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Do you ever get that not-so-funny feeling, when you are standing in line somewhere, that the people you are waiting to see don't really care what happens to you? That you are just a number and that your tax dollars don't seem to make a difference?
Then join the long line of frustrated people through the centuries who have felt there has got to be something better than human government. All these centuries of human existence, and we still haven't achieved utopia.
In fact, in some ways things seem to be getting worse. So what is the problem, and is there any hope for something better? Or do we just have to learn to live with imperfect human governments?
The human experience—throughout history—has been infused with the idea that if only we could make a few little social changes, life would be much better for everybody. So from time to time, scapegoats are chosen, the masses are rallied, and revolutions are born.
With wild hopes of a bright new future, angry revolutionaries rip apart the established order, set up a provisional government, and execute those they believe to be responsible for their misery.
There is a good example of this in the colorful history of France. In the late 18th century, much of the French population was living in desperate poverty, while the upper classes were living a life of unbridled decadence.
As a result, widespread dissatisfaction quickly spread throughout the city of Paris. Why should so many go hungry when the royal family had enough to feed everyone? And why should the general public slave and scrape for a living, when those inside the palace had more than they could possibly consume in a thousand lifetimes? And why should everyone else be content with subsistence when there were people who lived a life of luxury on the back of their tax dollars?
In 18th century France, the contrasts between the palace and the streets were so strong that it led to widespread anger. The people knew from experience that the current government was not a solution to their problems. In fact, the royal family seemed to be making life harder with each passing day.
And perhaps the person who drew the hottest criticism was Marie Antoinette, whose foreign birth and extravagant lifestyle made her an easy target for public anger.
She was born to a family of Out of bloods in Austria, and she enjoyed a very easy childhood. History tells us, in fact, that she was pampered and spoiled all her life, and some historians have actually estimated that she spent more time playing than studying when she went to school.
But naturally, when you are the pampered daughter of the queen of Hungary, who is going to argue that you should buckle down and take life seriously? So she lived out her childhood doing almost nothing productive.
Then at the tender age of 14, Marie was married to the crown prince of France, the boy who would eventually become Louis the 16th, and much to the chagrin of the French people, Marie refused to live by the rules. Her pampered childhood spilled over into her royal career.
Try as they might, the royal family couldn't get her to behave like a French monarch. Instead of traveling into the city with the required entourage of attendants and guards, she would sometimes sneak out of the palace with a few of her friends and venture into the streets of Paris alone.
And of course that was something completely unheard of from someone who was destined to be queen. On top of that, she refused to wear the clothes that were given her. And on one occasion, she was known to actually giggle during royal ceremonies.
Now, you and I might be tempted to think of that as individualism or personality, but in the 18th century, it was a distinct embarrassment. So, before long the rumors started to fly. Marie Antoinette was accused of moral indiscretions, and she was even implicated in one of the biggest diamond heists in history, even though she most likely had nothing to do with it.
Her extravagant lifestyle touched such a raw nerve with the impoverished people of France that she became like a lightning rod for criticism. As the French Revolution brewed in the minds of the people, she became a natural scapegoat, along with other symbols of decadence.
And perhaps the thing that Marie Antoinette is best known for today was her absolute disregard for the plight of the people she was sworn to protect.
Legend has it that when Marie Antoinette heard that the people of France had no bread, she said, "Let them eat cake."
Now, historically, we know that she never uttered those words, but the fact remains that people find it believable because of her extravagant detachment from reality. And to some extent, we have all experienced the frustration of people who saw her indifference to their problems.
Her career in the court of Versailles is a striking illustration of how poorly human governments can sometimes play out. History is sprinkled with stories of self-indulgent heads of state who lived like kings at the expense of impoverished people, and it's a problem that continues with us to this day.
Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former dictator of Haiti, committed as many as 40,000 murders. While the people of his country lived in abject poverty, he lived in a massive palace in Port-au-Prince. An article in the "Star-Telegram" reported that his wife spent as much as $50,000 every single month, just to bring in fresh flowers from Miami. And she had a special refrigerated room built so she could wear fur coats in the tropics. Needless to say, it created a great deal of frustration among the people of Haiti.
And then there is Nicolae Ceausescu, the former dictator of Romania, whose People's Palace in Bucharest is the second largest building in the world, surpassed only by the Pentagon. Seven hundred architects were commissioned to erect this monument to decadence, complete with more than one million cubic meters of marble, gold plated faucets, and a marble-lined private nuclear bunker.
And in spite of its name, it was by no means the "people's palace," because while Ceausescu was nesting in his private resort, his government (one of the most corrupt in history) was driving Romania deeper and deeper into financial disaster.
The tragic history of our planet is the history of human government gone bad. There's something in the human spirit that makes it tough for those impositions of great power to maintain a balanced perspective. There is something in the human heart that tends to place self above any other concern, valuing our own well-being above the welfare of anybody else. The optimism of Utopian thinkers has been crushed a thousand times by the unbridled ambitions of power hungry public figures.
Personally, I would like to believe that the human race is capable of overcoming its problems all by itself. That we can build the kind of government that will totally eradicate poverty and crime. That we can find a system of governing ourselves that will completely eliminate all of our heartache.
But the words of the Bible tell me that we are not likely to solve our social problems in the near future. As good as some forms of government can get, they still fall short of the kind of perfection we would all like to see.
Even the American experiment, which has proven to be one of the most successful forms of popular government in history, still clearly separates its legislative, judicial and executive powers.
Now, why does it do that? It's because the founding fathers, painfully aware of the situation in Europe, were trying to prevent it from happening all over again. And so the separation of powers in the American Constitution, if you think about it, is actually a striking admission that there is something fundamentally flawed in human nature. The very fact that we need checks and balances in government is essentially an admission that the human heart is selfish.
Now, of course, as each election year passes, and as one government gives way to another, people still have hopes that somebody will come along and solve all of life's problems.
Nobody is naive enough to believe that any one government can cure everything that ails us, but still we hope for things to get a little better with each new administration. And while I am a firm believer that those in the public arena should strive to make life better for those they govern, I know that on this side of eternity, human government will bring distinctly human problems with it.
You know, the Bible sheds some interesting light on the subject of human government. In the beginning, the nation of Israel was not governed by human beings. Moses served as sort of a governor, and he delegated authority to other judges, but in reality, Israel was ruled directly by God. It was a theocracy, where the law was the Word of God and the final court of appeal was the throne room of the Almighty.
Now, this is not to be confused with the marriage of church and state that led to some of the atrocities of the Dark Ages. Those were simply the result of corrupted clergymen who pursued their selfish ambitions in spite of what the Bible said.
But the theocracy of Israel was the real thing. God actually ruled His people directly. And the Bible says, in the book of Exodus, chapter 25, that the literal presence of God would come down into the Most Holy Place, and there, from above the Ark of the Covenant, God would give Moses instructions for the people to follow. The Bible says in Exodus 25 and verse 22:
"And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims, which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel."
It was a direct line of government from the throne room of God to the children of Israel. And of course, you couldn't ask for a better form of government than to have a loving God at the helm of your nation.
God's long-range plan, if Israel proved to be obedient, was to help that nation prosper to such an extent that the whole world would sit up and take notice. By placing Israel in the crossroads of the ancient world, He wanted to create a public display of His goodness and mercy that would attract the attention of other nations.
And eventually, the entire world would be collected together under the umbrella of God's saving love. As the world observed the temple and its sacrificial rituals, they would catch a glimpse of God's plan to save sinners through the sacrifice of a coming Messiah. And as the world noticed the peace and prosperity of a nation immersed in a relationship with God, they would also realize their need for a similar relationship.
But the sad record of the Bible is that the children of Israel chose a different path. Instead of attracting other nations to their God-centered form of government, they wanted a king like the pagan nations around them.
The story is told in the Book of First Samuel, chapter eight, where the elders of Israel were afraid that once Samuel died, there would be nobody to provide the nation with guidance. So they demanded a king.
Here is how the Bible tells the story in First Samuel, chapter eight and verse four(1 Samuel 8:4):
"Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, 'Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make for 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.' So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, 'Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them."'
Try to imagine the heartache in the courts of heaven when God's own chosen people doubted God's ability to govern them. With deliberate blindness, they turned away from the amazing record of God's goodness to them, from the parting of the Red Sea to the crossing of the Jordan, and they decided to take matters into their own hands.
And that of course is the story of human history since the moment Adam and Eve chose to doubt God's Word. God had given them careful instructions, and yet they chose to follow their own path. And we all know how that turned out.
Abraham, fearing that God might not be able to keep His promise about a son, took matters into his own hands, and the consequences of his bad choices have carried down through generations, forming the basis for the situation in the Middle East today.
Jacob, doubting that he would secure the birthright from his brother, took matters into his own hands and resorted to deception.
The history of sin, if you think about it, is really the history of the human race doubting the Word of God. Every time we choose our own path, we are doubting God's ability to lead us. And of course, that was the core issue in the courts of heaven when Lucifer first rebelled. The Bible says that he coveted the throne of God, and by doing that, he was calling into question God's fitness to rule the universe.
So, like so many others, Israel wanted someone other than God to manage its affairs. And because God never forces anybody into a relationship with Him, He let them go. He gave them what they wanted, but not without a loving warning.
In the rest of the chapter, God warns His people what a human government would be like. Listen now to what He says in First Samuel, chapter eight and verse 11 (1 Samuel 8:11):
"And he said, 'This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariot. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants."'
God was very clear about what human government would be like. He said it would bring all the things we still struggle with today from taxes to draft cards.
Now personally, I'm thankful that at least in the western world, we live with the forms of government that we have. They might not be perfect, but still, they offer a great deal of freedom and security, as well as the religious liberty to worship God according to the dictates of our conscience.
But my point today is this: Historically, there have been hundreds of revolutions against corrupt or unfeeling governments. Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake" might be historical fiction, but far too often, around the world, the indifference of self-important potentates is a reality.
I believe we need to strive for better forms of government in this world, the sort of caring, morally sound governments that would be pleasing to a loving Creator. But on this side of heaven, I fear we will never see perfection.
That doesn't mean, though, that the perfect government doesn't exist. The Bible speaks of a King who not only hears the pleas of His people; He completely identifies with them. God is not sitting in some ivory tower, enjoying the benefits of heaven while His children are suffering with famine, war, disease, and death.
Listen carefully to what the Bible says in Hebrews, chapter four, verse 15 (Hebrews 4:15):
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
The Bible says Jesus is intimately acquainted with our situation. He understands what loneliness is all about, because He has experienced it. He understands what pain and suffering are all about, because He has been through them. He stood outside the grave of a close friend and wept real tears. He suffered rejection by people who should have embraced Him. And the Bible says that He returned to heaven with scars in His hands, His feet, and His side, that we gave Him.
God is not an absentee landlord, enjoying a centuries-long vacation in the company of angels. His every moment is filled with thoughts of you. He works, day and night, as our heavenly High Priest. He identifies with our feelings, and He throws open the doors of the throne room to anybody who wants to come. On earth, we can send letters to our legislative representatives. But in heaven, Christ waits for our prayers.
The Bible says in Hebrews 10:19:
"Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…"
God's government is not like human government. There is no chance that corruption will prevail in the courts of heaven. There is no chance that God will abandon His creation. The Bible teaches that through Christ, we have secure access to the most honest Judge in the universe.
Today, I live in a democracy full of unimaginable privilege, and I thank God for it. But I'm also thankful that while I am bound to serve my country, fulfill my duties and live by its laws, I still serve a law that is higher than human law. While I'm thankful for wise men and women who serve on a Supreme Court, I'm even more thankful that I have access to the highest court of all, the throne room of God, a place where a single mistake has never been made.
You know, in the end, the French Revolution didn't bring the hope it promised. As the fetters of the Dark Ages fell away, and as the corruption of the church in that day was rejected, the nation threw away the baby with the bath water. Popular philosophers like Voltaire rejected the abuses of the church, and many of his followers rejected Christianity altogether. When they needed Christ enthroned in their hearts, they chose to enthrone the goddess of human reason instead.
And when the bloody revolution was over, even though they had managed to secure some freedom, they discovered that popular government was still just another form of imperfect human government.
The philosopher Voltaire, when the revolution was brewing, made a great observation. He said, "I am tired of all these people who govern states from the recesses of their garrets…these legislators who rule the world at two cents a sheet…unable to govern their wives or households, they take great pleasure in governing the universe."
A democratic republic, in the end, proved to be just another form of human government. Instead of delivering utopia, it delivered a whole new set of problems.
There is something in the human heart that yearns for honest government. There is a longing for a system we can trust. And the good news is that the kingdom of God is just a heartbeat away.
The promise of God is this, found in Daniel, chapter two and verse 44. It says (Daniel 2:44):
"And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever."
There really is a kingdom coming that is entirely free from corruption. It is governed by a king you can really trust, a king who cares deeply about you. And if you'll have Him, He would be delighted to sit on the throne of your heart, right now, today.
Maybe you have noticed that some of the most successful forms of human government today all seem to be based to some degree or other on God's Word. In everything that is good, you can sense His leading. And now, you'd like to have a more direct relationship with Him. You would like to invite Him to govern your life, because you'd like to serve a government that will never let you down.
The Bible teaches that there is still a direct line to God. You can still have His guidance in your life. All you have to do is open your heart and ask.
Maybe today, as we have talked about the frustration people feel with imperfect human governments, your heart has started to long for something better. Maybe there is a part of you that is hoping for the kingdom of God to come quickly. Would you like to start living a life as if you are already in that kingdom? Would you like to live now as if you are already in the presence of God? It's a real possibility, and I'd invite you to pray with me right now at this moment.
PRAYER:
Father in heaven, our hearts ache for the kingdom of God. We know that before sin ruined our world, the human race lived with absolute certainty and joy. We believe that pride and selfishness have made a mess of this planet. And if we are honest about it, and search our hearts carefully, we have to admit that we are as much a part of the problem as anybody else. Today, we pray that you would give us a heart for Jesus. We ask that you would help remove selfish ambition from the throne of our hearts and put Him there instead. And we look forward to the day when corruption and disappointment will be a thing of the past, when we finally live in the presence of the only king who has never let anybody down. Take our lives and make them a beacon for your kingdom we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.
Scriptures Used in “Let Them Eat Cake”
"And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, of all things which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel."
—Exodus 25:22 NKJV
"Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, 'Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make for 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.' So Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, 'Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them."'
—1 Samuel 8:4-7 NKJV
"And he said, 'This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariot. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants."'
—1 Samuel 8:11-15 NKJV
"For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
—Hebrews 4:15, 16 NKJV
"Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…"
—Hebrews 10:19-22 NKJV
"And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever."
—Daniel 2:44 NKJV