What we need to remember about government is that the position is God ordained, but the people in government are many times corrupt and evil...Read Romans 13...
The United States of America is blessed with a good government since its government keeps its focus where it should be, trying to control and curb harmful outward behavior and keeping the peace...Note in Romans 13, the government "holds terror for those who DO WRONG", not think wrong or believe wrong...The focus of government is always to be on harmful outward behavior.
On the otherhand, God's other kingdom, the church deal with the Word and the Sacraments...It is very important that church and state be kept separate, for when they get mixed all sorts of problems can develop...
That is one reason, I would not care to live in Iraq or Iran..Don't think I would be living too long, because of my Christian beliefs...In many of these countries, religion is mixed with government, causing much harm and destruction...
Here are two nice statements of when a Christian would resist government:
1)When the government becomes the church, the Christian must resist....
Remember the book of Daniel, and how Daniel was told by his government, that he would have to pray for the next 30 days through the emperor, or face death...Well, he refused, was sent to the Lion's Den, and God protected him from even one of those lions taking a bite out of him...
Or how about Shadrah, Meschach, and Abendago, who were told by government to bow down to a 90 ft high statue in the plain of Dura...They refused, and were thrown into a fiery furnace...Fortunately, God had an angel in that furnace, to protect them...
2. When the government tells a Christian to do something contrary to the Word of God, the Christian must resist:
a. A doctor is told he must perform abortions on demand
b. A soldier is told he must kill innocent civilians...
(think of all those innocent Jews murdered in the holocaust)
I have seen government over the years as God's servant to do us Christians good...Take a look at how God used the Babylonian empire to discipline his people the Jews, how he used the Medes and Persians to destroy the corrupt and immoral Babylonian empire, how God used the Greek empire to put together a common language so that the message of a Messiah could be carried near and far, or how God used the Roman empire to provide highways, peace, and security on the high seas, so that missionaries could travel to the far corners of the world to preach a message about a Savior from sin...
The United States is still a great country to live in...(You Canadians have it good too!!) We have freedom of speech, freedom to worship where we choose, a government which uses the Sword to protect its people, a government that does not put its nose into religion...
May God continue to bless America, the land that I love!
And may he bless us with leaders who have a greater sense of what is right and wrong, and put the interests of their country ahead of their own personal agendas... |
