Summary of the article: If you are a Christian, it is your responsibility to be a good citizen. Being a good citizen in the United States at least means voting according to your conscience as informed by God’s Word (soundly interpreted), and at most running for and faithfully executing an office you are led to govern in. It also includes anything in-between as is fitting and appropriate with your priorities and responsibilities.
“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Matthew 28:18
“Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” Romans 13:1
The United States is unique in history and in function.
No other government has come into existence that began with the idea that people are created by God, and thereby have rights that He has given.
As an explanation of the existence of government in the first place and as a necessary corollary, the rights of the people, given by God, give governments their legitimacy in that people establish the governments and people are made in God’s image. God thereby establishes all governments that have come and gone implicitly by virtue of the fact that people are making them, and directly through His providential ordering of every circumstance that occurs, regardless of the relative evil or goodness of the individuals involved.
“Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” Romans 13:1
We, as the source of the ‘power’ of the government of the United States, therefore have responsibilities in insuring that the government runs as it has been designed to do. This is the ‘eternal vigilance’ that others have spoken of when it comes to the need to hold elected leaders accountable for their decisions.
Since we are in a constitutional republican form of a democracy, it is our responsibility to check up on our representatives. The founders of our nation formed a government with a system of checks and balances. Therefore, you have to be checking up on them… even as you would check on an employee or one of your children, you are to be insuring that those whom you elect or those who are elected by others wherever you live are doing their jobs.
Part of why you have to do this is that the scripture is true… the heart of man is deceitful and desperately wicked, and that the wicked person can’t sleep until he has plotted some type of evil plan in order to overthrow the righteous.
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9
“He plans wickedness upon his bed; He sets himself on a path that is not good; He does not despise evil.” Psalm 36:4
“For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.” Proverbs 4:16
The wicked people will do this, all the while thinking that they are doing something that is beneficial to you and to others and to themselves, especially. It is the responsibility of the righteous people to overthrow the wicked people. It is the duty of those who are good to oppose evil in all of its various forms, especially within the God appointed means of redressing complaints against the government through the series of checks and balances that exist in our structure of Government.
Because the people are the source of the earthly ‘power’ of the government, for the people to be able to do their jobs rightly and adequately, it is necessary for the people to be able to be literate and to be able to understand the regulations that they subject themselves to. And because our form of government is not a pure ‘democracy’, but ‘representative’, we depend on the work of others in order to govern ourselves. Others may or may not be morally oriented toward actual good or actual evil. Regardless, the people in positions of authority at times do not tell the truth.
Since lying is the primary way, in our form of government, of bringing about evil plans, it is necessary to have our rights protected. A person telling the truth about their plans that would be evil will easily be noticed and ‘called out’ by a vigilant public.
In some ways, we wish that the people who don’t like our system of government, the constitution, and the bill of rights… our government… should go to some other place. But, it is naïve to think that they will, or that it is a solution in the first place, because these evil people think that it is their job to enlighten us to the ‘error of our ways’ and bring about systems of government in order to supplant our own government, and bring about unrighteous rules and unjust regulations in order to entrap and enslave us. The modern rendition of this supplanting is the progressive movement, started by Woodrow Wilson and continued on both sides of the aisle by both Republicans and Democrats who share their ideologies.
They don’t care about the goodness or justice of the law, what they are really concerned about is controlling people, and making sure that they are on top and that you are on the bottom.
What should we do in this type of a situation?
Well, we need to think a few things and do a few things.
- Vote – It is your responsibility to do so.
- Remember…this is nothing new. People have always had to defend themselves against evil.
- Defense against evil requires vigilance, in that the evil people are plotting on their beds at night in order to try to determine a way to defeat the righteous.
- Accountability – you need to know what your elected officials are doing, what they are voting on, and how the things they are voting on either match or don’t match the constitution. You need to be in touch with them.
- You need to regularly let them know how you want them to vote on whatever legislation is coming ‘down the pike’. You also need to know what that legislation is.
- There will at times be some things you can’t stand for and that they should not allow. It becomes necessary for you to take a stand in whatever way you can. This may mean a simple email. it could mean a letter. It could mean a face to face meeting. It could mean litigation.
- Realize that prophetically, there will come a time prior to Christ’s return, when whatever power the righteous people have will be completely broken. Whenever that happens, look up! Jesus is about to return! We will eventually be in such a mess that His return is the only way that we can get out of it… not by our own doing, but by way of the evil people who are doing evil things.
That being said, you should not give way to evil and allow it to run its course. It is always the job of responsible people to oppose evil; not embrace it and not to call it good.
As a function of His mercy, he provided the forefathers with enough regard for His word for them to include in our Constitution a way of making change without revolt and revolution. That way is Article V of the Constitution, and the headway that various movements are having with a view toward its use is encouraging. Check out this link and see for yourself the nature of what is trying to be addressed…
May God be merciful to us as we head into this election, and all elections. And, it is critical that we plead for mercy for our lives and those of our wives and children… that God would have mercy and grace on us so that we would be able to live quiet lives, and that the Gospel would spread rapidly.