“Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; reprove a man of understanding, and he will gain knowledge.” Proverbs 19:25
“Condemnation is ready for the scoffers, and beating for the backs of fools.” Proverbs 19:29
The fact of sin in the world means that strife and conflict are unavoidable. It’s folly to cry, “peace, peace” while avoiding the subject of man’s sin. It’s humanistic hubris to proclaim “tolerance and equality” while ignoring the cross. Unless men are righteous, they cannot have true peace. They might have a cessation of open hostilities, but not peace. And since righteousness can only come through faith, amazing as it is to hear, the solution to war and conflict is Christ alone.
Therefore, since this is a sin-sick world, conflict is reality. Some of these conflicts will result in violence. This fact makes self-defense necessary. It also makes the civil magistrate necessary. The state/government exists to act as God’s avenger against those who directly violate the person and/or property of their neighbor. A fact we must reckon with flows from this. Might doesn’t make right, but right must possess might or else evil will prosper. In other words, when good men are not strong men they are actually not good men, but the Devil’s men, because all men must be strong in faith, regardless of their physical capability. The violent reality of sin (see Cain and Abel) requires that men turn to Jesus Christ for salvation and the defeat of sin in their hearts through faith alone. At this point men can see clearly the reality of God’s moral law and the corollaries of self-defense and the avenging civil magistrate (Romans 12-13).
A free and prosperous society isn’t a sinless one, but one that more and more adheres to the Lord’s categories of life. That perfect union will come only in the new Jerusalem of Revelation 21. It cannot come until then because only Jesus Christ is righteous and only He has, therefore, the “right and might.” All other attempts to achieve peace and justice outside of this are simply further continuations of man’s war on God and his attempt to be his own god. A weak and unarmed person unprepared for self-defense that drives around with a “co-exist” bumper sticker isn’t naive. They’re arrogant and stupid. They dare say that sin doesn’t exist as God defines it and, in that pride, demand that everyone “get along.” Violence is the consequence of sin because sin is the attempted overthrow of God’s moral authority.Thus, to protest violence and aggression without the eradication of sin (man’s pretend moral authority) through faith in Christ is, in actuality, another form of aggression.
America and its constitution were founded on these truths. Madison said that the constitution was made for a Christian people and none other could maintain it. Why? Because unrighteousness leads to self-indulgence and self-indulgence produces conflict and conflict produces violence. Washington, Adams, Jefferson..they all envisioned an America that was a Christian Sparta. This is the broader context of the 2nd amendment, by the way. No one has anything to fear from a truly free man…unless they attack him. And a truly free man is free only in Christ because sin is an enslaver. The logic of sin is the survival of the fittest. The logic of sin is Cain and Abel and Lamech (Genesis 4) and the strong dominating the weak.
A powerful man who isn’t God’s man is a tyrant. A ruler who uses authority for any reason other than God’s purpose is an illegitimate ruler. Why? Because all authority and power must flow downhill. Unless God’s word/law is the source of one’s power and action, the action is revolutionary. Politicians should be asked where authority comes from and what limits human governments have. This is the question that serves as a flashlight upon one’s deepest convictions. Who is ultimate?
America is now in a precarious situation because it’s a weakened economic and moral power despite its massive military. Heavily indebted and facing rising inflation, we simply can’t afford any affront to the dollar’s international status. If that were to happen, our economy would utterly collapse. Debt makes one weak, so strong men and nations seek to avoid it. America’s massive $30 trillion dollar deficit is more dangerous to her than enemy bombs for the simple reason that without the capital to fund her defense, she will fall. And without the character that comes from people being able to delay gratification, she cannot hope to win hard battles. A country with so much debt is like an overweight boxing champion, fat from ease. You don’t get $30 trillion in debt by living in self-control.
Second, by shutting off domestic energy production at home, we’ve grown dependent upon other nations’ goodwill. Independence requires resources and there’s no material resource more important than energy. The Left’s war on coal, gas, and oil are demonic in that it’s these things that have given billions of people liberty, health, and leisure. Reliable electricity has lifted mankind out of the despair of wondering where a meal might come from to the point now where people in “poverty” are obese! What a blessing that is and yet it’s hardly ever mentioned in our unthankful land. (We should remember that the Lord, in Romans 1, mentions unthankfulness as the first sign of our suppressing the truth about God in our hearts).
This is all due to America’s slide into open hostility toward the Lord and His word. The American government is now awash with politicians who believe the only limit on their authority/power is the next election or a court decision. But real power is in righteousness. Having unhooked from the protection of the Lord and presuming upon the power given to it by previous generations, our current administration is entering the law of the jungle where the evil men of the world have nothing to fear. When men reject God and try to raise themselves up, they’re shocked that the opposite happens. They go lower. They become animals – hyper sexual and violent – where the strong prey upon the weak and peace comes at the price of slavery and submission.
The man who won’t submit to God’s authority will submit to a false ruler or try and be one himself. Thus, when men reject God they soon find that they can’t study poetry and music – they must study war or else be victims of the sin they’ve chosen. War isn’t hell. War is the shadow of hell. Hell is hell. War is a consequence of sin; it’s a downpayment of the horror that awaits all those who live by the principles of humanism. Humanism doesn’t bring men back to paradise, it lowers them to Hades.
Deputy presidential adviser Daleep Singh said this about the Russian invasion:
“Strategic success in the 21st century is not about a physical land grab of territory. That’s what Putin has done. In this century, power – strategic power is increasingly measured and exercised by economic strength, by technological sophistication, and your story – who you are, what your values are, can you attract ideas and talent and goodwill. On each of those measures, this would be a failure for Russia.”
It’s a good thing that the Lord has not decreed that stupidity is physically painful or else the deputy presidential adviser would be in a coma.
He, like all men of sin and pride, will soon discover that his emotions don’t stop bullets. Russia is showing the West the law of the jungle that awaits lest it repent. The black smoke of the bombs rising in Ukraine are but the warning shots of judgment. Former Secretary of State John Kerry said he hopes the invasion doesn’t stop the war on climate change. What Mr. Kerry needs to understand is that his eschatological fantasies of climate catastrophe, and the state’s messianic complex, will be buried under the rubble of wars started by unrepentant sin.
America’s government should be strong in the way God commands the civil magistrate to be strong. It should be powerful in the Lord, ready to punish the one who does evil by breaking God’s moral law against his/her neighbor. The state isn’t a moral free agent. It has been established by God to provide self-defense to those who are overpowered or defrauded. The moral civil magistrate is the self-defense arm of the Lord – His avenger. Its job is to protect citizens. How? By avenging evil that an individual could have used self-defense for but, for whatever reason, was unable to do so. Likewise, the moral state will have a military to protect its citizens from invaders. All other exertions of the civil magistrate are evil and cause evil.
Chaos and inflation are rising in the world because governments have rejected God’s law. We now live in an era of the messianic state. That’s the Tower of Babel…it’s the desire of humanistic man to rule himself and eject God from His creation. It always ends in bankruptcy and war. Always.
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