When does a government become illegitimate in the eyes of God?

The Bible says all authority is established by God and rulers are ministers of God. So, when do when do leaders lose their legitimate authority to rule over our lives?

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Last week, Kamala Harris was in Florida to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision legalizing abortion, which (as everyone in America knows) was overturned this past June.

In her typical arrogant tone, she made a speech attempting to defend a woman’s right to abort her child because those rights were supposedly enumerated in the Declaration of Independence.

Among her exact words were: “A promise that we made in the Declaration of Independence that we are each endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Except … that’s not what the Declaration of Independence says.

The correct recitation of that historic document is that all mankind is endowed by their Creator “with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” [emphasis added]

How convenient that Harris left out the most important human right of all, the right to life.

Pure evil.

For Harris to intentionally omit this God-given right is to push the narrative that no living being has a right to life. But she had to, didn’t she? According to her, the unborn do not have this right. It’s OK to kill them.

Our anti-human government

No wonder some political commentators are calling our current government “anti-human.”

Here’s what FOX News commentator and podcaster Dan Bongino, said on Jan. 21:

“Just listen to the liberals talk; liberalism in essence is anti-human. Listen to how they talk about people: the ‘deplorables,’ the rednecks. They see you as a proliferating virus to this atheistic god they have, Mother Nature. And they see nothing … stopping them from doing bad things.”

Want more evidence of government officials’ being “anti-human”?

A couple of weeks ago, a staggering 210 House Democrats voted against a bill requiring doctors to save the lives of babies that survive abortions. Let them die. Kill them.

That’s anti-human.

Though it’s tempting to delve into the cesspool of other anti-human practices, policies and dictums of our United States government, it would distract from my main question:

When does a government become illegitimate in the eyes of God?

The answer is surprisingly simple if one holds the Bible as the infallible word of God.

When government leaders cease to be ministers of God, they become illegitimate. THAT role is their sole purpose: To be God’s servants.

The Apostle Paul says, “there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” [Ro. 13:1]

Think about that for a moment: Unless a government official is “established by God,” he or she has no authority over anyone’s life, ever.

Xi Jinping? None in China. Ali Khamenei? None in Iran. Kim Jong-un in North Korea? Nope. Not from God.

But how do we know if our rulers are “established by God”?

Again, the answer is simple:

He or she must be “a servant of God to you for good.” [4]

But what is “good”?

Simple again:

He or she must be “an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” [4]

“For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.” [6, emphasis added]

Simple, isn’t it? They must be devoted to good and to the punishment of evil.

Our “Upside Down” Government

Anyone who has watched the Netflix series Stranger Things will recognize our current government in Washington D.C. as the “Upside Down” from a God-ordained government. Legitimate governmental authority has been turned into a dark, nightmarish negative image of what it once was, and not just in D.C.

More and more, we witness open servants of evil running federal, city and local governments. Let’s call them … oh, I don’t know … ministers of Satan, whose real goal is not to govern for “good” or to bring wrath on evil, but to make a mockery of God, His laws, His justice and His creation.

They are purveyors of evil. They celebrate and applaud evil. They invent new forms of evil.

They are NOT established by God regardless of how people voted or how brilliantly a rigged election was manufactured. People can vote for evil people. But those rulers have NO God-given authority over mankind.

I’ll repeat Paul’s words:

“[T]here is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” (Emphasis added)

Our Founding Fathers knew that. They wrote a 1,338-word Declaration saying as much when they told King George and all the king’s men to hightail it back to their side of the pond. They were no longer needed, accepted or had any legitimate power to rule in the colonies.

King George lost his authority to govern the American colonies because he was accused of violating the unalienable rights God gave man: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Winston Churchill (did he ever tire of carting that heavy bag of great quotes around?) told the House of Commons in 1948: “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it!”

Welcome to the Show that Never Ends: government authorities becoming tyrants who refuse to be servants of God for good.

No longer do Americans look at their future with great anticipation or excitement. Instead, they look over their shoulders with fear of the next mass killing at a Wal-Mart, a church or a school.

Since May 2020, nearly 300 vandalism attacks against Catholic churches alone have been committed.

There’s essentially a war along our southern border – more like a surrender – that has seen over 4 million illegal immigrants invade our country since Joe Biden took office. Countless (literally countless) numbers of these “immigrants” are terrorists, sex traffickers, drug runners and hardened criminals who steal the lives, liberties and happiness of millions.

Yet, when Biden visited Mexico earlier this month and met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Liar-in-Chief didn’t talk about ways Mexico could help our nation secure the lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness of Americans.

No: He spoke about ways the two nations could promote diversity, “equity,” and gender inclusivity, along with fighting “climate change.”

The White House is more concerned with turning children into circus attractions and cracking down on “terrorist” moms at school board meetings than making sure those same moms have baby formula to feed their infants so they can grow up cherishing their God-given male- or femaleness.

I could go on and talk about random attacks and killings, the devaluation of police officers, hardened criminals that are never prosecuted, stores shuttering across the nation because of theft, drug addicts menacing people and stores and dying on the sidewalks of big cities, and the insane push to disfigure little children into freaks of nature.

Government without God’s Authority

Only those who have never read the Bible could convince themselves that these people are “servants of God for good” who “bring wrath on those who practice evil.”

But if these rulers have NO authority because only God can establish legitimate leadership, how do we respond to these illegitimate tyrants and their demands for our ungodly compliance?

Pause to think about people being forced to use transgender pronouns. Healthcare workers being forced to perform abortions. Doctors being told they must assist in euthanasia as a kind of “medical care.” Churches being told they must close their doors.

Our Founding Fathers drew the road map for us to follow, and it’s probably not what most people think.

The American colonies did not declare war on Great Britain. Instead they declared their independence.

In fact, during the first Revolutionary War battle on April 19, 1775, Captain John Parker told his Minutemen as 700 British regulars approached Lexington Green:

“Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war let it begin here.” Parker believed firing first would be tantamount to treason.

Paul Revere, standing off to the side, agreed.

“Let the [English] soldiers pass by. Do not molest them without they begin first.”

Indeed, the redcoats did fire first during the conflict that came to be known as the Battle of Concord.

800 British soldiers squared off against 400 militia. Through the use of guerrilla tactics (to which the British were unaccustomed), the militia forced the redcoats to flee, inflicting 300 casualties that included 73 deaths.

The Americans stood their ground, having declared their independence. They viewed starting a war as treason, but likewise had no compulsion to believe that declaring their independence was a treasonous act.

When government leaders are not servants of God for good, when they fail to be avengers on those who practice evil, they have no authority from God, they are not established rulers.

To protect ourselves, the Bible warns us to put on the “full armor of God.” Then it commands us to stand against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” [Ep. 6:12]

“When the day of evil comes,” the Apostle Paul says (and it’s looking like it’s now here), “stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” [12]

That’s exactly what Captain John Parker’s men did. They stood their ground.

That’s exactly what we need to do to oppose an illegitimate government without God's authority to rule over us.

Also, like our Founding Fathers, this additional admonition from Jesus would serve us well:

“And He said to them, ‘But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his cloak and buy one.’” [Luke 22:36]