A Call for Vigilance

I was sitting on the platform of a church in Oklahoma on a Sunday in the early 1990's, waiting for the moment when I would be introduced and then preach. During the early part of the service, the white-haired pastor, now deceased, leaned over and startled me with, "Every democracy is destroyed when selfish people vote for personal benefits over the common good." I’ll never forget the moment.

This week my friend Bob Neuman reminded me of that Sunday night in Oklahoma, probably 20 years ago. Bob quoted Alexander Tyler, a Scottish professor at the University of Edinborough. "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury, with the result hat every democracy will finally collapse over loose financial policy, which is always followed by dictatorship."

Bob went on to cite the steps through which democracies progress.

"From bondage to spiritual faith;

"From spiritual faith to great courage;

"From courage to liberty;

"From liberty to abundance;

"From abundance to complacency;

"From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

"From dependence back to bondage."

On a television program I watched recently, a financial professor noted that for the first time in our national history, more than 50% of all Americans are now receiving some sort of monetary benefit. I mentioned this to friends and noted that I too receive Social Security. The uniform response has been, "You worked for that, and have it coming." True, but those who funded the war of revolt against England risked, and in many cases, lost their fortunes. Some lost their lives.

Will our children be able to pay the escalating taxes as we age and drain the national coffers? Am I willing to forfeit my share of the national largess for the sake of my children and grandchildren?

By extension, the price paid by spiritual pioneers who have endowed the church of which I have been a part my entire life cannot be squandered without terrible consequences. My memory reaches back to some rather primitive settings where first and second generation Pentecostals learned to wait on the Lord, denied themselves personal comforts so that the Gospel would be taken to all the world, and modeled holy living.

The contemporary American Pentecostal church now enjoys acceptance and affluence our spiritual parents and grandparents never knew. We will serve our children and grandchildren well if we apply Alexander Tyler’s lessons to national decision making policy and spiritually, vigilantly guarding against the intoxication of abundance, complacency, apathy, dependence and bondage.