The Voice of the People
Vote for a king!
Many people often go down to the polls and vote. The voice of the people is heard and a new leader will take the office of chief executive officer of their Government or the old leaders will remain in their office with the renewed vote of the people.
These leaders will have the power to sign laws into place over the people, appoint new federal judges through out the nation, nominate new Supreme Court Justices, and send armies into battle. The voice of the people will by its will appointed men who can make law and all who are a part of that nation of voters will be under the rulers they have elected.
Most of the people will be dissatisfied with the winners. Less than half of the people who could vote will vote for the winner and many of those who do choose the winning candidate do so simply because they like the opponent even less. Some people will be elated and continue to believe that their candidate can do no wrong and they have elected God's choice until the voice of the people speaks again.
In the Bible we also see the phrase "the voice of the people" in first book of Samuel, a prophet of Israel, a nation with no king. It is some four hundred years after their departure from Egypt when the people turned their backs on God and are found choosing a central leader who would have power and authority. They had men to lead them before, but they were not like the other nations nor could their leader exercise authority over them as they were servants of servants, for in those days there was no central ruler in Israel.1 This was the way God wanted it and based on what Jesus said we have to assume that God still wants it that way today.2
But the people spoke. The new elected leader of Israel would lead them into battle like the other nations and he would be able to compel the people to contribute to his government and its needs which would include a compelled sacrifice or tax and the taking of their sons and daughters to serve his will. Of course Samuel said if he did so it would be a foolish thing and his government would perish.3 Samuel gives a long clear warning from God as to what would happen if the we of the people were to choose a central ruler that was an executive officer of the nation, who had the power to make law. It was a terrible curse Samuel spoke, but God was not choosing this curse. It was the desire of a people who had already rejected God that brought them into condemnation.4
Prior to this Israel had appointed their titular leaders from the bottom up maintaining their right to decide fact and law in their own courts according to the laws and customs written in there own hearts. The were the representatives of the people, not lawmakers or rulers over the people, but the people turned their back on God in vanity and pride. These new elected leaders would now appoint men from the top down. There would soon be a multitude of officers appointed from the top down to eat out their substance, take their sons to wage war for him and their daughters to work in his service5.
The first fruits of their labor would eventually be his as the people continued to turn away from God and to their new leaders who called themselves benefactor but who would exercise authority over them. They would eventually return to the bondage of Egypt where more than 20 percent of their labor was taken from them each year by the governmen,t6 all their gold and silver was in the treasury of the government and their rights to their land were nothing more than renters.
Moses knew that the people might be this foolish and that giving such power to one man would be a great temptation and he warned them what elements they should put in their written constitution if they were to be so foolish as to elect a leader who had power.7
He should not have treaty making powers or accumulate the gold and silver of the people in his treasury or establish a standing army... Israel was a republic in the sense of Webster's definition where the leaders were titular but this new leader would have an exercising authority like the other nations who rule over the people. Israel was turning the world upside down with their vote.
What is a vote?
According to Webster's 1913 Dictionary the word vote can be defined as, " An ardent wish or desire; a vow; a prayer. "
A vote can be considered a vow or a prayer. It is an expression of your desire and wish and it is a form of application for that wish to become law. It is also participation in an attempt to exercise authority over all other voters, both registered and those merely qualified to vote.
"Often the terms 'citizen' and voter are confused. A voter is a person who is allowed by law to take part in the government."8
That vote as a "vow" can be defined as, "Specifically, a promise of fidelity..." for what ever candidate wins. Is voting an act of faith? Fidelity is defined as, "Faithfulness; adherence to right; careful and exact observance of duty, or discharge of obligations."
Or is further defined as, "A solemn promise made to God... an act by which one consecrates or devotes himself, absolutely or conditionally, wholly or in part, for a longer or shorter time, to some act, service, or condition; a devotion of one's possessions; as, a baptismal vow; a vow of poverty." Webster's 1913
In order to understand what a promise to God or god is we need to understand what is meant by the word god since the bible tells us that "There are gods many"
http://www.hisholychurch.net/sermon/theosgod.HTM If Jesus told us to not to be like the governments of the other nations who call their leaders benefactors but also exercise authority one over the other then how can we say Jesus is our Lord. [see Luke 22:25...]
To vote is an attempt to exercise authority over your neighbor through the agency of the elected rulers.
I must ask what is your vote, your vow, your prayer?
Who are you going to pray to have rule over you this year? Men or God? Men like Gideon who said, “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you”? Or Jesus Christ who would not rule over the people but came to set them free? Do we have an alternative? Is there another way to go? Is that the kingdom of God Jesus told us to preach which functions under the perfect law of liberty?
Actually there is an alternative to democracy. It is called the Kingdom of God which is at hand and Jesus told us to preach. The kingdom of God begins within you when you love the justice, mercy and righteousness that is God and you are as concerned about your neighbors rights as you are about your own. It is a very real system whereby Abraham freed many souls from Haran, Moses freed a nation from Egypt, and Jesus turned the world up side down redeeming a peculiar people.
He told His appointed ministers to go out and preach to all nations that the kingdom of God was at hand, with in your reach. That is what we hope to share with you at His Holy Church.
What is that kingdom, how did it operate and why can it set men free?
Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
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Footnotes:
1 Judges 17:6 "In those days [there was] no king in Israel, [but] every man did [that which was] right in his own eyes." [Judges 21:25]
2 Luke 22:25 "And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But it shall not be so among you:" [Mt 20:25 Mk 10:42]
3 1 Samuel 13:13 "And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the LORD have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue:"
4 1 Samuel 8:7 "And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. And Samuel told all the words of the LORD unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the LORD will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city."
5 "WASHINGTON -- The chief of the Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services." Eric Rosenberg, Seattle Post-Intelengencer Washington Bureau
6 Employ vs. Enslave
http://www.hisholychurch.org /study/gods/cog4eve.php
7 Deuteronomy 17:15 "Thou shalt in any wise set [him] king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: [one] from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which [is] not thy brother. But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:"
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