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FULL FAITH OR ALLEGIANCE

 

by Brother Gregory Williams
March 27, 2011
NewsWithViews.com

I was asked to write one more article for NewsWithViews.com before we leave on our national speaking tour of America. Well we are already half way across the country but I thought it should get right to the core of the problem as time is short for us all...

People either believe in intelligent design or they believe we are the result of a massive cosmic coincidence. If there is intelligent design then you either believe we have the power to make choices or you think we have no freewill and we are merely puppets playing out a three dimensional video choreographed by some supreme being for his pleasure. If you believe we have freewill you either believe God granted you the right to choose or you believe you are god and you can just make it up as you go along. Since I believe in the former in all three hypotheses those who don't probably can go do something else.

Okay, for those of you who are still reading, you are a product of intelligent design, with some sort of freewill power to make choices, you have a mutual and individual charge in the operation and maintenance of an entire planet and are told to dress it and keep it by your Creator.

Cool!

“What do you want to do?”

Ah! There is the problem. Every one seems to come up with a different idea of what we should do. It is all a part of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. Everyone has their own idea and wants to choose for themselves what is good and what is evil, what is right or wrong, just or fair.

Some people would like to think that there is no standard of right and wrong. They want to think that what is right or wrong is dependent on the individual only. That of course is ridiculous because it would void the idea of intelligent design. If there was no intelligent design their would be chaos and the world would be without form. Right and wrong is built into nature as a part of the design. You are still at liberty to choose the wrong or to do evil, but there will be a corresponding reaction in the world around you based on that choice.

From the beginning man has fallen prey to deception through his own pride and vanity. He has been beguiled with half truths and falsehoods and because of his pride and unwillingness to admit he made a mistake the situation only gets worse. If man will not govern himself based on those basic laws of life established in the nature of creation by God's design then he will suffer the consequences of what can only be called foolishness. In other words “If we will not be governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants.” [1]

When man was created he owed his natural allegiance to God[2] and God's vision of righteousness which is exemplified in the Tree of Life. When man began to decide for himself what was right and wrong, turning his back on God's gift he turned his back on the source of life. The truth is it is not Adam's sin that binds us to error but our own. We do not walk in the ways of Enoch, Abraham, Moses or Jesus the Christ, so we stumble through life wondering why the world is such a mess.

We would like to think we are doing right but would the world be in the mess it is in today if we were really doing what Christ said? Yes, many of the problems in the world today were prophesied but they are still the result of sin. The question is what side of the prophecy question are we on? Are we on God's side or are we doing what the adversary wants us to do?

Without the character of God ruling in our own hearts man began to seek ways to rule over their neighbor. At first, mankind had no dominion over or loyalty to any other man, except that allegiance to what is right and to Father and Mother that Sons and Daughters may owe by nature and God's command. [3]

When men will not be ruled by God they may choose to create some substitute to compensate for God' absence in their life. These “things” or “institutions” established by men as a substitute for God were called pacal in the Hebrew. We call that substitute an idol or graven image. Some would like to think that an idol is only a carved stone or wooden object or statue. What it really means is something made by men.

Governments are not created by God. They are created by men. They are often created by Contracts, Covenants and Constitutions.[4] They are not always cfreated in the image of God's righteousness but in the fallen nature of man... If those agreements require one class of citizen or member to relinquish their God given right to choose to another group of citizens, then by their nature they require man to give up a gift of choice granted by God.[5]

The fallen nature of mankind has been attempting to rule over his brother from the beginning. No man would relinquish his liberty unless he is under the delusion that he would profit by it. When the voice of the people[6] began to gather by social compacts and contract[7] under other men in what can be called civil governments, like Cain, Lemech and Nimrod, Saul, Pharaoh, and Caesar, despite the warnings by God[8] things often went from bad to worse.

“The civil law is what a people establishes for itself.” [9]

Those civil governments are created by men and they derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The government's right to rule over the people grows at the same rate man's individual rights and choices diminish. Those leaders who have an appetite for that granted power and authority will eventually through ambuscade contrive or demanded more and more power as the people become more and more dependent.

The centralization of power corrupts the rulers and subjects the people as society moves farther from the precepts of God's righteousness into a realm of self-righteousness and social decay.
Apathy and sloth atrophy any sense of true righteousness in the people through a neglect of virtue. The symptoms of the degeneration of society will abound before its total collapse but the people will need to be kept asleep and placated in false hope so that they do not awaken to the truth of their own assent and rebel against their masters or learn to do without them.

This is why the first agenda of the adversary of God is to create a false religion to justify men in their own minds while they daily neglect the weightier matters that Christ listed so clearly. A successful and secure deception is dependent upon the people believing that they are not deceived but someone may be coming to deceive them. We should not assume that we are not already deceived or at least misled since we were told that almost all would be deceived.

“For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if [it were] possible, even the elect.” Mark 13:22 [10]

Before national rulers brought their own nation to ruin they often devoured their neighbors through pillage and plunder. This spirit of devouring others and benefiting from the oppression of those around-about is the end result of covetousness amongst their own people. When neighbor desires to benefit at his neighbor's expense there is only one way for society to go.

Because they lurk privily for the blood and sweat of their own neighbor they themselves will be trapped in a net of their own making.[11] They will fall subject to tyrants, being tyrants themselves. Their allegiance to men rather than God will often require full faith and credit in the form of service, and tribute.

"The common-law tradition recognizes the necessity of human administration of law and government, while providing safeguards against lawless power, which men will seek to exert over others. The common law, however, never teaches the individual to elect or appoint other men to decide between right and wrong for him; arrogate to elected officials and appointed magistrates[12] such power is tantamount to idolatry.” [13]

All governments must be supported by the people. Unless that support is freely given by choice of the people individually then the people are not free. Virtue is required to sustain a free society. For systems of power to be able to subject the people they must undermine the foundation of a free society, the family. Care for the community, the education of the youth, care of the elderly or needy must be taken out of the hands of the virtuous and charitable families and put into the hands of a more centralized institution.

The problem is not the institution but its creator, the people. The nature of the people will determine the nature of the government they create. The source of the problems in the world today are the people. That is the good news because you can do something about you. But what should you not have done and what should you be doing?

God endowed men with rights. The “social contract, agreement, or covenant by which men are said to have abandoned the ‘state of nature’ to form the society in which they now live.... Assumes that men at first lived in a state of anarchy where there was no society, no government, and no organized coercion of the individual by the group… by the social contract men had surrendered their natural liberties in order to enjoy the order and safety of the organized state.” [14]

Once this is done at the cost of liberty the path of man is set. There will be no salvation in this life or the next unless man repents and changes his ways. That requires enough Christ like humility to admit your own error or foolishness and turn around/repent and go another way.

What is that Way?

All the power of government originates in the people and can only be relinquished by their consent or neglect. To maintain those original rights the people must maintain their God given responsibilities to attend to the weightier matters.

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To find out what the early Church was doing to survive the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, to discover where modern religion has taken a turn away from the true nature of God and his kingdom of righteousness, to meet others that are choosing to go another way... join us on the 2011 All American Whirlwind Tour. We will be traveling through 30 states and meeting people at dozens of locations.[15]

Brother Gregory on the road in Colorado