The 7 Mountains Of Influence In Society: Government & Family Series

I love talking about these seven mountains of influence in society. It’s really interesting to dig into this stuff. But unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and today we talk about the last two hills, government and family.

First, the hill of government. What a pertinent topic, we recently had a presidential election, along with senate elections, house of representative elections, state elections, local elections and so on. So what is the hill of government? Essentially government for us, either allows us to freely share the gospel, and upholds righteousness and justice, or government is also able to block our ability to spread the gospel, and can also become something that propagates injustice, corruption, and spreads and encourages evil instead of good.

In countries like China, or North Korea, or nations in the middle east, you can be arrested or even killed for teaching the good news about Jesus Christ. Those would be examples of governments that hinder the spread of the gospel.

So in the United States thankfully we do still have religious liberty, where we are free to talk about Jesus and spread the gospel. But that could always change. Sometimes we think it could never happen here, but it could. All you would have to have are certain laws that say it’s hate speech to talk about Jesus, or laws that proclaim Christianity is evil and can’t be allowed to hurt people anymore. It’s really not as unlikely as it might seem. Some have tried to create laws that mandate ministers would have to perform certain ceremonies or services that would violate their conscience. That is a form of disrupting the spread of the gospel. So I hope you’re praying for our nation. There are those in our country who don’t want Christians to be able to speak. They’d rather we be silenced.

But in the United States we have these wonderful protections, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the freedom to preach the gospel. And it’s great. Let’s never take that for granted. It’s a huge blessing that many do not enjoy in other nations.

But another important truth about government is that government can either encourage and uphold righteousness or distort and destroy righteousness and impose evil.

When government creates a law that stealing is a crime, this is a good thing, it encourages right living. When government creates laws the benefit couples for being married and staying married, once again, you have laws that are encouraging godliness. If you have a law that makes bribery wrong, and punishable by fines or jail time, once again you have a law that discourages evil, and encourages good things. That’s why we have laws against rape, or child abuse, laws against speeding, laws against disorderly conduct, and laws against drunk driving. All these laws, if they are functioning correctly should discourage evil and encourage good. It’s all based on basic morality in one way or another.

But the opposite can also occur as well. What do we do when government laws encourage evil and discourage good? That’s when things get really messy. Think of ancient Rome where it was illegal to be a Christian for a long time. Christians were required to worship the emperor of Rome, and if they didn’t they would go to jail. What happens when a society encourages drug use or alcoholism, or when a government encourages bribery or corruption or forces a set of values on us that we don’t agree with?

Government can become something that encourages evil, instead of good.

So how are we doing in the battle on this hill of government? Well, I think in many ways we are doing well. We still have religious liberty. We still have the Constitution, and basic human rights enshrined in the bill of rights. But we certainly do see an increasing wickedness in our country. Of course what can government do about something like that? Ultimately it’s up to churches and Christians to uphold good morals in society. But do see our government spending and spending, there are trillions and trillions of dollars of debt, and it just keeps getting worse. You see the sanctity of human life is not respected in our country in many ways. You see increasing corruption in the business and banking world, you see ever increasing taxes. You see poverty, and welfare and jobs and credit cards and gambling and casinos and drug addiction, the opioid crisis, human trafficking, and on and on the list goes. It’s quite a struggle, and a lot of these things can be either discouraged or encouraged by this battle on the hill of government.

So which is you is God calling to be active on this hill of government? I love politics myself, I find it all quite interesting and I’m always watching, and praying, and speaking with others about it. Is God calling you to advocate for justice in government? Maybe God is calling you to run for office someday. Maybe God is calling you to be a poll watcher, or a city council member, or a trustee, or to work in some form on the government level. Pray about it. And be sure to stay informed, as a Christian, you should be always praying for those who are in positions of authority in government, scripture makes that clear.