Unless the Lord Builds the House

This week Teri and I joined about 3500 others from around the world for the 61st annual National Prayer Breakfast.  It was great to get to know the Oklahoma delegation (mostly from Tulsa it turns out) and to connect with an eclectic group of business leaders, politicians and spiritual leaders who have come together to lift up the name of Jesus and to come together for prayer for our country.  How great to be in one place with a wide community of believers from all over the world.  Here are a few of my takeaways from the actual prayer breakfast and from some of the events surrounding it.

The first observation I would make is that in Washington D.C. there is an overwhelming sense of unshakeable and unrelenting power.  When you walk among those gigantic marble buildings with their huge pillars and Greco-Roman statutes looking down from above, you get the idea they will stand forever.  They seem unmoveable and steadfast.  Of course this is exactly what they are meant to communicate and there is a sense that as Americans we want to believe in the stability and sustainability of our institutions.  But there is also the unsteady sense that the government "by the people and for the people" can easily become more about power and less about people.  The architecture here in Washington communicates bigness and therefore by contrast communicates how small you are in comparison.

But our founding fathers mistrusted the power of government as a matter of philosophical conviction and first hand experience.  George Washington put it succinctly,

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force.  Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master.

His words are both a warning and a lesson.

The warning is that each of us as citizens has a responsibility to participate in our government so as to keep it in check.  "A democracy is dependent upon an informed electorate"  Dr. Benjamin Carson reminded the audience on Thursday morning at the main event.  

The lesson is that there is no guarantee that our personal freedoms will always be preserved.  The role of government is to protect and insure individual liberty and to uphold the rule of law. When government functions in this way it is an enormous blessing.  When it fails to do this it is a horrible curse.  The reason government is a dangerous servant is because it is by it's very nature hungry for power.  It has an enormous appetite that can seem impossible to satisfy.  Scripture teaches us to have both respect and fear for government. 

There is a warning found in the story of the Israelites. The original migration of the children of Isaac into Egypt was to seek protection, security and grain.  But it only took a few generations before the entire nation was living in slavery. The Bible is warning us that a just and orderly government that protects and feeds it's people may only be a few generations away from becoming it's fearsome master.  

But just as our government can become a fearsome master, it can also become a worthless servant.  We had dinner on our last night with a pastor from Liberia Africa who gave me a succinct and dramtic illustration of this very truth.  He told us that his country was originally founded by freed slaves who desired to bring biblical principles to bear on a new country in their homeland.  But in just one generation the government had become so corrupt a civil war broke out and large numbers of people were swept into the violence.  This tiny African nation has been plagued by one inept government after another resulting in civil wars, violence, pestilence and death.  

The pastor came from a poor family that lived in a remote village.  His single mother did what she could to protect her children but in the end she was beaten to death by revolutionaries while her children were off at school.  As he talked of the horrors he and his family has suffered I couldn't help but think of what a wonder it has been to live in a place where I have never felt the unsettling fear that my government was not functioning to the degree that it could hold up the rule of law.  It is truly a precious gift that must be protected and valued.  

As Christians we are to seek to spread the gospel and to bring about His redemptive work to those who are weak and powerless.  But we are also to remember that we are stewards over what God has given us as citizens of this country.  

The second observation I would make is that the genius of our government is not so much in it's structure but in the process that keeps it in check.  Our governmental system is absolutely dependent upon an electorate that is both educated and moral.  Walking around the halls of congress and in the library of congress I was struck by all the symbols representing the philosophies and ideals that have shaped our understanding of justice and morality.   

For instance, there are 33 relief portrait plagues that surround the hallowed hall of the House of Representatives each representing various men of history who have influenced the formation of our system of law.  In the front of the room above the elevated desk of the Speaker of the House is the marble engraving "In God We Trust".  

Each of the engraved portraits are profiles facing toward the center of the room, all looking toward the center portrait. The center portrait is the only one that is not a profile but is looking forward toward the front of the room, facing the speakers chair.  It is the face of Moses.  

The affect of the symbolism of the design of the room is clear:  all of our laws have emulated from the Ten Commandments.  

The architects and designers of this grand hall had a core belief as did the architects of our constitution that this republic could only thrive if those who participated in it had a moral conviction that was guided by a strong belief in a higher authority.  Without a strong sense of morality and divine goodness there is no particular reason to conform to societal law.   

Much more important than the laws written into constitutional archives and congressional records, are the laws that are written onto the human heart that coincide with our understanding of His sense of justice and truth. (Jeremiah 31:33)  

Because I had spent some time in the weeks prior to my trip to Washington touring around ancient Roman ruins all over Israel I had a unique historical context.  The empire of Rome once seemed to be indestructible, immovable and unchangeable.  

But today those ruins are a testimony to the frailty of human institutions. The Roman empire was conquered not by military might but by moral decay.  So walking among those magnificent buildings and looking up at those tremendous symbols of our nations splendor and might with the memory of ancient Roman close at hand I couldn't help but think of Psalms 127:1:

Unless the Lord builds the house it's builders labor in vain.  Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stand guard in vain.