NOT EVEN KINGS have absolute power. The people crowned their king. The people of Israel, in fact, had asked God to give them a king to be their ruler. This is a clear delegation of the PEOPLE'S authority within limits, onto the king. The people asked for a king, they crowned a king. The king derives his power and authority from the people by God's design. The king is not dictator. God holds the people responsible for their rulers. Scripture clearly tells us that God caused the Northern House of Israel to be conquered for the sins of wicked king Jeroboam, and the Southern House of Judah to be conquered for the sins of their wicked king Manasseh (though Manasseh himself, in captivity, repented)—because the people restrained them not! Since God judged the people for the sins of their kings, the people had authority over their kings and it was their duty to restrain and even judge their kings when they departed from the contract; that contract being that the king would rule righteously according to the Law of God.
We see after Israel received her first king, Saul (who was a good king for a brief moment), after a very short period of time, Saul began to do things on his own initiative, not seeking God's counsel, not waiting on God. Saul made a foolish decree that during a certain battle against the Philistines, no man in battle was to eat anything until the day was over, or he would be executed. Jonathan, Saul's son, had forayed out on an expedition and Jonathan, with the spirit of the Lord and only his armor bearer bravely took on 20 Philistines and defeated them, and struck fear into the hearts of the Philistine army which began a route which eventually ended in a mighty defeat of the Philistines, who had been oppressing Israel for decades. After his skirmish, not knowing of his father's decree, Jonathan, weary, came upon some honey in the woods and ate some. Eventually (leaving out some details), Saul learned that someone had eaten, but the people would not say who had eaten. It was discovered that it was Saul's son Jonathan, who had been responsible for the victory over the Philistines, and Saul, his wicked heart already showing, declared that Jonathan would be put to death. For one of the few and rarest of times in all of history, the people stood up to an evil ruler and said, "NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"And the people said unto Saul, Shall Jonathan die, who hath wrought this great salvation in Israel? God forbid: as the LORD liveth, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground; for he hath wrought with God this day. So the people rescued Jonathan, that he died not." (I Samuel 14:45)
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear... Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
"We ought to obey God rather than men" — and this includes corrupt (and especially illegitimate) rulers, kings or otherwise.
“All human laws which contradict His Laws [Bible], we are bound by conscience to disobey.” —George Mason (1725-92; American statesman who held great influence; author of the Declaration of Rights while serving as a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1776; member of the Federal Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and took
an active part in drafting the United States Constitution).
“Individual Liberties are antecedent to all government.” (Common Law Maxim)
God created Adam in His Image. That image is not to be murdered or corrupted or perverted or abused.
God established a hierarchy of authority and established His Law. Whenever any authority violates that Law he steps out of his authority and himself becomes a criminal. It is then the people's duty to bring that criminal to justice, by reassuming their own authority and rescinding the delegated authority they had invested the representative with; and the aberrant, renegade, criminal former-authority is then to be tried and sentenced for treason against God and man and there is only one penalty for that.
Thomas Jefferson said,
“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?... To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.... On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.... The Constitutions of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and their duty to be at all times armed...”
and
“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.... Experience has shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.... History in general, only informs us what bad government is. Blest is that nation whose silent course of happiness furnishes nothing for history to say.... Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.... God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such rebellion.”