The United States Government has done it again! With the recent Supreme Court validation of ObamaCare, it has usurped the role of individual citizens to care for themselves and will punish them through taxation if they try. The “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave” has taken another giant leap towards the “land of the oppressed and home of the coward.” However, hope for America does not depend on Republican control of the White House and Congress, but instead in the rising awakening of churches and families who desire to be governed by scripture. I am connected with many of these and have much hope, regardless of the big government threat.
First, let’s examine what just happened. The Supreme Court’s validation of the Affordable Care Act can seem confusing, but it boils down to a simple fact. Under the Constitution, Congress cannot compel you to buy something, but it can tax you for not complying. Passing this law means that the Court creatively justified something that is wrong in principle. They used the Constitution to abuse the Constitution. It was legislative licentiousness.
But all of this is nothing new!
The government has always used taxes to control behavior and now it wants to control your healthcare. Government healthcare is logically consistent with our headlong sprint toward socialism in America. We are systematically surrendering every personal responsibility we have been given by God to be pampered and coddled by a doting Government. We have surrendered the role of parents to educate their children to the public school system. We have surrendered the role of families and churches to care for orphans and widows to Government assistance programs and welfare. The menagerie of further Government control and oversight being proposed should not surprise us. From the bizarre suggested ban on buying a 44 oz coke in New York, to the outright attack on biblical family life with the Delaware legislative attempt to penalize disciplining children – all of these moves are consistent.
Is this what the founders of America envisioned? Doesn’t the Constitution of the United States forbid giant government from taking over every area of life in America? Yes, it does! Then how did we get here? We got here by increasingly considering the Constitution as outdated, by abandoning the Word of God as a standard, and by “reimagining” government with enlightened, postmodern minds freed from the shackles of the old and dusty “rules.”
But before we simply point fingers at the Government we need to stop and take a hard look in the mirror. The church is supposed to “hold to the pattern” (2 Tim 1:13) and be a “beacon on a hill” (Matt 5:14) setting an example of obedience to God’s word and faithfulness to “His ways.” But in my own lifetime, I have seen the church “re-imagine” itself every few years and furiously work to leave behind the old dusty “rules” in favor of enlightened, approaches that appeal to the impulses of our modern self exalting affections.
The Government is simply doing what pastors and churches do all the time. The church in America has come to do what it wants based on pragmatism by saying, “Anything goes, I am under grace not law.” Churches often grow themeslves by ignoring the clear teaching of Scripture in order to achieve pragmatic objectives and then justifying the “advances.” The church has freely set aside the biblical language of church government, church offices, and church practices. It has disregarded simple and clear statements about sexuality, manhood, and womanhood and rejected the clear teaching of Scripture on the matter of educating children. Like the Government, the church has become comfortable throwing off all restraint if it can find an excuse. We do not want to be restrained, but the truth is that Scripture restrains. The truth is, the Constitution restrains. They were designed to restrain evil, abuses of power, and inappropriate creativity.
What does a lawless church have to do with a lawless court? Everything! As the family goes, so goes the church. As the church goes, so goes the nation. In this case, home life and church life gave birth to Supreme Court life. Church leaders and their people don’t want the Bible to constrain them any more than they want the Constitution to constrain them. This is how the church paved the way for ObamaCare.
Revelation 1:5 says that Jesus Christ is “ruler over the kings of the earth.” But we are in no position to demand that our Government honors Christ as King or that it constrain its actions to honor the Constitution, until first we honor Christ as the ruler of our families, churches, and personal lives by constraining our actions according to His revealed Word!
So in the wake of this devastating Supreme Court decision, my heart is actually full of hope. Contrary to the antinomian culture at large and unlike lawless churches and homes that have thrown off “the old paths” (Jer 6:16) and paved the way for today’s ObamaCare, I see a rising remnant of families and churches returning to God and His Word. They are raising up a new generation of sons and daughters who desire to be governed by the Word of God alone and as a result, honor the Constitution of the United States. And in time, I believe this will produce a new generation of leaders, even Supreme Court justices and congressmen, who have grown up in families and churches that have loved submission to God’s Word, and who have seen their fathers and mothers constrain their lives by the “Law of liberty”! This gives me great hope for the future of America.
Do you think the church paved the way for ObamaCare?
Do you think that a reformation of church and family life and the true conversion of its members is the answer for America?
