Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 2, v. 2

Okay, well, we probably should review just a little bit because it's been about five weeks or so since we've been together.

I'm technically covering for Dave today. This was going to be his last lesson in his block, and so I'm covering for him because he's in San Marcos visiting coach, and then we'll continue into my next six weeks after today.

And so 1 Timothy chapter 2, we'll go ahead and review just a little bit, and then I'll have you turn somewhere else as we jump into our new territory for today.

But here's what we've been talking about. We finish 1 Timothy chapter 1. We get this exhortation from Paul to Timothy.

He warns him to stay on the straight and narrow path of righteousness using a couple of his friends,

Himanias and Alexander, as examples of what it looks like when that doesn't happen.

He tells him all this, and then he gets to chapter 2, and he says, I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

So that's where we left off last time. We had only gotten a couple of verses into chapter 2, and we've already noted a number of interesting things from the fact that number one, the context here implies that this is public worship, that these are public prayers that are being made.

So for example, when we get together and we have our prayer meetings on Wednesday, or when we do prayer requests, or when

Dave leads us in a prayer before we go into our services and things like that, that is kind of what's in view here, public prayers within public worship.

And what do you do within that? You lift up supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks for all men, and then he specifies what he means by that, and he goes in to talk about how we do this, we pray without discriminating social classes.

So in other words, we don't only pray for those that we care about on a personal level, we don't only pray for the poor, or for the oppressed, or for those in need, but rather we also pray for kings and for all that are in authority.

And of course we talked about the fact that this is a very difficult exhortation from Paul in a number of ways, it can be difficult even for us because we don't always have who we would like to be in authority, in authority.

And in those times, because of our sin nature, it can be very hard for us to work up the desire to pray, and to offer up these supplications, and to be thankful for men that we feel are ruling inappropriately.

But this was especially difficult for the Christians at the time that Paul was writing this.

We're talking about a thoroughly pagan, a thoroughly heathen Roman Empire, we're talking about emperors that were persecuting

Christians to the nth degree, of course Nero was on the scene even before the death of the Apostle Paul. We talked about Galerius at one point, we've talked about a number of emperors that leading up to Constantine were just absolutely on a, it was a bloodbath essentially, and it was a total miracle that Christianity survived it, it was supernatural that Christianity survived it.

And so it would have been very tough for the Christians at this particular point to obey what

Paul is saying here. We talked about all the reasons why, and it wasn't just for the emperors either, we know that there were local authorities put over certain divisions,

I mean it's very similar to how we're structured in many ways now at this particular time.

And so maybe there were times where they had a direct authority on a local scale that would have been more merciful, would have been less authoritarian, and persecuting them for their faith and those sort of things.

And so all of this comes into play, as we know. And so that's kind of where we left off. In general, we know that there were individual leaders,

I think one of the last things we talked about before we left last time was the time and place for an imprecatory prayer.

And that's when we talked about Nero and Galerius and some of these guys, and how on individual cases there were absolutely times in which

Christians were praying for the judgment of God to come upon these men that were shedding innocent blood, and that absolutely did happen in the case of these men.

We talked about Galerius literally rotting away and being maggot -ridden before he was even dead.

And so it was just an absolutely terrible death, and so those imprecatory prayers were answered in that case.

But in general, what we have in view here, this is the very last thought we ended with. In general,

Paul wants the prayers of the saints to be lifted up on behalf of their leaders so that they may what?

What is the thing? What is one of the results of obeying this particular exhortation?

He ends verse 2 by saying that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

So that's where we left off, and we'll break down that last phrase a little bit more than we have up to this point.

But first, turn with me to Jeremiah. Really quick, just a single verse, but I just want to show you that this idea that Paul is bringing forth isn't novel.

This isn't something that he was kind of bringing to the table for the first time. This wasn't new to first century

Christians. This was a reality for God's people all the way through history.

And in Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 7, we'll see another example of this.

Jeremiah 29, verse 7, one verse, let me read it real quick. The prophet says, "...and

seek the peace of the city, whether I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the

Lord for it. For in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." So in other words, even when you are in the most dire circumstances, whether that be captivity, regardless of which empire you are now under the iron fist of, regardless of which situation you're in, pray for this peace, thereof shall ye have peace.

And so what we find out here is that there has always been a universal principle for the people of God that when they desire a steady state of peace, especially in the context of a government over them, it is a good thing, and in fact is approved by God as we're about to see in just a moment.

This isn't a vain request, in other words. This isn't something that Christians are to do just because they're uncomfortable and they'd like a little comfort for once, but no, you just have to deal with it.

This is a good, and it is a morally good and righteous prayer, in other words, for the people of God to ask for the peace of their government, to ask for the peace of their civilization more broadly, and wherever their kind of local situation is, pray for the peace of that.

When we pray, there, as we know, is a power in that prayer.

We forget this sometimes. We talked about it a good maybe month or two ago, that there are times when

Christians can fall for the feeling of prayer being more of maybe a superstitious thing, or maybe more of just a religious duty only.

Now it is a religious duty, but when we forget that it's not just a religious duty, but also a mechanism, to lack of a better term, kind of a sterile term to use there, but it's a thing that we have been given to literally engage in relationship with our

Lord, to have conversation with our Lord, to make our requests known to Him. He hears us. In fact, the Apostle John tells us in his first epistle,

I'll just read it really quick, he says, and this is confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, and what is the implication there?

The implication is that we have read His word, that we understand it, we know what His will is.

He's not talking about His secret will. He's not talking about the things that God knows that we don't. He's talking about His revealed will, that which

He has prescribed to us in His word. So this verse assumes that we know the word of God, that we read our scriptures.

If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.

So this is what John tells us, and this is only one example of many, just in his first epistle, where he talks about prayer in very, very intimate terms.

In other words, this is not just a religious duty. It's certainly not a superstitious thing, but rather this is something that the

God of heaven hears and interacts with. He engages with us on that level.

So there is power in these prayers that Paul is talking about when he says to lift up our civil magistrates in prayer and offer those supplications and thanksgiving and all these things.

So through that power, God can and does oftentimes change hearts.

He changes hearts, even the hearts of the civil government. And therefore, these prayers can very well bear the fruit of a well -regulated government led by leaders who actually love

God and His word. Now what's amazing about it is that seems so alien to us.

Now we know that we have kind of our token Christian politicians out there who, at least on the campaign trail and when they're in front of the cameras and things like that, will pay lip service to Christianity.

But the most shallow definition of that term that you could come up with. There are some that are genuine, but some that of course appeal to their constituents in that way.

And that's why you can back up the tape 20, 30 years ago and you hear the Chuck Schumers and the

Nancy Pelosi's and the Bill Clinton's and all these people talking about their faith a lot.

And they were always Catholic. And of course, you look at the areas that they were in, especially when they were running for Congress and things like that, certain

Senate seats, well, what were their constituents? Broadly, in their areas, they were

Catholics, and if they weren't Catholic, they were Christian. And so it was very strategic for them to talk about their faith, and they would certainly do so.

So as time progressed, as time started to change, as that subjective morality and social ethics and those principles that had no limiting factor, nothing to constrain them, began to evolve over time, the faith was less the limelight and it was more about the inclusion and equality and all that kind of stuff.

And again, the goalposts just kept being moved. So even on the conservative side, this can happen.

On the conservative side, we have a lot of politicians that will pay lip service to Christianity because their constituents are professing

Christians and they know their strategy there. We also know there are some genuine ones as well, without a doubt.

I would say it's the fringe minority, but they're absolutely out there.

So to us, it can seem alien to have this idea of there being a

God -loving government and a government that bases its legislation upon the law of God rather than upon, again, those ever -changing morals and cultural scruples and things like that.

And so it seems a little bit bizarre, but it can happen. We have to remember that when our country was founded, it really was founded on these principles.

The federal government was limited to what they could do with regard to religion and that was a good thing.

First Amendment, Congress shall make no law. And then it goes on to explain that we're not going to have a state church like England had one, a federally backed church.

But interestingly enough, you go to the state level and you see exactly where the founders' hearts were. Every state had a state church.

And basically, the First Amendment was intended to send that to the states rather than to have a single federal church.

And so you had different states, some of which recognized a particular denomination. So some were

Presbyterian, some were Episcopalian, some were more broad.

They were like, look, whether you're Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican, it's cool as long as you affirm the triune

God of the Bible, that sort of thing. No atheists were allowed to run for office. No one that didn't affirm the

Apostles' Creed could run for office. This was the country. This was the foundation for our country.

And so it can happen. We can have a government that puts the transcendent

Word of God as the baseline and then governs and adjudicates from there.

And so one of the reasons why we can and should pray for this again is because all people throughout all time would agree that the duty, the primary duty of government, as it was instituted by God, by the way, you know, this isn't a man -made construct.

This is clear in the Old Testament, but as if it wasn't clear enough, the Apostle Paul makes it abundantly clear in Romans chapter 13.

We know that the government as instituted by God is to accomplish primarily what? Well, it's primarily to accomplish and to promote the public good, to protect its people, to ensure that its people are healthy, not only physically and protected physically, but also spiritually.

So we can certainly agree that the public good would involve the eternal state of the souls under the watch care of the government.

Now this is not, you know, this isn't breaking the barrier between church and state in any way because we're not saying that the government is church, that the government is in charge of heralding the gospel, excuse me, yeah, government.

The church is in charge of doing that. But the government is in charge of ensuring the public good, ensuring the public good.

So what can the government do there? Well, it can promote the true religion. We would agree, especially as Christians, that the true, the only true religion, that being

Christianity, would be part of the public good. Why? Because we care about the souls of those around us.

We don't want people falling headlong into the void, whether that be in the form of atheism or a false religion, whether it could be

Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, name all of them, Hinduism, keep going.

We don't want that because we actually care about people knowing who their creator is and of course living in an eternal, the eternal state with him.

And so if the government is to promote the public good, and if the public good includes the eternal state of those around them, then it goes without saying that the government should promote the true religion, the one and only true religion, that being

Christianity. Because once more, souls rely on it.

They rely upon this. Now our founders knew this. That is why they did things the way they did.

We've moved away from it over the course of the last 250 years. And so now we're at the point of this kind of secular experiment where, you know, we're going to say everything's neutral, and so all religions are equal, or all religions are cool, you know, as long as, what's interesting about it,

Rush Dooney, a guy that I admire a lot, R .J. Rush Dooney, he once said that if there's no

God above the state, then the state is God. And that's where we have found ourselves, is according to the state, which is secular, all the little meager religions are down here, and we'll say

Happy Easter when it's the Christian's turn, but we'll also say Happy Diwali when it's the Hindu's turn, and we'll say whatever

Ramadan for the, you know, whatever religion, you know, we're going to put on our burqas to pay lip service to the

Islamists and things like that. What does that mean? What does that imply? It implies that the

God of that civilization is the secular state. Because as long as you don't infringe upon that particular idea, that particular thought experiment, anything goes, regardless of the religious claims and the logical conclusion that that brings.

Go ahead, Robert. So that it would be a government created in the civilization's image?

Yeah, yeah, of course, it's basically what it is, is the idea that we are nothing more than the children of long -drawn -out natural processes, and what do you do if, upon that foundation, well, like you said, you build up civilization and you structure government based upon that image, rather than the image of the

Creator. So that's, you know, order and things like that start to unravel at some point.

And so what is the point of bringing all this up? The point is that when the Apostle Paul is telling us in 1

Timothy 2 here to lift up these supplications, prayers, intercessions, giving of thanks for kings and for those in authority, and we're about to dig into this in more detail, that we may lead quiet, peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty.

He's saying that, number one, there's power in prayer, but number two, if you, based upon that reality, you may very well experience what it is like to have a good, righteous, civil government that isn't in charge of church, but promotes the good of its people all the way to their spiritual well -being.

In other words, they're going to ensure that the only true religion is the one that is promoted, not conducted, but promoted by that civil sphere.

Because like we know, you know, the Reformers taught us that there are these spheres of sovereignty, church, government, family, and you could come up, business could be one of them.

You could throw in a lot of kind of little subspheres within those three main categories. And they're different, they're distinct, and this of course was the great sin of the medieval church when you had

Catholicism and government, kind of this integralist rule where the church could wield the hammer of government and the government was under kind of the purview of the church in this weird way, the

Church of England was like this as well. That was bad. And so the Reformers taught us from Scripture that you have to have these distinct spheres of influence, but there is one common denominator amongst all of them.

What is that? Jesus is Lord over all of them. Jesus is Lord over all of them. And so that's why this is part of promoting the public good.

So let's dive into what this looks like now if that prayer is answered. We're supposed to do it, we're commanded to do it.

There will be times when it's tougher to do than others. When we have civil leaders we love, respect, admire, maybe they're even brothers in Christ, it can be very easy to pray for them.

But what about when the times are tough? What about when we disagree with the platform of our civil leaders and we are called to pray for them, to pray that God can change hearts, which

He can do, which He has the power to do, so that what? So that what?

So here we go. When that happens, when prayers like that are answered, it leads to a quiet life.

It leads to a quiet life. That word literally means tranquility. It means bliss.

It means living a life where we can focus on what matters most without the stress of persecution, without the anxiety of being told we can't educate our kids with a biblical worldview, without being worried about any form of department or division of government coming and asking questions because we are not walking upon that secularist standard that most people are.

Now keep in mind, we're at a particular point in history where it's obviously not completely totalitarian.

It could get there. Anything can happen. But at the same time, I believe, I'm optimistic about our future.

I do believe that tides are turning and that we'll be able to avoid that. But think about communist nations and things like that where you are literally threatened, punishable up to imprisonment, maybe worse than that if you don't send your kids to certain educational institutions and things like that.

China would be one of them. A lot of countries in the east would be like that. You can look at the communist nations of China, North Korea, things like that, and you basically see the logical conclusion of secularism.

As ugly as it is and as much as we don't want to think we could ever get there, we could. You don't want to be alarmist about it.

You want to have faith. You want to believe that the Lord is still merciful and he absolutely can show mercy when he wants to show mercy.

That's what I'm trying to say. So you don't want to be alarmist about it, but you also have to have a level head on your shoulders and understand that things can happen.

And so we want to pray for this to happen, for a government to be good and moral under the rule of God so that we may live a quiet life, a life of tranquility, a life of bliss without the anxieties of the stuff that I just mentioned a second ago.

It carries the connotation of there being an absence of disturbance from the outside world.

In other words, the society we live in are kind of tucked away in. We have a piece from disturbances from the influences around us.

You know, you can let your kids ride their bikes down the road. You can tell your kids, hey, come on home when the street lights turn on.

There was a day like that not all that long ago. And now depending on where you live, which sadly would probably be the majority of places, you have to tighten the reins a little bit on things like that.

We don't live in the leave it to beaver world anymore, sadly enough, even though it was literally within reach in, you know, mom and dad's lifetime.

It's crazy. And so a life with no disturbance from the outside world.

But in addition to that, it also leads to a peaceable life. So a quiet or tranquil or bliss life.

But Paul goes on to say it also leads to a peaceable life, which carries the connotation of there being an absence from inside disturbance.

So we're talking about outside disturbance being thwarted and inside disturbances being really a non -issue as well.

In other words, just tranquility through and through. This is the kind of life that a good and moral government allows its people to have.

God using them as an instrument to do that. It's all by grace. We know that. But God instituted government to wield the sword righteously, to punish evildoers, to put them to death, you know, things like murder, murders, rapes, things like that, according to God's law, all of that would be handled with execution as soon as the witnesses are gathered to affirm that, yes, this egregious crime took place.

That's not how we rule now. But if we did, what does that do? It brings confidence. It brings peace to law abiding citizens.

It allows them to feel safe knowing that even if in the worst places of the country, the most egregious crimes take place, that person will be publicly executed so that that freaks out all the other wannabe criminals to maybe not want to do what they were doing.

And so all of this, all of this is baked into this idea that brings tranquility. It brings peace from the outside and on the in, inwardly.

But then he goes on and he says that in addition to living quietly and peacefully, we also bear the fruit of doing so, look what he says, in all godliness and honesty.

This is still the end of verse two, in all godliness and honesty. This is a result of a parade over government, which is fascinating if you think about it.

We pray for the government with the possibility that God will change hearts and lead to this particular atmosphere, conducive of the

Christian religion. And when that happens, it leads to godliness and honesty as a result of that.

When our prayers for our leaders are answered in the affirmative and their hearts toward God's law is softened, one of the effects of this is that the holiness or the godliness is another way you could translate that, the holiness, the godliness of God's people increases.

It literally benefits our sanctification in a unique way. Now what's amazing about the way that God, that God's providence and his sovereignty works out in the lives of his people is we know that being under persecution can also sanctify a person too.

And so God's, you know, God's word will always be brought to bear. His providence is always good, righteous, and just, whether you're living in communist

China or in leave it to beaver United States of America, back in the golden age,

I suppose. His providence is good and just in either case. The key here is that Paul is saying there is a unique way in which believers are, manifest godliness, manifest holiness when they live in this type of environment and therefore pray for it.

Pray that you have this type of environment again because you can live a holy and godly life and it increases.

The term implies that that is increasing over time as well. You're having a reverent attitude toward God that permeates the civilization, especially within the hearts of God's people and you have a

Christian nation and it's bliss. It's tranquil. It's peaceable through and through.

Now the second word here is honesty and I have to admit this is a little bit of an interesting translation choice. He says godliness and honesty or holiness and honesty.

It's a really interesting Greek term. It's simontes and the translation here is a little bit odd because in pretty much everywhere else in the

New Testament this exact same Greek term is translated as basically grave, that sort of thing.

And again, what the word is referencing is a person that is honorable, a person that is grave, a person that is entitled to respect from others.

So again, in the KJV you'll see the term gravity, the English word gravity being translated from this

Greek term here. They translated honesty but gravity would be better. And so again, having this kind of environment, this kind of atmosphere allows

God's people to live out godliness in a unique way but to also be respectable people, to be grave and honorable people.

This is like the outward expression of the godliness within a person. So inwardly it contributes to their holiness, outwardly it contributes to their behavior.

They're respectable people. Go figure, when you live out the precepts, the statutes of God, when you are a holy person inwardly, they will know you by your fruit, we will know them by their fruit, they'll know you by your fruit.

And when that manifests itself, it manifests itself in respectable behavior. And so that's what

Paul is saying. When the government is prayed over and the government's hearts are changed, it allows a particular kind of atmosphere that increases your inward holiness which is then manifested in respectable behavior.

You can see a cycle here, or a domino effect at the very least of just like one good thing after another leading to this very rich, you know, civilizational context.

And what's amazing about it is this, you know, we're not reading about a prophecy of the age to come, there are those, in Isaiah is where you learn that their spears will be turned into pruning hooks and plows and things like this.

There will come a day when all Christians get to be pacifists because there will be no more war.

We get to turn our weapons into gardening tools. So there will come a day in the age to come when yes, we live out perfect and total peace, but this isn't one of those passages.

And this also isn't an allegorical passage in any way, shape, or form, this is practical pastoral epistle, everyday

Christian living, as practical as it gets. What the Apostle Paul is telling us is if Christians are obedient to pray for their civil magistrates from the local level all the way up to the highest levels, this is what

God promises. It is conditional because it's based upon our obedience to this, and perhaps you can make an argument to our participation in all of it too.

Again, we don't get to be pacifists yet. If we pull away from the civil sphere, from the political sphere, and all these types of things, then the secularists just get to have a heyday, and they have for decades.

We're getting to reap the fruit of that. And so we have to do these things according to the

Apostle Paul so that we may live in this particular way, and it's glorious.

If we ever get to experience this, it is glorious. People in this room got to experience it not all that long ago.

Our forefathers got to experience it as they got to set up this Christian experiment of a republic.

And so we can experience it too, but we need to be obedient to these things. Now, I believe when it comes to this holiness being increased, this behavior being respectable,

I believe that this means when the conditions for true religion are nurtured in all spheres of public life, not just church, but also the political sphere, business, family, all of them, it gives

Christians a unique opportunity to express their piety, which by the way is another way you could translate the word godliness, in ways that would otherwise be impossible.

So when you are under the authoritarian rule of, let's just say, a communist regime or something like that, socialist, communist, collectivist, or maybe something like a pagan

Roman Empire, you don't get to manifest that godliness in the same way because you are quite literally fighting for your own life.

And that's a good thing, by the way. So the Puritans, excuse me, not the Puritans, the early church, we're talking first, second century, they actually had to have discussions among one another on how, while martyrdom is a very, just, it gives me chills when

I think about it. Just tell me this isn't amazing. This is, these are the shoulders we stand on.

They believed that martyrdom was a gift, that it was a blessing. In other words, they knew that they would have a better resurrection, which the scriptures explicitly say is the case.

And so when they got, you know, when they got wrangled up, when they got herded up and sent to places like the

Colosseum and were publicly mocked and publicly executed in the most brutal ways, they viewed that as a special blessing because they knew that their crowns would be so glorious, crowns that they would get to throw back at Christ's feet, that they would have a better resurrection.

They knew that. But they also had very serious discussions with each other, making sure that it was clear you don't go searching for that gift.

It's not something that you get to claim. It's something you are given. In other words, you don't go out there and say, hey,

I'm a Christian. Come tie me up and take me to the lion's den. That's not, you don't get to tempt the

Lord that way. They understood that that was the case, too. Human life is at the apex of all of God's work.

So that is why you could, you know, you could do things like help your neighbor out on the

Sabbath if they were in a life and death situation, even in the Old Testament. This is why it was

OK for David and his men to eat when they were starved to death or why it was OK for the priests to do their thing in the temple, because what contributed to human life was at the apex of everything.

And so even though martyrdom yielded a special blessing, human life was still something to be protected.

And so our forefathers, when they were in these pagan, very, very rough environments, when they were in that, they didn't get to live out their piety in a way that we get to here in 21st century

America. Does that make sense? They were pious, but they had to do so kind of in the undercurrents of the civilization lest they be taken to the

Colosseum or something like that. And so and while they understood if they got caught, if they got caught, they would have a better resurrection.

But they knew that only God got to allot that to them. They didn't get to go seeking it. And so if they could hide, they would.

If they could have church in the safety of a barn somewhere, they would do that. They wouldn't have public worship like we did.

If they weren't at the place where they could partake in the Lord's Supper without being without putting their people at risk, they wouldn't be able to do it as much as it hurt their hearts.

This was the environment of Christianity in the first and second century. And so what Paul is saying here is if these prayers are answered and we have a good and moral government, we get to live out our piety, we get to live out our godliness, we get to live out our holiness in a respectable manner, in an outward manner that everyone gets to enjoy, that everyone gets to be blessed by, that other that other

Christians don't depending on where they're living. And this is an amazing thing.

Their godliness that otherwise would be impossible under that authoritarian rule is put on full display because the environment allows them to do the good works that they've been called to do publicly.

And that's what that's what Paul was getting at here. These are the unique blessings that we can yield when we are under a moral government.

Does anyone have any thoughts? We have a few more minutes, but if anyone has any thoughts at this point, you could share them if you have any.

If not, we can press on a little bit more. Go ahead, Ash. 100%.

That's an excellent thought. So the biblical view of martyrdom is if in God's providence, and it is his providence, as much as that is difficult for us to understand, if in God's providence you are you become a martyr, totally outside of your control, you did nothing to tempt

God to put yourself in that situation. It just happened. In fact, you were even attempting to escape it and it still happened.

There was power in that. To Ashton's point, well, to Tertullian, he said the seed of the church was the blood of the martyrs.

That quote went around a lot when Charlie was assassinated. And there is truth in that. When you know that your brothers and sisters are being martyred, it gives you some gumption, it gives you some fortitude that you didn't otherwise have.

And this is why Christianity survived the persecution of the first couple of centuries leading up to Constantine, when all of a sudden there was this somewhat of a safety net.

It got pretty corrupted pretty fast, but it was still God's hand of blessing in many ways.

To Ashton's point, by the time you get to Mohabbat, 600 AD by the way, far removed from the apostles, far removed from the geographical location.

He was several hundred miles away from the geographical location that all of the gospel narratives took place in.

Decided to pin this story out of total ignorance. He had no access to the scriptures, he had no access to anything, but he claimed that he did.

What he did know was that there was something about this religion that allowed them to persevere, that allowed them to be resilient, even against the strongest military powers that the world knew at the time.

And so to Ashton's point, he counterfeited it, first and foremost. But the counterfeit was an especially egregious one because he took things like martyrdom and created it into a weapon.

It's martyrdom without regard to human life. And so what happens when you do that is, number one, it begins with a lie because you're telling your soldiers that they're going to get the 72 virgins and all this kind of stuff.

And that they're guaranteed whatever they call heaven, maybe they call it heaven, I'm not sure, that you're guaranteed that if you go on a kamikaze mission to hurt as many people as you can in the process.

Well, that is a demonic, satanic disfigurement of Christian martyrdom.

It is powerful. Look at the results. It worked in brainwashing their men to do exactly what the regimes of history have wanted them to do.

But the point is, it is an egregious disfigurement. And so that is a great contrast between the way the early church viewed martyrdom.

They respected human life. They protected themselves. They protected their families. They didn't go out and act as if we're going to have a special umbrella of protection.

We're going to go have church in the public square in ancient Rome, in pagan

Rome, because we're just promised to be protected. The Bible tells us exactly how we are to handle situations like this, and it includes protecting your family, protecting your people.

So they did that, but they did know that if they were caught and if they were martyred, that was a blessing in and of itself.

But don't seek it. Don't seek it. But if you are given that gift, take it and be glad for it.

That is what they taught. And so a really, really amazing thing. Now all of this sounds wonderful, but we know that it hasn't been the experience of all

Christians throughout time. Basically what I just finished talking about with regard to you pray for the government, the

Lord changes their hearts. It leads to a peaceful or a tranquil, excuse me, it leads to a quiet or tranquil life, a peaceable life where you are increasing in holiness, increasing in piety, and you are becoming a grave, respectable person because of all this.

It sounds wonderful, but once more, we understand that is not the case. We just finished talking about the early church.

They went through so much, but even in present day, and certainly around the time of the Reformers, that was not the case.

There are, when Christians are under such authoritarian rule, as kind of what we were talking about a second ago, when they're under the kind of authoritarian rule that their public displays of piety and public worship are nearly extinguished, what do they do then?

What do you do in that situation? Well, I want to read you guys a quick quote from Calvin's commentary. You all have noticed

I've quoted his commentary a lot in this study, not because it's the only commentary I'm reading, but because it's just, the way he puts things is so good.

It's so clear. Even though he lived in a time where his reading comprehension and writing style and vocabulary were far above ours today, it was still clear and so well said, and so let me read this to you really quick.

In this context of obeying the Apostle Paul's exhortations, but not yet living in that good government, this is what

Calvin has to say. He says, So, in other words, we may live in a particular ...

I misread one line here. He was talking about we will live in a particular situation sometimes in which the civil magistrates deprive us of the good that we are praying for.

They will deprive us of the advantages that the Apostle Paul is saying we could have. He says, but it is our duty not only to pray for those who are already worthy, but we must pray to God that he may make bad men good.

In other words, Paul's exhortation is important regardless of the context, and it can be efficacious regardless of the context, because God is far more powerful than the stony hearts that many civil magistrates have at any given time.

And so we're not guaranteed that God will turn the hearts of every individual civil ruler in every case of righteous

Christians fervently praying for it. We know that he enacts his will in accordance with his divine purposes for each specific nation.

And the thing is, and the thing we must remember, is that there are times when his divine purposes for a specific nation is judgment.

And those are the times when our prayers might not be answered in the affirmative. They're answered, but it may not be answered in the affirmative because it is high time for that nation to be judged.

And the prophet Isaiah tells us very clearly that God, by his hand, puts intentionally unideal or non -ideal civil rulers in place specifically for the purpose of judgment.

He lists women as being one case, he lists children as being another case, and tyrannical leaders being another.

When those particular types of people are put into rule, according to the prophet

Isaiah, and they do not adjudicate based upon God's word, that is a sign of judgment.

So what do you do with that? Well, we pray because the prayer of Christians are powerful. This is what

Paul tells us to do. We don't know God's secret will. We only know his revealed will, and his revealed will tells us to pray. And he also tells us in that same revealed will that often our prayers will contribute to his will turning back to the favor of his people when maybe his judgment has run its course or perhaps he stays the judgment.

We have examples of all of it. We have examples of many different dynamic situations that play out throughout the

Bible. And we, being not God ourselves, don't have to stress out about which one we're going to face.

In his grace, he tells us what to do regardless of what's happening. Keep it simple. Stay strong.

Remain faithful to me. Pray for these things. And he tells us what to pray for explicitly, again, so we don't have to figure stuff out.

And then he is there to enact his will. Sometimes judgment is the answer.

But it's still a worthy cause on behalf of believers to pray this anyway. And next week, we will answer the question, why?

Why is it worthy? Why is it just, regardless of what happens, for Christians to pray the prayers that he just told us to in verses 1 and 2?

So we'll end there this week. We'll pick it up at verse 3 next week. Go ahead, Robert. Just an oddity, lunacy, but during the place,

Moses doesn't come out. Please pray for me.

Well, that's true. He tells Moses to go to your God. We don't know. Right. We are aware that judgment was coming on Egypt.

Right. And for all we know, maybe Moses knew this guy.

And so maybe in his personal closet, he's like, look, when is this going to end?

And that Pharaoh has to be prayed for. Not that that gets answered.

I think your point is, what if we were in the same situation, not having perfect knowledge of the future? What if that same civil ruler asked the same question?

Would we deny it? And to your point, Moses, y 'all got to keep in mind, Moses was a child of Egypt.

He lived 40 years in the house of Pharaoh. He very well may have known this Pharaoh on a personal, maybe even somewhat filial level.

And so that probably pulled at his heartstrings quite a bit when that request was made. But it goes on to say

Pharaoh hardened his heart again. But what about Nebuchadnezzar? What about Cyrus? What about those pagan kings who made proclamation for the entire known world at the time to serve the living

God? So we just don't know. What about Nineveh? What about the... That was a pagan, heathen,

Gentile nation in the Old Testament that was saved wholesale, even the children. And so the prayers of the saints are powerful.

You know, God's will will come to bear. But he tells us to do this. He wants us to be a part of the journey.

Sounds a little sappy, but it's true. He wants us to be a part of the way his will unfolds.

And so he gives us these exhortations to be a part of it in this way. Any other thoughts real quick before we dismiss?

Yes, ma 'am. Well, like I said earlier...

Well, like I said earlier, it's very easy to pray for your politicians when they are right in line with your platform, let's just say.

It becomes difficult when the moment they go a different direction. And so you're right. The devil can't absolutely use that even to shift the tide within the original base that elected a particular politician for a portion of them to say, we're done.

But that would be in disobedience as well. Now, I can say this. You can be disgruntled based upon policy calls, based upon legislation, based upon certain

It's not to say that we have to say, OK, yes, we've prayed for him. He's generally on my side, so he can do no wrong.

That's not the same thing. You can have problems with any given number of politicians, even those that are roughly in your corner.

But that is not supposed to be the firewall that divides you from the throne of God to pray for those people now.

Absolutely not. Now, if anything, if their legislation starts to go a direction that is unbecoming from a biblical viewpoint, you should pray for them all the more and pray that the

Lord turns their heart back the right direction. So you're right. Maybe the devil weaponizes that a crazy amount.

And that's happening right now. So what do we do? We be obedient, faithful ourselves.

Anything else? Why don't we go ahead and dismiss? Because we are right at the top of the hour. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day, for bringing us all together and giving us yet another opportunity to continue this study.

It's just absolutely amazing the amount of things that we get in succinct, compact form in these pastoral epistles, massive doctrines of Scripture, massive things that carry massive implications in just a phrase or two, in a verse or two, things that we can dive into and literally mine for gold for weeks, months, years on end in some cases.

And yet you inspired the apostle to just put it there in a way that is clear, in a way that's understandable, in a way that equips us with exactly what we need to press into the future and to not be afraid, to not be anxious, to be vigilant, yes.

But confident in the word that you've given us and that following it will yield its blessings.

We ask that you continue to give us the strength to do so. Please be with us for the remainder of our services today. Bless us for the rest of the day.