THE ONLY GOVERNMENT THAT WORKS -- Devotional for August 26, from "Good Seeds"

In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes. But the fruit of the Spirit is…self-control. (Judges 17:6; Galatians 5:23)

The first verse above seems to say anarchy is inevitable when there is no king. But consider this: God set aside a certain family of man, the Jews, not for preferential treatment but for singular service. He told Abraham it would be through his seed "all nations of the world would be blessed" (Genesis 12:3). But for this the people would need to stay close to God. Abraham and his sons, the patriarchs of the Hebrews, talked to God, sometimes even “as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11). When the priesthood was established it doubled as a civil government. God gave moral laws to men, to protect them – and spiritual laws, to remind them who made them and loved them, and to whom they owed their thanks. Men were urged by godly leaders and spiritual bards not to “lean on their own understanding, but to trust in the Lord with all their hearts,” (Proverbs 3:5,6). They were to “put no confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3), that is, in their earthly heritage, possessions, or politics. Still, with all these going for them, the people of God walked away from Him at almost every opportunity. When we come to the time of the Judges, the hearts of God’s people were hardly under His influence, much less His rule. They obeyed their own egos and appetites instead, doing whatever pleased them at the moment, with no thought of God, righteousness, or consequences. They “sowed the wind, and reaped the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7). Choosing to go their own way, perfect Gentleman that He is, God left them to their own devices (America, are you listening?). The result was chaos on every front. Before they could be totally destroyed from within or without, God raised up judges. These were not priests or prophets or kings, and some were rather dubious in character, yet God used them to turn things around, and turn men back to Himself. But the syndrome of rescue, relief, restoration, relapse, repression, remorse and repentance just kept cycling. The answer would have been to come back to God and stay there, but never achieving that, and sick of the cycle, they demanded a king, thinking he could straighten out their private lives. Replacing judges for kings is like trading wives – you’re just giving up one set of problems for another. But God has another plan: don’t trust in judges or kings (human government), and don’t trust in chariots (military armaments), and certainly don’t trust in yourself (what seems right in your own eyes). Rather, get yourself under the control of God’s Holy Spirit. There you will find the only government you need, and that works: self-government -- self-discipline.