John Calvin and Today's Moralists
Today’s moralists call for a change in this nation (USA), and they have good, moral concerns.
They also call for passive disobedience, if I understand the Manhattan Declaration correctly. That is a good thing.
Too often, however, we all speak of these things in a very wrong tone.
Our spirit toward our rulers is often very wrong.
We criticize, condemn, harp about their bad points, and seldom pray for them.
We uphold the righteousness of our cause. After all, we have the Bible and many thousands of years of history to prove that we have a good morality.
We too often neglect to look within our own hearts and our own congregations to see that we are not what we think we are.
We are all sinners.
We have sinned and failed God.
Is it any wonder, then, that the USA is in the condition it is in? God’s people are not as they should be, and have not been as they should be for many decades.
John Calvin spoke of a similar situation saying,
“..if we are cruelly tormented by a savage, if we are rapaciously pillaged by an avaricious or luxurious, if we are neglected by a sluggish, if, in short, we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake by an impious and sacrilegious prince, let us first call up the remembrance of our faults, which doubtless the Lord is chastising by such scourges. In this way humility will curb our impatience. And let us reflect that it belongs not to us to cure these evils, that all that remains for us is to implore the help of the Lord, in whose hands are the hearts of kings, and inclinations of kingdoms.658 “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.” Before his face shall fall and be crushed all kings and judges of the earth, who have not kissed his anointed, who have enacted unjust laws to oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence to the cause of the humble, to make widows a prey, and plunder the fatherless.”
Calvin, J. (1997). Institutes of the Christian religion. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc. (Emphasis by the pastor.)