Tag Archives: america

21 Principles a Christian Citizen Must Know (In the Age of Obama)

Posted on by
Reply
I found this article very helpful and interesting.  Thought i would share it here, enjoy.

21 Principles a Christian Citizen Must Know (In the Age of Obama)

Sermons – Romans
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, March 15, 2010 6:09 am

INTRODUCTION:
Because the teaching of the apostle Paul on civil authority is widely misunderstood and misrepresented, we are going to take our time going through this section. And because the instructions here are to Christian citizens and subjects, we are going to begin with a scriptural introduction to this entire subject. And because of who is addressed here, it is important to remember something that Abraham Kuyper once said: “In any successful attack on freedom the state can only be an accomplice. The chief culprit is the citizen who forgets his duty, wastes away his strength in the sleep of sin and sensual pleasure, and so loses the power of his own initiative.”

We are going to therefore consider 21 principles on civil government that the Christian must understand.

THE TEXT:
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God” (Rom. 13:1).

21 PRINCIPLES:
1: Civil government and rule is a blessing from God, and not a necessary evil. “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain” (2 Sam. 23:3-4). We are not anarchists.

2: God establishes a righteous throne with majesty. “It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness: for the throne is established by righteousness” (Prov. 16:12). “And the LORD magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel” (1 Chron. 25:29; Dan. 4:36).

3: The law of God is the soul of a good ruler. “Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens” (Ex. 18:21). Rulers who don’t fear God will try to be God.

4: God requires true humility of His rulers. “That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel” (Dt. 17:20).

5: Our basic demeanor toward civil rulers should be one of honor. “Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king” (1 Pet. 2:17). What the kings of the earth bring into the New Jerusalem is not a sham or a pretence (Rev. 21:24).

6: Tyrants love moral corruption, and hate virtuous men. As Chesterton once put it, free love is the first and most obvious bribe to offer a slave. Tyrants therefore love public entertainments and private vices because they love an enervated people. “But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication” (Rev. 2:14). Porn is therefore politics, and reveals your true political allegiances.

7: Absolute perfection in our rulers is not the point. “Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me” (Ps. 51:11). David had forfeited his throne, as Saul had, and he knew it. When Saul’s dynasty fell, it was because the Spirit had departed from him. But God in His mercy allowed David to remain as the king, despite this gross imperfection. And it is said of a number of kings that they were good, like Asa, but that they did not remove the high places (1 Kings 15:14). In Scripture, a king can get a B minus and still be a good and godly king.

8: Tyranny is a judgment from God for the sins of the people. “And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take . . .” (1 Sam. 8:11). But remember that the God who sends tyrants to chastise us may also send a deliverer to save us.

9: Every manner of civil government is under the authority of God. God rules in His own name, and princes rule by derivation. Civil rulers are the lieutenants of God. Here in Romans 13, the word for deacons is used of them several times (Rom. 13:4). The ruler is therefore an appointed, delegated, and deputized servant.

10: Civil disobedience is required when matters of worship and the gospel are concerned. “But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up” (Dan. 3:18). “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

11: Civil disobedience is lawful in other areas as well. David honored Saul (1 Sam. 24:5), but did not turn himself in (1 Sam. 24:22). Neither did Peter turn himself in (Acts 12:11), or Paul for that matter (2 Cor. 11:32-33). Examples could be multiplied.

12: Civil government is covenantal, and has a double covenantal nature. It involves God, the magistrate, and the people (2 Chron. 23: 16).

13: No human authority, civil magistrates included, can be absolute. God alone has absolute authority; man’s authority is always limited and bounded. This is what Nebuchadnezzar confessed—when his sanity returned (Dan. 4:35).

14: Not everything that is legal is lawful (Rev. 13:17).

15: Faithful believers will often be accused of lawlessness and treason. Ahab was the troubler of Israel, and so that is what he accused Elijah of being (1 Kings 18:17). But the cause of the trouble is the problem; the solution is not the problem (2 Chron. 23:13).

16: The Bible teaches the principle of the “consent of the governed.” Rehoboam was elected to be king (1 Kings 12:1), and he was no anomaly.

17: The lot of the people and the character of their rulers is linked together. “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn” (Prov. 29:2).

18: Resistance of tyranny is not the same thing as resistance of the established civil order. Jehoida defended the throne by removing someone from it (2 Chron. 23:11).

19: Lesser magistrates obeyed Jehoida, and they were right to do so (2 Chron. 23:1-3).

20. We must care what company our rulers keep. Panders, whores, flatterers and “other mushrooms of the court” are to be despised. “Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness” (Prov. 25:5).

21: And last, Christian history matters. Included in our definition of “the powers that be” (Rom. 13:1) must be things like: the Constitution, the will of the people, the lesser magistrates, and the balances of powers.

Stewardship Schmoowardship – D. Wilson

Posted on by
Reply

I have been thinking alot about american government lately and particularly the topic of the “environmental crisis”. Doug says it like it is! I will have more to say about this soon!

Stewardship Schmoowardship – by Douglas Wilson
Topic: Wealth and the Christian

There are many things that are exasperating about the soi disant stewards of the environment, but the central exasperating thing about them lies right at the heart of their claim. This is especially true of Christians who tell us that Jesus requires us to be “stewards of the earth,” and that being green is a spiritual value.

And so it is. The problem is that the greens always turn everything brown. And here is why.

The Greek word for steward is oikonomos, the word from which we get economy, and economics, and all the rest of those dismal words. A steward provides household law; he is the one who keeps track of things, or is supposed to.

“And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward” (Luke 16:1-2).

The ability to give a reckoning, to give an account, is right at the heart of stewardship. Now when modern Christians talk about “stewardship of the earth,” they are almost always talking about cultivating feelings of general benevolence, coupled with good intentions that desire a good and green outcome. This cultivation is expressed by making a law in favor of the contemporary cause de jure, without any regard for what this does everywhere in the system. This is like a bookkeeper who makes an entry in the ledger in one place, without any awareness of the fact that this will affect his columns of numbers everywhere else in the ledger. He eventually turns the page, and is surprised, astonished, flummoxed. He promises congressional hearings, the kind of hearing that is guaranteed always to leave the real culprits alone. This is because the real culprits are the ones holding the hearings, which is kind of convenient, come to think of it. The last thing these people have on their minds is an accounting, and the last thing they are prepared to do is give an actual accounting. But that is what stewardship is.

Apart from a genuine free market, it is not possible to give an accounting. In a nation where the resources (and the environment that contains those resources) are all managed by the government, stewardship is a conceptual impossibility. This is because when the markets are not free, nobody knows the true price of anything. When no one knows the true price of anything, this removes intelligent incentives, and creates a host of perverse incentives. The only kind of stewardship possible is legal, perverse stewardship, or illegal, honest stewardship. Remember, the rule of law is not “making something legal.” The rule of law is a constant, and it governs the refs as well as the players. If refs can change the rules of the game in the course of the game, that is not the rule of law, not even if the ref blew his whistle when he did it.

Imagine a gigantic yard sale, covering five suburban yards. Suppose further that none of those working the sale were allowed to put a price tag on anything, most things were still for sale, and those that were not for sale were put off limits, according to their whims, by about three policemen who were wandering back and forth through the sale, swinging their billy clubs. Now, get a megaphone, stand on a nearby porch, and urge everybody to “be good stewards.”

Hernando de Soto has shown, in his The Mystery of Capital, that Third World nations have plenty of resources, plenty of wealth. It is available and near at hand. What they don’t have is the rule of law, and the attendant concept of clear title. When no one has clear title, there is no basis for the generation of wealth, and no basis for stewardship of the resultant wealth.

What I am about to say may seem a bit radical, so let me begin with a biblical illustration of the principle. The Bible says that a man who does not discipline his son hates his son (Prov. 13:24). This hatred is objective, measured by the results. It is not subjective, that is, it does not key off the emotional state of the father who is doing this awful thing to his son. He is probably a bleeding heart, not a “hater.” But he still hates his son.

In that spirit, with that qualification, it has to be said that environmentalists hate the environment, in just the same way that statists and liberals hate the poor. They talk like nobody’s business. Their phylacteries are wide, and they give lengthy prayers in the synagogues. They are the worst. They tie heavy burdens on the backs of others, which neither they nor their cronies are willing to bear themselves. They are false. They are wrong. They are hypocrites. And Christians who parrot their line are in rebellion against the very idea of stewardship. They hate it; they don’t want to give an accounting of just how it is that they destroy the environment, and bring about the extinction of species. They don’t care. All they want to do is roll their eyes when you come in and ask to see the books. Books? We don’t want books! We don’t want to reckon, we don’t want to count. All we want is a law that guarantees a fine result, with birds chirruping in the trees.

But stewardship looks at the results. A review of stewardship asks to see the books. But these fuzzy benevolence stewards wants an accounting department that never has to add up any numbers. Numbers are tiring. Numbers make my head heart. Numbers aren’t very green. Right. And people who think like that are terrible stewards.

Every resource in the world has a true price. That is the price established for it by the hand of God when men and women are trading peacefully, and not thieving from one another. The legalization of this thievery, which many professing Christians are muddled enough to advocate, destroys the rule of law, and introduces thuggery to the management of the yard sale. They want to make it legal for the cops to club anyone who tries to sell something that would be bad for global warming. Later on, this afternoon, they will be clubbing those who sell items that will accelerate the undeniable threat of global cooling. They don’t care about the results, just so long as they get to club somebody.

Fishing License (aka) To kill or not, my choice, my right.

Posted on by
Reply

Fishing is not necessarily something that i would say i love doing although i enjoy it. Probably more so for the evoked memories and reminiscent experience rather the the actual practice of ‘tricking and killing’ as Mr. Martin so eloquently phrased it.

As i was preparing to fish in something other than our tiny pond, for the first time in a good while i was reminded that i being older than seventeen must have a fishing license… whatever. So i went to Wal-Mart where they can be obtained, and just as i suspected the theiving, greedy, wicked america showed her true colors… Now you may think i am just really upset about having to pay thirty-five dollars for a ridiculously large piece of paper that has completely make-believe value seeing as this public water belongs just as much to me as it does to the ignorant game warden enforcing the preposterous rules i.e. the fishing license and it’s included restrictions, but that is not it at all. In fact when the kind sir behind the counter told me how much it was i politely turned around and walked away without purchasing one.

The reason behind my righteous indignation is that the supposed ‘christian nation’ that is america puts more value on the life of a fish or a sea turtle, or some freaking salt grass than it does on the invaluable life of an unborn child. So lets get this straight, i can pay the thirty-five dollar fee for a license to kill a fish but of corse only if it is within the proper restrictions. And if i am caught without one of these licenses’ then i am entitled to a citation for violation of the law of the state put in place to protect the right of the fish that is otherwise perfectly legal for me to kill, or better yet even if i have a license and i kill a fish that is under the ‘legal length’ aka to young (ironic i know) as deemed so by our thoughtful authorities or any variety of special species, then i am violating the right of nature via the fish, to properly run it’s corse. But abortion as Mr. Wilson articulately referred to as, “this sick war that adults have declared on children” is completely legal just because it is my so-called choice or right?!? Says who… oh yea the same people who gave me my fishing license.

Oh the wretched state she is in! Know this, the wickedness is not due to or proceeding from a singularly Democratic or Republican party, for the blood of the innocent is very much bipartisan and judgement will come to the unjust where ever they may lie. We the people… must urgently embrace repentance and turn from our wicked ways individually and corporately knowing that judgement will begin in the house of the Lord. Amen.