Graves & Chains

The United States is in the midst of a government shutdown. The gridlock isn't driven by mere political or procedural disputes but by the inevitable collision of two incompatible worldviews. One vision embraces limited government, ordered liberty, personal responsibility, fixed borders, and constitutional restraint. The other promotes expansive state authority, collectivist economics, permissive borders, and governance driven by sentiment and majoritarian emotion. Such worldviews cannot long coexist within one republic.

The founding of America wasn't built on emotional impulse or ideological utopianism but upon biblical convictions regarding human depravity, personal duty, natural law, and the danger of concentrated power. Across recent decades, secular humanitarianism, communist civil-rights rhetoric severed from repentance, therapeutic prosperity religion, and bureaucratic entitlement have displaced church duty and cultivated dependence upon the state. In the same way some imagine that dropping money in the plate substitutes for Christian devotion and discipleship, society increasingly imagines taxation substitutes for compassion and government programs for moral responsibility. This sentimentalism is not mercy. It is state-managed emotionalism that creates dependency, weakens character, encourages entitlement, and shifts trust quietly from Christ to Caesar.

Biblical Foundation: God, Authority, and Government

Scripture teaches that civil authority is established under God’s sovereignty (Rom 13:1–7). Its purpose is to restrain evil and commend good (Rom 13:4), not to indulge sentiment or subsidize irresponsibility. Peter echoes the same principle (1 Pet 2:13-17). Because the human heart is deceitful and self-exalting (Jer 17:9), power must be limited and accountable, not absolute, emotional, or self-authorizing.

History confirms this truth. Some of the deadliest and most tyrannical regimes in modern history rose to power promising compassion, equality, and collective salvation while denying God, personal responsibility, and moral law. Stalin’s Soviet Union pursued forced collectivization and ideological purity that led to roughly twenty million deaths through engineered famine, purges, executions, and imprisonment. Mao Zedong’s China sought a classless utopia through the “Great Leap Forward,” resulting in more than forty-five million deaths from starvation, forced labor, and political terror; the Cultural Revolution added millions more. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge, promising equality and purity, exterminated approximately two million people. North Korea maintains ideological utopianism through systematic starvation, imprisonment, and surveillance. Even in the Western hemisphere, late-stage Venezuelan socialism collapsed a once-wealthy nation into famine, dictatorship, and mass exile within a generation.

They all promised bread and justice, but yielded graves and chains. Each sought to build a counterfeit Eden without God, echoing the Serpent’s temptation: “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:5). When humanity claims the right to define good and evil for ourselves, they becomes tyrants instead of shepherds, and the state savior becomes a tyranical overlord. Hell is heaven's counterfeit. Satan’s mercy appears as benevolence but ends in bloodshed; counterfeit Edens always rot into wastelands of slavery and death.

True ordered liberty arises not from political zeal, sentiment, or humanistic fervor, but from honoring Christ Jesus, acknowledging human sinfulness, and submitting to God's divine moral order. When civil authority is severed from these biblical foundations, it ceases to restrain evil and instead multiplies it.

Christian Engagement in the Political Realm

Christians are citizens of heaven and sojourners on earth. Withdrawal from civic responsibility is negligence; worship of politics is idolatry. Faithfulness requires humble engagement: to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God (Mic 6:8). Believers pray for rulers (1 Tim 2:1–2), shine as salt and light (Matt 5:13-16), and speak truth with gentleness and conviction.

The church does not exist to mirror political movements or sanctify partisan passions. Emotional manipulation disguised as righteousness—whether progressive outrage or reactionary nationalism—distracts from Christ's Great Commission. Biblical engagement is steady and principled, not tear-driven, applause-driven, or anger-driven. Outrage is not obedience; emotional zeal is not holiness.

Liberty Under God vs. Counterfeit Kingdoms of Man

The biblical vision underlying America’s founding sought ordered liberty under God, not forced religion or coerced conversion. Christ’s kingdom advances by proclamation and divine persuasion, not the state's sword (John 18:36; Matt 28:18-20). Civil authority exists to preserve peace so the gospel of Christ may be heard freely (1 Tim 2:1-4).

Secular humanism places man upon God’s throne, yet when man becomes the measure of morality, power becomes god, and dissent becomes a threat (Rom 1:18-22). Marxism and socialist ideologies function as religious systems, demanding loyalty and punishing nonconformity. Islam mandates political and religious submission alike; refusal is fatal. Pure democracy—unconditional majority rule—has historically descended into nihilism and tyranny, confirming the warning that unchecked power corrupts.

Biblical Christianity alone supports liberty of conscience, personal responsibility, and voluntary obedience. It commands love for neighbor (Mark 12:31), kindness to outsiders (Lev 19:34), prayer for enemies (Matt 5:44), gentleness in persuasion (2 Tim 2:24-26), and freedom of conscience before God (Rom 14:5-12). True freedom is disciplined, productive, and rooted in truth (Gal 5:1, 13). Remove Christ, and emotion becomes law, power becomes virtue, envy becomes justice, and coercion becomes compassion. Only Christ provides the foundation where free people may flourish, labor joyfully, worship freely, and encounter authentic mercy and grace.

Government Handouts Are No Answer

Why do we demand government programs and relief to address human needs? Scripture consistently warns against enabling idleness and rewarding entitlement. Paul wrote, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thess 3:10). Provision must be paired with civic responsibility. Welfare divorced from accountability and contribution erodes dignity and breeds dependency. See more about this in a previous blog, titled: Restraining Caesar

Scripture establishes a God-ordained hierarchy of care rooted in family and church, not bureaucracy: children care for parents (1 Timothy 5:4), households and communities provide for their own (1 Tim 5:8), and the church assists the truly needy, not the idle or entitled (1 Tim 5:9-13). Jesus rebuked systems that replaced personal duty with institutional excuse (Mark 7:10-13). Work was given before the fall (Gen 2:15); labor is faithful stewardship, not punishment.

Modern sentimentalism and toxic empathy often masquerade as virtue. In truth, it rewards and subsidizes irresponsibility, fosters entitlement, and weakens character and community. Thomas Sowell observed, “You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible.” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.” This is proof that even non-Christians recognize that indulgent aid corrupts — a reflection of God’s law written on the heart (Rom 2:14-15).

Scripture calls for cheerful generosity, not coercive redistribution (2 Cor 9:7). The church is the steward of mercy, not the state. Emotional activism cannot replace gospel transformation. Love without truth enslaves; empathy without discernment destroys; mercy without repentance harms those it claims to help. Meanwhile, Satan’s counterfeits resemble righteousness. Emotional pity shames God-ordained duty and calls itself compassion. Refusing to affirm sin and error is not persecution, and withholding destructive indulgence is not cruelty. Charles Spurgeon observed that discernment is not knowing right from wrong but right from almost right. The kingdom of God does not advance by government subsidy, emotional manipulation, or coerced generosity but by repentance, faith, and Holy Spirit-empowered obedience.

The Ideological Sabotage of the Gospel

False ideologies hijack the gospel. In these twisted systems, envy is relabeled justice, sensuality becomes identity, emotional hurt becomes moral superiority, and affirmation becomes love. Scripture warns against forms of godliness that deny its power (2 Tim 3:5). Biblical love calls sinners to holiness; it does not affirm rebellion and sin. Sentimentalism crowns subjective feelings and personal truth as lord while enslaving souls to the deception of sin's graves and chains. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ liberates.

Christian Conduct in Civic Crisis

Christ's true saints labor diligently to uphold God's original purpose to serve and protect one another (Gen 2:15), enduring hardship together (2 Tim 2:3), seeking peace together (Rom 12:18), blessing enemies (Rom 12:14), obeying lawful authorities while refusing sinful commands (Acts 5:29), and prioritizing discipleship (Matt 28:18-20). This is worship in Spirit and Truth. The church doesn't exist for superficial empathy, emotional/cultural validation, or ideological warfare but to uphold biblical truth (1 Tim 3:15).

Addressing Misconceptions

Compassion is commanded, but must be biblically defined. God ordained for aid to begin with the family (one XY + one XX) and then the church (1 Tim 5:4; Acts 4:32-35). Government relief erodes divine purpose and undermines human responsibility. Rejecting socialist agendas aligns with Scripture’s view of human nature. Political structures matter, yet salvation belongs to Christ alone.

Conclusion

The church and her members must neither abandon civic duty nor surrender the gospel to secular ideologies. Governments ordained by the Creator to restrain evil cannot renew depraved hearts. Forced redistribution is not redemption; toxic empathy is not righteousness; ideological activism atones for nothing; mercy without truth is slavery. Christians are commanded by Scripture to examine themselves (2 Cor 13:5), gather faithfully (Heb 10:25), mature in Christ (Eph 4:15-16), offer themselves to God (Rom 12:1), and bear witness boldly (Acts 1:8). Civil authority may distribute bread, but Christ Jesus alone is the Bread of Life. All the world can offer is graves and chains, but if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!

Blessings & love,

Kevin M. Kelley

Pastor

BigIslandChristianChurch.com

Footnotes

1. Robert Conquest, The Great Terror; Stéphane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press, 1999).

2. Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine (Walker & Co., 2010).

3. Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime (Yale University Press, 2008).

4. Nicolas Eberstadt, The North Korean Economy (AEI, 2007).

5. Ricardo Hausmann & Francisco Rodríguez, eds., Venezuela Before Chávez (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014).