Finally, Samuel utters these words of warning for the day the King begins to rule. "When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the King you have chosen..."

Kings in Washington DC, state houses and city offices around America have taken the nation's wealth as a growing percentage lately. Both political parties have siphoned revenue, jobs and benefits from the American people, playing on prevailing ignorance that government can give more than it takes.

Banks can go out of business or be reformed. But for the most part government continues corrupt and unreformed. Public union bosses believe themselves exempt from their share of economic pain. How did we get here? By the misplaced faith that government is somehow exempt from the economic reality of scarce resources and the negative consequences of controlling and dictating the American economy.

We are discovering that Kings are more difficult to remove than bankers. Now, finally and again, the people are crying out for relief from their own folly. Let's hope it is not too late to learn the lesson again that government is, at best, a necessary evil from which we occasionally must be delivered. Let us also hope that Samuel's final words do not come true. "....and the Lord will not answer you in that day." (I Samuel 8:20)

Today religious liberals from Jim Wallis to Bill Press express moral outrage that orthodox Christians would oppose a $50 billion welfare bill before Congress as they did in 2007. They want more money to extend unemployment benefits when those currently running things in Washington seem to have no clue as to how to create real and lasting jobs.

The religious left frequently quote Old Testament prophets to urge ever-expanding government programs to care for the poor. They essentially equate caring with government, a fact substantiated by leftist government officials whose tax returns frequently indicate a less than 1% charitable giving rate. (John Kerry, Al Gore and Joe Biden among others). But this is not an argument between those who want big government and those who want little or no government. Almost no one suggests government should have no role in distributing benefits. The question is at what point does it become not only un-biblical but inefficient and self-defeating?

The truth about giving and government in the Bible is that nearly all the references to it refer to the heart and the individual as the source of generosity.. Yes, the nation of Israel is often called to task for its failure to care for the poor, but the question remains, what is the most effective way to do this? Is it the $6 trillion "war on poverty" initiated by LBJ, which left the black family in worse shape than before, with illegitimacy rates soaring from 24% in the 1960's to nearly 70% today?

Is it the miserable return on social security assets that puts the federal government in the Enron category for financial mismanagement? Or is it Washington's hijacking of the healthcare system that offers itself as the solution to the problem they created in the first place? Clearly, government has failed miserably in its attempts to eliminate poverty. Rather, as Bill Bennett has said "give me better families, better churches and better schools and I will give you a better America."

Not that any of this is easy. But many if not most Americans believe social betterment for struggling Americans lies here, not in the triumphalism we are hearing from either Washington DC or from your local mayor's office or public employees union. It is part of the reason home schooling, charter schools voucher programs and private education companies are growing in number.

Does this mean that I believe we should have no public welfare? No. Not at all. The government of a country of 325 million people has a role to play in organizing and distributing benefits that are easily accessible, fair and universal. But the problem is that both government employment, which is exploding, and government benefits that accompany them have become the first rather than the last choice for too many Americans. If you don't believe this is wrong-headed, then please read Jesus parables about money and stewardship...all of them.

I will mention just two, the parable of the talents and the parable of the sheep and goats. These teachings from the lips of Jesus stress individual initiative, profit, accountability and generosity as the way to live in his kingdom. These truths, not government largesse must be the understanding we bring to our national conversation, particularly as we are being seduced to move toward European socialism as our guiding philosophy. What does Jesus teach about handling our resources?

1. Individual initiative. The parable of the talents (Mt. 25:14) teaches us the sacred duty we possess to develop and use the talents God has unequally (sorry about that) bestowed on each of us. The culture of individual initiative is best learned in families, as demonstrated best by Jewish and Asian families today, who have deeply imbedded within them a culture of achievement. In the parable of the talents, Jesus teaches that there exists a calling between the believer and his God that cannot be allocated to government. It is a calling to discover one's gifts, educate oneself to develop them and to work to gain prosperity. It is simply anti-biblical and misleading to expect government to be the seed-sower or the allocator of those gifts and resources that create prosperity in the life of a nation, gifts bestowed by God not government.

2. Profit. The master in the parable of the talents expects the servants to earn a profit, is highly critical when one does not and rewards those who do. Profit has become a dirty word ever since President Obama said referring to America's corporations, "There will be a time for them to make profits. That time is not now." To have an American president dictate when profits are to be booked by private companies should have shocked every American to the core. Presidents can speak about the rule of law. They can even condemn wrong-doing in individual companies. But to tell private enterprises when "profits" are acceptable is a bridge too far. Have we not learned from the "malaise" of Jimmy Carter? Have we not learned from the stagnating economies of old Europe that government control, over-regulation and out-of-control spending are a recipe for stagnation or disaster as in the case of Greece? No one believes public companies should be unaccountable or that crony capitalism should rule the day. (By the way, just for the record, Wall Street gave more money to Obama than McCain in 2008.) What we must understand is that "profit" is not only a good thing under normal, "rule of law" circumstances. It is also the greatest job creator and poverty fighter known to man. If you believe that prosperity is a zero sum game where when one person gets rich, the other becomes poor, then go ahead and embrace redistributionism. But neither the Bible not economic reality will support your conclusion. The fact is that wealth has exploded in total around the world since World War II, with modest contractions from time to time, and will continue to as technology and productivity increase.

3. Accountability. Where is it today? Clearly, out of control rogue traders and corrupt CEO's needed to be reined in. (Though we haven't seen similar penalties for politicians who fueled the whole mortgage mess through Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.) But from a biblical perspective, accountability lies with those in authority over us to whom we must report. (Romans 13) and, beyond them, ultimately to God as both parables teach.

Right now elite business schools around the country are scrambling to offer ethics courses to their students for one simple purpose: to educate their graduates to internalize restraint and accountability as they move into the business world.

Our entire financial system depends on their success with this. Why? Because history shows us that we either internalize morality or it is imposed upon us by a dictatorial government. Need I say which God's kingdom endorses? This is why our founders endorsed religious expression of all kinds, because they knew it was the only means to fulfill the dictum that "civilization is an exercise in self-restraint."

4. Generosity. The entire Bible encourages us to be generous. In the parable of the sheep and goats, Jesus teaches us to feed, give drink, clothe and visit in prison people we should treat as we would Jesus himself. Americans, as measured by the time, talent and treasure we give to one another and the world are the most generous people on earth. Other governments sometimes complain that our foreign aid is less than it should be. But if you combine the total private and public sector aid, American aid dwarfs, per capita, any nation on earth. We have seen it recently in Haiti, Indonesia, Africa and many other places.

The reason is threefold

1. We have been blessed materially beyond measure as a nation.
2. We believe in God's call to be generous as individuals and
3. We believe the money is better distributed by private agencies than by government. America is king of the NGO's, Non-Governmental Organizations. And there is good reason behind it. Americans are in the aggregate both generous and wise about their giving.

My conclusion is simple: the future of America will be better served in achieving prosperity, job-creation and societal well-being by two movements. First, we must once-again see government, not as a positive good, but a necessary evil that is cumbersome, inefficient and at best a distributer of a minimum safety net.

Government must become limited once again in our great land. Secondly, we must also reclaim the biblical picture of private initiative, profit, accountability and generosity. If we embrace both of these broad principles, then once again, we will regain a truer picture of God's calling in to us in His world. Equating government welfare with kingdom truth will only lead us to the "double dip" of economic stagnation where the poor will be hurt worst of all. None of us want that.

----Jay Haug is a free-lance writer living in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. You may e-mail him at cjcwguy@gmail.com