Political System
Today’s Old Testament reading tells us all we need to know about why things have gotten so bad in the formerly Christian and Catholic countries.
1 Samuel 8:4-7, 10-22
“All the elders of Israel came in a body to Samuel at Ramah
and said to him, “Now that you are old,
and your sons do not follow your example,
appoint a king over us, as other nations have, to judge us.“
Samuel was displeased when they asked for a king to judge them.
He prayed to the LORD, however, who said in answer:
“Grant the people’s every request.
It is not you they reject, they are rejecting me as their king.“
God recognized that human vanity, as it had in The Garden, took precedence over belief and obedience. He understood that He was being rejected. So, He gave us kings, and endless wars. After kings ruled most of Christendom for eighteen centuries, the same sort of bitter rabble-rousers who’d asked Samuel to ask God for a King began to pray for various “Republics” and “Democracies”. Not all those people were asking God for help. Some were so desperately anxious for the power they could gain by rejecting the kings God had given them that they asked the virus and its minions for help.
God had Samuel make very clear what would happen. People would lose freedom, family, and property.
“Samuel delivered the message of the LORD in full
to those who were asking him for a king.
He told them:
“The rights of the king who will rule you will be as follows:
He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots and horses,
and they will run before his chariot.
He will also appoint from among them his commanders of groups
of a thousand and of a hundred soldiers.
He will set them to do his plowing and his harvesting,
and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots.
He will use your daughters as ointment makers, as cooks, and as bakers.
He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive groves,
and give them to his officials.
He will tithe your crops and your vineyards,
and give the revenue to his eunuchs and his slaves.
He will take your male and female servants,
as well as your best oxen and your asses,
and use them to do his work.
He will tithe your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves.
When this takes place,
you will complain against the king whom you have chosen,
but on that day the LORD will not answer you.“
They gave up what they had, and got the kings they requested. They also ended up with the slavery that always accompanies political systems as they devolve into manic tax-and-spend structures.
In the late 1700s, bitter, disaffected people were crying out for “justice”. They worked as hard to get rid of their emperors, empresses, kings, queens, czars, and czarinas as their ancestors had labored to replace God’s judges with human kings. They failed to heed what had happened to them 2,800 years previously when they lost the advantage in Rule by Judge. That had made a superior society because it encouraged all men to seek justice, in their own actions and in the actions of others.
As before, the desire to replace kings with democracy was granted, for much the same reason, vanity. They forgot they were making an even bigger mistake than they’d previously made at Ramah.
“The people, however, refused to listen to Samuel’s warning and said,
“Not so! There must be a king (now, an elected official) over us.
We too must be like other nations,
with a king (elected official) to rule us and to lead us in warfare
and fight our battles.”
When Samuel had listened to all the people had to say,
he repeated it to the LORD, who then said to him,
“Grant their request and appoint a king to rule them.”
Just as the Israelites rejected God for the Kings they felt they “must” have, later they rejected Kings for democracy or pretences to it. In our time, many are rejecting democracy, seeking a Castro-like rule that they think will provide personal benefit to those advocating it.
We realize that the unholy marriage of Communists and Moslems will reduce humanity to a world-wide prison camp, much like North Korea. It seems unavoidable. We may pray for deliverance, despite knowing that Scripture promises “that on that day, the Lord will not answer you.”
Still, we may ask that The Loving Programmer be more concerned with mercy than with justice and deliver us from evil governments that began with what our ancestors so vociferously demanded.
We Get the Political System For Which We Ask brought to you by Catholic Fundamentalism.
