Do You Put Your Trust In Your Government? Hosea 8-14

Hosea 13:10-11 (ESV Strong's)

Where now is your king, to save you in all your cities?

Where are all your rulers—

those of whom you said,

“Give me a king and princes”?

I gave you a king in my anger,

and I took him away in my wrath.

Is Your Trust In Your Government?

Israel, back in Samuel’s day, asked for a king.   To them a king would:

1.  Make them on the same level as other nations.

2.  Give them a leader they could follow to war.

3.  Help them set up a system, like the world, of structure and order of hierarchy. 

The problem with all those thoughts is that the request for a human government system was a rejection of God’s plan for a Theocracy.   That is God’s plan.  In the Old Testament the Theocracy was God as the King and Israel as the nation who served and honored the King (God).   In the New Testament we have Christ come to set up His Kingdom and the Believers are to be the servants of the King (Jesus).  God’s plan is a Theocracy.   A democratic society seems to be the will of the people.  Our country goes around the world hoping to set up a free society of democracy.   That all sounds wonderful.  The problem with a “people” run government is very flavorful for most people.   It certainly beats many, if not all, the other human designs of government (dictatorship, aristocracy, communism, colonialism, bureaucracy, etc.).  But, when the “people” rule and set up the rule, there is one element that is absolutely required for that form of government to work: Absolute Truth.   This is why, in our country, we “hear” the talk and importance of the “rule of law.”    The problem with “people” being self-governed is that when “people” make up their own “rules” they will eventually water down truth to fit their inward desires.   When we water down truth, there is not truth and their only remains social-relativism.   If one person believes one thing is this type of truth and another believes the same thing is another type of truth, we eventually have a government that will be destroyed by the same people who wish to govern it.   If God sets up a Theocracy than God establishes the “truth” that all people follow and “God’s truth” rules the day.  This is what happened with Israel.  They rejected God’s Theocracy government and, therefore, God gave them a king in his anger.  That lead the nation to further reject “God’s Truth” and now God (in the book of Hosea) was using a king of another nation (Assyria) to bring His wrath on His people who had rejected their king.  In our country we are in a similar place.  Although never set up as a Theocracy, our country was established on the rule of law.   Now almost everyone of the laws are falling into social relativism.  That means there is no truth.  When there is no truth we fall into anarchy.   This is what happens when man wants to self-govern; even calling it something pretty like “democracy.”   We can only have ANY TYPE of government if it is based upon God’s law and God’s truth.  If not, anyone can say what is true and what is not true.  That is simply not true.   Do we trust in a man-made government, or do we trust in God’s Theocratic Rule?