Today I want to talk a little bit about scriptural forms of government as found in the Bible.
Now many people think that the Bible is an outdated book or that it doesn't have the
answers for today, but really, if we would go to the Bible for the answer to our political
questions, we would find those answers within the book of Deuteronomy and many other places
in the Bible. I'm going to start in Deuteronomy chapter number 1 and I'm going to show you
today that basically a republican form of government is what God laid out for the children
of Israel in His law. Listen to this from Deuteronomy chapter 1, verse 13, Take you
wise men and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over
you. And ye answered me and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.
So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men and known, and made them heads over you, captains
over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over
tens, and officers among your tribes, and I charged your judges at that time, saying,
and then he goes on and on to describe this form of government, that he began in Deuteronomy
chapter 1, which was basically a representative republic. He basically told them, and this
is God telling them, that they needed to choose from among them leaders, men that would
rule over them, that were men of renown, that were godly men, that were righteous men, that
were honorable men with integrity. They were to choose their own rulers that would lead
them, and those rulers were called judges. They were the ones who were in authority.
Now later on, in the history of the children of Israel, they rejected this form of government
that God had given them, and they instituted a monarchy against God's wishes. You see,
God's original will and plan for the nation of Israel in the Old Testament was not to
be a monarchy, but to basically be a representative republic where they chose their own leaders.
They chose their own judges to rule over them. Listen to this scripture from 1 Samuel. This
is when they asked for a king. It says in 1 Samuel 8, 6, but the thing displeased Samuel
when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord
said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people, and all that they say unto thee,
for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign
over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought
them up out of Egypt, even unto this day wherewith they have forsaken me and served other gods,
so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, yet protest solemnly
unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. This is where
God begins to warn them what it's going to be like to live in a monarchy, what it's going
to be like to have a king. And he goes on and says how he'll take your sons and appoint
them for himself, for his chariots, to be his horsemen. And he goes on and on about
how they're going to be taxed, and they're going to be oppressed, and the king is going
to take money from them, and their fields, and their farms. And it says in verse 18,
And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king, which he shall have chosen you.
And the Lord will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the
voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like
all the nations. So we see that God's will was not for them to have a king, God's will
was not for them to have a monarchy, but rather to have a representative republic that he
laid out for them in Deuteronomy chapter 1. Today, thank God, we live in America and we
don't have a king. And we haven't had a king since 1776, when the Declaration of Independence
severed the ties between the United States and the King of Great Britain, George III.
And yet many Christians today and many churches today are teaching, and they'll take these
verses that say honor the king, and talk about obedience to the king, and then they'll apply
those verses to, say, President Barack Obama. Well, he's not our king. We live in a free
country where the law is supreme, the Constitution is supreme, and Barack Obama is just an elected
official who's to carry out the laws. He's to execute the laws, he's the executive branch,
but he is not our king, because thank God we don't have a king.
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