The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

Chapter 10

Hope and Change!

So what should you do when you have a corrupt government?

This is what some folks did, back in 1776.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Then the authors of that Declaration proceeded to list numerous injuries and usurpations of the king, and they concluded with these.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In view of those injuries and usurpations, the fifty-six men assembled from the  thirteen American colonies of Great Britain declared a change in government.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Nearly three millennia before that, the men of Israel made a similar move, for a similar reason.

1 Samuel 8:1-3

It happened, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah: they were judges in Beersheba. His sons didn’t walk in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted justice.

Samuel’s sons were reprobates, which was a very real problem. The people who were supposed to teach others about God’s law were themselves lawless, so Israel demanded a change in government.

That wasn’t the first time that the sons of a judge were corrupt. Eli was the judge right before Samuel, and Samuel was picked to take Eli’s place. Eli’s sons desecrated the position they had as priests.

1 Samuel 2:12-17

Now the sons of Eli were base men; they didn’t know Yahweh.

The custom of the priests with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant came, while the flesh was boiling, with a fork of three teeth in his hand; and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; all that the fork brought up the priest took therewith. So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.

Yes, before they burnt the fat, the priest’s servant came, and said to the man who sacrificed, “Give meat to roast for the priest; for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but raw.”

If the man said to him, “Let the fat be burned first, and then take as much as your soul desires;” then he would say, “No, but you shall give it to me now; and if not, I will take it by force.”

The sin of the young men was very great before Yahweh; for the men despised the offering of Yahweh.

Hustling a steak may seem like a small thing. With God, though, there is no small disobedience. You are either obedient or disobedient.

A little disobedience always comes from a big ego. No one who is full of the fear of Yahweh purposely disobeys in any little thing at all. People who disobey in ‘little’ things also disobey in ‘big’ things.

As Eli’s sons did. Not only did they hustle steaks; they hustled women.

1 Samuel 2:22-25

Now Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel, and how that they lay with the women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting.

He said to them, “Why do you do such things? for I hear of your evil dealings from all this people. No, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: you make Yahweh’s people disobey. If one man sin against another, God shall judge him; but if a man sin against Yahweh, who shall entreat for him?”

Notwithstanding, they didn’t listen to the voice of their father, because Yahweh intended to kill them.

Eli did not do such sins himself, and Eli did tell his sons to stop; but his great sin was that he did not stop them from defiling God’s service. He was the priest over them. He could have defrocked them and ordered them to go out into the fields to work for a living. He didn’t do that. Instead Eli just indulged their indulgences.

After all, they were his little boys, so he put them above God.

Because of Eli’s sins with his sons, Samuel was called to take his place as judge. Yet to some degree Samuel repeated Eli’s mistake of indulging his sons.

Perhaps Samuel had human nature, too?

Read again —

1 Samuel 8:1-3

It happened, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel; and the name of his second, Abijah: they were judges in Beersheba. His sons didn’t walk in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted justice.

Samuel sons did not commit the exact same sins as Eli’s sons, but they had the same attitude. And apparently Samuel, like Eli, thought that his little boys couldn’t be that bad.

But they were bad. Just as in the previous generation, those who were to teach God’s laws were worst in breaking God’s laws. Therefore Israel demanded a change in government. Just as the American colonists refused to be under King George, so Israel refused to be under King Yahweh.

However, there was one slight difference in the situations.

King George was corrupt, to whatever degree, and had committed injuries and usurpations, to whatever degree.

King Yahweh had not committed any injuries and usurpations against Israel.

The injuries to Israel came from Samuel’s sons, not from God. God was not causing the problem. People were the problem. But the people blamed God for their evil. That’s like modern hedonists who demand the freedom to practice their own self indulgent lasciviousness, then self-righteously ask, “Why does God allow all this evil?”

Israel forgot what God had done with Eli and his sons to correct that problem. This was Eli’s reward for being an indulgent, non-disciplinarian father.

1 Samuel 2:29-34

Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in my habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?’

“Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘I said indeed that your house, and the house of your father, should walk before me forever.’ But now Yahweh says, ‘Be it far from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days come, that I will cut off your arm, and the arm of your father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in your house. You shall see the affliction of my habitation, in all the wealth which I shall give Israel; and there shall not be an old man in your house forever. The man of yours, whom I shall not cut off from my altar, shall consume your eyes, and grieve your heart; and all the increase of your house shall die in the flower of their age.

“This shall be the sign to you, that shall come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die.”

What Israel overlooked is that God takes care of problems, in his own time and in his own way, just as he did with the whole nation of Israel when they disobeyed. Not only did Hophni and Phinehas die in one day, but Eli died that same day, right after hearing that his sons were dead.

1 Samuel 4:10-18

(10)  The Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. There was a very great slaughter; for thirty thousand footmen of Israel fell.

(11)  God’s ark was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.

(12)  A man of Benjamin ran out of the army, and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn, and with dirt on his head.

(13)  When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat by the road watching; for his heart trembled for God’s ark. When the man came into the city and told about it, all the city cried out.

(14)  When Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, “What does the noise of this tumult mean?” The man hurried, and came and told Eli.

(15)  Now Eli was ninety-eight years old. His eyes were set, so that he could not see.

(16)  The man said to Eli, “I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army.” He said, “How did the matter go, my son?”

(17)  He who brought the news answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been also a great slaughter among the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and God’s ark has been captured.”

(18)  When he made mention of God’s ark, Eli fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck broke, and he died; for he was an old man, and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years.

Every Israelite was individually responsible before God, and that included Eli and his sons. They had to ultimately answer directly to God. And they all did, all in the same day.

Hebrews 10:30-31

(30)  For we know him who said, “Vengeance belongs to me,” says the Lord, “I will repay.” Again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

(31)  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But Israel forgot the lesson of Eli’s sons. They did not believe that God could take care of the problems. So when Samuel’s sons walked the same path as Eli’s sons, Israel demanded a new king. Like the signers of the American Declaration of Independence, and like so many others all down through history, they demanded a change in government.

From The Discovery of Freedom, by Rose Wilder Lane, one of the three founding mothers of libertarianism in America.

The history of every group of men who ever obeyed a living Authority is a history of revolts against all forms of that Government.

Look at any available records of any people, living anywhere at any time in the whole history of the Old World.

They revolt against their King, and replace him by another King; they revolt against him, and set up another King. In time they revolt against monarchy; they set up another kind of living Authority. For generations or centuries, they revolt and change these rulers; then they revolt against that kind of Authority, and set up another kind.

From Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler, history is one long record of revolts against certain living rulers, and revolt against kinds of living Authority…

They replace the priest by a king, the king by an oligarchy, the oligarchs by a despot, the despot by an aristocracy, the aristocrats by a majority, the majority by a tyrant, the tyrant by oligarchs, the oligarchs by aristocrats, the aristocrats by a king, the king by a parliament, the parliament by a dictator, the dictator by a king, the king by—there’s six thousand years of it, in every language.

Every imaginable kind of living Authority has been tried, and is still being tried somewhere on earth now.

All these kinds have been tried, too, in every possible combination; the priest and the king, the king who is the priest, the king who is God, the king and a senate, the king and the senate and a majority, the senate and a tyrant, the tyrant and the aristocrats, a king and a parliament— Try to think of a combination; somewhere it has been tried.

At some point, all peoples demand a change in government. Hope and change!

And after a while, they always hope for a change from their Hope and Change government. Then they demand another government!

All nations under all human governments at some point have decided that their governments are bad. They then replace that imperfect government with another imperfect human government.

Those colonies that became the United States replaced imperfect King George with their own rather unique government. However, after two and a quarter centuries, that government has now led in the worldwide promulgation of evil, more than any government in the history of mankind. Barack Obama’s campaign of Hope and Change has changed America, apparently beyond hope.

Because of the sins of Samuel’s sons, Israel wanted to replace King Yahweh with a human king. That was not like replacing King George. There was a huge error in Israel’s thinking. God did not sin. The people did. So Israel thought they would cure the people problem in their government by putting people in charge of their government instead of God.

Over and over people think that society’s problems will be fixed if they can just get the right government. Hope and change! As Rose Wilder Lane wrote, they have tried every conceivable type of government — monarchy, oligarchy, despotism, nepotism, republicanism and democracy — and they have all wound up in the same quagmire. Even in religious governments, people can hardly conceive of being ruled only by God, so they almost always establish some human government between them and God, and these human governments always follow a certain pattern —

They’re human.

Each type of human government, whether political or religious, begins in anticipation of great things and ends in anger over mundane things, shouts of glee turn to groans of gloom, and the idealism of human theories fades under the realism of human nature.

Deuteronomy 32:1-4

(1)  Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

(2)  My doctrine will drop as the rain. My speech will condense as the dew, as the misty rain on the tender grass, as the showers on the herb.

(3)  For I will proclaim Yahweh’s name. Ascribe greatness to our God!

(4)  The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness who does no wrong, just and right is he.