TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – 31-Is-God-in-Control-of-Men

The Bible answers, “Yes.”

Summary. The almighty God controls, directs, and sustains everything which he has created, including men.  This is called his “providence.”

Furthermore, as men live, breathe, and work, their Creator acts in them and through them, even when their motives would be sinful, though he will neither concur [work together] in that sin, nor force them to commit a sin (Acts 17:28; Psalm 5:5-6).  In fact, without his power men could not act at all (Psalm 104:29-30).

Nevertheless, this does not mean that men are mere machines that are forced unwillingly to do whatever their Creator expects.  Men remain moral beings with a freedom from any coercion by their Creator.  Just the same, they still are held responsible for their moral acts, not merely by their own consciences, but by their Creator who will judge them on Judgment Day.

Thus from the viewpoint of men everything which they do in human affairs will be done freely.  However, according to biblical teaching, all human affairs must proceed according to God’s prearranged plans (Matthew 2:15; 26:54).

In regards to God’s control of human affairs, God not only operates according to his revealed will which is found in the Bible, which consists of his commands and promises to men, which he has bound men to obey, but also according to his hidden will, so to speak, which he has not revealed, about which he is silent, and which men could not discover (Romans 11:33-34; Isaiah 55:8-9).  At times this hidden will may produce in human affairs events which seem to be unjust and offensive to the mere mortal mind (Matthew 2:13-18; 26:47-56).

Commentary.  The Almighty controls, directs, and sustains everything which he has created, including men.  God’s holy Word testifies, “All things were created by him… by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16-17).  God “works everything in everything” (1st Corinthians 12:6).  To what end?  “Divine providence centers in the Church.  Scripture teaches expressly that all things and all occurrences in heaven and on earth must serve the Church.  According to Rom. 8:28 ‘all things work together for good to them that love God’.  According to Matt. 24:14 the world exists solely for the Church.  And according to Heb. 1:14 the angels are ministers in the service of the Church.”[1]

In fact, in God “we live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28), the Bible teaches.  Without God’s power we could not live, move or have our being.  “When you would hide your face, they will be troubled; when you would take away their breath, they will die and return to their dust.  When you would send forth your spirit, they will be created” (Psalm 104:29-30).  Thus God acts in men and through them.

Indeed, “Unless the Lord would build the house, they who would build it will labor for nothing” (Psalm 127:1).  Men are one “means through which divine Providence operates.  God operates, and the means operate.  Ps. 127:1:  The Lord builds the house, and the builders build the house.  But the relation between the operation of the means and the operation of God is this:  The operation of the means is not coordinate with the operation of God, but subordinate to it, and subordinate to that extent that the means work only that which God works through them, and they work only as long as God works.  For “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”[2]

“’God not only bestows the power to act on… [creatures] and conserves them, but in an immediate manner enters into the action and the effect produced by a creature, so that the same effect is produced not by God alone, nor by the creature alone, nor partly by God, partly by the creature, but is produced at the same time by God and the creature by one identical, total efficacy, viz. by God as the universal and first cause, by the creature as the particular and second cause’.”[3]

Hence the Bible shows that the Almighty controls, directs, and sustains the lives and the destinies of individuals, notably Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).  “The Lord looks from heaven; he sees all the sons of men.  From the place of his habitation he looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; he fashions their hearts individually; he considers all their works” (Psalm 33:13-15).

Moreover, the Lord also controls, directs, and sustains the destinies of nations.  For example, when the Assyrian war lords had planned to go to war against Jerusalem, declaring, “Prepare war against her…. Let us destroy her palaces” (Jeremiah 6:4 & 5), at the same time God moved their minds to bring about this annihilating war, urging them, “For thus has the Lord of hosts said, ‘Cut down trees, and build a mound against Jerusalem’” (Jeremiah 6:6).

“Concerning the concurrence [working together]of God in the actions of moral beings…. As to evil actions, Scripture, in the first place, tells us  1) that God is unalterably opposed to them:  ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’….  2) that God often prevents their occurrence, as in the case of Abimelech of Gerar (Gen. 20:1ff.); and  3) that when they occur, they must serve His good purposes, as when Joseph was sold into Egypt (Gen. 50:20).

“But now, in the second place, the question arises:  How far does God concur in the performance of sinful actions?  The Scriptural teaching on this point may be thus summarized:  God concurs [works together] in evil actions in so far as they are acts… for Scripture says that men live and move and have their being in God (Acts 17:28).  But God does not concur in the evil actions in so far as they are evil… for Scripture says of God:  ‘Thou hatest all workers of iniquity.  Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing [falsehood]; the Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man’ (Psalm 5:5-6). – We are well aware that this distinction… does not remove the difficulty our mind finds in this co-operation of God.  But we also know that for the present, during our life here on earth, we human beings must confine our thinking to the limits set by this distinction.  All explanations that go beyond these limits are based either on self-deception or on a denial of the two factors that enter in here.  We shall have to deny either the concurrence of God in the evil acts, as far as they are acts (Pelagius, according to Jerome, did this; he declared that he could move his hand, bend his finger, sit, stand, and walk without God’s concurrence…), or we shall have to deny that there is anything evil in the human action; we make God responsible for it and deny human responsibility.  Both are against Scripture and against human experience.  It is contrary to Scripture.  For Acts 17:28 clearly teaches the thief or the murderer cannot perform his acts without God’s concurrence; it states that all men, including the thieves and murderers, live in God, move in God, have their being in God.  It is contrary to experience, for inevitably the conscience of the thief and of the murderer holds them responsible for their evil actions.”[4]

To be sure, “physically two men may perform the same act, yet morally it is not the same.  One man picks up a dollar and keeps it, and he is an honest man, because the money is his.  The other does the same thing, and he is a thief, because the money does not belong to him.  In both cases God concurs in the physical performance of the act; also the thief could not move his hand without God’s cooperation.  But God has absolutely no part in the sinfulness of the act; for He is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness, Ps. 5:4.  God concurs in the physical part of an evil act, but not in the moral depravity of this act.  Why God does not refrain to cooperate in the physical performance of such acts as are morally contrary to His will, we do not know.  However, it is blasphemous if on that account we hold Him responsible for our evil deeds.  ‘Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God:  for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man; but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed’, James 1:13, 14.

“This doctrine of the concurrence of God is by no means an idle speculation, but has practical significance.  We pray to this God, and He has promised to hear us, Ps. 50:15.  The fact that He concurs in all the functions of His creatures strengthens in us the assurance that He can easily make them serve our needs.”[5]

“Does God permit men to sin?  This question has often been put.  Scripture answers in the affirmative.  It describes God’s relation to sin also as a sufferance of sin…. Ps. 81:12:  ‘So I gave them [the Jews] up unto their own heart’s lust; and they walked in their own counsels’.  Acts 14:16:  ‘Who in times past suffered all nations [the Gentiles] to walk in their own ways’.  The phrase:  ‘God permits men to sin’ is therefore not subject to criticism.  It is based on Scripture.  But this does not fully describe God’s activity in connection with the sins of men.  According to Scripture, God in His righteous judgment punishes sin with sin.  We read Rom. 1:24-28:  ‘Wherefore [because of their idolatry] God also gave them up to uncleanness… unto vile affections… to a reprobate mind’.  And 2 Thess. 2:11-12 describes this activity of God in these words:  ‘And for this cause [because they received not the love of the truth] God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness’.”[6]

“Does God do evil by supporting man who in his natural state does evil continually?  The essential holiness of God, Ps. 145:17 which is observed in all his ways and works and furthermore manifests itself in His abhorrence of iniquity, Ps. 5:5, and also His immutability, James 1:17 by which He is ceaselessly the Dispenser only of good and perfect gifts, forbid us to assume that God cooperates in the evil works of man, in so far as they are evil.  The omnipotence of God supplies indeed the energies of intellect and will, and the physical strength which are necessary for any human action, but the sinful quality of the action is not from Him.  This strikingly is set forth by Jeremiah, Lam. 3:35-38.  The prophet grants that injustice is practiced by men, but declares that the Lord does not approve of it.  Still, he continues, unless the Lord willed, nothing that man proposes can be accomplished (Compare Prov. 16:9).  And He adds:  ‘Out of the mouth of the Lord proceedeth not evil and good’.  If the injustice that is done does not proceed from the Lord, and still the injustice could not have been accomplished unless the Lord had willed, the meaning can be no other than this, that the Lord will that there should be in a certain person the power to act and the ability to use it, but not the motive to act as he does, nor the result in which the action terminates.  All activity of men would simply have to cease if the Creator should withdraw His sustaining hand, Job 34:13-15.  For God to withdraw or to withhold the power from men to act would be tantamount to giving man over to death and dissolution…. The power by which men sin is indeed from Him, who is the Source of all life and of all strength, but He does not bestow it for the purpose of sinning.  In this sense, any evil that occurs anywhere may be traced to the Lord, Is. 45:7; Amos 3:6; Deut. 32:39.”[7]

Just the same, men are not machines that are “deprived of freedom of will and action.  For man often thinks, wills, and does what God would not have him think, will, and do, which plainly shows that man has a will of his own.  Hence, according to the witness of his own conscience, Rom. 2:14, 15, and of the Scriptures, Matt.12:36, man, and not God, is responsible for his thoughts, words, and deeds.  In agreement with this our Confessions deny ‘That everything that man does, even in outward things, he does by compulsion, and that he is coerced to evil works and deeds’. Formula of Concord, Epitome, Article II, paragraph 8, Triglot Concordia, page 789.  ‘The human will has liberty in the choice of works and things which reason comprehends by itself’. Augsburg Confession, Article XVIII, paragraph 70, Triglot Concordia, page 335.”[8]

“It is God’s will and order that we use the means which He has appointed for sustaining and prolonging our lives (the exceptions, i.e., that God can also sustain our lives without means, we leave to Him, Ex. 34:28).  As God-appointed means Scripture mentions:  work… food… especially a pious life… prayer… also flight from danger (Acts 9:23-25:  Paul’s flight from Damascus when the Jews threatened his life); etc.  Since these means are appointed by God, they have been made part of the divine providence.  That is emphasized Acts 27:31:  ‘Except these [seamen] abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved’ – God has made the saving of your lives dependent upon the use of these means.” [9] 
“The providence of God is… engaged in opposing the sinner and in defeating his wicked purpose.  This is called the divine government of evil.  These modes of this government may be distinguished:  before, during and after the sinners’ action…. Governing acts of God antecedent and concomitant to the commission of evil are:  1) God’s prescience of the evil contemplated… 2) God’s interference before an evil act is conceived or executed.  In a manner which we cannot observe in an empirical way, but which is in keeping with His power and goodness God prevents many evil deeds which might suggest themselves to men from entering their minds.  Again, when the evil design has formed in a heart God interposes before the execution.  Thus the lewd Sodomites were thwarted in their lusts, Gen. 19:11.  The contemplated adultery of Abimelech with Sarah was not affected, Gen. 20:6…. In these instances God revealed to the parties His disapproval of their design or foiled them in their endeavor by an extraordinary and miraculous use of His omnipotent power, Isa. 37:36.  This mode of the divine government of evil is so common with God that the Psalmist declares:  ‘The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: He maketh the devices of the people to none effect’ (Ps. 33:10).  Concommitant acts of God by which He governs evil refer to such evil deeds as He permits.  In a manner which we cannot understand by observation, but which comports with His righteousness, holiness and goodness God engages to dissuade the sinner from committing his sin even while the latter is engaged in it and to erect barriers which the sinner cannot pass.  Jesus would have been slain sooner by the Jews if God had permitted them, John 7:30…. Consequent acts of God by which evil is governed are directed toward the effect of evil already committed.  The sale of Joseph by his brethren and his removal as a slave into Egypt was neither suggested nor effected by God…. But the design which they had had in selling Joseph was so completely changed by the course of events in Joseph’s life in Egypt, and another design of which neither Joseph or his brethren had been aware at the time of the sale was put in the place of the wicked design of the brethren, that Joseph’s removal to Egypt is represented later as serving a divine purpose, and Joseph himself ascribes it to God, Gen. 45:5; 50:20…. God employs also wicked agents to accomplish blessed ends and makes the wrath of men praise Him.  Luther rightly says:  ‘When God wills, even the devil must run His errands’.  Accordingly Paul lays down this truth as a general rule:  ‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose’ Rom. 8:28.”[10]

“At times God suffers evil to happen, and permits men to walk in their perverse ways, Ps. 81:12; Acts 14:16; Rom. 1:24.  Then again, He breaks up the evil counsel and will of men, as in the case of Saul, Acts 9; Ps. 33:10, or He hinders and frustrates their wicked purpose, ‘Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good’, Gen. 50:20.  He defends us against all danger, as He defended Lot in Sodom and Israel at the Red Sea.  Without His will no sparrow shall fall to the ground, and not a hair from our head, Matt. 10:29, 30.  He guards and protects us from all evil, Ps. 91:10-12.  Even the evil men do is subject to His control, and must serve His purposes:  the betrayal of Judas and judicial murder of Christ He used to carry out His plan of redemption, see also Gen. 50:20.  He determines the length to which wicked men may go, and so regulates and limits the results of their actions that all things must in the end work out for the good of His children, Rom. 8:28.  The ‘foreknowledge of God observes its order also in wicked acts and works, inasmuch as a limit and measure is fixed by God to the evil, which God does not will, how far it should go, and how long it should last, when and how He will hinder and punish it; for all of this God the Lord so overrules that it must redound to the glory of the divine name and to the salvation of His elect, and the godless, on this account, must be put to confusion’. Formula of Concord, Thorough Declaration, Article XI, paragraph 6, Triglot Concordia, page 1065.”[11]

[1] Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, translator Theodore Engleder, Volume I (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1965), page 485.

[2] Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, translator Theodore Engelder, Volume I (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1965), page 487.

[3] William Herman Theodore Dau, Doctrinal Theology, Volume I (no place: mimeographed, no date [a few years after 1910]), pages 201-202

[4]  Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, translator Theodore Engelder, Volume I (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1965), pages 489-490.

[5] Edward William August Koehler, A Summary of Christian Doctrine (River Forest, Illinois: Koehler Publishing Company, 1939), page 36.

[6] Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, translator Theodore Engelder, Volume I (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1965), pages 490-491.

[7] W. H. T. Dau, Doctrinal Theology, Volume I (no place: mimeographed, no date [a few years after 1910]), page 201.

[8] Edward W. A. Koehler, A Summary of Christian Doctrine (River Forest, Illinois: Koehler Publishing Company, 1939), page 37.

[9] Franz Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, translator Theodore Engelder, Volume I (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1965), pages 493-494.

[10] W. H. T. Dau, Doctrinal Theology, Volume I (no place: mimeographed, no date [a few years after 1910]), pages 202-203.

[11] Edward W. A. Koehler, A Summary of Christian Doctrine (River Forest, Illinois: Koehler Publishing Company, 1939), page 38.

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – 32-God-will-determine-history

At least a couple of historians have made a studied effort to point out to their readers that a goal which men had attempted was often quite different than the final outcome.  For instance, compare what men intended and attempted in this country in 1766 and what happened in the year 1776!  Compare what they intended and attempted in 1851 and what happened in the year 1861!

The answer which these historians correctly gave is that God is in control of events.  Men are simply the actors.  “In studying history as a whole [we] should… relegate economic and political history to a subordinate place and give religious history the primacy” (Arnold Toynbee, Civilization on Trial, page 94).  “Each page of history may begin and end with:  Great is God, and marvelous are His doings among the children of men….[But] it is when the hour of the conflict is over that history comes to a right understanding of the strife and is ready to exclaim:   ‘Lo, God is here, and we knew Him not’” (George Bancroft).

Assuredly, the Bible is insistent on this fact.  “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).  God upholds all things by the Word of his power (Hebrews 1:3).  “By God all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).  In God we live and move, and have our being (Acts 17:27).  “If there would be calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?” (Amos 3:6.)

To be sure, in hindsight, academic historians will write about only those events which had a bearing on significant events in history, that is, which had affected many people, such as, wars or changes in governmental policies. Family historians will report only on those events that mattered to a given family.  In either case, historians will select only certain events, and not others.  In fact, they will present matters in such a way as if their chosen events simply had followed one another to the exclusion of all other possible events.  Nevertheless, at the time when so many events were going on, the participants could not be certain of not merely the outcome, but of which of these events would finally contribute toward this unknowable outcome. Only God knew what he would do to bring about the end result.  Men did not know how God was going to shape the events and which events he would use to bring about the outcome which he had in mind.

Man’s view of the future has been restricted by a divinely-imposed labyrinth.  In a maze, or labyrinth, a person could only see so far ahead of him, and this condition would remain throughout all of the twists and turns of his journey.  A man may intend to travel in a straight line, but the maze would determine the direction which the man must take and the location at which he will arrive.  Though man would do the walking, he would not be in control, the maze will be.  So it will be with historical events.  A man may intend to go from point A to point B, yet God will introduce any number of events to alter that plan in order to achieve his own purpose.

For example, the great battle at Gettysburg was never intended to be fought there by either side.  A confederate general by the name of Henry Heth simply had sent a small unit into town to get some shoes. Then it became entangled with Union cavalry.

Furthermore, God may bring about the elements of delay, reversal, and surprise.  He could introduce an inducement to persuade an actor to change his mind.  Unanticipated opposition could arise from a person that could bring about a change in the plans of another.  Thus the outcome rarely will be that which men had envisioned and engineered it to be. Indeed, the result commonly will be unforeseen by all, and will occur despite the resistance of the actors.  In fact, even the best intentions of men toward a goal often will be weak and temporary, and will be altered by imperfections, ambiguities, selfishness, jealousy, and evil motives.  That anything at all ever could get done would be due to God who is in control of all.  “In him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).

Hence when he would carry out his plans among men, God will choose his direct way, though to men it may seem as a labyrinth.  God will go from his point A to his point B.  Not knowing the mind of God and which mechanics, so to speak, he will put into motion along the way in order to implement his plans, men may be baffled by the twists and turns, by the reversals and the accelerations.  If men would only trust in God’s promises as he has urged them to do, they could settle back with ease and assurance, and depend on the Lord to carry through his excellent plans on schedule.

God will not only lead men through a labyrinth, humanly speaking, in order to make his events and outcomes to happen, but God, furthermore, will choose the foolish things of this world (in the estimate of men) to accomplish it.  He has done this deliberately for the purpose of putting to shame the non-Christians and the worldly wise (1st Corinthians 1:27-29), and to get men to trust solely in his promises.  When God purposely weds his promises to those things which men by nature dismiss as not viable:  the foolish, the weak, the base, and the despised things of this world, men know that they will have to rely solely on God’s pledges if anything at all would ever get done. Thus the Lord points out that “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways…. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

If, however, men would have been shown either through a biblical prophecy or through the signs of the times that a future result will happen, they still may ask “How?”  That is to say, since currently there may be no intent, no action on anyone’s part, nor even a related event which any far-sighted man might connect with the prophesied result; since men currently could not see the result which God is in the middle of accomplishing, it would be due to the fact that currently man cannot see the outcome on the horizon (to use a different metaphor), nor the steps which would lead to it.  Nor does anything need to be seen on the horizon before men could be certain of the future result which was foretold by biblical prophecy or by the signs of the times.  God will simply urge:  “Do not ask ‘How?’!  Trust my promise!  I will accomplish it!”

In fact, if a man would ever ask “How?  How will you do it?” God will reply:  “I will only promise you that I will do it. In my Bible I have stated clearly not how, but why I will do a thing.”   God will do it in order to call men to repentance during their life on earth, and to bring them to possess his prepared salvation.  God will also punish men after they would refuse to repent and to possess his salvation by an act of faith.

To be sure, the reason why men ask, “How, God?” is because they are hoping to find assurance in the impenetrable mechanics of God’s working.  God replies, in effect, “Never mind my mechanics!  You would never understand them.  Besides, if you would be looking for assurance there, you will not find it.  That is not where I have placed it.  You will find your assurance only in my gospel promises.  Look there for it!  That is where I have placed it.  That is where I have promised that you will find it.”

Be satisfied with that!  Pray:  “Good Shepherd, ‘lead me in a smooth path’!” (Psalm 27:11)!

  Biblical lessons to be learned.  The Bible promises that God is in control of the events of nature and of men.

“All things were created through him and for him…. In him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16, 17).  God continues “upholding all things by the Word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3); in regards to individuals (Proverbs 16:9), and in regards to whole nations (1st Kings 4:24-25).  As your Father “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), at times, in his high wisdom, the Almighty will allow men to carry out evil acts (Acts 12:1-2), at other times he will prevent them (Acts 12:3-10).  Having these promises, God urges you:  “Call upon me in the day of trouble!  I will deliver you” (Psalm 50:15).

Conclusion:  To have the knowledge of anything in the future, man would have to know it from the sure promises or threats of God and by his dependable biblical signs of the times.  To be sure, there exists the less certain human axiom that history will repeat itself; that is to say, “You could count on sinners to do the sinful thing under the same circumstances.” However, as to when history would repeat itself thusly, and to what extent it would do so, such knowledge will remain vague.

You must not complain about God’s guidance in your life as the Israelites in the wilderness complained (1st Corinthians 9:10-12), but should suppress your sinful thoughts by meditating on law and gospel passages, and be patient with, even grateful for, what doors, so to speak, the Lord may open for you in life, and which he would keep closed despite your efforts to open them.  You are to do your duty according to the Ten Commandments into whatever position God has placed you.  Since God has promised that “all things work together for good for those who love God” (Romans 8:28), even the events that would seem bad to your sinful thinking will be transformed by the Lord’s wonderful working into something exceptionally good – spiritually good – if not physically good as well.  He has promised it.

Trust his pledge!

President Lincoln’s testimonies from experience.   On the problem which Lincoln puts forth:  “If we could first know where we are and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it,” Lincoln himself answers:  “The pilots on our western rivers steer from point to point, as they call it – setting the course of the boat no farther than they can see.  And that is all I propose to do in the great problems that are set before us.”

“I shall stay right here and do my duty.  Here I shall be…. I shall never desert my post.”

“The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance.  We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise.  We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein.  Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains.  Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay.”

“The will of God prevails.  In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God.  Both may be, and one must be, wrong.  God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time.  In the present civil war it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are the best adaptation to effect his purpose.  I am almost ready to say that this is probably true; that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet.  By his mere great power on the minds of the new contestants, he could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest.  Yet the contest began.  And having begun, he could give the final victory to either side any day.  Yet the contest proceeds” (Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln [Pleasantville, New York:  The Reader’s Digest Association, 1970], pages 342A, 454A, 454B, 455A, and 273Bf.).

Prayer/Hymn

What our Father does is well:
Blessed truth His children tell!
Though He send, for plenty, want,
Though the harvest-store be scant,
Yet we rest upon His love,
Seeking better things above.

What our Father does is well.
Shall the willful heart rebel
If a blessing He withhold
In the field or in the fold?
Is He not Himself to be
All our store eternally?

What our Father does is well.
Though He sadden hill and dell,
Upward yet our praises rise
For the strength His Word supplies.
He has called us sons of God;
Can we murmur at His rod?

What our Father does is well:
May the thought within us dwell!
Though nor milk nor honey flow
In our barren Canaan now,
God can save us in our need,
God can bless us, God can feed.

Therefore unto Him we raise
Hymns of glory, songs of praise.
To the Father and the Son
And the Spirit, Three in One,
Honor, might, and glory be
Now and through eternity!

Benjamin Schmolck (1672-1737).
Translated by Henry W. Baker (1821-1877).

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – 33-What-could-and-should-America-do

Repent!

America must sorrow over its many grievous transgressions, humble itself in the dust, and flee to Christ’s forgiving blood for the only escape from the awful eternal torment to come, before it would be too late.  Then the believers in America would have to wait for their country’s impending punishment as the Old Testament prophet, Habakkuk, had to do (see Habakkuk 1:5-11; 3:16-19).  The few faithful Americans that had not bowed their knees to Baal, would be faced with the same predicament as the people in the days of that Old Testament prophet.  That is, God promised to send the Jews a terrible punishment; there would be no stopping it.  They were informed of it ahead of time.  Yet all that they could do was to wait for it.

Hence, Americans must wake up to the same.  In other words, Americans must realize –

1. That God’s terrible punishment of total war will be coming, it will not be diverted.
2. That the faithful in the church will not escape this impending doom either, though to them it will be a purifying, not a punishment of God’s anger;
3. That not only the faithful, but that all the citizenry must repent and believe.

So wake up, America!  God is in a punishing mode.  Your ignoring of God’s gospel has brought on all of this.

Wake up, church members!  Repent!  Leave your ideology!  Return to biblical doctrine only!

Wake up, Lutherans!  Return to the biblical doctrines found in the Lutheran Confessions!

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A woodcut by Hans Lufft from the Wittenberg Bible of 1534 containing Martin Luther’s translation. The woodcut depicts the scene in Revelation 9:13-19: The Islamic armies prophesied by God, the second of three curses, or punishments, which God will send upon those nations or peoples who have fallen away from the gospel at various times throughout the New Testament. This severe scourge will be used by God as needed until Judgment Day.  “The second woe is the sixth angel, the shameful Mohammed, with his companions, the Saracens, who inflicted a great plague on the Church, with their doctrines and with the sword” (Martin Luther, “Preface to the Revelation of Saint John,” translator Charles Michael Jacobs, Works of Martin Luther [Muhlenberg Press:  Philadelphia, 1943), volume VI, page 483).

 

 

After a succession of successful attacks by Islam against U.S. targets beginning decades ago with the hijackings and bombings of U.S. airliners in the Middle East in the 1970’s and the 1980’s, the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, the attacks on the U.S. embassies overseas, the USS Cole bombing in 2000, and the murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, it would be hoped that at least one hand would have been raised in a biblical studies class in at least one church throughout this land, and would have asked Gideon’s question, “If the Lord would be with us, why then has all of this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13.) “Why is God letting a non-Christian group successfully punish a Christian nation?”

Indeed, further related questions could be asked.  “Why have the American Christian churches changed so much in the last fifty years?”  Things that never would have been allowed in a Christian church fifty years ago are now preached and practiced shamelessly.  Worldly methods, manners, and music have been injected into church worship to titillate the sinful flesh, not to feed the Christian soul.  Pulpits preach clichés, gimmicks, and fads.  The fear of God is shunned; genuine, biblical repentance is avoided; and the function of faith has been changed into wishful thinking and superstition.

This is why God is stirring up the Muslims to attack Americans:  he is using them to punish America.

Would you be offended by that remark?  Will you not see this, though?  He has done so in the past centuries of the New Testament era whenever the Christian church had become worldly and had sunk into unbelief.  In the first six centuries after Christ, his church spread over North Africa with remarkable rapidity.  Forty thousand congregations once flourished there; millions were brought to the saving knowledge of their Redeemer; many Christian schools and charitable institutions were established; mighty religious leaders arose to proclaim the power of the Christian faith.  In North Africa, it seemed, the kingdom of God had a secure stronghold.  Yet as often happens, prosperity made the churches lazy, worldly, and disobedient to God’s Word.  They fell away from the gospel faith.  Then suddenly the Mohammedan conquest spread over North Africa.  The crescent of the moon supplanted the cross of Christ; the Koran took the place of the Bible; the towers of the mosques rose over the Christian churches.  Today, throughout certain North African areas, where faith once flourished, no followers of the Savior survive, no divine Deliverer is worshiped, and no hymns are sung to our Lord.

The same punishment by an Islamic army destroyed Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum (Matthew 11:20-24).  Later, after Asia Minor, Greece, and the Balkans fell away into worldliness and unbelief, they, too, were punished by the invasion of an Islamic army.  At the time of Martin Luther, an Islamic army had Vienna surrounded, and was threatening to overrun Europe.  Thus the rise of Islam and its punitive role in the history of the Christian church until the end of time is not accidental or coincidental.  In response to the falls from faith which the unrepentant in the Christian church would make from time to time in the New Testament period, God prophesied in Revelation 9:14-19 of a curse, one of three, which he had designed for New Testament times, which he would send as a punishment upon those church members who had fallen away from the true gospel faith, namely, Islam.  The Almighty would never send a curse on his church as long as it would remain obedient, but only after it would entrench itself in unfaithfulness.  “The nation and kingdom that will not serve” God “shall perish” (Isaiah 60:12).  In order to describe the fierce intent and the consequence of Islam in its punitive role, Scripture uses picturesque language in this Revelation passage.  It simply pictures one thing to describe another.

Moreover, it could be asked, “Why are conditions so bad in this country?  Life is not getting easier, but harder to live.  “Things are terrible and terrifying and only getting worse.”  Why is there so much selfishness and lawlessness?  Why have we become a “house divided”?  That is to say, why are there such deep divisions among the citizens that grow more irreconcilable every year?  Why are we becoming more restricted by laws so that we have become a police state?”  It is because we are no longer a Christian nation.  As a result, our current life in America is not something which could merely be changed by rolling back the laws.  First of all, our unbelieving citizens and our unbelieving government show no desire to roll back the laws.  Secondly, our unbelieving government realizes that it actually would need more restrictive laws to keep a lawless, immoral, and irreligious society in check.  Thirdly, a hard life and an oppressive government are minor punishments which God sends upon any unbelieving society to get it to repent.  If that country would not repent under the minor punishments, crying to Heaven for forgiveness and relief, God will send a final blow:  total war, not to get that country to repent, but simply to punish it thoroughly.

If only America would repent genuinely of her sins, and believe sincerely the gospel promise that Jesus Christ has already saved us on his cross, God would also bless American with good government and outward peace!  Years ago in 1946, in Marshall County, Kansas, in the community of Bremen, there had been no arrest or court procedure in thirty years.  The community was made up almost entirely of the Lutheran faith and had two Lutheran schools, making a public school unnecessary.  Because of this, think of how much lower the tax and the insurance rates must have been!  Around the same time the Chicago Tribune reported that Frankenmuth, Michigan had never had a crime of violence in the 102 years of its existence.  During the prior twenty-five years its jail had been entirely empty.  Throughout the Great Depression of the 1930’s not one person had been on the relief rolls.  Since its founding the town had been first in the state to report all of its taxes paid in full, and had given more than the average in charitable drives.  What is the explanation?  Ninety-five percent of the people in Frankenmuth were Lutherans.

At this time a golden age for Lutheranism and for the rest of Christianity was going on in the United States.  No longer are such incidents occurring today.  Why?  The gospel golden age in America is over.  It began its fall years ago, and has fallen to great depths.  God has warned America about this, and sought her repentance and return by using both minor and now, later in time, major irritations, such as bad weather, droughts, floods, and oppressive government; ideological, social, and economic oppression.  Yet this is nothing new.  This is characteristic of God.  He tells us in his threats and his promises in the Bible that this is what he will do.  For example, God had promised David national peace and safety under his son, Solomon, pledging, “I will give him rest from all his enemies around… I will give peace and quietness” (1st Chronicles 22:9).  However, years later, after Solomon’s heart “had turned from the Lord God” “the Lord became angry with” him (1st Kings 11:9), and “the Lord raised up” three adversaries who caused national crises (1st Kings 11:14, 23, & 26).

The Old Testament prophets pointed out these same facts to their respective nations after they had fallen from their golden ages.  Read about it!  See how the people, though, refused to believe it, and went down to their death and doom by the Lord’s punishing hand!  Thus no one in America should be surprised at this if everyone would have read his Bible.  No one in the American Christian churches should be surprised if everyone would have read his Bible.  The declining spiritual conditions in American Christian churches today are as they were in the years of the Old Testament prophets.  However, then as now the churches are unconvinced of this fact.  That is, they are self-blinded to this fact.

If you would ask your Lutheran pastor today:  “To where will all of the bad things happening in America lead?”  What would he answer?  Ask him!  Might he say:  “I would not know.  The Bible is silent”?  Might he respond:  “We must be in the last days.  The next major event would be Judgment Day”?

The correct reply would be:  “God is responsible for the Muslim attacks on America.  He is using them, as he has threatened clearly to do in his Bible to punish and to war on any nation which would reject him.  This will all lead to World War III on American soil as the Almighty’s final say in the matter.”

Thus it would be your biblical duty to call your fellow citizens to repent (Matthew 3:2; Daniel 9:3-20), to humble yourself (Psalm 10:17), to confess and then to ask for forgiveness of our nation’s sins (Daniel 9:9), and to pray to God to grant his peace on our land (Jeremiah 29:7) instead of his punishment as it deserves.
Then what?

Imitate Habakkuk!

Habakkuk 3:2, 16-19:

O Lord, I have heard your speech
And was afraid;
O Lord, revive Your work
In the midst of the years!
In the midst of the years make it known;
In wrath remember mercy!

When I heard, my body trembled;
My lips quivered at the voice;
Rottenness entered by bones;
And I trembled in myself,
That I might rest in the day of trouble.

When he comes up to the people,
He will invade them with his troops.

Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls –
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The Lord God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And he will make me walk on my high hills.

Six hundred years before Christ, a citizen by the name of Habakkuk was told by the Lord that his country was about to be destroyed.  Because his country had continued on its senseless and reckless course of rejecting the Lord who had been so merciful to it, the Almighty was now going to level it to the ground.  What is more, there would be nothing that Habakkuk could pray or do to stop it.  Habakkuk felt helpless.  In fact, the thought of the coming war upon his country filled him with so much dread and trembling that Habakkuk could barely stand.  His heart trembled; his lips quivered, his bones lost their supporting strength.  All that he could do was to wait for that terrible day on which the fury of an invading, foreign army would descend upon him and upon his unsuspecting country.  What else could Habakkuk do?
Realize that America also is to be destroyed.  This highly blessed land along with Habakkuk’s country has joined the long list of nations throughout history which has continued on the senseless and reckless course of rejecting the Almighty, who has no alternative now but to level it to the ground.  What is more, there would be nothing that any American could pray or do to stop it.  As with Habakkuk, so the American Christian could only now sit and wait for his land to be invaded and utterly laid waste by invading armies, unleashing the Almighty’s fury over this country.  What else could he do?
Take a lesson from Habakkuk!  Look to the Lord’s unchangeable pledges!  Though he must remain a God of justice, he still is a God of mercy.  Habakkuk took that promise to heart.  He took God’s mercy at its face value, and received divinely-worked soul-deep comfort.  In fact, so thorough was the peace provided by the powerful words of God’s mercy that Habakkuk could even rejoice in the Bible’s assurance that God will bring an end to the destruction, and will provide relief at last.  Thus instead of fretting and despairing; instead of panicking and losing sleep, Habakkuk waited quietly for the day of destruction (verse 16).  Though the very life of his nation would grow dim; though destitution would cover his land as a funeral shroud, still the prophet would rejoice in his Lord (verse 18), for the Lord’s gospel power would steady him and lift him up – even make him go swift and sure through the worst of times as a deer would leap through the woods (verse 19).  With God at his side the prophet could ease his trouble mind even to the extent of joyous confidence.
Take note, fretful Christian!  Respond likewise!  Though God in his justice must bring a terrible war upon America, still he is a God of mercy.  Therefore, the small minority of Christians that have not bowed their knees to Baal could and should take comfort in the fact that God will bring an end to the destruction, and provide them ultimately with relief, and take them home to heaven.
In the meantime, rather than shake with fear over the pending doom, take the Lord’s gospel pledges to heart!  With his power contained nowhere else than in his biblical passages, confess right now, “The Savior will lift me up and sustain me through the worst of times”!
Ease your troubled mind!  Rejoice in the Lord with joyful confidence even in darkened days!  Be assured from his unbreakable gospel guarantees!  Be confident that he will not leave you comfortless, but will always be at your side with unrestricted salvation and support!

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When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 4:17), he intended that the whole life of believers should be one of repentance.

From the 1840’s until 1950 America enjoyed a golden age of Christianity.  As there have been rises and falls of golden ages in the church throughout history (consult the biblical books of the Judges and of the Kings), so this country is now in a precipitous fall from its golden age of gospel belief.

A new generation has arisen in American Christendom in general, and in Lutheranism in particular, which “knows not Joseph,” that is, which does not have a love for the biblical truth which its forefathers had.

If God were to raise up a Martin Luther today, most Lutherans would refuse to join his church.

Conditions in American Christian churches today are as they were in Ezekiel’s day.  Rulers, clergy and laity alike have departed from God.  Orthodoxy has vanished.  The American clergy, as the temple priests, deceitfully have done violence to the Word of God by making their departures from it seem to be in conformity with it, and have made no distinction between the holy and the secular before men (Ezekiel 22:26).

While our government respects the freedom of religion, the Almighty does not.

The Lutheran church at large also has gone whoring after worldliness, and has injected the same ever increasingly into its creed, practice, and worship.

Because of their defection from the truth, the Lutheran synods in America should change their name to “Ichabod,” that is, “the glory has departed.”

The liberty with which Luther had set Christendom free will soon be gone and another Dark Age will set in, for American Lutherans have cast aside what Luther fought to bequeath them, even to the extent of complaining about it, as the Israelites did in the wilderness.

No Lutheran congregation could commit theological adultery like this with impunity.  God must punish.  He has kept his threat to do so every time.

Christians should be taught that a terrible storm is gathering on the horizon which will break upon the unfaithful Lutheran church in America (1st Peter 4:17) and upon the unfaithful American people.  It will be a storm of divine punishment:  the punishment of final resort after all of his less intensive warnings have been sent.

Christians should also be taught that as in the days of Habakkuk, so today God’s heaviest punishment, total war, will be coming as a consequence of America’s falling away from the gospel into unbelief.  It will not be diverted (Exodus 15:3; Judges 5:8; Psalm 9:17; Isaiah 60:12).

Nowhere is it written that America is too privileged for its Creator ever to destroy it.

Americans who have fallen into unbelief have set into motion a divine curse which thunders:  “Cursed are you, cities of America!  It will be more lenient for Moscow, Peiping, and Baghdad on the Last Day than for you.  They hardly knew the gospel.  You had it in abundance.  Therefore, you will receive the greater damnation; and you Washington D.C., New York, and Hollywood, who are exalted to heaven, will be cast down to hell.”

Christians should be taught that God’s punishment of America will consist of two things:  It will consist of total war on Christians and non-Christians alike.  It also will consist of the return of surviving Christendom to the hellhole of the Dark Ages.

Christians should also be taught that when the Bible prophesies in Revelation 13:12 that the papacy will rise again to its pre-Reformation dominance, this would include all of the consequences that would naturally follow, such as, another Dark Age and all of the terror and destruction that would go with it.

Christians should also be taught that the charismatic movement will be the vehicle by which the papacy will regain the world-wide totalitarian authority which it lost because of the gospel-strong Lutheran Reformation.

The charismatic movement is Satan’s revenge on the Lutheran Reformation.

Since American Lutheranism today is no longer gospel-strong, but anemic due to its self-inflicted weaknesses, such as, the following of theological fads and the injection of worldliness into its worship and teaching in order deceitfully to attract and to keep members by appealing to their sinful flesh, American Lutheranism will acquiesce to the charismatic movement and to the papacy in the future.

Yet the Lutheran churches in America are operating on the presumption that they always will be around.

The fact is that the vast majority of Lutheran pastors, theologians, and synodical leaders, who have not warned urgently their laymen about the charismatic movement, have not yet made up their minds that they are at war with the charismatic movement.   They have not yet buckled down to the determination that this is an enemy from which they would need to defend themselves and against which they would need to fight.   They have got the idea in their heads that they are going to get out of this scrape somehow by doing nothing, for they are still convinced that the charismatic movement presents no danger, that the papacy presents no danger, and that, in fact, there is no scrape.

Christians should be taught that the charismatic movement is that deceitful contemporary campaign of people who claim to be Christian, but who believe in gospel-destroying teachings.

Christians should also be taught that the heart and soul of the charismatic movement is that in which not God’s gospel promise, but the sensory perception of something beyond normal, a religious experience involving a sign, is made the foundation of salvation.

People are drawn today to the charismatic movement as many were drawn in Jesus’ day:  to seek a thrill from the sight of a miraculous sign, that is, to worship at the shrine of supernatural titillation.

The determination of what is divine has been assigned by the charismatic to his flesh.  The charismatic movement is the religion of the flesh.

The charismatic movement emphasizes “Experience, experience, experience,” while the true believer insists on biblical promises.

After the seventy disciples returned “with joy” – elated over their extraordinary spiritual experiences from the power which had been given to them – the Lord checked their state of mind by commanding them to get a different state of mind, declaring, “Rather, rejoice in my gospel pledge!” (Luke 10:17 & 20.)

If you would be a member of the charismatic movement, but would not renounce it for the evil that it is, forsake it, and cling solely to one Lord, one faith, and one baptism (Ephesians 4:5), then you will have the sensuous experience of seeing your Judge coming, and of feeling the full fury of his wrath.

While saving faith clings to God’s promise of forgiveness for its salvation, the charismatic’s faith clings to different unsaveable things for its salvation.

While true Christianity is by faith alone, by grace alone, based on Scripture alone, the charismatic movement is by flesh alone, by infused grace alone, based on inward experience alone.

The charismatic changes the function of saving faith into something other than the promise-clinging function which God meant it to have, with the result that the promise of justification could no longer be grasped by the sinner.

The charismatic movement has not been a Spirit-induced period for widespread conversion before the Last Day.  It has been a deceitful attempt to lead people away from the safe gospel moorings into the devil-backed delusion that men could bring back the apostolic age of miracles at whim, and could extort from Christ his final return.

Historically, the charismatic movement is part of the great “falling away” from the gospel (2nd Thessalonians 2:3).

Doctrinally, the charismatic movement is related not to Lutheranism, but to Roman Catholicism.

Christians should be taught that the charismatic movement destroys the only bridge which God, our Savior, has set up between him and us to being us our salvation, that is to say, his means of grace:  his Word and sacraments.

Rather than be occupied with the sober, systematic use of the means of grace, which is the only place where God has promised to come to us and to build up our saving faith, the charismatic would rather travel down the road of his own making to a glorious dream world of self-deception.

After an unbeliever would become a charismatic, his sinful flesh will be elated at the charismatic movement’s assurance that it could follow its feelings and experiences, and still be on gracious terms with the Almighty.

After a true Christian would fall away from the true saving faith, and would become a charismatic, his sinful flesh will breathe a sigh of relief because it will no longer be bound by the Words of God, but it will be free to define and to follow what it would determine should be divine.

It is clear that the charismatic movement wants to grasp greater power for its sinful flesh, not to desire, in all soberness, the cross-bearing strength of Christ which is only given out by his gospel Words.

Wrong is done to the Word of God when the charismatics have a thirst for a power which contradicts the Bible’s provisions (Romans 13:14; Ephesians 6:13-17; Philippians 4:13; Colossians 1:11).

In the spirit of the wicked heart of Simon Magus (Acts 8), the teachers of the charismatic movement lust after the supernatural powers bestowed upon the apostles by the Lord (Matthew 10:1), and deceitfully solicit others to lust after them as well.

Peter’s severe law to Simon Magus (Acts 8) applies equally to the charismatics that covet the apostolic powers which God has not promised to them, for they covet power and glory in the church, instead of being content with humble service (John 13) and with their cross (Luke 8:23).

Members of the charismatic movement deceitfully claim to have received powers which were given to the apostles.  Yet those people who hold to teachings which contradict the Lord’s teachings (Romans 10:21; Titus 1:9), are opposed by him in turn, and, therefore, could not perform any holy miracles with his help (Deuteronomy 13).

Whatever works of theirs that are not feigned, but actual, belong to those lying signs and miracles of which Holy Writ warns (2nd Thessalonians 2:9).

When the apostle Paul asks, “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the gospel report of faith?” (Galatians 3:2) the charismatics would have to reply, “By the works of the law.  To get our concoction known as ‘the baptism in the Holy Spirit’ certain conditions must be met in order to get the Spirit to be released within you.  Someone must pray over you (the charismatic method), or you yourself must pray, be obedient, and totally yield yourself to it” (the Pentecostal method).

There are not two baptisms of the Holy Spirit, only one:  water baptism (Ephesians 4:5; John 3:5), as the Nicene Creed confesses.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is a figment of the charismatic movement’s imagination subject to its fleshly agenda, bias, and whim.  It is an invention which the charismatic movement has brewed up that will allow it to steer any course which it wishes away from the Bible.  It is a self-made license to deviate from any biblical doctrine at will.

Because the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a lie, the definition of the baptism in the Holy Spirit must be ever-changing in order to be kept alive.   Since the baptism in the Holy Spirit is just an ethereal concept, its proponents must keep its doctrine likewise elusive.

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is ideology, not theology.

They preach no Christian doctrine who teach that their “baptism in the Holy Spirit has been the gateway into a new dimension of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power,” since God’s Word instructs that rather it is the holy Scriptures that make the man of God complete, thoroughly equipped for all good works (2nd Timothy 3:16).

Though the apostle Paul has confirmed it twice, stating it both positively and negatively, “You are complete in Christ” (Colossians 2:10); “You come behind in no gift” (1st Corinthians 1:7), the charismatic movement contradicts this by teaching, “Believers who have been reborn by the Spirit as sons of God need the baptism in the Holy Spirit to fulfill the ministry which Christ gives them.”

There are three ways in which charismatics would ever seek to empower themselves as the self-anointed elite over the other members of the church, and to take away their God-given freedom.  It is when they would imply that without their baptism in the Holy Spirit the average member would not measure up to the name “Christian and that his saving faith would only deteriorate into a dead faith.   It is when they would establish a two tier Christianity:  the ones with a baptism in the Holy Spirit, and the ones without it; the superior and the inferior; the perfect and the imperfect; the haves and the have nots.   It is also when they would lead true Christians back under the law into slavery by insisting that in order to fulfill all righteousness, the Christian must experience a baptism in the Holy Spirit.

The Lord complimented the generous giving not of the rich who gave abundantly (Luke 21:1), nor of Ananais and Sapphira who made a show of it (Acts 5), but the widow with two mites (Luke 21:1-4) who, without need of a charismatic baptism in the Holy Spirit, gave her all.

Christians should be taught that the supernatural experience which results from a personal baptism in the Holy Spirit is, indeed, worked by the Spirit of God himself.  The Holy Spirit does this in order to fulfill personally his threat to punish by sending a strong delusion to those who have refused to believe the truth (2nd Thessalonians 2:11-12).

In reality, the baptism in the Holy Spirit of the charismatic movement is a baptism of death.  It causes spiritual death, because it is a death.  In order to have a baptism in the Holy Spirit, a person must step out of righteousness by grace into righteousness by works.

To the paralyzed man Jesus did not say, “Son, you need a baptism in the Holy Spirit,” but, “Your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 8:1-8).

Not the charismatics nor the Pentecostals with their baptism in the Holy Spirit, but the Pharisees and the Sadducees (Matthew 16:1) were the first to demand a miraculous sign as necessary to prove divine credentials.  Nevertheless, the Devil preceded them both (Matthew 4:4-6).

The charismatic’s carnal desire is to enslave his neighbor in his thought, speech, and work.

As the Sanhedrin, so the charismatics have gotten together – not in order to examine the plain evidence of the Savior – but to decide on how to get rid of him in order to retain their own glory (John 11:47 and the following verses).

As the magistrates at Philippi, so the charismatic movement has asked the apostle Paul to leave (Acts 16:39).

Despite the clear instructions and warnings of Scripture about the way of salvation, the charismatic movement deliberately has chosen to ignore these narrowly defined directives, and intentionally has set out in a different direction on purpose in defiance of Scripture in order to fulfill its own lusts, and, consequently, as Esau did, has sold its heavenly birthright for a morsel (Hebrews 12:16; Romans 16:18).

There is no renewal in the charismatic movement for its gospel doctrines are hellish.

The renewal ideology of the charismatic movement will destroy justification by faith and will teach infused grace after it would do four things.  It would deny that Christ’s satisfaction was needed for our atonement.  It would deny the divine work and the power of the means of grace (God’s Word and his two sacraments).  It would teach that the Spirit will come in a baptism in the Holy Spirit after man would have performed some work.  It would teach that the baptism in the Holy Spirit will be necessary to make the Christian complete.

The charismatic movement would rob terrified sinners of assurance in their forgiveness of sins.

Though the charismatics confess Jesus to be the Christ as the apostle Peter did, this gospel confession will be destroyed, in effect, after they would turn around and scold the very Words of God for what they have just said in regards to justification, as Peter also did (Mark 8:29-33).

The babblings which the charismatics define as ”tongues” are preferred over the use of plain language in the work of building up someone’s saving faith.

While the Spirit urges, “Sing praises with understanding” (Psalm 47:7), and, “Be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, in order that you may have a walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him” (Colossians 1:9-10), the charismatics contradict this by teaching that a Christian would be better off unconscious in his praying, tongues’ speaking, and singing, declaring, “Praying with the spirit, unlike praying with the mind, does not call for mental conceptualization.”  “The mysteries spoken in tongues are hidden from the highest reaches of human wisdom and knowledge.”

The vulnerable open wound of the charismatic movement is that it has no divine assurance from its sophistries and from its specious teachings simply because it has made them up; since there is no command or promise of God for them; and since divine assurance will come only from God’s commands and promises.

Whenever the charismatic teachers would force one of their sophistries through the intellectual process of their minds, they will display the unregenerate nature of their religious thinking.

The charismatic covets to see or to feel something supernatural, rather than to trust in the plain black  and white promises of God, that is, he covets to walk by sight, not by faith in the gospel facts (Romans 8:24).

Every true Christian will listen to his Bible.  As a result, he will look for and will find God in his personal sufferings, as a true theologian of the cross.  The charismatic will find only Satan in his sufferings.

The charismatic movement teaches a perfectionism which is not the sole, biblically-taught sanctification, but a delusion which promotes pride, discourages trust in Christ’s holiness, and causes unlimited harm to the promise of justification by mixing it with sanctification.

The charismatic movement so alters the biblical doctrine of the second coming of Christ, and supplements it with false teachings regarding a rapture, pre-rapture, a time of tribulation, pre-tribulation, and a one thousand year political rule by Christ with his empowered believers on earth, that the truth of Christ’s real coming is confused, covered up, and deprived of its superlative comfort.

The charismatic movement’s spirit is fanaticism; its intent, pride; its motive, elitism; its means, deception; its purpose, to enslave; its object, you; its result, damnation.

If the American Lutheran clergy were orthodox, being faithful to the Lord (1st Corinthians 4:2) and watchful in all things (2nd Timothy 4:5), why have they neither spoken about the falling away going on in Christendom and in American Lutheranism, nor have spoken about its consequence:  the coming war of punishment on America?

Today the vast majority of Protestant and of Lutheran congregations are spiritually bankrupt.  The majority of them have a sense of spirituality about them, but not the one which Scripture requires.  As a result, they have lost their biblical weapons of defense with which to fight off the cancerous spread (2nd Timothy 2:17) and leavenous permeation (Galatians 5:9) of false doctrine from the charismatic movement (Ephesians 4:14).

In order for the papacy to reascend to the zenith of its pomp and power, which is prophesied in Revelation 13:12, which it enjoyed before the Lutheran Reformation, it would first have to become unrecognized as the terrible Antichrist by the vast majority of the members of the Christian church.

Indeed, because of the widespread love for spiritual darkness that is rampant among the Christian denominations today, it has already become a popular activity not to confess according to the clear doctrine of the divine Scriptures that the pope is the Antichrist.

According to the prophecy of the divine Scriptures, the office of the False Prophet (Revelation 19:20; 13:11-17) will develop and give to the papacy great power.  As a result, Christendom will lapse into spiritual darkness as in the pre-Reformation years.

How the False Prophet could cause the earth to worship the papacy, something which the papacy and his followers for centuries since the Reformation have not been able to accomplish, is that he will be able to imitate the effects of Pentecost, and thus to deceive the world into thinking that they are truly brought on by the Holy Spirit (Revelation 13:12-13).

Those future holders of the office of the False Prophet would be looked upon as restoring Christianity to its apostolic norm; as reintroducing the long lost days of the apostles; as returning a wayward church back onto the true apostolic path after wasted centuries.

In the future the charismatic movement, led by holders of the office of the False Prophet, will direct and lead any remaining Protestant or Lutheran denominations back under the rule of the papacy.

The office of the False Prophet will arise within the charismatic movement.  In this regard, the charismatic movement has preceded its leader, just as the “falling away” prophesied in 2nd Thessalonians 2:3 preceded its leader, the pope.

The Lord could put an end to the charismatic movement, but biblical history teaches that the Almighty will send spiritual darkness as a punishment on those who would not love his truth (2nd Thessalonians 2:10-11).

The offices of the False Prophet and of the papacy will continue to survive until Judgment Day when,  with the Devil – the three of them together forming an exclusive club –they will be thrown at last into the lake of fire (Revelation 19:20; 20:10).

With a prophecy of the divine Scriptures in hand, you will have a help to understand and to believe it far above the mere deductive process of your intellect.  You will have the almighty power of the prophecy itself to enlighten your mind with divine understanding and with full divine assurance as to its definite biblical meaning.

The prophecy of Revelation 9:3-12 has been fulfilled in Arianism, the first curse.  This is a biblical doctrine taught clearly in the divine Scriptures.  Sent by God under various names throughout the New Testament era, Arianism will continue to be a punishment until Judgment Day on Christian nations which have “fallen away” into unbelief.

The prophecy of Revelation 9:13-19 has been fulfilled in Islam, the second curse.  This is a biblical doctrine taught clearly in the divine Scriptures.  Sent by God, Islam will continue to be a punishment until Judgment Day on Christian nations which have “fallen away” into unbelief.

The prophecies of Revelation 13:1-8 and 17:3-18 have been fulfilled in the papacy, the third curse (Revelation 11:14).  This is a biblical doctrine taught clearly in the divine Scriptures.  Sent by God, the papacy will continue to be a punishment until Judgment Day on Christian nations which have “fallen away” (2nd Thessalonians 2:3) into unbelief.

Not only could the papacy’s spiritual enslavement of the Christian church be likened to the Babylonian Captivity, but the Scriptures prophesied that Martin Luther would use this very metaphor (Revelation 14:8) in his mortal wounding of the papacy (Revelation 13:3a)  when he revealed it (2nd Thessalonians 2:3) as the Antichrist (1st John 4:3).

The prophecy of the Second Messenger in Revelation 14:8 has been fulfilled in Martin Luther.  This is a biblical doctrine taught clearly in the divine Scriptures.

The prophecy of the First Messenger in Revelation 14:6-7 has been fulfilled in the apostle Paul (Romans 15:15-17, 19; 16:26; Acts 13:2; 20:21; 14:15, 17-24, 31; Romans 2:2 and the following verses; 16:27).  This is a biblical doctrine taught clearly in the divine Scriptures.

The theology of the apostle Paul is nothing else than to point out the obvious in the divine Scriptures; that is, to point out the implications in and of the doctrinal passages.  The purpose of this process is to reassure you of your salvation.

God will not leave his church to the mercy of the False Prophet nor to the papacy, but one more time, out of his grace, will send a messenger on the order of a Paul and of a Luther.  This Third Messenger will be sent to rescue Christendom by leading it out of darkness into the saving light of the true gospel (Revelation 14:9-11), introducing yet another Reformation of and another golden age for the church.

The prophecy of the Third Messenger in Revelation 14:9-11 has not yet been fulfilled, though it most certainly will be fulfilled in the future.  The truth that there will be a Third Messenger is a biblical doctrine taught clearly in the divine Scriptures.

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – 37-Must-WW-III-be-fought-pdf

 The crux of the current situation in America is theological, not political.  Realize that it is not that “Marxists have taken control of America while most slept,” but as Abraham Lincoln confessed, “We have forgotten God.”

“They forgot God their Savior” (Psalm 106:21).  “These things you have done, and I kept silent…. Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver” (Psalm 50:21, 22).

As a result, God has responded, as he has repeatedly threatened to do in his Bible.  God has sent, as punishments, poor government along with bad weather, droughts, floods, and diseases.  Until American citizens would repent of their sins and would treasure the gospel of salvation which God has pledged to them, stop their sordid backsliding, and return to being a Christian nation once again as in their former golden age of Christianity, when God did bless them, these punishments will continue, will grow, and will get worse.  Though thousands of bumper stickers may cry out, “God bless America!” how could he when hundreds of millions of Americans reject with a vengeance what is required of them to bring down Heaven’s blessing, namely, to repent and to believe his gospel salvation?

America has turned its back on the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ which God has promised to all sinners everywhere.  Thus, the political and economic problems of this country are merely symptoms, in a sense, of a worse problem.  If you would take an aspirin for these symptoms, it will not address nor clear up the main problem.  These symptoms would only return.  The main problem is unbelief.  America must return to God through repentance and faith.  These are God’s timeless criteria.  Nothing less will do.

In October, 1946, a little over a year after the end of World War II, on a coast-to-coast radio broadcast, the speaker posed the sensational question:  “Must we fight World War III?”  This radio preacher answered, “Yes, if America would continue in unbelief;” “no, if we would show repentance and faith.”

Look all around you!  Read and listen to what is said!  America has forgotten its God.  Even such a humiliating punishment as 9/11/2001 did not provoke a nationwide repentance and return to God.  This is why you could and should be certain that a great war is coming upon this country.  It is certain, because God certainly keeps his threats.  Since America has not responded by repenting and believing after lesser afflictions have been sent it in the forms of oppressive government, economic oppression, ideological, deceptive religious, and social oppressions, the almighty God, ruler and disposer of nations and men, will come to an end of his patience, and finally, according to his biblical practice and threats, will drop war on this land like one huge rock.

Must our country fight World War III here?

The answer will be “Yes.”

Since the cause of this great war on American soil will be over the wholesale falling away of America into unbelief, it will not be a case in which God will be on the side of any political white hats in America against any political black hats in America.  All of us are going to be on the receiving end of his punishment, including those who have been repenting and believing all along.  Just the same, in their case, whatever God would allow to happen to them will be for their spiritual strengthening and soul benefit, as he has promised repeatedly and assuredly in his unbreakable Bible.  In fact, if God would use this war as an opportunity to take a believer home to heaven, what loss could that be?

Why have not the major denominations taught this?  Why have not at least the Lutheran pulpits spoken?  If, in fact, they confess the full truth of God’s Word, namely, that they have better knowledge, why are they not out in the forefront?  It is because it is a subject which they would consider to be unthinkable.  “Show me!” they would counter in spirit.  “After we would see this World War III, then we will begin to warn our people about it.”

Currently, the thinking of the men in the church or outside it is just as it was in the days of the Old Testament prophets who were sent specifically to warn both kingdoms of the twelve tribes of Israel that each of them would be annihilated by a great war.  Read the book of Amos!  Even though all of the Old Testament prophets except Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, were sent by God for one purpose: to wake the people up to a pending annihilating war, still the cry was wrung out of Isaiah:  “Who has believed our report?” (Isaiah 53:1.)  The pointed answer being:  “No one.”

Do not be one of them!  Be one that has opened his eyes!  Then, act!

Prayer/Hymn

To Thee our God we fly
For mercy and for grace;
Oh, hear our lonely cry,
And hide not Thou Thy face.
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

Arise, O Lord of hosts,
Be jealous for Thy name,
And drive from out our coasts
The sins that put to shame:
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

Thy best gifts from on high
In rich abundance pour,
That we may magnify
And praise Thee more and more:
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

The powers ordained by Thee
With heavenly wisdom bless;
May they Thy servants be,
And rule in righteousness:
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

The Church of Thy dear Son
Inflame with love’s pure fire;
Bind her once more in one,
And life and truth inspire:
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

William Walsham How  (1823-1897).

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – 38-Self-defense-the-2nd-Amendment-and-the-Bible-pdf

What about the area of self-defense?  According to the Fifth Commandment, would we not have a duty to protect our own persons and that of our families against those tyrants, political, social, or domestic, who would threaten our lives with deadly and imminent intent?  For deadly and imminent threats in the home (domestic) or on the street (social) you may use deadly force to protect yourself and your family when no one in authority is around.  Aside from the fact that such self-defense is implied in the Fifth Commandment, the singular biblical example found in Exodus 22:2-3 was simply part of the old civil code binding only on Israel, and only for its Old Testament period.  In that example it was lawful to kill a burglar who was interrupted at night in the act, but it was unlawful to do so after sunrise.

In the rare case of deadly threats coming from the government, assuming that a person has not violated any common laws of the land, while there is no biblical command that clearly addresses this situation, there are multiple biblical examples on what to do.  Moreover, all of these actions were identical:  Flee!  Go to some other locale or country!  For instance, after King Saul wanted David’s life, David fled (1st Samuel 20:1; 27:1).  So did Elijah (1st Kings 19:2-3), Joseph, Mary, and Jesus (Matthew 2:13-14), the early-persecuted Christians (Acts 8:1 & 4), and Paul numerous times (2nd Corinthians 11:32-33; Acts 14:6; Acts 17:10).  Just the same, when God allowed the government to arrest Peter for the purpose of putting him to death, God also saved his life by a miracle (Acts 12:5-11).

The most important matter in life is not how to safeguard your rights by force or by politics, but whether or not your soul will be going to heaven, or will be damned in hell by your unbelief in Christ’s saving gospel.

Yet if any patriot American would object, saying, “But the current government in America is sponsoring the greatest injustice, cruelty, and oppression.  This behavior simply demands retribution,” the response could and should be:  “Since your greatest concern is the punishment of injustice, then, realize that you are doing a far greater injustice to God by rebelling against him, by rejecting his gospel promise of salvation, and by living a life of lawlessness which demonstrates your unbelief.  Moreover, God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7).  That is, God will not be slapped in his face.  He will punish you.”

In another display of this same spirit which calls upon God solely for political ends, and contradicts that of a genuine gospel believer, some patriot Americans have wanted “to deliver justice to a tyrant through imprecatory psalms, namely, to say prayers for the demise of one’s enemies.  God knows his evil deeds.”

However, genuine Christians, obeying the spirit of the biblical commands and promises with a true heart, such as, “Love your enemies!  Bless them that would curse you!  Do good to them that would hate you; and pray for them which despitefully would use you and persecute you, in order that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven!” (Matthew 5:44-45), will pray simply and solely for God’s protection from their religious, political, social, and domestic enemies by whatever means God would see fit, including their conversion.  There will be an absence of malice, revenge, and retribution in such prayers.  To be sure, Christ scolded his disciples after they wanted their enemies to be put to death (Luke 9:53-56).

The imprecatory psalms are Psalm 109, Psalm 69:22-28, Psalm 40:14-16, Psalm 35:4 & 26, and Psalm 70:2-3.  Similar statements will be found in the New Testament in Galatians 1:8-9 and Galatians 5:12.  These appeals are future prophecies in the form of a prayer, foretelling the future punishment of all those who would hate and persecute gospel believers.  Since the Bible is divinely inspired, it was God who wanted these words to be written down by his writers (1) to assure his believers of his intent of their defense; and (2) as a most severe warning to non-Christians.  These expressions are not sinful personal prayers desiring revenge and retribution.  For example, David, who wrote most of these psalms, twice spared the life of his enemy, Saul, and also the life of Shimei (1st Samuel 24; 25; 2nd Samuel 16:9-10).  The inspired writer of Galatians, the apostle Paul, wished he could trade his place in heaven so that his unbelieving countrymen could be there instead (Romans 9:3; see Exodus 32:32).  The same apostolic writer was also inspired to write:  “Bless those who persecute you!  Bless, and do not curse!” (Romans 12:14.)

Indeed, whenever patriot Americans would argue, “It is so dangerous to live in America today.  I need the powerful defense of a firearm,” they need to be reminded that their rejection of the gospel of heavenly-bestowed peace has brought on this deterioration of safety into lawlessness where now citizens in all walks of life commonly act like tyrants.  Thus they are accomplices in this.  On the other hand, genuine Lutherans, for instance, have prayed and worked to keep America from deteriorating into lawlessness and tyranny by trying to keep it Christian.  They have a set prayer for their government appointed for every Sunday, and they do mission work among their fellow citizens.  What have patriot Americans done positively and constructively, as opposed to training how to assassinate governmental authorities in 4th generational warfare, or to shake their firearms in a tyrant’s face?

Just the same, some patriot Americans believe that, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” they hold that their Creator has given them not merely the inalienable right of self-defense, but the inalienable right as well to the ownership of property in the form of firearm.

However, the slaves of Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the Declaration’s creed of “unalienable Rights,” were denied the ownership of firearms by an enactment of positive law, although the right of self-defense by “the Laws of Nature” was not denied to them.  Likewise during the Revolutionary War the Whigs in every colony made a political decision through an enactment of positive law to deny the Tories, not the right of self-defense, but the right to possess firearms as property.  Thus there have been occasions in American history for purposes of protection, that were endorsed by the Founding Fathers themselves, when certain residents did not enjoy an inalienable right to possess property in the form of firearms because of a political decision enacted into positive law, although the right of self-defense itself and the personal possession of other means for self-defense were not denied to them.  While this may not be pleasant news to hear, while this may not have been fair, it is still the truth.

Again, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, one of the first acts of the Whig party in every colony was to disarm the Tories of their firearms, and of their right to bear firearms. This was a political decision made for the express purpose of self-defense.  Yet, as a result, the Tories in the New York area, for example, were at the mercy of Whig bandits, of Tory bandits, and even, according to General Washington, of troops from his own army which, “by rapine and plunder [were] spreading ruin and terror wherever they go.”  If the Tories ever had appealed to the Founding Fathers that their disarmament was, to use Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence, against that which “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them” “to reduce them under absolute Despotism” against the “consent of the governed,” they would have argued in vain.

Indeed, in a future civil war would the patriot Americans, for the sake of principle, allow those citizens to keep and bear firearms that would stay loyal to that government which would be fighting against the patriot Americans?  On the other hand, if in a state of civil war, the principle of the disarmament of opponents would be justified under the rules of war; and since some patriot Americans already have gone on record as maintaining that a state of war (cold or undeclared) already exists between the government and firearm owners, would not either side then have a duty to disarm the other according to the principle of self-preservation?

According to the Second Amendment of the Constitution, the right of the citizens to bear arms shall not be infringed.  Yet if, in the future, the Constitution were to be amended properly by enough states to drop the Second Amendment, with the notation:  “Citizens may still defend themselves with weapons according to natural law, just not with the technology known as firearms,” patriot Americans would have neither constitutional nor natural law grounds to argue differently.  The right to own property in the form of a firearm, or in the form of anthrax is, after all, a political decision, whether good or bad.  To be sure, the responsible ownership of such property by a moral and a religious people will not present a problem.  However, the ownership by an immoral, lawless, and irreligious people (in courtrooms or in jails, for instance) always will present society with problems, for whose protection the government is responsible.

Nevertheless, patriot Americans would turn a political matter into a moral matter by asserting that firearms are a must for a proper self-defense because citizens must be entitled to weapons of their preference in order to have a fair chance, or entitled even to superior weapons that would give them an advantage over the aggressor, according to the natural law of self-defense (the Fifth Commandment).

Yet neither of these assertions would be vital to the definition of what weapon (not to mention means, precautions, behavior, or training) would supply an adequate self-defense, because the question could never be answered definitively:  What weapon must be used at minimum or at maximum, under ordinary or under all circumstances, in order to have an adequate self-defense?

Just the same, it could be objected by patriot Americans that for all practical purposes, the possession of a firearm is so crucial to a proper self-defense that a sufficient defense could not be made without one, indeed, that any “meaningful self-defense would imply the ownership of military-grade firearms” at the very least.  However, millions of citizens in Central America, for example, cannot own firearms legally, though they retain the right of self-defense.  Still civil matters in these places have not commonly nor generally become so dangerous, as a result, that self-defense could not be maintained adequately with other weapons.

Moreover, it will not violate the law of self-defense if the government would possess weapons which the citizens would not.

Another objection could be the following:  “If the government would not give me the capability to fight off a mob of armed attackers, then it indeed would be true that such laws, which deny me the use of firearms, will deny me an adequate self-defense.”  However, being attacked by a mob would be like getting struck by lightning:  It is possible, but not probable.  Nevertheless, if you would be concerned, will you be willing to go to the trouble of carrying adequate lightning diversion gear on you everywhere you went, just in case?  Likewise, would you be willing to carry on you, every time that you went out on foot, enough weaponry to ward off a sizable mob, or, even for that matter, to survive an ambush or a crossfire?  The self-defensive capability that is being proposed here is beyond the realm of a typical and common self-defense.  It is the contention to be able to take on an army single-handedly.

“A firearm would be merely one tool that will allow you to apply self-defense knowledge.”
While the defense of the lives and the livelihood of one’s family, and, to an extent, that of one’s neighbors broadening out even to one’s own country, as well, is a duty imposed by God on mankind, especially on the heads of households, the defense of one’s own person is not commanded.  Rather what is biblically emphasized and commanded, because sinful mankind is ever prone to return evil with evil – lex talionis – (1st Thessalonians 5:15); since, according to his sinful flesh over the slightest offense, man is obsessed with seeking revenge, reprisal, and retaliation, is that he must “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:38-41) in spirit.  Just the same, self-defense is both implied in and permitted in the Bible (John 18:23; Acts 22:25) when no one in authority is around to do it, when the law of love must be fulfilled, and as long as the spirit of retaliation is absent.

Perhaps the clearest command in regards to an example of self-defense in the Bible is found in the civil and criminal code for the Old Testament nation of Israel, which was meant only for Israel and only for its Old Testament times.  It was not intended to be a universal moral command.  According to the instructions in Exodus 22:2-3, it would be lawful to kill a burglar who was caught at night in the act on your property.

Nevertheless, it also could be objected:  “The framers of the Bill of Rights explicitly and purposely in the Second Amendment used the term “arms” meaning “firearms,” and specifically left out any mention of other weapons.  This would argue not simply for the common customary possession of firearms by the American people, but for legal recognition of that possession as well, especially with the pointed guarantee of that possession:  ‘Shall not be infringed’.”  Compare the constitutions of other countries which do not include this guarantee!  As then it was a legal or political matter when the Bill of Rights was adopted, so also now it is a legal or political matter, that is to say, a matter that could be changed by the legal or political process, as the Constitution itself allows, if the American voters and their duly elected representatives would wish to do so.  The Second Amendment is not and never has been a moral matter.

If a person would not recognize clearly that the Second Amendment is a legal and political matter solely, not a moral one, neither will he think clearly or accurately when he would need to consider his biblical response should the government amend or even suspend the Second Amendment.

In regards to legal and political enactments put into positive law, God wants his believers to be patient with the matter, and to obey the law until it would be changed.  If God would be using a foolish law to punish foolish citizens, he will keep it in place until he would be finished.

Moral matters, to be sure, could not be amended or suspended.  The Bible has put bounds on governmental authority regarding God’s will.  That is, God will not allow the government to overrule God himself.  If the government ever would pass a law which would amend or suspend Christian morality, then Christians will have to obey the clear biblical maxim of Acts 5:29, and obey God’s law and not the government’s law which would contradict it.  That is to say, Christians merely would ignore such a law.  They would not comply with it.  They might even flee the locale or the country, but they will not actively work to overthrow the government.

Yet patriot Americans believe that they have the right to use deadly force in self-defense against those in government who would confiscate their firearms, because the confiscators will be using deadly force.

The conclusion that should a government ever outlaw or confiscate all firearms, it will turn around then and execute every citizen who ever had possessed a firearm will be a false and an emotional deduction.  While such a policy could be possible, it will not be probable.  Evil leaders of governments have targeted political enemies for the purpose of killing them, to be sure, but not for the sole reason that they had possessed property in the form of a firearm.  For instance, the government did not  subsequently execute all of the German citizens who had possessed firearms prior to the German gun control laws of the 1920’s and the 1930’s.  Indeed, those who joined the party in power could possess firearms.

Yet what if the government would not act according to this plan?  For instance, what if an employee of the county, a polite young man in his 20’s dressed in casual clothes, would show up at your front door after parking his white van that says “Community Service” on the side of it, and would inform you, “I am here not to notify you that you are sprinkling your lawn on the wrong day, but to notify you that according to a law recently passed, your property has been condemned, though you will be compensated for it under eminent domain.  Here is your check.  See that you move out, for I am the one to take charge of your property!”

What would the patriot Americans do then?  This young man would not be posing a deadly threat to them or to their property.  What he would be doing may seem unfair to them, but it would be legal constitutionally (see the Fifth Amendment).  This law would not be touching their right to self-defense.  Thus the use of deadly force on the basis of self-defense would be out of the question not only legally and constitutionally, but also morally, if you will.

Moreover, in this same connection, what if a law would be passed under eminent domain, for which patriot Americans would be compensated, in which not the whole of their real estate would be condemned, but only a small portion of their property, namely, their firearms?  Furthermore, what if the same young man would show up at your door with your check and a shopping cart for your firearms, remarking, “A law has been passed with the consent of the governed,” or even “enough states properly and constitutionally voted to drop the Second Amendment.”  Patriot Americans could not argue that this new law was not legal, constitutional, or even moral.  They could not argue that the law took away their right or their ability to defend themselves.  So what would they do?  Bury their firearms, or refuse to hand them over? On what legal, constitutional, or moral basis could they do so?  This brings us back to the matter of idolatry for firearms.

To be sure, in an act of self-defense we may resort to means to preserve our lives as long as those means are moral and legal, not immoral, that is, not against God’s biblical commandments; and not illegal, that is, not against the government which God himself has installed over us.

For instance, self-defense also would cover the matter of providing food for ourselves.  There will be exceptions to the rule.  Just the same, these exceptions will promote mercy, justice, or Christian faith (Matthew 23:23).  Yet in an emergency, where our lives would be at stake, the Fifth Commandment will not give us the right to steal in order to provide food for our families, or to provide such things as fuel to heat our homes, etc.  In other words, we will not be entitled to break laws and commandments of God for the purpose of self-defense either in or outside of emergencies.

Though it is not stated specifically, the matter of self-defense is implied in the Fifth Commandment, just as the command to eat food, to seek medical help, or to struggle to keep from drowning are implied also.  Not to do these things would be a sin because we would not be showing reasonable care as a steward in preserving the life of the bodies which God has given us.  Yet God in his higher plans and power may override any of our efforts so that, for example, any medical help will not work, any food will not be available, or any effort to keep ourselves from drowning will not work, so that he may take us to heaven.

If God would desire, and obviously he does on account of their gospel unbelief, to take away every freedom which he, the Creator, has given to his creatures, including the right to bear firearms, what will patriot Americans do to prevent him? Will they shoot the messenger, that is, shoot the government?  Will they be so shortsighted to believe that by shooting the messenger they would solve their freedom problem?

Yet patriot Americans would display the presupposition that legislation regarding the possession of firearms is not a political matter, but a moral matter, thus dragging God and his Fifth Commandment (regarding self-defense) into their argument in order to justify their rebellion against government; expecting God to approve of their rebelling with deadly force, as a matter of self-defense, against bad government, on account of its restriction of or confiscation of property in the form of firearms.

Yet the laws of our government have not denied a citizen the right of self-defense.  That right still stands. Neither have our laws forbidden the use of weapons by a citizen in self-defense.  That right still exists.

Moreover, it would not follow logically that when a government would deny a citizen access to a firearm, it thereby will deny him access to a sufficient and reasonable self-defense; that is to say, that a citizen could not defend himself properly without a firearm.  That is not true.

What is more, an ex-felon, for instance, who would behave as an upright citizen after having served his sentence, who would still be forbidden by law to possess a firearm, also could make the argument that he could not perform a proper self-defense without a firearm.  Yet neither the government nor any firearms rights group of whom I know, has ever expressed any horror over the lack of capability of an ex-felon to defend himself, or of being stripped of his right properly to defend himself.

The point of all of this is to show that (1) American legislation (wisely or unwisely) regarding the possession of property in the form of firearms is not a moral but a political matter; and that (2) patriot Americans are wrong to drag God and his Fifth Commandment regarding self-defense into this matter, proposing that God would approve of their rebelling against the government with deadly force (which would violate the Fourth Commandment) as a form of self-defense against the confiscation of their firearms, because they believe that their possession of firearms for self-defense purposes would be squarely a moral matter on the basis of the natural law of self-defense (that is, on the Fifth Commandment).  See this!

The following quote from Black’s Law Dictionary also encompasses the subject at hand.

“Self-defense.  The protection of one’s person or property against some injury attempted by another.  The right of such protection.  An excuse for the use of force in resisting an attack on the person, and especially for killing an assailant.  The right of a man to repel force by force even to the taking of like in defense of his person, property or habitation, or of a member of his family, against any one who manifests, intends, attempts or endeavors by violence or surprise, to commit a forcible felony.  Essential elements of ‘self-defense’ are that defendant does not provoke difficulty and that there must be impending peril without convenient or reasonable mode of escape.  The law of ‘self-defense’ justifies an act done in the reasonable belief of immediate danger, and, if an injury was done by defendant in justifiable self-defense, he can never be punished criminally nor held responsible for damages in a civil action.

“A person is justified in the use of force against an aggressor when and to the extent it appears to him and he reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or another against such aggressor’s imminent use of unlawful force.  One who is not the aggressor in an encounter is justified in using a reasonable amount of force against his adversary when he reasonably believes:  (a) that he is in immediate danger of unlawful bodily harm from his adversary and  (b) that the use of such force is necessary to avoid this danger.  It may be reasonable to use nondeadly force against the adversary’s nondeadly attack (an attack threatening death or serious bodily harm), but it is never reasonable to use deadly force against his nondeadly attack” (Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition [Saint Paul:  West Publishing Company, 1979], page 1219B -1220A).

That this definition in Black’s Law Dictionary would not include a defense against one’s own government could be concluded from the following definitions found in this same law dictionary.

“Rebellion.  Deliberate, organized resistance, by force and arms, to the laws or operations of the government, committed by a subject.  It is a federal crime to incite, assist, or engage in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof” (page 1139A).

“Insurrection.  A rebellion, or rising of citizens or subjects in resistance to their government.  Insurrection consists in any combined resistance to the lawful authority of the state, with intent to cause the denial thereof, when the same is manifested, or intended to be manifested, by acts of violence.  It is a federal crime to incite, assist, or engage in a rebellion or insurrection against the United States” (page 726A).

“Revolt.A revolt goes beyond insurrection in aim, being an attempt actually to overthrow the government itself, whereas insurrection has as its objective some forcible change within the government.  A large-scale revolt is called a rebellion and if it is successful it becomes a revolution” (page 1188A).

“Revolution.A complete overthrow of the established government in any country or state by those who were previously subject to it” (page 1188A).

“Sedition.  Communication or agreement which has as its objective the stirring up of treason or certain lesser commotions, or the defamation of the government.  Sedition is advocating, or with knowledge of its contents knowingly publishing, selling or distributing any document which advocates, or, with knowledge of its purpose, knowingly becoming a member of any organization which advocates the overthrow or reformation of the existing form of government of this state by violence or unlawful means.  An insurrectionary movement tending towards treason, but wanting an overt act; attempts made by meetings or speeches, or by publications, to disturb the tranquility of the state” (page 1218A).

 “Police power.  An authority conferred by the American constitutional system in the Tenth Amendment, U.S. Const., upon the individual states, and, in turn, delegated to local governments, through which they are enabled to establish a special department of police; adopt such laws and regulations as tend to prevent the commission of fraud and crime, and secure generally the comfort, safety, morals, health, and prosperity of its citizens by preserving the public order, preventing a conflict of rights in the common intercourse of the citizens, and insuring to each an uninterrupted enjoyment of all the privileges conferred upon him or her by the general laws.

“The power of the State to place restraints on the personal freedom and property rights of persons for the protection of the public safety, health, and morals or the promotion of the public convenience and general prosperity…. Police power is the exercise of the sovereign right of a government to promote order, safety, health, morals and general welfare within constitutional limits and is an essential attribute of government” (page 1041B).

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Americans have no command or promise from God to rebel against tyrannical government, even if it would infringe upon their Second Amendment rights, for instance.

In 1st Peter 2:13-17 the apostle Peter “exhorts all Christians to be obedient and subject to secular authorities and to keep whatever they establish, order, institute, and command that is not contrary to God, and to do it for God, whose children we are.  He wants authorities to be obeyed and the common peace supported.  Since not all men are believing and godly, but rather the majority is unbelieving, wicked, and wanton, God so ordained that authorities should bear the sword to punish the wicked and to protect the upright, lest men consume and destroy each other.  And though by Christ we are freed from all human laws that bind the conscience, we should nevertheless obey the laws and ordinances of those in authority, insofar as they are not contrary to God, not under compulsion but voluntarily, to please God and serve our neighbor.”[1]

In Romans 13:1-7 the apostle “shows the duties which every person owes the government, and in which the Christians will lead all others with a cheerful sense of duty…. Every person, without exception, within a community, state, or country is spoken of and addressed in this command.  He should be subject to, submit himself willingly, without the application of force or restraint, to the existing powers or authorities, to the persons that are invested with power, to the incumbents of the governmental office.  The governmental powers vested in these people by virtue of God’s providence or permission gives them a position in which they excel us in dignity and authority; they are our superiors in the sense of the Fourth Commandment.  This is expressly brought out:  For there does not exist an authority except by God; but those that exist are ordained by God.  If a government is actually in power, whether tyrannical or otherwise, its existence cannot be explained but by the assumption that it is due to God’s establishment, either by His providence or by His permission.  It would be impossible for any government to keep evil in check if the almighty hand of God were not the sustaining power…. This being the case, therefore, whosoever, every one that, resists the power resists the institution of God.  If any person refuses obedience to the government to which he is subject in any point left free by God’s express command or prohibition, he rebels, not only against the lawful authority of the government, but incidentally against God Himself, who established government.  And they that resist will receive to themselves judgment, the sentence of condemnation…. They will be looked upon and treated as rebels by God, who will not have the authority vested by Him disregarded….

“The government, according to God’s will, is the guardian of law and order, including external morality….If a hostile government uses tyrannical measures to suppress the work of the Church, Christians will not assume a rebellious attitude, but will try to gain their object by legitimate means, by invoking the statutes and the constitution of their state or country.  It is only when the government demands anything plainly at variance with the revealed will of God that the Christians quietly, but firmly refuse to obey, Acts 5, 29.”[2]

Rulers “sit in God’s seat, and God calls them gods (Ps.82 [:1]).”[3]  That is, authority is God’s very image.

Furthermore, patriot Americans who would disobey Romans 13 along with 1st Peter 2 will not be prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so.  The genuine followers of God in biblical times were prompted by the Holy Spirit to obey their rulers, even those rulers who, at the time of Christ, for example, ignored the laws of their own land, ruled by whim at times, and committed atrocities, such as Pontius Pilate and Herod.

Just the same, Acts 5:29 commands, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” In other words, the Bible has put bounds on governmental authority in regards to God’s will.  That is, God will not allow the government to overrule God himself.  If the government ever would pass a law which would amend or suspend Christian morality, then Christians will have to obey the clear biblical maxim of Acts 5:29, and obey God’s law and not the government’s law which would contradict it.  That is to say, Christians should not comply with such a law. In order to accomplish this, they may even have to flee the locale or the country.  Nevertheless, they are not actively to overthrow their government.

This Acts 5:29 maxim of noncompliance would be different from rebellion in this way:  the Christian would continue to comply with God’s law, but would decline to comply with the newly enacted governmental law.  This noncompliance would consist neither in an attempt to use physical force to resist compliance with this law (insurrection), nor to overthrow the government which enacted this law (rebellion).  Just the same, instead of repealing this bad law, the government actually may view the Christian’s noncompliance as an insurrection or rebellion, legally pronounce it as such, and prosecute it.  In this case the Christian either should flee the locale, or bear the consequences of it willingly, as the Lord looks down upon him (Acts 7:55), sustained by the examples of his biblical predecessors, and much more by God’s gospel pledges of support.

Furthermore the maxim of Acts 5:29 does not mean that a Christian should not obey the government whenever the government itself would act immorally and would commit criminal acts, but only after the government by law would command the Christian to act immorally and to commit criminal acts which would contradict God’s biblically commands.

It has been argued that rebellion against governmental tyranny is moral and justified, because tyranny itself is immoral. That is to say, any loss to the citizen, up to and including the loss of his own life, which has been due to gross negligence, to malice, or to fraud on the part of government, will be immoral and will constitute tyranny.

John Locke followed this line of unbiblical reasoning.  He turned tyrannical civic, legal, and political acts of government into moral matters.  Then he argued that fighting these immoral acts by means of rebellion would be the moral thing to do; or, as Thomas Jefferson more strongly put it, “It is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government” (Declaration of Independence).

Nevertheless, in his biblical commands and promises God has not laid down the principle that whenever anyone, whether your peer or whether someone in authority (parents, employers, or government, for instance) causes any loss to you, you have a moral right to retrieve that loss by whatever means available.  Rather, it is just the opposite.

For example, when the shade from your neighbor’s tree falls over your garden and causes a loss in crops, not only the Bible, but even Black’s Law Dictionary  advises, “It is better to suffer every ill than to consent to ill.”[4]  Even Jefferson observed:  “Mankind are disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves” (Declaration of Independence).

To be sure, in a loss significant enough for the courts to recognize, that has been due obviously to gross negligence, to malice, or to fraud, a Christian citizen, in order to protect himself, may ask for compensation through legal or legitimate channels, not through personal reprisal.  In regards to any loss incurred by the Christian citizen at the hands of his government which he is not able to recover through legal or legitimate channels for the time being, the Christian is to obey his government, pay his taxes, and not to recover his loss by reprisal or rebellion.

Will you not see this?

Then why did God bless the Whig party, the revolutionary party in the American colonies, with success in their rebellion against Great Britain?

Throughout the war of rebellion all three groups of colonists were punished severely by God:  The Whig party, the Loyalists, and the remaining neutral camp.  The war did not go well at all for any of them.  To be sure, in fighting the Whigs, the British army “regulars (not the Hessians or loyalists) won every major tactical engagement they fought, with the single exception of Cowpens.”[5]  In fact, the rebellion which the Whigs waged went so badly for them generally the whole time that in 1780 Alexander Hamilton wrote “as a candid declaration of our circumstances” that “we must make terms with Great Britain” if we would not get a loan from France.[6]  In other words, the war was going so badly that they simply could not carry it on any longer.  So what happened, subsequently?

In response to the pious, repentant, and gospel-believing prayers of the various Whigs, Loyalists, and neutrals, God kept his unbreakable pledge that “if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” from war and bring peace (2nd Chronicles 7:14).

Then, in his inexplicable providence which no one could fathom (Isaiah 55:8-9; Romans 11:33-34), the Lord “brought forth upon this continent a new nation” (Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address) by giving success to the revolutionary party.

Nevertheless, this was not the first time that the Almighty had done something like this.  Martin Luther has pointed out, “It is said that years ago the Swiss slew their overlords and made themselves free, and the Danes have recently driven out their king.  In both cases their subjects were driven to do this by the intolerable tyranny which they suffered at the hands of these rulers.  However, as I said above, I am not discussing here what the heathen do or have done, or anything that resembles their examples and history, but what one ought to do and can do with a good conscience.  That is the course of action that makes us certain that what we are doing is not wrong in God’s sight.  I know well enough and I have read in not a few history books of subjects deposing and exiling or killing their rulers.  The Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans all did this and God permitted it and even let these nations grow and prosper in spite of it.  However, the final outcome was always tragic.  The Jews were finally conquered and their nation destroyed by the Assyrians.  The Greeks were defeated by King Philip.  And the Roman nation was conquered by the Goths and the Lombards.  As a matter of fact, the Swiss have paid and are still paying for their own rebellion with great bloodshed, and one can easily predict what the final outcome will be….

“My reason for saying this is that God says, ’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’ [Rom. 12:19].  He also says, ‘Judge not’ [Matt. 7:1].  And the Old Testament strictly and frequently forbids cursing rulers or speaking evil about them.  Exodus 23 [22:28] says, ‘You shall not curse the prince of your people’.  Paul, in I Timothy 2 [:1-2], teaches Christians to pray for their rulers, etc.  Solomon in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes repeatedly teaches us to obey the king and be subject to him.  Now no one can deny that when subjects set themselves against their rulers, they avenge themselves and make themselves judges.  This is not only against the ordinance and command of God, who reserves to himself the authority to pass judgment and administer punishment in these matters, but such actions are also contrary to all natural law and justice.  This is the meaning of the proverbs, “No man ought to judge his own case’, and, ‘The man who hits back is in the wrong’.

“Now perhaps you will say, ‘How can anyone possibly endure all the injustice that these tyrants inflict on us?  You allow them too much opportunity to be unjust, and thus your teaching only makes them worse and worse.  Are we supposed to permit everyone’s wife and child, body and property to be so shamefully treated and always to be in danger?  If we have to live under these conditions, how can we ever begin to live a decent life’?  My reply is this:  My teaching is not intended for people like you who want to do whatever you think is good and will please you.  Go ahead!  Do whatever you want!  Kill all your lords!  See what good it does you!  My teaching is intended only for those who would like to do what is right.  To these I say that rulers are not to be opposed with violence and rebellion, as the Romans, the Greeks, the Swiss, and the Danes have done; rather, there are other ways of dealing with them.

“In the first place, if you see that the rulers think so little of their soul’s salvation that they rage and do wrong, what does it matter to you if they ruin your property, body, wife, and child?  They cannot hurt your soul, and they do themselves more harm than they do you because they damn their own souls and that must result in the ruin of body and property.  Do you think that you are not already sufficiently avenged?

“In the second place, what would you do if your rulers were at war and not only your goods and wives and children, but you yourself were broken, imprisoned, burned, and killed for your lord’s sake?  Would you slay your lord for that reason?  Think of all the good people that Emperor Maximilian lost in the wars that he waged in his lifetime.  No one did anything to him because of it.  And yet, if he had destroyed them by tyranny no more cruel deed would ever have been heard of.  Nevertheless, he was the cause of their death, for they were killed for his sake.  What is the difference, then, between such a raging tyrant and a dangerous war as far as the many good and innocent people who perish in it are concerned?  Indeed, a wicked tyrant is more tolerable than a bad war, as you must admit from your own reason and experience.

“I can easily believe that you would like to have peace and good times, but suppose God prevents this by war or tyrants!  Now, make up your mind whether you would rather have war or tyrants, for you are guilty enough to have deserved both from God.  However, we are the kind of people who want to be scoundrels and live in sin and yet we want to avoid the punishment of sin, and even resist punishment and defend our skin….

“In the third place, if the rulers are wicked, what of it?  God is still around, and he has fire, water, iron, stone, and countless ways of killing.  How quickly he can kill a tyrant!  He would do it, too, but our sins do not permit it, for he says in Job [34:30], ‘He permits a knave to rule because of the people’s sins’.  We have no trouble seeing that a scoundrel is ruling.  However, no one wants to see that he is ruling not because he is a scoundrel, but because of the people’s sin.  The people do not look at their own sin; they think that the tyrant rules because he is such a scoundrel – that is how blind, perverse, and mad the world is!”[7]

Indeed, as the people are, so the government will be.

Pray to the Lord to give you patience under this affliction!  May he strengthen you by his powerful gospel pledges to perform your religious duties regarding Romans 13 and 1st Peter 2 in spite of the lawlessness all around you!

---

[1] Johann Spangenberg, The Christian Year of Grace, editor and translator Matthew Carver (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 2014), page 186A.
[2] Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible, New Testament volume II (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1922), pages 69A&B, and 70A.
[3] Johann Spangenberg, The Christian Year of Grace, editor and translator Matthew Carver (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 2014), page 352.
[4] Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth edition (Saint Paul:  West Publishing Company, 1979), page 887B.
[5] Franklin and Mary Wickwire, Cornwallis: The American Adventure (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970), page 63.
[6] William Edward Hartpole Lecky, The American Revolution, editor James Albert Woodburn (New York:  D. Appleton and Company, 1908), page 424 footnote.
[7] Martin Luther, “Whether Soldiers, too, can be saved,” translator Charles M. Jacobs, Luther’s Works, editor Robert C. Schultz, Volume 46 (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1967), pages 106-109.

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The brief answer would be:  Yes.

The scriptural passages that deal with a Christian’s obedience to the government are found principally in Romans 13:1-6, 1st Peter 2:13-17, and in the pithy command of Matthew 22:21.

Furthermore, “to resist” could mean a variety of things from less to greater seriousness.  For example, would it be biblically sinful to disobey a new tax law, or an unconstitutional law, or to overthrow a government engaged in corrupt and illegal actions?  Again, the answer would be:  Yes.

As for examples of illegal governmental action and corrupt government in the New Testament, there are these:  Paul’s detention at Philippi (Acts 16); our Lord’s trial before Pilate (John 18:28-19:16); the beheading of John the Baptist (Matthew 14:3-12); the massacre of the first martyrs of Christ (Matthew 2:16).   Examples of corruption would be these:  Felix wanting a bribe from Paul (Acts 24:26); the tax collectors for the Roman government (Luke 19:1-8); the Herodians who were involved with plans to kill Jesus (Mark 3:6); and the acceptance of bribery by the governmental soldiers at the tomb (Matthew 28:11-15).

Nevertheless, the Lord Jesus did not command nor did his Bible command that whenever a government was corrupt or engaged in violating its own laws that Christians could resist or overthrow their government for the purpose of justice and for the punishment of that government.  Indeed, as the apostle points out with sharp threatening words (Romans 13:1-7), and the Lord to Pilate (John 19:11), that it is the Almighty who has set up the current government in power.  God knows that there is an ever-eager tendency in sinful man to hate and to rebel against his government, to set himself up as a judge and an avenger against his government, and to ignore the fact that God has set it up.  Men do not have permission to play God, and to overthrow a government; or, to put it another way, to take from God his prerogative.  If someone would resist or overthrow, he will be resisting and overthrowing God himself.

Again, look at the examples from biblical history, recalling the Lord’s remarks, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8)!  Under the same king which God had installed in office (Romans 13:1) the apostle James was put to death, though later, in another case, God intervened miraculously to spare the apostle Peter (Acts 12:1-3, 11).  Paul was beheaded, yet the apostle John died of old age.  Earlier, Paul had been arrested, beaten, and imprisoned.  Later, he was set free (Acts 16:19-24, 39).  In spite of these abuses of power, the Lord did not command, on the basis of these governmental outrages, that Christians could actively resist or overthrow their government as judge and executioner (Deuteronomy 32:45).  Daniel was a citizen of the nation of Babylon.  After the Almighty promised publicly that there would be an overthrow of that government (Daniel 5:24-28), Daniel did not assist in the subsequent overthrow, nor did he afterward try to subvert the occupying forces of the new government by organizing an underground movement or a guerrilla force, for instance, but lived as an obedient citizen of the new government, observing the biblical teachings that “God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever he chooses” (Daniel 5:21).  The almighty God, who has all power over all things, “removes kings and raises up kings” (Daniel 2:21).

To be sure, according to the command of God (Romans 13) the Christian’s obedience to and his respect for government is a religious duty which he owes to God.  Just the same, this does not mean that a Christian or even God himself will connive at the evil which a government would do; nor will a Christian’s obedience to and respect for his government, in effect, amount to his being an accomplice to the evil which his government would do; or that any obedience to, respect for, and prayers for an evil government would be giving aid and comfort to evil men.  God, in his biblical commands and statements, has never considered such to be the case.

For example, the prophet Daniel was a high official in a heathen government – the secretary of the treasury.  Any heathen government, administered by officials who have not been regenerated into God’s kingdom would naturally tend to be corrupt and engaged in malicious activities.  For instance, high officials in the Babylonian government were so jealous and filled with malice, they plotted to have pious Daniel put to death.  In addition, the king Nebuchadnezzar had the eyes of the Jewish king put out after killing his sons before him (2nd Kings 25:7).  Whether this had been an exceptional case of cruelty, as a divine punishment on this Jewish king, or whether such cruelty had been a common occurrence among the Babylonians, would this event sound like the act of an upright government filled with integrity?  Indeed, king Nebuchadnezzar at one point arbitrarily wanted to put his wise men to death as punishment because they could not read his mind (Daniel 2:2-12).  Yet God put Daniel into such a government as a high administrator of its policies, expected Daniel to stay there, and did not accuse him of sinning by being where he was.  Indeed, if a common citizen would have had a righteous complaint against the Babylonian government, he would have considered Daniel to be an integral part of that government.

If the government would be a good one, it will be a blessing sent to the people by God.  If it would be a bad one:  illegal, corrupt, unjust, and oppressive, it will be sent by God purposely as a punishment on that people for their unbelief and for their supportive sins of unbelief.  Indeed, after any people would act toward God and his blessings in a tyrannical way, he will punish them with the same dose of tyranny.  Thus when patriot Americans would complain about and have contempt for tyrannical American government, in self-blindness they will refuse to see just how tyrannical they have treated the God of heaven.

Indeed, “As the people are, so will the government be” the axiom goes.  That is, “However good or bad the people may be, so will the government be.”  If a government would be tyrannical, it is because the people will be tyrannical.  If the government would be corrupt, lawless, and selfish, it is because the people will be that way in their everyday lives.

Just the same, there is an exception to the biblical command for obedience to the government. It would be when the powers-that-be would command you to do something against the clear Word of God (Acts 5:29; Exodus 1:15-21).  In these two biblical cases, the resistance consisted in the form of non-compliance.

In regards to the matter of self defense, there are the following biblical examples.  Though David had been divinely assured that he would be the next king (1st Samuel 16:13); though he was persistently pursued by King Saul in order to be put to death merely on account of Saul’s malice, he did not kill King Saul in self defense when he had the opportunities to do so, but at the hazard of his life simply fled and hid from Saul (1st Samuel 18:6-27:1).  This was not cowardly of David, nor was it mere common sense.  He was obeying as best he could God’s command not to kill the Lord’s anointed ruler no matter how unlawfully that ruler acted according to civil law or to biblical law.  When God provided him with a means to avoid having to kill in self defense, David took it.  All the while God blessed him with protection.  Be clear on this!  What should you do in light of this?  Do your biblical duty!  Repent, pray, ask God for his protection, and rely on his protection pledges to defend you and yours!

After Joseph was notified by God of the deadly attempt which King Herod would make on the life of the Christ child, God commanded Joseph to prevent that event by fleeing to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-14), not by taking up a sword and fighting it out to the death against Herod’s forces (Matthew 2:16) all by himself, nor aided by a miracle from Heaven in which Herod’s band would be struck with blindness (2nd Kings 6:8), or destroyed by fire (2nd Kings 1:9-10), for example, nor blessed by the assistance of the fighting angels (2nd Kings 6:17; Daniel 10:13).  Nevertheless, all the while God blessed Joseph with protection.

Perhaps from a foreboding of danger during that week of the Passover, or perhaps as a common practice, the disciples carried swords with them (Luke 22:38).  In Gethsemane Peter used one in self defense (Fifth Commandment) to protect the Lord (John 18:10-11; Matthew 26:53).  However, in this case the facts would be different.  The Lord neither needed, wanted, nor commanded Peter’s physical defense (see also Luke 4:30; John 8:59).  At his word Jesus made the arresting party fall backward to the ground (John 18:6), and he could have kept them pinned there.  Jesus also could have called upon the angels to protect him (Matthew 26:53).  Moreover, Jesus had warned his disciples ahead of time that it would be God’s will that at this time he should be captured and put to death (Matthew 20:18; Luke 18:31-33; John 18:11).  In this connection, the Almighty saw to it that the disciples’ lives would be safeguarded nonetheless (John 18:8-9), yet he had some sharp threats to Peter about the anxious desire of common citizens to use deadly force against authority, even unjust authority (Matthew 26:52).

In regards to the warning of the Lord that “he who does not have a sword should sell his upper garment and buy one” (Luke 22:36), his words were meant to be taken figuratively, not literally, just as on another occasion his choice of the word “sword” was figurative (Matthew 10:34), as the Holy Spirit used it also (Luke 2:25 & 35).  That is to say, as children who would lose their father will have to think and to provide for themselves suddenly, so the Lord forewarned his disciples with a sense of urgency that after his ascension they would have to do the same.  Indeed, in the future, after the disciples would be hunted down and killed like animals, they “will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man” (Luke 17:22) when he formerly gave them uncommon preservation, such as on their missionary journey (Luke 22:35; 10:1-20).  Hence later on we do not read that the disciples took Jesus’ command literally as they had originally on Maundy Thursday evening to the Lord’s frustration (Luke 22:38).  For example, though out of necessity the apostles urged the election of deacons (Acts 6:4), they did not urge the election of deacons with swords for a bodyguard.  After the illegal arrests of the apostles (Acts 4:3; 5:18), during the general imprisonment of the Christians (Acts 8:1-4), or when Peter himself was arrested (Acts 12:3), Peter did not draw a sword in defense as he had in the Garden of Gethsemane (John 18:10).

Instead of turning himself in to an unjust arrest warrant, or waiting to be captured, Paul was let down in a basket and escaped (2nd Corinthians 11:33).  Paul stood on his rights which he had as a Roman citizen, not only to preserve the honor of the gospel (Acts 16:37) but to spare himself from imminent unjust harm and unjust death (Acts 22:25; 25:11), not from an intent of fear or of selfishness, but of love (Romans 13:8; 1st Corinthians 10:23).  After he had been released from jail by an angel, it was implied by this miraculous act that Peter should not turn himself back in to the government, but to escape its forces (Acts 12:1-11).

Consider this!  After the first few mob incidents, Paul did not arm himself with a sword nor did he have an armed bodyguard to act in his defense, but continued to enter city after city unarmed.  His only defense was to escape (and to pray).  To be sure, unlike David and unlike Peter in Gethsemane, both of whom carried swords as private citizens, Paul was acting in his capacity as a missionary for the gospel’s sake.  The spirit of a Christian missionary or a preacher is not to have the militant intent of the armed crusades of a Saul (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2), but of the saving of souls (Luke 9:54-56; 1st Corinthians 9:22-23).

These are cases of self-defense which Scripture has left for us.

The various judges that are listed in the Old Testament book of Judges had been called by God and specifically authorized by him to use deadly force to deliver the Israelites politically.

Late in the lives of the apostles, and throughout the subsequent periods of martyrdom in the Roman Empire, the Christians did not arm themselves for self-defense against their government.  Their self-defense consisted in escaping, in hiding, and in worshiping in secret.  In another case, a legion of soldiers, consisting of about 6,000 men, called the Theban legion, were all Christians.  Ordered by the Roman emperor, Maximian, to drive Christianity out of France, they refused.  Twice the emperor ordered the legion to be decimated, that is, that every tenth man be killed.  Enraged at their continued refusal to obey, the emperor commanded the whole legion to be put to death.

With that being said, the original question at the beginning of this article now will be narrowed to the following:  “May a citizen, Christian or non-Christian, for the purpose of self defense, resist with deadly force not a common robber, but his own government, after the latter has sent officers to threaten his life, the lives of his family, or the life of his neighbor?”  The answer would be this:  There is no command or permission from God for you to do so.  There is no promise from God that he will bless you in such an act.  Thus you will have no divine assurance that such an act would be doing God’s will.

In fact, think about this:  How many times in the history of the world has this situation ever occurred? Historically, if rulers would have sent armed soldiers to enter a citizen’s home, to confront a citizen on the street, or at work, it would have been to arrest him, not to murder him in his bed.

First of all, the rules for self defense, which would fall under the Fifth Commandment, will allow, but not command you to preserve your life at all costs. See John 15:13 and 1st Corinthians.  Essential elements for self defense would be that the citizen would not provoke the difficulty, and that there must be imminent danger without a reasonable way to escape.

One case of self defense with the use of deadly force, which was part of the civil laws given by God to and meant only for the Old Testament political state of Israel, was in regard to a thief who would break into a house at night (Exodus 22:2-3).

All other situations which would involve governmental actions towards a citizen that are not imminent, life-threatening, could not be considered on the basis of self defense rights, but would be political matters which already have been covered in the paragraphs and in the adequate biblical passages above.

Just the same, it might be asked, for instance, “As an American military man I took an oath to defend the Constitution (not the government) and this country from all enemies foreign and domestic.  I consider no expiration date on that oath.  Could I fight righteously and rightfully against the current government which, by evidence, has become a domestic enemy both to the Constitution and to this country?”

Positively speaking, God is silent.  That is, biblically he gives no permission, no assurance, and no support for the unique situation in which a constitution would give its citizens constitutional permission to defy or to overthrow its own government for sustainable reasons.  The only divine assurance which God has given to a citizen, Christian or non-Christian, is in regards to the matter of obedience to his government, which has been stated already in the biblical passages above.

Would there be anything biblically wrong, would there be any violation of Romans 13, if a person currently holding an office in government, such as a county sheriff, who would choose to enforce a constitutional law and not an unconstitutional law?  No.  Would there be anything biblically wrong with citizens supporting such constitutional sheriffs?  No.

Would there be any conflict with the biblical commands of Romans 13 if a citizen would urge his state to protect him from criminal and unconstitutional activities of the federal government by taking certain legal or political steps up to and including secession from the Union?  No.

Though Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln spoke of the revolutionary right of the American citizen to overthrow the U.S. government should it become tyrannical or unconstitutional, Scripture recognizes no such right.  In fact, after the Southern States did not want to overthrow what they believed to be a tyrannical government, but simply to secede from it, Lincoln himself objected to it.

Indeed, revolt is a remedy routinely worse than the problem.  In rebellions the innocent typically have suffered more than the guilty.  To be sure, a change in governments brought about by force cannot guaranty at all that there will be any improvement in government.  Anarchy only would make it worse.

Moreover, if the cry would go up:  “How could I overthrow this tyrannical government?  The election ballot will not work,” realize this: Since it would be God who has installed this tyranny in place; since it would be he who has brought it into existence for the express purpose of punishing a country, he is not going to let his efforts be thwarted by petty men!  He will not bless their efforts to overthrow it.  In fact, he would be against any insurgents who would ruin his plans.  Thus the question is not:  “How could I overthrow this tyrannical government?” but “This is a punishment sent from God.  We have done evil.  We must repent.  We must get on God’s side.  Only then will the punishment be removed.”

“Since revolution is sinful according to Scripture, how is it that the thirteen American colonies revolted, yet God blessed them ultimately with success?”

Both of those facts are true.  As to why America was blessed with success in regards to its revolt for independence, the Bible answers that such acts would be due solely to God’s grace and goodness for his own unfathomable purposes (Isaiah 55:8-9; Romans 11:33-34), though he still has threatened the human race with punishment for rebellion.  The ancient “Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans all did this and God permitted it and even let these nations grow and prosper in spite of it.  However, the final outcome was always tragic.”[1]  The Southern States in America also once rebelled.  Yet God did not bless them ultimately with success.  Nevertheless, there is more to this matter.  God does not promote wickedness, such as revolution, by crowning it with his blessing.  He is a holy God.  He abhors sin.  There would have to be another reason why God moved himself to tip a war of punishment ultimately in the favor of the American revolutionists.

It was the gospel-believing prayers of humble, repentant Christians resigning their cause into their Lord’s hands.  That will do it every time.  The Lord promises.

When the Continental Congress held its first session in Carpenter Hall, Philadelphia, years ago, it began with prayer.  Doctor Jacob Duche opened the meeting with a petition which started, “O Lord, our heavenly Father, high and mighty King of Kings, Lord of lords… look down, we beseech Thee, upon those American states who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor… to be henceforth dependent only upon Thee!”  He continued to pray for peace and asked that “truth and justice, that religion and piety, prevail and flourish”; and, he concluded, petitioning for the members of the first Continental Congress:  “Preserve the health of their bodies… and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come.  All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, and our Savior.”

The Lord pledges:  “If my people, who are called by my name, would humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2nd Chronicles 7:14).

Indeed, after war became inevitable, one of the first concerns of the Congress was to appoint days of humiliation and prayer.  Washington notes in his diary how on this occasion he “went to church and fasted all day.”  In his diary John Adams recounted week after week the texts of the sermons which he had heard.  These examples demonstrate the Christian faith that existed among those who supported independence.  It was in stark contrast to the hearts of the revolutionaries in Europe.

Keep in mind that not all of the colonists supported independence!  Approximately one third of the colonists remained loyal to the British, another third was neutral or disinterested, and the other third were the political Whigs who supported independence.  Moreover, in all of these groups there were Christians and non-Christians.

The American citizen who would be greatly offended by the current intent and actions of his government, and would greatly want it to return to the state in which the Founding Fathers established it, by destroying it through rebellion, and then, rebuilding it on the ruins, must remember this:  The current government is only one of a number of punishments brought upon this country for which God is fully justified in meting out a great punishment come due.  The attempt to get rid of one of God’s punishments would be like trying to empty the ocean with a bucket.

To bring an end to God’s punishment, the people of America need to return to God in repentance and faith.  That is his unbreakable rule.

Again this brings us back to the same matter:  patriot Americans complain of all of the dishonest, unethical, immoral, and criminal activity of those in government, and of how that in turn creates serious problems for the citizen regarding his safety, finances, and freedoms, etc.  The patriot Americans do not see the connection here.  After Americans threw out Christianity, that is, after they left it, or exchanged biblical Christianity for a counterfeit imitation of their own liking, they also threw out morality, ethics, honesty, and uprightness.  In other words, a nation cannot throw out Christianity and still expect the country to function as a moral, ethical, upright, honest people.  It will not.  The people that have exchanged Christianity for personal selfishness will now live in a miserable world of selfishness.  Yet patriot Americans are surprised at all of the corruption in government. However the corruption is not restricted to government.  It is all around you in your neighbors.  “As the people are, so the government will be” the saying goes.

If you would want an honest upright government that obeys the law and has integrity, you will have to Christianize it first.  Who is going to do that?  Patriot Americans may offer political complaints or political solutions such as, “They should not be doing that,” though it would be simply a case of the pot calling the kettle “black.”  Yet they are at a loss when it comes to the task of how to make people in government, and those who elect them, moral.

Prayer/Hymn

O bless, Thou heav’nly Potentate
With wisdom, strength, the pow’rs of state,
That wrong and violence may cease,
And Church and home abide in peace!

Bless rich and poor, the great and small,
Both friend and foe; Lord, bless Thou all
The family on earth in love,
And fit all for Thy home above!

Thus, with Thy blessing on each hand,
Will peace and plenty fill the land,
And righteousness spring from the earth,
And life below have higher worth.

All praise to Thee, O king of kings,
Whose grace to us such blessings brings;
Thee, with the Father, we adore,
And Holy Ghost, forevermore!

Anonymous.

---

[1] Martin Luther, “Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved,” translator Charles M. Jacobs, Luther’s Works, editor Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1967), Volume 46, page 107.

TO READ IN BOOK FORMAT, OR TO PRINT THIS ARTICLE, CLICK ON THIS LINK – 41-An-Indictment-of-the-Sins-of-the-pdf

 

Introduction.  As Christians hunger for some meaning to the chaos which is American politics today, they may come across some appealing remedies on the internet blog sites of various patriot Americans, some of whom call themselves the Three Percenters.  While many of these patriot Americans have aligned themselves with the United States Constitution, along with the political and moral creeds and axioms of the Founding Fathers, nevertheless, parts of their ideology will contradict what the Bible clearly and emphatically has commanded and promised in regards to the Fourth and Fifth Commandments, that is, regarding the matters of obedience to government, rebellion, and self-defense.

Moreover, their ideology will consist not merely in a sincere zeal to return our country to its constitutional republican foundation against un-American usurpers in public office.  It will be made willfully and consciously in the face of the clear commands of Romans 13, 1st Peter 2, and Ephesians 6, for instance.  Hence this is simply one more example of the lawlessness that has become widespread in the unbelieving hearts of Americans today because of their rejection of “repentance and the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47) in the genuine biblical sense.  Furthermore, this ideology calls down God’s anger and punishment, for God threatens to punish all those who contradict his commandments.

Therefore, a warning and an indictment are in order:  An indictment of those who stubbornly would contradict God’s holy Word, and a warning to Christians that, though this intent, creed, and practice of the Three Percenters may have a strong appeal to the Christian’s flesh, genuine believers must be warned that they must not become a participant in other men’s sins (1st Timothy 5:22), call down God’s anger (Ephesians 5:6), and be punished under “the mighty hand of God” (1st Peter 5:6).

What would be wrong with the patriot movement today which would include the Three Percenters?

What would be wrong with the beliefs of a number of patriot Americans today as they have stated it in their comments and creeds on their websites?

(1) It is when patriot Americans erroneously would believe that the basis of the current problems in America is political, not spiritual.  It also is when they would propose man’s solution for the mere symptoms, while they would reject God’s solution for the core problem.

(2)  It is when they willfully would refuse to see the truth that God is in a punishing mode; that he also is punishing patriot Americans for rejecting his gospel of salvation, for instance, by withdrawing the constitutional freedoms which he gave them, by withdrawing peace and prosperity from them, and by sending them a tyrannical government.

(3) It is when they willfully would blind themselves to the truth of and reject the maxim that “As the people are, so will the ruler be.”  That is to say, if the rulers would be lawless, immoral, and criminal, it will be because the citizens, including the patriot Americans, have been lawless, immoral, and criminal toward God.  Moreover, since the people would refuse to change, the governmental officials, which come from the pool of citizens, will never get any better.

(4)  It is when they would quote the maxim of John Adams favorably, but willfully would refuse to acknowledge the implications of his statement, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.  Greed, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.  Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”

That is to say, since the rule of law of the Constitution has undergone change lately it is because patriot Americans and the rest of the American people no longer are a moral and a religious people.  As a result, according to Adams’ correct deduction, Americans now will have to put into place a different rule of law in order to deal with their irresponsibility, or, as the Bible puts it, with their lawlessness.

(5) It is when they will engage in idolatry by which they erroneously would trust solely in man’s power by the use of firearms, not trusting in God’s power to deliver them from worldly harm, by rejecting God’s biblical promises, and by considering him to be impotent.

(6)  It is when they flatly would reject God’s command in Romans 13 and in 1st Peter 2 for all citizens to obey in all civil matters the current government which God himself has put into place.

(7)  It is when they would invent the man-made anti-biblical idea that God will want them to obey only just rulers, but that he will want them to rebel against bad rulers, when such rulers would want to outlaw firearms, restrict their freedoms, or act criminally, for example.

(8)  It is when they would charge that Christians who would obey Romans 13 also will become informants to the government against the patriot Americans; that, consequently, these Christians should be targeted; that by obeying Romans 13, these Christians actively support directly or indirectly the unconstitutionality, immorality, and the criminality of the government.

(9)  It is when they would believe in fatalism, luck, and the survival of the fittest, not in God’s commands, nor in his protection promises. It is when they would look for guidance and assurance from movie scriptwriters, science fiction works, and contemporary novels which dream up a new mythology, instead of being versed in the plain biblical commands and promises of God.

(10)  It is when they actually would look forward to starting a war with the government; that it would be better to have all of our communities bombed and ruined; to have our land filled with bloodshed, widows, orphans, famine, disease, and death in the hundreds of millions, than to tolerate an infringement of their freedom, which infringement is a punishment sent by God, instead of returning to the Lord in repentance and in faith, depending on his protection pledges, and patiently waiting for his will to be done.

During the Civil War a Louisiana father wrote to his son, “This war was got up drunk but they will have to settle it sober.”  Today passionate talk just as drunk is getting up yet another civil war.

(11)  It is when they would assert that, “God hates tyrants,” but willfully would ignore the biblical fact that, “God hates rebels as well”; or, to be more precise, “God hates tyrants in all ranks who would bully others and rebel against God in their speaking, doing, and thinking, all of whom he will surely punish.”

(12)  It is when believing that, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” they hold that their Creator has given them not merely the inalienable right of self-defense, but the inalienable right as well to the ownership of property in the form of  a firearm.

(13) It is when patriot Americans would turn a political matter into a moral matter by asserting that firearms are a must for a proper self-defense because citizens must be entitled to weapons of their preference in order to have a fair chance, or entitled even to superior weapons that would give them an advantage over the aggressor, according to the natural law of self-defense (the Fifth Commandment).

(14) It is when patriot Americans would believe that they have the right to use deadly force in self-defense against those in government who would confiscate their firearms, because the confiscators will be using deadly force.

(15)  It is when patriot Americans would display the presupposition that legislation regarding the possession of firearms is not a political matter, but a moral matter, thus dragging God and his Fifth Commandment (regarding self-defense) into their argument in order to justify their rebellion against government.

(16)  It is when they would profess, in regards to the Second Amendment, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”

(17)  It is when they would promote their “law of unintended consequences,” in which, according to their usage, the plans of evil men in governments will be interrupted and will not succeed; and, furthermore, that evil men in government will get punished.

(18)  It is when patriot Americans believe that, according to the creedal proposals of John Locke, they  (1) are absolved from any further obedience to government, and  (2) may have a clear conscience also in rebelling against a government which has become tyrannical, since both of these responses would be allowed by God’s will.

        Conclusion:  A movement with a creed and intent such as the above is not biblical, godly, nor Christian, but a rebel movement against God and against his commands.  As a result, not only could it not possess any assurance of his blessing, it could and should be assured of his continued and of his final punishment because this movement clearly displays malicious sins of unbelief. As a result, God will surely punish, not only on Judgment Day, but starting already in this life, as he has threatened.  Hence “do not… participate in other people’s sins!” (1st Timothy 5:22.)

As God continues to punish America pitting an immoral government against immoral citizens, man cannot do anything in his power to stop God from carrying out his punishment of using tyrants to punish other tyrants.  In his providence the Almighty may give success to one side temporarily in order to punish the other side temporarily.  Yet his undisclosed and unknowable providence is not for us to guess.  We are commanded emphatically by him to abide by his biblical rules, and to do our religious duty to obey them.

To put it even plainer, it would be this:  God will continue to punish the Three Percenters intentionally and specifically through a tyrannical government until he is through.

An Indictment of the Sins of the Three Percenters (III Percenters) with Annotations.

(1) It is when some patriot Americans erroneously would believe that the basis of the current problems in America is political, not spiritual.  It also is when they would propose man’s solution for the mere symptoms, while they would reject God’s solution for the core problem.

Patriot Americans have noticed the great political evils practiced by our government, and have sought for a political solution to it, and only a political solution.  They have thought that in order to eliminate America’s problems, all that we would have to do will be to eliminate the bad policies of bad governmental officials.  Then all would be well again.

Thus they would refuse to acknowledge that there is a more serious spiritual evil of which our citizens are participants.  Until the spiritual condition of our citizens would be changed, not only the political, but the social and the economic as well never will be set straight.  These conditions are all connected to the spiritual.  Indeed, they are fruits, results, or symptoms of the spiritual.  For example, you could not clean a muddy stream by dipping out its muddy water on the banks, but by going to the muddy source, and by cleaning it there.

What would be God’s solution for cleansing the source, that is, for the core problem?  It will be what it always has been for all citizens of all countries:  to be sorry for their sins, and then to believe in God’s gospel pledge for their salvation.  After that, God will suspend his national punishments, and will bless those citizens with peace, prosperity, and good government instead.

Thus some patriot Americans are hypocrites, for they easily could see the evil which the government does toward them, but not the evil which they practice toward God.  “They have dealt treacherously with the Lord” (Hosea 5:7).  “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?  Hypocrite!  First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye!” (Matthew 7:3 & 5).

Yet many patriot Americans reject the gospel, and refuse to believe it even after being informed of God’s solution.

Just the same, even if they would lack the biblical knowledge of God’s solution, their suffering alone under bad government could and should move them to appease God in order to suspend his punishment.  For instance, any sufferer could and should cry out, “What must I do to end my suffering? I am strongly motivated to do so.  Yet nothing which I have tried seems to work.”  By experience alone they could and should conclude that they must have been addressing only the symptoms, and yet have not removed the core problem.  Nevertheless, they would need enlightenment from an outside source – the Bible – which alone could inform them with truthfulness and with divine certainty as to what the core problem will be:  their gospel unbelief, and what the solution for it will be:  repentance and gospel belief.

Yet in their adamant self blindness they neither will consider this nor attempt this. Moreover, if someone would point this out to them, the majority will reject it.

“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2nd Chronicles 7:14).

Even Black’s Law Dictionary records this maxim:  “Human things never prosper where divine things are neglected.”[1]

(2)  It is when they willfully would refuse to see the truth that God is in a punishing mode; that he also is punishing patriot Americans for rejecting his gospel of salvation, for instance, intentionally by withdrawing the constitutional freedoms which he gave them, deliberately by withdrawing peace and prosperity from them, and expressly by sending them a tyrannical government.

While a natural disaster with its accompanying consequences assuredly will be a punishment of God, by nature it will be impersonal, and, therefore, it could not be held accountable.  On the other hand tyrannical government could be held personally accountable.  It will be run by high-profile public personalities who will assert major laws and policies with which they have identified themselves, and for which they could be held accountable.  For this reason, and since tyrannical government would affect everyone, patriot Americans have been more vocal about their suffering from bad government than from any other source.

While patriot Americans believe that tyrannical government desires to take away what they call their “natural” and “constitutional rights,” some of them reason that God would want them to keep the natural rights which have been given to everyone. Furthermore, they reason that God must be angry at tyrannical government for its attempted robbery of these rights, on the one hand, but pleased with those who would rebel against tyrannical government in an attempt to right matters on the other hand.  Hence they refuse to believe that God himself is the one who actually is taking away their natural and constitutional rights as a punishment, and is doing it through tyrannical government.

Thus patriot Americans will believe that their suffering under bad government will be a result of man’s doing, not God’s, and therefore, its undoing must be done by man, namely, by those with the will to do it:  patriot Americans.

Hence patriot Americans believe that man is in control of his destiny:  that he could get himself into trouble and could get himself out of trouble.  In practice, therefore, they would reject the fact that God is almighty; that he is in control of all human events; and that God will send a nation peace or punishment depending upon whether or not that nation would embrace or reject his gospel.

Since most patriot Americans know neither their Bible nor these biblical facts, they will try to find another reason for their suffering under bad government other than in the Bible.  They will search for an explanation for this cause and effect in political theories, for instance.  As a result, they never will be able to delve any deeper in finding a solution to their core problem.

Furthermore, bad government is just a symptom.  It is not the core problem. Thus the attempt by patriot Americans to overcome by armed force an outward symptom, bad government, will not solve the core problem, for the outward symptoms will just keep on returning.  Will you not see this?

Consequently, their solutions to bad government, no matter how strongly they may be advocated or believed, never will work, for these people are blind to the core problem.  The core problem is not political, but spiritual.  At the close of the Second World War General MacArthur noted:  “Military alliance, balances of power, League of Nations, all in turn, failed…. The problem basically is theological.” A few years after the First World War Woodrow Wilson admitted, “Our civilization cannot survive materially unless it be redeemed spiritually.  It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the spirit of Christ and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of the spirit.  Only thus can discontent be driven out and all the shadows lifted from the road ahead.” Correct the spiritual first, then the political will be corrected.  Indeed, God himself will bring it about in spite of man’s weaknesses, shortsightedness, and failures.

Furthermore, patriot Americans, as unbelievers will approach the problem of bad government in an entirely different spirit than the one which it would take to address it properly.  Only a genuine Christian, who practices biblical repentance and faith, will have the proper spirit under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

What is more, in his Bible God has revealed and offered this explanation as to the current sufferings of the citizens of America:  God has threatened to punish gospel-rejecting citizens by means not only of a lawless government, but by means of a lawless society as well until he would be finished with them.  Hence realize that bad government and bad society are not only symptoms of a much greater problem, but that they will be used by God as punishments of each other as well!

Moreover, no matter what men cleverly may plan with all of their armed might to thwart God’s punishment of them through these symptoms, God still will frustrate their attempts until he would be finished punishing them.  See this!

Thus God will keep his threat to send punishment not only by political means (bad government), but also by social means (civil unrest, crime), economic means (depression, inflation), religious means (Islam), and so-called natural disasters (droughts, floods, tornados) as well, ever increasing the intensity of the misery of these things as time progresses.  Such divine punishments will be in addition to the self-inflicted misery which gospel-rejecting citizens bring upon themselves as a result of their “lawlessness,” as the Bible puts it.

What is more, whenever the citizens of a nation would turn their backs on God’s saving gospel and would reject the gospel faith of their fathers, God no longer will bless them with peace and with prosperity, but will withdraw these blessings as a further punishment.

Moreover, God deliberately will target those earthly pleasures on which citizens have set their hearts, and will ruin their enjoyment of them.

Be aware also that God is not bound to punish a thief only by holy means!  In the past he has punished one thief by another.  Indeed, if citizens would insist on electing thieves into their government, God will use thieves in government to punish other thieves.

Though patriot Americans commonly will distance themselves from the immoral, criminal, or unconstitutional acts of their fellow citizens, and declare, “I cause no one trouble,” they still will be subject to God’s punishment since they themselves personally have brought down God’s punishment on America because of their gospel unbelief.  God demands more than outward good behavior.  He looks at the heart.  If a man’s behavior would not proceed from a love for God and for his saving gospel, even if he would claim, “I just want to be left alone, to live my life as I see fit, and in the process taking nothing from anybody,” all of his behavior still will be damnable (Luke 12:16-20).  Moreover, God will condemn him for doing nothing to bring God’s law and soul-saving gospel to his neighbor (Ezekiel 3:18).

Furthermore, neither the possession of firearms, nor the skill in using them against bad government could ever protect anyone from the punishing hand of God.  Resistance to God’s punishment will be futile.  Admit it!

The nation and kingdom that will not serve you will perish (Isaiah 60:12).

By declining to repent of their sins, and by rejecting God’s gospel promise, many patriot Americans refuse to pledge allegiance to God; they commit spiritual treason; they are guilty of sedition, insurrection, and rebellion against him; they rob God of thanks and honor due him; they tempt, mock, and defy God; and they are traitors to him.  Is it any wonder that God is at war with them?  Yet patriot Americans have not yet made up their minds from the plain evidence that God is at war with them since they have declared war on him.

Furthermore, no amount of God-sent misery in the form of tyrannical government, no amount of withdrawal of God-given rights and liberties has awakened them to this fact.  Instead, they wish to kill the messenger:  tyrannical government.  To alleviate their misery they blindly would attack the symptom:  tyrannical government, not remove the cause:  their rejection of God’s gospel.

(3) It is when they willfully would blind themselves to the truth of and reject the maxim that “As the people are, so will the ruler be.”  That is to say, if the rulers would be lawless, immoral, and criminal, it will be because the citizens, including the patriot Americans, have been lawless, immoral, and criminal toward God.  Moreover, since the people would refuse to change, the governmental officials, which come from the pool of citizens, never will get any better either.

One of the most noticeable symptoms of what is wrong with our country is our bad government. Hence it is the most complained about by the citizenry.  That is, officials in various levels and departments commonly do things that are unconstitutional, criminal, and immoral, causing misery to the citizenry in various degrees by way of unconstitutional or criminal arrest, detention, and prosecution, excessive taxation, violation of constitutional rights, or loss of income from selfish, governmental economic policy, for instance.

Just the same, there is a Latin saying that “As the people are, so will the government be” (Ut rex, ita grex).  That is, if the government would be lawless, criminal, and immoral, it is because the citizens will be that way. Thus gospel-rejecting patriot Americans are the ones responsible for their own bad government, since by their gospel unbelief they have contributed to a lawless, immoral, and criminal society from which governmental officials have been taken.

Look around you!  Crime in society has become more common and more violent.  Divorce, lawsuits, restraining orders, and other acts of selfishness by citizens are occurring generally.  Disrespect for the law is common.

If you would doubt this, consider the lawlessness of the majority of citizens in regards to one of the simplest laws on the books; one that is based not on any political bias, but on a sound common sense principle that is fair to all:  the speed limit!  This law serves a serious practical purpose.  Moreover, it is marked in clear large unmistakable figures.  Yet the speed limit is broken everyday by many drivers for no other reason than their lawlessness:  they think that they are above the law.  They willfully and persistently refuse to obey this law, with some drivers resenting vehemently any suggestion that they should do so.  As the saying goes:  criminals do not obey laws.

John Adams, one of the Founding Fathers, once stated truthfully:  “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  Think this over carefully!  His statement had implications.  It contained certain conditions.

Thus, for instance, when patriot Americans would want our government today to return to the constitutional republic which it once was, they must face the fact that it simply could not be done until the American people themselves would return to being a moral and a religious people.  Will you not see this?  Will you not understand?

Yet there is no spiritual will on the part of the vast majority of Americans to return to God; to return to being a Christian nation once more.  Indeed, there is a marked revulsion and a studied hatred to the whole idea.  Thus our original constitutional republic “is wholly inadequate to the” governing of the current citizenry who insist on being an immoral and an irreligious people.

What is more, the solution would not be found in removing the entire government by force by an armed band of patriot Americans who would march on the nation’s and the states’ capitals and eject the government by force, for the next day the majority of citizens simply would reelect a government just as lawless as what was removed because “as the people are, so will the government be.”

Then why would patriot Americans advocate a return to our former constitutional government?  It will be because of the personal benefits which they would derive.  Just the same, they will not want to pay the high price for it, that is, they will not want to be a moral and a religious people.

Likewise those contemporary clubs calling themselves “Christian churches” also lack a fear of God, repentance of their sins, and belief in the saving gospel in the true biblical sense.  To be sure, they have a sense of spirituality about them, but not the kind which the Bible demands.  Their spirituality consists of wanting God’s power solely so that they could serve their own sinful flesh in regards to health, to wealth, or to power, for instance.

So what could and should be done about our country?  Obviously our country must return to God with a repentance of its sins, and with a belief in God’s saving gospel in the true biblical sense.

(4)  It is when they would quote the maxim of John Adams favorably, but willfully would refuse to acknowledge the implications of his statement, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.  Greed, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.  Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.” 

That is to say, since the rule of law of the Constitution has undergone change lately it is because patriot Americans and the rest of the American people no longer are a moral and a religious people.  As a result, according to Adams’ correct deduction, Americans now will have to put into place a different rule of law in order to deal with their irresponsibility, or, as the Bible puts it, with their “lawlessness.”

Rulers of countries routinely have found that they actually have had to pass more restrictive laws and to introduce more police enforcement in order to hold in check their lawless, non-Christian citizens, because their lawlessness would provoke problems ranging over the whole spectrum.  John Adams once related that a client of his, whom he previously had defended in court on criminal charges, was glad that Adams and company had started the Revolutionary War and, in so doing, had gotten rid of the British courts, for now he could pursue crime without being held accountable legally.[2]

For example, in a predominately moral and religious society there will be nothing wrong if a man would exercise his First Amendment right responsibly in love, with a view toward edifying his neighbor spiritually and toward helping him in his need.  Yet in an immoral and an irreligious society, in which selfishness commonly would control the souls of that society, there will be many cases of citizens publicly abusing their First Amendment right by becoming annoying, offensive, obnoxious to common decency and order, disturbing the peace, and being intimidating.

For instance, citizens, newspaper editors, columnists, authors, and classroom professors will abuse their First Amendment rights when they selfishly would ruin a citizen’s reputation by a campaign of studied insinuation, being careful all the while not to break any libel laws.  On the other hand, a moral and a religious citizen, who would obey the Ten Commandments in a good faith effort prompted by the Holy Spirit, will not set out to ruin a person’s reputation.  He will not be irresponsible with his civil rights, but will exercise restraint from the temptation to abuse those rights for selfish purposes.  As the legal maxim urges, “Use your own property and your own rights in such a way that you will not hurt your neighbor, or prevent him from enjoying his.”[3]

In other words, as he would live among society, the moral and religious citizen will show reasonable care in order not to disturb common decency, peace, and order in public, at work, and on the highways.  He will show patience with and even will suffer the ill effects from the common mistakes, faults, and weaknesses of his neighbors.  For example, whenever someone would step on his foot, instead of protesting, “You violated my rights.  I demand justice now!” he will deal with it in a way that he would prefer it to be handled if the roles were reversed.

Martin Luther once described those people who would not be meek by saying, “They refuse to put up with anything or to yield an inch, but they tear up the world and the hills, and want to uproot the trees.  They never listen to anyone, nor excuse them for anything.  They immediately buckle on their armor thinking of nothing but on how to take vengeance and hit back.”

Thus only genuine Christians will fit the definition of a genuinely moral and religious people, for only they will live lawfully under government prompted and moved by the Holy Spirit as a religious duty out of gratitude for their Savior without the selfish intent that demands:  “My rights!  I insist upon my rights!”

To be sure, “Liberty has not existed outside of Christianity” (Lord Acton’s other axiom).

In the first centuries A.D. the conscientiousness of the Christians was the talk of the world.  The heathen preferred to deal with Christian merchants because of their acknowledged honesty; they would have none but Christian slaves in their homes, Christian nurses during their illnesses, and Christian overseers for their young.  Roman emperors surrounded themselves with a bodyguard of Christian soldiers; their chief advisors were believers; the most important posts of duty were in the hands of Christians.  Christian morality in practice, powered by God through his biblical gospel pledges, presented to the heathen something which they could never produce by the ethical teaching of their wisest philosophers.

That Christian phenomenon has not changed.  For instance, during the golden age of Christianity in America, in 1947, Bremen, Kansas, had not witnessed a single arrest nor one court action in thirty years.  Why?  The community was made up almost entirely of Lutherans who believed in the gospel promise of Christ.  In fact, their two Christian day schools made public schools unnecessary.  In the same year Frankenmuth, Michigan, had never had a crime of violence in the 102 years of its existence.  During the previous twenty-five years its jail has been entirely empty.  Throughout the great depression in the 1930’s not one person was on the public relief rolls.  Since its founding Frankenmuth had been first in the State of Michigan to report all of its taxes paid in full.  What would be the cause for this remarkable record?  It will be simply this:  Frankenmuth was 95 per cent Lutheran.

“All who are not Christians belong to the kingdom of the world and are under the law.  There are few true believers, and still fewer who live a Christian life, who do not resist evil and indeed themselves do no evil.  For this reason God has provided for them a different government beyond the Christian estate and kingdom of God.  He has subjected them to the sword so that, even though they would like to, they are unable to practice their wickedness, and if they do practice it they cannot do so without fear or with success and impunity.  In the same way a savage wild beast is bound with chains and ropes so that it cannot bite and tear as it would normally do, even though it would like to; whereas a tame and gentle animal needs no restraint, but is harmless despite the lack of chains and ropes.

“If this were not so, men would devour one another, seeing that the whole world is evil and that among thousands there is scarcely a single true Christian.  No one could support wife and child, feed himself, and serve God.  The world would be reduced to chaos.  For this reason God has ordained two governments:  the spiritual, by which the Holy Spirit produces Christians and righteous people under Christ; and the temporal, which restrains the un-Christian and wicked so that – no thanks to them – they are obliged to keep still and to maintain an outward peace.  Thus does St. Paul interpret the temporal sword in Romans 13 [:3], when he says it is not a terror to good conduct but to bad.  And Peter says it is for the punishment of the wicked [I Pet. 2:14].”[4]

(5) It is when they will engage in idolatry by which they erroneously would trust solely in man’s power by the use of firearms, not trusting in God’s power to deliver them from harm, by rejecting God’s biblical promises, and by considering him to be impotent.

Patriot Americans have three reasons for this intent:  (1) they sincerely believe that only firearms in the possession of citizens and the use of them would be a sufficient threat to stop the government from taking away their constitutional rights;  (2) they sincerely believe that their possession of firearms and the use of them will dissuade or prevent the government from arresting  and putting them to death at any time for their political beliefs; and  (3)  some of them, in theory at least, may acknowledge the existence of an almighty God, but in practice they will ignore this and believe that a powerful force of men will decide the victory over bad government.  To them, if God would exist, it would be merely to stand by and to watch.  He would be impotent to affect the outcome.

Yet the Bible contradicts this with emphasis and teaches that God is not impotent.  “God works all” (1st Corinthians 12:6), that is, he is in control of all events (1st Chronicles 16:31; Isaiah 45:6-7; Colossians 1:17), not men.  “Shall the axe boast itself against him who chops with it, or shall the saw magnify itself against him who saws with it?” (Isaiah 10:15.)  “Unless the Lord would build the house, they who will build it will labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1).  “If there would be calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it?” (Amos 3:6.)  For example, governmental rulers will be tools in his hands (Proverbs 21:1; 2nd Chronicles 36:22; Isaiah 10:12-15).  God will punish nations by defeating them through war (Psalm 136:15; Psalm 46:6-10; Exodus 15:3), for instance, by disabling their strongest military defenses, by making their great economic wealth worthless, by compelling their military alliances to become useless, and by paralyzing their intelligent decision-making, which will cause the bravest of their soldiers to lose  courage (Obadiah 3-9).  Indeed, the reason for bringing down the terrible scourge of war upon any country will be for its unbelief in God’s saving gospel.  The synonymous expressions “not serving God” (Isaiah 60:12), “forgetting God” (Psalm 9:17), “not doing the Father’s will” (Matthew 7:21), “practicing lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23), and the “evil” of the world and the “iniquity” of the wicked (Isaiah 13:11) all refer to the wicked rejection of the gospel in unbelief (Mark 1:15; Mark 16:16), and to its supportive sins, which are the cause for God’s punishment in these passages.

In addition, human trust should never be placed in the might of man (Psalm 44:3; Isaiah 10:12-13), which would be idolatry, but in the divinely certain, powerful promises of God.  “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength.  Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord” (Jeremiah 17:5 & 7).  “Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

Moreover, the intent of many patriot Americans is not that which is described by Cromwell when he urged, “Put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry!” that is to say, “Put your trust in God’s providence of this situation, even if events would turn out adversely for you, for all things work together for good for those who love God.  However, do not tempt him by doing nothing while expecting him to do everything for you by miracles!  Do your God-given duty also!”

In their swaggering and strutting remarks patriot Americans do not qualify their boasts with “If it would be God’s will,” nor in humbleness do they pray to him for his help and blessing.

Reduced to the simplest explanation, it will be this:  Man in his lawlessness wants to enslave his fellow man in his thinking, speaking, and doing.  Thus every man by nature wants to be a tyrant whenever he could.  Firearms are power.  They are just one more power which lawless men possess to accomplish this.  God is punishing gospel-rejecting citizens by using his agent, the government, to take away their powers (liberties) one by one, especially the ones dearest to them, in order to make their punishment be felt all the more keenly, and to shut down their lawlessness.  To be sure, the moral and the religious citizens will have to suffer under this, also.  The only control for this tyranny would be a genuine conversion of the populace through repentance and through saving faith in the gospel (Mark 1:15), after which the believers will discipline themselves morally, motivated and powered by God’s powerful gospel pledge to do so.

In addition, patriot Americans ignore the obvious fact that God is in a punishing mode today; that resistance to God will be futile.  He will keep his threat to scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts, and to put down the mighty by using one tyrannical group:  the government, to punish the other tyrannical group:  the citizens.  Neither does the thought ever enter their minds that they must put themselves on the Lord’s side, and then, patiently await the Lord’s providence, and bear willingly whatever event he might send in the meantime.

Let me stop right here!  I do not know how much stronger I could point to this obvious fact:  God is in a punishing mode.  Moreover, he will not quit until there is no one left to punish.  Realize this!  Understand this!  Accept this!  Affirm it!  Adjust your thinking according to it!  Flex your future plans malleably around it, and determine your subsequent actions accordingly!  It would be foolish to proceed with any man-made plans, and wishfully think that your plans will succeed.  They will not.  God is in a plans-dashing, might-smashing mode toward anything which would attempt to interfere with his punishment.  Will you not see this?  It is time to pray Ezra’s and Daniel’s prayers (Ezra 9:6-10, 13-15; Daniel 9:4-19).

In light of this it could be asked if it would be senseless, then, for a genuine Christian to rally with or to lobby with others for the restoration of his constitutional rights, for instance?  What good would it do?  Who could fight God?

The biblical answer will be:  Do your duty, and trust in God’s providence!  As with sickness, reverses in your life, and other adversities which God will send to you, he does not want you to give up, and succumb to them in helplessness, but to do your duty and to overcome them with the means which he has provided, which you have at hand, if it would be his will to bless your efforts with success.  For example, if it would be his providence, you will recover from the sickness which he has sent you after you would pray for a recovery, and would use the means which he has provided for you:  doctors and medicine, for instance.  Just the same, if you would not recover in spite of your efforts, it will be his providence that you should suffer it for the time being, and to accept its adverse effects, during which time he will give you, the gospel believer, his strength to bear it, not for your punishment, but for your spiritual good.  All things work together for good for those who love God (Romans 8:28), the biblical promise assures you, including the political, social, and economic hard times which God will send you for a time with varying intensity.  Thus with earthly matters such as political, social, or economic matters, Christians may use political and legal remedies with the qualification:  If it would be the Lord’s will to bless their efforts with success.  Though genuine Christians are not guilty of unbelief in the gospel, they still will be sinners until they would be taken to heaven.  Hence daily they will need to confess their sins, and to ask for God’s pledged gospel pardon.  They will admit also that their daily sins are an offense to God almighty, and will plead with him not to punish our land on account of them.

(6)  It is when they flatly would reject God’s command in Romans 13 and in 1st Peter 2 for all citizens to obey in all civil matters the current government which God himself has put into place.

Patriot Americans have no command or promise from God to rebel against tyrannical government, even if it would infringe upon their Second Amendment rights, for instance.

In 1st Peter 2 the apostle Peter “exhorts all Christians to be obedient and subject to secular authorities and to keep whatever they establish, order, institute, and command that is not contrary to God, and to do it for God, whose children we are.  He wants authorities to be obeyed and the common peace supported.  Since not all men are believing and godly, but rather the majority is unbelieving, wicked, and wanton, God so ordained that authorities should bear the sword to punish the wicked and to protect the upright, lest men consume and destroy each other.  And though by Christ we are freed from all human laws that bind the conscience, we should nevertheless obey the laws and ordinances of those in authority, insofar as they are not contrary to God, not under compulsion but voluntarily, to please God and serve our neighbor.”[5]

In Romans 13 the apostle “shows the duties which every person owes the government, and in which the Christians will lead all others with a cheerful sense of duty…. Every person, without exception, within a community, state, or country is spoken of and addressed in this command.  He should be subject to, submit himself willingly, without the application of force or restraint, to the existing powers or authorities, to the persons that are invested with power, to the incumbents of the governmental office.  The governmental powers vested in these people by virtue of God’s providence or permission gives them a position in which they excel us in dignity and authority; they are our superiors in the sense of the Fourth Commandment.  This is expressly brought out:  For there does not exist an authority except by God; but those that exist are ordained by God.  If a government is actually in power, whether tyrannical or otherwise, its existence cannot be explained but by the assumption that it is due to God’s establishment, either by His providence or by His permission.  It would be impossible for any government to keep evil in check if the almighty hand of God were not the sustaining power…. This being the case, therefore, whosoever, every one that, resists the power resists the institution of God.  If any person refuses obedience to the government to which he is subject in any point left free by God’s express command or prohibition, he rebels, not only against the lawful authority of the government, but incidentally against God Himself, who established government.  And they that resist will receive to themselves judgment, the sentence of condemnation…. They will be looked upon and treated as rebels by God, who will not have the authority vested by Him disregarded….

“The government, according to God’s will, is the guardian of law and order, including external morality….If a hostile government uses tyrannical measures to suppress the work of the Church, Christians will not assume a rebellious attitude, but will try to gain their object by legitimate means, by invoking the statutes and the constitution of their state or country.  It is only when the government demands anything plainly at variance with the revealed will of God that the Christians quietly, but firmly refuse to obey, Acts 5, 29.”[6]

Rulers “sit in God’s seat, and God calls them gods (Ps.82 [:1]).”[7]  That is, authority is God’s very image.

Patriot Americans who would disobey Romans 13 along with 1st Peter 2 will not be prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so.  The genuine followers of God in biblical times were prompted by the Holy Spirit to obey their rulers, even those rulers who, at the time of Christ, for example, ignored the laws of their own land, ruled by whim at times, and committed atrocities, such as Pontius Pilate and Herod.

Just the same, Acts 5:29 commands, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” In other words, the Bible has put bounds on governmental authority in regards to God’s will.  That is, God will not allow the government to overrule God himself.  If the government ever would pass a law which would amend or suspend Christian morality, then Christians will have to obey the clear biblical maxim of Acts 5:29, and obey God’s law and not the government’s law which would contradict it.  That is to say, Christians should not comply with such a law. In order to accomplish this, they may even have to flee the locale or the country.  Nevertheless, they are not actively to overthrow their government.

This Acts 5:29 maxim of noncompliance would be different from rebellion in this way:  the Christian would continue to comply with God’s law, but would decline to comply with the newly enacted governmental law.  This noncompliance would consist neither in an attempt to use physical force to resist compliance with this law (insurrection), nor to overthrow the government which enacted this law (rebellion).  Just the same, instead of repealing this bad law, the government actually may view the Christian’s noncompliance as an insurrection or rebellion, legally pronounce it as such, and prosecute it.  In this case the Christian either should flee the locale, or bear the consequences of it willingly, as the Lord looks down upon him (Acts 7:55), sustained by the examples of his biblical predecessors, and much more by God’s gospel pledges of support.

Furthermore the maxim of Acts 5:29 does not mean that a Christian should not obey the government whenever the government itself would act immorally and would commit criminal acts, but only after the government by law would command the Christian to act immorally and to commit criminal acts which would contradict God’s biblical commands.

It has been argued that rebellion against governmental tyranny is moral and justified, because tyranny itself is immoral. That is to say, any loss to the citizen, up to and including the loss of his own life, such as the loss of life of a drafted soldier in an unnecessary war, which has been due to gross negligence, to malice, or to fraud on the part of government, will be immoral and will constitute tyranny.

John Locke followed this line of unbiblical reasoning.  He turned tyrannical civic, legal, and political acts of government into moral matters.  Then he argued that fighting these immoral acts by means of rebellion would be the moral thing to do; or, as Thomas Jefferson more strongly put it, “It is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government” (Declaration of Independence).

Nevertheless, in his biblical commands and promises God has not laid down the principle that whenever anyone, whether your peer or whether anyone in authority (parents, employers, or government, for instance) causes any loss to you, you have a moral right to retrieve that loss by whatever means available.  Rather, it is just the opposite.

For example, when the shade from your neighbor’s tree falls over your garden and causes a loss in crops, not only the Bible, but even Black’s Law Dictionary advises, “It is better to suffer every ill than to consent to ill.”[8]  Even Jefferson observed:  “Mankind are disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves” (Declaration of Independence).

To be sure, in a loss significant enough for the courts to recognize, that has been due obviously to gross negligence, to malice, or to fraud, a Christian citizen, in order to protect himself, may ask for compensation through legal or legitimate channels, not through personal reprisal.  Nevertheless, despite any loss incurred by the Christian citizen at the hands of his government which he is not able to recover through legal or legitimate channels for the time being, the Christian is to obey his government, pay his taxes, and not to recover his loss by reprisal or rebellion.

(7)  It is when they would concoct the man-made, anti-biblical idea that God will want them to obey only just rulers, but that he will want them to rebel against bad rulers, that is, against those rulers who would want to outlaw firearms, to restrict citizens’ freedoms, or to  act criminally, for example.

Citizens have no command or promise from God to rebel against good or bad government.  Yet patriot Americans will assert a right to rebel against and to kill tyrants in government, based on the unbiblical statements of Thomas Jefferson, for example. However, they will deny their children that same right to rebel against them at home with deadly force whenever they would act as tyrants; or against a tyrant at school, a tyrant in the neighborhood, or a tyrannical driver on the highway.

If many patriot Americans would be asked if they would trust that God will keep his pledge to protect his Christians even if they would obey a governmental order to turn in their firearms to the authorities, they will answer, “No.”

After many years as a constitutional republic, our original federal government unfortunately and, for a number of decades now, gradually has become what is known as a “government de jure,” that is to say, “a government of right; the true and lawful government; a government established according to the constitution of the nation, and lawfully entitled to recognition and supremacy and the administration of the nation, but which is actually cut off from power or control.  A government deemed lawful, or deemed rightful or just, which, nevertheless, has been supplanted or displaced.”[9]

In its place the original federal government has been supplanted or displaced by a “government de facto,” that is, by “a government actually exercising power and control, as opposed to the true and lawful government; a government not established according to the constitution of the nation, or not lawfully entitled to recognition or supremacy, but which has nevertheless supplanted or displaced the government de jure.  A government deemed unlawful, or deemed wrongful or unjust, which, nevertheless, receives presently habitual obedience from the bulk of the community.”[10]

In other words, contemporary voters in America continue to elect and to reelect representatives to government who believe and carry out in practice unconstitutional policy; who, by their beliefs and practices have amended the Constitution, not formally, properly, and legally to be sure, but informally, improperly, and illegally, all with the consent of the majority of voters, who, by count, overwhelmingly have opposed and rejected for decades, for instance, the constitutional platforms of various third party candidates.  Hence the current federal government in America is a “de facto government,” that is, it is one that must be accepted for all practical purposes, though it is illegal and illegitimate according to the original Constitution. Thus the voters in America themselves repeatedly have determined what should be “the lawful authority of the state”; that this authority will not be exclusively the authority of the Constitution, but whatever would be the ongoing interpretation of the Constitution held by the currently elected representatives.

Nevertheless, throughout biblical history God has recognized de facto governments as true governments in power.  In fact, the case could be made that throughout history it has been a common occurrence that governments that were de jure tend to deteriorate over time into de facto governments to a greater or to a lesser extent as the case may be.

What is more, Romans 13 and 1st Peter 2 do not make a distinction between a government de jure or de facto in their commands to obey governments.  To be sure the government of the Roman Empire at the time these New Testament Scriptures were written was, in fact a de facto government.

Indeed, from the time of the birth of Christ until his ascension into heaven, Pontius Pilate and the various kings named Herod engaged in impulsive acts as rulers in Palestine which were both illegal and bloody.  Nevertheless, there were no divine calls or commands for human retaliation or for rebellion.

Just the same, some patriot Americans would object to the contrary that the Founding Fathers in their personal writings spoke of and recognized the right to firearms in the Second Amendment in order that Americans could use them successfully to rebel against a tyrannical government.  However, that purpose for firearms has not been spelled out clearly where it would count, namely, in the Second Amendment, despite what various judges since have ruled the “core principle” to be.

On the other hand, there would be nothing wrong if an American Christian, or a group of them, would advocate, with a sense of urgency, the desire to retain the right to bear firearms, as the Constitution recognizes and guarantees it, and, through the advocacy of new laws or by the repealing of old laws, would prevent that right from being infringed upon by government.  However, all the while that such an attempt would be made it should be kept in mind that this would be a political matter, not a moral or a biblical one, in which case this qualification should be observed:  the Lord will bless non-spiritual efforts with success only if it would be his will.

Thus it could and should be kept in mind that God may override any or every effort by citizens, whether Christian or not, to preserve their constitutional liberties, in order that his punishment on godless Americans may extend even to his revocation of every right enumerated by the Bill of Rights.

Nevertheless, there is wording in the constitutions of thirty-five of our states that guarantees the right of their citizens to rebel against government, which wording does not specify whether at the federal, at the state, or at the local level.  Hence these states would recognize and guarantee their citizens their state’s authority to rebel against and to depose a government legally.  How would a citizen’s obedience of the biblical commands in Romans 13 and in 1st Peter 2 figure in with this?

The simple response would be this:  Who would be authorized to make the decision to rebel, or not to rebel?  Think about that!  For example, could any citizen authorize himself at any time to rebel?  Could any group of citizens comprising a minority in that state rebel, such as in Shay’s Rebellion (1786-1787), in the Whiskey Rebellion (1791-1794), or in Fries’ Rebellion (1799-1780), in which, by the way, the Founding Fathers were active in putting down the rebellion?  If so, then you will have anarchy, random anarchy, though legal anarchy.  However, according to legal hermeneutics, it could not have been the intent of the framers of these thirty-five state constitutions to contradict themselves:  to advocate the demolition of their very building plans, that is, to promote random anarchy.  Then what had they intended to promote constructively?  Supposedly, it was constructive rebellion, as opposed to destructive rebellion.

Nevertheless, the only proper authority in these thirty-five states to make such a decision authoritatively, that is, the one that would be binding on all citizens, yet would not usurp authority, would have to be the state itself.  That is to say, according to American legal custom and precedent, the only proper authority would be the government of that state, either comprising, at the minimum, a simple majority of the state legislators, according to its state constitution, or, failing that, a simple majority of the voters.

What if a Christian citizen still would prefer to live his life as much as possible under the original Constitution and its rule of law, and not under the new rule of law in the United States?  What could he do?  He could move to a jurisdiction where the county sheriff has made it known that he intends to uphold his oath to the Constitution, and, as a result, will not enforce any unconstitutional laws, but, in fact, will arrest anyone who would cross his county line in an attempt to enforce them.  In the United States the sheriff is the highest law enforcement authority in any county.  In the early Apostolic Age, after the martyrdom of Stephen and during the first persecution, many Christians moved to other districts and countries where they would not be persecuted (Acts 8:1, 4).

The fact that for the third time now in American history government has risen up against government, and brother against brother, looming toward yet a third civil war, is not a good sign, but simply another act of lawless men which God is using to punish lawless men.

Indeed, not only county sheriffs, but entire states soon may have to admit the unthinkable, and to concede that the only way that they properly could protect their citizens from federal outrages and criminal acts ultimately will be to secede from the union until such a time as the federal government would be reformed.  At this time, however, there is no political will to do so, yet.

(8)  It is when they would charge that Christians who would obey Romans 13 also will become informants to the government against the patriot Americans; that, consequently, these Christians should be targeted; that by obeying Romans 13, these Christians actively will support directly or indirectly the unconstitutionality, immorality, and the criminality of the government.

It will be wrong logic to assert that since a Christian, in obedience to Romans 13 and moved by the Holy Spirit to do so, would obey willingly a lawless, immoral, and criminal government, it will be because he would approve of such behavior in government; or that he will not be doing his civic duty when he would refuse to rebel against an evil government.

It must be remembered that:  (1) genuine Christians have never prayed to have an evil government installed in America;  (2) God has sent it as a punishment on account of those Americans who have rejected his gospel;  (3) Christians recognize this fact clearly from what God has threatened in his Bible;  (4) God has given instructions on the proper way to handle evil, including the punishment which he sends;  (5) The wrong way would be to rebel against or to kill every evil person in the world every time that he would act like a bully or a tyrant in the neighborhood, or even in the home.

In the early centuries AD a legion of soldiers, consisting of about 6,000 men, were all Christians.  It was called the Theban legion.  Roman emperor Maximian ordered them to march to Gaul to assist in fighting against the rebels of Aquitania.  Before engaging the enemy Maximian ordered a general sacrifice.  He also commanded the men to swear to assist him in driving Christianity out of Gaul.

Each soldier of the Theban legion refused either to sacrifice or to take the oath prescribed.  This so greatly enraged Maximian that he ordered the legion to be decimated, that is, every tenth man was to be put to death.  When the surviving soldiers stood firm a second decimation was ordered.

By the advice of their officers the remaining soldiers sent a letter to Maximian, stating, “Our arms are devoted to the emperor’s use, and shall be directed against his enemies; but we cannot stain our hands with Christian blood; and how, indeed, could you, O Emperor! Be sure of our fidelity, should we violate our obligation to our God, in whose service we solemnly engaged before we entered the army?  You command us to search out and to destroy the Christians; it is not necessary to look any farther than ourselves; we ourselves are Christians, and we glory in the name.  We saw our companions fall without the least complaint, and thought them happy in dying for the sake of Christ.  But nothing shall make us lift up our hands against our sovereign; we would rather die wrongfully, and by that means preserve our innocence, than live under a load of guilt.  Whatever you command, we are ready to suffer; we confess ourselves to be Christians, and therefore cannot persecute our brothers nor sacrifice to idols.”

In response the emperor became enraged, and commanded the whole legion to be put to death.[11]

In response to bad government, Christians will not seek revenge or retribution; they will not return evil with evil, but with good.  They will love their enemies.

However, though some patriot Americans have declared loudly that they will not be serfs to government; that they will not obey unconstitutional laws which infringe on the Second Amendment, but will resist, unlike the “self-serving ‘Romans 13’ bunch of Pharisees,” the “Render to Caesar types,” they themselves are inconsistent in their practices and creeds.

First of all, they have not rebelled against the government outwardly, specifically in regards to those infringing Second Amendment laws that already have been enacted nationally and locally. They honor those laws.  Secondly, they have invented their own infringements on the Second Amendment when they publicly advise others, for example, that “open carry rifles in public is unsafe – should not be practiced.” Or:  “Firearms instructors and law enforcement professionals… reasonably worry that constitutional carry would allow the completely untrained, unvetted, and uneducated to carry firearms.”

Furthermore, God is well aware of a government that is lying, immoral, criminal, and tyrannical.  Just the same, he commands citizens to obey that government because it is his representative which he has installed on earth.

Indeed, man’s own enacted laws recognize that a citizen owes allegiance to his state, just as the state owes him peace and safety.  This is an implied, but a real and binding contract.  Thus the case is not that citizens “have an inherent need to trust in their government,” but rather that citizens rightfully could and should expect government to fulfill its end of the contract, as the government rightfully could expect citizens to fulfill theirs.

Christians, also, do not “have an inherent need to trust in their government.”  Their obedience and allegiance to government is not motivated out of slavish fear, but is a willing service, a religious duty in fact, which they do “as to Christ… doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord” (Ephesians 6:5-8).

(9)  It is when they would believe in fatalism, luck, and the survival of the fittest, not in God’s commands, nor in his protection promises. It is when they look for guidance and assurance from movie scriptwriters, science fiction works, and contemporary novels which dream up a new mythology, instead of being versed in the plain biblical commands and promises of God.

(10)  It is when they actually would look forward to starting a war with the government; that it would be better to have all of our communities bombed and ruined; to have our land filled with bloodshed, widows, orphans, famine, disease, and death in the hundreds of millions, than to tolerate an infringement of their freedom, which infringement is a punishment sent by God, instead of returning to the Lord in repentance and in faith, depending on his protection pledges, and patiently waiting for his will to be done. 

During the Civil War a Louisiana father wrote to his son, “This war was got up drunk but they will have to settle it sober.”  Today passionate talk just as drunk is getting up yet another civil war.

In their comments some patriot Americans have displayed a spirit of revenge and retribution.  By their bravado, saber rattling, and ad hominem remarks, patriot Americans would start up a war drunk.  They have held up the New England rebels of 1765-1774 as admirable models.  Yet think of it!  Should Christians imitate the unchristian Congregational churches and clergy of Boston and New England at that time, and continuously look for political reasons to pick a fight with the government, tarring and feathering governmental officials, burning down their houses, threatening them, and throwing stones at armed soldiers?  Would this be Christian behavior?  “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.  And be kind to one another!” (Ephesians 4:31-32.)  “The works of the flesh are…quarrels, a quarreling temper… fits of rage, selfish ambitions… Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.  But the fruit of the spirit [Christian mind] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:19-23).  In his beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10), did the Lord say, “Blessed are the mobs who tar and feather, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”?  “Blessed are those who burn down houses, throw rocks at soldiers, riot, and destroy property for political reasons, for they will obtain mercy”?

Since unbelievers (the government and patriot Americans) wish to fight each other, and start up a war drunk, but have no plans on how to end it (starting a forest fire would be easy, but not stopping it), Christians should not rush to join this parade, but to avoid it.

As with most fights, the current pushing back and forth between government and firearms owners only will become more pronounced while the original intentions will be lost sight of in the dust of conflict.  Ultimately, only a bare sense of survival for either will remain.

How could and should Christians react and behave who would live in times similar to those days before the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, both wars of which were gotten up drunk?  To be sure Christians are as sheep in the middle of wolves.  They need to be wise as snakes, and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16), not antagonistic, nor looking for a fight.  A Christian should not be covetous, for example, he should not aspire to step out in front of the political parade, or to desire to become a martyr for a political cause.  However, by not being ashamed to profess his faith publicly like Daniel (Daniel 6:4-13), a Christian could not help it if he would become a lightning rod spiritually.

(11)  It is when they would assert that, “God hates tyrants,” but willfully would ignore the biblical fact that, “God hates rebels as well”; or, to be more precise, “God hates tyrants in all ranks who would bully others and rebel against God in their speaking, doing, and thinking, all of whom he will surely punish.” 

“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” was a motto proposed for the great seal of the United States by Thomas Jefferson and by Benjamin Franklin, but was never used.  Jefferson eventually appropriated it for his own seal.  Actually this phrase was borrowed from the Englishman John Bradshaw (1602-1659) the attorney who served as president of the parliamentary commission which sentenced to death King Charles I.  The thesis or axiom “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” has no biblical foundation.  Not only is there no command or promise of God for it, but it contradicts the Fourth Commandment.

Sic Semper Tyrannis is the motto of the state of Virginia.  The picture on the state flag shows a woman in a toga representing “virtue” with a spear in hand and one foot on the chest of a dead king lying on the ground.  The full Latin phrase is “Sic semper evello mortem tyrannis,” which means “Thus death always comes to tyrants.”  Nevertheless, not all political tyrants have died violently.

Sic Semper Tyrannis was shouted by John Wilkes Booth from the stage of the Ford Theatre after he just had assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

In this connection patriot Americans have advocated that “God hates tyrants” in the sense that “a criminal regime not only need not be obeyed, but we have a duty to our Creator actively to resist them to the uttermost.”

Would this creed be biblical according to the clear commands and plain pledges of God in his Bible?  No.  Why not?

First of all, would the thesis be biblical that “God hates tyrants”?  Yes, it will be.  “You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness…. You hate all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 5:4-5).  This would include not only those who reject the gospel, but also tyrants.  Nevertheless, God’s hatred would not be limited to the political kind.  God will hate all tyrants.  Since all men are born with an evil heart which produces “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, extra-marital sex, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19), everyone by nature will be a tyrant as much as he could.  To state it briefly:  Everyone by nature will desire to enslave his neighbor in his thinking, speaking, and doing.  Tyranny, therefore, is not limited to the political kind.  It is practiced everyday by any bully whom you would meet:  bosses at work, neighbors on the highway, parents or spouses in the home, or even yourself whenever you would be selfish.

Secondly, since God hates tyrants, would this mean that we could and should kill any tyrant?  God has not given the citizen permission to kill every bully.  In fact, consider this:  If tonight at midnight God were to kill everyone who had ever acted as a tyrant, how many of us still would be alive at one a.m.?  Just because God hates tyrants, it does not follow that you will have an inalienable right, or God’s license, to go around killing or punishing every tyrant you would meet.  God gives the authority to punish to governments, not to a lynch mob, not to a vigilante.

Hence it is neither your God-commanded place nor your God-promised right to take out revenge upon tyrants:  political, social, or domestic because your rights have been violated.  The Lord does not hand out a permit to you for revenge, but commands, “Do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).  Thus revenge and retribution are forbidden the citizen.  If God would wish to topple tyrants, including those whom he has placed into authority, he will strike them down himself.

What about the area of self-defense?  According to the Fifth Commandment, would we not have a duty to protect our own persons and that of our families against those tyrants, political, social, or domestic, who would threaten our lives with deadly and imminent intent?  For deadly and imminent threats in the home (domestic) or on the street (social) you may use deadly force to protect yourself and your family when no one in authority is around.  Aside from the fact that such self-defense is implied in the Fifth Commandment, the singular biblical example found in Exodus 22:2-3 was simply part of the old civil code binding only on Israel, and only for the Old Testament period.  In that example it was lawful to kill a burglar who was caught at night in the act, but it was unlawful to do so after sunrise.

In the rare case of deadly threats coming from the government, assuming that a person has not violated any common laws of the land, while there is no biblical command that clearly addresses this situation, there are multiple biblical examples on what to do.  Moreover, all of these actions were identical:  Flee!  Go to some other locale or country!  For instance, after King Saul wanted David’s life, David fled (1st Samuel 20:1; 27:1).  So did Elijah (1st Kings 19:2-3), Joseph, Mary, and Jesus (Matthew 2:13-14), the early persecuted Christians (Acts 8:1 & 4), and Paul numerous times (2nd Corinthians 11:32-33; Acts 14:6; Acts 17:10).  Just the same, when God allowed the government to arrest Peter for the purpose of putting him to death, God also saved his life by a miracle (Acts 12:5-11).

The most important matter in life is not how to safeguard your rights by force or by politics, but whether or not your soul will be going to heaven, or will be going to hell by your unbelief in Christ’s saving gospel.

Yet if any patriot American would object, saying, “But the current government in America is sponsoring the greatest injustice, cruelty, and oppression.  This behavior simply demands retribution,” the response could and should be:  “Since your greatest concern is the punishment of injustice, then, realize that you are doing a far greater injustice to God by rebelling against him, by rejecting his gospel promise of salvation, and by living a life of lawlessness which demonstrates your unbelief.  Moreover, God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7).  That is, God will not be slapped in his face.  He will punish you.”

In another display of this same spirit which calls upon God solely for political ends, and contradicts that of a genuine gospel believer, some patriot Americans have wanted “to deliver justice to a tyrant through imprecatory psalms, namely, to say prayers for the demise of one’s enemies.  God knows his evil deeds.”

However, genuine Christians, obeying the spirit of the biblical commands and promises with a true heart, such as, “Love your enemies!  Bless them that would curse you!  Do good to them that would hate you; and pray for them which despitefully would use you and persecute you, in order that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven!” (Matthew 5:44-45), will pray simply and solely for God’s protection from their religious, political, social, and domestic enemies by whatever means God would see fit, including their conversion.  There will be an absence of malice, revenge, and retribution in such prayers.  To be sure, Christ scolded his disciples after they called for their enemies to be put to death (Luke 9:53-56).

The imprecatory psalms are Psalm 109, Psalm 69:22-28, Psalm 40:14-16, Psalm 35:4 & 26, and Psalm 70:2-3.  Similar statements will be found in the New Testament in Galatians 1:8-9 and Galatians 5:12.  These appeals are future prophecies in the form of a prayer, foretelling the future punishment of all those who would hate and persecute gospel believers.  Since the Bible is divinely inspired, it was God who wanted these words to be written down by his writers (1) to assure his believers of his intent of their defense; and (2) as a most severe warning to non-Christians.  These expressions are not sinful personal prayers desiring revenge and retribution.  For example, David, who wrote most of these psalms, twice spared the life of his enemy, Saul, and also the life of Shimei (1st Samuel 24; 25; 2nd Samuel 16:9-10).  The inspired writer of Galatians, the apostle Paul, wished he could trade his place in heaven so that his unbelieving countrymen could be there instead (Romans 9:3; see Exodus 32:32).  The same apostolic writer was also inspired to write:  “Bless those who persecute you!  Bless, and do not curse!” (Romans 12:14.)

Indeed, whenever patriot Americans would argue, “It is so dangerous to live in America today.  I need the powerful defense of a firearm,” they need to be reminded that their rejection of the gospel of heavenly-bestowed peace has brought on this deterioration of safety into lawlessness where now citizens in all walks of life commonly act like tyrants.  Thus they are accomplices in this.  On the other hand, genuine Lutherans, for instance, have prayed and worked to keep America from deteriorating into lawlessness and tyranny by trying to keep it Christian.  They have a set prayer for good government appointed for every Sunday, and they do mission work among their fellow citizens.  What have patriot Americans done positively and constructively as opposed to training how to kill, or to shake their firearms in a tyrant’s face?

(12)  It is when believing that, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” they hold that their Creator has given them not merely the inalienable right of self-defense, but the inalienable right as well to the ownership of property in the form of  firearm.

However, the slaves of Thomas Jefferson, who was the author of the Declaration’s creed of “unalienable Rights,” were denied the ownership of firearms by an enactment of positive law, although the right of self-defense by “the Laws of Nature” was not denied to them.  Likewise during the Revolutionary War the Whigs in every colony made a political decision through an enactment of positive law to deny the Tories, not the right of self-defense, but the right to possess firearms as property.  Thus there have been occasions in American history for purposes of protection, that were endorsed by the Founding Fathers themselves, when certain residents did not enjoy an inalienable right to possess property in the form of firearms because of a political decision enacted into positive law, although the right of self-defense itself and the personal possession of other means for self-defense were not denied to them.  While this may not be pleasant news to hear; while this may not have been fair, it is still the truth.

Again, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, one of the first acts of the Whig party in every colony was to disarm the Tories of their firearms, and of their right to bear firearms. This was a political decision made for the express purpose of self-defense.  Yet, as a result, the Tories in the New York area, for example, were at the mercy of Whig bandits, of Tory bandits, and even, according to General Washington, of troops from his own army which, “by rapine and plunder [were] spreading ruin and terror wherever they go.”  If the Tories ever had appealed to the Founding Fathers that their disarmament was, to use Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence, against that which “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…. to reduce them under absolute Despotism” against the “consent of the governed,” they would have argued in vain.

Indeed, in a future civil war would the patriot Americans, for the sake of principle, allow those citizens to keep and bear firearms who would stay loyal to that government which would be fighting against the patriot Americans?  On the other hand, if in a state of civil war, the principle of the disarmament of opponents would be justified under the rules of war; and since some patriot Americans already have gone on record as maintaining that a state of war (cold or undeclared) already exists between the government and firearm owners, would not either side then have a duty to disarm the other according to the principle of self-preservation?

According to the Second Amendment of the Constitution, the right of the citizens to bear arms shall not be infringed.  Yet if, in the future, the Constitution were to be amended properly by enough states to drop the Second Amendment, with the notation:  “Citizens may still defend themselves with weapons according to natural law, just not with the technology known as firearms,” patriot Americans would have neither constitutional nor natural law grounds to argue differently.  The right to own property in the form of a firearm, or in the form of anthrax is, after all, a political decision, whether wise or unwise.  To be sure, the responsible ownership of such property by a moral and a religious people will not present a problem.  However, the ownership by an immoral, lawless, and irreligious people always will present society with problems, for whose protection the government is responsible.

(13) It is when patriot Americans would turn a political matter into a moral matter by asserting that firearms are a must for a proper self-defense because citizens must be entitled to weapons of their preference in order to have a fair chance, or entitled even to superior weapons that would give them an advantage over the aggressor, according to the natural law of self-defense (the Fifth Commandment).

Yet neither of these assertions would be vital to the definition of what weapon (not to mention means, precautions, behavior, or training) would supply an adequate self-defense, because the question could never be answered definitively:  What weapon must be used at minimum or at maximum, under ordinary or under all circumstances, in order to have an adequate self-defense?

Just the same, it could be objected by patriot Americans that for all practical purposes, the possession of a firearm is so crucial to a proper self-defense that a sufficient defense could not be made without one. Moreover, that any “meaningful self-defense would imply the ownership of military-grade firearms” at the very least.  However, millions of citizens in Central America, for example, cannot own firearms legally, though they retain the right of self-defense.  Still civil matters in these places have not commonly nor generally become so chaotic, as a result, that self-defense could not be maintained adequately with weapons other than firearms.

Furthermore, it will not violate the law of self-defense if the government would possess weapons which the citizens would not.

Another objection could be the following:  “If the government would not give me the capability to fight off a mob of armed attackers, then it indeed would be true that such laws, which deny me the use of firearms, will deny me an adequate self-defense.”  However, being attacked by a mob would be like getting struck by lightning:  It is possible, but not probable.  Nevertheless, if you would be concerned, will you be willing to go to the trouble of carrying adequate lightning diversion gear on you everywhere that you went, just in case?  Likewise, would you be willing to carry on you, every time that you stepped out the door, enough weaponry to ward off a mob, or, for that matter, to survive an ambush, a crossfire, or an airstrike?  These are possible, too.  Yet the self-defensive capability that is being proposed here is beyond the realm of a typical and common self-defense.  It is the contention to be able to take on an army single-handedly.  While politically or constitutionally a person may have access to such grand force, this is far beyond the pale of common self-defense.

In fact, “A firearm would be merely one tool that will allow you to apply self-defense knowledge.”

While the defense of the lives and the livelihood of one’s family, and, to an extent, that of one’s neighbors broadening out even to one’s own country, as well, is a duty imposed by God on mankind, especially on the fathers, the preservation of one’s own life at all costs is not commanded, for a man may lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).  Rather what is biblically emphasized and commanded, because sinful mankind is so prone to return evil with evil (1st Thessalonians 5:15); since, according to his sinful flesh over the slightest offense, man is obsessed with seeking revenge, reprisal, and retaliation, is that he must “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:38-41) in spirit.  Just the same, self-defense is permitted in the Bible (John 18:23; Acts 22:25) when no one in authority is around to do it, when the law of love must be fulfilled, and as long as the spirit of retaliation is absent.  Indeed, “all things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful” (1st Corinthians 10:23) in the promotion of “mercy, justice, or faith” (Matthew 23:23).  This biblical maxim will determine whether one should preserve his life, or lay it down for his friends.

Perhaps the clearest command in regards to an example of self-defense in the Bible is found in the civil and criminal code for the Old Testament nation of Israel, which was meant only for Israel and only for Old Testament times.  It was not intended to be a universal moral command.  According to the instructions in Exodus 22:2-3, it would be lawful to kill a burglar who was caught in the act in the dark, but not lawful to kill him in the daylight.

Nevertheless, it also could be objected:  “The framers of the Bill of Rights explicitly and purposely in the Second Amendment used the term “arms” meaning “firearms,” and specifically left out any mention of other weapons.  This would argue not merely for the common customary possession of firearms by the American people, but for the legal recognition of that possession as well, especially with the pointed guarantee of that possession:  ‘Shall not be infringed’.”  Compare the constitutions of other countries which do not include this guarantee!  Back then the bearing of firearms was a legal or political matter when the Bill of Rights was adopted, so also now it is a legal or political matter, that is to say, a matter that could be altered by the legal or political process, as the Constitution itself allows, if the American voters and their duly elected representatives would wish to do so.  The Second Amendment is not and never has been a moral matter.

If a person would not recognize clearly that the Second Amendment solely is a legal and political matter, not a moral one, neither will he think clearly or accurately when he would need to consider his biblical response should the government amend or even suspend the Second Amendment.

In regards to legal and political enactments put into positive law, God wants his believers to be patient with such matters, and to obey the law until it would be changed.  If God would be using a foolish law to punish foolish citizens, he will keep it in place until he would be finished.

Moral matters, to be sure, could not be amended or suspended.  The Bible has put bounds on governmental authority regarding God’s will.  That is, God will not allow the government to overrule God himself.  If the government ever would pass a law which would amend or suspend Christian morality, then Christians will have to obey the clear biblical maxim of Acts 5:29, and obey God’s law and not the government’s law which would contradict it.  That is to say, Christians merely would ignore such a law.  They would not comply with it.  They might have to flee the locale or the country, but they will not actively work to overthrow the government.

(14) It is when patriot Americans would believe that they have the right to use deadly force in self-defense against those in government who would confiscate their firearms, because the confiscators will be using deadly force. 

The conclusion that should a government ever outlaw or confiscate all firearms, it then will turn around and execute every citizen who ever had possessed a firearm will be a false and an emotional deduction.  While such a policy could be possible, it will not be probable.  Evil leaders of governments have targeted political enemies for the purpose of killing them, to be sure, but not for the sole reason that they had possessed property in the form of a firearm.  For instance, the German citizens, who had possessed firearms prior to the German gun control laws of the 1920’s and the 1930’s, were not all subsequently executed by the government.  Indeed, those who joined the party in power could possess firearms.

Yet what if the government would not act according to this plan?  For instance, what if an employee of the county, a polite young man in his 20’s dressed in casual clothing, would show up at your front door after parking his white van that says “Community Service” on the side of it, and would inform you, “I am here not to notify you about the sprinkling ban, but to notify you that according to a law recently passed, your property has been condemned, though you will be compensated for it under eminent domain.  Here is your check.  See that you move out, for I am the one to take charge of your property!”

What would the patriot Americans do then?  This young man would not be posing a deadly threat to them or to their property.  What he would be doing may seem unfair to them, but it would be legal constitutionally (see the Fifth Amendment).  This law would not be touching their right to self-defense.  Thus the use of deadly force on the basis of self-defense would be out of the question not only legally and constitutionally, but also morally, if you will.

Moreover, in this same connection, what if a law would be passed under eminent domain, for which patriot Americans would be compensated, in which not the whole of their real estate would be condemned, but only a small portion of their property, namely, their firearms?  Furthermore, what if the same young man would show up at your door with your check and a shopping cart for your firearms, remarking, “A law has been passed with the consent of the governed,” or even “enough states properly and constitutionally voted to drop the Second Amendment.”  Patriot Americans could not argue that this new law was not legal, constitutional, or even moral.  They could not argue that the law took away their right or their ability to defend themselves.  So what would they do?  Bury their firearms, or refuse to hand them over? on what legal, constitutional, or moral grounds?  This brings us back to the idolatry for firearms.

To be sure, in an act of self-defense we may resort to means to preserve our lives as long as those means are moral and legal, not immoral, that is, not against God’s biblical commandments; and not illegal (Exodus 22:2-3, for instance), that is, not against the government which God himself has installed over us.

Though it is not stated explicitly, the matter of self-defense is implied in the Fifth Commandment, just as the matters of eating food, of seeking medical help, or of struggling to keep from drowning are implied also.  Not to do these things would be a sin because we would not be showing reasonable care as a steward in using the means which God has given us to preserve our bodies.  Nevertheless, God in his higher plans and power may override any of our efforts so that, for example, any medical help will not work, any food will not be available, or any effort to keep ourselves from drowning will not work, so that he may take us to heaven.

If God would desire, and obviously he does on account of their gospel unbelief, to take away every freedom which he, the Creator, has given to his creatures, including the right to bear firearms, what will patriot Americans do to prevent him? Will they shoot the messenger, that is, shoot the government?  Will they be so shortsighted to believe that by shooting the messenger they would solve their freedom problem?

(15)  It is when patriot Americans would display the presupposition that legislation regarding the possession of firearms is not a political matter, but a moral matter, thus dragging God and his Fifth Commandment (regarding self-defense) into their argument in order to justify their rebellion against government; expecting God to approve of their rebelling with deadly force, as a matter of self-defense, against bad government, on account of its restriction of or confiscation of property in the form of firearms.

Yet the laws of our government have not denied a citizen the right of self-defense.  That right still stands. Neither have our laws forbidden the use of weapons by a citizen in self-defense.  That right still exists.

Moreover, it would not follow logically that when a government would deny a citizen access to a firearm, it thereby will deny him access to a sufficient and reasonable self-defense; that is to say, a citizen could not defend himself properly without a firearm.  This is not true.

What is more, an ex-felon, for instance, who would behave as an upright citizen after having served his sentence, who still would be forbidden by law to possess a firearm, also could make the argument that he could not perform a proper self-defense without a firearm.  Yet neither the government nor any firearms rights group of whom I know, has ever expressed any horror over the lack of capability of an ex-felon to defend himself, or of being stripped of his right properly to defend himself.

The point of all of this is to show that (1) American legislation (wisely or unwisely) regarding the possession of property in the form of firearms is not a moral but a political matter;  and that (2) patriot Americans are wrong to drag God and his Fifth Commandment  regarding self-defense into this matter, proposing that God would approve of their rebelling against the government with deadly force (which would violate the Fourth and Fifth Commandments) as a form of self-defense against the confiscation of their firearms, because they believe that their possession of firearms for self-defense purposes would be surely a moral matter on the basis of the natural law of self-defense (that is, on the Fifth Commandment).

(16)  It is when they would profess, in regards to the Second Amendment, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”

Yet such a creed is anti-biblical.  Nowhere has the Holy Spirit-inspired Scriptures commanded or urged any man to wish death upon himself if he could not enjoy certain civil liberties.  Such a creed would violate God’s Fifth Commandment.  The Christian slaves, for instance, were never urged by the New Testament epistles to make such a statement, and then to rebel with deadly force in order to realize the “unalienable Rights… of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Rather the Bible urged them to stay and “to serve” their masters, even “the harsh ones,” “as to Christ,” “doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:5-6; 1st Peter 2:18).

(17)  It is when they would promote their “law of unintended consequences,” in which, according to their usage, the plans of evil men in governments will be interrupted and will not succeed; and, furthermore, that evil men in government will get punished.

According to this theoretical law it would be assumed that contained within every plan or event there will be a certain amount of imperfection or chaos which, at random without prediction or warning, will arise and act as an obstacle, frustrating the original intention.  This law would be similar to the theories of fate, luck, or chance.

However, the use of this expression “the law of unintended consequences” will be a demonstration by patriot Americans by which they would  (1) deny the biblical teaching that God is in control of all human events, but would believe in such concepts as luck and fate;  (2) would reject his protective promises to his believers and his punitive threats to unbelievers; and  (3) believe that unbelieving men could outwit the Almighty, catch him unaware of their plans and acts, and frustrate God’s own designs.

How, then, could the providence of God throughout history be explained?  Would there be some “law of God’s intended providence” on which the Christian could depend which would make sense to human reason, and be consistent in its outcome as, for example, the law of gravity is?

To be sure, there are biblical maxims of which a Christian could and should be divinely certain, such as, God rules in the middle of his enemies (Psalm 110:2); God upholds all things by the Word of his power (Hebrews 1:3); God is in control of all things; and “all thing work together for good for those who love God” (Romans 8:28).

Just the same, in practice, according to human estimate, God does not always respond according to his protective pledges, as we would like him to do so.  Indeed, children will say the same thing about their parents, and citizens about their government.

For instance, in the liturgical Gospel reading appointed for the Christian churches for the Sunday after the New Year, Matthew 2:13-23, three biblical cases are reported in which believers either had to flee the country for their lives, suffer death, or abandon their home, simply because a tyrant wanted to put them to death.  In all of these cases, the reader could be tempted to speculate as to why God did not respond fully with his protective promises; why he allowed evil men to cause so much suffering and cruelty.

First of all, God did not explain why he proceeded as he did in each case.  Secondly, you never will be able to see the mechanics of God, that is, how God is working with his power invisibly to accomplish and to fulfill those biblical maxims of his listed above; for instance, to make his will be done, to preserve his church on earth, or to rule in the middle of his enemies.  In fact, realize that it will be characteristic of God to array his worldly enemies in battle formation before him, give them time and opportunity to do their worst, and then decisively dash their plans and punish them!  In the middle of all of this, Christians have to remain patient and not to fret.

Thirdly, after each of these three events in Matthew 2:13-23, the Bible reports for your assurance, “In order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.”  This does not mean that according to his omniscience God merely was able to look into the future, and to report back to you on his findings, but that God personally planned these events in the past, told you about them ahead of time, brought it about that they would occur, and now points you back to these prophecies to remind and to reassure you that he is indeed in control of all things.  Today you have God’s biblical commands and promises with you to reassure you that he is indeed in control of all things. Use them!   Even if you were plagued and chastened all day long (Psalm 73:14), you still would have God’s personal unbreakable divine assurance that “all things work together for good for them who love God” (Romans 8:28).

(18)  It is when patriot Americans believe that, according to the creedal proposals of John Locke, they (1) are absolved from any further obedience to government, and  (2) may have a clear conscience also in rebelling against a government which has become tyrannical, since both of these responses would be allowed by God’s will.

In his Second Treatise on Government Locke confessed the creed that “Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.”  Locke’s motive for saying this was to justify a recent rebellion in England.  Nevertheless, rebellion against authority is not a case of self-defense, according to the principles of God’s law as revealed clearly in the Bible, and thus also according to “natural law,” which law will have to agree in all points with the biblical law of God.

Conclusion:  Genuine Christians in America need to be warned strongly not to be influenced by political solutions, but by the spiritual solutions.

This is a timeless biblical maxim that needs to be remembered, for not only will the sinful flesh of a Christian ignore the protective promises of God, and will look for solutions to his problems from the political, but his own countrymen passionately will exert their peer pressure upon him to do the same.  For instance, patriot Americans will look to the political when they worry about how to preserve their lives through self-defense.  So other groups will look to the political as they worry about retaining their possessions, their health, or their power, as if the political were their savior.

This worrying runs counter to the assurance of the Lord, “Do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat’? or ‘what will we drink’? or ‘what will we wear’?” (Matthew 6:31-32), for this worrying will indicate nothing but doubt of Heaven’s promises of preservation and protection (“Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things”), and the thinking of unbelief (“All these things the Gentiles seek”).  Rather than the political, the Lord urges, “Seek first the kingdom of God and of his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you!” (Matthew 6:33.)  That is to say, look to the spiritual, not to the political!  Look to the protective promises of God not only for your soul’s salvation, but also for your body in this life, and he will carry out in practice his pledge to see to it that your life will be protected from harm, from loss, and from want, even in dark, desperate, and dangerous days!

Do not be shaken from God’s pledges!

In this regard genuine Christians need to be warned against the unbiblical intent, creed, and practice of some of those in the patriot American movement today.  Though this political intent, creed, and practice could have a strong appeal to the Christians’ flesh, genuine believers must be warned in order that they may not become a participant of other men’s sins (1st Timothy 5:22), call down God’s anger, and be punished under “the mighty hand of God” (1st Peter 5:6).

[1] Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth edition (Saint Paul:  West Publishing Company, 1979), page 965B.

[2]  William E.H. Lecky, The American Revolution, editor James A. Woodburn (New York:  D. Appleton and Company, 1908), page 223f.

[3] Henry Campbell Black, (“Ita utere”) Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth edition (Saint Paul:  West Publishing Company, 1979), page 747A.
[4] Martin Luther, “Temporal Authority,” translator J. J. Schindel, Luther’s Works, editor Walther I. Brandt (Fortress Press:  Philadelphia, 1962), volume 45, page 90f.
[5] Johann Spangenberg, The Christian Year of Grace, editor and translator Matthew Carver (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 2014), page 186A.
[6] Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible, New Testament volume II (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 1922), pages 69A&B, and 70A.
[7] Johann Spangenberg, The Christian Year of Grace, editor and translator Matthew Carver (Saint Louis:  Concordia, 2014), page 352.
[8] Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth edition (Saint Paul:  West Publishing Company, 1979), page 887B.
[9] Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth edition (Saint Paul:  West Publishing Company, 1979), page 627B.
[10] Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth edition (Saint Paul:  West Publishing Company, 1979), page 627A.
[11] John Foxe, Foxe’s Christian Martyrs of the World (Chicago:  Moody Press, no date), pages 98-99.