Thursday, March 19, 2009

A draft I found

Government – DeMar:Chapter 3 – Sovereignty and Dominion:Right now, Christians are being governed by a different kind of rule than they should be. A different kind of sovereignty has taken over. It says in the book, that it is the courts that do not abide by the Bible, but in reality, it is everything that does not follow it. But this is nothing new; Christians have been under attack since the beginning of time. The problem with a new sovereignty taking over is that they expect us to obey, listen and submit to them. Sovereignty therefore, brings dominion. Not absolute dominion, but dominion nevertheless. Those who show open rebellion are most likely to be the center of attention for the ruler. The denial of one sovereignty means that another must take over. If God is pushed out of the picture, then man will take over. All resulting sovereignties are limited. All but God’s. If you look closely at the Bible, you will see constant attempts to try and block out God’s sovereignty. But God’s laws still continue to operate and function. God continues to rule over all. Although it may not seem like it is doing any good, and there are hardly any Christians anywhere, God knows what he is doing and will always be the overarching ruler. This can take great faith, but it is easier to believe it if you know that man can never equal God and can definitely never take over. How can the creation rule over the creator? Now, if man had created himself, it would be a ton harder to believe the statement before, but that is not the case. Many people have turned from God to the state for their absolute sovereignty. I believe that this is because people want instant relief from whatever problems they have, and since God isn’t material or seeable, they see the state as something that God isn’t and say, ‘Hey, the state is here, and God isn’t and I want it now, so state…here I come.’ “What is the nature of God’s sovereignty and how does it express itself in the area of dominion? God’s sovereignty is universal, absolute, and includes dominion of the created order.”“What is man’s dominion task? God made man so that he could rule over the animals and the land. Not to take over the whole universe using God’s law as a blueprint. God gave us authority, but not absolute authority and we are not to just take over and shove God out of the picture just because we want all authority (besides, we can never do that because we are nothing compared to God). This is like what you were talking about two Sundays ago, when you were speaking on sovereignty and how the state wanted to take over the church and family, except in this case it is man as a whole trying to take over God. “But stewardship requires responsibility. And implicit in the grant was a requirement that man order the planet according to God’s will and for God’s purposes. This was a grant of freedom, not of license. As subsequent history proved, God’s intention was that His world be governed and subdued by those who themselves were governed by God. But man, as we know, did not want to remain under god’s sovereignty. He wanted to be like God without having anyone to tell him what to do.” I really liked this quote, because it helped me understand the God/man relationship with sovereignty.

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