We the People v. God

It is an amazing thing to watch a 2-year-old glare up at an adult two or more times his or her size and say defiantly, “No!” Think about the unmitigated chutzpa it would take for you or me to defy a 14-foot giant who walked up, looked down and ordered us to do something!

No wonder Bill Cosby once said that with an army of 100 2-year-olds he could take over the world. That is a very limited illustration of a nation, and in particular a church, that has conducted itself in the same manner toward God.

Your honor, we present the case, We the People v. God.

The latest symptom of this rebellion is the massive shift we just witnessed replacing “Jehovah Jireh” – God our Provider – with “Obama Jireh.” Without redundantly repeating the many excellent commentaries and exposés of the pork parade that was just enshrined in our nation’s Capitol, “We the People” are now responsible for the largest transfer of power, responsibility and property to government since Rev. Robert Hunt planted a cross in the sand at Cape Henry, Va., in 1607 upon the colonists landing.

Let me be clear – well, since that is what our new president is fond of saying just before he is anything but clear, I will phrase this differently. Make no mistake, those most accountable for choosing leaders who believe God is good for comforting the afflicted but it is government’s job to provide for their every need will be Christians of any, all or no denomination.

Why? From Genesis to Revelation, the holy Scriptures are filled with example after example of how a loving, forgiving and generous God provided miraculously for the people as Nehemiah relates:

You provided bread from heaven for them for their hunger,

You brought forth water from a rock for them for their thirst,

And You told them to enter in order to possess

The land which You swore to give them. (Neh. 9:15)

He used ravens (1 Kings 17:4), rocks (Num. 20:11) and rams (Gen. 22:14) to make provision long before he proved he could exponentially multiply seafood and baked goods (Matt 14:17-20). The awful truth of turning to government, which must by force take the property of my neighbor to give to me, instead of obeying, following and trusting God for our provision is that it is idolatry.

Dr. Samuel Langdon, one of the early presidents of Harvard College, gave this admonition before the Massachusetts Congress in 1775:

We have rebelled against God. We have lost the true spirit of Christianity, though we retain the outward profession and form of it. We have neglected and set light by the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy commands and institutions … By many the gospel is corrupted into a superficial system of moral philosophy, little better than Platonism …

The tragic regression from men like Dr. Langdon to Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry in Massachusetts is heartbreaking – but I digress. Langdon continued:

But alas! Have not the sins of America, and of New England in particular, had a hand in bringing down upon us the righteous judgments of Heaven? Wherefore is all this evil come upon us? Is it not because we have forsaken the Lord?

He continues with a compelling list of our national sins, which I grow ashamed to think how light those were in comparison to our spiritual, moral and cultural condition today. Let’s take a look at just the issue of the taking of one’s property to give to another.

In “It’s Not Yours To Give,” Rep. David Crockett relates the story behind a vote on a charitable appropriation during which he said, “I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”

Crockett gives the background for his position as having been taken to the political woodshed by a constituent, an old farmer, who chastised him: “If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other.”

Once upon a time, the self sufficiency, work ethic, rugged independence and enterprise of the people, based on the concept of “those who do not work shall not eat” and nurtured within a morality-based free enterprise economic system, rapidly made the United States of America the crown jewel of material wellbeing for its people. No more.

Unless the clergy teach biblical principles of economics and government limited to God’s ordained purpose, the self-centered depravity of our human nature will continue to prevail in our public policy, and the takers will eventually crush the producers. Socialism is a rejection of God, and it is idolatry.

There will only be one judge in the case of We the People v. God, and thankfully He has already given us the means of mediation by “doing our time,” accepting the death sentence for our capital crime and placing His Son as our mediator – if we His people humble ourselves, pray to Him, seek His face and turn from our wicked ways. As always, my admonition is it must go from pulpit then to pew.

 

---