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This time of year we often hear the words:

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with…justice
From that time forward, even forever… (Isaiah 9:6-7)

These words, taken from Isaiah 9, express the longing of every thinking person on earth.  Most everyone wants justice and order and peace:  In other words, good government.  Every conscientious person wants the kind of government which will produce these things in a society.  Every good person wants good government.  Then why is good government so hard to find?

Number one, good government is hard to find because, as William Penn, said,

“Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined [also].  Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad…But if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.”

(Penn, William. April 25, 1682, in the preface of his Frame of Government of Pennsylvania | A Collection of Charters and Other Public Acts (Philadelphia: B. Franklin, 1740), pp. 10-12 | Gary DeMar, God and Government – A Biblical and Historical Study (Atlanta, GA: American Vision, 1982), p. 115.)

So governments go bad because man has a sin principle at work within him, which causes everything he touches to go downhill—unless he knows Christ, and obeys Him by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, we have bad government simply because we don’t know the form of government which God teaches in the Bible.  The Bible warns us that:

“My people perish for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)

Thus, we don’t implement God’s form in government and so we wind up with satan’s form, and that always enslaves us.  So what is God’s form of government?

The Bible teaches there are three forms of government.  They are internal government, external government, and civil government.

Internal government is often called self-government.  This happens when we, as individuals, choose to do what God says is right and refuse to do what God says is wrong.  It is His power within us choosing to do right.

External government occurs when we refuse to use self-government and must have government from outside of us control our passions.  This is what God did in Genesis 3 when man refused to exercise internal self-government.  He placed a flaming sword and angels around the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden to keep man from eating of that tree.  God was controlling man with the outside force of His angels.  He was governing man, for the word “govern” means “to control”.

The third form of government God established after the flood of Noah.  He told Noah in Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man will his blood be shed.”  God was giving to Noah and the rest of mankind the responsibility to select men from among themselves who would govern them.  So, if a person refused to control himself, there would be an outside force that would control him.  This would ensure order in society, without which nothing can function.  America’s founders understood this.  Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1854, stated it.  He said:

“Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.”

(Winthrop, Robert Charles. May 28, 1849, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1852), p. 172 | Verna M. Hall, The Christian History of the American Revolution (F.A.C.E., 1976), p. 20.)

Are you governing your desires, and teaching your children to do the same?

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.