Challenging Sermon: It's About Obedience

So, what can we talk about? I've thought a lot about this.

What do we talk about? You see, we can give motivational speeches on the issue of abortion, we can.

I mean, you can talk about the emotional impact of abortion, you can talk about all the babies that have been saved. We could bring out all the babies in front of this camera right now that have been saved through believers who have gone out courageously and humbly and with love and grace to the abortion mills and preached the gospel and offered help and love to mothers and fathers who are gonna murder their children.

We could bring these babies out, we can hold them in front of you and that often does it for believers.

It does it enough anyways to get believers to go out to the abortion mills to preach the gospel. Like, oh, this is actually possible, you can do this.

God saves mothers and fathers and he saves children from death and that's what's taken place.

And abortion now really began understanding that in the beginning that the main thing is is to wake the church up, that we need to rescue these children from death, we need to equip people, we need to be courageous enough to go out there and to save lives at the abortion mill.

That was, of course, we knew the starting line but it wasn't the finish line.

We knew that along the way we had to make sure that we communicated the necessary principles and facts about Jesus, about his rule and reign, about his authority, about what our responsibility is as a church and we knew that we had to bring the church to the legislature and to start speaking prophetically to them and so for us this has been a process, a long -term vision that we hope ends one day.

I wanna make that very, very clear as I enter into what is the most important thing to my mind in terms of understanding where we must go at this point.

When we, okay, let's put it this way. When we think about our responsibility as a church, there's so many things

I've been hearing lately and you've probably heard it too. You've heard objections to Christians resisting tyranny and injustice so whether it's things like mask mandates or shutting down businesses,

I mean, I just heard that our governor in Arizona today closed down numerous industries indefinitely and so he's still receiving a paycheck so that's very easy to do on his account but we see so many

Christians, people who profess faith in Jesus and love Jesus, saying things like you just have to yield to this.

You just have God's established government and of course we all agree with that in Romans 13 which is prescriptive and not descriptive.

It tells us the role of government, God's servant to punish evil, to protect the righteous. We understand that and so Christians today, evangelicals today all over the

West, not just in America but all over the West and we talk about England, the United Kingdom, all the rest,

Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We have this mindset today that took us time to get here.

We didn't used to always think like this. This wasn't sort of our thing but we have this mindset of whatever the government says, whatever it's doing, we just need to yield to it.

We just need to wait till Jesus sort of returns and he'll fix it then and so it's not really our responsibility to speak to these things or engage in these things and so the common thing you hear today,

I've heard it a lot, I haven't seen it a lot, is you'll see people saying things like well we're not being asked to deny our faith in Jesus so we can't resist, we just have to yield.

We have to yield to whatever comes down even if it's unlawful, even if it's against our law itself.

If the governor's violating the law, if a mayor is violating the law, if any legislator is violating the law, we need to obey that because they're not asking us to deny our faith.

I think that's a very, very terrible, very poor misunderstanding of Romans 13. It's a very poor understanding of government and the sphere of government and it's most importantly, a very poor misunderstanding of the role of the church to speak prophetically to the world around us and it's a very poor misunderstanding, an abysmal misunderstanding or understanding of what

Jesus gave us as our marching orders. It's Matthew 28, 18 through 20. I think that this is the main thing that must be in our mind because again, you can come before people on this issue and you can give them a motivational speech.

You can push them down the road a little bit through emotion, through appealing to emotion or to look at this baby sort of a thing and I do believe, because we've seen this, that only gets people so far, it's only gonna move them down a line a little bit and then when there's persecution or there's difficulty that arrives or what have you, life happens, people start to lose steam.

They start to forget about why they're doing what they're doing, they don't have a foundation, they don't have a grounding underneath them that allows them to keep going and so I think that this is deeply theological first and foremost.

What we have to have fixed in our minds is our understanding of Jesus' authority.

Where does it start, where does it stop and we should all embrace this. I'm gonna just say this.

I know in giving a message like this and a lecture like this, talking about these things, I know that we have many different believers with lots of different convictions over tertiary issues.

We have people listening to this right now who are Paedo -Baptists, those who are Credo -Baptists. We have tertiary differences.

We have adiaphora that we understand. These are differences we have, we're working them out. We can sit over coffee and we can talk about these things but these are differences and we have them and one major difference between believers is on the issue of eschatology.

It's no secret that, apology at church, Jeff Durbin, yours truly, we have a more

Puritan view, perspective of the future. I'm with Athanasius on his perspective of the kingdom.

Hopefully with Jesus and Paul and the rest of the apostles as well. Everyone knows that we have a very victorious view of the reign of Jesus and the future but that's really not what this is about.

I'm not trying to convince you of my eschatological position because I wanna just be frank.

Eschatology aside, the things I'm gonna present to us today in terms of scripture, these are things that will transform the world, they'll transform us and they will bring about peace when proclaimed and I wanna just say this is a matter not of eschatology but of obedience.

So that's the main theme, okay? It's not about eschatology, this is about obedience. Let me put it this way.

Of course, I personally have a victorious, optimistic perspective of the future but what we're talking about in scripture in terms of what

Jesus says, what the apostles say about the authority of Jesus, about his rule and reign, these are things that we're supposed to believe anyways as Christians.

So win or lose, these are commands, these are issues of obedience, these are promises of God and these things really actually illustrate what our responsibility is as the bride of Christ.

So even if we were to say, hey, I think things are gonna get worse before Jesus returns, my answer to that is, okay, that's fine.

But in the meantime, as it gets worse from that perspective until Jesus returns, you better be found working when he returns, you better be found faithful when he returns, you better be found being obedient to his commands to teach the nations to obey him which is really the ultimate thing.

This is when I talk about foundational things that need to be underneath us that will drive us to the finish line, this is what

I'm talking about, the authority of Jesus, where does it start and where does it end? And so I'll take us to the passage that we all know very, very well.

I mean, most of us have this committed to memory, at least I hope that we do and if you don't, you should. It's in Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

I quote it all the time to our church body, to our families, I'm always talking about this because I do believe with all of my heart that this is a foundation that the church actually works from and I believe it was intended to be that way, it's

Matthew 28, 18 through 20, these are our marching orders, this is what Jesus leaves us with in the gospel according to Matthew and it goes like this, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now, I always stop here because I think it's so vitally important for us to understand just what

Jesus says there, I said a moment ago, where does his authority start, where does his authority end and according to Jesus in Matthew 28, 18 through 20, it's over everything, heaven and earth, all authority in heaven and on earth and I always illustrate this,

I think evangelicals are very, very comfortable with Jesus having authority over heaven, we like that part, we're comfortable with it, we like to say that Jesus, he's on his throne there and there's worship taking place there, there's angelic hosts, there's the saints who have gone before us,

Jesus, his authority is respected there, his will is done there in heaven but we're in a fallen world and so there's just, there's a different ruler or authority in the world today and it's not

Jesus, at least look around us in the world today and it doesn't seem like Jesus is ruler over the earth today, doesn't seem like he has authority over the earth today,

I wanna just say that's a denial of what Jesus says, it just is, let's just be honest about it, Jesus says all authority in heaven and here on earth, here, has been, that's past tense, has been given to me, that's a 2 ,000 year old verse, that's how old it is, that's not expectation, that's accomplishment, that's finished, it's done,

Jesus has all authority in heaven, the place we're comfortable with but here also on earth and so when we talk about where it starts and where it finishes, where's that boundary line of Jesus' authority, it is not what many evangelicals think today in terms of the authority of Jesus ends at the wall of the church, it doesn't move its way to the state capitol, it does go to the state capitol,

Jesus' authority is over the state capitol, Jesus' authority is over our president, it's over every legislature in the

United States of America, every mayor right now who is perpetrating injustice and tyranny upon the citizens of his town or wherever you're at in terms of a legislator, every mayor who's perpetrating injustice is sinning against Jesus, being a tyrant is something that Jesus has something to say about and the law of God speaks very directly to the responsibility and roles of governments in terms of what they're supposed to be doing, preserving life, protecting life and punishing the wicked but doing it in a just way, in an honoring way, in a biblical way, in a wise way, every governor of the

United States of America is gonna answer to Jesus with regard to how they've governed or how they've protected life or not protected life or upheld justice or not upheld justice,

Jesus says all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me and I want to challenge you on that point, if we had just this point alone for this evening, that would be enough,

I believe it but it has to set, it has to actually cut me, it has to bring me to my knees, it has to actually drive me to a new way.

When I believe that Jesus has authority today on earth over every single thing, it impacts how

I move in this world and how I preach in this world and teach in this world and react in this world.

You see, if we don't think that our governing authorities have to obey Jesus, then we are gonna be an absolutely impotent church and we are, we are an impotent church.

If you don't believe that, all I would tell you to do is to turn on the news, turn on the news, look what's happening around about us in our society, look what's happening in the world around us in terms of an impotent church.

You have governors telling churches that you have to close down, no more worship and no more singing to Jesus for you and we have churches that have yielded to that tyrannical, absolutely wicked decree.

As churches, we have the responsibility to first and foremost obey

God rather than men. And of course, the government has the right under certain conditions to protect people and citizens even within the context of the church.

But we all know based upon what we've seen that we have churches yielding merely because they have a very faulty perspective of government and church relations and they are yielding because they believe that the government is over the church.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are spheres of authority. It does not go individual, family, in terms of family over here and over against the authority of the individual.

It's a sphere of authority and then the church and then the government is in control of everybody and it's the highest level of authority.

No, God's word is the highest level of authority to which everybody in any sphere must yield.

Now, if we can embrace that and start believing that, we will have an impact that actually changes the issue of the injustice of the murder of the pre -born.

So Jesus says, he says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been, past tense given to me. He says, go therefore, because of this, because it's all mine in heaven and on earth, he says, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.

So we're talking about nations here, not merely go get individual decisions for Jesus, but we're winning entire nations to Jesus, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He says, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, teaching them to obey

Jesus. So part of this great commission with the authority of Jesus over every detail of heaven and earth is to actually teach the nations to obey

Jesus. Well, in order to teach the nations to obey Jesus, you have to speak to the nations at every level.

You have to actually bring them the teaching, the law, the commands of the Lord Jesus. You see, we have a truncated gospel today.

Let's just confess to it. You hear me saying it a lot. A truncated gospel that says like the gospel itself is just justification by faith.

That's really all it is. Now, everybody knows that we are strong believers in justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

Apart from any work, it is solely a gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus. We get his righteousness.

He takes our sin. There is nothing I can add to the work of Jesus. Justification is at the heart of the gospel, but the truncated gospel of the

West says that's all it is. That's it. The gospel is just justification through faith. We just need to get decisions for Jesus that are individual decisions for Jesus, and success is just opening

Bible studies in basements. Well, that wasn't the perspective of the Lord Jesus, the king of all the earth, the ruler of the kings of the earth.

When he conquered death and rose again from the dead, and he actually ascends to that promised throne, he says, it's all mine, all of it, in heaven and on earth.

Now go get me the nations and teach them to obey. And what we have to understand is that particular statement of the

Lord Jesus, those departing words in Matthew 28, are consistent with the message of the apostles.

It's not a one -off, and they're consistent with the message of the prophets in terms of the authority and the rule and the reign of Jesus.

Again, this isn't about eschatology. Brothers, listen, you can embrace all that's being said here in terms of the principles and what the

Bible says theologically about the Messiah's kingdom and his authority without making eschatology whether we win or lose is the issue.

This is just what we all are supposed to believe. I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. This I think will probably settle it for most of us in terms of, it doesn't matter win or lose.

These are commands. These are biblical principles. These are biblical truths. These aren't tertiary issues.

This isn't adiaphora. I'll give you the example. Jesus is king of kings and Lord of lords. Now we say it all the time.

I mean, it's just a Christian slogan at this point, king of kings and Lord of lords, king over kings and Lord over lords.

What do we mean by that? Someday, that someday Jesus will be king over the kings of the earth and Lord over the lords of the earth.

Don't we see that as an actual present reality that Jesus is king today over the kings of the earth, that he's

Lord today over the lords of the earth? Or do we actually believe that it isn't in fact true and that it's someday gonna be true?

Do we not believe it today? Well, Jesus believed it. He said all authority, all of it, every bit of it, every inch of it, every part of it, all of it, in heaven and on earth has been given to me, king of kings and Lord of lords.

Again, this isn't merely about eschatology. This is biblical truth. This is what we're all supposed to embrace as brothers and sisters in Christ.

And if it's true that he's the king over the kings of the earth today and Lord over the lords of the earth today, and if it's true that he has all authority today on earth, then it means that the bride of Christ has the authority from the

Lord Jesus to be the means to speak the truth of the king to the kings of the earth, the truth of the

Lord to the lords of the earth. You see, we have done that, haven't we? We've said over here, church, this is where it all matters.

This is where Jesus gets to rule and reign. We do what he says here. But over here, you have this place called the legislature or the magistrates, and we have the state over here, and they're not really required to obey

Jesus, not so much. Brothers and sisters, that's not biblical. And you know what? Thankfully, it isn't even historical.

Thank God for the brothers and sisters in Christ who brought the gospel into pagan nations and understood that the whole deal, the reason

I'm here, is that these people would all come to faith in Jesus, bow to Jesus, and then from the bottom to the top, his authority is recognized.

Isn't it amazing in Christian history when Christians went to preach the gospel, say, in Ireland, and Ireland is one to Jesus for the proclamation of the gospel, it was to make

Ireland a Christian nation. I'm not ashamed of that. How about in the 19th century when Puritan missionaries went to the

Hawaiian islands, and within 20 years of missionary work, they turned the Hawaiian islands into a

Christian nation. Over 90 % of Hawaii is professing faith in Jesus, and they even get a constitution for the

Hawaiian kingdom. And it says in the constitution, because they knew where they were going with this. The Puritans, they knew this. They were all descendants, and these people are descendants of like Covenanters and Puritans, they know their stuff.

They knew where they were going with this missionary effort. They knew the great commission. It says in the Hawaiian constitution, after 20 years, 20, 20 years of missionary work, it says that no law of the

Hawaiian kingdom should be a variance with the laws of Jehovah God. That's a Christian constitution. And it's because they understood king of kings,

Lord of lords, all authority in heaven and on earth. What happened? What happened?

You can make excuses. You can say, well, it's the church's fault. Yeah, of course, that's absolutely true. Salt and light, it's our responsibility.

But I think it goes back to what Pastor Luke was talking about just now, about courage. We have to be courageous enough to come and die.

We love our lives here to, can I speak frankly, damn much. We do.

This is the most important thing, comfort, pleasure, right? Living in a good, just decent life.

What sells in Christian media? What sells in Christian books?

What sells? Your best life now. Why is a book like that? Why is it such a bestseller? Because it's touching a nerve of what everyone feels, what everybody wants.

Everybody wants their best life now. They wanna be happy. They wanna be healthy. They wanna be wealthy. They wanna love

Jesus. They wanna be loved by their communities. I praise God that Christians in history didn't live like that.

And because they didn't live like that, we actually got the benefits of the gospel around the world. I do believe that if the early church were like the modern evangelical church, there would be no

Christianity today, without question. There would be no kingdom, no faith. And it's not a possibility because the promise is the kingdom's gonna endure forever.

I understand that. But I'm saying, in theory, if we lived in the first century like the church in the

West is living today in terms of the authority of Jesus and the proclamation and the courage, there wouldn't be any Christianity.

Why? Because it's all about this life. It's not about an ultimate perspective. It's not about all the world under the feet of Jesus.

It's not about his authority over everything. And so I wanna say that we are sick as a church today.

It's not to say there aren't faithful men and faithful women. There are way more faithful, way more faithful men and women than I am.

Much stronger minded, more intellectual, more courageous. But I would say on the whole, if we look at the church around us today, we are sick.

We're sick. And it's a deeply theological sickness. It's a deeply theological sickness.

Well, what transforms these things? It's something I often say in counseling.

I say it all the time to our church body. We're in front of our church body every day at Apologia Church doing counseling and prayer and all the rest.

And it's something we say very often as people come in and are being sanctified or being changed, healing from issues of anxiety, healing from issues of hopelessness and depression and all the rest.

What I'll often say is I don't have a pill to give to you. I don't have the potion to have you drink that you're gonna walk out of this room and then all is healed.

If you're spiritually sick, what's going to actually bring the healing and the transformation is truth.

It's the word of God. And if you lack courage, it's because there's something theologically wrong in your mind and in your heart.

And it needs to be repented of. New understanding needs to come in there. What's gonna change us from a cowardly church into a bold church, a fearless church is a new perspective.

Now, I'm not calling you to Jeff Durbin's new perspective. I'm calling you to a new perspective in terms of the old way, not the way we are now.

The old way of thinking of the authority of Jesus as having all authority in heaven and on earth and winning the nations to Jesus and teaching them to obey is the ultimate goal.

Again, not about eschatology. This is about obedience. That's the command. We all agree with it.

If we took an exam together, no matter what your perspective on end times is, we're all gonna fundamentally agree on the exam on this point.

He said, all authority in heaven and on earth. And the goal is to win the nations, disciple them and teach them to obey.

That's the goal. That's what we're in this for. Win, lose or draw, that's the command.

You see, this message of Jesus, again, is consistent with the teaching of the apostles. If you wanna go do some reading on this,

I can give you verses for days, but I'll just point you to the premier book on this issue, and that's

Romans. If you just read the first chapter of Romans and the last chapter of Romans, I often say this, the apostle

Paul, through inspiration, actually bookends that glorious systematic explanation of the gospel with the very truth that Jesus expresses in the

Great Commission. I'll just read, I'll read it to you here. You don't have to open your Bibles, or you can if you like. But as he gives this very long opening, many of you guys know that, the first seven verses of Romans is like one long run -on sentence.

No periods there. He says this in verse five, through whom,

Jesus, our Lord, we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

So that's chapter one. That's the opening of the gospel. That's what's gospel according to St. Paul.

That's what's on his heart. The goal here is to bring about the obedience of faith, or in some translations, say the obedience that comes from faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.

Get that. That's the goal. And then he says this in verse 25 of chapter 16.

He says, now to him who's able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that has been kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according, here it is, to the command, command, remember, not tertiary.

This isn't about eschatology, win, lose, or draw. This is command. According to the command of the eternal

God to bring about the obedience of faith to the only wise

God be the glory forevermore through Jesus Christ, amen. That's the goal. This isn't about disagreements over side issues.

This is about the command of the eternal God. We bring the nations to faith in Jesus.

We bring them to a place where they actually yield to the lordship of Jesus. Everywhere, every one of them.

Again, I mentioned to you, this is consistent with the Old Testament revelation. I mean, you can start all the way back in Genesis.

We could do lots of stuff about Abraham and his descendants being as numerous as the stars, all of that, but how about Genesis 49, 10, that great promise of Shiloh who's coming.

It says, to him, to this one who's coming, the Messiah, shall be the obedience of the nations. To him shall be the obedience of the nations.

Where's that start and where's that stop? The obedience of the nations is what Jesus is coming for.

It's what he actually departs with. Go and get them. All the authority is mine.

In Isaiah chapter nine, it's that famous Christmas verse. It's on the Christmas cards. I always announce these passages because they have got to change us.

They transform us into a cowardly church, into a bold and a fearless church, a fierce church, righteously fierce church.

Isaiah chapter nine, it talks about this. It's a glorious prophecy about a son who's coming, a child, and he shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty

God, El Gibor, the father of eternity. And it says, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David to establish it with justice and righteousness forevermore.

And it says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this. So here's the question, how's it gonna be done? How's this kingdom, the rule of the

Messiah, gonna bring forth his increase of his government, the increase of his peace over all the earth?

How is the justice gonna be established? Because I'll tell you what, if you look at the church around you today, you look even at your own heart and your own cowardice and your own indifference and your own lack of compassion, you wonder how could any human accomplish something like this?

And the answer is you can't, we can't. And I don't wanna just be pithy about that. It's got to be the

Holy Spirit. No, I'm being sincere about that. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

It will happen because God is gonna accomplish it. It is his purpose, it is his mission in the world, and nothing's gonna stop it.

Now, our role as the church is to submit and repent and confess and rejoice when we're confronted with these truths about the authority of Jesus and the reign of Jesus, all of those things, and to be the means by which, as Christ's bride, we are his help meat as he goes about bringing his dominion over the earth.

You starting to hear all of that, all the portrayal in the Old Testament of Adam and Eve and his help meat and him taking dominion over the entire earth?

We know that's about Jesus. We know that he is the perfect Adam. He's what Adam was supposed to be.

And Adam, the second Adam, has a bride, a help meat, and he's going forth to take dominion, which is what

Adam was supposed to do. And that's, in fact, what the Psalms say. Psalm 72 says he shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.

That's where his dominion is going. But I wanna point you to this, Psalm chapter two.

Psalm chapter two is a powerful psalm. It's an important one, and I hope it challenges you as it has often challenged me.

And I wanna say, as we've been speaking to a lot of legislators as of late, it is the psalm that has been most in my mind.

As a matter of fact, I'll just be honest about this, transparent, so you know what's going on in my head. We've had, I don't even know how many meetings in the last couple of months with legislators in Arizona.

I'm talking sheriffs, we're talking senators, congressmen, we're talking mayors, justice of the

Arizona Supreme Court, speaking directly to them, and I want you to know that the passage that has been in my mind more than any

Bible verse over the last couple of months has been Psalm chapter two. I'm using this psalm for courage.

I'm using this psalm to be an obedient prophet, in a sense, not like a biblical prophet, but someone who foretells

God's word, not foretells any future events, I wanna be clear about that since this is on the internet,

I don't wanna confuse anybody, but someone who foretells God's word, speaking prophetically to the world around.

Psalm chapter two says, verse seven, "'I will tell of the decree the

Lord said to me, "'you are my son, today I have begotten you, "'ask of me and I will make the nations your inheritance "'and the ends of the earth your possession.'"

Well, that's the father speaking to the son in the Old Testament. How do you like that Trinitarian theology?

I think it's awesome. But Psalm chapter two, the father speaking to the son, and he says, "'Ask of me and I'll give you the nations "'for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth "'for your possession.'"

The question that I always ask, that I learned from my teacher, was do you think Jesus forgot to ask? I don't.

And proof that he didn't forget to ask the father for the nations and the ends of the earth for his inheritance, is his departing words in the gospel according to Matthew, were all the authorities mine now?

Now go get the nations, why? Because the father said, they're yours. That's what the

Bible teaches us about Jesus and his authority and his inheritance and what our role is in this. And here is that passage that's been in my mind the most the last couple of months as we've been talking to legislators.

It says this in verse 10 of chapter two, Psalm 210. "'Now therefore,

O kings, be wise, be warned, "'O rulers of the earth, serve the

Lord with fear "'and rejoice with trembling. "'Kiss the son or obey the son, lest he be angry "'and you perish in the way, "'for his wrath is quickly kindled.

"'Blessed are all who take refuge in him.'" So as Jesus is given the nations by the father, the warning then comes to that earth that belongs to him, be wise and obey the son or you will perish.

Our nation is perishing. Have you noticed? Is it just me? Is it just me or have you noticed too?

I think we all have. Our nation is perishing. We've experienced so much light and so many blessings from our

Christian forebearers and make no mistake about it, it's the Christian worldview that gave us our gifts and gave us our blessings.

There is no disputing with that. We've inherited so much and we are so faithless. We stand on the shoulders of giants, but I prefer to say we stand on the shoulders of courageous men and women, courageous men and women.

And we are pitiful cowards, right? Look around us in the world the way that it is and we're like, oh, why are things this way?

And woe is me and this is awful and this is not as awful. And the answer is, look, and I've used this a lot too over the years.

The culture is the report card of the church. You wanna see how we're doing and our role and our responsibility?

Take a look at the culture around us. Now I know that there's ways that can be misused. I mean, if there's a place that's never heard of Jesus before,

I can't walk in there and within a year say, well, I guess I'm doing terrible. No, Christians have been here for some time.

We have a lot to do with the formation of this nation. The Christian worldview did. And the truth is we all know we have advocated our duties.

We've stepped away. Is it the perspective of the New Testament that Jesus has all this authority and he's to be obeyed today?

Is he the ruler of the kings of the earth today? Do they have to obey him whether they like it or not? And the answer is yes.

I'll just take you to one passage that you're all familiar with. It's in everyone's favorite book, Revelation. Revelation chapter one.

And here's what it says in verse five. It says this, "'And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, "'the firstborn of the dead, "'and the ruler of kings on earth.'"

The ruler of kings on earth. Now, a powerful thing about that particular passage is

I believe that's written by the apostle John when he was sent into exile to Patmos by Nero. That's in terms of dating what

I think about that. But even if you date it in the 96, dating with Domitian's reign, all the rest, we're still talking about something that took place about 2000 years ago.

The apostle John records there that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth during the time of the

Roman empire. That could get you in a lot of trouble. Can I just say that right now?

As Christians, we tend to think, again, going back to the beginning of the message tonight, we tend to think that Jesus has authority over the church, but not over the state.

Don't say that. And we say things like, well, they're not asking us to deny our faith in Jesus.

So technically, no big deal. Just obey what they say. We're not allowed to resist.

Can I point something out to you? In Rome, you can't say that. You can't say that in Rome.

When John wrote this revelation, when he received this revelation of Jesus Christ, to say that Jesus Christ is the king over Caesar is something that would have gotten you killed.

Kaiser Curios, Caesar is Lord. You die if you don't acknowledge the ultimate authority and yield to the ultimate authority of the emperor.

And early Christians wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it. Just like the

Chinese pastor who's spending nine years in a Chinese prison because of communist China, saying that he is subverting the authority of the state.

Isn't it interesting? The modern pastor in China understands the authority of Jesus to the degree that it gets him thrown in jail in China for nine years.

And what was he accused of? His message is subverting the authority of the state. He's saying there's somebody who has a higher authority, is a higher authority than the communist state of China.

He understands it. Why don't we? I think the answer is quite clear because we don't wanna spend nine years in a prison in China.

Let's be honest, right? God has giants and courageous men today, but how come we aren't gonna get accused of that?

How many Christians today in the United States of America would actually be accused of that?

If we took a poll, right? How many Christians would actually be accused of attempting to subvert the authority of the state in the

United States of America today? I'm not saying that we are anarchists. We're not. We respect the state.

We honor the state. We love the state. It's God's deacon, all the rest. But in terms of the message, when there's a tyrant and there's sin and there's the slaughter of the pre -born, are any of us gonna ever be accused like the pastor in China with that, that these people are subverting the authority of the state?

Early Christians were. Christians throughout the ages have been accused of that because they understood

Matthew 28, 18 through 20. They understood Romans 1, Romans 1, 16, Genesis 49, 10, Isaiah 9,

Isaiah 42, Psalm 2, Revelation 1, 5. We can go on for days. But let me just skip ahead here because I know that everyone's expecting me to go for two hours and I'm gonna surprise you all.

How long have I been going for, by the way? Anyone know? I have no idea. I don't believe in watches. I just wait for people to start falling asleep and then

I go as soon as one dies and falls out a window. I know that I've accomplished my mission.

I wanna kill someone like Paul. I'm just kidding. Some final thoughts here.

We have to be honest and that's that evangelicals today aren't comfortable with Jesus having authority over the government.

We're not really comfortable with that because it comes with a lot of implications and it would come with a lot of responsibilities and duties on our part.

We don't seem to be comfortable with Jesus being the full authority, final authority over the government today, at least not yet.

Maybe in some future realm we like that idea but we don't seem fully comfortable with him having all the authority today over the state that they actually have to obey him.

Again, I wanna point you just so that you can hear the words that we're all supposed to agree with. This isn't about eschatology.

It shouldn't be. Win, lose, or draw, this is about obedience. We have to embrace that.

People say today, and it's so destructive, we don't resist the government unless they're asking us to deny our faith.

Brothers and sisters, I'll just speak frankly, that is an abysmal understanding of the

Christian worldview. That is an abysmal understanding of the

Christian worldview. You see, my worldview as a Christian because of the full authority of Jesus and him as ruler of the kings of the earth means that gay mirage happening around us has something to do with my faith.

When people propagate gay mirage in the culture around us and they ask me to accept it, to yield to it, that is asking me to deny my faith because it has to do with the authority and the law of Jesus.

So when the world around me says, hey, it's not really a boy, it looks like a boy, it's a girl, it's not really a girl, it looks like a girl, it's a boy, and this over here is just love, love is love, and you need to accept that or you lose your job or you lose your house or we'll cancel you or vilify you.

Understand this, when people say to me, embrace this, just yield on this, you are asking me to deny my faith.

People think that the ultimate thing is just this. When someone lays the sword at your neck on the block and they say, deny that Jesus is

Lord, that he's the Messiah, that he's your savior, they think that that's it.

That's the asking you to deny your faith. But it comes in so many ways.

It comes so, what's the word? It comes in a sneaky way. The denial of our faith doesn't always come showing its teeth, it really doesn't.

When you ask me to accept the injustice of the slaughter of little boys and girls in the womb, sucking their brains out, decapitating them, cutting their arms and legs off, and gutting these children, when you ask me to accept that, to lay down and yield and say, this will just be perpetual, you just need to accept this is the state of the conflict, we will have the pro -life conflict versus the pro -choice conflict, and it's just gonna be the way that it is.

When you ask me to simply accept that mothers and fathers can murder their own children, you are, in fact, asking me to deny my faith.

I will not. When you are abusing my neighbors, when you are destroying their businesses, destroying their ability to feed their wives and their children and their aging parents, when you are destroying their ability to care for their employees, when you are robbing them of their livelihood, and you ask me to accept that, you are, in fact, asking me to deny my faith in the full and final authority of Jesus and his law.

When you steal from my neighbors, even if it's done with black robes and fancy pens on sweet -looking paper, you are asking me to deny my faith when you ask me to accept it, to yield to it.

Isaiah chapter one is a powerful passage. It is within this movement of believers who are fighting this fight.

It is an anchor passage for us, and it's the passage, go read it later, and I hope it challenges you as it's challenged me over the years.

Isaiah chapter one is that passage where the one and only true and living God tells his people,

I don't want your worship. I hate it. I hate your worship. Don't bother. He says, your hands are filled with blood, and he says to them, he says, cease to do evil.

Learn to do good, and here it is, seek justice. Seek justice.

Protect the fatherless. That's these babies. I know that that goes many different ways, adoption, orphans, all that, but it also contains the fatherless children who are being abandoned by their fathers to be slaughtered in the womb.

You see, isn't it interesting that God says, all right, here it is. I hate your worship. Don't even bring it to me.

So here's what I want from you. Stop doing evil. Cease. And he says what? Seek justice.

Stop doing evil, seek justice. Protect the fatherless. If we want

God to bless our nation, and we want God to receive our worship, we've gotta do those things.

Cease doing evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice.

I would say that the Christians today who are decrying those of us who are calling out for justice at a number of levels, but especially against the unborn, the people who are professing to be believers and they're telling us to simply shut up, they haven't apparently ceased doing evil and learned to do good and they're not seeking justice.

So one wonders about their worship. Something very important to consider.

Is it right for Christians to speak to the legislature and to demand that they obey

Jesus? I think I showed you clear examples from scripture about Psalm 2 and Christ's authority,

Jesus in Revelation 1 .5 as ruler of the kings of the earth. I showed you the perspective of his full authority, but do we even have an example in scripture?

And the answer is yes. We have many examples of biblical prophets speaking the word of God to the magistrate, to the one authority and demanding that they obey

God, actually appealing to the law of God and holding them to it. I'll give you the example,

Mark 7. Mark 7, you know the passage. This is John the Baptist, one of my heroes, obviously.

Even if you don't like tattoos, you have to admit it's pretty awesome. Yeah. In Mark 7, sorry, 6, 17 through 18, this is the course conflict between John the

Baptist and Herod. In verse 16, it says, "'But when Herod heard of it, he said, "'John, whom

I beheaded, has been raised. "'For it was Herod who had sent and seized John "'and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, "'his brother

Philip's wife, because he had married her.'" And here it is. For John had been saying to Herod, "'It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.'"

So here is John the Baptist speaking to the leader of his day, the authority in his area.

And he's saying, "'It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife.'" According to what?

God's law. Here's John the Baptist holding an authority accountable, even a perverse man like Herod, holding him accountable to the law of God.

And we must be willing to say as Christians today, like John said to Herod, he said to him, "'You are not allowed to have your brother's wife.

"'We must say to our legislature today, "'you are not allowed to have these lives, "'these lives, these babies' lives.

"'You are to obey God.'" Over the last month, we have, by God's grace, been given the ears of our legislature, many in our legislature.

We've been sitting down with them in private meetings. We've been challenging them. We've been speaking the gospel to them, the truth of God's word, the law of God to them.

We've had senators, congressmen, mayors, house of representatives. We've had sheriffs.

Again, all these different legislators. And what we've been doing is we've been speaking the truth to them.

We've been holding them accountable to the law of God. We've been challenging them. And I wanna just point this out to you.

This is the final word I have on this. It's been a challenge. Why? Because we're Christians. We're Trinitarian Christians.

We believe in the gospel of salvation, reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus Christ alone, apart from any works.

It's all his work and his righteousness as a gift through faith. That's what we believe.

But we've had people standing right here who are Latter -day Saints. I've been in rooms filled with people who are

Latter -day Saints, Mormons, and Roman Catholics, and you name it.

Rooms filled with people with an entirely different perspective religiously than me. And as a minister of the gospel, what

I have done is I have not pretended to be neutral. I've stood on the word of God.

We've stood on the word of God. And we've given the word of God to these people irrespective of their worldview saying, you must obey

Jesus. You must obey Jesus. The Mormon legislator has to obey

Jesus. The Roman Catholic legislator has to obey Jesus. We hold them accountable to obey

Jesus because the word of God says that he's the final authority and they must obey him. Of course, it's been a delicate thing and a difficult thing to do, but God's blessed it tremendously so that we now have legislators who are telling us that they will, they will work to criminalize abortion in Arizona this next session.

They're gonna do it. We have now recorded legislators who are calling it murder.

They're saying it must end and not be regulated any longer and we're gonna criminalize abortion.

Now, how'd we get here? Are we special? Are we really, really just special in Apologia Church? The answer is no, no.

As a matter of fact, there's not much to us, right? You see a lot of the teaching and a lot of the blessings come from Apologia Studios and Apologia Church.

You see just the work, us going out doing evangelism, turning the cameras on, all the rest, but if you came here, you'd find a family.

That's all you find. You just find a church. It's a church. We're a family. We love each other. We know each other, and nobody thinks that we're overly special.

It's a funny story. I'll end with this. My wife told me that she went to a Bible study, one of our small groups, and there was a new guy at the

Bible study, and he was an atheist, and he had just recently turned to Christ through our abortion mill ministry.

I can't remember if it was on the street or if it was watching it online, but he heard the gospel through the abortion mill ministry of Apologia Church, and this lifelong atheist turned to Jesus and now is a full -blown,

Jesus -loving, amazing man of God, but he's at this small group, and he says, you know,

I've recently come to Christ, and he tells my wife. He says, oh, the last Sunday sermon for Pastor Jeff, it was so wonderful.

It just really, really impacted me. He said, I was on the edge of my seat the entire sermon.

It was so wonderful, and my wife goes, really? I only illustrate that or just tell you that story to tell you, you're like, listen, there isn't anything special about a church like us who's raised up 500 churches around the world to go fight this fight and save lives and who is now speaking to our legislature about the criminalization of abortion, and we're there.

How do we do it? Answer, faith, obedience, doing what we're commanded to do, and that's my challenge to you.

I don't have any very special tips. I really don't. Believe these things about who

Jesus is. Believe these things about his authority, and then go into the world around you and act like it's true.

Fight like it's true. Live and die like it's true, and the challenging thing

I want to hover over your head until you get it right is are you the kind of Christian who's willing to go into a prison for nine years because of what you said about Jesus?

Just what you said, no criminal activity, no hurting him, no victims, just what you said about Jesus.

We're too afraid to say anything that would get us in trouble or have us vilified or have us canceled.

I say this, the only people that can ever cancel us are people who have been permitted to cancel us by Jesus.

He's the one that has full authority, and he's the one that has the final say, and my ultimate allegiance is to him and to his kingdom and to his authority.

I pray that it is yours as well, and I pray that you go into the world believing these things and living like they're true.