Self-test questions on civil government
Part ONE, Section I, Chapter 5 of God Betrayed

Give as many Bible verses (where appropriate), comments, and explanations as you can to support your answers. Click here to review “Biblical Teaching on Civil Government.”

1. In spite of conscience and the restraint of the Holy Spirit, what happened without civil government?
2. What had all flesh done just prior to the great flood described in Genesis?
3. What was the imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart before the flood?
4. What was the earth filled with just prior to the flood?
5. Will God curse the ground any more for man’s sake?
6. Will God smite any more every thing living (except Noah and family) as he did in the flood?
7. When man, operating in an economy of God, has totally failed in his responsibilities under God, what is God’s only remedy?
8. Who ordained civil government and when?
9. In what covenant did God ordain civil government?
10. When did the Dispensation of Human Government begin?
11. What is the highest form of punishment which civil government is authorized by God to administer? Explain the significance of this as to the authority of civil government.
12. Define civil government.
13. Why did God ordain civil government?
14. Who besides God has the power to prevent civil government and the power to institute civil government?
15. Whom did God desire man to operate civil government under, according to whose rules?
16. For whose benefit did God ordain civil government? What was civil government to do?
17. He ordained civil government for the earthly benefit of man—to control evil—as is contextually apparent: Before the flood,
18. Mankind was so utterly corrupt that the only solution for God was what?
19. Who said, “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint”?
20. What are the elements of the Noahic Covenant?
21. Whom did God order to multiply and populate the earth.
22. Now that man was constrained by conscience, the restraint of the Holy Spirit, and human government, did man obey God?
23. How soon after the flood did man fail to govern under God?
24. Explain the first failure of individual government which occurred almost immediately after the flood.
25. Was the covenant God made with Noah an everlasting or temporary covenant? Is it in effect today?
26. When did God divide the world into nations? For what reason?
27. If all worldly government were concentrated in one world government, the potential for what would be unlimited?
28. What would happen with a one world government? Why?
29. What can happen when rulers are given too much authority? Why?
30. Did the people obey God’s command to scatter and fill the earth?
31. What did the people do?
32. When did man attempt to build the world’s first “United Nations” building?
33. What replaced fellowship with God at that point?
34. What did God do in response?
35. What was wrong with man’s attempt to build the tower of Babel?
36. What was one of the probable purposes of the attempt to build the tower of Babel?
37. What was the attempt to build the tower of Babel based on?
38. Who excited man to attempt to build the tower of Babel?
39. The leader asked about in question 38 became tyrannical. Why? He wanted to avenge himself on whom?
40. How did God frustrate the building of the tower?
41. Who then scattered the people “abroad upon the face of the earth?”
42. Until when will national entities continue?
43. Thus, God again judged man for what reason?
44. Why did man have to abandon his attempt to build the tower and establish a one-world government?
45. What did man begin to do at that point?
46. What is one purpose of Gentile civil government according to the New Testament?
47. According to Romans 13:3-4 and 1 Peter 2.13-14, what are the jurisdictional limitations ordained by God? Civil government is a minister of God to  mankind for what? To do what?
48. According to 1 Timothy 1:9-11, (1) for whom was the law made?
49. What is a second purpose for civil government that can be inferred from an admonition of Paul to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2.1-6? What is God’s desire that leaders and others in authority? What are believers to pray for as to their leaders?
50. Who is the one God, and one mediator between God and men? For whom did He give himself a ransom?
51. God requires man to exercise what in his use of the animal kingdom and of natural resources in general
52. God wants every Gentile nation to choose to operate under whom? Explain.
53. What will happen if a nation operates under God’s principles as laid out in the Word of God?
54. A third, and the most important purpose of civil government is what? Do the laws of a nation serve to teach? Reread what Lawrence McGarvie observed about this teaching function: “American law tended to operate as if it had a life of its own, shaping society to conform to legal values by directing the actions of individuals. Recognizing law’s relative autonomy, scholars such as Michael Grossberg, Christopher Tomlins, and Mark Tushnet contend that law acted to infuse the new society—including the judges—with a system of rules and principles derived from liberal ideology. Many authors have noted the incremental pace of legal change. Law’s structural dependence on the Constitution, common-law precedent, and the procedural dictates of pleading recognizable legal arguments mitigated any societal tendencies toward rapid transformation. Instrumentalism, as a theory of understanding law, fails to fully appreciate its institutional inertia, the multiplicity of forces involved in its creation, and its hegemonic role as a relatively autonomous body of values, beliefs, and doctrine that provides the means of ‘discourse’ in a nation of law” (Mark Douglas McGarvie, One Nation Under Law: America’s Early National Struggles to Separate Church and State (DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005), p. 12).
55. Upon what will a nation under God base its law?
56. What does a nation under God teach its citizens  teaches its citizens concerning freedom of conscience?
57. What does a nation under God teach its citizens  teaches its citizens concerning whom individuals should choose to conform their wills to?
58. . Must everyone in a nation under God choose the one true God, god, gods, or no gods at all.
59. If under God, what does a nation teach and point to?
60. Why is it important that government leaders, officials, and others pray in no other name than the name of Jesus?
61. A nation which is not under God teaches the principles of whom?
62. A civil government not under God will allow or require official government prayers in the name of whom?
63. What are the nations to whom the Noahic Covenant was written called in the Bible?
64. Does God desire that Gentile nations proceed under God’s original plan for civil government?
65. What nation did God later call out for specific purposes?
66. What was that nation to operate as? Directly under whom?
67. When that nation was called out by God, which nation was then to be the center of God’s dealings with nations?
68. Who can prevent man from setting up civil government?
69. Who can ordain civil government?
70. Who is the Highest Power?
71. Does God force civil government to operate under Him within its sphere of God-given authority? Why?
72. Did all that God did in the Garden of Eden, the flood, the ordaining of civil government remove the dreadful distemper from man’s nature?
73. Having ordained civil government, what does God desires nations to do?

END