Of Voting & Government & Other Unseemly Topics 1 by Michael Bunker

Hi! I & the children have been in Mo. visiting some kin I have over there & I've some to say about that. But not today. I had no phone or internet of my own & so I've been skimming today to catch up & wanted to repost this from Michael Bunker's blog A Process Driven Life. There are more parts to it so I'll be breaking them up & posting them one a day as he did. I pray you'll find it thought provoking & edifying.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Of Voting and Government and other Unseemly Topics, Part I

by Michael Bunker

(Ok, so it rests on me to once again teach you something you probably have never been told. Something out of fashion, and completely contra-mundum. I'm sure it is destined to make me even more popular... mb)

Voting, by definition, is assent. Voting, as everyone will readily agree, is the systematic choosing of one's representative(s). Representation is very, very important to God, in that He has wisely and benevolently chosen to deal with man via representation. In the fall, if you are human, you were IN the first Adam. You were absolutely represented by your federal head and high priest – Adam, the first man. Those few who are IN Christ and are truly regenerated and saved by Him, are in the Second Adam. If you are regenerated, then Jesus Christ is your true representative and high priest. God created the concept of representative government, and He takes representation very seriously. If you choose a representative, then in God’s eyes you are IN that representative. His faults are your faults, his crimes are your crimes, his heresies are your heresies, and his righteousness is your righteousness. Since we could never choose a good enough representative, and since our depravity and fallen nature would always be magnified in the choice of our representative, He wisely and benevolently determined to give His elect people (God elects, people do not) a perfect and sinless representative. If you are IN Him, then God deals with you representationally. For the true believer, Christ’s righteousness is your righteousness. Christ’s perfection is your perfection. Make no mistake, the person you elect to represent you, stands for you before the God of Heaven, and is your representative before God.

What follows immediately is a very short-hand and rudimentary relation of how man governmentally fell to his current depths of moral degradation.

The only Biblical system of government given by God to man is MONARCHY. No other system has ever been implemented or approved of by God. Originally, in God’s perfect wisdom and system, there would be one King – God Himself. He anointed Judges from among men to govern in His stead, just as a distant King would appoint governors to look after His interests, do righteousness, judge rightly, and to punish evil-doers.

Now, I need to tell you that there was a Godly principle that was being worked out through all of this – a principle that God was teaching to national Israel, and to us through national Israel. That principle is that, in the realm of human government, God will give people the leadership that they deserve. If they obey Him and follow Him, He will give them righteous leadership and judges. If they disobey, and walk contrarily to His commandments, He will give them wicked leaders. This has been God’s policy, and is one of the primary spiritual teachings that only those with a regenerate heart will ever really receive. The wicked will look at the nation, and all the wickedness in the nation, and say “Our leaders are wicked! Let’s get rid of them!” The regenerate heart will say, “My leaders are wicked! I need to repent! We need to repent!”

Back to our story… So, righteous Samuel appointed his two sons to be Judges in Israel (1 Sam. 8:1). It is important for you to realize that GOD chose Samuel’s two sons. No person AT ALL can rise to power without God being the one who chose them. A great vision was shown to the prophet Daniel, and upon seeing it, Daniel praised God for teaching him this great truth: “Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his: And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding” (Dan 2:20-21).

The regenerate reader will see that Samuel appointed his two sons, and they will realize that God moved Samuel to do so, for His own purposes, known unto Him. We know from the scriptures that a bitter heart of unthankfulness and of covetousness had arisen among Israel not long after God had delivered them from the Phillistines. As Samuel traveled on his circuit and judged Israel, they accepted him, but in their hearts and minds they were growing distant from God, and they wanted to be more and more like the nations round about them. They were becoming worldly. They wanted to be like everyone else and live like the heathen. They wanted to put away their separation from the rest of the world. How do we know this? Well, as soon as God started to punish this dark heart of unbelief in them by giving them a few wicked judges (the sons of Samuel), what did they say? They went up to Samuel “And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD. And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city” (1Sa 8:5-22).

So, at the request of wicked men, God re-instituted Monarchy among men, only this time instead of Israel having one heavenly King, which is God, and Judges under God to rule amongst them, now they would have actual earthly kings to rule over them. The policy of God, that He would give them good rulers if they would do rightly, and evil rulers if they sinned against Him, did not change. What did change is that from now on they would not own their own property, or their lives – not really. Their lives and their property would be in the hands of the King. Before they wickedly demanded that God give them earthly kings, they were free; they owned their lives and their property. Judges ruled between free men when there was a conflict, but every man was subject only to the law of God, and not to multitudinous laws given by men. But now Israel would pay taxes, and would, in a very real sense, come to realize that they were being brought low. They would be forced to give of their sons and daughters to the King. They would give of their property, their servants, their animals – as the King desired, so would they do. They would no longer be truly free. But still they shouted… “Give us a King!”

In the fullness of time, all that was promised concerning Israel came to pass. They had a king, and they often rebelled, and God often gave them wicked rulers who treated them horribly and brought great punishments upon the people. But if, and when, the people repented, turned again to God,called out to Him for deliverance, and served God righteously, then God would bring in a new King who would restore Israel again. This pattern happened over and over and over so that people would learn the lesson. But eventually, they fell even further, and forgot the teachings of God.

God sent them into captivity, and then eventually removed them as a people. Before they were removed, and as a last opportunity and warning, Christ came preaching the Kingdom of God. He preached a restoration of the Kingdom for all those who would take Christ as King and Lord – as their representative, high-priest, and husband; forsaking all others. If they would obey and follow Him and separate from the wicked world around them (separate politically, culturally, and economically), then He would be to them a God and a King, and they would be to Him a people. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2Co 6:14-18).

To be “unequally yoked” meant to work with and among the unbelievers. A “yoke” was used for work, for pulling a plow. We were not to be working in and among the unbelievers. Not commercially, not economically, not politically. We were to be separated from them, and separated UNTO the Kingdom of God. The principle was, IF you will separate and come unto me, I will restore the Kingdom unto you, and you unto the Kingdom. Christians would still exist in the world for a time, and by “in” the world He meant “on the earth, and surrounded by the earthly kingdoms”. What He did not intend, was that they would be blended in amongst the people. He commanded that they DO NOT, under any circumstances, blend themselves up with the worldly. They were not to be conformed to the rudiments (rules, basics, maxims, culture) of the world. He did not intend them to become politically involved with the Kingdom of This World. He had just called them to come out from it and separate from it. If they would separate, then He would lead and guide them like He had once done for Israel. He would protect them, and judge rightly between them and the worldlings. He would elevate righteous ministers and judges from among the true Church, and the Church would be completely separate from the temporal power. The Christians would be asked to submit somewhat to the civil magistrates of the Kingdom of This World, but only according to this rule: They were to obey commandments or orders only if those laws did not command what God had forbidden, or forbid what God had commanded. When the civil magistrate violated this rule, then God’s people were to disobey the civil magistrate. Other than that, though, they were to exist in this world as a separate people, with their own rules and customs and practices – subject to the Kingdom of God. His promise was that if the true Church would live separately, and patiently await His return, then when He returned He would rule and reign with them on earth for a very long time. Just as He had not sought temporal power or authority over the unsaved world, they were not to do so. If they were patient during the interval, He would return and take His temporal throne in His own time.

This is the subject of every parable that Christ gave about the Kingdom of God.

But again, the people rebelled. Early on in the first century, many in the “church” became political and activist. Even while Christ walked the earth, they argued about who would be greatest and who would rule. Before long, the apostates among the “church” began to desire political and temporal power. They began to preach that the “church” (and by the “church”, they meant themselves) had civil authority over the outside world. They began to impose rules and laws on citizens outside of the Kingdom of God. Soon they elevated Popes and called them kings, and the rest of the earthly kings were to derive their authority and power from Popes. The Pope of Rome was given temporal territory and rule, and he kept the people ignorant of what Christ had plainly said, by keeping the Word of God from them. Some, from within the Protestant ranks, disliked and rejected the rule of the usurper Pope, and they desired to raise up a Theocracy of their own, like unto that of the Pope, only with some superficial changes. They agreed with the Pope, though, that the Church ought to rule over the world as King.

The rebellion continued. Eventually sinful man came to the conclusion that in order to have true freedom, the King (the King for whom Man had begged God) must go. “Yes God, we begged you for a King, and you warned us that earthly kings would grow more wicked through time, but now that we see that it is true, we will take your elected King to the guillotine! We will elect our own ruler! We will be like gods!” This time, they wouldn’t ask God for His permission at all. They would just rebel and throw off the yoke of the King. Remember, all kings were of God. “By me kings reign, and princes decree justice” (Prov. 8:15). The righteous rulers were given to a repentant and humble people, and the wicked were given to a stiffnecked and wicked people. This principle that God had taught man through millennia was ignored, and the people said to the earthly kings (given to them by God), just as they had said to Christ, “we will not have this man to rule over us.”

Remember, the Proverbs plainly teach that for man to seek to rule over kings or princes, was one of the four things the earth could not bear! “Delight is not seemly for a fool; much less for a servant to have rule over princes” (Pro 19:10). The great commentator John Gill said, “the insolence of a servant, when he becomes master over his superiors, is intolerable”. “For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear: For a servant when he reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat; For an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress” (Pro 30:21-23).

Power was devolving, as you can clearly see. In the beginning it was with God alone, and as the apostasy spread, governance was devolving into the rule of the MOB. First, there was one God and King, and the people didn’t like that. So they were granted earthly kings, which multiplied the sin and rebellion and wickedness. Not happy with earthly kings, man demanded the full representation of all men, so that inevitably the mob would be the king. When wicked men (even most of those who call themselves “christian”, but who are not) “elect” rulers, you will end up with the distilled sinfulness of the people, all gathered into one person on whom the majority can agree. This is an absolute promise that elections lead to degradation and destruction. In America, every four years an increasingly sinful and reprobated populace gather together to choose from among the least devilish of two devils. They reject Christ as Lord, King, and Representative, and they take from among the most vile and covetous and apostate of men, someone to stand for them and represent them.

So from the Age of Englightenment, when men learned that they didn’t need God, we moved inexorably into the Age of Revolution. Kings all over the world were dethroned, and those who held on were stripped of most of their powers. To the worldly man, this was a good thing. God had (they said) returned power to the people. There were “inalienable rights” of man that God was restoring by doing away with the kings that man had demanded. Christians were taught that rebellion was sanctified by the passing of time, and that in America particularly (they claimed), God had raised up a more perfect union, and that He had absolutely blessed and encouraged their rebellion.

So in summation of this first part (and I have a lot more to say), here is the visual you should take from this… In the beginning there was God. God created man, and asked him to humbly submit to His rule and Goodness. Man rebelled and chose his own way. God took an elect family out of fallen man, and gave them law and promised to be their King. Despite their constant rebellion, he let them remain free. He gave them judges to rule on His behalf and promised them that if they did well, they would prosper. They rebelled again and demanded a king. He warned them what would happen, but gave them a king. They were no longer free. They no longer had “inalienable rights”. Then they rebelled again. They didn’t want kings any more. They wanted all power in their own hands. They wanted the mob to be king. They wanted to be gods and to rule over themselves. They teach that time and distance sanctifies rebellion, and that God is pleased with them for their actions.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I am your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker

Go To Part 2!