The Lust of Rule

 

In Augustine’s preface to the City of God, he writes, “…we must speak also of the earthly city which, though it be mistress of the nations, is itself ruled by its lust of rule.”

 

There are, Augustine tells us, two cities…only two; the City of God and the City of Man. While Augustine would, no doubt, have preferred to only write of the city of which Augustine was a citizen, the City of God, under the circumstances (upheaval in the Roman Empire), he wants his readers to know that he’ll be also looking at the City of Man, the earthly city. This is in the tradition of Proverbs Chapter 9, and of Revelation chapters 17 and 18 set against chapters 21 and 22.

 

Augustine writes that while the earthly city is the “mistress of the nations,” that while it rules the nations, it “is itself ruled by its lust of rule.” The lust for power intoxicates the rulers of this age, both the rulers we can see and the rulers we can’t see. This lust for power has its roots in angelic rebellion (Ezekiel 28; Revelation 12:7 – 12), a rebellion which is permeating human thought, action, and society (2Thessalonians 2).

 

Consider Psalm 2:1-3, “Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against Yahweh and against his Christ saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’”

 

This lust for rule produces an insanity in rulers, and this insanity can be unleashed in their people. This insanity can manifest itself in a political attitude of mutual assured destruction, where nothing matters other than the annihilation of the political opposition.

 

Dear friends, the People of Christ ought not to be participants in this foolishness. We are not our own, we have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19-20) and we are called to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9). We cannot drink of the Cup of Christ and of devils (1 Cor. 10:21; 2 Cor. 6:14 – 7:1; and James 3:13 – 18). As James writes, anger and vitriol is “not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.”

 

The lust to rule which is manifesting itself from the White House, to Congress, to state houses, to the internet, to the streets of our nation – is demonic…and it bears with it the mark of all that opposes submission to the Prince of Peace. Let us not be so foolish as to think that we are immune from this lust – for it is nothing less than the temptation to establish our own kingdom, our own self-righteousness, our own idols.

 

Our nation and world need intercessors – people who pray intercessory prayers and live intercessory lives; not pawns in a game. Our broken world needs the People of God to be citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20), our very environment cries out that we would live as the sons and daughters of the Living God (Romans 8:18 – 23).

 

The world-system will suck the life out of the People of God and sell us into harlotry, and that includes all of the nations of the world, whatever their names and flags might be, whatever economic systems they may advocate.

 

Why? Because the City of Man has an insatiable lust for power, a lust to rule; it will seek to control us by pain, or to control us by pleasure – and how it laughs when it enlists us to serve in its brothel.

 

There can be no compromise for the Church of Jesus Christ – we will either keep ourselves pure for Christ or we will be adulterers and adulteresses. (2 Cor. 11:1 – 15; 1 John 2:15 – 17; James 4:4).

 

Are we living in the City of Man, caught up in its lust for power…or we are living in the City of God?

 

(Also, when you read Revelation chapter 18, note the emphasis on economics – this is a characteristic of Babylon, of the Great Whore, of Satan – have we been enslaved by economics? What really dominates our national thinking? Let’s not play the fool here, what is really at the heart of our lives and the life of our nation?”