Self Government or Totalitarian Government?

SELF GOVERNMENT OR TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENT

I. THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM

A. THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE KNOWLEDGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY FOR HUMAN ACTIONS TO GOD HIMSELF AS RIGHTEOUS JUDGE

B. WITH THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS HONOR, LIFE, LIBERTY
Prov. 9:10; 10:27; 14:26; 14:27; 19:23; 22:4; Acts 9:31

C. WITHOUT THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Gen. 20:11; Prov. 1:20-32


II. SELF GOVERNMENT (PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY OR PERSON
RESPONSIBILITY) COMES FROM THE FEAR OF THE LORD
Prov. 8:13; 14:27; 16:6; 23:17; Isa. 11:2; Isa. 11:3; 33:6; 2 Sam. 23:3; 2 Cor. 7:1; Ex. 18:21; Ex. 20:20


III. SELF GOVERNMENT REQUIRES FEWER LAWS TO CREATE SOCIETAL HARMONY AND PRODUCTIVITY
Rom. 13:9-10; 8:4; Gal. 5:14; 1 Tim. 1:9


The following quotes have been taken from “Three Secular Reasons Why America Should Be Under God”, by William J. Federer, pp 37-47.

“That the truths of the Bible have the power of awakening an intense moral feeling in every human being; that they make bad men good, and send a pulse of healthful feeling through all the domestic, civil, and social relations; that they teach men to love right, and hate wrong, and seek each other’s welfare as children of a common parent; that they control the baleful passions of the heart, and thus make men proficient in self government; and finally that they teach man to aspire after conformity to a Being of infinite holiness, and fill him with hopes more purifying, exalted, and suited to this nature than any other book the world has ever known – these are facts a incontrovertible as the laws of philosophy, or the demonstrations of mathematics” …Francis Wayland, first president of the American Institute of Instruction, 1830.

“Public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures. The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise…can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government…Without the Bible we increase penal laws.” …James McHenry, a signer of the U.S. Constitution, 1813 to the Baltimore, Maryland, Bible Society.

“All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men…In a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet…” Robert Winthrop, U.S. Speaker of the House, 1849 …does NOT sound much like the current speaker of the house, does it?

“What is liberty without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils…it is madness without restraint. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.” Edmund Burke, 1791

“Because of the transgressions of the people, Many are the princes thereof.”

I am personally responsible:
To God for my life
To God for my relation to all others
To God for my own sin(s)
To God for my soul

Therefore, I will stop behaving like someone else must care for me, provide for me, and will not abdicate my responsibility in all things. When I abdicate self-responsibility I violate others’ rights!