God Our Benevolent Dictator
Corporate Challenge: can you think of something that God chose for you that you wouldn’t have chose for yourself? (to be discussed by everyone at the end of the lesson)
Everything about man’s relationship with God screams Benevolent Dictatorship. Benevolent dictatorship is not communistic rule. Benevolent dictatorship has two fundamental ingredients:
1: The rule/regulation has no benefit to the one making it.
2. The rule/regulation is set on behalf of the people because the people wouldn’t choose it for themselves.
I forget which American leader of old said, “I will take them into the next century even if I have to drag them.” This is an example of benevolent dictatorship.
The fact is, man never seeks goodness. It is not within the nature of man to run to anything holy or just.
Genesis 6:5 “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.”
To say that the goal of God’s Word is to bring man to an accurate understanding of himself is not incorrect. Nothing about the Bible exaggerates the standing of man as a depraved sinner lacking any ability within himself to do or seek right. This is why it should be considered a great injustice for preachers to invent motivations speeches based on the goodness of man. If we truly desire to inspire mankind to be more than we are by nature, we must make much of God and little of man.
Turn to Romans 3:10-18 and discuss.
Corporate Challenge
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