The Dangers of Centralized Power. 1 Sam 8; 1 Kings 12

Chapter twelve introduces the new king, the son of Solomon by the name of Rehoboam. There is a fascinating situation take place immediately as is faced with a challenge to his leadership by the leaders of the ten tribes in the north, and this takes the form of at least a challenge to the taxation policy of his father Solomon.

There are several key chapters in the Bible that address various aspects related to politics. We are really running into challenges today in our contemporary political environment (ever since the early sixties) about just exactly how we express the role religious belief in government. There are those who want say things along the line of religion has no place in politics. Can we really keep religion out of politics? If the Bible truly tells us how things are then as a Christian can we make decisions in the political realm, either as a voter or as a legislator or leader, that doesn’t take into account what God says in His Word? As a citizen we can’t not take this into account; we have to take this into account. Otherwise we are basically saying that Christianity just deals with some very subjective, isolated and compartmentalised area in our life that only deals with God, salvation and the spiritual life. But the inclusive idea there is that if Christianity and the Bible doesn’t teach us how we are to think and act in relation to government, the basic foundational principles of political science and social organisation, then what we are basically saying is that the creator of mankind, the creator of the universe, doesn’t have anything to say about the organisation of society and the relationships of man. This just flies in the face of much of Scripture.

So we have to think about this also from the viewpoint of the role of government. Is it the role of government to implement a religious system? Is it the role of government to support a religious system? Where do you draw the line? Anybody who is governing is going to govern from some worldview, and that worldview is either going to be one that is informed by the Bible or it is going to be informed by something other than the Bible. In other words, it is either going to be divine viewpoint or human viewpoint and there is no other option.

We have said several things about the tower of Babel and now we will expand a little on that. What was not said was that as part of the perversion government is established, judicial authority I delegated—Genesis 9. In Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel Nimrod seeks to build his own kingdom. That is the first use of the word “kingdom” in the Bible, and it is a perversion of what God instituted in Genesis chapter nine. The interesting thing is that religion is integrally connected to the political kingdom aspect of Nimrod’s power base. He sets the whole thing up within a religious system. So he perverts religion and coopts religion in order to support his own agenda. So we have the distortion of religion for the use of political ends and that is the beginning of much evil that has occurred in history.

It is only reasonable for us to believe that the God who created all things, created man (male and female), designed the entire social concept which includes marriage, family and government, and that He would also address from Scripture principles related to each of these. What we see in the first set of divine institutions are institutions that established before the fall, before sin. The post-flood institutions of judicial authority and national distinctions are designed in an evil environment to protect the first three. Without a protection of the first three divine institutions—individual responsibility, marriage and family—the entire social structure will erode and collapse internally. That is why this full issue related to gay/homosexual marriage is such a crucial thing to understand.

Now what appears what appears on the marriage licenses in California is not husband and wife but first person and second person. If you are a Christian and you scratch that out and put husband and wife then the marriage licence application will be denied. This is a direct assault on Christian beliefs. You cannot get married in the state of California and uphold your religious belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. That is already beginning to change how pastors can perform church responsibilities to God and ministry. And this is only the beginning. This has the potential to completely destroy ministry because now the government is beginning to step in and say what is acceptable and what is legitimate within the framework of church ministry. God has the right to address the society he established.

If as Christians we believe that God is the creator and that He created all things, and this is our view of reality, and that God has addressed all of these social issues, then we should also believe that He addresses principles related to government as well. If we are going to develop a view of government, a view of leadership, then our starting point as a Christian is going to be the Word of God and not political science down at the local university, or civics class in high school.

The Noahic covenant and the establishment of judicial authority in Genesis chapter nine was quickly followed by the first subversion of judicial authority and government by the tyrannical kingdom established by Nimrod for the purpose of challenging God. This is where we see for the first time in history the development of the kingdom of man, and throughout history there is going to be this challenging—the two threads that run counter to one another—of the kingdom of man (Satan through man) seeks to establish his own domain and kingdom on the earth versus God who is seeking to move into human history and to establish His own King, who is the promised Messiah from the Old Testament, who will finally then establish His kingdom on the earth and rule man as only He can rule man, and as man only should be ruled. So there is the beginning of this conflict that runs as a thread all the way through the Bible from Genesis 11 until there is the destruction of the Antichrist in Revelation chapter nineteen. In the Tribulation period Satan gets as close as he can get to establishing the universal kingdom of man on earth. He just about gets there and then everything just falls apart, and Jesus Christ comes back and is established as the true divine King. So this conflict between God and Satan is played out within the realm of human politics and human kingdoms. We can’t look at human history and divorce it from that.

There are several things to note here. Government (Genesis 9 and Romans 13) is related to protection of people in terms of protecting them from criminality and from external enemies. This idea comes from the idea of the sword which is developed in Romans 13, and the sword is always a metaphor for power to determine life or death, either in terms of execution of criminals or in terms of warfare.

Romans 13:1 ^NASB “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God…” God is the one who overrules history, the one who raises kings and removes kings. “… and those which exist are established [appointed] by God.”

The reason authority is such an issue all through Scripture is because that is the core issue in the angelic conflict. Satan subverted the authority of God. This is why the Scriptures make it such an important issue to obey authority, because once a person sets up in his mind the mental framework that “I’m the one who really judges whether any authority is valid or not” it is easy to take that same mentality to God and say “I’m going to judge whether or not God has the right to tell me to do this or that.” So authority orientation is foundational in the angelic conflict and for the believer.

Romans 13:2 ^NASB “Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. [3] For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; [4] for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”

This shows the limitation of government. There are limits in Scripture for government. God institutes government and then He says there are limits for government. It is not the role of government to take care of the spiritual needs of people. That is just one aspect and it puts a line between religion and politics.

Our view of authority must come out of Scripture; our view of government must come out of Scripture; our view of the extent or limits of government must also come out of Scripture. This is because our understanding of government is going to be directly related to our understanding of man’s basic nature—is man basically good or basically evil? The two elements of the judiciary and the military are both embedded in this concept of the sword, and so from one perspective religion can’t be divorced from politics because it is the revelation of God’s Word that helps us understand who man is, what society is, what absolutes are, and how they should come together. On the other hand it is not the role of political leaders to address or impose religion upon a society. Also we have to factor in the fact that from the viewpoint of government itself it can’t be totally devoid of religion. You can’t come into a judicial body or a legislature and say you are going to set aside your Christian [or Islamic, Jewish or even secular atheist] convictions. But at the same time we can’t let a religious system come in and be dictated to the people at large.

In Deuteronomy chapter seventeen God described the limits of kingship—that the king is under the authority of the law. If we look at parallel passages of Scripture such as Proverbs 1:7 we understand that the fear of the Lord from a biblical viewpoint is the beginning of knowledge. Learning to read and appreciate Darwin is not the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is a respect for God’s authority and orientation to God’s authority, and that is the beginning of knowledge.

No other civilization than Israel in the ancient world had the king under the law. In the kingdom of man this is always the pressure from human empires for the king to be the source of law. So if the Bible teaches that the king is under the law then the law must be broader than, larger than creation. It can only come from the creator. If the law ultimately derives from the creation then law is mutable and relative, but if the law comes from the creator then law is absolute. So what do we have to do? If we don’t like God we have to get rid of creationism. Once we get rid of creationism then the creator who creates man gets removed and now these just become conventions rather than absolutes.

The Enlightenment period tried to come to truth apart from any kind of revelation. A lot of Enlightenment thinking influenced the founding of the USA and that element is the nation’s weakness because it provides an inadequate basis for government because it ultimately looks to elements within the creation as its source of authority. Once you put the ultimate source of authority within creation—that government derives from the consent of the governed—that is putting government with its origin from within society. Part of what God is showing in Israel’s history is that human authorities and human kings are always going to fail. Human politics are not the solution; the only solution is God’s solution and God’s King.

Deuteronomy 17 says that the king is not to multiply wives to himself, he is not to increase his wealth at the expense of the people, he is to under the authority of the law, and we see that Solomon failed on all these counts. 1 Samuel chapter eight says is that it is almost the inevitable trend of fallen man in governing positions to take advantage of the governed. Up to the point of 1 Samuel 8 Israel has been a pure theocracy—they did not have an executive branch, a king, a dictator; they had God. God ruled over Israel and He spoke to them through prophets such as Moses, He delivered them through judges such as Gideon and others, he instructed them through prophets and through priests. Samuel is a judge, a prophet and a priest, and in that he stands in a unique position in Israel’s history.

1 Samuel 8:5 ^NASB “and they said to him, ‘Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.’” Part of their problem was that they wanted to have a king like all the other nations. All of the other nations are modelling kingship according to the pattern that started at Babel with the kingdom of man, a kingship that wraps up religion and autocracy, is tyrannical at the expense of the people, and these kingdoms are attempting to do for them people what God says only He can do. They are trying to bring in health and happiness and prosperity without being dependent upon God.

1 Samuel 8:6 ^NASB “But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ And Samuel prayed to the LORD. [7] The LORD said to Samuel, ‘Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. [8] Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day—in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also.’”

What is God reminding Samuel of there? He was reminding him that if the people would exercise the faith-rest drill toward God that God would protect them from their enemies. God protected them from the most horrendous tyrannical government possible under the Pharaoh’s when they were in Egypt. God also protected them from various military incursions, even though God let them be defeated for disciplinary reasons; He protected them from incursions of the Midianites, the Philistines, the Amalekites, and others that came in during the period of the judges. In the previous two chapters God has protected them miraculously from the Philistines and given them a victory finally. God had demonstrated that He can protect Israel. They just had to trust in Him, but they rejected that.

Kingship in the Old Testament is related to God who is the initial King of Israel, and the kingship in Israel is going to culminate in the Kingship of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Millennial kingdom. That brackets our understanding of kingship within Israel. What God is going to show through human kings is going to be important for understanding the need that only a divine human King can provide in the Lord Jesus Christ. In contrast to the kingship model that is set forth in Deuteronomy and in 1 Samuel the kingdom of man is constantly seeking to assert itself as the ultimate solution to man’s problems. The kingdom of man is simply a human manifestation of the broader challenge to God’s authority that comes out of the angelic conflict. Satan is the one who is using the kingdom of man to establish his power base within human history in order to assert his control over the planet. In contrast to that we see that God is ultimately going to defeat Satan during the Tribulation when He establishes His King, Jesus Christ the King of kings and Lord of lords over the kingdoms of man in the Millennial kingdom.

When we look at the success of Israel’s kings their successes will typify or picture key attributes of Jesus Christ—key attributes in David, his humility; key attributes in Solomon, his wisdom; key attributes in some of the other kings. The positive things picture attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ, the virtues that a king must have to rule. But every one of these human kings has a flaw and a failing and God is demonstrating that human kings ultimately can’t provide the solution.

So in 1 Samuel 8 God is going to give the people what they want so that they will learn and develop the capacity to appreciate what they need. It is in Saul’s failure that the people learn what they should have and what God gives them in David, so that they can appreciate David. So God installs Saul for a reason and it is to prepare them for His choice. In this section God is going to give them fair warning, and in that warning which they reject they take on their own condemnation. The irony in this is that God gives them everything they need but they constantly just reject it and it just comes back upon them. In this chapter God points out the danger of human kings and that that danger resides in their desire for autonomous power which is used by them to enhance their own standing, their own wealth, their own power base, and to expand their own kingdom for their own agenda. One of the prime moving forces in human kingdoms is power and a desire to establish man to solve his own problems in place of God.

We see in Deuteronomy that the divine ideal for human government is limited government. When we read through the Mosaic Law it is a government that is designed to preserve property and property ownership which is the foundation for liberty. Basic rule of thumb: If we see somebody running for office and they want to take away anybody’s money they anti-liberty, because the more we get the keep the more liberty we have, and the more options we have in life. When we look at the principles laid out in the Old Testament the king was to preserve freedom and property because property is directly related to liberty, but we also see in Deuteronomy 17 and subsequent chapters that the king does not function in the same realm and the same role as the prophet and the priest. The king is under the authority of the prophet and the priest. It is Samuel the prophet who anoints Saul as king; it is Samuel the prophet who anoints David as king. The king does not get over into the religious field, there was a complete separation between the religious responsibilities of the priest and the prophet and the leadership and ruling responsibilities of the king in Israel. The king was not to function in the spiritual realm of the Mosaic Law, he was completely separate. And that has tremendous implications. Whenever they violated that, God brought judgment on the people.

But in the kingdom of man what we see from the tower of Babel on is that the kingdom of man trends toward combining the role of the king and prophet, and perverts government into a religious function that robs people of property and liberty. So that when the state becomes a purveyor of religion it destroys freedom and liberty, tyranny always follows, and in its wake comes much evil. We see many incidents of this all down through history, from the ancient world with Egyptian and Mesopotamian empires, to Rome and the divine Caesar, into more modern time the holy Roman empire—the Roman Catholic church is an attempt to merge those two fields—and then in the 20^th century there was the rise of Nazi Germany which had a strong religious overtone to it, the whole Soviet empire, even though atheistic, still had a messianic role to play—a utopian workers’ paradise, and then by the end of the 20^th century was the rise of Islamic theocracy and for the desire for Islam to establish their eschatological kingdom on the earth. So the problem that we see is that when government steps out of its divinely appointed role to protect the people, their property and their assets it will use their property, assets and property for its own prestige and power. That is what God warns the Jews about in 1 Samuel chapter eight.

1 Samuel 8:11 ^NASB “He said, “This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and place {them} for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen and they will run before his chariots. [12] He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and {some} to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. [13] He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers.” All of these will become minions of the empire. [14] “He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give {them} to his servants. [15] He will take a tenth of your seed [increase of taxation] and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. [16] He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use {them} for his work. [17] He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants.”

What is the result of this? The people are going to cry out and complain: We need a different king, a different government. 1 Samuel 8:18 ^NASB “Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.” God is not going to listen to their prayers, they are going to get the leader they deserve because of the decisions they made in relation to God.

All of this focuses on the dangers of central governments and the dangers of large governments, and how centralised power ultimately destroys the basis for liberty ands property.