Can a Man Mock God?

What is the purpose of law?

It does more than govern behavior else there would not be so many people in jail. Law defines who we are as a people. For example some nations don’t allow women to vote, drive a car or hold a passport. They are misogynist. Some countries don’t allow citizens to own private property. They are communists. They’re also poor.

Laws are a primary factor to determine how long a civilization will last. Bad laws inevitably lead to revolutions. The United States has the longest running continuous government in the world which testifies to the profound wisdom of the founders.

What happens then, when leaders inherit good laws and won’t enforce them?

A pundit recently wrote “If a state, or nation, has laws it will not enforce for political reasons, it mocks both the law and politics, to say nothing of the cultural order. If the language of laws has no meaning other than what lawmakers assign to them after a law is enacted, it is proof that we have arrived in a kind of legal “Wonderland” in which Alice is told by Humpty Dumpty, ‘When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

To which Alice responds, ‘The question is ... whether you can make words mean so many different things.’”

The public disagreement between the President of the United States and the Governor of Arizona has brought a sharp focus on law.

The citizens of Arizona are facing a serious problem. Immigrants cross the border illegally and commit brutal crimes against the ranchers. Families whose property borders the state wake up to find illegal immigrants in the kitchen of their home. In an effort to appease would be intruders many homes along the border leave a refrigerator on the porch with food in it.

But if food is all that were taken we might overlook the thefts. However, one rancher has been murdered. In fact 87 percent of the illegal aliens arrested have criminal backgrounds. As Gov. Brewer stated “They're devastating our ranchers down in southern Arizona—drop houses, kidnapping, automobile accidents, extortion, drugs, the spill-over with the drug cartels. We're facing all of it.”

She has petitioned the federal government to fulfill its constitutional responsibility but the president has turned a deft ear. Worse, he has sided with the illegal aliens against law-abiding citizens of the country he has sworn to protect.

So the governor took the essence of the federal law and wrote it into Arizona law. Now she is pilloried by the press and the president. To which I am inclined to ask, “Why is the press so fond of attacking women who stand for national principles when men will not?”

Now America faces the question “does law mean anything?” If the President and Attorney General, two of the most powerful members of our government empowered to enforce law, refuse to uphold their constitutional oath, there is a genuine question of whether we have law or a constitution.

The question strikes at the heart of both our country and religion. Why religion? One leg of the Judeo Christian ethic is law. When God led Israel out of bondage to Egypt, He did something unique in the history of man. God spoke to three million people gathered in the desert. It would be good for every man to listen to the words of the Creator of the Universe when he speaks in such a powerful way. God gave man His Law! They are good laws which protect the rights of the individual. Yet Israel forgot and Christians reject the Law of God.

It is a strange irony that many of the very people who rightly decry the abandonment of law by leaders of our government are the same people who believe Jesus Christ died to do away with the law written in stone by God’s finger. Why did God choose stone? Why not write on parchment or in the dust?

Today many place signs in their yards picturing these two tablets of stone. Yet they support a church that believes as a matter of doctrine that Christ abolished the very law they advertise.

Could it be that religious teachers are at the heart of this national crisis? If the people who believe in God, taught obedience to God’s Law, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. Rather than blame blasphemers, atheists and pagans for the shape the country is in, maybe Christians and Jews ought to look at our own houses of worship. After all, over 70 percent of this country is Christian. If Christians taught the law of God in their own churches, maybe the country as a whole would expect our leaders to keep the laws of the nation.

The truth is that Christians and Jews elected a man who says this country is not Christian, who attended a Muslim school, who believes in abortion and who has voted several times for laws to kill children who survive abortions. How do we reconcile such abuse of live human beings with a civilized nation?

At the core of law is God. Law stretches back to God for the right to exist. It looks for a moral basis on which to rest that transcends the temporal desires of politicians. In the end good laws make for a great civilization. As Moses said to Israel “What other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?” (Deut. 4:8 NIV)

If the president and leaders of congress are mocking the country by undermining its laws, is it possible that men who say the Law of God is abolished are mocking God? As Job said, “Will you speak wickedly for God, And talk deceitfully for Him?... Will it be well when He searches you out? Or can you mock Him as one mocks a man? (Job 13:7-9 NKJV)

Until next time,