“And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. 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.”
1 Samuel 8:5-7
When you really think about it, most people want to be ruled. Submission to authority is engrained in us and taught to us from the moment we are born.
Parents, teachers, aunts and uncles, preachers, bosses, our elders, police, all the way up to the President of the USA – we are surrounded by authority figures.
Is it no wonder why so many people want a king? When we are told to do something by an authority figure, we absolve ourselves of responsibility.
The Milgram Experiments from the 1960s showed that about 2/3 of people will pump lethal amounts of electricity into another person so long as they are just “following orders.”
Now we find ourselves in a situation like that of the Jews who want a king. The United States was found on the principle that Congress and the White House were not royalty, but represented the will of the governed. In this country, free men were supposed to be the rulers, not career politicians.
American ideals like self-governance and personal responsibility are fading from our society. Big government is here to hand out checks and make sure we are safe from the Corona monster.
Few of us respect and revere freedom. Like Samuel, we are displeased. But our country is not rejecting us, it is rejecting God.
The reason we feel compelled to obey authority is not due purely to socialization, but because God implanted that desire in all of us. Not so we would bow to men, but because we are to bow to HIM.
In rejecting the Final Authority, our society has accepted a tyrannical one. We can see the fall of America coming, just as we saw with Israel thousands of years ago.
We just need to soldier on for Christ and keep our eyes on the skies. He will come for us soon, and EVERY knee shall bow to the Lord God.
Simmons' Opinions 