Biblestudy: Self-Government

What Does it Produce?
#BS-1140
John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 26-Jan-13; 71 minutes

This Bible study continues our string of studies on basic subjects that I believe our website needs. It is on self-government, generally, and more specifically where it fits into God's purpose, why it is so important, and what builds and motivates us to willingly do it.

We are going to begin with a series of scriptures that Martin just read in his sermon.

Romans 13:1-7 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

This series of scriptures gives a very clear picture of the responsibility God places upon us regarding the governments and their systems that He has placed over us. It even touches somewhat on governing ourselves in that we must do this in order to obey our responsibilities. That is, we must govern ourselves to follow through on what we are commanded here in Romans 13:1-7.

There are very many people who play down the importance of works as a necessary part of God's salvation. They put so much emphasis on grace that works become neglected as something unimportant, as being a display of putting one's trust in themselves for salvation. And that brethren, is a very bad concept. Jesus Christ came to this earth to be our salvation. He Himself said He came to do the Father's will. The emphasis is on the word do. Becoming our Savior required works. He said in John 5:17, "My Father works and I work." Submitting to the human government over us is a work.

Now we are Christ's followers. And if we follow Him and are created in His image, we will do works too. We will do them not to become Savior, but to demonstrate God's way of life before the world, and at the same time, prepare for living eternally in God's government, or Kingdom. And this requires that one govern himself in order to accomplish what God wills.

Please turn to the book of I Corinthians, chapter 9.

I Corinthians 9:23-24 Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may be a partaker of it with you. [Again, the emphasis is on doing.] Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.

Running takes an awful lot of effort and the context that this appears in has to do with our obedience to the commands of God and living all those things that are connected to this way of life.

I Corinthians 9:25-27 And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate [meaning self-controlled. It is another way to express self-governed.] in all things. Now, they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore [Paul gives his own example.] I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. [That is a colorful metaphor for shadow boxing.] But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Now, Paul was an unusually zealous, fervent imitator and follower of Jesus Christ and he vigorously exercised self-control. And I believe one could say that he disciplined himself almost severely as the examples, especially the one about shadow boxing, is very interesting. Shadow boxing is something that a professional boxer does in order to prepare himself for fighting in the ring and it requires a great deal of effort to do that.

During the recent presidential campaign, a term always associated with the very liberal Democratic Party is that they are progressive. They believe that conservative people are all stick-in-the-muds and they look upon them even to the point that a conservative is regressive, as though there is nothing good about the past. That is what a conservative does. They want to hold on to the traditions, the laws, the rules, the way of life that came from the past and they are now practicing in their lives. But a progressive does not want to hang on to that. They think that that is an example of the regressive nature of what was in the past.

The term progressive has a very appealing sound to it, especially to the politically immature who have little knowledge of history and little or no knowledge of what is really going on in this nation. And for that matter, I feel they do not really care either. Now, these are the people that Rush Limbaugh calls low information voters.

Progressives believe that things need to be changed and they are working hard to change things in this nation to their vision of the way the future is to be. Now, if I can contrast, we believe that we are the ones that need to be changed, you know, personally. What progressives want though comes to my mind as being evidence of a virtually certain indicator that we are indeed living in the end times.

I want you to think about what these progressives stand for. And even more, of what their strong support for President Obama and his cronies have produced. Liberals are humanists. They are giving every evidence of that. Despite the fact that they will mention God from time to time, their faith is in men. They have progressed this nation into kicking God out of the schools and out of the courts. They have progressed us into overwhelming acceptance of murderous abortion, homosexuality, lesbianism, same sex marriage, divorce for virtually any reason, drug addiction, and virtually fatherless families. Hardly any of that was part of the communities that Evelyn and I grew up in 60 or 70 years ago.

They are at the forefront of masculinating women and feminizing men. Vile entertainments clearly depict their emphasis on role changes. They have progressed the nation to the brink of economic disaster and refuse to make sacrifices to put it on a sound basis. They have produced a citizenry in this nation with little resolve. The past, you see, is bad, it is regressive. But the progressives have enslaved the culture of this nation so that outright hedonism is within easy reach. This is the culture we have had impacting on us and we must not only defend ourselves from it, we have already been impacted by it and must overcome the remnant of it already in us.

Now, news reports provide us with a clear understanding that many in this nation cannot govern themselves. All that about what the progressives have produced has led up to that statement: the people cannot govern themselves. They are simply following the crowd and at the head of the crowd are these liberal progressives who are part of this liberal party, as we will see. And this is one reason why I have concluded that these people are humanists. It is what they do that matters, not what they say.

To whom do they give authority? This is going to be the difference between us and them. The Christian is going to give his authority and his loyalty to God, regardless of what the progressives think, or even the conservatives in this nation think. They are focused on God, and brethren, that requires self-control. It requires self-governing because the society out there, the culture out there is always pushing on us to go along with it. But that is how far already progressivism has taken us.

Go to the book of Psalms in chapter 14.

Psalm 14:1-3 The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt. There is none who does good, no, not one.

Back to our day again. The reports of violence, lying, stealing, and coveting abound. Now, it is not that these things were not done before, but they are increasing, of that there is no doubt. And lying by those in authority is especially noticeable. Government corruption is as obvious as the sun in the sky. Now, why cannot people hold themselves in check? Two overall thoughts hold this study together. One is that they really do not know it is their responsibility to God. Even though they talk about them, it is not really part of their modus operandi.

Psalm 14 begins with "The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" That is somewhat misleading because it is not translated as well, as accurately, as it should be. Now, if any of you have an Expositor's Commentary you can look this up. That word "fool" translated here actually more solidly, clearly, plainly indicates wickedness, the wicked, and of course, to God, the wicked are really foolish. Now, that is the way the translators thought. But it is not foolish in the sense of being idiotic, you know, that kind of silly person. It is foolishness in being wicked.

Another thing that they add regarding this word is that this word is not a denial of God's existence, but a willful disregard of responsibility to God. That is why they are so wicked and that is foolish. Now, it is from this that we understand that the people in this context here, that there is no fear of God before their eyes, this is the mark of a progressive and these people will not hold themselves in check, they will not control themselves in regard to God. They will control themselves in other areas of life. They will discipline themselves in other areas of life, but not in relation to God. Now, we are right on the cusp of these people living absolutely hedonistically.

That was one thing that I came to a conclusion on leading up to this.

Now, the second one is drawn from what we are learning from Ecclesiastes. And that is that even though Ecclesiastes never directly says it, it does indicate, it teaches us that everything matters. Let me explain that a little bit more thoroughly.

Not everything matters to the same degree. Now, where everything matters is when we come under God. If you remember in Ecclesiastes, Solomon separates things: under the sun and under God. Under the sun, anything goes. That is the way the people live, they just live to satisfy themselves. If you are under God and He is operating these things in our life, like the merisms, then He is overseeing things and everything matters because God is passing on what He allows us to live in and under.

Now what that requires of us is a great deal of thought regarding what we are going through. And those thoughts do not necessarily mean that we are going through something because we are being punished. It may be difficult. But let us understand, we have got to control ourselves, discipline ourselves, govern ourselves within what God is overseeing occurs in our life. And that is why everything matters.

Two related conclusions regarding this culture have provided me with reasons why people neglect governing themselves. One of these thoughts came to me during the presidential election campaign and the second, shortly after hearing a number of reports regarding the Newtown massacre. Now the first arose as I was meditating on what I was hearing, not from the candidates for the programs they were promising to institute, but rather about polls taken of the reaction of the public as they were hearing the candidates. And I believe that the election confirmed my concern and the conclusion that I reached.

Now, what came to mind is that the average American simply does not grasp the seriousness of this particular election. This was not an ordinary election and circumstances in the world as a whole should have informed voters that this particular election required more than normal attention. So my conclusion was, and is, that I believe there is not any real fervent love for the country, that it is at a very low ebb. Now, this is important to you and me, not in relation to the country so much, but in relation to God and the Kingdom of God. Patriotism is largely dead. And to me, there are clear reasons for that conclusion.

Perhaps the next scripture that we are going to use will help to focus on why. It is a very familiar scripture. It is back in the book of Daniel in chapter 12, verse 4. You will recognize it immediately.

Daniel 12:4 "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase."

Here we are living in the end time, we have just had a critical election in the United States, and we have a citizenry, at least I have concluded, that does not know what is going on. They just voted for somebody, and a party, because it was popular. They felt good about it but the brain power seemed to be missing. Now, this is an interesting prophecy that fits right into the times that this culture is passing through, right now, in our lifetimes. And also please understand that it is a prophecy, it is therefore God's will. He planned it. This did not happen accidentally. God produced this thing that motivate people to run to and fro and knowledge would be increased. He planned for it. And it means therefore, it was planned for the end time generation to go through this.

Now, we can understand that Satan is involved in creating the atmosphere, the spirit, but only as God's lackey; to see that it was done even as He—God—planned it to be. And Satan is involved in much the same way that God involved Satan in the severe test that Job endured and he grew from. Now my point right here is this. It is a word that is I believe critical to this study. Satan must be part of our worldview. He must be part of our worldview. Remember, I said in my commentary, people do not believe in Satan, that he is operating, that he is the god of the world. "Oh, he's just a figment of people's imagination." He is very much alive.

Now, it is obvious even to the casual observer that knowledge has increased tremendously over the past 100 years. It did not just, in a sense, burst on the scene. It began gradually, but it has gradually been increasing. And I will tell you, knowledge is increasing at a tremendous rate. The area of electronic knowledge is a clear witness and life has become almost overwhelmed by a flood of information impacting on it from worldwide sources. Remember, we live in this and we have to deal with it.

The statement "run to and fro" can indicate the literal moving about by any form of transportation from one place to another. And the expression carries with it a sense of urgency. In other words, it is taking place fast and we are in the midst of this. Are we going to govern ourselves within the midst of it? Are we going to control ourselves and make sure that we are focused in the right direction on the right things? This is why it is exceedingly important to you and me, since everything matters, that right now, in the time of the end, we take care of God's business in our life. We have to govern ourselves. So here we are living at this time.

So the term running to and fro can apply literally and it covers, in that sense, any kind of movement across the earth, whether it is by foot, by donkey, by horse, by mule, by airplane, train, bus, you name it, people are just constantly moving. But there is another aspect to it and that is that it is possible, depending upon the context that it appears in, that it is something taking place only in a person's mind. And, it is what either one of these produces that is of concern to us. Either one of them, whether we are actually in the movement that goes back and forth or whether it is going on in our mind. Because we are impacted by a tremendous amount of information, it is wearying and it is very persuasive about just giving up.

Can we get the picture of why Jesus practically began Matthew 24 with, "He who endures to the end, the same will be saved"? We are going through perhaps amongst the most stressful periods of time without warfare in our nation that has ever existed. We are fighting an information deluge everywhere we turn. Wham! And so what are we going to do about it? We have to make decisions. Do I run? Do I change my way of life? Do I progress for those going toward hedonism? Or should I hold the line in my life because God is part of it and everything matters?

You see, in every sense we are conservative. We are not politically conservative, do not get me wrong. But conservatism, holding on to those laws that have existed ever since God has been alive, do we conserve them in our life and make them a part of us by obeying.

Now where we are right now is that if this moral and economic crisis in this culture is not confronted and resolved with the right combination of severe spending cuts, production of income combined with a decided turn to a much higher quality of morality, it is going to devastate the quality of living and I am afraid it will devastate the spirit of our fellow Americans. Maybe I just ought to say our fellow Israelite people wherever they are because they are getting the same thing, whether it is in England, France, Germany, Israel, or whatever. God is making sure His people are having to negotiate this.

I believe that the nation needs leadership to attack these major problems in the same attitude that Evelyn and my generation, and maybe a little older though, attacked the World War Two problem. The entire nation unified and jumped into it to fight the problem. But in order to accomplish this, some sharp changes must take place in the citizenry's thinking. But my concern is that we must be very careful that we do not get caught up in this nation's present zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.

Turn with me to Hebrews. I hope I am giving you reasons why we have to govern ourselves. This is so important to our survival through what we are being made, by God, to endure, to negotiate.

Hebrews 11:8-10 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city [a particular city] which has foundations whose builder and maker is God.

Hebrews 11:24-27 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured [Matthew 24:13] as seeing Him who is invisible.

Now here is a very needful solution that I am embarking on here. I am using Abraham and Moses as examples of what motivated each of the people named in this chapter. Not just those two, all of them. They were all looking forward to accomplishing a vision that they carried and believed in strongly enough to do positive things with their life that would help them accomplish that vision. This is what is going to motivate us, not the only thing, but somebody who is going to govern themselves must have something they want to accomplish more than anything else in the world for them.

By way of contrast, too few of the citizens of this nation have a bright and shining image of what they would like to see the nation become, or themselves become along with the nation. You cannot do that if you think your nation is just floating along and you just float along.

Now, I am going to place a little blame. Part of the reason is that the government schools that all of us, practically, went through that I believe, by design over the past 50 to 60 years, really did a number on the children as they were thoroughly dumbed down regarding this nation's history. Now, if you think that history is not important, then I would like you to consider that the most important book ever written—God's book, the Bible—is history from beginning to end. And if you believe it, you know the roots of your life in the church go all the way back to Abraham. It is his family, Abraham's, that God is putting together. The wisest Being there is has chosen to prepare His children for life in His eternal Family Kingdom partly by means of a great deal of historical knowledge.

These progressives have practically destroyed the foundation of this nation's history. Do you know how they did it? Well, they did it at Satan's behest because that is what Satan wants to do. He wants to destroy Israel along with the church. They did it beginning by destroying the reputations of the men God used to found it. How can you trust somebody like those people? So the reason is clear. The foundation for a life well lived with purposeful direction contains knowledge of what works and what does not work. And history greatly helps clarify one's vision.

So a good knowledge of history is a major contributor to helping people set better goals for living life. And though they are not perfect, even men's histories help people understand many of the whys of life. But as a result of this major gap in their education, I believe that today's Americans are badly overly-focused—you have to combine this with running to and fro—on the now, the immediate, and without a good foundation for a bright future to give guidance. In other words, they are just drifting along with the course of the world, and above all things, they have no discipline toward anything spiritual, because what is going on in this world forces people to do what they are doing.

The second conclusion (that was my first conclusion as to why things are so bad) is that people really do not know what is going on. How can you be loyal to something where you have no understanding of it?

The second conclusion coalesced as I heard the reports regarding Newtown and further convinced me that I was on the right track in thinking this gun control issue is nothing but a political scam. It is a clear example of what not knowing history causes men and women to act as they do. If history provides understanding of what works and what does not, and if people took history's advice, they would know that gun control absolutely will not work. Even the history of this nation shows that it is impossible for it to work and attempting it is a thorough waste of time, energy, and money.

What did prohibition solve? This only took place in the 20s. It is not even 90 years ago. It did not work. How about the war on drugs? Has it worked? Not at all. We could go on and on with these things. Marijuana was banned. Now it is legal in two states. [It is now legal in 38 states.] That is how badly it did not work.

Now, we understand that the real problem is in the heart. The unconverted heart gives orders to the unconverted parts of the body and people act and react according to it. So because the problem of massacres and so forth is caused by the heart, it is a spiritual issue, and none of these things will work, but it gets a lot of publicity for the politicians and so their names are in the paper all the time. So-and-so does this. So-and-so does that. But it shows how ill-prepared they are for the job that has been given to them.

Just to give you an idea of how far these liberal progressives are from getting the true answer is that the liberal governments, and this includes the Republicans too, but not as badly as the Democrats, are steadfastly attacking God, who has the answers, without even a thought that what they are doing is actually promoting more massacres. They will occur. So a major part of the solution to this ongoing violence mess is that each person must govern himself—listen to this whole statement—according to the same set of pure behavioral standards: God's.

Now we know it is not going to happen. Martin gave the proper advice in his sermon, that people have to repent. How can they repent if they are not even listening? They progressed to the place where they do not really need God, they hardly give Him a thought. And so the only way that God is going to get their attention is through pain, then they will begin to ask.

Take a good look at the overall direction of what God is doing with us. Our government, God, has provided us with the leadership that we need, the leadership of Jesus Christ and the examples of others, and the pure standards, by mercifully intervening in our lives by His calling and altering our belief system. This is not happening in the world.

In response to this—here comes our responsibility—we must seek Him, Isaiah 55, and we must submit to Him and thus govern ourselves according to His standards in return for His calling.

Now, our calling has given us a tremendous advantage to living life if we will by faith use what He freely gives. But in order to accomplish this, we must have the vision to accomplish or to supply motivation, the motivation to discipline ourselves.

Let us go to another scripture. It is in the book of Proverbs and I have used it frequently in the last couple of messages that I have given because it is so important because God is supplying the knowledge that we need to discipline ourselves. That is we have to do. God will not grab us by the arm and turn us around in order to inflict the pain, to get us to do that. He wants us to do it ourselves. The process begins with knowledge.

Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge [here is that word], but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Now, that knowledge begins when God reveals Himself to us and He miraculously provides an effective awareness of Himself that begins motivating us to consider Him as a necessary part of our life to a level we never had before. And it is upon this awareness that we react toward producing godly wisdom and therefore right choices. Now, why? Because with His calling, a vision is beginning to form. Choices that truly matter, motivated by a worldview we did not have before His calling.

Let us put what God mercifully does to our mind so that a proper worldview is formed. We already said earlier that Satan must be part of our worldview, but God most certainly must be part of our worldview. Worldview is simply a term that indicates the way that we look at things. Our perception of events of life's events, a perspective to motivate the ways we react. It is the angle or the viewpoint from which we perceive life's events. Remember, we are talking about a pursuit of a very motivating portion of life that is opened up to us by God. So let us go back to another set of very familiar scriptures in Matthew 13, verses 13 through 16. Jesus replies to their question about parables.

Matthew 13:13-16 "Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them is the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled which says: 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of these people has grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.' But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear."

Now how does God begin forming this vision? He begins removing spiritual blindness and deafness. If He did not do this, we would remain in the world. That is exceedingly clear if we will believe it, what God opens our mind to. God is giving us the gift of a vision that includes Him and His purpose to a degree of clarity we never had before.

Let us add one more factor to this that is very important to us, and that is in John the eighth chapter.

John 8:32 "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

So along with the fact that God is opening our minds to important factors that we have never had before, these factors are truth. His revelation of Himself is plain, clear spiritual truth that He begins to help us to understand. Now, this truth aspect is very important because the way that we perceive things forms around it. Because as we are going along after God begins to reveal Himself to us is, we are finding that the world has lied, lied, lied almost constantly to us. And so as truth comes in, it finds us in bondage to lies and we need truth to really set ourselves free so that we can discipline ourselves because we are positive that what is being given to us can be trusted.

And so why does He do this? To begin erasing the flood of distortions by which Satan has deceived the world, including us.

Now, what is being created is that a new worldview begins to form and this is a worldview the uncalled do not have anywhere near what is needed for effectively governing themselves in harmony with the only ethical standards that count. Brethren, they cannot keep the Sabbath! That is a reality. Keeping the Sabbath is a spiritual thing. It is a spiritual work. And only those who are in tune with God can really keep it. They are of the same Spirit. So it strongly, what God is revealing, tends to set our thoughts and opinions as to the way we are stirred to act or react to what we see and hear. It tends to set our standards and helps build a body of beliefs and therefore one's conduct.

Our worldview forms seriously focusing on God Himself, on Jesus Christ, Their purpose, and our part in that purpose. In other words, what we see and hear, what we think about, what we see, and how we react is filtered through God.

In Mark the first chapter, we begin to focus on some things in particular.

Mark 1:14-15 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."

Now back to the world for just a second and why the people cannot repent. They cannot repent even if they receive pain, they cannot repent in the right direction because it also takes the positive teaching of the gospel of the Kingdom of God to them and the two must coalesce after being received at virtually the same time. It is the gospel of the Kingdom of God that provides the overview into which all of the ancillary parts of our worldview is formed. The gospel of the Kingdom of God is the shell from which our vision forms to provide the right motivation for governing our life.

The gospel of the Kingdom of God might also be called the basket that contains the multitude of truths we are having revealed to us by God so that we can make right choices. And it is from within it, that is, within the gospel, that we learn that we are God's new creation in Christ Jesus. He is creating us in the image of Jesus Christ. We thus learn our divine destiny, that Jesus Christ is our Savior and High Priest, that we are endued with God's Spirit. We learn what sin is in its many details, where our spiritual citizenship is, learned who Jesus was before He was born a man, and why He had to be crucified. We learn about love, about what it is, about the resurrection and where our future in the Kingdom of God is to be spent. We learn about Satan and our spiritual slavery to him. The list, brethren, is almost endless.

But the important aspect of this is that all of these elements are part of what makes up our worldview, our vision. God does not stop with just revealing Himself. He feeds us constantly about Himself and about what He is doing, and where our roots are and why we should govern ourselves to be in His Kingdom. It takes a lot of serious thinking of Him and His way to flesh out our future so that it provides the drive, the zeal, to motivate us to seriously govern ourselves so that what lies in the future is attained. This discipline is not formed by magic. It takes work on our part. We have to sacrifice a great deal of our life to seek God.

Let us go to I Corinthians 2 because I want you to see what is forming within you and me and why it is so important to disciplining ourselves to governing ourselves. Paul says,

I Corinthians 2:6-14 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. [All of this progressivism is coming to nothing.] But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. [God has not revealed Himself to them yet.] But as it is written: "Eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

The world, brethren, cannot do that and that is why they cannot discipline themselves. That is why they cannot govern themselves regarding spiritual things. They do not really get it. We are of the same Spirit as God and that is why we get it. We can govern ourselves.

I Corinthians 2:14-16 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For "who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

What Paul is telling us is that what we are going through is producing in us the mind of Jesus Christ. It is being developed in us. Now, perhaps the most important element of all is that our personal relationship with God is forming and to know Him up close is to love Him. The world knows Him in the same manner that we personally know a famous personality in this world. In other words, we know a bit about them from a distance, but we do not really know them up close. We come to know God from within the same intimate Family, having the same Spirit, and a sacrificing love for what He is to us builds and godly love forms our attitude toward Him.

Now, think of the affectionate desire that we have for the one who became our spouse; my spouse. Think of how that drove our conduct, to conduct ourselves in such a way to please that one in every way that we could in order to express our affection, our regard for them openly. And it is this intensity and quality of love that desires to spend eternity with Christ as His spouse. The relationship that we have with Him is what motivates us to make sure—very sure—that we do not do anything that might disappoint or displease Him. And this love greatly influences our choices in regard to governing ourselves.

Martin went through Deuteronomy 30:15-19 and I am not going to go through that again. I was going to go through it. But you know what it says there very clearly. Now, people question, why does a loving God allow such things as the Newtown massacre to occur? I will tell you why. At least one reason is because of free moral agency combined with people not fearing God. And thus, people make bad, terrible choices. Free moral agency means we are free to choose without restraint regarding morals. And we must take time often to meditate upon this great gift—free moral agency—that God has given to us through His calling. He has probably given each of us a totally changed perspective about life. But we must understand that without free moral agency, the very best of liberty would not be available to mankind.

Now, what we see with these massacres, with abortion, and so forth, is some of the very worst of free moral agency. The free moral agency is one of the greatest gifts that God has given to us. The most radical alternative would be that all conduct would be by compulsion. Which do you want: free moral agency or compulsion? I am talking about being compelled by a mind that is restricted to obeying only what it is programmed to do. Like an animal driven by instinct.

Are you aware that without free moral agency, there would be no love? Because the quality of love God wants cannot exist in an atmosphere or an environment of compulsion. Godly love is an action that takes place when one freely gives it to another. And if one is forced to do that, it is not love. Love is keeping the commandments, it is doing something. But if one is forced to do it, it is not being done from a free will that is acting independently to give it. Do you realize that to be like that, under compulsion, is actually a form of slavery? One is reduced to being merely a robot. Now, slavery can be defined as a condition in which one's choices are restricted or even denied entirely.

Now, think of my next statement here in relation to the greatness of God's gift. No other living beings in what God has created except for angels is free to make choices involving morals. And this is a major reason why, in life under God, everything matters. And among the creatures God has created, everything else operates according to the way it was designed. An animal cannot sin because of this factor. But mankind stands apart in this regard. The restriction to instinct has not been placed on us. We are free to choose between alternatives.

We will end with this portion. We are going to define free moral agency.

Free as an adjective means "not subject to or under the control of another; having personal rights and social and political liberty." Now, this is the way that it is mostly used: "not subject to the control or domination of another" is its most common usage as applied within the subject of government. Now, do you want to be in bondage to human nature?

Read with me here in Hebrews the eighth chapter, verses 7 through 10.

Hebrews 8:7-10 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them [not with laws but with people], He says, "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. [Now, God has not disregarded us.] For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people."

So being a free moral agent means that we are not subject to the control or dominion of another, which is its most common usage as applied within the subject of government. Now, what God is doing is He is breaking the bondage of human nature that is within us. This is His creation. And in order to, let us say, create us in the image of Jesus Christ, He had to make us free from the bondage of Satan so that we were really free to choose. To do it voluntarily because we could see clearly that one way is far better than the other and give ourselves to it, governing ourselves to make sure we did the right thing.

Why? Because we love God. We love what He is giving us. We love what the future holds for us. He is giving us all kinds of reasons to persuade us to make the right choice freely.

Moral is an adjective and it means "concerned with the goodness or badness of human character or behavior, making the distinction between right and wrong." Oh, God wants us so much to do that, to make the distinction between right and wrong and choose the right.

Agent is a noun that means "a representative of another and exerts power or produces an effect." The effect is we obey.

Now, in no case is God saying that we have the freedom to establish our own standards of behavior. Those standards are already established in His Word and are part of the knowledge, the truths, that He has given to us, so that a vision will form that will motivate us to make the right choice out of love for our Creator, for our Father, for our Savior. And in this process, He is writing the laws of God in our heart so that we will be in the image of Jesus Christ. And that image, brethren, just so you know clearly, is not the form of what He looked like. It is the image of the life that He lived as a man and continues on into the Kingdom of God.

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