WWUTT 208 The Blessing of Civic Government?

Civic government is a blessing from God. No matter what you think about the government in which you live, things could be a whole lot worse if it wasn't for the order that they were keeping and the laws that had been established.

And God had placed them there for that very purpose, when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand the Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. And don't forget our website, www .utt .com.

Here's our host, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. My darling wife, Becky Hughes, who is on her way to Indianapolis for the Gospel Coalition Women's Conference this week. I will miss her terribly, but I know she's going to receive some great teaching while she is there and get a few days off without the kids.

It's just me and the kids here at the house until, well, I guess late Saturday night when she gets back here. But anyway, babe, enjoy the time, drive safe. She's got a friend going with her, so I know that she's in good hands.

The Southern Baptist Convention is also this week in St. Louis. Closest it's ever been to me, as long as I've been a Southern Baptist minister, but I wasn't able to get out. Originally, the plan was to drive to St. Louis, which is just about six and a half hours from where I live.

We would attend the convention and then go from there to Indianapolis and drop Becky off at the Women's Conference. It just didn't work out to do that. But anyway, be in prayer for the SBC, largest Protestant denomination in the country.

A lot of times the country's eyes are directed the SBC to see what kind of decisions are going to be made there. So be in prayer, even as new leadership is appointed and some of those kinds of things.

Speaking of leadership, that's what we've been talking about as we've been in Romans 13, the governing authorities and how every authority has been instituted by God. Let's come back and look at this again.

Romans chapter 13, verses 1 through 7. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment.

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is God's servant for your good.

But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.

For because of this, you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them, taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Coming back to verse one here, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. Very similar thing that Jesus said to Pilate when he said you would not have your authority if it had not been given to you from above.

God can use even tyrants like Pilate to accomplish his will. Well, not can use, he does. Every person that has been appointed to a position of authority, God has appointed them to that place to accomplish his will.

So we need to respect that person who is in that authority knowing that they have been given their authority by God. Even tyrants and ruthless dictators, God is using to accomplish his will. I think back to Genesis chapter 50 verse 20, where it says, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

This is Joseph responding to his brothers years before his brothers had sold him into slavery. He ended up in Potiphar's house and even there was falsely accused and thrown into prison and then was pulled up out of prison and given the second highest command in Egypt, if not the world at that time to oversee a bountiful harvest because there were years of a dreadful famine that were coming.

So Joseph was able to buy his wisdom and because of the position that God had given him, God had appointed Joseph to that particular position so that he would not only save the people in Egypt, but also his brother's lives who lived in Canaan, particularly Judah because it was from the line of Judah that the Messiah would come, Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins.

After Joseph's father Jacob died, Joseph's brothers were concerned that Joseph would take his vengeance out on his brothers. So they came to him and begged for his mercy, but Joseph said to them, do not fear for am I in the place of God?

And then verse 20, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. Now I was thinking of this particular verse, because I just had a conversation, not more than a few hours ago with one of my elders, Chris, who is teaching a class on Joel on Sunday mornings right now and somehow this verse came up.

I don't know how this came up in their lessons. They're talking about the sovereignty of God, but they diagram the verse. They diagram Genesis 50 verse 20. And so he took me in the classroom and showed me the diagram up there on the board and it was pretty neat.

So where it says at the start of the verse, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. What is the it that's being talked about there? The evil. You meant evil against me, but God meant that evil for good, to bring that evil about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

So you see in the process of that sentence and the way that you diagram it out, that evil ends up kind of blooming out into this wonderful, glorious thing that God is ultimately doing to accomplish his will.

God would not allow evil acts to happen if it was not to accomplish some ultimate purpose. So God would raise up even vicious dictators to accomplish some great and ultimate purpose. And we must trust God in his sovereignty that he knows what he's doing and nothing is happening.

No decision is even being made by men that is outside the counsel and the will of God. We read about that in Lamentations 3. So as we are showing the proper respect to the authorities that have been placed in authority over us, we understand that that position that they have has been given to them by God.

And so because we want to honor and glorify God, we need to show the proper honor and respect to those that are in those positions of authority. Whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed.

And those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. So the government exists to promote good things and discourage bad things. And no matter what you think about the government that you live in right now, whether you're in the United States of America or any other government in the world, no matter what you think about that government, no matter what you think about how much freedom they give the people or how much they are oppressing the people, that government exists for your good.

Civic government is a blessing from God. Your situation would be significantly worse if not for the government that existed keeping certain laws in place and keeping a certain amount of civil order in the country that you live in.

I know things might be tough and you might even see your rights eroding away as time goes on, but that government exists to keep things in a more civil manner than they would be if that government did not exist.

To put it bluntly, things could be worse. My secretary, the secretary of our church, Vicky, she said a couple of nights ago she was watching a documentary on the Night Stalker Killer from back in the 70s.

Richard Ramirez was his name. And in that documentary, when they were interviewing Ramirez, he made this statement. He said, if I could be 100 evil, I would be. And she asked me, what do you think he meant by that statement?

And I said, well, I imagine there were worse things that he wanted to do, but because of the law, he couldn't do them. The laws that are set in place, he didn't have the right windows of opportunity, some of these different kinds of things.

So because there is civic government, those that could be even horribly viciously evil aren't as evil as they could be because there is a system of laws that are in place in this country that keep a certain amount of civic order.

So we do need to be grateful and thankful for the government as it exists, no matter how bad or corrupt it is. We're still thankful that there is some amount of government because it is keeping a certain amount of order.

You think about the shootings that are happening in this country that are being perpetrated by Muslim terrorists. Not all of them. I mean, you had the guy in Aurora, Colorado, a few years ago that went into a movie theater and shot up people during a Batman movie.

That guy wasn't a Muslim extremist, but most of these acts of terror being conducted by Muslim terrorists. We had another one just yesterday at a Walmart in Amarillo. And of course, the shooting that had taken place in Orlando at a gay bar by Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people.

These are men that operate outside of our laws. They consider themselves above our laws and have no respect for our civic government whatsoever. But as plentiful as these shootings have been, it's not as chaotic and as massive as it could be because there's still a certain amount of civic order that exists in this country.

But holes are starting to show up in our consistency in keeping that order and those holes are being exploited by those who want to kill people. And they have been very effective in doing so, particularly talking about Muslim extremists who have no problem with dying on the other end of their shooting spree because they feel like that once they die, they're considered a martyr and they've got some great reward in heaven that they are going to be given.

And as long as we want to ignore that this is being perpetrated in the name of Islam, then we're not going to get to the root of the problem. Our government simply does not want to entertain the theological aspects of why these lone wolf killers do what they do.

And because they don't want to consider the theology, specifically the theology behind Islam, then we're just never going to solve this problem. And these lone wolf killings are going to continue to be an ongoing headline that we will see in the news time and time again.

So for the government to do what the government is supposed to do and that's punish evil and promote the good, they must understand even the theological implications behind what a lone wolf terrorist is doing when they go shoot up a bunch of people in the name of Islam.

And Omar Mateen absolutely did do that. He called 911 and pledged his allegiance to ISIS before he shot up this gay nightclub in Orlando. Peter also talks about the purpose of government in 1 Peter 2, verses 13 through 17.

He says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. Again, you've got the purpose of government right there to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good.

For this is the will of God that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Honor everyone, Peter says. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. So we must continue to show honor and be submissive to the governing authorities for every authority has been instituted by God.

And also being grateful for the civic government that is keeping things civil around us. For the most part, your life is pretty good. You're able to have a device that you can pull podcasts up on and listen to programs like this.

Why is that? Because of capitalism. Because of the system of government that we have in place that has encouraged invention and technology that has made it possible to record messages like this, studying in the scriptures and beam it out to the people that listen to it.

And not just this one, but many teaching programs that are out there. Churches that are able to record sermons and put them online that more people have access to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ on an ongoing basis.

Not just when they get to church on Sunday, but even every day of the week, continuing to fill their minds and their hearts up with good teaching from God's word. What a blessing that is. And it's because of the government that we live in that has encouraged and promoted such good things.

So let us be in prayer for our government and our elected officials that they would do what is honoring according to the word of God. As they promote good things and discourage the bad behavior, may they be wise to the bad, paying attention to what motivates certain bad people to do certain bad things because that's what helps to promote the good things.

And in those good things that they promote, let it be in an honor and a glory to God. May our leaders be listening to godly counsel in the ways that they lead and guide this people and this country. Our great God, we thank you so much for the word that we have been given here and I pray that we have in our hearts an understanding of being submissive to the governing authorities and this is part of our act of worship.

As we read in Romans 12, one to submit ourselves, give our bodies as a living sacrifice to God and this is a spiritual act of worship. So it would be in our everyday conduct and the ways that we show respect to elected officials, to people who serve in the army, who are police officers, who serve in local government, people that we see from afar that serve in the highest forms of government in the land, all of these people, may we consider them in our hearts and in our minds as being worthy of honor and show them honor because they have been given their authority by God.

Keep us submissive, especially to your word that we may obey all of its instructions and walk faithfully in these steps and we pray and ask this in Jesus name, amen.

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