When we turn away into various forms of idolatry, we are asking other gods to do what only God can do. As we will consider in the message this morning, fathers provide and protect. False fathers promise to provide and protect, and then fail to deliver. This is the history of idolatry—they over promise and under deliver. If they are not fathers, then they cannot be fathers.
Now the central idol of our era is the state, and we are entering into the “under deliver” phase of this particular story. The state promises to provide for you—cradle to grave—and the state promises to protect you, This promise of protection extends from actual enemies to bogeys invented for the purpose of growing their power, and from those bogeys to the great dangers posed by unlabeled and wobbly step-ladders This is not simple “governmental over-reach.” It is false religion.
Obamacare is not to be rejected because it is wasteful and unworkable. It is to be rejected because the state is not our Father. We do not ask Washington for our daily bread. Because the state is not our Father, any attempts to fulfill that role will of course be attended by one disaster after another. But the disasters are the symptoms. We do not want them to take on these things even if they could do them. Remember in the next election, you are voting for a president, not a savior. You already have a Savior.
Incompetent and tyrannical governments are nothing more than the sorcerer’s apprentice, in way over his head.