The Welfare State

# 168 - Today's Du-votional comes from: 1Sa 13:9-11a, “So Saul said, "Bring a burnt offering and peace offerings here to me." And he offered the burnt offering. 10 Now it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might greet him. 11 And Samuel said, "What have you done?" ( 1 Sam 13:9-11a) Saul had been told to wait for Samuel for seven days, and when Samuel didn't arrive early in the day, Saul decides to take matters into his own hands and offer up the sacrifice. In so doing he crossed a line. He mingled the duties of the church with the duties of the state. This is always a recipe for disaster and I believe its one of the reasons that we have such a massive debt problem in our land today. Somewhere along the line, the church has voluntarily relinquished its mandate to care for the poor and given it to the government. What we use to do with 10% of our income, the king needs over 30%. I suppose it started in the depression when the government was compelled to step in and help out, but it seems the church liked it that way so much that they let it continue until it grew into the messy welfare, debt accruing, state we have today. It's much easier to let the king do it, and it frees our money up for bigger buildings. And we get so far in debt that we can't even take care of the poor in our own congregation, much less those outside. Author George Grant has written that when the communists took over in Russia, the first thing they outlawed is charity. They wanted the people to be beholding to them, rather than the church. With all the squawking we are hearing about our national debt, maybe we need to start in our own congregations. Let us learn to operate within our own budgets, and may a substantial portion of that budget be set aside to first of all help our brothers and sisters, and then move on to help others as well. It's our job, let's roll up our shirtsleeves and do it! Jas 1:27a Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble,”