A study in governments (part 3)
When God must give Satan freedom to do to the human race according to their dictates we see that the condition of the race follows a steady downward course to self-destruction. Sinful at birth as we are, each newborn mind immediately senses a disturbing lack, a need to be self-centered, and throughout life it is taught to be increasingly more selfish. This same progression can be seen on a larger scale in humanity. As Satan’s temptations persuade the world to fulfill their desire for self-indulgence, the Holy Spirit finds it harder to impress the human heart. The Spirit is pushed out of this world and man’s increasingly restless spirit cries out the more intensely for something to satisfy self. Slowly we move from submission under a monarchy and a simple lifestyle, to a more complicated life and increasingly liberated forms of self-government. The unrestricted passion for an easier way of life produces inventions that perfect ease and carelessness, thinking that having more things or more temporal freedoms will bring everlasting happiness. But peace of mind only the Holy Spirit can fulfill through obedience to God’s will. While men move further and further from leadership under God to leadership under a man, the phases of government follow a path from theocracy to monarchy to a republic, then democracy, dictatorship, and finally, at its lowest point, to papacy. And all of these forms of government have played out in America, here at the end of the ages.
What is this all saying? Is self-government then a bad thing? Is our Constitution of republicanism wrong after all these years? No, not at all. Self-government provides the highest form of living—assuming moral standards remain high. Self-government requires self-control, submission under the Law of God. But without subjection to God’s Law as pre-eminent above all governments, we will consistently misapply the pure principles of self-government. We become self-seeking which is at counter-purposes with self-government and with the solidarity of a nation. The only reason Republicanism could have worked in America was that it was paired up with a system of religion that was to reveal a true knowledge of God and to keep the nation innocent. With this holy influence our republican form of government could truly have worked. To the extent that the Bible principles were honored, our country has prospered. Protestantism was to be the cradle out of which would rise men who were self-forgetful and conscientious to duty, men of principle and true servants of the people. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and the others from the first 100 years, were such men.
However, Protestants were untrue to their charge. More interested in creating exclusive creeds than remaining humble before God’s Word, they closed their hearts to His Spirit and became hard-hearted and unusable by God. Each new light from His Word brought resistance to the new truth and judgment upon the messengers. Their multi-factioned sects rather than necessarily causing conflict could have improved each sect through constant testing of each other and by an honest searching the scripture for truth. “Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” Prov. 27:17. Discussion over the Science of Salvation and the beauty of obedience to God’s Law would have laid nicely over the American pattern of debating political concerns and hailing the wonders of our Constitution.
A king was deemed contrary to God’s leadership during the era of the Israelite judges. “And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you.” (Jud. 8:23) “But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.” (1 Sam. 8:6). The Bible’s assessment is that a pure theocracy is the highest form of group government. But because God has been dismissed from human operations and will remain that way until He comes again, and since the monarchy of Babylon was seen as a head of gold in the dream that God gave Nebuchadnezzar, then a strong monarchy provides the second best style of government, but the best form of government when God is no longer in control. This must assume it is led by principles of righteousness, as was Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom while Daniel gave counsel. As soon as righteousness no longer leads a monarchy it becomes an overbearing government. Nevertheless, if righteousness is leading it, monarchy offers the least worry; it becomes an object lesson of God’s kingdom and a source of faith and love, which elevates the subjects. It also requires the most trust and submission of the subjects since the government operates without any of their say. In its fabric is woven no thread of commoners’ devising. A good monarchy produces subjects that love their king, as opposed to governments that offer a vote, and which tend to self-dependence.
The reason we have so few examples of good monarchies is that to maintain its greatness, the king must be willing to receive correction from a commoner—a prophet. The king must be willing to hear a man of God accuse, “Thou art the man!” 2Sam. 12:7. The king must be willing to be showered by an old man’s insults and yet say, “Let him alone, let him curse; for the Lord hath bidden him.” 2Sam 16:11. A king must be willing to accept whatever heaven plans for the humble beginnings and the longevity of the dynasty, however short. In short, the monarch must be as meek and vulnerable and submissive as the subjects. Even as God in heaven is meek, having allowed His authority to be bound at Satan’s charges throughout this great controversy (Rev. 5:1-5). In heaven and in earth our Father sets the example of meekness and subjection to the very Law that governs His subjects throughout His realm, the Law of self-sacrificing love. And God had to teach Nebuchadnezzar that he was king not by divine right, but by divine privilege. He was king not because he was better, or of greater worth than the people, but because the kingdom was a gift to him from heaven (Dan. 4:34-37). Rulership is not a privileged right; it is a privilege to serve.
Most people would say that a ruler must demand respect or else the nation will fall apart. Force the people to stay in line, keep them under your thumb, say they, or anarchy will be the result. To this again we must turn to our sure foundation...the Holy Scriptures. King David maintained law and order, and it was emphasized in the scriptures that David’s form of rulership resulted in deep brotherhood, and citizen loyalty, as opposed to the days before the kingdom, when every man did what was right in his own eyes. However, the humility and patience David displayed while waiting for the throne (which had been promised to him), and his personable and principled way of maintaining the government once obtained, is an example to every leader, voted in or appointed; head of state or proprietary lord.
A republic is the next best thing to a monarchy. It is inferior to a monarchy in that its fabric begins to weave in the threads of selfish devising. A republic makes use of a judge or presider over senators and representatives of the populace. In this form of government, the people have greater say-so in the government. The people also begin to have more loyalty to their own selves and less loyalty to the person in charge. Americans say that Republicanism is superior to any government because representation makes the communication of the people’s wants an easy and simple process. But, on a personal level, it results in placing faith back in self, which is the most basic of man’s problems, one which is almost impossible to unlearn and so easy to backslide into.
When worldly-wise men—deep thinking men—such as our revolutionary forefathers, build a form of government, they naturally will choose a republic. They know a democracy can’t work for a large group, for logistical reasons, for it would lead to pandemonium. On the other extreme, they see the problem of autocratic rule. Without a spiritual church to cry out against a willing king, a monarch becomes a despot. Thus a republic must do. But without the voice of the Law of God, even a republic will bring itself to ruin. As seen with Rome, Republicanism, of itself, contains no cure for despotism. Deep beneath the beautiful glamour of “freedom” will run an undercurrent of self-interest in the populace which will eventually become all-controlling. Without an externally sanctifying influence, through the pure voice of the Bible, self-interest among the people will lead to the destruction of the republic.
The next step down from a republic is a democracy. The two can be easily confused. Rather than the people appointing a representative who can be trusted to speak in a congress of other men representing the whole nation as in a pure republic, in a pure democracy, each person has an equal say in the matters of the state. It seems inconceivable for any modern nation to be able to operate under a pure democracy. In a large group it breaks down. It results in a mass of confusion, with each voice wondering whether it was heard. There must be some sort of leadership deciding what issues need to be voted on and this leadership can easily become corrupted.
Atheism attends democracies. Men boldly depend on their own wisdom and every man’s conscience is motivated by what is right in his own eyes. Great trust is placed in the morality of the group. The result is a mass of conflict and confusion. The year America put a republic into action, France experimented with a democracy. When drastic, irrational people are so downtrodden that they are themselves as corrupt as their corrupted and toppling government, and then attempt to form a government, they will choose a democracy. They are distrustful of leadership and too disturbed to trust in even their neighbor. Trusting only in self, they are completely self-centered. They demand their rights and they demand their voice be heard.
When George Washington was approached for aid to France’s revolution, he would not even speak to the French envoy. In his mind, this undisciplined group of people did not, in the slightest degree, resemble the righteous revolution experienced in Protestant America. France’s experiment with democracy ended in the Reign of Terror. The people of Catholic France had for so long allowed their wealth and temporal comforts to be sacrificed to capricious Popes and kings, that their perceptions and consciences were deadened and they followed the course that is typical when Satan has succeeded in controlling the mind. The hippy movement in the ‘60s is an example of pure democracy. The hope was to form an intangible group where everyone had an equal voice, rejecting the order of an establishment. The hippy movement has been glorified by modern writers, but the final fate of the movement speak volumes for pure democracy.
Lower still is the fourth form of government. A dictatorship is the despotic rule of a man or small group, without regard to the people of the nation. Laws are arbitrary, based solely on the self-protective measures of the dictator. The people are slaves to the government with no voice. Trust, love, hope, and happiness are banished from the land. Everything is censored to “help” the people keep clean from outside “wickedness” according to the opinion of the man in charge. The dictator builds up the police state in order to keep down the repulsive nature of captive humans. Underground terrorism and government espionage on the citizens comes about. People go into hiding and government goes into searching. It is a time of trouble for the nation. Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and many leaders of the third world today give examples of dictatorships, and of their results—ethnic cleansing and genocide. A dictatorship is how the western world ended before God injected Christianity to give it a new lease on life. Through God’s grace, the cesspool of the world became the center of the world’s uplifting!
History repeats itself because human nature has never changed. Our race’s basic problem of distrusting God never changes. Satan’s ways are ever the same, to fill our lives with inescapable misery as quickly as possible. Therefore, then as faith and love fade from the world, through the work of Satan and our own neglect, our choices of government will follow the same pattern as seen in the past.
And it has done just that. History has repeated itself. In America can be seen the same downward progression of governments as in the ancient empires.
What is this all saying? Is self-government then a bad thing? Is our Constitution of republicanism wrong after all these years? No, not at all. Self-government provides the highest form of living—assuming moral standards remain high. Self-government requires self-control, submission under the Law of God. But without subjection to God’s Law as pre-eminent above all governments, we will consistently misapply the pure principles of self-government. We become self-seeking which is at counter-purposes with self-government and with the solidarity of a nation. The only reason Republicanism could have worked in America was that it was paired up with a system of religion that was to reveal a true knowledge of God and to keep the nation innocent. With this holy influence our republican form of government could truly have worked. To the extent that the Bible principles were honored, our country has prospered. Protestantism was to be the cradle out of which would rise men who were self-forgetful and conscientious to duty, men of principle and true servants of the people. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and the others from the first 100 years, were such men.
However, Protestants were untrue to their charge. More interested in creating exclusive creeds than remaining humble before God’s Word, they closed their hearts to His Spirit and became hard-hearted and unusable by God. Each new light from His Word brought resistance to the new truth and judgment upon the messengers. Their multi-factioned sects rather than necessarily causing conflict could have improved each sect through constant testing of each other and by an honest searching the scripture for truth. “Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” Prov. 27:17. Discussion over the Science of Salvation and the beauty of obedience to God’s Law would have laid nicely over the American pattern of debating political concerns and hailing the wonders of our Constitution.
A king was deemed contrary to God’s leadership during the era of the Israelite judges. “And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you.” (Jud. 8:23) “But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord.” (1 Sam. 8:6). The Bible’s assessment is that a pure theocracy is the highest form of group government. But because God has been dismissed from human operations and will remain that way until He comes again, and since the monarchy of Babylon was seen as a head of gold in the dream that God gave Nebuchadnezzar, then a strong monarchy provides the second best style of government, but the best form of government when God is no longer in control. This must assume it is led by principles of righteousness, as was Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom while Daniel gave counsel. As soon as righteousness no longer leads a monarchy it becomes an overbearing government. Nevertheless, if righteousness is leading it, monarchy offers the least worry; it becomes an object lesson of God’s kingdom and a source of faith and love, which elevates the subjects. It also requires the most trust and submission of the subjects since the government operates without any of their say. In its fabric is woven no thread of commoners’ devising. A good monarchy produces subjects that love their king, as opposed to governments that offer a vote, and which tend to self-dependence.
The reason we have so few examples of good monarchies is that to maintain its greatness, the king must be willing to receive correction from a commoner—a prophet. The king must be willing to hear a man of God accuse, “Thou art the man!” 2Sam. 12:7. The king must be willing to be showered by an old man’s insults and yet say, “Let him alone, let him curse; for the Lord hath bidden him.” 2Sam 16:11. A king must be willing to accept whatever heaven plans for the humble beginnings and the longevity of the dynasty, however short. In short, the monarch must be as meek and vulnerable and submissive as the subjects. Even as God in heaven is meek, having allowed His authority to be bound at Satan’s charges throughout this great controversy (Rev. 5:1-5). In heaven and in earth our Father sets the example of meekness and subjection to the very Law that governs His subjects throughout His realm, the Law of self-sacrificing love. And God had to teach Nebuchadnezzar that he was king not by divine right, but by divine privilege. He was king not because he was better, or of greater worth than the people, but because the kingdom was a gift to him from heaven (Dan. 4:34-37). Rulership is not a privileged right; it is a privilege to serve.
Most people would say that a ruler must demand respect or else the nation will fall apart. Force the people to stay in line, keep them under your thumb, say they, or anarchy will be the result. To this again we must turn to our sure foundation...the Holy Scriptures. King David maintained law and order, and it was emphasized in the scriptures that David’s form of rulership resulted in deep brotherhood, and citizen loyalty, as opposed to the days before the kingdom, when every man did what was right in his own eyes. However, the humility and patience David displayed while waiting for the throne (which had been promised to him), and his personable and principled way of maintaining the government once obtained, is an example to every leader, voted in or appointed; head of state or proprietary lord.
A republic is the next best thing to a monarchy. It is inferior to a monarchy in that its fabric begins to weave in the threads of selfish devising. A republic makes use of a judge or presider over senators and representatives of the populace. In this form of government, the people have greater say-so in the government. The people also begin to have more loyalty to their own selves and less loyalty to the person in charge. Americans say that Republicanism is superior to any government because representation makes the communication of the people’s wants an easy and simple process. But, on a personal level, it results in placing faith back in self, which is the most basic of man’s problems, one which is almost impossible to unlearn and so easy to backslide into.
When worldly-wise men—deep thinking men—such as our revolutionary forefathers, build a form of government, they naturally will choose a republic. They know a democracy can’t work for a large group, for logistical reasons, for it would lead to pandemonium. On the other extreme, they see the problem of autocratic rule. Without a spiritual church to cry out against a willing king, a monarch becomes a despot. Thus a republic must do. But without the voice of the Law of God, even a republic will bring itself to ruin. As seen with Rome, Republicanism, of itself, contains no cure for despotism. Deep beneath the beautiful glamour of “freedom” will run an undercurrent of self-interest in the populace which will eventually become all-controlling. Without an externally sanctifying influence, through the pure voice of the Bible, self-interest among the people will lead to the destruction of the republic.
The next step down from a republic is a democracy. The two can be easily confused. Rather than the people appointing a representative who can be trusted to speak in a congress of other men representing the whole nation as in a pure republic, in a pure democracy, each person has an equal say in the matters of the state. It seems inconceivable for any modern nation to be able to operate under a pure democracy. In a large group it breaks down. It results in a mass of confusion, with each voice wondering whether it was heard. There must be some sort of leadership deciding what issues need to be voted on and this leadership can easily become corrupted.
Atheism attends democracies. Men boldly depend on their own wisdom and every man’s conscience is motivated by what is right in his own eyes. Great trust is placed in the morality of the group. The result is a mass of conflict and confusion. The year America put a republic into action, France experimented with a democracy. When drastic, irrational people are so downtrodden that they are themselves as corrupt as their corrupted and toppling government, and then attempt to form a government, they will choose a democracy. They are distrustful of leadership and too disturbed to trust in even their neighbor. Trusting only in self, they are completely self-centered. They demand their rights and they demand their voice be heard.
When George Washington was approached for aid to France’s revolution, he would not even speak to the French envoy. In his mind, this undisciplined group of people did not, in the slightest degree, resemble the righteous revolution experienced in Protestant America. France’s experiment with democracy ended in the Reign of Terror. The people of Catholic France had for so long allowed their wealth and temporal comforts to be sacrificed to capricious Popes and kings, that their perceptions and consciences were deadened and they followed the course that is typical when Satan has succeeded in controlling the mind. The hippy movement in the ‘60s is an example of pure democracy. The hope was to form an intangible group where everyone had an equal voice, rejecting the order of an establishment. The hippy movement has been glorified by modern writers, but the final fate of the movement speak volumes for pure democracy.
Lower still is the fourth form of government. A dictatorship is the despotic rule of a man or small group, without regard to the people of the nation. Laws are arbitrary, based solely on the self-protective measures of the dictator. The people are slaves to the government with no voice. Trust, love, hope, and happiness are banished from the land. Everything is censored to “help” the people keep clean from outside “wickedness” according to the opinion of the man in charge. The dictator builds up the police state in order to keep down the repulsive nature of captive humans. Underground terrorism and government espionage on the citizens comes about. People go into hiding and government goes into searching. It is a time of trouble for the nation. Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, and many leaders of the third world today give examples of dictatorships, and of their results—ethnic cleansing and genocide. A dictatorship is how the western world ended before God injected Christianity to give it a new lease on life. Through God’s grace, the cesspool of the world became the center of the world’s uplifting!
History repeats itself because human nature has never changed. Our race’s basic problem of distrusting God never changes. Satan’s ways are ever the same, to fill our lives with inescapable misery as quickly as possible. Therefore, then as faith and love fade from the world, through the work of Satan and our own neglect, our choices of government will follow the same pattern as seen in the past.
And it has done just that. History has repeated itself. In America can be seen the same downward progression of governments as in the ancient empires.
posted by David | 3:43 AM
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