Still No King

We can be thankful that we live in a country with a system of government, which I believe was inspired by God, that has stood the test of time, that is about to celebrate 250 years of independence, throwing off the shackles of an earthly king and devoting themselves to the service of a Heavenly King.  We can also consider if Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, is the King of our lives, if we are truly living our lives in service to Him.  In 1st Samuel 8 (ESV), we can read about a dubious request by the leaders of Israel:
4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah
5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. ”
6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us. ” And Samuel prayed to the Lord.
7 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

In advance of the recent "No Kings" protests across the nation, Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family wrote for The Daily Citizen:

Americans who take their first amendment rights seriously to peaceably and publicly “petition the Government for a redress of grievances” clearly show democracy is not dying.

After all, any tyrannical leader “worse-than-Hitler,” who is worth his democracy-crushing salt would direct the National Guard into the streets to quash these anti-authoritarian, pro-freedom uprisings.

So, when you see your friends, family members and neighbors joining your local “No Kings” rally, give them a happy toot of your horn. Their peaceful and undisturbed assembly is clear evidence we indeed have “no kings” and our representative democracy is chugging right along.

Authoritarians are certainly here in America, but not necessarily in the place where many of the protestors tried to contend.  Robert Gagnon of Wesley Biblical Seminary wrote on X:

Antifa organizers of Soros-funded "No Kings" protests, which included paid participants and perhaps a majority who couldn't name a single specific point to justify their protest, claim the protests were a great success (Newsweek cites a median estimate of 5.2 million or 1.6% of the US population). What we actually discovered was that 98-99% of the US population didn't think it was worth their time to come out for this farce.

He went on to say:

"No Kings" was an ironic and comical protest for Leftists who insist on:
-  state-sponsored compulsory speech for transgender pronouns,
-  compulsory insertion of males in female sports,
-  compulsory chemical transitioning of minors against parents who don't think it is in their own child's best interest,
-  compulsory indoctrination of children into immoral and harmful LGBTQ ideology,
-  compulsory participation by medical staff in abortions (no conscience exemptions),
 -  regular and often violent violation of immigration laws with attacks on ICE agents,
-  massive state enforcement of COVID shutdowns of churches and schools and mandatory experimental COVID vaccinations,
-  government suppression of conservative speech in social media and greater restrictions on the free exercise of religion,
-  a massive socialist welfare state funded by a massive national debt (the payment of which interest alone, not the principal, accounts for about 8-10% of the annual budget, this year over a trillion dollars) and managed by a bloated government bureaucracy (inter alia).

And, while there are those that would try to paint these two rounds of "No Kings" protests and other examples of resistance as being somehow organic, the money trail tells a different story. Around the time of the June "No Kings" protests, Everett Piper wrote at the Washington Times website: "In fact, the 'No Kings' marches of 2025 are anything but the common-man operations they pretend to be. Quite to the contrary of being spontaneous protests by everyday, working-class people, these demonstrations are bankrolled by two specific billionaires: George Soros and Hansjorg Wyss."  Piper stated:

The Old Testament Book of Judges ends with these words: “In those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” This millennia-old statement warns of the social collapse that befalls any nation that abandons the objective order inherent in God’s revelation to mankind (i.e., the “self-evident truths endowed to us by our Creator”).

The moral and spiritual chaos unfolding in America’s streets right now under the banner of “No Kings” is precisely why John Adams said some 200 years ago, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Before the latest "No Kings" event, FoxNews.com related, regarding one of the groups that has been associated with it:

In 2017, Indivisible received a $350,000 grant from Tides Advocacy, a group affiliated with the Tides Network. The Tides Foundation, a foundation also affiliated with the Tides Network, has been accused of funding anti-Israel campus riots.

The grant report for 2024 was not available on the IRS' nor the Open Society Foundations' websites, though Soros' foundations have awarded grants to Indivisible every year since the organization's conception in 2017. In total, the Open Society Foundations have awarded $7.61 million in grants to the group behind the "No Kings" protest.

The strategy is clear - use large amounts of money and sizable media influence to create an event, a production, that is intended to shift the hearts and minds of people, to move the needle, and essentially make them more vulnerable to true socialism and authoritarianism. It's a power grab, pure and simple but it's disguised as an "angel of light," if you will - a reference to the manuevering of the enemy found in Scripture.  

As believers, we musn't take the bait.  There is manipulation that is taking place, and in some cases, this manipulation has manifested itself through violent, threatening rhetoric, and even real acts of violence.  We do live in a democracy where protest is allowed, as long as it's peaceful, and no police force or military will shut it down. A king might do otherwise. But, we must reject the drift toward authoritarianism and remain grounded in our position as citizens of heaven placed here as citizens of earth to reflect the glory of God. Indeed, Jesus is our King, and His reign is absolute, but not tyrannical - His Kingdom is based on truth and love, and we can seek to reflect that in our associations and actions.