’re all about. Am I right?”
Pro-Square: “You’re correct. I am loving and tolerant, and you are a bigot, sir.”
Pro-Circle: “But a square is not a circle; it has never been one and can never be one.”
Pro-Square: “Bigot! Prove that a square is not a circle.”
Pro-Circle: “But I already stated the self-evident, geometrical proof that a square has four corners, and a circle has no corners but only a smooth, equi-radius curve for a boundary.”
Pro-Square: “But they both have boundaries and they’re both shapes, correct?”
Pro-Circle: “Yes, but . . .”
Pro-Square: “There! You’re a bigot, as I told you before. Squares should be equivalent to circles.”
Pro-Circle: “But it’s not bigotry; it’s the very definition of a circle to exclude shapes that have corners, like squares.”
Pro-Square: “I have demanded before that you prove that the square shape is not included within the definition of circle. And you have failed miserably.”
Pro-Circle: “Uh . . .”
Pro-Square: “There, you see, you have absolutely no defense for your intolerant and hateful exclusion of squares from the definition of circle. In fact, every time you open your mouth, you simply prove further and further that you are a hateful bigot because you believe in excluding squares from the definition of circle!”
Pro-Circle: “But I’m not a bigot, and I don’t hate you. I simply believe there’s a difference between the two shapes.”
Pro-Square: “I’m not convinced. You make me feel excluded and hated and discriminated against because you won’t accept that squares are equivalent to circles. You are a hateful, intolerant, bigot. This is becoming intolerable even talking to you. Have you no shame for excluding squares from the definition of circles?! You are despicable!”
Pro-Circle: “Whoa, let’s slow down here. I don’t hate you and never intended to make you feel discriminated against. It’s just that circles and squares have always been defined as different. I know, I know, you disagree. Here’s a question for you. What about triangles? Can’t they be circles if it’s intolerant and hateful to say squares are not circles, then surely it would be intolerant and hateful to say that triangles are not circles too, right?”
Pro-Square: “There you go, degrading yourself and your argument by bringing up that tired triangle argument. You truly are a most miserable, despicable hater, if you’re going to bring triangles into this discussion.”
Pro-Circle: “Hold on, you’re the one that said it’s hateful to leave squares out of the definition of circles. Why aren't you a hater for leaving triangles out? I don’t get it.”
Pro-Square: “No, you don’t get it!”
Pro-Circle: “Is that your comeback?”
Pro-Square: “It’s not a comeback. Your argument is too disgusting to be even entitled to a comeback.”
Pro-Circle: “Okay. Where do we go from here?”
Pro-Square: “I’ll tell you where we go; you get rid of your antiquated hateful definition of circle and include squares. That’s where we go, and you better do it fast, or I’ll sue you so quick, it’ll make your head spin!”
Pro-Circle: “Would that be a circular spin or a square spin?”
Pro-Square: “Don’t be cute, bigot.”
Pro-Circle: “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I’ll go back to logical arguments for your sake. Answer me this. When did the thousands of years of human history and geometry and logic suddenly become hateful and bigoted?”
Pro-Square: “First of all, you have totally missed it. Second, that history, as you call it, proves what I've been saying all along.”
Pro-Circle: “I would think that it would help my argument about defining circle as a no-corner shape.”
Pro-Square: “No, it proves you’re a fundamentalist, fanatical, backward hateful bigot who agrees with the persecution we Pro-Squares have suffered under.”
Pro-Circle: “Oh. I’m stumped. There’s something wrong here, and I’m trying to put my finger on it.”
Pro-Square: “You see, you can’t even come up with a logical defense for your discriminatory, bigoted definition of circle. Just give it up.”
Pro-Circle: “Well, it just seems as if changing the definition of circle might be a dangerous thing. I can’t prove it because no society has ever done it. I wonder what kind of geometry and architecture we’d have, what effect it might have on language and understanding of what shape is being discussed, and just leaving out something as important as corners in the definition of squares seems, well, dishonest in some deep, fundamental way.”
Pro-Square: “Oh, now you’re going to bring in the religious aspect aren't you? I thought you religious people believed in a loving God and loving your neighbor and all that stuff. How does defining a circle in order to purposely exclude squares live up to your religion. Hypocrite!”
Pro-Circle: “Um, I don’t think it’s purposeful exclusion really. But I think you've missed my point. It’s a radical change in something important, and our society hasn't really determined what the consequences of the change may be.”
Pro-Square: “The future will be better because we Pro-Squares won’t feel excluded any longer, and we’ll provide a broader, more inclusive society. What are you afraid of? It’s not like you won’t have circles any more; you still get to keep your no-cornered shapes, as you call them.”
Pro-Circle: “But not three-cornered shapes, right?”
Pro-Square: “Well, not yet.”
Pro-Circle: “Wait, I thought you said earlier that my mention of triangles as perhaps being entitled to being included in the definition was utterly disgusting to the point it didn't even deserve a response?”
Pro-Square: “Society might evolve to the point that triangles are also not excluded, I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.”
Pro-Circle: “You’re right. I don’t get it. It seems that you still can have squares without defining them as circles, and we wouldn't have the problems I’m concerned about. It also seems that you don’t really have a good answer to what I've said, but you basically continue to accuse me of having no argument and hating you as if I were trying to get you to change the definition of square, which I have not attempted to do once in this argument. Also, it seems that there’s no such thing as right and wrong anymore; values just evolve. One day squares are not circles, the next they are. One day, triangles are not circles, but one day they might be. I still don’t think I’m a bigot, and you certainly haven’t convinced me that squares are the same as circles, but it looks like you've got the power players behind you – the president, the courts, the media, who also agree with you. They also think that squares should be included in the definition of circle. I guess I’ll just have to go along with the crowd.”
Pro-Square: “I see you’re still stuck in the dark ages, but I warn you that unless you fully come around and reject out of your mind that bigoted, hateful definition of circle, we will hunt you down and render you powerless to resist or say a peep in opposition to our cause to make squares the equals of circles.”
Pro-Circle: “My, that is so tolerant and liberty-loving. I guess you don’t need an argument, do you?”
Consider the following debate as exemplary of the evolution of the homosexual marriage debate. This is a mirror of the legal debate, and you better believe that it rises no higher than the shrill scream of a person who wants their way no matter what. It is between the circle person, who is anti-homosexual marriage, and the square person, who is pro-homosexual marriage. For the sake of space on the written page, we’ll name them Pro-Circle and Pro-Square.
Pro-Square: “Do you believe that there’s a difference between circles and squares?”
Pro-Circle: “Well, yes, of course, there’s a difference.”
Pro-Square: “You’re a bigot!”
Pro-Circle: “Why do you call me a bigot? The difference is self-evident; squares have four corners, and circles have none. It has been that way for eons of time in practically every society that has ever existed.”
Pro-Square: “Well, there you have it. You prove you’re a bigot by excluding squares from the definition of circles!”
Pro-Circle: “So, let me get this straight. To say that a square is not a circle is bigotry, and to say that the definition of circle should include squares is what you’re all about. Am I right?”
Pro-Square: “You’re correct. I am loving and tolerant, and you are a bigot, sir.”
Pro-Circle: “But a square is not a circle; it has never been one and can never be one.”
Pro-Square: “Bigot! Prove that a square is not a circle.”
Pro-Circle: “But I already stated the self-evident, geometrical proof that a square has four corners, and a circle has no corners but only a smooth, equi-radius curve for a boundary.”
Pro-Square: “But they both have boundaries and they’re both shapes, correct?”
Pro-Circle: “Yes, but . . .”
Pro-Square: “There! You’re a bigot, as I told you before. Squares should be equivalent to circles.”
Pro-Circle: “But it’s not bigotry; it’s the very definition of a circle to exclude shapes that have corners, like squares.”
Pro-Square: “I have demanded before that you prove that the square shape is not included within the definition of circle. And you have failed miserably.”
Pro-Circle: “Uh . . .”
Pro-Square: “There, you see, you have absolutely no defense for your intolerant and hateful exclusion of squares from the definition of circle. In fact, every time you open your mouth, you simply prove further and further that you are a hateful bigot because you believe in excluding squares from the definition of circle!”
Pro-Circle: “But I’m not a bigot, and I don’t hate you. I simply believe there’s a difference between the two shapes.”
Pro-Square: “I’m not convinced. You make me feel excluded and hated and discriminated against because you won’t accept that squares are equivalent to circles. You are a hateful, intolerant, bigot. This is becoming intolerable even talking to you. Have you no shame for excluding squares from the definition of circles?! You are despicable!”
Pro-Circle: “Whoa, let’s slow down here. I don’t hate you and never intended to make you feel discriminated against. It’s just that circles and squares have always been defined as different. I know, I know, you disagree. Here’s a question for you. What about triangles? Can’t they be circles if it’s intolerant and hateful to say squares are not circles, then surely it would be intolerant and hateful to say that triangles are not circles too, right?”
Pro-Square: “There you go, degrading yourself and your argument by bringing up that tired triangle argument. You truly are a most miserable, despicable hater, if you’re going to bring triangles into this discussion.”
Pro-Circle: “Hold on, you’re the one that said it’s hateful to leave squares out of the definition of circles. Why aren't you a hater for leaving triangles out? I don’t get it.”
Pro-Square: “No, you don’t get it!”
Pro-Circle: “Is that your comeback?”
Pro-Square: “It’s not a comeback. Your argument is too disgusting to be even entitled to a comeback.”
Pro-Circle: “Okay. Where do we go from here?”
Pro-Square: “I’ll tell you where we go; you get rid of your antiquated hateful definition of circle and include squares. That’s where we go, and you better do it fast, or I’ll sue you so quick, it’ll make your head spin!”
Pro-Circle: “Would that be a circular spin or a square spin?”
Pro-Square: “Don’t be cute, bigot.”
Pro-Circle: “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I’ll go back to logical arguments for your sake. Answer me this. When did the thousands of years of human history and geometry and logic suddenly become hateful and bigoted?”
Pro-Square: “First of all, you have totally missed it. Second, that history, as you call it, proves what I've been saying all along.”
Pro-Circle: “I would think that it would help my argument about defining circle as a no-corner shape.”
Pro-Square: “No, it proves you’re a fundamentalist, fanatical, backward hateful bigot who agrees with the persecution we Pro-Squares have suffered under.”
Pro-Circle: “Oh. I’m stumped. There’s something wrong here, and I’m trying to put my finger on it.”
Pro-Square: “You see, you can’t even come up with a logical defense for your discriminatory, bigoted definition of circle. Just give it up.”
Pro-Circle: “Well, it just seems as if changing the definition of circle might be a dangerous thing. I can’t prove it because no society has ever done it. I wonder what kind of geometry and architecture we’d have, what effect it might have on language and understanding of what shape is being discussed, and just leaving out something as important as corners in the definition of squares seems, well, dishonest in some deep, fundamental way.”
Pro-Square: “Oh, now you’re going to bring in the religious aspect aren't you? I thought you religious people believed in a loving God and loving your neighbor and all that stuff. How does defining a circle in order to purposely exclude squares live up to your religion. Hypocrite!”
Pro-Circle: “Um, I don’t think it’s purposeful exclusion really. But I think you've missed my point. It’s a radical change in something important, and our society hasn't really determined what the consequences of the change may be.”
Pro-Square: “The future will be better because we Pro-Squares won’t feel excluded any longer, and we’ll provide a broader, more inclusive society. What are you afraid of? It’s not like you won’t have circles any more; you still get to keep your no-cornered shapes, as you call them.”
Pro-Circle: “But not three-cornered shapes, right?”
Pro-Square: “Well, not yet.”
Pro-Circle: “Wait, I thought you said earlier that my mention of triangles as perhaps being entitled to being included in the definition was utterly disgusting to the point it didn't even deserve a response?”
Pro-Square: “Society might evolve to the point that triangles are also not excluded, I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.”
Pro-Circle: “You’re right. I don’t get it. It seems that you still can have squares without defining them as circles, and we wouldn't have the problems I’m concerned about. It also seems that you don’t really have a good answer to what I've said, but you basically continue to accuse me of having no argument and hating you as if I were trying to get you to change the definition of square, which I have not attempted to do once in this argument. Also, it seems that there’s no such thing as right and wrong anymore; values just evolve. One day squares are not circles, the next they are. One day, triangles are not circles, but one day they might be. I still don’t think I’m a bigot, and you certainly haven’t convinced me that squares are the same as circles, but it looks like you've got the power players behind you – the president, the courts, the media, who also agree with you. They also think that squares should be included in the definition of circle. I guess I’ll just have to go along with the crowd.”
Pro-Square: “I see you’re still stuck in the dark ages, but I warn you that unless you fully come around and reject out of your mind that bigoted, hateful definition of circle, we will hunt you down and render you powerless to resist or say a peep in opposition to our cause to make squares the equals of circles.”
Pro-Circle: “My, that is so tolerant and liberty-loving. I guess you don’t need an argument, do you?”
The Victory of Christian Civilization 2
As I mentioned in another post, there are some things you can't compromise. For example, innocent human life, the definition of marriage, the identity of the true sovereign who judges nations, etc. But how does that translate into practical politics in the give-and-take, say, of the legislative process? When discussing the matters that cannot be compromised, there are two diametrically opposed positions.
First position: The standard politician asserts that he can work things out with the opposing side, reach across the aisle, reach a compromise. You can't compromise on a dead baby, unless you want the wrath of God. So, do we have to settle for God's wrath upon our nation, or is there another way?
Second position: There is another way. The representative in the government of a group of people, if he is a believer, is also a representative of the living God, the true sovereign. He can stand for the truth and not compromise. God sees that and will orchestrate heaven and earth to bless that believer's efforts. However, God cannot bless something that would contradict His word, i.e., the killing of some innocent babies to achieve a winning piece of legislation that a majority can agree to.
The believer who compromises denies that God can give victory over the enemies of God's law. He also gives up on the jurisdiction he represents, giving them over to the wrath of God's judgment upon a people giving up on His law. The believer who stands for the truth no matter what receives the following support in the invisible realm:
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war." Revelation 19:11. "And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." Revelation 19:19-21.
The beasts of the Old Testament were the political rulers who trampled the earth and God's people. It doesn't identify just one person in history, although it might ideally represent one particular political personage or position of the first century - those persecuting the infant Church of Jesus Christ.
The Greek word translated as The Revelation in Revelation 1:1 is apocalypse.
"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: . . . ."
The Greek word, apokalypsis, means:
1. laying bare, making naked
2. a disclosure of truth, instruction
1. concerning things before unknown
2. used of events by which things or states or persons hitherto withdrawn from view are made visible to all
3. manifestation, appearance
From Blue Letter Bible, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, at http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G602&t=KJV, accessed on March 1, 2014.
So, when we read in Revelation about Jesus Christ riding on a white horse and destroying His enemies, it is a revealing, an unveiling of who He is, not a revealing of what will happen in the future. Do you really think He sits in the most powerful position in the universe, that of God Almighty, and does nothing to advance His kingdom? At least, you have to believe that God the Father cares enough about the sacrifice of His Son that He advances His cause.
To think otherwise is to be like the people Jesus spoke to about His Father working. They appeared to think that upon finishing the sixth day of creation, God just sat down to rest for all eternity. But that was a complete misconception, according to Jesus. "But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." John 5:17.
Therefore, your cause that you are called to work for His kingdom, He will work to uphold it, even if that means gathering the armies of heaven together as a conquering commander and going to war against your enemies.
The verb form of the word, apokalyptō, is translated "reveal" 26 times in the New Testament. The revelation of who Jesus Christ really is, the conquering King of this earth and the entire universe, is revealed in the New Testament, the hearts and minds of believers by the Holy Spirit, and in history before the watching eyes of unbelievers, who see the crucified one destroy the idols they have exalted and avenge His saints, whom they have persecuted. I think He can handle the American Congress or your state's legislature or governor or courts or whatever is acting as God's enemy.
First position: The standard politician asserts that he can work things out with the opposing side, reach across the aisle, reach a compromise. You can't compromise on a dead baby, unless you want the wrath of God. So, do we have to settle for God's wrath upon our nation, or is there another way?
Second position: There is another way. The representative in the government of a group of people, if he is a believer, is also a representative of the living God, the true sovereign. He can stand for the truth and not compromise. God sees that and will orchestrate heaven and earth to bless that believer's efforts. However, God cannot bless something that would contradict His word, i.e., the killing of some innocent babies to achieve a winning piece of legislation that a majority can agree to.
The believer who compromises denies that God can give victory over the enemies of God's law. He also gives up on the jurisdiction he represents, giving them over to the wrath of God's judgment upon a people giving up on His law. The believer who stands for the truth no matter what receives the following support in the invisible realm:
"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war." Revelation 19:11. "And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." Revelation 19:19-21.
The beasts of the Old Testament were the political rulers who trampled the earth and God's people. It doesn't identify just one person in history, although it might ideally represent one particular political personage or position of the first century - those persecuting the infant Church of Jesus Christ.
The Greek word translated as The Revelation in Revelation 1:1 is apocalypse.
"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: . . . ."
The Greek word, apokalypsis, means:
1. laying bare, making naked
2. a disclosure of truth, instruction
1. concerning things before unknown
2. used of events by which things or states or persons hitherto withdrawn from view are made visible to all
3. manifestation, appearance
From Blue Letter Bible, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, at http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G602&t=KJV, accessed on March 1, 2014.
So, when we read in Revelation about Jesus Christ riding on a white horse and destroying His enemies, it is a revealing, an unveiling of who He is, not a revealing of what will happen in the future. Do you really think He sits in the most powerful position in the universe, that of God Almighty, and does nothing to advance His kingdom? At least, you have to believe that God the Father cares enough about the sacrifice of His Son that He advances His cause.
To think otherwise is to be like the people Jesus spoke to about His Father working. They appeared to think that upon finishing the sixth day of creation, God just sat down to rest for all eternity. But that was a complete misconception, according to Jesus. "But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." John 5:17.
Therefore, your cause that you are called to work for His kingdom, He will work to uphold it, even if that means gathering the armies of heaven together as a conquering commander and going to war against your enemies.
The verb form of the word, apokalyptō, is translated "reveal" 26 times in the New Testament. The revelation of who Jesus Christ really is, the conquering King of this earth and the entire universe, is revealed in the New Testament, the hearts and minds of believers by the Holy Spirit, and in history before the watching eyes of unbelievers, who see the crucified one destroy the idols they have exalted and avenge His saints, whom they have persecuted. I think He can handle the American Congress or your state's legislature or governor or courts or whatever is acting as God's enemy.
The Victory of Christian Civilization 1
Victory of Christian Civilization? What are you talking about? Those are the questions of those ignorant of history and utterly oblivious to the bible's inevitable march to victory of God's covenant people. It is a long-neglected portion of scripture. Psalm 2 states it quite plainly.
"Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." Psalm 2.
How do we know when Christianity has overcome the secular and pagan and godless ideologies of the day. Because we can argue them better in debates?
Here's one way. I won't say it's the only way or even the most important way, but it is a biblical way.
"Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the LORD thy God hath destroyed them from among you. But ye that did cleave unto the LORD your God are alive every one of you this day. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" Deuteronomy 4:1-8.
So, God's law, given to and adopted by a people, is evidence of great wisdom in that people, and it attracts others to that people's God.
"Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him." Psalm 2.
How do we know when Christianity has overcome the secular and pagan and godless ideologies of the day. Because we can argue them better in debates?
Here's one way. I won't say it's the only way or even the most important way, but it is a biblical way.
"Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the LORD thy God hath destroyed them from among you. But ye that did cleave unto the LORD your God are alive every one of you this day. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" Deuteronomy 4:1-8.
So, God's law, given to and adopted by a people, is evidence of great wisdom in that people, and it attracts others to that people's God.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
The importance of swearing 1
Jesus said, "Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." Matthew 5:33-7.
But this warning on how to speak the truth in your personal life, if taken to the extreme and applied to all contexts, even courtrooms and the covenantal contexts, of course, would deny oaths altogether. Jesus was speaking to the misuse of oaths, like "I swear on a stack of bibles that I'm telling you the truth!" Jesus said to not do that. You're trying to enhance your word, which apparently has little credibility with the people you're speaking with, either because of their evil cynicism or your bad reputation for not telling the truth.
The third commandment does not mean you never swear. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Exodus 20:7. It also doesn't refer primarily to "cussin." It refers to calling upon God's name, and it means that you can't do it a wrong way or a right way. Invoking God's name rightly requires a right purpose, an appropriate venue, and lawful authority.
Deuteronomy 19:15-21 explains the case of the false witness who accuses his neighbor of a crime falsely. If the statement was not sworn testimony in a court context, then it would be slander or gossip. Instead, that type of false witness, as in the false witness stated in the Ninth Commandment, is a criminal offense in itself, calling for a just sentence. Joshua in Joshua 7:19 demands a confession from Achan in the taking of the stuff from Jericho. He uses the words "give glory to God" as an expression of demanding the truth before God. When Jesus faced the kangaroo trial in Matthew 26, he felt no obligation to answer their questioning until the high priest used these words: "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God." Matthew 26:63. Then Jesus spoke because He always spoke the truth in His duty before God and before the law of God. Moses commanded Israel to swear: "Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude. Deuteronomy 10:20-22.
In his economic commentary on the book of Deuteronomy, Gary North explains the significance of the Deuteronomy passage dealing with the importance of truthful testimony. "The court is God's court: the State is acting as the prosecutor on God's behalf. The witness for the prosecution becomes an agent of this court. God delegates to the State the authority and requirement to execute people convicted of capital crimes. God identifies the witnesses as the primary agents of execution." Free Books from the Institute for Christian Economics, "Inheritance and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy," by Gary North, Chap. 43, The Penalty for Perjury, http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/sidefrm2.htm, accessed on March 29, 2014. Therefore, the authority for the witness to call upon God to uphold his word is within the court which represents the judgment of God on the earth. The purpose is justice, and the venue is the authorized court.
The church and the courtroom are where the Ninth Commandment applies the most. The church because that is where we swear to the God of the bible that we will serve Him only - in baptism mainly, and in the courtroom because truth and justice are critical to a biblical society. In the courtroom, you're facing the justice system of the state in its most fundamental, delegated, God-ordained capacity (Romans 13). When it is possible that people can lie and perhaps get away with it because there's no evidence to the contrary, it is right and appropriate to demand that they swear to tell the truth before God, knowing His ability to judge the false testifier in this life and the next. The state, as a covenantal institution with the responsibility of justice before the God who ordained it, can and should demand your oath to tell the truth.
The Church, another covenantal institution, "the pillar and foundation of the truth," and the one charged with the more important task of guarding the keys of the kingdom, also has the right to demand it. It demands it of its ministers, of those entering into marriage, and of those at baptism, who implicit swear to follow the Head of the Church to death if necessary to show their faith in Him.
Ray Sutton, whom I mentioned earlier wrote the book on the covenant, posited five points to a covenant: Authority, Historical Prologue, Law, Sanctions, Continuity. These elements are essential to a covenantal institution. What are the covenantal institutions - family, church, and state. Each involves an oath - the family's oath appears in the wedding vows, the church's oath appears in baptism and the vows of the ordained ministers and appointed servants of the church, and the state's oath is in the oath of office of each elected official. If you lack any particular element, then the institution is weakened, even destroyed.
Consider for example the family. If there is no authority over marriage, then it would simply be a matter of living together and breaking up if needed. What is the history behind marriage? How would we define it? Wouldn't it be malleable into just about anything as time went by? Without a law to determine the boundaries of marriage, then sexual fidelity would mean very little unless there was personal preference by the participants for such fidelity. If there was not punishment for violating the rules of marriage, then the law of marriage would be impotent. The continuation of life itself is dependent upon marriage. The value of children, loyalty, love, support, etc. All of this flows from marriage and the family, and it does or does not continue based on the governing elements of the covenant.
These elements are obvious in the operation of the state. A history of the people and the formation of their government; a hierarchy; law; punishment for violating that law; and how to sustain the future of that people, their elected officials and their successors, and their form of government. The U.S. Constitution incorporates these five elements. "We the People" are the sovereign, and we all know the history - fight against royal tyranny, violation of the rule of law, no taxation without representation, a constitution should rule not a king. The legislature creates laws, and the executive enforces those laws with sanctions against those who violate the law. Elected officials are elected for terms, and the Constitution with amendments continues as the foundation of the nation.
The Constitution does not state what the law should be. There are historical examples and tidbits, like capital punishment for treason and impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors, but the Constitution is a foundational document, not the law itself. The Constitution says nothing about the law being God's law, based on the bible, or Christian in origin. Some argue it is implied. Is it?
Israel was given laws by God through Moses. One fundamental instruction was that the king, the ruler of the nation, would have to be an Israelite. Deuteronomy 17:14-17. Was this an anti-immigrant law? Remember Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations, a special people who would show forth the truth of the true and living God. But to have that religious separation, it required geographic separation because geography in the ancient world determined political, social, and religious loyalty. Immigrants could become Israelites. Witness Rahab in Joshua 6. See also Heb. 11:31; James 2:25. The problem was religious loyalty, not ethnicity or nationality.
Who are your rulers to be - Christians or non-Christians? Yes, we don't have kings, but we have officials that we elect to rule us. Those we elect are the equivalent of kings, only their power is dispersed instead of concentrated. Do you want the "foreigner" ruling? That is, the foreigner in covenant, the foreigner in faith, the foreigner to God and His law. Is that what we've gotten to in forgetting God's word on civil government? We don't care who rules a Christian people?
But that's just the first element of a covenantal institution. What about the others?
Oaths are involved in the punishment element because the oath calls down God's curse upon the one who violates the oath. Oaths today aren't taken seriously these days, probably because God Himself isn't taken seriously. But it is God who ensures that oaths are kept, either by the person making the oath or by issuing consequences for the person who fails to keep his oath.
So, the first element is the authority governing the institution. Is "We the people" the authority in a Christian republic? What about God? What kind of oath would a person serving in the institution of civil government make if they are to serve a Christian republic? Does the official swear to serve the American people as the sovereign . . . even if they defy the God of the bible? What law? Will any law do? Only those not entirely contradictory to the law of God?
Let's keep our obedience to God as minimal as possible. Let's keep ourselves the supreme authority. Let's ignore God's law. Let's take oaths that don't matter, and let's call our society Christian. Really now?! Could we get any more humanistic?
But this warning on how to speak the truth in your personal life, if taken to the extreme and applied to all contexts, even courtrooms and the covenantal contexts, of course, would deny oaths altogether. Jesus was speaking to the misuse of oaths, like "I swear on a stack of bibles that I'm telling you the truth!" Jesus said to not do that. You're trying to enhance your word, which apparently has little credibility with the people you're speaking with, either because of their evil cynicism or your bad reputation for not telling the truth.
The third commandment does not mean you never swear. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." Exodus 20:7. It also doesn't refer primarily to "cussin." It refers to calling upon God's name, and it means that you can't do it a wrong way or a right way. Invoking God's name rightly requires a right purpose, an appropriate venue, and lawful authority.
Deuteronomy 19:15-21 explains the case of the false witness who accuses his neighbor of a crime falsely. If the statement was not sworn testimony in a court context, then it would be slander or gossip. Instead, that type of false witness, as in the false witness stated in the Ninth Commandment, is a criminal offense in itself, calling for a just sentence. Joshua in Joshua 7:19 demands a confession from Achan in the taking of the stuff from Jericho. He uses the words "give glory to God" as an expression of demanding the truth before God. When Jesus faced the kangaroo trial in Matthew 26, he felt no obligation to answer their questioning until the high priest used these words: "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God." Matthew 26:63. Then Jesus spoke because He always spoke the truth in His duty before God and before the law of God. Moses commanded Israel to swear: "Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude. Deuteronomy 10:20-22.
In his economic commentary on the book of Deuteronomy, Gary North explains the significance of the Deuteronomy passage dealing with the importance of truthful testimony. "The court is God's court: the State is acting as the prosecutor on God's behalf. The witness for the prosecution becomes an agent of this court. God delegates to the State the authority and requirement to execute people convicted of capital crimes. God identifies the witnesses as the primary agents of execution." Free Books from the Institute for Christian Economics, "Inheritance and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy," by Gary North, Chap. 43, The Penalty for Perjury, http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/sidefrm2.htm, accessed on March 29, 2014. Therefore, the authority for the witness to call upon God to uphold his word is within the court which represents the judgment of God on the earth. The purpose is justice, and the venue is the authorized court.
The church and the courtroom are where the Ninth Commandment applies the most. The church because that is where we swear to the God of the bible that we will serve Him only - in baptism mainly, and in the courtroom because truth and justice are critical to a biblical society. In the courtroom, you're facing the justice system of the state in its most fundamental, delegated, God-ordained capacity (Romans 13). When it is possible that people can lie and perhaps get away with it because there's no evidence to the contrary, it is right and appropriate to demand that they swear to tell the truth before God, knowing His ability to judge the false testifier in this life and the next. The state, as a covenantal institution with the responsibility of justice before the God who ordained it, can and should demand your oath to tell the truth.
The Church, another covenantal institution, "the pillar and foundation of the truth," and the one charged with the more important task of guarding the keys of the kingdom, also has the right to demand it. It demands it of its ministers, of those entering into marriage, and of those at baptism, who implicit swear to follow the Head of the Church to death if necessary to show their faith in Him.
Ray Sutton, whom I mentioned earlier wrote the book on the covenant, posited five points to a covenant: Authority, Historical Prologue, Law, Sanctions, Continuity. These elements are essential to a covenantal institution. What are the covenantal institutions - family, church, and state. Each involves an oath - the family's oath appears in the wedding vows, the church's oath appears in baptism and the vows of the ordained ministers and appointed servants of the church, and the state's oath is in the oath of office of each elected official. If you lack any particular element, then the institution is weakened, even destroyed.
Consider for example the family. If there is no authority over marriage, then it would simply be a matter of living together and breaking up if needed. What is the history behind marriage? How would we define it? Wouldn't it be malleable into just about anything as time went by? Without a law to determine the boundaries of marriage, then sexual fidelity would mean very little unless there was personal preference by the participants for such fidelity. If there was not punishment for violating the rules of marriage, then the law of marriage would be impotent. The continuation of life itself is dependent upon marriage. The value of children, loyalty, love, support, etc. All of this flows from marriage and the family, and it does or does not continue based on the governing elements of the covenant.
These elements are obvious in the operation of the state. A history of the people and the formation of their government; a hierarchy; law; punishment for violating that law; and how to sustain the future of that people, their elected officials and their successors, and their form of government. The U.S. Constitution incorporates these five elements. "We the People" are the sovereign, and we all know the history - fight against royal tyranny, violation of the rule of law, no taxation without representation, a constitution should rule not a king. The legislature creates laws, and the executive enforces those laws with sanctions against those who violate the law. Elected officials are elected for terms, and the Constitution with amendments continues as the foundation of the nation.
The Constitution does not state what the law should be. There are historical examples and tidbits, like capital punishment for treason and impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors, but the Constitution is a foundational document, not the law itself. The Constitution says nothing about the law being God's law, based on the bible, or Christian in origin. Some argue it is implied. Is it?
Israel was given laws by God through Moses. One fundamental instruction was that the king, the ruler of the nation, would have to be an Israelite. Deuteronomy 17:14-17. Was this an anti-immigrant law? Remember Israel was supposed to be a light to the nations, a special people who would show forth the truth of the true and living God. But to have that religious separation, it required geographic separation because geography in the ancient world determined political, social, and religious loyalty. Immigrants could become Israelites. Witness Rahab in Joshua 6. See also Heb. 11:31; James 2:25. The problem was religious loyalty, not ethnicity or nationality.
Who are your rulers to be - Christians or non-Christians? Yes, we don't have kings, but we have officials that we elect to rule us. Those we elect are the equivalent of kings, only their power is dispersed instead of concentrated. Do you want the "foreigner" ruling? That is, the foreigner in covenant, the foreigner in faith, the foreigner to God and His law. Is that what we've gotten to in forgetting God's word on civil government? We don't care who rules a Christian people?
But that's just the first element of a covenantal institution. What about the others?
Oaths are involved in the punishment element because the oath calls down God's curse upon the one who violates the oath. Oaths today aren't taken seriously these days, probably because God Himself isn't taken seriously. But it is God who ensures that oaths are kept, either by the person making the oath or by issuing consequences for the person who fails to keep his oath.
So, the first element is the authority governing the institution. Is "We the people" the authority in a Christian republic? What about God? What kind of oath would a person serving in the institution of civil government make if they are to serve a Christian republic? Does the official swear to serve the American people as the sovereign . . . even if they defy the God of the bible? What law? Will any law do? Only those not entirely contradictory to the law of God?
Let's keep our obedience to God as minimal as possible. Let's keep ourselves the supreme authority. Let's ignore God's law. Let's take oaths that don't matter, and let's call our society Christian. Really now?! Could we get any more humanistic?
Monday, January 20, 2014
How does the state reward the righteous? Romans 13
"For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:" Romans 13:3. Actually the power of the state to "reward" the righteous is the benefit of its absence. The question, "Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority?" (NIV translation of Romans 13:3b), means the state doesn't bother you. It is a benefit of absence.
The reward is also indirect - security. The state keeps the thief and murderer away from you, your family, and your property. If the state is taking your property or restricting your liberty, even though you are not a criminal, the state has left the bounds of its appropriate function given to it by God. It has become perverted and seeks to accomplish something else, which it was not intended for and cannot accomplish. See post on "Snake Oil Salesmen."
If the state is transferring wealth to someone productive, like a successful business or doctors, it is improper. However, it is much less damaging to the society than transferring wealth to the wicked, like the indolent, the immoral, or even fraudsters. The American welfare system does this by transferring wealth to those who do not work, to those who have learned how to game the system like having children out of wedlock, and to those who simply know how to steal and defraud the federal government. It is wicked and even stupid to take from the productive to give to the evil and unproductive. If pursued over time, it will destroy those whom it was intended to help and the society itself. We see this in progress today with children and families (typically fatherless families) remaining in poverty and dependent upon government assistance generationally. The grandchildren and great grandchildren and on and on continue in the path of their foremothers, learning how to live off the productivity of others by taxation instead of developing their own productivity or marrying productive husbands. No matter how you define poverty, they are dependent upon the state performing transfers of wealth from the righteous to the wicked. (The state should punish wicked fathers who are unfaithful to their wives and children, putting their welfare in jeopardy. Instead, their wicked ways are rewarded because the welfare system acts as a surrogate father, allowing them to use whatever capital they have to support themselves or start new families. These same wicked fathers then vote - self-servingly - for liberal politicians who accuse conservative politicians of being heartless toward single women, the same women whom the wicked fathers either made single or never married after getting them pregnant.)
If the state subsidizes some aspect of the economy for what it thinks is a good purpose, doctors for example, then it is acting beyond its bounds. It is violating the market's rules for who should be rewarded, and it is acting as a rewarder beyond the intent of God for the state. If doctors were suffering in our economy for some reason beyond their control and the people's health was suffering as a result, then perhaps it could be justified as a temporary measure only. Such a temporary measure would not justify an entire overhaul of the nation's medical and health insurance system, thereby restricting individuals' and businesses' liberty to develop, build, choose, etc.
The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) of 1646 expands upon the state's security purpose of Romans 13 with respect to the Church when it states:
"III. Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; yet he has authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administrated, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he has power to call synods, to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God."* Original 1646 version, not the edited American version of 1788.
Therefore, as a co-government with the state (Matt. 18:17-20), as the representative of Christ on earth (Matt. 16:13-20), as "the pillar and ground of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15), the Church receives from the state protection from evildoers, except when the state itself is acting as an evildoer and usurping the power of the Church. The Church holds God's healing and salvation function in society, not the state.
Once the state begins to go outside the boundaries set by God for its justice function, it begins to take from the righteous, implicitly punishing the righteous. Its perversion can only increase from that point on until it limits itself to its God ordained Romans 13 purpose. Do not seek monetary reward from the state, except for actual work/service as an employee, and do not seek salvific or health effects from the state. Your hope is not in the state, it is in God. Worship Him alone, and He shall be your salvation and your prosperity. Deuteronomy 8.
*The WCF clause above on Civil Government is based in part on the following scriptures:
"And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." Isa. 49:23. "Because of the house of the Lord our God I [King David] will seek thy good." Psalm 122:9. "Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven: for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons? 25 And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not. 26 And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment. 27 Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem: 28 And hath extended mercy unto me before the king, and his counsellers, and before all the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel chief men to go up with me." Ezra 7:23-28. "And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death." Lev. 24:16. "And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. 6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers. 12 If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying, etc. 2KI 18:4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan." Deut. 13:5-12. (1CH 13:1-8; 2KI 24:1-25) "And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers." II Chron. 34:33. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; 13 That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." II Chron. 15:12. (Copied from www.blueletterbible.org)
The reward is also indirect - security. The state keeps the thief and murderer away from you, your family, and your property. If the state is taking your property or restricting your liberty, even though you are not a criminal, the state has left the bounds of its appropriate function given to it by God. It has become perverted and seeks to accomplish something else, which it was not intended for and cannot accomplish. See post on "Snake Oil Salesmen."
If the state is transferring wealth to someone productive, like a successful business or doctors, it is improper. However, it is much less damaging to the society than transferring wealth to the wicked, like the indolent, the immoral, or even fraudsters. The American welfare system does this by transferring wealth to those who do not work, to those who have learned how to game the system like having children out of wedlock, and to those who simply know how to steal and defraud the federal government. It is wicked and even stupid to take from the productive to give to the evil and unproductive. If pursued over time, it will destroy those whom it was intended to help and the society itself. We see this in progress today with children and families (typically fatherless families) remaining in poverty and dependent upon government assistance generationally. The grandchildren and great grandchildren and on and on continue in the path of their foremothers, learning how to live off the productivity of others by taxation instead of developing their own productivity or marrying productive husbands. No matter how you define poverty, they are dependent upon the state performing transfers of wealth from the righteous to the wicked. (The state should punish wicked fathers who are unfaithful to their wives and children, putting their welfare in jeopardy. Instead, their wicked ways are rewarded because the welfare system acts as a surrogate father, allowing them to use whatever capital they have to support themselves or start new families. These same wicked fathers then vote - self-servingly - for liberal politicians who accuse conservative politicians of being heartless toward single women, the same women whom the wicked fathers either made single or never married after getting them pregnant.)
If the state subsidizes some aspect of the economy for what it thinks is a good purpose, doctors for example, then it is acting beyond its bounds. It is violating the market's rules for who should be rewarded, and it is acting as a rewarder beyond the intent of God for the state. If doctors were suffering in our economy for some reason beyond their control and the people's health was suffering as a result, then perhaps it could be justified as a temporary measure only. Such a temporary measure would not justify an entire overhaul of the nation's medical and health insurance system, thereby restricting individuals' and businesses' liberty to develop, build, choose, etc.
The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) of 1646 expands upon the state's security purpose of Romans 13 with respect to the Church when it states:
"III. Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; yet he has authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administrated, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he has power to call synods, to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God."* Original 1646 version, not the edited American version of 1788.
Therefore, as a co-government with the state (Matt. 18:17-20), as the representative of Christ on earth (Matt. 16:13-20), as "the pillar and ground of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15), the Church receives from the state protection from evildoers, except when the state itself is acting as an evildoer and usurping the power of the Church. The Church holds God's healing and salvation function in society, not the state.
Once the state begins to go outside the boundaries set by God for its justice function, it begins to take from the righteous, implicitly punishing the righteous. Its perversion can only increase from that point on until it limits itself to its God ordained Romans 13 purpose. Do not seek monetary reward from the state, except for actual work/service as an employee, and do not seek salvific or health effects from the state. Your hope is not in the state, it is in God. Worship Him alone, and He shall be your salvation and your prosperity. Deuteronomy 8.
*The WCF clause above on Civil Government is based in part on the following scriptures:
"And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." Isa. 49:23. "Because of the house of the Lord our God I [King David] will seek thy good." Psalm 122:9. "Whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven: for why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons? 25 And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the river, all such as know the laws of thy God; and teach ye them that know them not. 26 And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment. 27 Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem: 28 And hath extended mercy unto me before the king, and his counsellers, and before all the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel chief men to go up with me." Ezra 7:23-28. "And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death." Lev. 24:16. "And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee. 6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers. 12 If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying, etc. 2KI 18:4 He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan." Deut. 13:5-12. (1CH 13:1-8; 2KI 24:1-25) "And Josiah took away all the abominations out of all the countries that pertained to the children of Israel, and made all that were present in Israel to serve, even to serve the Lord their God. And all his days they departed not from following the Lord, the God of their fathers." II Chron. 34:33. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul; 13 That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." II Chron. 15:12. (Copied from www.blueletterbible.org)
Snake Oil Salesmen and Salvation by Law
Back in earlier days of America, the 1800's and into the early 20th century, men would travel around the country proclaiming the healing properties of snake oil. Yes, the oil of snakes was touted as some sort of cure-all for just about any disease. They had scientific sounding names for the chemicals from the snakes, and they could spin a yarn about the unique powers of the snake. "The preparation was promoted in North America by travelling salesmen who often used accomplices in the audience to proclaim the benefits of the preparation." Wikipedia, 20 January 2014, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil. The theory is that the idea came either from an ancient Chinese remedy or the western American Indians. The salesmen made their buck from one town, then before the users could figure out they'd been tricked, they moved on to another town or blamed the user for not following the instructions properly.
Realize two things about politics and avoid much deception. The state, as in the civil governing body given the power of the sword to punish wrongdoers, can only act by law, that is, commands punishable by the state's physical coercion. If it acts by anything else - man's whim, emotion, polling numbers, etc., it is arbitrary and tyrannical.
Second, the bible teaches that salvation cannot be gained by law. Only Christ can save, only the Church has healing power, and attempting to gain salvation by law results in the exact opposite - damnation. Most Christians who believe that principle only apply it to individual salvation. But can the state, as in civil government, apply the law to save the society?
But the same God who created the individual also created the universe and the bases for societies. He governs both. He showed us that in His dealings with Israel. He acted upon individuals and the society. He governed both. The nation was delivered from Egypt and brought into the promised land by grace, just as an individual is saved by grace, not because of their righteousness. Deuteronomy 9:4-6.
To think that the state's civil governing apparatus can somehow bring prosperity or health to a society is like believing the hangman's noose can heal cancer. Can theft from one group by taxation bring prosperity? How will the money be used by the recipients? Who profits? Does God have a say in who and how the money is spent? See post titled "Socialism and Private Property." Can putting wealthy, productive people in prison for not paying their taxes bring wealth to society? Can fines and imprisonment for wealthy corporations and their executives create wealth for society? Can laws that demand insurance companies and doctors operate a certain way bring health to the people of a society? Can the state produce wealth, health, and salvation for society?
Most people think that the Nazi salute to Hitler, "Heil Hitler," meant "Hail, Hitler." It didn't. It means "salvation, good, well-being." Under National Socialism, which is what the term Nazi was short for, the German people looked to the state for salvation. To whom do you look for your provision, your health, your salvation in this life? Law cannot save, it cannot heal, it cannot make you prosperous; it can only punish and destroy, which is its intended purpose, a purpose of justice, not salvation. People/voters pervert the state and its law in order to gain something it cannot give. Politicians pervert the state and its law in order to get acclaim, a position, money, but they end up taking away liberty and property from the very people God has blessed and whose work and capital could build up the society. Salvation by law always ends in tyranny. Salvation by the state always ends in tyranny.
Remember the purpose of the state and its power of the sword from Romans 13 - the punishment of evildoers. Therefore, the politician who promises prosperity by statist means - programs funded by taxes to create jobs, prison and other punishment for those who are already prosperous, and other statist promises of salvation by law - are promising what they cannot give. Like those snake oil salesmen of old, they rely upon the gullibility, no, the faith, of people to believe their promises. They'll even throw in testimonials from the audience to substantiate their claims. And like those salesmen, they either move on after their terms expire, or they blame the user, for not giving the state even more power, for the failure.
And like Israel of old, who served other gods until those gods couldn't save them, we still follow a similar path - believing the promises of the statists until those promises take us to a less bright future, not the promised one. Judges 10:10-14.
Realize two things about politics and avoid much deception. The state, as in the civil governing body given the power of the sword to punish wrongdoers, can only act by law, that is, commands punishable by the state's physical coercion. If it acts by anything else - man's whim, emotion, polling numbers, etc., it is arbitrary and tyrannical.
Second, the bible teaches that salvation cannot be gained by law. Only Christ can save, only the Church has healing power, and attempting to gain salvation by law results in the exact opposite - damnation. Most Christians who believe that principle only apply it to individual salvation. But can the state, as in civil government, apply the law to save the society?
But the same God who created the individual also created the universe and the bases for societies. He governs both. He showed us that in His dealings with Israel. He acted upon individuals and the society. He governed both. The nation was delivered from Egypt and brought into the promised land by grace, just as an individual is saved by grace, not because of their righteousness. Deuteronomy 9:4-6.
To think that the state's civil governing apparatus can somehow bring prosperity or health to a society is like believing the hangman's noose can heal cancer. Can theft from one group by taxation bring prosperity? How will the money be used by the recipients? Who profits? Does God have a say in who and how the money is spent? See post titled "Socialism and Private Property." Can putting wealthy, productive people in prison for not paying their taxes bring wealth to society? Can fines and imprisonment for wealthy corporations and their executives create wealth for society? Can laws that demand insurance companies and doctors operate a certain way bring health to the people of a society? Can the state produce wealth, health, and salvation for society?
Most people think that the Nazi salute to Hitler, "Heil Hitler," meant "Hail, Hitler." It didn't. It means "salvation, good, well-being." Under National Socialism, which is what the term Nazi was short for, the German people looked to the state for salvation. To whom do you look for your provision, your health, your salvation in this life? Law cannot save, it cannot heal, it cannot make you prosperous; it can only punish and destroy, which is its intended purpose, a purpose of justice, not salvation. People/voters pervert the state and its law in order to gain something it cannot give. Politicians pervert the state and its law in order to get acclaim, a position, money, but they end up taking away liberty and property from the very people God has blessed and whose work and capital could build up the society. Salvation by law always ends in tyranny. Salvation by the state always ends in tyranny.
Remember the purpose of the state and its power of the sword from Romans 13 - the punishment of evildoers. Therefore, the politician who promises prosperity by statist means - programs funded by taxes to create jobs, prison and other punishment for those who are already prosperous, and other statist promises of salvation by law - are promising what they cannot give. Like those snake oil salesmen of old, they rely upon the gullibility, no, the faith, of people to believe their promises. They'll even throw in testimonials from the audience to substantiate their claims. And like those salesmen, they either move on after their terms expire, or they blame the user, for not giving the state even more power, for the failure.
And like Israel of old, who served other gods until those gods couldn't save them, we still follow a similar path - believing the promises of the statists until those promises take us to a less bright future, not the promised one. Judges 10:10-14.
Socialism vs Private Property 2
Gary North has written about sovereignty and economics:
"Not the State, but familial, church, and private charity are enjoined. Personal responsibility is the focus of Old Testament welfare requirements.
"The key issue, therefore, is the question of sovereignty. All property belongs to God. God delegates to individuals, as members of His covenantal institutions, the responsibility of acting as stewards of this property. God, as Creator, can alone claim total sovereignty over property. No single earthly individual or institution can ever legitimately assert the right of absolute ownership. All ownership is covenantal, and therefore bounded by the appropriate Mosaic laws: civil, familial, personal, and ecclesiastical."
"An Introduction to Christian Economics," by Gary North, pp. 213-14, The Craig Press, 1973, 1 January 2014, footnotes omitted, http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/intro_to_christian_economics.pdf.
Marx based differences in wealth on what he saw as different classes in society, as if classes are permanent statements of a person's membership in a particular group, like the caste system in India.
Where does wealth and class distinction come from? "But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth . . . ." Deut. 8:18a. "The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up." I Sam. 2: 7. Therefore, status in life is based, again, on God's determination. Marx, an atheistic Humanist, contended that capital accumulation creates artificial classes which cannot be breached by someone from another class.
Does class create capital, or does capital create class? What is high class? Low class? If class is a perspective on life, then high class manifests in a long-term perspective, whether the issue in question is capital - accumulation versus consumption, or time - long term versus short term, or politics - freedom over security and dependence, or religion - God instead of man. One's perspective on the above issues does not depend on how much capital one owns at the time, but it could determine how much one owns in the future. "The blessing of God, it maketh rich, . . ." Proverbs 10:22.
A poor person with a long term (high class) perspective determines to build something; therefore, he saves for the future. He builds capital. That poor person has a high class perspective, whereas the spendthrift who inherited his wealth, or the hoarder, has a low class perspective. God will bless the one with more capital, while the other will lose what capital he has. The one who builds and invests will see benefits in the future. Jesus said that he who has to him more shall be given. Luke 19:11-28.
The irony of Marxism is that the very method with which the person who has a long term perspective can escape one level of "class" and move to another is denied by Marxism, which demands total sovereignty. The liberty of the individual and of groups of individuals to accumulate capital and take risks for productivity's sake is the key. But as sovereignty moves from the individual to the state, then that key is removed.
Private property cannot be separated from liberty without completely undoing liberty. And the state's taking of liberty is an advance toward the sovereignty of the state over God Himself. Therefore, Marxism and atheism are forever connected, and more power and sovereignty to the state and denial of God are forever connected, and more restriction on private property is forever theft from God and His agents. And statist socialism can never be Christian or Biblical.
"Not the State, but familial, church, and private charity are enjoined. Personal responsibility is the focus of Old Testament welfare requirements.
"The key issue, therefore, is the question of sovereignty. All property belongs to God. God delegates to individuals, as members of His covenantal institutions, the responsibility of acting as stewards of this property. God, as Creator, can alone claim total sovereignty over property. No single earthly individual or institution can ever legitimately assert the right of absolute ownership. All ownership is covenantal, and therefore bounded by the appropriate Mosaic laws: civil, familial, personal, and ecclesiastical."
"An Introduction to Christian Economics," by Gary North, pp. 213-14, The Craig Press, 1973, 1 January 2014, footnotes omitted, http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/intro_to_christian_economics.pdf.
Marx based differences in wealth on what he saw as different classes in society, as if classes are permanent statements of a person's membership in a particular group, like the caste system in India.
Where does wealth and class distinction come from? "But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth . . . ." Deut. 8:18a. "The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up." I Sam. 2: 7. Therefore, status in life is based, again, on God's determination. Marx, an atheistic Humanist, contended that capital accumulation creates artificial classes which cannot be breached by someone from another class.
Does class create capital, or does capital create class? What is high class? Low class? If class is a perspective on life, then high class manifests in a long-term perspective, whether the issue in question is capital - accumulation versus consumption, or time - long term versus short term, or politics - freedom over security and dependence, or religion - God instead of man. One's perspective on the above issues does not depend on how much capital one owns at the time, but it could determine how much one owns in the future. "The blessing of God, it maketh rich, . . ." Proverbs 10:22.
A poor person with a long term (high class) perspective determines to build something; therefore, he saves for the future. He builds capital. That poor person has a high class perspective, whereas the spendthrift who inherited his wealth, or the hoarder, has a low class perspective. God will bless the one with more capital, while the other will lose what capital he has. The one who builds and invests will see benefits in the future. Jesus said that he who has to him more shall be given. Luke 19:11-28.
The irony of Marxism is that the very method with which the person who has a long term perspective can escape one level of "class" and move to another is denied by Marxism, which demands total sovereignty. The liberty of the individual and of groups of individuals to accumulate capital and take risks for productivity's sake is the key. But as sovereignty moves from the individual to the state, then that key is removed.
Private property cannot be separated from liberty without completely undoing liberty. And the state's taking of liberty is an advance toward the sovereignty of the state over God Himself. Therefore, Marxism and atheism are forever connected, and more power and sovereignty to the state and denial of God are forever connected, and more restriction on private property is forever theft from God and His agents. And statist socialism can never be Christian or Biblical.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Swearing to Uphold and Defend the Constitution 2
In my last post on this subject, I mentioned my education background to show the process I went through to arrive at my opinion. Upon realizing I must base my life on the scriptures of the Christian and Hebrew bibles (testaments), I began to question much of my secular education. For example, I was unsure that I had been taught the whole story about the founding fathers of America. So I went about studying the original writings, along with some modern commentary, which I also didn't fully trust, to get their perspective.
Today, it seems there are only two competing views about interpreting the nature of the U.S. Constitution - Christian versus secular. I don't think it's that simple. Even a cursory read of the U.S. Constitution should create doubt about the Christian nature of the Constitution. Being a Christian, I originally wanted to uncover a Christian-based origination for the Constitution. However, first of all, it was hard to take a secular document like the U.S. Constitution, which makes no mention of the bible, Christianity, or even God and turn it into a Christian document.
Second, what is a Christian founding document? What would it look like? That is, what elements would it have, even if it didn't explicitly reference the bible? Even though I had read the bible through several times, I wasn't sure of the answers to the questions. I just knew that the U.S. Constitution didn't really fit the bill as far as this amateur was concerned. I also could not find any explanations of what a Christian or biblical founding document should look like. There seemed to be many Christians criticizing the governments and culture of our day, but mere criticism of isolated political policies wasn't enough to explain how to found a Christian government.
Third, part of my research involved reading the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, and other writings by the founders. I expected to find an abundance of Christian references, and I did. But I also found a mix of a wealth of philosophical, historical, and common sense thinking in the writings of even the most outspoken Christians of the time.
You have to understand how disappointing this was to me. I had converted, believing not that the bible contained answers to life, but that it was the only answer to life. There's a big difference. If the founders did not believe that, then they had changed in their viewpoint of the bible in the two and a half centuries since the Protestant Reformation. They certainly had changed since the Apostles nearly 1,800 years earlier. They had apparently imbibed of the elixir of the Enlightenment more than I had hoped. They were a mix of bible and human thought more than what the promoters of the Christian Constitution believed. They were more Christian in their thinking than what I had been taught in school.
The reason I'm saying all this is because I don't believe I came to the question with a pre-conceived notion. I didn't accept what I'd been taught in secular American history, but if I did have a preconception, I assumed that there would be a more explicit biblical motivation. That assumption was based upon hope, not self-deception.
But then you have to decide what is a biblical republic. I'm not sure the Christian community has ever settled on that. It could depend greatly on one's view of biblical law and whether it applies in whole or in part to civil government today. Personally, I assume that any part of the Old Testament applies today unless explicitly revoked somehow in scripture. Gary North and Ray Sutton, from whom I've gleaned much of my insight into this question, have established five (5) elements of a covenant (some would say contract, but that's too weak a description for an agreement requiring an oath). The U.S. Constitution is a covenant amongst the people. The U.S. Constitution requires an oath for someone to serve as an official in state, local, or federal government.
Why would the U.S. Constitution require an oath, which historically has applied a severe sanction by God upon the person who violates the oath? Marriages begin with oaths. Ministers are installed by an oath. The state, the family, and the church are the three key institutions of society. All three require an oath. What elements make up a covenant institution like civil government helps immensely in analyzing what type of institution it is, that is, secular or Christian, Buddhist or Muslim, atheist or deist, etc.
As explained by North and Sutton, the five elements for a covenant are:
1. Historical Prologue/Statement of Origin of Authority
2. Statement of Hierarchy
3. Law
4. Sanctions
5. Continuity/Inheritance
Therefore, to determine whether the United States Constitution were a Christian governing document or not, one must analyze it as to each of those five levels.
See the Blog Posts, "The Importance of Swearing" in this Blog and "Oaths" in Biblical Judicial System Blog.
Today, it seems there are only two competing views about interpreting the nature of the U.S. Constitution - Christian versus secular. I don't think it's that simple. Even a cursory read of the U.S. Constitution should create doubt about the Christian nature of the Constitution. Being a Christian, I originally wanted to uncover a Christian-based origination for the Constitution. However, first of all, it was hard to take a secular document like the U.S. Constitution, which makes no mention of the bible, Christianity, or even God and turn it into a Christian document.
Second, what is a Christian founding document? What would it look like? That is, what elements would it have, even if it didn't explicitly reference the bible? Even though I had read the bible through several times, I wasn't sure of the answers to the questions. I just knew that the U.S. Constitution didn't really fit the bill as far as this amateur was concerned. I also could not find any explanations of what a Christian or biblical founding document should look like. There seemed to be many Christians criticizing the governments and culture of our day, but mere criticism of isolated political policies wasn't enough to explain how to found a Christian government.
Third, part of my research involved reading the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, and other writings by the founders. I expected to find an abundance of Christian references, and I did. But I also found a mix of a wealth of philosophical, historical, and common sense thinking in the writings of even the most outspoken Christians of the time.
You have to understand how disappointing this was to me. I had converted, believing not that the bible contained answers to life, but that it was the only answer to life. There's a big difference. If the founders did not believe that, then they had changed in their viewpoint of the bible in the two and a half centuries since the Protestant Reformation. They certainly had changed since the Apostles nearly 1,800 years earlier. They had apparently imbibed of the elixir of the Enlightenment more than I had hoped. They were a mix of bible and human thought more than what the promoters of the Christian Constitution believed. They were more Christian in their thinking than what I had been taught in school.
The reason I'm saying all this is because I don't believe I came to the question with a pre-conceived notion. I didn't accept what I'd been taught in secular American history, but if I did have a preconception, I assumed that there would be a more explicit biblical motivation. That assumption was based upon hope, not self-deception.
But then you have to decide what is a biblical republic. I'm not sure the Christian community has ever settled on that. It could depend greatly on one's view of biblical law and whether it applies in whole or in part to civil government today. Personally, I assume that any part of the Old Testament applies today unless explicitly revoked somehow in scripture. Gary North and Ray Sutton, from whom I've gleaned much of my insight into this question, have established five (5) elements of a covenant (some would say contract, but that's too weak a description for an agreement requiring an oath). The U.S. Constitution is a covenant amongst the people. The U.S. Constitution requires an oath for someone to serve as an official in state, local, or federal government.
Why would the U.S. Constitution require an oath, which historically has applied a severe sanction by God upon the person who violates the oath? Marriages begin with oaths. Ministers are installed by an oath. The state, the family, and the church are the three key institutions of society. All three require an oath. What elements make up a covenant institution like civil government helps immensely in analyzing what type of institution it is, that is, secular or Christian, Buddhist or Muslim, atheist or deist, etc.
As explained by North and Sutton, the five elements for a covenant are:
1. Historical Prologue/Statement of Origin of Authority
2. Statement of Hierarchy
3. Law
4. Sanctions
5. Continuity/Inheritance
Therefore, to determine whether the United States Constitution were a Christian governing document or not, one must analyze it as to each of those five levels.
See the Blog Posts, "The Importance of Swearing" in this Blog and "Oaths" in Biblical Judicial System Blog.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Swearing to Uphold & Defend the Constitution 1
It's not talked about much, probably because the modern world has little respect for oaths. They're merely ceremonial to most people. It's a ritual they perform because they have to, and it's a nice way to get your supporters to attend the start-up of your new position. But according to scripture, your attitude to an oath is irrelevant to whether God holds you to it. He does, whether you think it important or not; to treat it with nonchalantly is not an approach that will prepare you for the office into which you're about to embark. Therefore, the oath is extremely important.
I grew up in nothing but secular schooling - nine years public school in Montgomery, Alabama, three years private high school in Montgomery, and a state university where I received two degrees. I grew up in what I call the first wave of contemporary southern Christian schools, when they were often perceived, correctly or incorrectly, as mere escapes from desegregation for southern white children. The second wave seemed to begin in the late seventies and early eighties and was partly a response to the cultural and legal machinations of the Carter administration. Until Jimmy Carter, a governor of Georgia before being elected president, the culture war was fueled mostly by court rulings, like those dealing with prayer and bible reading and, of course, Roe v Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court case that decriminalized state laws against abortion. The case, though civil, was brought by a Texas woman challenging the Texas laws criminalizing abortion as unconstitutional. Jane Roe (her real name was Norma McCorvey) was later to become a Christian and oppose abortion.
But with Jimmy Carter as President of the United States, the culture war seemed to move from the courts to the federal government acting to affect the entire culture, including education. "In the 1970s, however, the challenge appeared to emanate from a national government that seemingly had loosened restraints in hundreds of ways. The actions of secular authority not only offended traditional moral values, but also seemed to threaten the ability of conservative Protestants to protect themselves and their families from corrupting influences." See Brian F. Le Beau's "The Political Mobilization of the New Christian Right," Part II, no date for website, accessed 4 Jan 2014, http://are.as.wvu.edu/lebeau2.htm.
"President Carter was the first President to advance the homosexual agenda, to defend Roe v Wade, and to initiate the creation of a new cabinet position, that of education. "In 1976, the National Education Association endorsed Jimmy Carter for president, partly because of Carter's promise to create a Department of Education.17 It was the first time the NEA had endorsed a presidential candidate in the more than a century of its existence, but the NEA had long supported the creation of a federal department. Indeed, NEA's website says that in 1867 it "won its first major legislative victory when it successfully lobbied Congress to establish a federal Department of Education."18 In 1979, after a lobbying push by the NEA, the American Federation of Teachers, and other groups, Congress narrowly passed legislation to split a new Department of Education off from the existing Department Health, Education, and Welfare.
"In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected president promising to abolish the new Department of Education, calling it Jimmy Carter's boondoggle."
Go to: Neal McCluskey's "Downsizing the Federal Government, May 2009, accessed 4 Jan 2014, http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/education/k-12-education-subsidies#sthash.nvvgv1sB.dpuf. At the end of his administration, there was discussion that private Christian schools, if not shut down, should be regulated by those in power, who would "have more expertise in training children." Even on the state level, parents were being jailed for violating state laws and home schooling their children. It seems that good education to liberal progressives is much more than reading and writing; it involves training in atheistic evolution, acceptance of alternative lifestyles, and, of course, the accompanying birth control required to permit consequence-free, promiscuous sex without population increase, which for liberals includes abortion. And, of course, "good" education for the progressive is automatically statist.
Therefore, the second wave of Christian school creation was more explicitly Christian or Biblical in its foundation, curriculum, and administration and even less likely to submit to government intrusion. The home school movement was also a large part of this wave. This was the group that overwhelmed the phone system of the U.S. Congress when a bill almost passed Congress that included a surreptitious attempt to regulate home schools by sneaking some regulating legislation into "a reappropriations bill for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act." Go to HSLDA website, updated 19 Mar 2007, http://www.hslda.org/about/history/battle_hr6.asp. The 1994 legislation "would have required all teachers in the U.S., potentially including home educators, to have teacher certification." Go to Wikipedia, "Home School Legal Defense Association," no date, accessed 4 Jan 2014. The HSLDA was founded by Michael Farris in 2000 as an advocacy organization for home schools and played a key role in alerting home schoolers to the threat and that they should alert their congressmen. It worked, and the legislation didn't pass.
Obviously, the culture war cannot be toned down and moderated when the Left seeks to change the religion and morals of the children of the average American citizen. Also, the war was started by the Left, not Christian conservatives, who simply sought to preserve what they understood as their core values and beliefs. This war will never end as long as the antagonist who began the war and despises the beliefs of average Americans insults those Americans by demanding that they cease creating controversy and simply reach across the aisle. The Left's version of compromise is very simple: "Accept our beliefs, drop your ancient superstitions, and make peace, or we'll take you to court, war upon you legally and by regulation, and malign you in public in every way we can conceive." Yes, the Left are such peaceniks, aren't they, when it comes to enemies of that part of the U.S. with which they disagree and the rest of the world hates also.
The key lever the Left uses is the U.S. Constitution, or, I should say their version of the U.S. Constitution. So, what is the Christian's attitude to the U.S. Constitution to be? It is the foundational law of the land. All public officials, state and federal, are required to swear allegiance to it. It wasn't always the case, but today even lawyers (sometimes their state's constitution only) and military recruits must swear to the oath.
The U.S. Constitution, Article VI, states: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
The oath for the President of U.S. reads: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God." The other oaths for officials in civil government and the military also contain verbiage like the President's.
Christians are to take oaths seriously, both in the taking of them and in the refusal to take them. Your baptism is an oath to believe, love, and follow Christ as your King and Savior over all other allegiances because He is God Almighty. No other allegiance can compete with that allegiance. Your wedding vows were an oath. These oath-created relationships are not mere contracts; they are more. They are covenant relationships. The wicked don't keep covenant. In fact, it is considered in scripture as one of the most wicked and reprobate of sins a person can commit, a defining characteristic of those who are utterly given over by God to judgment.
"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." Romans 1:28-32.
So, as a Christian politician, you had better know whether you can honestly take the oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. And you'd better be able to keep it. So how do we as Christians look at the U.S. Constitution?
I grew up in nothing but secular schooling - nine years public school in Montgomery, Alabama, three years private high school in Montgomery, and a state university where I received two degrees. I grew up in what I call the first wave of contemporary southern Christian schools, when they were often perceived, correctly or incorrectly, as mere escapes from desegregation for southern white children. The second wave seemed to begin in the late seventies and early eighties and was partly a response to the cultural and legal machinations of the Carter administration. Until Jimmy Carter, a governor of Georgia before being elected president, the culture war was fueled mostly by court rulings, like those dealing with prayer and bible reading and, of course, Roe v Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court case that decriminalized state laws against abortion. The case, though civil, was brought by a Texas woman challenging the Texas laws criminalizing abortion as unconstitutional. Jane Roe (her real name was Norma McCorvey) was later to become a Christian and oppose abortion.
But with Jimmy Carter as President of the United States, the culture war seemed to move from the courts to the federal government acting to affect the entire culture, including education. "In the 1970s, however, the challenge appeared to emanate from a national government that seemingly had loosened restraints in hundreds of ways. The actions of secular authority not only offended traditional moral values, but also seemed to threaten the ability of conservative Protestants to protect themselves and their families from corrupting influences." See Brian F. Le Beau's "The Political Mobilization of the New Christian Right," Part II, no date for website, accessed 4 Jan 2014, http://are.as.wvu.edu/lebeau2.htm.
"President Carter was the first President to advance the homosexual agenda, to defend Roe v Wade, and to initiate the creation of a new cabinet position, that of education. "In 1976, the National Education Association endorsed Jimmy Carter for president, partly because of Carter's promise to create a Department of Education.17 It was the first time the NEA had endorsed a presidential candidate in the more than a century of its existence, but the NEA had long supported the creation of a federal department. Indeed, NEA's website says that in 1867 it "won its first major legislative victory when it successfully lobbied Congress to establish a federal Department of Education."18 In 1979, after a lobbying push by the NEA, the American Federation of Teachers, and other groups, Congress narrowly passed legislation to split a new Department of Education off from the existing Department Health, Education, and Welfare.
"In 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected president promising to abolish the new Department of Education, calling it Jimmy Carter's boondoggle."
Go to: Neal McCluskey's "Downsizing the Federal Government, May 2009, accessed 4 Jan 2014, http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/education/k-12-education-subsidies#sthash.nvvgv1sB.dpuf. At the end of his administration, there was discussion that private Christian schools, if not shut down, should be regulated by those in power, who would "have more expertise in training children." Even on the state level, parents were being jailed for violating state laws and home schooling their children. It seems that good education to liberal progressives is much more than reading and writing; it involves training in atheistic evolution, acceptance of alternative lifestyles, and, of course, the accompanying birth control required to permit consequence-free, promiscuous sex without population increase, which for liberals includes abortion. And, of course, "good" education for the progressive is automatically statist.
Therefore, the second wave of Christian school creation was more explicitly Christian or Biblical in its foundation, curriculum, and administration and even less likely to submit to government intrusion. The home school movement was also a large part of this wave. This was the group that overwhelmed the phone system of the U.S. Congress when a bill almost passed Congress that included a surreptitious attempt to regulate home schools by sneaking some regulating legislation into "a reappropriations bill for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act." Go to HSLDA website, updated 19 Mar 2007, http://www.hslda.org/about/history/battle_hr6.asp. The 1994 legislation "would have required all teachers in the U.S., potentially including home educators, to have teacher certification." Go to Wikipedia, "Home School Legal Defense Association," no date, accessed 4 Jan 2014. The HSLDA was founded by Michael Farris in 2000 as an advocacy organization for home schools and played a key role in alerting home schoolers to the threat and that they should alert their congressmen. It worked, and the legislation didn't pass.
Obviously, the culture war cannot be toned down and moderated when the Left seeks to change the religion and morals of the children of the average American citizen. Also, the war was started by the Left, not Christian conservatives, who simply sought to preserve what they understood as their core values and beliefs. This war will never end as long as the antagonist who began the war and despises the beliefs of average Americans insults those Americans by demanding that they cease creating controversy and simply reach across the aisle. The Left's version of compromise is very simple: "Accept our beliefs, drop your ancient superstitions, and make peace, or we'll take you to court, war upon you legally and by regulation, and malign you in public in every way we can conceive." Yes, the Left are such peaceniks, aren't they, when it comes to enemies of that part of the U.S. with which they disagree and the rest of the world hates also.
The key lever the Left uses is the U.S. Constitution, or, I should say their version of the U.S. Constitution. So, what is the Christian's attitude to the U.S. Constitution to be? It is the foundational law of the land. All public officials, state and federal, are required to swear allegiance to it. It wasn't always the case, but today even lawyers (sometimes their state's constitution only) and military recruits must swear to the oath.
The U.S. Constitution, Article VI, states: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
The oath for the President of U.S. reads: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God." The other oaths for officials in civil government and the military also contain verbiage like the President's.
Christians are to take oaths seriously, both in the taking of them and in the refusal to take them. Your baptism is an oath to believe, love, and follow Christ as your King and Savior over all other allegiances because He is God Almighty. No other allegiance can compete with that allegiance. Your wedding vows were an oath. These oath-created relationships are not mere contracts; they are more. They are covenant relationships. The wicked don't keep covenant. In fact, it is considered in scripture as one of the most wicked and reprobate of sins a person can commit, a defining characteristic of those who are utterly given over by God to judgment.
"And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." Romans 1:28-32.
So, as a Christian politician, you had better know whether you can honestly take the oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. And you'd better be able to keep it. So how do we as Christians look at the U.S. Constitution?
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Socialism vs Private Property 1
So much has been said about socialism by economists, philosophers, and political scientists, but let me add two cents.
Abraham was very rich, and what he had was given to him by God. Genesis 13:2. "And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:" Genesis 14:22-3. Abram was addressing Chedorlaomer after retrieving the property and people of Sodom from the raiders who had attacked Sodom. Chedorlaomer was the king of Sodom and represented what civil government could give to Abram.
If the sovereign God is the one who gives to men what they have, then how can the civil government take their property from them or give it to someone else without defying the God who determines who receives what? God rewards His own, so how can the organized society of those whom God has not blessed force God's blessed to give to those not blessed? This is the philosophy of the pagan - all must share and share alike.
When the son of the king of a city in Canaan wanted to marry the daughter of Jacob, who was as rich or richer than his grandfather Abraham, he went to the people of their city with this message: "And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying, 'These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. Only herein will the men consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised. Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us.'" Genesis 34:20-23.
In other words, socialism is not new.
Abraham was very rich, and what he had was given to him by God. Genesis 13:2. "And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:" Genesis 14:22-3. Abram was addressing Chedorlaomer after retrieving the property and people of Sodom from the raiders who had attacked Sodom. Chedorlaomer was the king of Sodom and represented what civil government could give to Abram.
If the sovereign God is the one who gives to men what they have, then how can the civil government take their property from them or give it to someone else without defying the God who determines who receives what? God rewards His own, so how can the organized society of those whom God has not blessed force God's blessed to give to those not blessed? This is the philosophy of the pagan - all must share and share alike.
When the son of the king of a city in Canaan wanted to marry the daughter of Jacob, who was as rich or richer than his grandfather Abraham, he went to the people of their city with this message: "And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying, 'These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters. Only herein will the men consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised. Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us.'" Genesis 34:20-23.
In other words, socialism is not new.
The battleground of politics for the believer
But what about the behavior of the public official/public servant? If he stands for biblical standards, what battles will he face? Many, vicious battles. The ungodly hate God's law. "But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death." Proverbs 8:36. It reminds them of what their conscience already is trying to tell them - there is a God, and you are not Him. What about the mere fact that the biblical public official's stand may demonstrate the total invalidity of the very positions that placed the wicked where they are, maybe what sustains them financially.
Think about abortion, and how its supporters fight for it tooth and nail, denying or contradicting the moral arguments about it. Think of the psychological toll of admitting they were supporting the murder of innocent babes. It would be unthinkable. There's no forgiveness in their worlds, so they would simply be left with their sinful selves, supporting murder. What psychological manipulations have they accomplished to keep their stand valid in their own mind? What actions would they take to invalidate the Christian position on abortion?
The godly must lean upon God's promises. "O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah. But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him." Psalm 4:2-3. "Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies." Psalm 139:19-22.
If you teach them the error of their ways, they will not listen. "Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee." Proverbs 9:8.
The biblical public official will not be an evangelist, even if he teaches some to avoid error. No, his gifting is not in evangelism, it is in leadership. "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness." I Corinthians 12:6-8.
But what do the smart wicked do? What do the devious wicked, who know the promises of God toward His people, seek to do? Beware of Balaams, those who seek to seduce. "Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD." Numbers 31:16. See also II Peter 2:15; Jude 11; Revelation 2:14. If they seduce the believer into their wickedness, they win. They know God doesn't support the wicked, so they seek to make the godly like themselves.
I have heard from someone involved in background checks of political officials (congressmen, e.g., deal with national security issues, and their backgrounds must be checked to determine if there is something that could compromise them) that the imbalance between republicans and democrats is amazing. The overwhelming majority of democrats have something immoral in their background, while republicans have the opposite ratio. This should not be surprising because the democrats have adopted the immoral doctrine of socialistic total equality, they have adopted the immoral political strategy of coercion and manipulation by demonization, and while rejecting laissez faire in business have adopted it regarding personal morality. Their personal lives simply reflect their immoral political careers, or vice versa. They are socialist in their economics, Marxist in their political campaigns, and amoral in their personal lives. All they care about is winning.
If they can subvert the morality of the godly, they have a lever for keeping them in check. "If you oppose our policies, we'll expose what you did last summer at that party we invited you to." They do not work by persuasion but by coercion and manipulation. They control their own party "faithful" by threatening to deny them advancement and benefits or by threatening to oust them from office even. They can always find someone else interested in "goodies," so they can control someone to vote the way they want.
The Christian cannot find common ground with such political manipulaters, who are not seeking the good of the country. Common ground, or "reaching across the aisle," is where compromise on principle occurs. There was a time when such compromises were less harmful to the body politic. When two congressmen sought benefits, and one had the upper hand, for the two to work together and split the benefits for their districts is not an attack on the law of God. I'm thinking of a much earlier time in our country's history. But when the life of the unborn are involved, how can there be a compromise. One side says that the life in the womb is of no consequence, and all that matters is the autonomous choice of the individual woman. Where is the compromise possible when a human life is involved? When marriage is the God-ordained and sanctioned uniting of man and woman, but some want to change its definition, where can there be compromise. When the issues that God tells us to consider holy are attacked, compromise is "the language of the devil."
Think about abortion, and how its supporters fight for it tooth and nail, denying or contradicting the moral arguments about it. Think of the psychological toll of admitting they were supporting the murder of innocent babes. It would be unthinkable. There's no forgiveness in their worlds, so they would simply be left with their sinful selves, supporting murder. What psychological manipulations have they accomplished to keep their stand valid in their own mind? What actions would they take to invalidate the Christian position on abortion?
The godly must lean upon God's promises. "O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah. But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him." Psalm 4:2-3. "Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies." Psalm 139:19-22.
If you teach them the error of their ways, they will not listen. "Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee." Proverbs 9:8.
The biblical public official will not be an evangelist, even if he teaches some to avoid error. No, his gifting is not in evangelism, it is in leadership. "Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness." I Corinthians 12:6-8.
But what do the smart wicked do? What do the devious wicked, who know the promises of God toward His people, seek to do? Beware of Balaams, those who seek to seduce. "Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD." Numbers 31:16. See also II Peter 2:15; Jude 11; Revelation 2:14. If they seduce the believer into their wickedness, they win. They know God doesn't support the wicked, so they seek to make the godly like themselves.
I have heard from someone involved in background checks of political officials (congressmen, e.g., deal with national security issues, and their backgrounds must be checked to determine if there is something that could compromise them) that the imbalance between republicans and democrats is amazing. The overwhelming majority of democrats have something immoral in their background, while republicans have the opposite ratio. This should not be surprising because the democrats have adopted the immoral doctrine of socialistic total equality, they have adopted the immoral political strategy of coercion and manipulation by demonization, and while rejecting laissez faire in business have adopted it regarding personal morality. Their personal lives simply reflect their immoral political careers, or vice versa. They are socialist in their economics, Marxist in their political campaigns, and amoral in their personal lives. All they care about is winning.
If they can subvert the morality of the godly, they have a lever for keeping them in check. "If you oppose our policies, we'll expose what you did last summer at that party we invited you to." They do not work by persuasion but by coercion and manipulation. They control their own party "faithful" by threatening to deny them advancement and benefits or by threatening to oust them from office even. They can always find someone else interested in "goodies," so they can control someone to vote the way they want.
The Christian cannot find common ground with such political manipulaters, who are not seeking the good of the country. Common ground, or "reaching across the aisle," is where compromise on principle occurs. There was a time when such compromises were less harmful to the body politic. When two congressmen sought benefits, and one had the upper hand, for the two to work together and split the benefits for their districts is not an attack on the law of God. I'm thinking of a much earlier time in our country's history. But when the life of the unborn are involved, how can there be a compromise. One side says that the life in the womb is of no consequence, and all that matters is the autonomous choice of the individual woman. Where is the compromise possible when a human life is involved? When marriage is the God-ordained and sanctioned uniting of man and woman, but some want to change its definition, where can there be compromise. When the issues that God tells us to consider holy are attacked, compromise is "the language of the devil."
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