Skip to content WellVersed - Chapter 4 - The Purpose of Government Mar 18 · 7 min ...more
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Dr. Jim Garlow is a lifelong pastor who most recently served in San Diego, California, and now leads Well Versed, a ministry dedicated to bringing biblical
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Government's Biblical Purpose: Protect and Restrain Evil 0:01 Chapter 4 in the well versed small group series is the purpose of government.0:07 Let me pose a question to you. What is the purpose of government? Why do we even have government? Does does God have a view about this? Yeah. He does. He says very clearly in the Bible, the0:18 purpose of government is to protect the citizenry. The purpose of government is to restrain evil. That's why we have government. By the way, government doesn't give0:30 us our rights. Our rights don't come from the government. I don't go to the government and say, can I have the right to do this? Not at all. Our rights come from God. Our our founders of our nation, they0:42 were so blasted smart. They understood that we have certain inalienable, that means rights that cannot be taken away, inalienable rights, and they were given to us by0:54 our creator. I don't know why some people like to leave that phrase out. President Barack Obama, twice in 2009 and once in 20 10, he actually left out that phrase, and again more recently, left out the1:06 phrase by their creator. That, by the way, is what makes America so exceptional. We're the only nation out of almost 200 nations on the earth that makes the claim, the truthful1:17 claim, that our rights come from God. Those rights come from God. They're given to the people. We put them on temporary loan to those we elect or put in office. Those rights come from1:29 God. They're never rights that belong inherently to the government. Now let me go back to my first premise. What's the purpose of government then? It's not to give rights because they have no rights. God has all rights.1:40 He gives them the people. The people then, informing we the people, then we select and temporarily, on loan, give the authority we have temporarily to persons who are supposed to represent1:52 us appropriately. But the purpose of government is to restrain evil. The scripture is very clear on that. It's to protect the citizenry. I mean, so you have to acknowledge that evil2:04 actually exists. This to me is the big line in the sand. If you listen to the talking heads arguing on the various cable news networks, If you cut to the2:16 chase at where they really disagree, it's over this issue right here. Some people think evil doesn't even exist. They're oblivious to understanding evil. This is the line in the2:27 sand that separates people from understanding proper government from people who do not. It's called it's called harmetiology. It's the the doctrine of of sin. But believing2:39 evil exists is the starting point to understanding the nature of government because the purpose of government is to restrain this. It's the recognition of the human heart is pretty bad. Now here's2:51 where here's why progressives miss it. Here's why the liberal left wing just completely misses it. I don't call them the left wing. They're the wrong wing. They miss it on this issue. They operate on a philosophy that3:02 humanity is basically good. Well, how noble is that? The only problem with that is they're wrong. What about they say, well, if we just educate enough, if we just give enough money to people, if we just on and on, then3:13 they'll inherently express their goodness. It doesn't work that way. This is an unbelievably naive view. People with this view will say, well, the Islamists says, let's take ISIS. If we could just get them jobs, they'll3:25 stop beheading us. That is nonsense. They don't understand the nature of evil in the human heart. There's a second view that people are basically evil, period. Stop that. Well, that's not a good3:37 view. That's not true either. We know a lot of goodness in humanity. The third view is the biblical view. This is what the scripture says, that humankind was created good. God said, that's good. Like I said, that's3:48 very good. But sin entered in. That's that word nobody wants to use anymore. Sin entered in and the human heart became at a capacity for every evil. But then stepped in the person of Jesus who brought4:00 in forgiveness and healing and then the infill infilling of the Holy Spirit and it causes people to be able to live above all of this stuff, and they start expressing the righteousness of Christ4:13 flowing through their lives. This is a biblical anthropology. Anthropology, the study of humanity. This 1 is wrong. This 1 is wrong. Humanity is not basically good. Humanity is not4:25 basically evil. Humanity was created good. Sin entered in. Jesus entered in to deal with it. Our founding fathers knew this. They understood. They had a functional theology of evil. They had a4:36 good doctrine of sin, a hermitology. Therefore, they created 3 branches of government. Why? To keep check on each other. They knew the human heart was capable of a lot of evil. So this4:48 1 checks on these 2. This this 1 checks on these 2. This 1 checks on these 2. They're checking on each other. Unfortunately, we've got horribly out of balance these days, and the Supreme Court thinks they're some kind of5:00 supreme over everybody. Or we have a president, if he starts writing executive orders right and left, he's violating the constitution. He violates the whole legislative branch of government, the 535 members of congress.5:11 Our founding fathers so understood the nature of evil, they understood the nature of government that they had 3 branches. And then we'd add on another 1 that if it's honest, the media is supposed to check on these. Now5:22 if the media is corrupt, if the media is in bed with corruption, then forget that 1. But the whole purpose of these structures is the recognition that evil exists. And our founding fathers knew that and5:34 therefore, god established the purpose of government. And what I cover in this book, laying it out on covering the biblical underpinning to 30, different political and social topics is understanding that the5:45 nature of government is to protect its citizenry and to restrain evil. If you get that 1 right, we're on our way. It's a good foundation.Human Nature, Checks & Balances, and Scriptural Reflections 5:54 1 of the things that stood out to me when, going through this chapter and came to my heart was Jeremiah 17 9 Yeah. Where it says that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know6:01 deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?6:06 Yeah. Exactly. And the purpose of government is to restrain that evil that you're talking about and to protect its citizens. 1 of the most revolutionary things that comes out through this chapter is this idea of rights.6:17 That our rights don't come from government. They don't even come from us, but they come from God himself. This is powerful. We find it in Romans 13 1 where it says, for there is no authority except that which God has6:29 established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.6:34 And I think it's important to remember that humanity was originally made good. Mhmm. It was when sin entered the world, evil entered into the world. Yep. But for those who call Jesus their savior and6:45 accept him into their hearts, they have the holy spirit to empower them Yes. And no longer have to live by sin. I think it's just a beautiful picture of freedom. Yeah. That's6:54 good. Amen.In this video 0:00 Government's Biblical Purpose: Protect and Restrain Evil5:54 Human Nature, Checks & Balances, and Scriptural Reflections
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