THE BIBLE VERSE ERIKA KIRK QUOTED

 At the memorial service for her husband, Charlie Kirk, his widow, Erika, quoted Luke 23:34: "But Jesus was saying, 'Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.' And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves." (NASB, 1995) This was a highly dramatic moment in the memorial as she put this text front and center, in the hearing of an estimated 90-100 thousand in person and an estimated 25-30 million online, with Turning Point USA claiming over 100 million views, although this number cannot be verified .

This is the first of seven things Jesus said while enduring the inconceivable horrors of the crucifixtion. It is thought that, from its position in the record, to have been spoken very early, probably while the Roman soldiers, the crucifixtion team, were driving the nails into His hands and feet. The soldiers would have heard Him say that, up close and personal. They had never heard such words as those. They were accustomed to the wild, raving curses of the condemned. 

We need to ask a question at this point: about whom is Jesus praying to the God the Father conceerning forgiveness? In other words who are the ones who "know not what they are doing"?

Let's begin with the process of elimination. His prayer wasn't for Pilate; he knew that he had condemned an innocent man. It was he who "took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this Man’s blood; see to that yourselves.” 

Jesus wasn't making the request for the chief priests and scribes, because their sin was against their first-hand knowledge of the words and miracles of Jesus, His credtials to prove He was the Messiah, even to the point of their not being able to refute the raising of Lazarus from the dead: "Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs." (Jn. 11:47) 

In addition, in Matthew 12, the leadership of israel commited what Jesus called, "the unforgivable sin," that of attributing Jesus' miracles to the occult. 

He wasn't making the request for the people of Jerusalem and Israel; they had heard Him speak and teach; they had seen more miracles to the extent that "There are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I [John] suppose that even the world itself *would not contain the books that *would be written." 

Despite this massive amount of revelation, the people joined with the Pharisees --in an uproar they shouted their verdict raging to Pilate, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate *said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The answer: “We have no king but Caesar. (Jn. 19:12, 15)

In the last week of His earthly life, Jesus renered this verdict on the people and predicted a coming judgment on them: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling." (Matt. 27;24) And the judgment to come: "And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down," i. e. the destruction of Jersalem in 70 AD by the Romans. They weren't forgiven; they were disciplined according Deut. 28 and its worst of the cycles of punishment, dispersion from the land. 

Therefore, by the process of eliminattion and the context of Jesus' prayer, for whom is He making the request? The crucixtion team, the Gentiles hammering the nails. They were in the city only because of the massive influx of Jews from all over the known world who have come for the Passover. 

We also see that the context of the prayer reveald the object of the supplication: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.' And they cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves." Immediately after the prayer of Jesus, the Gentile soldiers are mentioned as gambling over the clothing, thus demonstrating their ignorance as to the significance of what was happening on Calvary. 

Barnes Notes on the Bible gets it right: "The Romans knew not what they did, as they were really ignorant that He was the Son of God."

THE RUINING OF AMERICA PART VII

Samuel has traced the inevitable cycle of government in a fallen world. He now comes to the conclusion of this vicious cycle: totalitarianism. When left to itself, government comes to its final destination; the people are controlled by a tyrant. He states this in I Samuel 8:17b: ". . .  you will become his [the king's] servants." 

In other words, under a tryanny, the people exist for the state and work for the state. There is no government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Samuel then predicts, "You shall cry out in that day because of your king."  He's telling them the oppression will become intolerable. Regardng the prediction of Samuel about the state, history answers, "Amen!"

Alva J. McLain looks back to 1917 and writes: "In 1917, when America entered the first conflict [WWI], it was widely supposed that once we had abolished the kings and emperors, all would be well. So we witnessed the dethronment of the Russian tzar and the German Kaiser, to say nothing of the lesser breeds. And in their stead we got Stalin and Hitler! Today, we look back nostalgically, not to sure that the abolishing of the kings has improved the world political situation over the days prior to 1914."  

Let's sum up by quoting McLain: "It is to the lasting credit of the Founding Fathers of our own American system that they regarded all highly centalized government  with a deep and cold suspicion, holding that the less we had of it the better of we would be. But strangely enough today, for every failure of highly centralized government, its supporters have no rmedy except a larger dose of the same thing."

Human government is necessary; it was instituted by God in Genesis 9. James Madison, "The Father of our Constitution" said, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."  

McLain finshes with this warning: "But people who are wise never let it get too big or powerul. Unless strictly limited, there is the loss of liberty, econimic distress, and political despair. " 

 THE RUINING OF AMERICA: PART VI

We have been examining God's Word to Samuel in which God warns Israel about what governments do in a fallen world. So far, we've looked at five characteristics of their downward spiral. We've reached number six: corruption. I Samuel 8:15: "He [the king] will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants." 

As we saw in Part 5, governments never have enough money; as time progresses and beauracracies multiply, the "desk sitters" must be paid. To be paid, the government needs more money from its belieagured citizens. This leads to corruption. The truth of the matter is that a large portion of that money comes to rest in the coffers of those who support the party in power who took it away from the citizens through taxation. 

The ruling party will point out to the citizenry that it's spending the money for, as they always say, "The common good." But truth be told, the government takes the money from those who work to produce it and then hand it over to the the non-producers in the society. This procedure goes under the beneficient name of "wealth reditribution." 

To continue this distribution, the rulers must stay in power, so they act on this formula: spend, tax, elect. The horde of nonproducing citizens realize that they can vote themselves more money by keeping such rulers in power. 

A vicious cyle has thus begun.

TBC

THE RUINING OF AMERICA PART V

 The news isn't good as Samuel continues to trace the descent into ruin of the institution called goverment.  What would you think the next step would be in view of the ones listed so far? Samuel has warned that the descent would in include an ever=expanding beauracracy and the hiring of employees for useless jobs.

You would be right if you said that next in the progression would be burdensome taxation to support all of that. The state will always want more money; the taxes must increase. As Samuel says, "The state will take 10% of your seed and 10% of your vvineyards and 10% of your sheep. This would effect only Israel's food supply but today, the burden is much worse. 

New York City is one of the few U.S. cities that imposes a local income tax in addition to the state tax. This tax applies only to residents, regardless of where they work. New York City has a combined sales tax rate of 8.875%, which includes 4% from the state, 4.5% from the city, and a 0.375% surcharge for the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District (MCTD). Businesses collect this tax at the point of sale and remit it to the government. Some necessities, such as unprepared food and prescription medications, are exempt, while restaurant meals, electronics, and luxury goods are fully taxable.The list is endless. 

For every dollar the state spends, you have one dollar less to spend. Such budensome taxation demoralizes the population and supresses any incentive to work, produce, and earn. The government spends money on what others want, not on what you want, on what thebeaucrates think is what's good for you, such as:

1. $419,470 spent to study if lonely rats are more likely to seek cocaine.
   (NY Post)

2. $10,000 awarded to a drag show on ice promoting climate awareness.
   (NY Post)

3. $477,000 spent on experiments involving transgender monkeys.
   (NY Post)

4. $549,000 spent to test cats’ performance on treadmills in Russia.
   (NY Post)

5. $2.24 million to research COVID-19 transmission in cats.
   (NY Post)

6. Millions spent researching magic and its cultural impact.
   (Newsweek)

7. $32,596 spent on breakdancing initiatives.
   (HSGAC Report)

8. $620,000 spent on arming the Environmental Protection Agency.
   (NY Post)

9. $1.3 billion sent to deceased people through federal programs.
   (NY Post)

10. $171 million paid in unemployment benefits to incarcerated individuals.
    (Washington Examiner)

11. $2 billion spent on maintaining and leasing unused properties.
    (NY Post)

12. 
    

THE RUINING OF AMERICA IV

 

In I Samuel 8, the prophet Samuel is warning Israel of what governments do just by their own nature. So far in our study, we have now come to warning number four. A government will, like a juggernaut, advance to existing for its own sake. The government will set its beaurocarcy to "doing its work" (I Samuel 8:16). "for its itself" (vs. 11); for "its harvest" (12; and for its chariots" (vs. 11) 

In other words, the functions of the government are to ensure the maintaning of the government. The government will talk about "serving the people," but the focus is not on serving the people; the focus of the government is on its own support and maintanance. The officials of the state will "talk a good game" of being for that nebulous group called "the people," but their focus is not on them. The focus of the government is bent in on itself.. 

This should be evident. The first loyalty of the employee of the government is not to "the people." Instead, it's to the party. Thus the employee's focus is on the party that controls the government. The party is the be-all-and-end-all for the employee. 

In short, the government will operate for its own sake, not for "we the people." So, that's the progression of the government; it will come to where the idea of "You were elected to serve the people" becomes a fiction. It will progress to serve itself. 

Samuel isn't through with his blunt warnings. Has he has more to say.

TBC  

THE RUINING OF AMERICA PART III

     

Samuel continues to reveal what a monarchy would entail for the Israelites and in so doing, he reveals the progression of how governments march toward their own ruin over a short amount of time. We've come to the third point in the march of the doomed: "the government will take your sons and your daughters" (I Sam. 8:8, 11, 16). 

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ran for a second term on the slogan, "He kept us out of war." He knew Americans wanted no part of the war in Europe. but did anybody notice that there was one word missing in that impactful slogan, the word, "will," as in, "He will keep us out of war." "He kept" did not mean "He will keep."

After his election, he reversed his course and over 24 million men were registered in the draft. Of those, 2.8 million men were drafted; just over 500 thousand in the last half of 1917 and nearly 2.3 million men in by 1918. The war took 116,516 lives while the war in Viet Nam claimed 64,000 lives. 

As a result of rebelling against Samuel's warning that government takes "your sons and your daughters" is the taking of those who should be involved in family matters, farming, and working in factories. The result was a shortage of labor and serious econmic consequences. 

Add the fact that the percentage of women working outside the home jumped from 23.6% to a whopping 46.7% in 1918! Almost half of the working age mothers were now outside the home for the entire day. 

TO BE CONTINUED

THE RUINING OF AMERICA II

 

In I Samuel 8, the nation of Israel expressed its desire to be like all the other nations even though in their founding documents, God had called them to be separate from the Gentile nations around them: Moses reminds the Israelites of their unique status: "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession, above all the peoples on the face of the earth." 

This text is a destructive blow to multiculturalism which is "the concept that promotes the recognition, inclusion, and celebration of diverse cultural identities within a society. In theory, it encourages tolerance, acceptance, and cultural exchange. However, multiculturalism can pose challenges to social cohesion and national identity.

What the nation wanted was a change in the format of the theocracy: "No more judges. Give us a monarchy." This triggered Samuel to let them know that this was a rejection of God's will for them but if that's what they wanted, so be it, but he then went on to tell them the consequences. In so doing, he declared that there would be a progression in which all human government produces.

In last week's blog we saw the first stage in the progression: the government will bring the people into its service beginning with military service, then into civil service. Thus begins a bureaucracy, a word taken from French and Greek, meaning "rule from a desk." Today, this is what we call, "The Deep State."

Samuel's prediction now moves to the next stage: the government will create jobs such as "captains over fifties and captains over thousands." Included in this job creation will be those who "run before the king's chariots." The government will create the job of the runner whose only function is to call attention to the chariot riding king. This is what a bureaucracy does: it creates useless jobs. 

The problem is that once a bureaucracy begins, dislodging it is like trying to remove a face from Mt. Rushmore with a noodle. The desk ruler is like Elliot Ness and his men, untouchable. The bureaucrat was not voted into the position and cannot be voted out. To quote Cassius to Brutus in Shakespear's "Julius Caesar," "Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves." 

"The original bureaucracy of the federal government consisted only of employees from three small departments — State, Treasury, and War. The executive branch employs today almost three million people. Not only have the numbers of bureaucrats grown, but also the methods and standards for hiring and promoting people have changed dramatically." (From ushistory.org)