Romans 13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies portrays a gruesome picture of what happens when civil order is lost and the beast that lurks within man is not kept at bay. After their plane crashes, boys are stranded on an island. Two leaders arise, Ralph and Jack, who vie for power. As the story unfolds, friends turn on one another, the worst in people is exposed, and "littluns" live out their worst nightmares.

Golding wasn't the first to reveal this side of human nature. Some four hundred years earlier, Martin Luther wrote, "It is the function and honor of worldly government to make men out of wild beasts and to prevent men from becoming wild beasts."

God has given us governing authorities to keep order in His world. How ell this is carried out by those in office may vary, but their job is to protect their people from dangers - foreign and domestic.

In the Lord of the Flies, Jack sets a fire intended to kill Ralph. The fire ends up signaling a naval ship and the boys are rescued. What was intended to kill actually rescued.

When we fail to repress the beast within, when leaders fail to protect those in their charge, when we resemble beasts more than the One in whose image we were created, we can take heart in the cross, we are rescued from the beasts - foreign and domestic - of sin, death, and the devil.
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