© 2021 Don Pinson | [Download]
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Hope came to the world 700 years before the birth of Christ, as Isaiah, the Hebrew prophet foretold of a Child who would come into the world and change the world for the better. Isaiah prophesied:
“For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders…There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over His kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)
The Child Isaiah talked about would be named Jesus. And the kingdom Jesus would build would be built on “justice and righteousness”. Jesus would start by stepping into the lives of those who would believe in Him as their Master and Deliverer. He would rule them from the inside out, so that their actions would express His own attitudes and actions. He would literally be living His life though those who believed in Him (Galatians 2:20). And if Christ could live His life through an individual in a family, why couldn’t He live His life through that whole family? And if He could live through a family of believers, why couldn’t He live His life through a church of believers? And if He could live His life through an individual church of believers, why couldn’t he live His life through a community made up of several churches filled with believers? And if that could be done, why couldn’t an entire state, or even a nation be an expression of His life?
In fact, America’s Founders believed they were working with God to create that kind of nation. Samuel Adams, the Father of the American Revolution, would say, when the Declaration of Independence was being signed:
“We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.”
(Adams, Samuel. 1776, statement made while the Declaration of Independence was being signed. Charles E. Kistler, This Nation Under God (Boston: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1924), p. 71. | Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1977), p. 309.)
While America’s Founders did not believe they were creating the kingdom of God on earth which Jesus will create when He comes back to this earth, they did believe they were creating a government which was Biblical in its form. That is, they were creating a republic, not a democracy! And they believed, that government servants who would walk in the Spirit of God within that government, could be used by God to create the fairest and best-ordered government the world had ever seen. And that is exactly what happened.
Could this happen again? Absolutely! You ask, “How?” The same way our Founders believed their government would have to be maintained: We must learn and pass on to the next generation the Biblical understanding of government. We must teach children in our homes, churches, and schools that God has a form of civil government in the Bible that is called a republic. We must teach them that this form of government can only be maintained by its servants living in Biblical morality: That is, living according to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. Also, the laws they make must agree with those commands.
To sum it up: Only if we know what the Bible teaches about government can we teach it. Shouldn’t we be reading the Bible completely through as our daily method so we can learn all God has to say about government? Parent, Pastor, Church teacher, shouldn’t we let the “zeal of the Lord of hosts” stir us to teach this to our children in our homes and churches?
Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children! And you won’t like what that brings to you. I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.