A Bible College Chapel on Rom 13

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Welcome to the

00:13

Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. This is a listener generated episode today.

00:18

In other words, a listener in the audience decided to send me a message and attached was the video we're gonna go over and some questions about it.

00:26

And I decided, you know what? It's actually along the same lines of some other things I've been thinking about. I'm gonna talk about this on the show.

00:34

We're gonna go over it minute by minute. I don't know if we'll get through the whole thing, but at least I think, and I'll give you the reason why we're doing this and the subject matter, and then we'll do a few announcements and get into it.

00:45

But the subject matter is Romans 13, submission to government, all that. I want you to realize the context in which this was given.

00:53

This was given last Friday. This is after the mandate that Biden put out there. This is in that context that this was made.

01:00

And this is by someone who is a statesman. I believe in West Virginia and he's speaking at a

01:05

Bible college. And I'll be honest, from what I know, I respect this Bible college. It's one of the few that I feel very comfortable recommending.

01:15

And so I debated whether I should even tell people where this is, because it's not to me a critique of the

01:21

Bible college. And it's not even a critique of this particular statesman.

01:27

I think he's probably a great guy. In fact, his civics was amazing. I mean, I'm skipping through actually the first probably 10 minutes of this message.

01:35

This particular individual who's lecturing, well, he's giving the chapel message at a Bible college, gives a great crash course in civics.

01:43

Talks about federalism and how we're not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. Talks about checks and balances and just, it was great.

01:50

It was awesome. Here's the thing though. There's really, there's two errors that I see commonly made when it comes to Romans 13 and approaching it.

02:03

One's an application, one's an interpretation, broadly speaking. One is misunderstanding the nature of the government that we live in.

02:15

The nature of federalism, the sovereignty of states, checks and balances, constitutional republic.

02:24

Just what is the constitution? What does it mean? Negative rights, these kinds of things. The other is misunderstanding scripture, which is a bigger error in a way.

02:33

And interpreting it in such a way that actually it doesn't make sense.

02:40

You would actually render even some of the figures in the Old Testament as being in sin in some way if that interpretation were to be the correct one.

02:49

And so in this particular instance, what we're gonna go over is someone who actually has the civics down, which is actually rare in my opinion.

02:57

A lot of the sermons that I listen to, almost, I like to say almost all. There's a few that are good, but most of the sermons

03:03

I've listened to on submission of Romans 13, the pastor's giving the messages for whatever reason, and it could just be public education.

03:09

I'm not sure. They just don't understand the type of government that we live in. And so even if they can get the principles in Romans 13 right, they have a hard time applying it.

03:20

This is a case where that's not true. This person actually understands civics, but what they don't seem to understand is

03:26

Romans 13. And they make a number of statements that I thought, this is really good stuff to be able to be prepared to answer because I think we're gonna hear this more and more because there's, let's just face it.

03:39

What happened last year and what's happening this year, this is the beginning. We're gonna have a number of situations that are similar.

03:47

So let's be prepared for it. And this is the kind of logic we're going to have to understand how to navigate as we go forward.

03:55

So that's the preface. We're gonna go over in a minute. Few announcements though first. Number one, I am speaking

04:00

October 23rd at the Jesus and Politics, I guess it's a conference at Syracuse Baptist Church, Jesus and Politics Conference Battle Lines.

04:12

And it is in Syracuse, Indiana. And that's October 23rd.

04:18

And so I don't know if it's a summit or a conference. I think it's like a mini conference, something like that. But I'll be there.

04:25

Indiana Congressman Kurt, I'm hoping I'm pronouncing this right, Kurt Nissly, Pastor Joseph Spurgeon, Pastor Tim Bushong, Fort Wayne Councilman, so a local politician,

04:36

Jason Arp, Pastor Jason Gingrich. And we're gonna be talking about, obviously,

04:42

Jesus and Politics. So I'm not sure what everyone else is talking about. I know there's gonna be some talk about abortion and abolitionist bills, heartbeat bills, that kind of thing.

04:51

I'm going to, I actually, I've been thinking about, what do I wanna talk about? Because I, obviously,

04:56

I'm asked to speak about social justice, but there's so many different avenues I can take. So still pondering that a little bit.

05:03

I'm not sure exactly. You know, I'll be honest with you guys. I'll just say this. I've been really thinking lately about, and there's so much

05:10

I wanna do, but talking about the spiritual war we're in, spiritual warfare, I really just sense, like strongly, that we are in a light and dark demon and angels, right?

05:25

Kind of battle. And I felt a tug at my own heart to really study, to have the armor of God, to be prepared, that we're just,

05:36

I just wanna, I wanna not just give critiques of things or just show you here's the error. I want people to understand the significance of what's happening.

05:45

And so I'm thinking about that. But whatever it is, it'll be good and beneficial. So if you live near Syracuse, Indiana, come on out

05:52

October 23rd. Also, I have a number of other speaking engagements coming up.

05:58

And for those who I haven't gotten back to, there's some people who maybe a month, maybe a month and a half ago, even probably a month ago, signed up and said, like, we wanna have you come out,

06:08

John, speak at our church. And I said, it would take me a while to get to them. This is the week that I'm gonna get to all that.

06:14

That's my plan, at least. I'm gonna get to all that. We're gonna schedule all that. And there's so much. There's so much.

06:19

It's the tip of the iceberg. There's just so much going on. In fact, this week, the book, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict, is supposed to pop up on Amazon.

06:27

I'm not sure what day, but it's supposed to be this week. So I also need to get a bunch of material together for that.

06:33

In fact, there's so much going on between all of that and then working on my house every day, which is more than a full -time job.

06:42

I may even cut short this week. I may not have as many podcasts. We'll see what I can get to. But a lot of positive things.

06:49

Just wanted to say, there's a lot of positive things going on. Sorry if that's popping in the mic. I'm probably holding this a little too close.

06:56

We'll put it back there a little farther. So a lot of good things happening. Let's get to the main stuff, though.

07:01

We're gonna talk a little bit about the Romans 13 stuff. And this is the video.

07:07

And this, I think, is representative, though, of a lot of different pastors and messages.

07:15

So this could be anyone, right? So I don't wanna focus on who it is or where it is. I just want to go over the content.

07:22

And I'm kinda cutting into the middle of the sermon here just because the beginning didn't really relate to the part that I wanted to critique and the questions

07:33

I was getting. Whether we agree with them or not, necessarily. You look at the Roman Empire, where Paul wrote this letter.

07:42

You know, the Roman Empire, all kinds of religious persecution there, right? I mean, Paul, Peter, most of the other disciples would eventually be martyred by the

07:50

Roman Empire. It was a foreign -dominated, it truly was an empire, imperialistic society.

07:57

Slaves, outnumbered citizens. You know, in terms of respecting human rights, that wasn't exactly the model of government that we would probably choose, yet that is the government, when

08:09

Paul's writing this letter to the Romans, that's the government that he's referring to and he's saying, be subject to that government.

08:17

What happens today in our society? We have a tendency around, I'm gonna pick on the left and the right. This is, if you'll remember, this is from Seattle last summer,

08:26

CHOP. They called it CHAZ for a while. All right, I'm gonna stop there because I think he's moving on to another point that I wanted to talk about.

08:32

So let's talk about this. So what this speaker is saying is that the

08:39

Roman Empire is the context in which Romans was written, right? Obviously, I mean, it's literally to Christians in Rome.

08:45

Therefore, because the Roman Empire is oppressive and slavery obviously was a big part of the

08:52

Roman Empire, then God is obviously saying to submit to a terrible government, a tyrannical government, an evil government.

09:00

And that was the, and this is the line, by the way, you're gonna find a lot of places. Even on, and I would say, maybe now, especially on the more anti -social justice side of things.

09:13

It's unusual and I have a lot of ideas of why this is, I don't have time to get into all of them, but there's a kind of a pietist streak in the fundamentalist camp.

09:22

And it's, and they tend to be more resistant to social justice, but they tend to really have this strong commitment to what they perceive as legitimate hierarchy laid down in scripture.

09:37

And I wanna emphasize that that's a good thing to have, to submit to hierarchy, to want order.

09:43

We want that, that's Christian. But here's where I think the departure is. This is where I deviate from this.

09:50

If you read Romans 13, okay. Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.

10:00

Therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.

10:07

For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Well, do what is good, and you will have praise from the same.

10:15

For it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing, for it is a minister of God, an avenger, who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

10:25

Therefore, it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake. For because of this, you also pay taxes for rulers or servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.

10:35

Render to all what is due, tax to whom tax, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

10:40

And then it continues on. Now, this is obviously comes after Romans 12. What's the beginning of Romans 12?

10:47

Glad you asked, because that sets the context for Romans 13. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

10:57

Don't be conformed to the world, be transformed. And then skipping down to verse 21, the end of the chapter, do not be overcome by evil, overcome evil with good.

11:07

Paul, for 11 chapters, talks theology, right? And then 12 is more the application.

11:13

That's how a lot of people divide Romans up and a number of other Pauline letters. The context is set in verse 12, though.

11:21

This is how this whole being a living sacrifice works itself out, where let's get specific.

11:27

Let's make some application, right? So that's what's going on by the time you get to 13. 13, look, here's part of being a living sacrifice when it comes to your relationship with the state.

11:37

And the description is a state that, what, looks like the Roman empire? No, it doesn't look like what this speaker, this is where I think there's a deviation.

11:48

What this speaker is describing is this horrible place, right, and you hear this often. In fact, he doesn't say this, but I'll just say, a lot of people will say, well, look, they're submitting to Nero.

11:57

Nero burned Christians, so we have to submit to someone who would burn Christians. Now, Nero's, that persecution, it seems like at least, if you pick the earlier date for Romans, that was not happening yet.

12:12

In fact, there's really, I don't think there's even a controversy with anyone that that wasn't happening to my knowledge, but here's the thing about that, though.

12:21

When you, put that on the shelf for a minute, the history issue there. Look at the text itself.

12:28

What does it, how does it describe the governing authorities? Okay, they're established by God, number one.

12:33

So, it's derived authority. It's not their own authority. They're not acting on their own. They're established by God.

12:40

What else does it say about them? It says that they're not a cause for fear for good behavior.

12:47

So, in other words, the government Paul's talking about is not a government that punishes people who do the right thing. Hmm, okay.

12:54

It is a minister of God to you for good, huh? So, they're a force for good.

13:02

It actually punishes evil. It does not bear the sword for nothing. It is a minister of God and avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

13:09

So, it's gonna punish evil people. It's got a working moral compass. And this is why you pay taxes, it says.

13:17

Because why? Because rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. All right, so, this is a government that has a working moral compass and is applying rightly, in general at least, the law of God.

13:30

And in order to be a living sacrifice, you should not be practicing evil.

13:36

And if you do practice evil, you're going to run into a problem with the avenger.

13:43

The diakonos, the word for deacon's even used here. You're gonna run into the avenger that is going to punish you for evil.

13:53

So, does this ascribe the Roman Empire? Does this ascribe the

14:00

Roman Empire? No, I don't think it describes the, at least the

14:07

Roman Empire in the sense of the Roman Empire practicing evil things that deviate from the law of God.

14:14

How does it reflect the Roman Empire? Well, it reflects maybe the Roman Empire or ministers in the

14:21

Roman Empire. Remember, there were local jurisdictions. There's all kinds of rulers. It's not just a one -size -fits -all modern state Roman Empire.

14:27

We think of that today because we're so used to a modern state. But there would have been localities.

14:32

There would have been all sorts of, a lot of people, a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of people that it takes to run an empire, but there's also local authorities.

14:42

And this is kind of a blanket. This is like a one -size -fits -all principle here in Romans 13.

14:47

This isn't specifically talking about Rome. This is talking about government as such.

14:53

And more than that, the context really isn't about government. This isn't a passage that's about political theory.

15:02

We see a window into it, but that's not the primary purpose of the passage. The purpose of the passage is personal jurisdiction.

15:09

It's not actually the jurisdiction of the state. The purpose of the passage is instructing

15:15

Christians on how they are to behave. And you should be submitting to the authorities that are put there by God to punish evil.

15:25

That's it. That's what it's talking about. It's not talking about, well, they're gonna persecute

15:32

Christians or something like that, or they're doing evil things. Submit to the evil. Obviously not.

15:37

It's only talking about government in its capacity. And this could apply to Rome, but this could apply to any government.

15:44

It's talking about government in its capacity to punish evil. All right? So I think to me, this is kind of obvious.

15:52

I don't know why there's such a struggle over this exactly, but there really is. It seems like the majority of preachers

15:58

I listened to on the subject, like I said, they wanna go down this path of like, we need to submit to evil governments.

16:04

Well, in their capacity, maybe in the, because look, even governments, even today, right?

16:10

As bad as you may think things are out there, there's still punishments for stealing. There's still punishments for murder, right?

16:16

There's still, the government, especially on the local level is still functioning. Even if there's corruption, all sorts of bad things.

16:23

If you go murder someone, if you go steal, if you go even breaking the speed limit, right? Malum prohibitum, right?

16:32

Things that aren't necessarily evil in and of themselves, but they're made, they're laws that are made to protect human life.

16:39

There's a principle behind them. If you go and do these things, the government's gonna punish you.

16:44

As corrupt and as bad as they are, they're still gonna punish you for those things. Don't give them an opportunity to do that. That's what it's saying.

16:51

Be a living sacrifice. You can give up rebelling against the government in its capacity.

16:57

Basically it's saying give up doing evil that the government could punish you for. That's Romans 13.

17:03

That's what it's instructing. So it's not a statement about whatever the

17:09

Roman empire does, whatever tyranny it does, you can't say anything, you can't stop it. That's not what it's saying.

17:15

It's just saying in their capacity to do, to punish evil, you better not be punished for evil.

17:22

By the government. So let's keep going here though because he makes a comparison now that I just think this needs to be answered.

17:29

The Capitol Hill autonomous zone here, the Capitol Hill occupied property. But people from the left didn't like how our federal government responded to social justice things.

17:39

So they occupied a few city blocks and declared their independence. You know, we're autonomous.

17:44

We don't have to submit to you any longer because we don't like how you deal with social justice issues.

17:50

On the right, here we have a picture of people storming the Capitol January 6th because they didn't like the elections.

17:58

You know, we were cheated. It didn't come out right. We don't want you to follow through with this. So we're not just here for a protest.

18:05

We're going to storm the Capitol. And I have a little copy of headline there from Metro News. You see

18:10

Derek Evans resigns from the West Virginia House. All right, let me make a few, I could probably say a lot on this and this is kind of off the top of my head.

18:17

So I'm not sure if this will be as exhaustive as I want, but let me just give you a few differences between those two things. The autonomous zone, right?

18:24

There was, it was very intentional, right? It wasn't spontaneous like January 6th and what happened on January 6th in regards to, what was planned on January 6th was a rally for election integrity.

18:44

And that rally did happen. That rally did happen. I was there for the rally.

18:51

What happened inside the Capitol, and I was not there for that, but what did happen inside was spontaneous.

19:00

And I've gone over, I mean, from what I saw with my own eyes that day, some things that still haven't been reported anywhere that I know of, but I remember seeing stuff.

19:10

I think that was very engineered. It was certainly not planned to be an insurrection.

19:17

Really, no one brings a firearm, right? The only person who dies in the actual events of that day is someone who's shot, who's unarmed by a

19:31

Capitol policeman. And I know, trust me, I followed it. I know what the

19:37

MSNBC is saying about all these traumatized police officers and this. I'm not, I know what

19:42

I saw. I know, I did a lot of research on it after what happened, because I really just wanted to find out more about it, and I'm just not buying it.

19:51

But that's a key difference between the two. One is very intentional and very revolutionary and against the established order.

20:03

The other one is spontaneous. And he shouldn't say just January 6th, and the people went up there to storm the

20:12

Capitol. That's terribly inaccurate. People went up there to protest for election integrity, to rally.

20:18

And then spontaneously, a minority of the crowd, a couple hundred,

20:26

I mean, I felt like there was about a million people there. It was huge. And a couple hundred maybe got in the Capitol. In some instances, police officers inviting them in.

20:35

I have the video, even though it was banned on a lot of different social media platforms, I still have it on my hard drive.

20:41

This, what happened was, they're not equivalent. And so to just say

20:47

January 6th, that was the intention. That's not the intention. There was an element in the crowd that did go inside.

20:54

And there were some of them that did some bad things inside. They went, one person stole a laptop. One person was kicking his feet up on,

21:02

I think, Nancy Pelosi's desk. Someone else took a lectern. There was some stuff like that that was going on.

21:08

It wasn't right. Damaging windows, these kinds of things. But here's the thing.

21:15

That is so different. It's so different. The motive and the nature of it are so different than what happened in Chaz, in Seattle.

21:28

The CHOP zone or the Chaz zone, not only intentional, not only premeditated, not only is this, stated intentions were out there.

21:41

This was something that the motive was revolutionary.

21:49

January 6th, the motive was anti -revolutionary. And I've made this point several times.

21:56

The revolution happened, if you wanna say there was a revolution, on the 7th at three in the morning.

22:04

That's when the revolution happened. And if you've been following, if you followed what happened after the election closely, then the people who were there, myself being one of them, were there because we believed a revolution was happening right then.

22:19

That elections were not fair anymore. And not just not fair, they were, it was illegal.

22:26

Illegal stuff happened in many of the states. And the wrong person was being, well, was being approved to be the president.

22:39

And I was up there to prevent a revolution from happening. It's much different than, so one is in favor of a revolution, starting a revolution.

22:50

The other one is preventing a revolution, trying to stop a revolution. Very, very different motives.

22:57

So those are two differences that I just wanna point out off the top. I hear conservatives now,

23:03

I think because of the drumbeat from liberal propaganda out there in the media, they're constantly trying to make an equivalency between what happened on January 6th and then what happened all summer of last year.

23:18

And there's some very key differences between the two. And so I'm not defending what happened, the excesses of January 6th.

23:26

I'm just saying that you are talking about two different things. They're not the same thing.

23:31

And they weren't just up there because they didn't like the way the election went. They're up there because they did like the way the election went and they didn't want it overturned.

23:40

All right, let's keep going here. House of Delegates, one of our delegates elected, the

23:46

West Virginia House of Delegates had to resign. He's currently undergoing federal prosecution because he was one that stormed the

23:52

Capitol. By the way, he ran as a conservative Christian candidate. So one of ours in that sense, and he was arrested for storming the

24:01

Capitol and had to resign. We get into this mask stuff. And I don't know if you can read that or not.

24:09

All of these, these next couple of slides, I got off of social media, all from people who would self -identify as conservative

24:17

Christians. So this is our group that I'm pulling these things from. You see the, not wearing a mask because my family and I are at risk.

24:24

And the response, your obedience to a corrupt government run by psychopaths and a corrupt media that covers them puts me and my family at risk.

24:33

So, you know, not getting into the mask mandate here, but the, or the controversy surrounding that, but the idea here is we shouldn't be obedient.

24:42

Why not get into the mask mandate? That would be a perfect opportunity to try to apply the principles that he's talking about here from Romans 13.

24:50

Let's talk about the mask mandate. So I don't know, but here's the thing. He brings up these memes and his point here is that, you know, this is basically wrong.

25:01

This is, these are conservative Christians and they're wrong to deviate on the mask issue.

25:09

And I think the key, I'm not necessarily saying I would put a meme like this out, but I think the point of this meme is basically like, look, it's my responsibility to look after my family.

25:22

And if I'm doing my homework, if the government is saying to do one thing, and that's something that I've determined for my family and for myself, this is not a helpful thing,

25:32

I'm not gonna do it. I have that right. That's my responsibility.

25:42

And that's really the tug of war that's going on right now. Who gets to determine whether or not you get a jab or you put on a mask?

25:50

Do we make personal responsibility? Do we have our own risk assessment as adults?

25:57

Can we not do this? Or is it up to the government now to mandate every area of our lives pretty much?

26:04

And so this, I think this is something that as Christians, we should be able to say, even based on what we just read in Romans 13, the government's jurisdiction is supposed to be punishing evil that happens.

26:18

Evil according to whom? Evil according to God. Where do we find out what God thinks is evil and punishable in the civil realm?

26:24

Well, we have a whole Old Testament on that. And yeah, it takes some due diligence to study out those things and to figure out, okay, what applies?

26:32

What was specific to Israel and ceremonial law? And then what kinds of principles apply to, what would apply to all governments?

26:41

But I think you can do that. This idea that the government though can just kind of say whatever, do whatever it wants, tell anyone whatever it wants and people are just required to do it, you know, the pinwheel thing, right?

26:56

Someone said recently, a Christian commentator, that if the government says to put a pinwheel on my head and I would do it and stuff.

27:04

And it's like, why? Why? You're just, basically what you're doing at that point is you're just giving them the authority to have a blank check.

27:12

And you look foolish in the process. They have a purpose. We're also supposed to submit to church leaders.

27:18

And wives are supposed to submit to husbands and children to parents, slaves to masters. You could maybe carry that out to the employer thing.

27:26

But there's boundaries to those things. There are limitations. And so that's the effort of a meme like this, to say, look, there's a limitation here.

27:37

I get to determine what's good for my family. And yeah, you can, look, you can do, if you wanna do this for your family, but my opinion is you're following a corrupt government, run by corrupt media and corrupt media.

27:51

And I don't agree with them. And there shouldn't be a big controversy about this.

27:57

I wouldn't think, but apparently there is, because this is somehow a violation of Romans 13. It's disrespectful to paint the government that way.

28:04

Well, I don't, what, the government's evil. I guess, I wouldn't say psychopaths. I would say they're evil.

28:10

And I'm not saying that every government official is. I don't think this guy is, but I'm just saying like the mandates that are coming out, the people that are making the decisions on health right now,

28:20

I'm convinced are evil. Dr. Fauci being the number one in my mind. All right, let's keep going.

28:29

To a government that decrees something that we just don't like. Rand Paul, US Senator you're probably all familiar with, like a lot of things he stands for, disagree with him on some things, but his attitude was they can't arrest all of us.

28:43

We don't have to accept the mandates, lockdowns, harmful policies of the petty tyrants and bureaucrats. We can simply say, no, not again.

28:51

That's a prevailing attitude. This is something I found yesterday. Okay, here's the thing though. This is not just personal preference.

28:57

He's acting like, well, we just don't like it. It's not just that we don't like to wear a mask or get a jab or something.

29:03

It's a jurisdictional question. If your pastor, it's like if your pastor came over and wanted to discipline your kids or something, it's like, we're supposed to submit to you, but that's not your job.

29:13

That's not the function you have. Get in your own lane, right? So that's the disagreement.

29:20

It's the overstepping of boundaries. It's the doing things illegally without legislation. It's, and when

29:27

Rand Paul said that, he's saying like, look, they don't have the authority to do this. If we act like they do, then we create a precedent moving forward that they can do this.

29:39

Let's not give them that power. Let's not create this precedent. There's nothing wrong with that.

29:45

In fact, that is the right thing to do, but this gentleman is acting like, no, that's actually in violation of Romans 13 somehow.

29:55

It's not a violation of Romans 13. The Romans 13, again, it only applies to people who would be punished by the government for doing something evil.

30:06

Government's punishing evil. If it's not evil, then Romans 13 is not talking about that.

30:13

I added a slide yesterday. I caused problems for our technology guy because I added a slide. I found this yesterday.

30:19

This was posted by a conservative Republican on the West Virginia House of Delegates. I'm not gonna name his name, but it was in his social media.

30:26

He posted this picture. When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. You know, it's 1776 there in the middle and it looks patriotic.

30:34

That may be patriotic. I think that's a paraphrase, if I'm not mistaken, of a Thomas Jefferson quote.

30:40

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. Samuel Rutherford, though, I believe, said something very similar in Lex Rex to this.

30:49

Yeah, so when, I don't know why this is actually that controversial.

30:54

If there's a tyrant, if there's someone who's going beyond their scope of authority, someone who's a usurper, someone who's making war, in the case we'll take the

31:05

American Revolution, making war on his own citizens, then in order to protect the ones you love, in order to actually carry out your responsibilities, you have to rebel against them or to at least say no, say stop, resist.

31:32

So maybe it's the word rebel he's not liking here. Resist maybe would be a better word, but it's not rebellion to proper authority that this quote is getting at.

31:43

It's actually in, at least where I've seen this used before, it's

31:49

I think people who actually want to submit to the Constitution and to the rule of law. It's people who want proper authority and they're gonna rebel against improper authority.

31:59

That's why it's tyranny they're rebelling against. So that distinction has to be made.

32:07

This person who's arguing these things here, it just, it would give a blank check. There's only, the only, and you'll find out later actually, that the only thing he says that basically a

32:16

Christian can use to resist the government or to disobey is if they ask you to sin basically, right?

32:25

But the thing is, that's not even biblical. Like Daniel, right? Praying three times a day. Did he have to open his window and do it three times a day?

32:34

Did God really say that it was God's law that he had to do that three times a day and open his window? No, no, it wasn't.

32:40

He could have closed the window and he would have had no problem, right? But he decided to be brazen about it.

32:46

That was not something that, that was, again, that was, he could have obeyed

32:53

God, kept God's commandments. The government, you know, wouldn't have known and it would have been fine.

32:59

But he decided to push it. He decided to make an example of himself and be a public,

33:07

I guess in his mind, publicly display his love for the Lord. And there's gonna be a lot of situations,

33:15

I think they're already coming up in some places, where you have to make a decision for you and your family. Are you going to, you know, if it comes to it and you're required to get this jab and you're convinced this is not wise, this is actually wrong, this is going to hurt me.

33:29

If that's your position, if you really believe that, what do you do? Well, you do the right thing.

33:36

You don't take it. You don't subject it, your family to it. If the government comes in and says, you know, and this has been talked about, right?

33:45

We're gonna just take your guns. And these are tools you need to defend your family. What do you do? What do you do?

33:51

Do you just say, volunteer, here they are? Or do you try to, are you going to live in rebellion?

33:56

I mean, look, the status quo doesn't even have to change in your house. If you have guns and you're leaving them there and the law changes or an edict, more likely, an executive order happens and nothing happened on your end, but now you are in violation of it.

34:11

You are in a state of rebellion in the minds of our overlords. Then do you just continue on or do you go and turn yourself in or turn your guns in?

34:23

It wouldn't be wrong for you to just hold onto them and not do anything about it if you really believe these are tools you need to protect your family, to carry out the responsibilities

34:33

God's given you. It's not like the government's asking you to sin. It's not a sin, right, to go in and turn them in.

34:42

But again, it's about jurisdiction. We gotta think in those terms. And I can't help but bringing this up over and over and over.

34:50

We are told in scripture to submit to all kinds of different hierarchies, depending on our position.

34:57

And it doesn't mean that the person over you has a blank check. It's within the lane that God has given them and no farther.

35:05

So anyway, there's really nothing wrong with this. If you read it probably with the intent of the person who posted it, but either a bad spin is being put on this or this speaker wants to just give the government somewhat of a blank check.

35:23

That may be American. That is not biblical. That is not biblical.

35:28

We are not called as Christians to lead the revolution politically. We are called to obedience with respect to our government.

35:37

What about to prevent a revolution? No, they will call that revolution. I mean, by this logic, 1776 was bad.

35:46

That it should have never happened. Even though that was a conservative, it was an effort, it was a conservative effort, but it was an effort against revolution in their minds.

35:54

This was in support of Britain's unwritten constitution. It was in support of the status quo that had been there before and the consolidation of parliamentary power and then the

36:07

King not defending the rights of the citizens in the United States. And then of course, you go through the

36:13

Declaration of Independence and you can see everything there. Go through the Fairfax Resolves, go through the

36:18

Oliver Brant's petition. Look at all those documents and you'll find this was a thought out process.

36:24

This was, and it was a process. And this was an acknowledgement. It's kind of like this.

36:30

It's kind of like when you have a friend, right? And your friend and you aren't getting along. And we've all been through this before, or at least someone we know as.

36:42

Your friend is acting like, treating you like you're not even a friend anymore.

36:47

They've just cut you off. They're being mean to you when they do see you. And if you decide, let's say, that you are going to take them off an invitation list for your birthday party, or take them off your

37:02

Christmas card list, or you're going to, you're not gonna hang out with them anymore, whatever the case is.

37:13

You're not the one that broke the friendship. I think oftentimes people feel that way, right?

37:19

Like, well, I broke the friendship. I'm the one,

37:25

I don't wanna, I mean, I'll see people hang on to abusive relationships forever because they don't wanna be the one to break it off.

37:34

Instead of acknowledging, the relationship's already gone. Breaking it off is actually just acknowledging where the relationship is, and it's non -existent.

37:43

There isn't one. You're not acting like friends. You're not friends. If enough time goes by and someone's very mean and doesn't act like a friend to you, you're not breaking it off by not treating them like a friend back.

37:58

You're just acknowledging where the relationship is. And so it's the same kind of thing on a much grander scale, but when the colonies broke off from Great Britain and seceded, it was an acknowledgement of the relationship that was already there.

38:12

You're not treating us like citizens. In fact, you're making war on us, jailing legislatures.

38:20

You're taxation without representation. I mean, there's a number of items in the

38:26

Declaration of Independence, and it's basically, it's a letter like you would write to a friend if you were gonna do it and say, look, here's all the things

38:32

I'm saying. You're not my friend anymore because of the way you're treating me, and I'm just acknowledging this.

38:38

So anyway, I've waxed long about it. I probably am spending too much time, but the point I wanna make is that's not rebellion.

38:48

Yeah, maybe the terms rebels were used. Maybe the term revolution was used, but honestly, the real revolution wasn't the colonies.

38:58

If anything, they were trying to prevent what they would have seen as more revolutionary. So that's a question that needs to be asked.

39:06

Who's actually being faithful? And remember, they all had local jurisdictions. They had committees of correspondence. They had, in some places, they had their state governments and assemblies, and who do you submit to?

39:17

Your local assembly? Who's got the legitimate authority? Let me ask you this one. Who's got the legitimate authority in Afghanistan?

39:24

You're in Afghanistan, right? And the U .S. pulls out and the Taliban comes in. The day they come in, at what point are you, well,

39:32

I guess I shouldn't leave now. I shouldn't go to the airport because I'm trying to avoid the Taliban when

39:38

I'm getting there, and Romans 13 says, I need to be in submission to the... Do you see how terrible this rendering of Romans 13 gets?

39:48

We've had the luxury in the United States of not having to think through some of these things, and we're gonna have to get over that. We have to think through some of these things.

39:55

You have to start considering things like what happened in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and China, and you have to start trying to put yourself in the shoes of someone in Cuba, and when

40:07

Fidel Castro came to power. What do you submit to and what do you not submit to? It's a little more complicated than this individual's trying to make it.

40:18

Let's go on, I don't wanna go on a whole lot farther. Called to subjection, even to a government that we may disagree with, and usually, a lot of times when we talk about Romans 13, people wanna go, well, what's the exception to that?

40:33

We talk about the exception and we forget the rule, and there is a little bit, I'm not sure if exception is the right term or not, but there is a caveat at least to it, but when we're forced to choose between obeying government and obeying

40:47

God, we always obey God, right? I mean, we know that, you all know that. In Acts, the apostles are beaten, arrested, so you're not supposed to preach anymore, and Peter says we gotta obey

40:58

God rather than man. The Hebrew midwives commanded to kill the babies, kill all the

41:04

Egyptian male babies. They didn't do it. We're blessed because they didn't do that. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down when they were ordered to do so, so no dispute, when government commands us to violate

41:18

God's word, we're to follow God, not man. I would argue though that, and I would argue though that that's not necessarily not being subject to or not being submission to the government because a lot of times if you submit to God, you're gonna end up suffering the wrath of government.

41:37

The apostles did that. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is one of my favorite verses in the

41:43

Bible when Nebuchadnezzar commands, gives them another chance, and commands them to bow down, and their response, as you all know, is hey, we don't know whether we're gonna burn up or not.

41:52

We got every reason to believe you're gonna throw us in the fire and we're gonna get burned up. We're not gonna do it anyway, but I would argue they were still subjecting themselves to that government because they were being thrown in the furnace and they were gonna suffer the consequences.

42:05

So as believers, and you know, unfortunately, I see in our lifetime there's gonna, we have, let me back up, we have tremendous blessings that we should be thankful for in this country for our religious liberty.

42:18

We may well face a time when we don't enjoy that blessing any longer.

42:23

I pray that we don't experience that, but you don't have to imagine too hard to see that coming down the road, and we have to know how we're gonna respond to that.

42:32

And leading the revolution is not the biblical response to that. In, you know,

42:39

I guess I would say ironically, but nothing's ironic. Sovereignly, I guess, is a better way of saying that.

42:46

In my Sunday school class that I teach at Spring Hill for young adults, it just so happened to be going through 1

42:53

Peter, and we get to 1 Peter 2 .13 in the passage following that this week, and if you're not familiar with that, that's a passage almost identical to Romans 13 .1

43:04

where Peter is telling them that they should be subject to government. And he goes on in verse 15, 1

43:11

Peter 2 .15, and talks about that by our response to a government, we can put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

43:21

Our response, and he goes on after that, and he talks to slaves, and in the same line of reasoning, he says, slaves, be subject to your masters.

43:29

And then he goes on and says, especially when they treat you really badly. Especially when they treat you really badly.

43:37

So when you put all those stuff together, as Christians, our response to a government that treats us wrongly isn't revolution, it is to meekly submit and face the consequences of obedience to God, and let that be our witness and testimony to the world that's around us.

43:56

So I went from talking to preaching there a little bit. So that's be subject, and we've forgotten that in our society, but be thankful, be subject, and in our movement,

44:07

I'm concerned that we're losing sight of the fact that we're still to be subject, even to governments we may disagree with.

44:15

So moving on from there, so we're to be thankful, we're to be subject to, and next, I would encourage you to be involved.

44:22

All right, we're gonna cut it there. It's wrapping up at this point anyway. Put yourself in this situation. David and Absalom.

44:29

Absalom usurps the throne. You live in Jerusalem. Who do you submit to? Absalom, let's say, isn't telling you to do anything that's sinful.

44:37

You can still worship God the way that you want to worship God. So do you submit to Absalom?

44:44

Do you, in so doing, make it out to those around you, set an example that shows that you view his authority as legitimate, or are you faithful to the rightful king in that situation?

44:59

Kind of like the King Richard, Prince John situation. Is it King Richard that holds your allegiance, the rightful king, or is it the usurper who comes in?

45:08

These are questions that this simplistic kind of take on Romans 13, it just gives you answers that would lead you to believe that whoever's in power and has the might is the one that's legitimate authority.

45:25

And that's just not the case. Government as such, government in and of itself, is put here to punish evil, and you should not be in trouble with the government for doing something evil.

45:36

That's Romans 13. It's not telling you that you must submit to Absalom, even though he's not legitimate government.

45:46

You can still be faithful to David. You could be in a situation of war. You could be, your allegiance could be to another legitimate authority, and there could be a struggle going on.

45:57

And revolution, here's the thing about, you think of the French Revolution when the term revolutionary comes up.

46:04

The casting off of order, the trying to put in place a new order, but the key is that there isn't really a legitimate authority behind it.

46:17

There's mob rule, there's, I mean, someone's always gonna be in charge, but it's usually some kind of tyrant rises to power in those situations.

46:24

We've all, in the American, in the English context, especially, we really thought of authority as being kind of comprised in the people, especially since the

46:34

Magna Carta, that people, that there is an obligation that, or a covenant that the people have with their governing authorities.

46:43

This is why often in the Old Testament, even, you see people are punished for public sins of rulers.

46:49

Rulers do something publicly, they sin, and then the people get punished for it. And so there is, something like that does exist.

46:57

And I don't have time to delve into all of it right now, but there is, it is more complicated than that.

47:03

And the questions that are arising right now are questions about what's legitimate authority? Can they do that?

47:09

Is that overstepping their bounds? What about my state? My state isn't going along with that. Who do I submit to in this circumstance?

47:17

It's not just, well, whoever's got the most power to exert themselves and punish people who would disagree, they're the ones that we gotta follow.

47:27

No, that's not what Romans 13 is about. The submission is a very, it's a very specific submission. Don't break the, don't break laws that God, that God would agree with.

47:39

Laws that are put there to punish immorality. Don't break those laws. And you won't have fear.

47:45

If you're doing the right thing, then you're not gonna have fear. So you may have fear from an illegitimate government, or you may have fear if your allegiance is to another government, or if you're in a state of war with a government, or if they view you as a threat for whatever reason to their authority, especially in the context now where so many people look to the government as if it's

48:08

God and we have a state religion that's forming right before our eyes. That is in competition with Christianity.

48:16

That's a way overstepping of the boundaries that should be given to government. Those are the questions.

48:21

That's the area we should be diving into. That's the area Christians should be exploring right now. But instead, we get messages like this.

48:28

And it is, it does bother me. I'll be honest, it really does bother me. Because I don't know if it's lazy.

48:33

I don't know if it's just, I don't even know how to put words to what

48:40

I'm thinking right now. I don't know if it's force of habit over years of teaching this kind of thing.

48:46

But something's gotta come along that's so shocking and it's so, eventually something's gotta really prod people, even like this, to think, wait a minute,

48:55

I gotta rethink this whole thing. I gotta rethink this. Because I don't even know what someone like that does when, if they're in the state of West Virginia, and West Virginia says no, and the national government says yes, and now the national government's gonna be sending troops in or trying to federalize the

49:14

National Guard, and West Virginia says no, and like, what do you do in that circumstance? What do you, who do you, whose side are you on?

49:22

Do you, who do you submit to? Romans 13 isn't gonna answer questions like that.

49:28

And it's not meant to, it's not meant to. All right, so that was kind of stream of consciousness there,

49:35

I guess. But I hope that helped the person who reached out to me and wanted me to comment on it.

49:40

And I hope it helped some of you who were along for the ride and wanted to hear about that. More coming later this week.

49:46

Like I said, I got a backlog of a lot of things that we need to cover, and we will cover them.

49:53

But stay tuned, look out for Christianity and social justice, religions, and conflict.

49:58

It's coming out soon. And don't forget, if you are in the Syracuse, Indiana area, Syracuse Baptist Church, October 23rd,