No Kings?

This weekend, there were many protests across the country, under the banner of “No Kings!” That was not a complaint about the Sacramento NBA team, (which indeed does warrant some criticism), but against our President and his policies, particularly regarding the enforcement of immigration laws. The implication was that the President was trying to exercise the power of a king.

When I first heard the slogan, the first thing that came to mind was not my happiness that I live in a constitutional republic instead of a monarchy, but actually some verses from the biblical book of Judges.

Judges has four verses, spread throughout the book, that present a recurring thought that defines the theme of the book. The first verse is Judges 17:6, which states: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” This statement is repeated with more or less the same words in verses 18:1, 19:1, and  21:25. These verses are in passages that tell of the Israelites doing acts of violence, idol worship, theft, war, and wife-stealing. The judgment that “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” was a complaint of sinful actions by the people of God, unrestrained by laws of God or man, and not enforced by a king.

“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Another repeated theme in Judges was a cycle of the people’s varied relationship to God and its consequences: first, peace and prosperity under God, then the people forget and abandon God, which leads to God chastising them with foreign oppressors. Then the people cry out to God for help. God hears and sends a judge (a military leader) who leads a God-empowered uprising to free the Israelites, who return to God. However, by the next generation, the people forget God again, and the cycle starts over (wash, rinse, repeat).

The criticism of people acting badly because of the lack of a king, was not the Scriptures’ endorsement of an all-powerful earthly ruler. We know this because later, in the book of 1 Samuel (8:4-6), when the Israelites insist that Samuel appoint for them a king “like all the nations,” God tells Samuel to do what the people want, but to warn them about the ways of kings. So Samuel warned the people with these words:

1. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots.
2. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties,
3. and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
4. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.
5. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants.
6. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.
7. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
8. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
9. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. (Verses 8:11-18)
   

God summarized the people’s request for an earthly king with the pronouncement “they have rejected me from being king over them.” (8:7).

God said, “they have rejected me from being king over them.“

Now that we have enumerated  the spiritual issues facing our country, we can put our finger on the problem. Our country, in its modern, “enlightened” form, has rejected God, his laws, and his morals. Claiming to be free of any king, earthly or heavenly, they feel liberated, doing what they want, without restraint of decency, morality, nor legality. “There was no king in America; everyone did what was right in his (her) own eyes.” Free to loot stores? Yep! Free to attack people they don’t like who are trying to restrain them? Sure! Free to burn cars, buildings, people? Yes! Free to put a statue of Satan in the Iowa Capitol? Absolutely! And charge the Christian with a hate crime who smashed part of it?* Of course!

Now, Americans have always been sinners. Like everyone else, they break the commandments and take advantage of our laws and freedoms to lie, cheat, and steal (some more than others). But overall, there was an agreed upon moral structure which informed our laws and existed to perform the God-given design of government: to restrain evil by mores, laws, or if needed, force. Romans 13:1-7 explains the God-ordained role of government:

1. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
2. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
3. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good.
4. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. ** For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.
5. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.
6. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

According to this passage, governments role is to maintain the peace and restrain evil-doers. The problem is, the general mood of many people in our country fits the pronouncement of Judges: “There was no king, so everyone does what is right in their own eyes.” And, without belief in or fear of God, there is no self-restraint, because they reject any earthly or heavenly authority over them.

After he crafted the U.S. Constitution, John Adams wrote a letter which said, “Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Adams is being proven right every day. The further we drift (that is, run) away from our Christian roots, the more that evil-doers will multiply and bring our society and our country to its knees.

Which is unfortunate, because the only time we should be on our knees is before the God in whom we claim to trust. For though we have no earthly king, we do have a heavenly King – Christ himself, whom the Scriptures call “King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15). Let us return to him, and experience what Israel did when it cried out to God for deliverance.

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: 1 Samuel 8:1-22; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Timothy 6:14-16.

*This is a true story. Statues of Satan  have also been placed in Detroit and Arkansas.

**I knew a sheriff’s deputy who told me that a number of deputies wore undershirts that read, “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.“