September 14, 2021 Show with Matt Tarr on “When it Becomes Morally Responsible to Disobey the State for Exceeding Its Authority”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlyle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 14th day of September, 2021.

And that heavy breathing is coming from a very beloved guest of mine.

His name is Pastor Matt Tarr. He is the pastor of High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania, which happens to be a church revitalization effort in northeastern

Pennsylvania through the Grace Advanced Ministry of John MacArthur. And today we are going to be addressing a very timely and important theme when it becomes morally responsible to disobey the state exceeding its authority.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Matt Tarr. Thanks, Chris.

I apologize. I didn't realize I was breathing that heavy. I might be the subject. I just wanted to make sure our listeners didn't think

Darth Vader was my guest today. Well, we'll see the way the conversation goes.

They might think that in the end anyway. You know, it's funny. I had a professor in seminary, because I tend to be a little bit more of an enthusiastic preacher, or at least

I used to be much more so. I try to balance myself out a little bit better these days.

But early on, he once told me that, you know, Matt, you need to make sure that you run at least a mile right before every time you preach, so that you have a little bit of time to wind down.

Well, I happen to be an enormous fan of lively, thunderous preaching.

So don't listen to any advice that wears you out before you begin to ascend the pulpit.

Yeah. Well, my problem was I would start at such high decibels that by the time

I wanted to emphasize something, I had nowhere else to go. Yes, you know, as long as you're not shouting at the top of your lungs when you're merely announcing a change in the schedule for the

Ladies Knitting Circle. That's true. Yeah, that's very true.

I like that. Well, tell our listeners, for those of them who are not familiar with High Point Baptist Church in the

Larksville, Pennsylvania area, tell us about this congregation. Yeah, well, High Point Baptist Church was actually started in 1892, so quite a long time ago.

And at that time, it was in the Wyoming Valley area, which is kind of a suburb of Wilkes -Barre.

Yes. Although, I think, yeah, so Wilkes -Barre might even be technically part of that Wyoming Valley area.

The locals would, you know, shoot me for not knowing exactly the details about that.

But I grew up in the Poconos, so that's just a stone's throw from here. But anyway, you know, the church had a lot of history.

But it was in the early 2000s that the church really made an about -face in its philosophy of ministry.

And what happened was, you know, they had a pastor, and he moved up, moved the church up to the top of the mountain, built a building that accommodates about 500 folks at a time.

I'm always leery when a pastor moves his church to the top of a mountain. Yeah, you know, there is a lot to be said.

You know, when you want to minister to people, there is a lot to be said about being accessible to people.

So, but, you know, there was a little bit of quasi -Pentecostalism that was beginning, you know, in the congregation, and, you know, some of the

Lord spoke to me. Does quasi -Pentecostalism mean they fake faking tongues?

Yeah. You know, I don't know what it... It was a word that I... I made it up. So you can make it mean, you know, we'll be totally post -modern here.

You can make it mean whatever you want. And I'm sure I just offended some of my very dear friends who

I actually believe are very biblically sound in spite of our disagreement on tongues.

I don't mean to insult my Pentecostal and charismatic friends. And there are some among us who are theologically very sound other than the areas of disagreement.

So I just wanted to make sure that I gave that disclaimer. Yeah, yeah.

And I, you know, I think it's important to point out, you know, in Acts chapter 2, when, you know,

Luke is writing about glossolalia, speaking in tongues. It's really an unfortunate

Old English translation there, of course, because what we're really talking about is spoken languages.

And that's clear in the context, but what was happening here at High Point was kind of these situations where, you know, there was an elderly lady, very sweet elderly lady.

She passed away shortly after I arrived here, actually, who had donated a few acres from her farm to the church, and the pastor took that as a sign that they were supposed to be, you know, a light to the valley from, you know, the top of the mountain.

And so they ended up buying the rest of the farm and built this facility in anticipation of about 1 ,500 people over three services, because at the time there were about 250 packing out three services in town.

So it was kind of a field of dreams church situation, you know. It was the Lord's sign that we should buy this property and we'll build this building.

People will come from all over the place. They ultimately did away with their pulpit ministry.

They started having 15 -minute sermonettes, you know, the classic, very seeker -sensitive, driven model.

Pastors began going out to Rick Warren's, you know, if you can call it pastor's conference every year, and began to integrate entertainment, drama, and so forth into the service, and that became predominant, because it's always easier to be entertained than to be instructed to appeal to the mind through the ministry of God's Word.

That takes work. That takes effort. And that isn't even to speak yet of the sanctifying process that occurs when we submit ourselves under the authority of Geruso, of the preaching of the

Word of God. So interestingly enough, you know, the last time

I was on, I was talking about my doctoral dissertation, and this was really the investment of my study in evaluating in the

Church of Corinth the byproducts, the adverse consequences of this, what really amounts to the

Corinthian sophistry, this manipulative, entertainment -driven rhetoric that put on a really great display but really did not emphasize substance.

Substance was secondary, because the goal was always the result.

Litvin would call that persuasion, but really when Litvin is talking about persuasion, he's talking about this manipulative kind of persuasion.

It's a manipulation that is devoid of truth or not based in truth or reality, and that's really the issue that we're going to circle back around to later today, but the result in Corinth was the same as the result here at High Point.

Factions began to develop everywhere, because ultimately people become increasingly immature in the faith, because they're not being built up in the faith.

Their roots aren't going deep, and they're not being fed well, they're not being watered well, and the church split in,

I think it was December 2012, and all of a sudden overnight you had about 90 people holding the keys to the mortgage, or the keys to the building and the paper for the mortgage, and at that point it was really obvious that there were a lot of changes that needed to be made.

They were trying to implement some of those changes already, that's ultimately what led to the split, because there were quite a number of people who were not in agreement with being more careful in philosophy, in their philosophy of ministry, in emphasizing the preaching of the

Word, in being more selective and careful in the music selection, and also evaluating the appropriateness, or lack of appropriateness, of entertainment in corporate worship.

It doesn't belong there. So there were a lot of folks that were upset with that, and they ultimately left the church.

So that was when they became a grace -advanced revitalization effort. There was a faithful remnant of people who stuck it out, who contended earnestly for the faith.

They wanted to see Christ exalted and God glorified in this little assembly in a massive building.

And they were eager to learn as well. So I began hearing about this church.

It was very financially rocky at the time, obviously, because of those mortgage payments that they were making on this still barely over 10 -year -old building.

But the Lord has been just abundantly gracious. Now we're probably double the size that we were then.

And a lot of that growth has actually happened just from this last year. As we continue to do what we've always done in terms of practicing the one and others, proclaiming

God's Word, we don't do anything novel or new. I'm not an especially creative individual, so I don't need to worry about that.

I just want to be a faithful steward of God's Word. And people have been driving from all over the place just to be shepherded well.

That is such a beautiful area. I loved visiting High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania during your conference that you had.

Just a really gorgeous scenery when entering that area.

We have another one coming up pretty soon. Well, we expect that you'll be there for that,

Chris. That's the Just Thinking podcast. That's going to be in the spring.

We don't have an exact date on that. After shepherds, that's about all we know.

I may be misremembering this, but I thought that you also were having

Rick Phillips and Phil Johnson. No, that's right. I'm thinking of a different church. Grace Fellowship.

Well, I'll open the extension, the invitation. Yeah, that was

Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship in Harrisburg who was having that conference.

Yeah, that's right. That would have been probably October, I think. Yeah, it's for Reformation Day.

If anybody wants more information about High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania, go to highpointbaptist .com.

Now, I know that you, God willing, are going to be attending the same conference that I am attending that I'm very thrilled about, as I always am, the

G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, which is going to be held from Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd.

And the speaker lineup is absolutely extraordinary.

It is a lineup that features my dear friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, John MacArthur, Dr.

Conrad M. Bayway, Voti Baucom. And yes, you heard me right, folks. We had been saying for a number of weeks that Voti Baucom was taken off the roster because of his health problems, but he is now healthy enough to be replaced, or should

I say put back on, not replaced, put back on the roster. He, God willing, is going to be there.

He worked out his schedule to make sure that he was going to be there. And just an amazing, a mind -blowing lineup.

The theme is Christ is supreme above all, or over all.

Christ is supreme, as I would say. And you know what you have other than an attendee, you have some kind of a connection with the G3 Conference, because you are going down there to attend some kind of a meeting.

You don't have to divulge anything that's supposed to be private. But I was just curious, what's your affiliation with Josh Bice and the folks down there?

Well, really, I'll be heading down early for a meeting with the

Masters Fellowship. I'm a regional coordinator or director, leader, whatever you want to call it, for the

Master's Fellowship of Pennsylvania Churches, and that's a fellowship of like -minded churches, like -minded in both conviction and practice, as well as our doctrine, and so there's a leaders meeting that will happen the day before.

That'll be with John MacArthur, Harry Walls, who is the pastor at Grace Community Church.

He's also the campus pastor at the Master's University, and he is, you know, he oversees the

Master's Fellowship of churches across the country, and a few others, you know, that both past and present pastors from Grace Church that will be there to discuss a variety of different issues that the church is working through in our out -of -season culture and to sort of help equip church leaders to maybe think more tightly and biblically about some of these subjects.

If I remember right, we're really going to be emphasizing faithfulness, which is obviously, well, an ever -present problem.

Let's put it that way. But that's my connection to G3. Other than that,

I'm a pastor that'll be heading down there and looking forward to the like -minded fellowship with other like -men.

Amen. Such as yourself. I'll look for you at the Port -a -Potty. Well, we don't want to alarm our listeners.

There are no need for Port -a -Potties where we're going. It's going to be held at a very nice facility, as it always is.

This is a new facility from previous years, but I am sure that it is quite as modern as the others.

But that's where they always put your boot, isn't that right here? No, I was actually assured by Virgil Walker that this year

I will be put in a very prominent place, so let's hope that actually happens.

I, of course, was exaggerating. I was doing some whining recently, because when

I first started going to the G3, they put me for the first three years in a row,

I think, or two years in a row, right across from Dr. James R. White's booth for Alpha to Make a

Ministry, so I got a lot of traffic. Then all of a sudden, last time, I was oddly in the last row of booths that got very little traffic.

So hopefully this will be different this year. I heard you saying that. When I looked at your recent podcast,

I saw that James White, of course, had recently done a similar interview with you that we are doing today.

So I thought it would probably be appropriate for me to at least listen to it, in case reference was made back to some of the points that he did.

So I was kind of following up with some of those port -a -potty comments there.

And I'm already starting to get uncomfortable with it, so I'm ready to move on. Well, by the way, folks, if you would like to join me and Pastor Matt Tarr at the

G3 conference on Christ is Supreme Above All, that is

Thursday, September 30th, through Saturday, October 2nd. Go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com. I really hope to see you there. If you do go, please greet me at my exhibitors booth.

I would love to meet you face -to -face. One of the highlights of my time at the

G3 conference is not only meeting a lot of folks that have never listened to the show before, who have become acquainted with it as a result, but also meeting folks that have been long -time fans of the show, who love the show, that I've never heard from before, and also meeting face -to -face for the first time people who have been loyal fans and listeners, who

I have heard from via email when they sent in questions but never saw them face -to -face.

So all of those are such a joy, and I am looking forward to more encounters such as all of those.

That's g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and you'll be hearing the ads during the remainder of the broadcast.

Well, what was it that actually compelled you to choose the very theme that we are addressing today?

It's a theme that we have been addressing a lot, but I think it can't be overstated, these issues, especially since the body of Christ is divided over them.

So why is it that you wanted to speak on when it becomes morally responsible to disobey the state?

Yeah, well, there are a few things at play here. One goes back several months ago when our previous

Secretary of Health, Dr. Levin, was appointed to serve in the

Biden Administration, and at that time, the Acting Health Director that was appointed by Governor Wolf actually has no background in health.

She is a lawyer, and so as soon as we saw that, our elders sat down, and as we were discussing, one of our elders proposed a subject that we have been addressing in each elders' meeting.

That subject line is in the event of imposition by the state, and that's what we're looking at.

When our governor appoints an Acting Secretary of Health that is a lawyer rather than, you know, somebody with a health background, a health expert, or whatever you might call it, why is that more helpful to him?

Well, it becomes more helpful to him when he is going to push the limits of his legal authority.

So we began to prepare and expect, as students of history, and even modern history, history as we have seen it occur before our eyes in this last year, to prepare the best response as we can as elders overseeing our flock.

So you fast forward then until just a few short weeks ago, and all of a sudden our

Secretary of Health here in Pennsylvania begins requiring, you know, things like masks universally in schools again.

Governor Wolf was adamant that he wouldn't do that. It would be up to local school boards and so forth.

And there is even a point to which I disagree with that, but nevertheless, Governor Wolf pledged that he wouldn't be making those requirements, so then the

Secretary of Health threw her weight into the situation, and as the

Department of Health official said that schools would have to wear masks.

And that resulted in a lot of consternation from parents. That has been visible across the entire country.

This issue has become a highly contentious issue. And what that demonstrates to us is that even if you look beyond the efficacy or non -efficacy of something like a medical device, such as a face mask, and I think that's the appropriate terminology that we should be using.

It is a medical device. If it's not a medical device, then the Department of Health has no authority to require the medical device.

But if we refer to it as a medical device, I think that helps us understand that the real principle of objection that parents have, what they're extremely uncomfortable with, even parents that are pro -masks, even parents that want their children wearing masks, are very strongly against being forced to have their children wear masks.

And the reason is because they understand, and you can see this national pushback, that masks are inherently representative of something.

In fact, let's pick up right where you left off. The masks are inherently representative of something, because we have to go to our first break.

If anybody wants to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail dot com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Matt Tarr after these messages from our sponsors.

Hello dear ones, my name is Justin Peters, and my friend Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are frequently blessed to share great times of fellowship with one another at conferences all over the

United States. We'll both be enjoying more fellowship together at the G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd, on the theme,

Christ is supreme over all. I'll be speaking there, along with over 20 other speakers, including

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God willing, a sweet time of fellowship with you all soon, if God opens up that door for me to get down to Tennessee again in the near future.

If you just tuned us in, we are interviewing my friend, Pastor Matt Tarr. He is the pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Larksville, Pennsylvania.

And we are addressing the theme, When It Becomes Morally Responsible to Disobey the State. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com As always, give me your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you disagree with your own elders over what we are discussing today, and you don't want to draw attention to your identity.

Or you are an elder or a pastor yourself. You disagree with your own fellow elders, perhaps. You disagree with your denomination, or whatever is the case that compels you to remain anonymous.

We understand that. But if it's a general question, please give us your first name, city and state, country of residence.

You just before the break, Pastor Matt, started getting into a discussion on the mask mandates, and if you could pick up from where you left off.

Right. So what I had mentioned, of course, was this universal requirement. What we're really looking at here is the requirement for a medical device to be imposed on our children without parental consent.

And I'll add, when there is no pandemic. And I say that.

It was interesting to me. I think with the lawsuits that have followed this breach of authority, the

Wolf administration filed for an extension. I think there was supposed to be a preliminary hearing here on the 16th.

And just to let our listeners know, Governor Wolf is the leftist governor of Pennsylvania. That is correct.

And they argued, because of the global pandemic, face masks are necessary.

Mandatory face masks are necessary for children in private and public schools, all private and public schools in the state.

Now, where that becomes a breach of authority here is, well, the state of emergency, the pandemic, was ended officially and lawfully in the state of Pennsylvania in June.

Now, if there was a state of emergency, if there was a pandemic in the state of Pennsylvania, the

Wolf administration has the freedom to submit that to the legislature. And the legislature can legally confirm or deny legitimacy of that state of emergency.

But as it is presently, that's not the case. So what you have now is the requirement of a medical device without parental consent.

And that's a huge breach of trust. It's a violation of parental authority, really.

Parents have authority over their children to determine what is best and most healthy for their children.

And I believe that that's a God -ordained right. That's what I'm going to argue here today. But that has caused a lot of consternation, because now

Christians are saying, well, but what do we do? Because Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, we are to obey and submit to our governing authorities.

And yet I strongly object that the government has the right to require a medical device for my children.

And, again, we're talking about regardless of the mask's efficacy. And so what we're seeing is a conscientious objection to this breach in authority.

And for many other believers at this point, we're also seeing a conscientious objection because of their representative nature.

It was just last year. You know, we can be quick to forget this. The National Institute for Health said that face masks are a hoax.

And then, of course, the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2020 said that masks were a talisman.

And, of course, we all know how adamant Dr. Fauci was against masks early on.

And then all of a sudden everything makes it about face. So people are wondering why, and they're beginning to investigate why.

And we're hearing things like the science says, when really we know the science has not said anything, at the very least conclusive.

But what we're failing to realize is that ultimately science has declared war against the conscience, against the truth, ever since Darwin's evolutionary theory.

And the political atmosphere has exploited science to promote its own personal agendas ever since that as well, especially the 1950s.

In fact, when you said that there's nothing scientifically conclusive about masks, well,

I happen to know quite a number of people, including my own personal physician,

Dr. Joel Yeager, who says there are some things that are scientifically conclusive, and that means that it's dangerous and harmful for people to be habitually wearing masks.

And children, especially, should not be wearing them habitually. And he, in fact,

I want to let our listeners know, he has an exemption form for your children against the mask mandates that are being pushed in many schools.

If you go to HeritageFamilyHealth .org, HeritageFamilyHealth .org, you can download this mask exemption form.

Sorry to interrupt you, but whenever we're talking about this, I like to plug my courageous physician, because he is really risking his practice by being so outspoken against the left's positions on this, and the vaccine's as well.

That is one of the co -authors of the Coronavirus and the

Church of Sacred Trust, Rogan. Is that correct? That's exactly correct. Yeah, it's an outstanding book as well.

And you know what's interesting is that we had a fellow physician recently in our area who did the same thing, and now his medical license is being reviewed.

So they're looking at revoking his medical license, and schools are rejecting his exemption.

Disgusting. It is. It's a violation of the

Hippocratic Oath. Do no harm. Because I agree with you, Chris. When we're talking about the developing lungs here of the healthy, and requiring seven, eight hours a day, five days a week, to wear a medical device, and again, against parental consent, that's a huge problem.

But what do we do? Because for every article that I show that shows that masks are non -efficacious, or that they're even harmful, such as you mentioned, somebody else can say, well, but I have an article that says that they are useful.

Look at these studies here. So we're kind of playing this he said, she said game, aren't we?

Well, not exactly, because we have to understand how science is supposed to work.

Science, to be science, must subject itself to the scientific method, and the scientific method means that it subjects itself to critical review.

So what is not happening here? Well, there is no room in this discussion for critical review.

Whenever a medical journal would be published, or new information or data is published in a medical journal, or whatever the case is, it's always going to subject itself to cross -examination.

Was there a problem with the test group? Is there a reason why we have to reject the hypothesis because of a mistake that was made, perhaps?

Or maybe the control group wasn't properly evaluated for the study, and so on and so forth.

So what happens, though, is that when you prevent the scientific method from occurring by systematically suppressing cross -examination on something like the efficacy of face masks, and that is what's happening.

You find an article that demonstrates that they don't work, and they are even harmful.

You've got to save it, and save it quick, because it's going to disappear, or it's going to get redacted.

And so now you're crossing in this territory from science to pseudoscience.

And it's interesting, Dr. Paul Hurd, he was, I think, a board member, if I remember correctly, for the

Smithsonian Institute. He was a professor at Stanford, and he wrote a journal article,

I think it was in 1998, called Scientific Literacy, New Minds for a Changing World.

And he lamented the lack of logic that is being taught, even within the scientific community, such that they can't recognize when they are adhering to pseudoscience or they're actually adhering to science.

So, that's obviously going to be a huge problem, because what that means is that your worldview will govern how you interpret scientific data.

In biblical studies, we call that asegesis, rather than exegesis, where we allow our worldview, our presuppositions, to be imposed on the text.

So the text conforms to support our presuppositions and our worldviews, rather than exegesis, where we submit our presuppositions and our worldviews to the text, to the data, the information of scripture, and allow our thoughts to be conformed strictly by the truth, strictly by the evidence.

So, pseudoscience always claims to maintain that it is fact or it's scientific, even though it fails to meet the rigors that are required by that scientific method.

And so, because of that, it's often characterized by contradictory claims, exaggeration, it depends on confirmation bias, which means that you have to selectively interpret evidence to support your presuppositions, and it rejects honest evaluation by other scientific experts, and it rejects an openness to continued rigorous attempts at refutation, or an openness to testing of other theories by other experts, because true science might not achieve the desired outcome.

So, we're realizing that this is occurring more and more, and the result is, at the very least, parents are saying,

I want to be able to have the authority to determine whether or not their child should be forced to wear a medical device when their child is otherwise healthy.

And beyond that, of course, we have the recent declaration by the

Biden administration, and so the same logic carries itself over into that domain as well.

Does my employer or does the government have the right to require of me a vaccine that I may conscientiously object to?

There was, in fact, I got a message from a member of our congregation yesterday, and so, again, confirming that these are issues that people in our church and our little assembly are dealing with.

I got a call from a community of parents, local parents from a variety of school districts, trying to help however

I can in helping parents walk through defending and protecting their conscience on this issue.

But anyway, this member messaged me yesterday. He said, Matt, my hematologist, his physician that he sees for cancer treatments, he's refusing to see any patients who haven't received their

COVID shot. He said, so my hematologist won't see me because I haven't gotten my

COVID shot. How utterly infuriating that is. That's disgusting.

And it really is. And so believers see the trajectory. We understand the trajectory of these things.

And these are very serious issues when we have assembly bill,

I think it was 455, maybe it was 411. I think it was 455, though, that they tried to discreetly pass in California a couple of weeks ago.

In fact, we have to pick you up right where we left off there because we have to go to our midway break now, Pastor Matt.

But let's pick up where you were talking about a loved one of yours, a friend, a loved one, and the hematologist who refuses to see him or her because of a refusal to get vaccinated.

Truly a chilling thing indeed. And I have become convinced that such a physician is either operating out of fear or trying to maintain or rise in a position of popular popularity with the government or some other issue.

But they have to know that these these vaccines are really practically not only worthless for what they are intended, but dangerous.

But we have to go to our midway break right now, folks. Please keep in mind that this is the longer than normal break in our show.

We ask of you to please be patient with us as Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer than normal break in the middle of the show because they are required by the

FCC to localize

Iron Sherpins, So while they do that during this longer break, we simultaneously air our own globally heard commercials.

Please use this time wisely. Please write down the information provided by our advertisers, as many of them as possible, so that you can more frequently and successfully reply, respond to our advertisers, whether that be by patronizing them through the purchase of products, the use of services, the support of parachurch organizations or the visiting of churches.

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. We'll be right back.

I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. My friend Chris Arnson, host of Iron Sherpins Iron Radio and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia once again for the

G3 conference. This year's G3 will be held Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd on the theme

Christ is supreme over all. I'll be joined by over 20 other speakers and musicians to lead in the worship of God through preaching, teaching and singing, including

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September 30th through October 2nd at G321. This is James White reminding you that Christ is supreme over all.

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Wow, that's some compliment. How much do I owe you for that? You don't have to owe me anything.

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Before I return to my discussion with Pastor Matt Tarr of High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania, as we discuss when it becomes morally responsible to disobey the state, we just have some important announcements to make.

If you are a man in ministry leadership, whether you are a pastor, an elder, and by the way,

I believe that's the same office, a deacon, a parachurch leader, whatever leadership position you hold as a man in the church or parachurch organization, we invite you to a free event that you will not regret attending.

It is the biannual Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon, and this month we are featuring for the very first time ever my dear friend, dating back to 1995,

Dr. Conrad Mbewe of Kibwata Baptist Church of Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

I believe he is the most powerful living preacher alive on the planet Earth. I am not using hyperbole, exaggeration, or sinful flattery.

I really believe that. And he has been featured at major conferences such as the

Strange Fire Conference hosted by Dr. John MacArthur and the

G3 Conference that you heard us speaking about earlier, and many other prominent conferences around the

United States and globally. So if you want to attend this conference for free, just send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com

and put Pastor's Luncheon in the subject line. Remember, this is a men's only luncheon. And not only are you going to be getting free admission and being fed for free, but you're also going to be leaving with a very heavy sack of brand new free books donated by major Christian publishers and also some relatively unknown

Christian publishers that happen to be publishing some of the best stuff that exists, who every year donate 100 copies each of a specific title that I select from them myself in order to accommodate every single man in attendance at the luncheon.

All of this is free of charge. In fact, not only is it all free of charge, nothing is for sale at this event, which was by the insistence of my precious late wife,

Julie, who launched these luncheons in the 1990s, and I've been conducting them ever since, relaunched them here in Pennsylvania after doing them for years in New York, and have been doing it in her memory ever since she went home to be with Christ for eternity.

So this will be held Monday, September 27th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the

Bongiorno Conference Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Take a plane, train, automobile, or parachute to Carlisle.

If you do not live locally, it will be worth the trip, especially because of the dollar value of the free brand -new books that you'll be going home with.

And I just hope that many of you listening register. We've already got a lot of people registered, but we are looking forward to many more registering.

And send me an email if you'd like to register to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put Pastor's Luncheon in the subject line.

And by the way, Pastor Matt Tarr, I'm assuming you are familiar with the preaching of Dr.

Conrad Mbewe, aren't you? Oh yeah, absolutely, of course. Yeah, truly a faithful man.

Outstanding. Yes, he is. Yeah, so I agree with you, yeah. Well, send those emails to chrisarnson at gmail .com

and put Pastor's Luncheon in the subject line. Also, folks, if you love this show and you do not want it to disappear from the airwaves, please,

I'm urging you, go to ironsherpensirenradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate.

Now, you could donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

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We are in urgent need of your advertising dollars as well as your donations. The coronavirus pandemic hysteria and the abuse of authority by local and federal governments have hurt, have harmed very dramatically many people in our audience, and therefore the giving to Ironsherpensiren Radio has gone down dramatically.

We are in urgent need of your help, perhaps more than ever before. And by the way,

I want to thank all of you over this weekend who have been sending in your donations.

When you heard my cries for help last week, I have been so humbled and so blessed, and I've been crying out to God in praise and thanksgiving and gratitude to Him for you.

There are such precious, generous people who listen to this show who have been coming to the rescue, sending in their donations.

I want to thank you all so much. You are helping us to slowly crawl out of this financial pit we are in.

So if you love the show and you haven't given yet, please consider it. Please prayerfully consider it if you don't want us to go off the air.

And let me give you this caveat that I try to remember to tell you every day.

One of the main reasons I started Ironsherpensiren Radio in 2005 was to be a friend, a platform, a helping hand, and an extension of the local pastor and the local church, including

Pastor Matt Tarr of High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania. I never want to do anything that hinders or harms the ministry of the local pastor and the local church, including financially.

So please do not suck money, siphon money away from your regular giving to your own local church in order to give to Ironsherpensiren Radio.

In other words, don't give your own church less money in order to bless us financially. Please don't do that.

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I don't want to be responsible for food being taken off your table and you being plunged into further financial peril as a result of giving to Ironsherpensiren Radio.

Those two things are commands of God in Scripture providing for your church and providing for your family.

Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God in Scripture. But if you do love this show and you're financially blessed by God above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have extra money collecting interest in the bank, you have extra money for recreational and trivial purposes, and you do not want this show to disappear, please go to ironsherpensirenradio .com,

click support, then click to donate now. We really need your help. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a local

Bible -believing church, a biblically faithful church, a theologically sound church like High Point Baptist Church of Larksville, Pennsylvania, no matter where on the planet

Earth you live, I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I may have churches or a church right in your area no matter where in the world you live.

I've helped many people in our audience all over the planet find churches right near them, sometimes within minutes of their own home that they didn't know existed or they didn't know that those churches they passed every day were theologically sound.

So if that is you, if you do not have a biblically faithful church, no matter where on the planet Earth you live, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com, and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Pastor Matt Tarr, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. We are discussing when it becomes morally responsible to disobey the state.

Give us your first name at least, city and state of residence, and country of residence if you live outside the USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

And before I go to any of our listeners who are already waiting to have their questions asked and answered, before the break,

Pastor Tarr, you were talking about someone you know who was refused visitation to a physician, an oncologist,

I believe, or a hematologist, one or the other, because the patient was refusing the coronavirus vaccine.

So if you could pick up there. Yeah, so what I was saying is that, you know, as a matter of conscience then, believers are understanding the trajectory here, and they're not comfortable with the trajectory.

They're not comfortable with the lies and misinformation, and they understand that they are being lied to.

When the U .S. government keeps telling us things like, you know, to follow up from your comment right before the break, vaccines are safe, well, everybody knows that that's a lie.

That's not true. They may be safe for you, but you can't categorically say these vaccines are safe.

People have actually died from the vaccine. Well, right, and that's what you have a due diligence.

I would encourage everyone to go to, you know, that website that you mentioned, HeritageFamilyHealth .org,

or to, let's see here, LCAction .org,

and you can find carefully documented information. How do you spell, is that the initials

LC, or is it LC? Correct. For Liberty Council. Oh, okay, LC, okay.

So LCAction .org, but you can also go to Ultra Vigilance, which is a

European database of suspected adverse drug reaction reports, and you can pull up a

COVID -19. Now, in Europe, they have four different vaccines that they are using for COVID, whereas in America, of course, we only have three, but so far they are listing about 20 ,000 as of July 17, 2021.

20 ,000 people have died from the vaccine. How many? COVID -19, 20 ,000.

Wow. And they are reporting about 2 million injuries.

Wow. And because of that, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization in Great Britain just said that they will not permit children ages 5 to 18 to get the vaccine unless, actually, they have severe other immunosuppression disabilities and so forth.

So they are preventing children from getting the vaccine until, quote, more safety data is available and has been evaluated, and, therefore, a precautionary approach is preferred.

And they are saying that the vaccination, the universal vaccination doesn't outweigh the risks for most young people who typically suffer only mild symptoms of the virus.

Well, those are things that we knew all along. And so my antenna is especially in tune, you know, because of the relationship to my doctoral thesis on sophistry to propaganda ministries.

And one of the defining elements of propaganda of, you know, the Corinthian -like sophistry is that it uses manipulative rhetoric that is not based in reality.

It's not willing to be forthright and completely truthful. So, you know, if you were forthright about telling me the potential adverse consequences of the vaccine and then gave me the freedom then to evaluate based on my health and the information related to COVID -19,

I might or might not decide at that point to get the vaccine. But when I can see that you are suppressing information, being untruthful with information, you're telling me lies, well, then

I would be rather foolish to actually believe you. And when you're using manipulative rhetoric that's not based in reality, like Biden used in his election campaign when he,

I forget which debate it was, but he looked right into the camera so that he was looking at the eyes of everybody in their living rooms and appealed to you to remember those empty chairs.

And it was because of President Trump that we have empty chairs at our dining room table.

And that really tugged at the heartstrings of, emotionally, of a great many people.

But that's manipulative rhetoric. Or the rhetoric that, well, we want children to wear masks because we want the schools to remain open.

They have to remain open. Well, that's a non sequitur. It doesn't follow that if you give parents the freedom to choose whether or not their kids wear a mask, you know, eight to four in school, that that's going to mean schools have to shut down.

You might say that that's a false cause fallacy as well because one thing is not causally related to the other.

You don't have to shut down the school. That is your decision that you've made, whether that's an overreaction to a student contracting

COVID or whatever the case is. But you also have, you know, we don't want hospitals to overflow.

Well, that assumes that anybody does. Nobody wants hospitals to overflow and people to die because the hospital systems are stressed.

But are we also taking into account the mass amounts of physicians, doctors, nurses, and so forth that are walking out because they don't want to get the vaccine or be required to get the vaccine?

And so that's causing stress in other departments of hospitals. And it's also failing to consider are hospitals being stretched because of bad policies or because that there is truly a pandemic?

And, again, then we would have to ask, well, then, should there be another state of emergency declared in the state of Pennsylvania or perhaps a more local one?

So all those things are playing into believers' conscience because we have a mandate to live in a way that is consistent with reality.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3 .18, let no man deceive himself through the world's wisdom, through deceptive manipulation.

And, likewise, in Ephesians 5 .6, he says, let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Therefore, do not be partakers with them. Do not be partakers of those who are deceiving us with empty words.

What's interesting is that the word that Paul uses for empty words is the word kenos.

And so what he's saying is don't be deceived by that which is devoid of intellectualism.

That's how you would understand that. That's the word kenos, devoid of intellectualism, without basis, without truth.

We have an example of that in Hosea 12 .1. That says,

Ephraim feeds on wind and pursues the east wind continually.

Now that is in reference to a futile and ultimately self -destruction token gesture of solidarity that Israel was making towards the pagan rulers, pagan nations, giving them oil.

And the instruction is that they were not to align themselves with the foolish counsel of the godless who were simply not living in correspondence with reality.

And the east wind, they're pursuing the east wind, that is to say that it's a hot, dry, useless, that offered them absolutely nothing.

And they fed on that which was devoid of intellectualism.

That same phrase, that same phrase in Hosea 12 .1, in particular reference to, has a similar idea in Hosea 8 .7.

That says they saw the wind, they keep the, they reap the unhindered.

So they see the wind, they reap the nonsense thing, that nothing thing, if I can put it that way.

And what happened was, what we read there is the standing grain has no heads, it yields no grain, so ultimately it's useless.

It's talking about futile policies that have no effect, no real tangible effect.

And Israel was, in particular, making all these useless policy decisions in the interest of self -preservation, but ultimately they were self -destructive.

And Matthew Henry wrote about that. Those that stay themselves upon lies will be still coveting to increase them, as if many lies twisted together would make one truth.

And he goes on to say that it is ultimately a delusion and will prove to them a great desolation.

And interestingly, the chapter before that, Hosea writes that by living in falsehood they make kings glad.

Why is that? Why do you make kings glad by living in falsehood?

Well, chapter 12, verse 7 answers that, you know, to refer back to Ephraim feeding on the wind and pursuing the east wind, the useless east wind.

Because the king is a merchant who loves to oppress. That's the issue at the end of the day.

And that's the trajectory we're seeing. And so, as a valid matter of conscience, many

Christians are saying, Enough of this. We cannot pursue this direction.

It's unsustainable. But how to address that subject again?

How do I reconcile this with Romans chapter 13? It's an important issue, but I think what we fail to oftentimes do when we study the

Scriptures is that we understand completely its context.

There's always historical context, of course, but there's also a biblical context, a context for instruction in the

Scriptures as it relates to the overall argument of the letter. So Romans chapter 13, we have to remember, is not in isolation.

And we have to recognize that the Reformers, for instance, were those nonconformists because they wouldn't comply to certain government mandates.

Also, we're adamant at the same time that Christians should be the very best of all citizens.

And so we should maintain and uphold Romans chapter 13 and recognize that we have been called to obey and submit to our governing authorities.

And yet, at the same time, they recognize limits on those authorities too.

So what is the context, then, of Romans chapter 13? Because I think that's really, really helpful. In the chapter that immediately precedes it, we have a lot of useful information.

Romans chapter 12 begins when we're talking about protecting the mind for the

Christian and not following after deceptive controversies.

And if we want to preserve the unity of the fellowship, in chapter 1 of 1

Corinthians, Paul says that he admonishes us all to speak the same thing. Well, we speak the same thing by having the mind of Christ.

So Romans chapter 12 says, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So, um, what happens when Christians don't have a sharp mind?

Um, R .C. Sproul lamented, uh, in his, in his book,

Knowing Scripture, um, Christians are living in what may be the most anti -intellectual period of Western civilization.

Notice I didn't say anti -academic or anti -technological or anti -scholarly.

I said anti -intellectual. There's a strong current of antipathy to the function of the mind in the

Christian life. So, um, obviously what, what

Paul, uh, is talking about then, when he's speaking of the mind in Romans chapter 12, is, uh, not so much the brain.

He's, he's using the word noose. And so, um, we're not just talking explicitly about the organ of the brain.

We're not talking about our level of intelligence. Uh, there are many people who are highly intellectual and academically successful and so forth, but they don't have a renewed mind.

And so, really what Paul is getting at is a certain kind of disposition.

It is a pattern of thinking that makes judgments about life, about truth versus error, about right versus wrong, about what is myth versus what is reality.

And, um, and what he gets at in the first opening verses of Romans chapter 12 is that this is a matter of what you will ultimately worship.

In fact, in fact, we've got to pick up right where you left off there because we have to go to our final break, which will be much more brief than the other breaks.

So don't forget where you left off there in Romans 12, okay? Yep, you got it.

And, uh, this is a shorter break, as I said, than the other breaks. So if you have a question you want to get in line behind the other folks already waiting, please send it in immediately because we are rapidly running out of time.

We have about 25 minutes left. So please get your question over to us if you intend to ask one.

It's ChrisArnson at gmail .com. ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

U .S .A. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. We'll be right back with Matt Tarr after these messages.

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Welcome back. If you just tuned us in, our guest today has been for the entirety of the program and will continue for the next 15 minutes or so to be

Matt Tarr, pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Larksville, Pennsylvania.

And right before the break, you were entering into Romans chapter 12. You were discussing the renewing of the mind and how the society has become anti -intellectual and that even has spilled over into the professing

Church of Christ. So if you could pick up where you left off, Matt. Yeah, so we were talking about Romans chapter 12, living our lives for the glory of God as a reasonable service of worship.

And Paul writes then in Romans chapter 12 and in verse 2, do not be conformed to this world.

Well, what he's saying there is really a pattern of living that is governed by a pattern of thinking.

And so when we're talking about the mind, I had mentioned that we're not talking about the physical brain here, but we're talking about the disposition of the mind, what a man worships.

And so for a good illustration of that, obviously, if we worship our lives, then we might be prone to be afraid, disproportionately afraid of anything that threatens our lives.

We'll fail to be trusting of our Savior, the sovereignty of God, and maybe fear -driven decisions will control us.

And obviously, as believers, we are not to respond in fear, but in trust for our

Lord Jesus Christ. So the way we think and what we worship will govern our desires.

It will govern our affections. It'll govern even how we interpret reality.

And so we are to live in a way that is consistent with reality, that is consistent with truth, and that is consistent with proving the will of God, that which is good and acceptable and perfect,

Paul writes. And then he says in verse 9, let love be without hypocrisy.

So that is going to be a governing principle that we can't let go of when we evaluate whether or not we're properly understanding this fear of authority of our civic authorities.

In Romans chapter 13, we want to understand whether or not we're interpreting

Romans chapter 13 correctly. We have to recognize that it can't be contradictory to a spirit of love, love that is without hypocrisy, love that is truly loving to our neighbor.

And what's interesting about that word hypocrisy, of course, is that that is the Greek word hypocrates, from which we eventually will get the idea of the mask from, the actor, the actor wearing a mask.

He is acting as though he's someone or something that he's not. And so for the

Christian to act in a way that is inconsistent with who they are, that's hypocritical.

And our love, our obedience to God cannot be inconsistent even then when we follow into Romans chapter 13, when we look at our submission to governing authorities.

And that chapter follows then with respect to our obedience.

Verse 21 of Romans chapter 12, do not be overcome by evil, but be overcome over evil with good, because God has ordained the government to bear a sword.

No government exists that hasn't been established by God, of course, he writes. And therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God.

So that is a very serious issue. But that also recognizes that God has called the government to fulfill a particular role.

And we have to recognize then the limitations of that role. And so if the government goes beyond the

God -ordained role that it has called us, that the government is now requiring of us, we're not disobeying

God, because we're disobeying the governing authority, because God has never given the government that authority to begin with.

It's operating outside that sphere of authority. So by will of illustration, of course, you go to Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17, which

I think is often, interestingly enough, left out of the discussion. Well, Romans chapter 13, we have to universally obey our governing authorities as long as they're not explicitly commanding us to sin.

Well, I'll argue that in these instances, when the government imposes itself in governing the church or governing our conscience, it is actually commanding us to sin, because we recognize that there are sins of omission as well as there being sins of commission.

But anyway, you jump over to Hebrews chapter 13, verse 17. We inherently understand when the author of Hebrews tells us to submit to our leaders and obey them because they have been appointed by God as well.

Of course, we're talking about leaders in the church. At the same time, we understand limitations in the sphere of authority that God has given to shepherds to lead

His church. That limitation is ecclesiastical. It deals with spiritual matters.

It deals with the congregation. But as a pastor, I would have no

God -ordained authority to tell somebody, for instance, who to marry.

I can't do that. I can tell them principles, obviously, and where Scripture tells, for instance, do not be unequally yoked.

But I can't tell Sam that he is to marry

Sally. That's outside my sphere of authority. But obviously within your sphere of authority would be to forbid a member from marrying someone when it would be sinful.

Absolutely. That's what I mean when I say if the

Scriptures do tell us, they give us principles, you are not to marry an unbeliever.

That's very universal. Or become engaged to somebody who is still married and intending to divorce her husband or his wife.

Right, which actually brings up a very important point. So when we interpret Scripture, we have to understand that we cannot contradict other passages of Scripture.

So if we interpret Romans 13 in a way that is inconsistent with other passages of Scripture, then we know that we've interpreted

Romans 13 wrong. So obviously if Romans 13 is just a universal, you know, obey your governing authorities, and that does not apply to conscience, we must submit our conscience to governing authorities, then you're applying that inconsistently.

Acts 5 is a good example. When Peter is told by his authorities to stop preaching, and he says, we must obey

God rather than men. He teed up. He squared up the issue there. He called their bluff.

What he was saying was, those Scriptures haven't told me I have to preach in this city at this time.

I understand that you have no sphere of authority over my conscience. And it is because Christ is

Lord of my conscience that I must preach here. And this is no jurisdiction that you have.

And so this is now a matter of obeying God. And so when we talk about the mind and the object of our worship, how we respond to our conscience is going to be a key indicator of that.

So it's interesting, though, that Os Guinness, I think he writes for Ligonier.

I could be mistaken by that. He has been a guest on the program. Okay, yeah.

But he wrote that failing to think Christianly, evangelicals have been forced into the role of cultural imitators and adapters.

And so why is that? Well, when we disallow our minds to conform to truth and reality and our conscience, then something else is going to control the way we interpret all of life.

It's going to affect our worldview. And that's why, even while the reformers adamantly maintain that we honor our civic authorities,

I think I mentioned before Pierre Viret, the

Swiss reformer, who contributed a lot of time to this issue, was adamant that Christians should be the very best of all citizens.

And he wrote that they have, that is, our governing authorities, they have no servants who are less likely to betray them than these.

For believers would much prefer to die rather than to have even the thought of such a cowardly act as to betray their rulers because they fear

God. And yet, at the same time, that wasn't seen as inconsistent with disobeying governing authorities when they interfered with the conscience.

So, John Knox, for instance, called Bloody Queen Mary a slave of Satan, which is a rather bold statement.

And Brad Clausen, Dr. Brad Clausen, recently did a very helpful study on actually

Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. And one of the consequences that he outlines for giving up a biblical worldview, giving up our ability to think properly, this disposition that can discern truth from error, is cowardice.

It is a failure, he says, to think according to God's thoughts, and that creates a deficiency of courage that is needed to defend and promote truth in the face of opposition.

And that is largely, he argues, where this idea of this new

Christian calling to be nice and non -offensive, even in the face of blatant outright error, blatant outright immorality, because the motto has become whatever you say, don't offend.

And so, if we have a mind, though, that is truly controlled by a proper

Christian worldview, we will boldly defend the truth. And John Knox also said, who is a contemporary of Verre, men might disobey the persons, that is the princes, and not offend against God's ordinance, and that subjects were not bound to obey their princes if they commanded unlawful things, and they might resist them lawfully without fear.

Well, what occasions did they define as being outside their sphere of authority so that we might lawfully, according to the law of God, disobey them?

Well, one of those was the sphere of conscience. So, for instance,

Kuyper, Kuyper from the 19th century had mentioned that the conscience, he argued that the conscience was sovereign in its own sphere of authority.

He said, the conscience marks a boundary. The state may never cross. The limits to state power reside in the will of God.

Government has as much power as God has assigned to it.

No more, no less. And he goes on that these excellent traits derive from the fact that conscience is the immediate contact in a person's soul of God's holy presence from moment to moment.

Withdrawn into the citadel of his conscience, a person knows that God's omnipotence stands guard for him at the gate.

In his conscience, he is therefore unassailable. If government, nevertheless, dares to push through its abuse of force, the end will be the martyr's death.

And likewise, Althusias, he developed a lot of the reformers' teachings on the conscience and proper disobedience to our governing authorities because they are instructing us to violate our conscience.

And he said that families, churches, and state alike must protect the rights and liberties of the people and that violations of these rights and liberties or of the divine and natural laws that inform and empower them are instances of tyranny that must trigger organized constitutional resistance.

And John Calvin, as well. John Calvin, like Pierre Verret, insisted that we have a godly duty to obey even tyrannical officials but, with a caveat, up to the limits of the

Christian conscience. And he argued that we have to recognize that sometimes obeying our governing authorities within the sphere that God has given them authority is a test of our faith.

And that is a matter of obedience to God. And yet, at the same time, he was careful to qualify that by saying that if we honor earthly authorities, they cannot be at the expense of honoring

God. And so he said that when earthly authorities command us to disobey

God, to discard scriptures, or, importantly, to violate the conscience, then citizens and subjects not only might obey, but must obey.

We have to recognize that the government is exercising authority where it doesn't belong.

And we have a duty to instruct the magistrate that they are outside their

God -given sphere of authority. And he says that dictatorships and unjust authorities are, in fact, not governments ordained by God, and those who practice blasphemous tyranny are no longer

God's ministers of law. So, at the same time that we affirm, as Pierre Verret did, that we should be the best of all citizens, and as Calvin did, that we should even be submitting to tyrannical governments insofar that they are instructing us within their

God -given sphere of authority. That is not excuse for obeying governments when it infringes itself in an area that God has not given it the right to rule, such as the church, such as the conscience, such as the family.

And it's very obvious in Ephesians chapter 6, verses 1 and 2, that God has given parents the authority to raise up their children in the fear and discipline of the

Lord. And importantly, that particular word that Paul uses for discipline there is in the context of living rightly and appropriately, given reality, given knowledge, in this present life.

So, it is akin to saying we must walk circumspectly. And when our

Lord said to render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is

God's, He is making a dual affirmation. You must...

Of course, Caesar was a tyrannical magistrate. We recognize that.

And so within the sphere of authority that God has called Caesar to function, even as a tyrannical governor, as a punishment to Israel, they had a duty to obey

Him. And in that context, of course, it related to taxes. You have a civic duty.

They have the God -ordained right to tax in order that they can fulfill the role that God has called them to fulfill.

But, Jesus says, render to God what is God's. And God is the owner of the conscience.

And we cannot give to Caesar what belongs to God.

In fact, we're out of time now, Pastor Matt. And that was definitely a phenomenal presentation that you gave.

And so much so, you were in such a role, we didn't have time today to take any listener questions.

And I'm asking our listeners who submitted questions to resubmit them at a future date when we are covering a similar subject.

I want to make sure that our listeners have the website of High Point Baptist Church. It is highpointbaptist .com,

highpointbaptist .com. And don't forget to tune in tomorrow when we have Dr.

Tony Costa, the Professor of Apologetics in Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, return to the program.

And he is going to be discussing his new book, Early Christian Creeds and Hymns.

And I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.