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FOR BETTER OR WORSE:
Under our form of government,
taxes are paid on a voluntary basis, Therefore if we know that when our
tax money should be used for the public good that government-funded
bureaucrats will use it to permit the murder of children, what kind of
monsters are we if we comply? Such people as they are have made a
covenant with death, and are in league with Hell. (Isaiah 28:15) How
long can true saints flaunt the Law of God? Will we not cry out in guilt
with Lady Macbeth, "Out, out damn spot!" What a betrayal of the next
generation! What kind of Christians can we be? And, what betrayers of
the public trust are they who hunt for the precious life of the innocent
to take it away!
Was it the intention of the Constitutional Convention
to establish a socialistic state in which people are encouraged not to
work, but rather to have tax advantages if they live together out of
wedlock? Was it their design to promote and finance such programs that
are designed to instill sodomy in society? If we continue to close our
eyes to such naked wickedness, it will be a pity our children have had
such parents!
Christian Responsibility
A Christian is a friend to
civil government: not its enemy. But am I a good American and a good man
if I permit those winds which must of necessity bring God's wrath upon
my country and my family? Calvin states that every man has a duty to
render obedience to civil authorities provided God's Law is not
violated, for all legitimate law is subordinate to the Law of God. God
retains our supreme allegiance. When civil authorities usurp the rights
of God, they are to be denied (Calvin’s Commentaries: A Harmony of the
Gospels. 3:27).
Chrysostom declared that when civil authorities take
what properly belongs to God, namely the definition of Right and Wrong,
by commanding what is sinful --to pay such tribute is not being obedient
to "Caesar," but is doing the work of the Devil (Trapp, 280).
Adam Clarke wrote,
If Caesar should intrude into the things of God, coin a new creed, or broach a new Gospel, and affect to rule the conscience, while he rules the state, in these things Caesar is not to be obeyed; he is taking the things of God, and he must not get them. Give not, therefore, God's things to Caesar (Clark, 1:213).
In his Commentary on the
Whole Bible, Matthew Henry states, "If Caesar's commands interfere
with God's, we must obey God rather than men (Henry, 5:320).
In his commentary on the New Testament, John Trapp
declares we are to be obedient "in things lawful only." He then quotes
Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John, who, when he was commanded to
blaspheme Christ and to swear by the fortune of Caesar, refused saying
'We are taught to give honor to princes and potentates, but such honor
as is not contrary to God's religion" (Trapp, 648). Is it contrary to
the religion of God to finance the murder of children? and is not sodomy
a perversion of the right order of God? Do not the devils in Hell laugh
at the pretended piety of Christians who can be made to permit the works
Hell has formulated?
"We ought to obey God rather than man." (Acts 5:29)
Matthew Henry shows this is a maxim universally recognized (Henry,
6:64), and points out in Acts 4:19 that it is a rule in the common law
of England that if any statute be contrary to the Law of God, it is null
and void.
Nothing can be more absurd than to hearken unto ...men ...more than unto God . . .. Can you think it right in the sight of God to break a Divine command in obedience to human injunction? That is right indeed that is right in the sight of God (Henry, 6:46).
Sophocles makes Antigona to say
"Better obey God with whom we must ever live, than men with whom we have
but a while to continue” (Trapp, 535).
"Should we not obey the commands of princes?"
asked Euripides. "No," he answered, "if they command evil things”
(Trapp, 535). Such commands are personal and not authoritative commands.
"I love and embrace you, Athenians," said
Socrates, "but yet I will obey God rather than you" (Trapp, 538).