For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof; but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged.
This is Political Theory 101. Since the founders of this nation inherited a strong Christian heritage from earlier generations, the Proverbs 28:2 principle was well ingrained in their thinking and in their political systems. Patrick Henry, one of the founders of this country, would say that, “It is when men forget God that tyrants forge their chains.” William Penn added, “Men must be governed by God, or they will be ruled by tyrants.” Then Benjamin Franklin put it in the form of a quip: “Either you’ll be governed by God, or by God you’ll be governed.” This means that you must govern yourself according to the laws of God, or by God’s sovereign order, you will be tyrannized by the strong hand of government. That is the message of this proverbial truism.
No maxim better explains the last 150 years of this nation’s existence than this one. As the integrity of the family collapses, the government increases its purview into every area of life. While legislatures mandate homosexual indoctrination in public school classes, fund abortion, and facilitate easy divorce, they are also busy increasing the size of the budgets. The people are happy to elect these tyrants who promise them security by offering more government programs and nanny-state regulations. As the illegitimacy rate rose from 3% to 42% between 1910 and 2010, government spending—on local, state, and federal levels—grew from 10% of the GNI to 64% of the GNI. “For the transgression of a land, many are the princes thereof!”
There are three times as many bureaucrats (per 100 citizens) in this country today as there were fifty years ago. By the year 2011, there were twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than those working in manufacturing jobs (11.5 million). That is a lot of princes, and they produce an incredible amount of paperwork, regulations, and costs for the taxpayers! One indication of the size of the federal tyranny that regulates every area of our lives is the length of the Federal Register that has expanded from a paltry 9,910 pages in 1954 to a whopping 82,580 pages in 2010. The princes have been busy.
The second half of the verse, however, is instructive. Undermining the character of the nation and obliterating strong families will send the nation into a spiral of destruction. Anarchy plays off of tyranny, and tyranny grows out of anarchy until the fabric of the nation unravels. The modern socialist systems are bound to fail eventually. By the end of the 20th century, Sweden considered itself to be the greatest exemplar of socialism in the West, but its illegitimacy rate was also the highest in the west, exceeding 50%! A nation simply cannot violate the laws of God indefinitely and hope to receive the blessing of God upon its economic and political systems. This is a lesson to be learned in the 21st century! The ungodly may laugh at those humble folk who take this book of God’s wisdom seriously, but their day of reckoning will come. God vindicates His truth again and again throughout history.
If you want a nation that will survive and thrive, you must have a self-governing, moral people. Pastors must preach righteousness. Fathers must lead their households well and ingrain biblical character into their children. And political leaders must be careful not to undermine the morality of the people by their policies. This lesson applies to some obscure African nation as much as it does to a Western nation with a Christian heritage.
A poor man that oppresses the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaves no food.
It is one thing for a rich, highly developed nation to oppress its people. Even when subjected to the highest tax rates, the middle class and the upper classes live a prosperous life. The poor enjoy their welfare handouts though they usually corrupt their families and destroy the integrity of their men. But nobody starves to death in these modern countries. Nobody is truly poor in the real sense of the word. People in the poorest welfare class use their food stamps to purchase name brand foods, cigarettes, and expensive steaks. These are examples of rich men oppressing other rich men. Tyranny in the modern socialist states like Sweden and America is hardly the picture of big brutes beating on the citizenry and starving them to death but tyrannical governments can get far worse and far more devastating in communist countries and third-world nations. Consider, for example, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and Fidel Castro, all of whom created frightening tyrannies in already impoverished nations, bringing terrible suffering to their people. Sadly, many petty dictators from African nations will oppress their people badly, producing an economic debacle and mass starvation. These unwise and wicked tyrants produce mass social upheavals, civil wars, economic depressions, and forced labor. Since the 1990s the tyrants in North Korea have starved three to four million people to death. Between 2000 and 2010, Robert Mugabe took Zimbabwe from holding one of Africa’s best economies to the worst. News reports indicate that 12,000 Zimbabweans were dying of starvation every month in 2009. When we witness men of low character violating property rights by confiscating private property, suffocating the free market, living lavish lifestyles at the peoples’ expense, and driving their nations into bankruptcy, we get a picture of what is conveyed in this proverb. These monsters promise the world and when the people elect them to office, they only deliver sweeping rain that leaves no food.
1. How do you get a free country?
2. How does a fool ruin a prosperous country?
3. Describe tyranny. Are we seeing tyranny in this country?