Liberating Planet Earth

70 Liberating Planet Earth
This means that government is to serve as a sort of appeals
court. It begins in the family. “Dad, he took my ball!” “She hit
me!” “He said he would help me clean the kitchen if I helped him
with his homework!” And so on. Parents serve as referees. So do
policemen, judges, and pastors. The basic model is in Exodus 18,
where Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, told him to appoint righteous
men as judges over the people, so that only the hard cases would
come up the chain of command.
Satan’s hierarchy is different. It, too, is a chain of command.
It, too, resembles a pyramid. But it is a top-down command structure,
a bureaucracy rather than an appeals court system. If he had
his way, Satan would monitor everything we do. Unlike God, he
trusts no one, since he himself is untrustworthy. So we see in all
satanic administrations an attempt to substitute massive bureaucracy
for self-government.
Satan has no permanent law-order. He keeps changing the
rules. (In this sense, the Marxist explanation of historical change
is totally satanic: all laws are said to change according to the historical
era and the mode of production.) Thus, Satan must
monitor everyone under him, for there are no fixed standards by
which his subordinates can judge their performance or their rewards
or punishments from superiors.
Hierarchy in Satan’s kingdoms is everything, for he is neither
all-powerful nor all-seeing. Self-government counts for very little.
The less of it, the better, in Satan’s view. And yet he needs it, for
he is not God. He cannot monitor everything and everyone, as
God can. So he is forced to rely on an aspect of God’s creation and
God’s covenanted order if he wishes to achieve his evil goals. He
cannot be fully consistent with his own desires and standards if he
wishes to exercise power. He has to steal huge chunks of God’s
system even to function. He is a creature; he remains dependent
on God.
Thus, when the Christian thinks “government,” he should instantly
think, “self-government under God’s law.” This is true
liberation theology, and the basis of God-blessed, long-term
dominion.