"Thair is Chryst Jesus the King, an' His Kingdom the Kirk, qhase subject King Jamie the Saxth is, an' o' qhase kingdome nocht a king nor a lord be he, bot a member."
Melville was right, in the only way a human being can ever be right: he spoke exactly what the Bible teaches. For that same reason, what Melville said remains true today, and always. There are two kinds of government on earth, and only two kinds: God's Kingdom, and man's.
God's authority to rule, and power to rule, are absolute: He rules all creation, time itself, circumstances, the living and the dead. God's rule is so absolute that man's authority and power to rule are entirely derivative of His, and only at God's sovereign delegation. Those to whom He delegates His power and authority, He holds accountable. And we who are subjects of earthly kings, He holds accountable to obey as recognizing His authority behind our fallible human rulers.
But the American Church has particular difficulty with the teaching of the Kingdom of God. Our national culture-heroes are rebels, beginning with the "founding fathers." The documents on which our nationhood is based justify rebellion against the authority of our earthly king. Rebels are the pantheon of our national culture...the Confederacy, Jesse James, robber barons, the heroic rebels of "Star Wars." The touchstone here is again what the Bible teaches: "...rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft..." (I Samuel 15:23, KJV)
Some teach that our "founding fathers" were deeply Christian men. It's a claim that is historically, documentably, untrue. It's a claim manifestly intended to support the deceitful purposes of a current political faction. (The "Tea Party" rebels, for example, adapt their name, and dress in colonial garb, to present themselves as the true descendants of the "founding fathers.") But whatever else they were or weren't, the "founding fathers" were undeniably rebels: and in God's eyes, the equivalent of warlocks. If God has blessed the United States...and He has...it is in spite of, NOT because of, our antecedents.
The American Church has a choice to make, and make soon: to which kingdom do we belong ? Thus far, willfully misled by self-serving partisans of the ruling world-system, The American Church has followed deceivers. Church, REPENT your deadly foolishness, and return to your First Love !!
I mourn and pray for this poor sick country; even more for its rebellious Church, which is all that stands between us and God's righteous judgement.
