Highlight: The Virtue of Self Government

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00:00

Uh, just so to, to leave, uh, um, just a kind of general outline of, of the, of the spheres of government of God.

00:08

There's basically four spheres of self -government, family, government, church, government, and civil government. Yeah.

00:13

So like, I mean, I, I, it's funny, funny, not funny. I was working on my notes yesterday and I had to have a talk with my children because my wife wasn't feeling good.

00:24

And she was laying down and it was like, they all of a sudden went, I was in my office.

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They know if I'm in there working and studying, they're supposed to knock and not just barge in. But they apparently didn't think they needed to do this.

00:36

They kept barging in and we're fighting and being lazy and all this and that. And it was like, so I had a talk with them,

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I was like, you know, we're trying to teach you a good self -government. So what that means is like when mommy has to lay down cause she's not feeling good, that doesn't mean that you are no longer under any governmental structure and you can just act as you please.

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You still have to adhere to the self -governmental rules and laws that we have tried to raise you up in.

01:03

And, uh, so it was just funny. It was like, it was like, I'm preparing to teach on the guys like, well, here's a good example. Yeah.

01:09

Your response, whether you're doing it well or poorly, you are governing yourself.

01:16

Yeah. It's one of those things that's just in place. Can't get away from it. Yeah. So that's why the verses

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I read at the beginning, you know, ultimately that's the, the founding principles on good self -government is love

01:29

God and love neighbor. You know, so if you're acting selfishly, you're not doing either, you know?

01:35

And so, you know, obviously you're probably just getting into that with Georgia, maybe you're past getting into that with her, but yeah,

01:44

I mean, we started early probably. Yeah. Well, I don't know when people start, but my son just turned one and he's, he's already getting spanked.

01:54

I mean, basically we started when she was sitting. Yeah. So when you can tell that she knew she was doing what she was told not to.

02:03

Yeah. Which is like 10 months, honestly. Yeah. For most kids. Yeah. That's probably about right. Well, and then I think, you know, then there's the, um, right away there's this, you know, you're teaching them like self -control and then you have to teach them quickly.

02:19

Be self -controlled. Yeah. Quickly. Yeah. Govern yourself quickly. Obedience now all the way joyfully.

02:26

Right. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So like these are the phases we go through. I had a situation with Jonah's probably about three weeks ago where he was trying to touch something.

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He wasn't supposed to touch. It was my phone. And he, you know, as soon as we put our phone down, he's like, like beeline to our phones.

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And uh, I'm like, don't do it. I'm watching you. Don't do it. And he's like, I'm like, don't do it.

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And he just kept looking at me and he was like having like a legit, like internal struggle. And I was like,

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I'm watching you. Don't do it. And so finally he gave up and he just sat down and was just like, but he like, he did the right thing, but it destroyed him.

03:08

Yeah. So January, which she's six right now when she's told something that she goes against what she wants to do.

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She gets this little like eye twitch, like she does it, but she's like, like she doesn't like hearing it.

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And her eye starts doing this. And my husband says, I do the same things. Oh, well actually, Jani said something, uh, that I think about all the time.

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She was like, I forget. I wish I could quote her directly. But she was like, you know, um, when you don't want to eat your food, which is a

03:43

Jani thing. Yeah. When you don't want to eat your food, you take a deep breath and you do it anyway.

03:50

She was giving advice to Georgia. Speaking of governing yourself, take a deep breath.

03:57

You do it anyway. That's excellent advice. When obedience is required and you just don't want to be obedient.

04:03

You just take a deep breath and you do it anyway. That is really good advice. Yes. From the mouth of babes.

04:10

Yeah. That little girl has a lot of wisdom. Like when I was talking to my kids yesterday, you know,

04:18

I said, Hey, look, we want to, mommy and I want to teach you to have good self -government and it, you know, and then mommy and I need to have good self -government, you know, and so then

04:27

I explained it and then it's the family government. So if we don't have good self -government, you guys can't have good self -government, you know, and then the church, if there's not a lot of good family governments, then there's not going to be any good church governments.

04:38

And if there's no good church governments, which is what we're seeing, then the civil government is just, it's just tyranny.

04:46

Right. That's the end result. Well, they're basically the idea is that the civil sphere just takes over the government.

04:53

Yeah, exactly. They're going to have to fill in the vacuum. Right. So that's why they're in charge of things like helping poor people all the way to, uh, you know, like, uh, education.

05:05

Yeah. Right. Like managing, uh, health care, general beliefs about morality and things like that.

05:11

Yeah. Because they're trying to take over. Well, yeah, we, they're trying to take over slash we have willingly given them because yeah, what that indicates is people who don't want to self -govern don't want to govern their families and churches that don't, uh,

05:28

I would say churches more kind of abdicate their role to yeah. The civil. Oh, totally.

05:34

Here, here's a quote. This, uh, Rusty starts out this chapter with this quote is from, uh, Robert, uh,

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Winthrop, who was congressman house, uh, or speaker of the house, like in the 1840s, uh, he said, all societies of men must be governed in some way or other men in a word must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them, either by the word of God or by the strong arm of man, either by the

05:57

Bible or by the bayonet. And, and, uh, yeah, I love that quote. And I mean, that's what we're seeing, right?

06:04

Like our nation was founded on those principles. They had overall had really great self -government.

06:10

They left England so they could have that liberty and freedom to do so, you know, and we've gotten to the point where the government's grown, the civil government's grown so much, um, that they just, uh, then, and people have such bad self -government that it's, you know, literally is

06:27

Bible or bayonet. Are you going to follow God's word and his standard on how to live? Or are you going to let the state tell you how to live and rule you, um, by coercion and force?

06:38

Yeah. And you see that with your kids too. I explained to my kids all the time, like being self -governing, being responsible means that you're going to be free in a way that if you will not self -govern, you're not going to be free.

06:52

So either you're going to self -govern and enjoy freedom or I'm going to have to come rule over you.

06:57

Yeah. So, uh, and I will always win just FYI. So like it's, and like you said,

07:04

Bible or bayonet, like it's either you are submitting to the word of God or someone else is going to make you submit like those are really your only two options.

07:14

Spank and spoon maybe. It might come into play. Whatever it is. Yeah. No, that's a, that's a great point. And there's another quote in there somewhere, but it's like basically like you, you have,

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God gave us 10, 10 rules to follow, 10 basic self -government.

07:27

You can follow those or the option. The other option is thousands of rules from, from some subjective governing body telling you how to live.

07:38

Yeah. Subjective. Being subjective. Yeah. Key. Key.

07:44

The most key phrase. Yeah. Oh, totally. Well, and we've talked about it a lot. But like when you actually had someone say to me the other day, like, you know, the first waves of feminism, like, weren't so bad.

07:54

It's like these feminists now that are really bad. And I like, didn't have an hour to explain to her why

08:01

I don't agree with that. But you know, ultimately when you look back at what the early feminists were fighting for, they were fighting against the lack of self -government that men did have.

08:14

Right. So when they were fighting for prohibitionism, what were they asking for? Like basically the men were not self -governing and they were, there were a lot of drunks and there was a lot of abuse happening because the men were not self -governing.

08:26

The church wasn't governing over the men that were in the church. And so the women asked the state to step in and do something that we don't support because ultimately why are we against prohibitionism?

08:38

Well, cause that's not the civil government's job. Like telling you how much you can drink is not the job of the government.

08:44

Do we agree that it's a problem if like an entire society of men by and large could be called drunkards?

08:51

Yeah. That's a problem. Yeah. But feminism was asking for the state to step in. And ever since women did get the right to vote, there's this really interesting statistic that the under the, since women have been granted the right to vote, the growth of the government has been exponential.

09:08

And why is that? It's because women are asking the government to step in and do what the men are not doing.

09:15

But yeah, but it's interesting. And something I did want to talk about is that when you see the, so there's a breakdown of the spheres and obviously certain spheres are in charge of legal matters and some are not.

09:30

So not only is there a problem when you abdicate all authority to one sphere, there's also a problem.

09:40

And this is how you get a lot of laws that are not necessary, is by jumbling up the spheres and all of a sudden self -governing something that you should be able to accomplish on your own.

09:53

Hence the name self -governing suddenly becomes against the law or, and then all of a sudden you have the civil government attempting to, or the state,

10:06

I guess in a lot of these instances, attempting to enforce, enforce laws that would not actually have ever been laws.

10:16

Like wearing a mask, for example? Yeah. There, I guess,

10:21

I guess what I want to have a conversation about is how there is a difference between governing yourself poorly in a way that requires legal action and governing yourself poorly in a way that does not.

10:36

Like the, the, the legal entity is going to come in and try to legislate morality and ethics and try to, in a way they are like, they, they don't, they deal with laws, but not everything regarding self -government requires a law, like being kind to people, for example, or not discriminating or being partial against people.

11:00

Those like technically in the Bible, partiality is a sin, but as far as I know, there is no law against partiality.

11:11

And so there is at the heart of it, there is a, a lot, obviously lacking in belief in the scripture to be, you know, a full resource for, and the ultimate authority for how we create our laws.

11:26

But it's just all kinds of all messed up, whichever way you kind of cut it.

11:34

And I don't even, it's going to take reform, lots of reform. It starts, yeah, it starts in the self, it starts in the individual self -government with the gospel.

11:44

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, going back to something Joy was saying, like ultimately we've talked about this a lot, but, you know, the civil government, their role in the eyes of God, right, is to protect the innocent and punish the evildoer.

11:57

They are God's avenger, literally God's deacon, and that's it. That's the responsibility they have before God.

12:05

And so anything outside of that jurisdiction, they are overstepping their God -given rights to rule.

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And so, you know, ultimately there can only be one supreme being, and that's

12:20

God, obviously. But what we're seeing is the, our civil government, our federal government is becoming, they're trying to make themselves

12:29

God. They're trying to be the ultimate authority where they are, they determine what's right and wrong.

12:35

They determine morality and they punish at will. And we have a fight on our hands.

12:42

Yeah, it's rather insidious because, well, we're talking about like, you guys were talking and you kept mentioning like governing and freedom, which

12:53

I think some people would see some sort of contradiction there. Like if you're governed, you can't be free.

13:01

But the point of biblical self -government is freedom. And that, so you're even looking at a bad definition of some really, really like key terms in terms of even understanding what we're talking about here.

13:18

Like that's how far it goes. We've allowed even the language and the idea, we don't even have a biblical idea of what governance and what freedom looks like.

13:31

But what's insidious is that our current culture and the current government, they are promising freedom.

13:42

It's all done in the name of freedom. And that's such a lie of all the

13:47

CRT, critical race theory, intersectionality stuff, is that they're making themselves look like the hero of the story.

14:02

But they're not only failing to govern well and in their sphere, they're not, the outcome is not freedom at all.

14:14

It's total slavery to sin. And it just propagates the idea that whatever works for you, that there is no truth.

14:23

Whatever works for you. We obviously talked about this when we talked about Matt Walsh's documentary.

14:33

And we just, we really do believe that we should, like in a weird way, they're selling self -government, like you are free to do whatever you want.

14:43

Yeah, well, that's not self, that's not governing yourself. Doing whatever you want is rebellion.

14:50

But we've repackaged it into like, no, really governed, free people are the ones that do whatever they want.

14:56

And we're here as the United States government to give you the ability to do whatever you want.

15:02

Well, ultimately, you're either going to be under man's law or God's law, which is why you're going to have autonomy or you're going to have theonomy.

15:08

That's the only two things you're going to be governed by ultimately. And so I think the choice isn't so much like, it's not whether you will be governed.