Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1895-06-19
GOD IN THE GOVERNMENT.

GOD IN THE GOVERNMENT.
A Paper Read Before the w. G. T. u. Con-
| vention by A. A. Stone.
| The most superficial reader of the Old
Testament scriptures must be impressed
with the intense interest God manifested
| in the politics of ancient nations. From
the early dawn of history when God in
mercy forebore to punish the Amorites
| because their iniquity was not yet full
until the time when our Lord and Saviour
standing upon the Mount of Olives and
| looking with tender compassion and eyes
| full of tears upon the city he loved pro-
| nounced her doom because her inequity
| was full, there is manifest divine pur-
pose to induce men in their organized ma
| tional capacity to deem and execute right
eousness, to incorporate dignity in gov
| ernment, to have all human law conform
| to the pattern given on the Mount.
| And Gods interest in the state was not
confined to the politics of his chosen peo-
| pie. He taught most emphatically that
| all nations were under his dominion, that
| all peoples were his subjects. Because the
Amestritces, an alien nation, resisted his
purposes, he utterly put ouI their name
| from under heaven. When Belshazzar
| and his officers in the fullness of their in
| iq1ity profaned his name he sent the fng-
ers of a mans hand to write their doom
upon the poster walls of the palace, and
Cyrus, the conqueror of Belshazzar, was
but a 4 instrument in Gods hands for re-
storing Judah to his heritage.
But although Gods hand was clearly
+I,o Of hoe
EN- nations, yet how much deeper and
more conspicuous was the interest he
manifes ted in the government of his own
chosen people. To them he sent his propli-
cts, rising early and sending them often,
and they were In every instance preachers
of political righteousness They were sent
to the people in their capacity as a nation
and not to the Jewish church. To the
church he sent the priests, but to the ma
ton he sent his prophets, inasnuch as the
representatives of the national life their
messages were delivered to kings and
those in authority, and the burden of their
preaching was "The nation that serves
God shall be exalted, but the nation and
the kingdom that will not serve him shall
perish, yea those nations shall be utterly
wasted" All history is one long sermon
from that text. Every dead nation is a
silent witness to the irwin of that proposi-
ton. Where is Roines Where is Media,
Persia, Habylonia, Assyria and Israel?
Before each one of these nations God set
an open door which they refused to enter.
In defiance of God they wrought iniquity
and have gone into the grave from which
there is no Resurrection. God is not
mocked. It is-equal1y true of nations as
of individuals that the wages of sin is
death. Now God is the same yesterday,
today and forever. Now as in the days of
Israel he is equally interested in human
government We in the occident are as
much his people as was the Israelites in
the Orient, and it is equally true in our ex-
perience as in theirs, that righteousness
exalted nation, but sin is a reproach to
any people.
If we continue to live as nation it will
be because God makes interrupts and exc
cutes our laws, In short, because God gov
erns. To Danish God from the government
ispolitical suicide. We have come very
near doing that very thing aud may do it
yet. The old doctrine of the separation of
church and state has swung us so far to
Que extreme that we have unconscious1y
ifnbibed the notion that Christianity need
not necessarily be regnant in citizenship.
Men who make no profession of Christian
ity but are yet upright and honorable
men in business and society think it per
fectly legitimate to be dishonest in poll
tics. AS members of their representative
political parties they blindly and without
questioning, rush on with the multitude
to do evil Just exactly what God said
centuries since they should not do. And
it is because of these things, because good
Christians III have not the moral purpose
or power to be good citizens civilization
1imps, and ha1ts in it's progress toward
the kingdom of God.
Human government should be the visi-
BILE organization of the invisible govern
ment of God. 1t is intended by God and
in his hands will be means for the re-
demption of men, but in the hands of
satan it becomes means for their de-
struction. Now what are the factss We
have nominallY Christian government.
Thank God for that, But in how many in
stances of late years has God been incar-
nate in our law making bodies or right
eousness been the controlling motive of
our executives? Too often it has been only
in those few and isolated cases where
righteousness did not conflict with party
interests or organized greed. Party inter
ests demand and obtain right of way in
our legislative halls and imperious
monopoly wires it's way where white
robed justice despairs.
continued next week.