The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men by John Witherspoon

For those of my brethren who are longing to hear a pastor give a political sermon from his pulpit, but find none to be heard--only treatises on the heart's piety (though nothing at all of the issues of life which spring from it)--I present this link to a political sermon given by John Witherspoon in 19976, entitled, The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men. John Witherspoon's Biblical text is:

Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain. Psalm 76:10

There is not a greater evidence either of the reality or the power of religion, than a firm belief of God's universal presence, and a constant attention to the influence and operation of his providence. It is by this means that the Christian may be said, in the emphatical scripture language, "to walk with God, and to endure as seeing him who is invisible."

The doctrine of divine providence is very full and complete in the sacred oracles. It extends not only to things which we may think of great moment, and therefore worthy of notice, but to things the most indifferent and inconsiderable; "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing," says our Lord, "and one of them falleth not to the ground without your heavenly Father"; nay, "the very hairs of your head are all numbered.["] It extends not only to things beneficial and salutary, or to the direction and assistance of those who are the servants of the living God; but to things seemingly most hurtful and destructive, and to persons the most refractory and disobedient. He overrules all his creatures, and all their actions. Thus we are told, that "fire, hail, snow, vapour, and stormy wind, fulfil his word," in the course of nature; and even so the most impetuous and disorderly passions of men, that are under no restraint from themselves, are yet perfectly subject to the dominion of Jehovah. They carry his commission, they obey his orders, they are limited and restrained by his authority, and they conspire with every thing else in promoting his glory. There is the greater need to take notice of this, that men are not generally sufficiently aware of the distinction between the law of God and his purpose; they are apt to suppose, that as the temper of the sinner is contrary to the one, so the outrages of the sinner are able to defeat the other; than which nothing can be more false. The truth is plainly asserted, and nobly expressed by the psalmist in the text, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee; the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain." READ MORE

Socialism Is Immoral

Socialism is humanism/state worship, institutionalized theft and envy, the statist usurpation of duties and responsibilities and authorities which God gave to the family and to the church, and the craven abandonment by the family and church of their rightful responsibilities and duties. In short, socialism is sin. The Church should not approve or encourage socialism because that is the same thing as approving of sin, which the Church should not do. (Rom.1:28-32)

The church (including individual Christians and Christian families) should not pray that someone in the church (or anyone) would receive a certain socialist grant or payment. The church (including individual Christians and Christian families) should not refer sick people to the State. The church (including individual Christians and Christian families) should not refer unemployed people to the State. The church (including individual Christians and Christian families) should not refer uneducated people to the State. The church (including individual Christians and Christian families) should not refer widows and orphans to the State. I’ve read that Christians in the early church would rescue abandoned babies (left to die) and adopt them into their families. I truly believe that, in a similar circumstance today, the modern church would “call the authorities” to take care of this problem for them.

There is nothing in God’s word to support any of this. It is immoral to not do what God has commanded us to do. It is immoral to do what God has commanded us not to do. It's sin. (Deut. 5:32 , Matt.  5:19)

Some examples of socialism are:

• Unemployment Benefit/Work Share (being paid for not working)
• Medicare/Medicaid
• government-financed health care
• Social Security taxes/payments
• L and I program payments
• state financed job training or re-training
• gov’t monopolized transportation (or any business)
• graduated income taxes
• inheritance taxes
• Cash for Clunkers
• a program that exchanges incandescent light bulbs for fluorescent light bulbs programs
• food stamps
• low-income Welfare (or whatever acronym they are calling it these days)
• state-financed/ regulated educational institutions
• a fascist (monopolized, privately-owned, gov’t-regulated) central bank
• the inflation/control of the money supply by such a central bank
• state control of airline security and flights
• state control of: gun ownership, home ownership, land ownership (floodplains, wetlands, national parks, eminent domain, etc.), car ownership, reproduction/body ownership
• death taxes
• capital gains taxes
• attempts to form a one-world government, North American union, European union, United Nations
• government farm/auto/bank grants/subsidies,
• etc...

Ouch, anyone? I know; me, too.

The problems that the humanist/socialists are trying to solve by their Statist socialism should be taken care of by the family, and if it is too much for the family, then it should be taken to the local church, and then to the wider Body of Christ. Socialism makes a strong appeal to the cowardice, the weakness, the immorality, the envy, the selfishness, the fearfulness, and the depravity inherent to our sin-fallen nature. We don't want to own a clunker; we don't want to take care of our elderly parents; we don't want to take care of our sick, injured or handicapped; we don't want to solve problems; we don't want to labor all our lives; we don't want to be responsible. And perhaps we even have some doubt that God could possibly take care of us as well as the State can.

The proper role of the civil magistrate is to be terrors to evil doers and to protect the law-abiding. (Rom. 13:3-4) The civil magistrate is to apply God's law as designated to civil magistrates with impartiality. (Lev. 19:15) According to the Bible, the civil authority exists to protect those who obey God’s law and punish those who disobey God’s law, insofar as, and delimitated by, God’s law commands the lawbreakers and evil doers to be punished by the state. That’s it. Nothing more and nothing less than that.
Christians are not humanists. We worship and serve Christ--not ourselves, and not human autonomy writ large in the ersatz Daddy-State…anymore. We who believe in Jesus Christ have a perfect Father in heaven, and God has ordained in His Word how His Body is to care for the poor and needy. (Deut. 15:11 , Deut. 15:17 , Prov. 22:9 , 16, Prov. 31:20 , Ezek. 18:15-17 , Mal. 3:8-10 , Matt. 6:11 , Matt. 25:38-40 ,  Acts 4:32 , 1 Cor. 13:2-4 , 2 Cor. 8:1-4 , Eph. 4:28 , James 1:27 , James 2)

Free speech, for another example, is not to be punished by the state except for where commanded by God in the Holy Scriptures. All other forms of speech, including immoral, unwise, undesirable or profane/vulgar speech, should be restrained by the family and church cultures and disciplines; and God reserves to Himself to directly punish some forms of false swearing, etc.

Any humanist, Statist "law" which decrees that God’s Law-Word may not be proclaimed freely is unlawful and illegitimate. All such is man attempting to usurp God and legislate over Him, which is immoral.

May I encourage you today to believe the Word of God, even if it’s different from what you heard a man say? Pastors and others are only human and make mistakes, even serious ones, just like the rest of us.

Believe God; He is perfect. And His word is Truth.

Isaac Backus: Defender of Religious Liberty, Faithful Man of God

"We view it to be our incumbent duty to render unto Caesar the things that are his but also that it is of as much importance not to render unto him anything that belongs only to God, who is to be obeyed rather than any man. And as it is evident that God always claimed it as his sole perogative to determine by his own laws what his worship shall be, who shall minister in it, and how they shall be supported, so it is evident that this perogative has been, and still is, encroached upon in our land."

--Isaac Backus (1724-1806), quote from Isaac Backus on Church, State, and Calvinism, Pamphlets, 1754-1789 (ed. by Wm. J. McLoughlin, Harvard University Press, 1965, P. 317)