Government Mandates, Pt 1

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

Audio for this article here: SermonAudio.com/StudyGrowKnow

Government mandates have always been around throughout history and I’m not simply talking about government, as in the United States government. I’m referring to numerous empires, nations and kingdoms of old. Mandates have been the norm for monarchies and other governments because in most cases, the king or ruler of said empire, is exempt from mandates he/she created, while the people within that particular nation/empire were required to obey. Unfortunately, we are seeing this in current society.

What we are experiencing in the United States is a shift to a greater rule by mandate, as opposed to the traditional way of Congress making a law, the Executive Branch either signing it into law or vetoing it and the Judicial Branch determining that law’s constitutionality. Instead, a greater dependence upon “executive orders” or mandates has become the norm and the most recent example of this is Joe Biden’s mandate that any company with 100 or more employees must have every employee receive the current CV-19 vax. The Biden Administration has provided no exemptions for religious beliefs, natural immunity or medical exemptions.

It is based on the belief that 80 million people who have not taken the vax are THE reason that CV-19 still exists in society and those who have not taken it are a “danger” to those who have taken it. In fact, the argument goes that those who have not taken the vax are “killing” those who are vaxxed. Of course, this purely illogical thinking here goes unnoticed; that if those vaxxed are in danger from those who have not taken the vax, this assumes then that the vax does not work, or at least, does not work well.

Please note the chart shown. The top part shows the number of deaths (Israel). The lower portion shows the number of booster shots given. Notice the way the two track fairly closely, which should be of tremendous concern but since MSM is not covering it, few care.

My wife is hearing of more folks simply dying for no known reason within the company she works for. A few weeks ago, two people died. Last week, another died. I received an email from a company I used to do work for noting that their founder simply passed away quite unexpectedly. They note she had Alzheimer’s yet the speed with which she died has left them completely surprised and saddened. This appears to be happening more and more.

People like to downplay the VAERS reporting system saying that anyone can report anything. It’s actually more difficult to report things to VAERS than many realize. Here’s an article about the pressure hospitals are under to NOT report adverse reactions and/or deaths. As we continue to see, people who mock those who want nothing to do with the experimental mRNA vax are the ones who are dying as this article notes. Proof that once you get on the CV vax train, you can’t get off in this article here. There appears to be something in play is more than simply a vax against CV-19. There’s too much going on right now that suggests it was never really about CV-19, but more about controlling every aspect of society. What is happening in Australia may well be the signs of what is to come for the rest of the world.

We are now also seeing a serious uptick in fetal injuries and/or deaths from pregnant women who got the vax. So just how many people are dying because of the vax? According to government’s own data, it appears that at least 150,000 people have likely died from the vax.

People need to start asking WHY things like this are happening? We’ve never tried to eradicate the flu before. People got (or didn’t get), the annual flu vax (I never did), and that was that. Why haven’t we used the same process to eradicate the flu like they’re trying to eradicate CV? They are both viruses, so what’s the deal?

It is impossible to rid a society of a virus once that virus has entered that society. The world experiences the flu annually. Each new year presents a variant of the flu virus, which is why the flu vaccine is often not helpful since it is normally based on the previous year’s flu virus. Since the new version has mutated, it is no longer like the previous version.

But what about government mandates that are essentially forcing people to receive something that many to most would never receive of their own volition? Are government mandates to be obeyed? Most Christians believe that every government mandate should be obeyed unless said government is stupid enough to tell Christians that they cannot spread the Gospel. Apart from that, most Christians believe we are to obey the government, based on Paul’s words in his letter to the Roman believers. Normally, when Christians today talk about mandates and obedience to government, Romans 13 is the go-to passage, in which Paul appears to thoroughly explain what it means to obey government.  I’ve previously dealt with Romans 13 in another article, and a number of other articles can be read here for those interested. I don’t want to rehash those but frankly, I believe as Adam Clarke does, that this section of Romans was highly nuanced by the apostle Paul and what he actually says goes much deeper than what we see on the surface.

In the book of Daniel, we see three separate mandates that affected Daniel and/or his friends directly. For Daniel, having been taken out of Israel and to an unknown land to him – Babylon – must have been a rather startling if not terrifying situation. Right from Daniel 1, we see a predicament for Daniel that he believed he needed to address. All the young men that seemed good to King Nebuchadnezzar, also taken from Israel to Babylon were set apart and were to be given the king’s royal food and drink and trained in the ways of Babylon. The goal was so that Nebuchadnezzar would have more “wise” men for his own use. The young men were to be trained for three years (Daniel 1:5) and would then be questioned by Nebuchadnezzar himself who would make the final determination about them.

Interestingly enough, Daniel inwardly objected to the food that he was going to be given and respectfully approached the chief of eunuchs who was in charge of Daniel and the others as we see in Daniel 1:8-10.

But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God had brought Daniel into the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, ‘I fear my lord the king, who has appointed your food and drink. For why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are your age? Then you would endanger my head before the king.’

It is important to note that Daniel was not angry nor did he approach the chief of the eunuchs in anger. Daniel made no demands. He simply and very respectfully explained his concern and “requested…that he might not defile himself.” Of course, the chief of the eunuchs was rightfully concerned even though God had caused the him to see Daniel in a favorable light. He was concerned about losing his life if the king noticed that Daniel and his friends didn’t look as healthy as the others.

So, a simple test was created and for ten days (v 12), Daniel and his friends would essentially eat vegetables and water and then the chief of the eunuchs would decide how they looked at the end of ten days. At the end of ten days, the four of them looked healthier than the rest so the chief of eunuchs allowed Daniel and his friends to continue eating vegetables and drinking water for the remainder.

So what was the big problem for Daniel? He didn’t want to eat the king’s delicacies or drink the king’s wine (v 8). Why not? It was likely that the meat at least was normally offered to the Babylonian gods and Daniel did not want to eat that or drink wine that would possibly have caused inebriation. Why didn’t Daniel simply take the king’s food and not eat those things that may have caused offense to him? To Daniel, eating meat possibly sacrificed to idols would have been sin to him. Drinking wine that may have caused inebriation or drunkenness was also something he wanted to avoid. Again, why not simply set that specific food and drink aside rather than cause a situation that could lead to contention?

It probably had to do with Daniel’s desire to promote godliness among these heathen people in Babylon. Daniel wanted to stand out by being a witness to those he now lived among. It is clear in this case that Daniel objected to the king’s mandate and therefore, resisted, but he did so in a very respectful way, fully trusting on the Lord to direct his path. In this case, Daniel was given the green light. I cannot help but wonder if during this time, Christians have a great opportunity to resist government mandates considered wrong, to resist peacefully and respectfully and thereby win some to the Lord who would otherwise not have been won? Something to consider.

In another case, we see his three friends faced with doing something that clearly would have been sin by worshiping the image that King Nebuchadnezzar set up (Daniel 3). Clearly, to obey the king’s mandate would have been sin because it involved idolatry. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah wanted no part of that and resisted the mandate. They did not protest the government. They did not create a scene. They simply refused to participate. The result of their resistance was being called before the king who became enraged when they still refused to worship the image in the king’s presence when given the chance. This resulted in the fiery furnace being heated seven times hotter than normal.

I’m sure you know the story. The three men faithfully went to the fiery furnace because they could not obey the mandate. It was that simple. They would not become idolaters to save their own physical lives and instead gave glory to God by telling Nebuchadnezzar that God could save them from the fiery furnace if He chose, but if He did not choose to do so, they would still not submit to the king’s mandate (Daniel 3:17-18). This type of mandate is easy for Christians to resist, isn’t it?

Let’s be clear that in both of the above cases, the four men respectfully refused to submit to the king’s mandates. In the first instance, Daniel was rewarded for his dedication to God and was given permission to not have to eat or drink the king’s food or wine. In the second instance, the three men’s resistance to the king actually got them thrown into the fiery furnace without knowing ahead of time that God was going to save them because He wanted to show His glory and because of a work He was doing in Nebuchadnezzar.

In the third instance of a government mandate, we learn of a plot against Daniel because of those who were jealous of his position and probably did not like answering to him (Daniel 6). So, they conspired to have King Darius (of the Medo-Persian Empire that conquered the Babylonian Empire), create a law or mandate that said no one could petition any god or man except Darius only for thirty days. Anyone who broke that rule would be tossed to the lions. Without thinking it through, Darius signed on and created the mandate that applied to everyone in that kingdom. No one could pray to God or petition any man other than Darius for thirty days.

What did Daniel do in response to this? Again, he resisted by doing what he did every day. He simply ignored the mandate, went to his room, opened the windows toward Jerusalem and there he prayed to God. He was not concerned about a mandate and was not interested in obeying it. It is interesting that he never went to Darius about this, but simply ignored the mandate completely.

Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den, survived. Daniel’s resistance to a government mandate meant his life and he did not know before hand that God would protect him, did he?

So here we see three separate examples of government mandates and three separate responses to these mandates. The truth is that these four men did not consider their lives worth saving, but entrusted themselves to God for His will to be accomplished.

So what does this have to do with the Biden Administration’s latest mandate? We will deal with that in Government Mandates, Pt 2, next time!

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective