Who is Your Governor?

Last week I wrote that government is instituted by God and I wrote about a Christian's responsibility to be subject to the governing authorities. So who are those authorities? Who is in charge?

If you go to one of those websites they will tell you that Satan is in charge. By "one of those websites" I mean the web sites that proclaim the end of the world by Divine Retribution is nigh because of one thing or another - not making the Sabbath holy by allowing alcohol to be sold on Sunday (which is not the Sabbath), not codifying the First commandment into law, that monuments like the Lincoln Memorial and Mt. Rushmore are "graven images" - pretty much anything bible flavored that the author believes could make this country "great again" If you have never stumbled across one of those websites, count yourself blessed

The good news is that their reasoning is all wrong, enacting these things would accomplish nothing. The bad news is that they are right, Satan is in charge of the world governments. 

8 Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; 9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’”(Matthew 4:8-9)

In Luke the devil's offer was a bit different 

6 And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7 Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.” (Luke 4:6-7) 

Jesus response was not "Those are not yours to give" because both Jesus and the devil knew new full well that all the kingdoms of the word were indeed Satan's trinkets to keep or give as he wants. 1 John 5:20 says that that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, in John 12:31 Jesus says Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out, in John 14:30 Jesus mentions Satan again; the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me, then again in John 16:11 Jesus says this about Satan: ... because the ruler of this world has been judged...

It's clear that Satan is the one who is in charge of the Kingdoms of the world and he has the right, by his own testimony (Luke 4:6) to give authority to anyone he wants. The bible even names him as a prince on the earth.

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia. (Daniel 10:13)

 The Hebrew word here that is translated into 'prince' is sar, which means prince, ruler, leader, chief, captain, and also patron-angel. Daniel was in prayer on behalf of his people and a messenger from heaven is sent to Daniel with an answer but is stopped for 21 days by the prince of the kingdom of Persia. It's believed that the "prince of the kingdom of Persia is a demonic agent, operating by the authority of Satan prevented the messenger from reaching Daniel for 3 weeks until Michael, who is commonly called the archangel, is sent to release the messenger angel.

This leads to an interesting paradox, Romans 13;1 tells us that governing authorities are established by God, but numerous verses in the bible tell us that Satan is the prince of the earth, he's the governor. But if you actually think about it, it makes sense: God established government but God isn't the government, man fills all the government positions and because man is sinful and everything about man is sinful, his government is sinful as well. Therefore Satan is active and aggressive in human government. 

So the governments of the nations of the world, while they are ordained by God, they are not being run by God nor are they reflective of God's will.  Since man has unlimited potential for evil incited by the world and the flesh, government's primary role is to restrain that evil.  And God has ordained it to restrain the inherent satanic activity that is within a national group of people.

I don't want to hear people griping about having to pick between the lesser of two evils, and I hear it all the time and I'm getting tired of it; "I don't want to pick between the lesser of two evils, I want to pick the best candidate!" We ignore the fact that because of our sinful natures, that's exactly what you have to do when you are attempting to pick the "best" candidate. We have all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, so there is no "good" candidate, all we can do is try to pick the least evil.