August 29, 2023 Show with David Reece on “A Government Appointed by Christ”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 29th day of August, 2023.

Just a brief update on my older brother, Andy, who many of you have been praying for, who has a life-threatening blood contamination known as sepsis. The antibiotic treatments still appear to be holding the sepsis at bay.

There is no apparent decline in his health. I really appreciate your continued prayers, not only for him physically, but infinitely more important that you pray for a clear and convincing testimony of trust in Christ.

He has made professions for decades, but they have never been totally reliable, and I would love to have a peace of heart and mind if the Lord were to take him into eternity sometime soon. I would love to have the peace of mind knowing that that eternity is being spent with Christ Jesus.

So, I appreciate your continued prayers. I thank the hundreds of you who have been emailing me and communicating with me on social media, assuring me that you are praying for Andy. Please continue to do so.

I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest, David Reese, pastor of Puritan Reformed Church of Phoenix, Arizona. He's also the owner of quite a fascinating company called Armored Republic, and today we're going to be discussing a government appointed by Christ, and that is a government in every sphere of life.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor David Reese.

Chris, it's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to discussing the Lordship of Christ in every aspect of life.

And tell our listeners, for the sake of those who are unfamiliar with you, they missed your last interview with me on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Tell our listeners about Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona.

Puritan Reformed Church in Phoenix, Arizona. We have the name Puritan, and Puritans, of course, are very concerned to see Scripture as the sole authority to have the doctrine be pure according to the Word of God, to have the worship of the church be pure, and to be able to demonstrate every element of worship as being appointed by God, and to make sure to seek to apply everything that God has commanded in the worship.

And then the same with government. And so the doctrine, worship, and government of the church, we seek to be very careful to apply sola scriptura to all of those things. And we are concerned to make sure that the gospel is proclaimed, that men would know that Christ has come to pay for the sins of his elect, and that all those who believe the gospel have their sins paid for by Christ, and have his righteousness imputed to them.

And so we want to make sure that that's broadly taught, and then bring disciples in, and to disciple them to obey everything that Christ has commanded. We all know that we are breakers of his law, but we are made righteous by his covering, his righteousness imputed to us.

And yet we also, knowing that we've received the grace of the gospel, want to, out of gratitude, do good works according to his law, for the glory of his name. And so that's what we're concerned about.

And yeah, we meet at, basically, we're in Northern, and the 51 are connected. You can check out our website, which is puritanphx .com, if anybody's interested in worshiping with us in Phoenix, Arizona.

And your congregation is a Presbyterian congregation, am I right?

That is correct.

Yes. And I'm delighted that we have at least two Presbyterian churches advertising on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio, the other one being Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, hosted by Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, who I also love to interview.

And so I'll keep that website on hand, folks, puritanphx .com, if you are planning to visit Phoenix, Arizona, or perhaps you have family, friends, and loved ones who live there. That's puritanphx .com, and you'll be hearing the commercials later on in the broadcast with more details on this fine congregation.

I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away, if they'd like to send in questions of their own about our subject today. It's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you disagree with your own church on something we are discussing today, and you don't want to draw identity to yourself.

Perhaps you're even the pastor. You have a disagreement with your fellow elders or your denomination about something we are addressing. Well, we would definitely understand that those would be reasons that you would be compelled to remain anonymous.

In fact, we would insist that you remain anonymous if you're discussing a specific church. But if it's a general question, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. This concept of a government appointed by Christ in every sphere of Christian life is interesting.

You would think that that would be a no-brainer, but there seems to be a skittishness of even evangelical born-again believers when you combine the words government and by Christ. But if you could give us an outline of exactly what you want to speak about today.

The Law of God as Authority and the Four Spheres of Life

Absolutely. So the reality is that the law of God is a grant of authority. When God commands us to do something, he's authorizing us to do it. And so we think about this. God is the maker of all things.

He owns everything. And so he has to give us the right to use his stuff, otherwise we're trespassing on his property. And that includes our own bodies, that includes our own minds. We have to know what it is that we're supposed to do.

So God tells us the purpose of life, which is to glorify him. He commands us to exercise dominion over the world and over the animals and the plants. And we're told that we have authority in those grants.

So, okay, we know what the goal is, we're glorifying God. We know the things that we've been given authority over. And then he gives us particular commandments to know what to do, how to govern well, right?

We govern our own bodies, but we're not allowed to kill ourselves, right? The sixth commandment forbids that. And so the law of God doesn't just give us a list of things that we're forbidden to do. It also gives us commandments positively that we are required to fulfill.

Now, we cannot fulfill those commandments perfectly in ourselves. That's why we need Christ. But we've been saved by Christ from sin so that we can do good works. And so in being saved from sin in order to do righteousness, we need to know what is it we're saved to do.

And so being saved to do these things, we look to the law of God and it teaches us what we're supposed to use all of our resources for. Now, God has organized life into four spheres of authority, four spheres of responsibility.

And this really simplifies things. People look around and you kind of wonder, what is life about? Where should I be giving my time? The four places where we have principal responsibility are as individuals to govern ourselves.

We need to govern our minds well and our bodies well. We need to govern our households. And we think about the household relationship, and that includes, you know, the husband or father of the house, the mother, the wife of the house.

And we also think about children and then servants and the idea of businesses and estate building. So that's all under the household. We look at the church and what it's supposed to do. And we think about the state.

And those four spheres are where our duties are principally to reside. Everything else is a voluntary relationship. But you are stuck with yourself. You're stuck with your household. You're stuck with your church and you're stuck with your state.

Those are all covenant institutions, and we have an obligation to deal with them according to the law or now involuntary agreements. You still have to treat people according to the law, but you're not obligated to enter into any particular contract.

The covenant institutions, we can't get away from it. You can't get away from the fact that you are born as an individual before God. You have to deal with the household you're born into. And church and state are both institutions given authority by God.

And so as we think about those institutions, each of them have law order from God about how they're to be used. So if you study the law of God, it teaches you how to govern yourself. And if you study the law of God, it teaches you how to govern a household.

And we think about when we move beyond the individual, we have the fifth commandment, which serves as a head of doctrine. It's a bucket, a category that all of the honor relationships, all the interpersonal interactions sort of fit into in terms of the duties that you have based upon the station that you're in.

And so when we look at that, we see that the scriptures tend to spend a lot of time on the household relationship. And the household relationship has a government appointed where the man is to be the head of the house.

He is to rule in the house and he's supposed to rule with his wife so that he is master of the home. She is mistress. He is husband. She is wife. He is father. She is mother. And so she submits to him.

They together rule over the children and if they have any servants, they would rule together.

Over them.

And they seek to build up an estate and pass on wisdom and wealth to their children. So there's the order of things. And the children are supposed to be prepared to take over that property and to be able to govern it well according to the word of God.

In the church, we have elders and deacons and they are to be nominated by the men of the congregation. They're to be tested publicly, to be elected. And then the officers that exist are supposed to ordain, which is the setting apart of a man for public ministry.

And those men are to work as a council in the local church to rule together. And so you have these three courts. You have the elders, the deacons, which include the elders as well. And you have the men of the congregation, which includes the elders and the deacons.

And then lastly, we have the state and we see the state is given the sword by God to avenge for crimes, to wage just warfare, to defend the innocent and to be able to remove threats. And the state also serves the purpose of seeking to make sure that contracts are upheld.

And so we see the punishment of crimes, the waging of just warfare, and the adjudicating of these disputes. And so we see all of that. We have limited purposes for each institution. Backing away from the state, you think about what's the purpose of the church.

It's to proclaim the word in the world. It's to have the sacraments administered, the worship of God done, and to have government maintained in it for discipline. And so this institution is created for the purpose of teaching, of holding up the doctrine in the world, being a pillar and ground for the truth so that it's upheld to be seen by the world.

And it has the keys of the kingdom to be able to discipline members and to be able to deal with order. The household has the rod, and then you have the individual has the conscience. And so between all of these things, this is sort of the elements of the government.

And these are the things that are to be used for the government of these various places. And we need to study the word of God carefully to see what is it that each of these things is to do.

Elders, Household Order, and the Qualifications of Church Officers

Great. We actually already have a listener question for you that I think is an excellent question. And it's from an anonymous listener. The anonymous listener says, as you know, in 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 4 through 5, he must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? This is obviously in regard to a requirement for elders in the church. How much disobedience is tolerable for children of an elder before he needs to step down?

Yes, that's a great question. So I think when we look at that text, when we talk about the idea of the children being in submission, what we're talking about is not just a child who is disobeying, then gets disciplined and they repent and come back and obey.

But we're talking about a child who is throwing off the authority. And so the child won't go through conflict resolution, won't heed the discipline of a parent that disqualifies the elder. But the second thing would be there are particular acts that could be so grievous that they indicate a total lack of self-government in the child because of a lack of government in the home.

And I think that the Bible provides for us valuable categories when we look at the Torah in particular. It gives to us not only sins with the categories of the Ten Commandments, but it provides for us by the case laws, examples of criminal behavior.

And so behavior that would be biblically defined as criminal is the kind of behavior that would call into question immediately whether that elder is ruling his house properly. And so if you see criminal behavior by the children, that would be something.

So an example of that might be, for example, theft or assault. And you could also see, you know, that occurs in small children. I mean, small children might smack each other when they're playing. That's a type of assault.

Right. But so you might not you might go, OK, I'm not going to throw this guy out of office because his five-year-old kid hit my four-year-old kid when they were playing together. But you would look at that and say, is there this immediately calls into question what's going on here, the level of a type of activity that is that is criminal.

So the Bible's definition of criminality. And so we need to consider the throwing off of authority, rebellion without a willingness to repent. But secondly, criminal level types of behavior are the types of things that you pause, that you engage on them and you see how is this being dealt with.

Now, in some cases, like the example I just gave, where a child hits another child, you say, OK, fine, we're going to look at this. Does the parent deal with it appropriately? Are they disciplining it?

If it's a small child doing something like that, then you move on. But you get into older kids. You start to go, what's the deal? Why are these kids not controlling themselves? Why are they doing things that are inappropriate at that kind of a level?

I have a question to throw in of my own. How is that to be understood when there are adult children not living under the roof of an elder who could be extremely rebellious? They might be known for adultery, fornication, drug abuse.

We could go on and on and on. Homosexuality, so-called transgenderism. Where do we draw the line as far as what the parent who is an elder is responsible for?

Yeah, so we know that there's a responsibility for parents to rule their children well. We're told in Proverbs that if you raise up a child in the way that he should go, that when he's old, he will not depart from it.

And so there's this general tendency that we see and this promise there for the idea of the child going in the way. But at the same time, we also know that we do not have the power to regenerate children.

The father does not have the power to bring about regeneration in the child. He can bring all the means and does not have the power to cause those means to be effectual. So we pray for blessing. We ask the Father to cause the Holy Spirit to make those things effectual.

But ultimately, I think when you see a child, if they leave the home and abandon the faith, it should call into question whether that man has led his home well. And we again, we know that they cannot control regeneration, that the father cannot control it.

But at the same time, we have the promise of the tendency of the raising up of the child in the way they should go and how that causes them to walk in the way. And so I think what we are supposed to use is the evidence of what we see.

And if the children of that elder have walked away from the faith, then that needs to be dealt with carefully. And I would say that the bias should be toward the removal of that man as an elder. And I think that only when we see something like there's extraordinary evidence that this man has done his duty, that the child was in submission while they were in the house.

And then afterward, they later threw off the faith after some sort of a process where they are outside of the home. That is perhaps the example of when you would say this man is not to be removed. But I think child immediately leaves the house and then immediately throws off the faith.

That man, you need to call him into question and probably remove him from.

Office. And what would be the reason that you believe from your own experience, from what you hear in the media, from what you hear even by having observed and heard the sermons of other pastors meeting other Christians, perhaps counseling Christians who have left of other churches, what would be the major failures that you believe exist amongst modern evangelicals, perhaps the majority, who are who are failing on all of these points?

Failures in Modern Evangelicalism: Family Life, Worship, Doctrine, and Church Courts

So when we look at government, the issue of the Amazon prime pastor is one of the big problems. They ship these guys in, they come with free shipping straight out of the seminary. And also you're pulling these people in from other churches and there's kind of a shuffling around.

I think the church is supposed to raise up its own officers. And that doesn't mean that a man can never go to plant a church or to help in another church. But there needs to be a significant relationship and significant testimony that this man is fit for office before he moves in.

And I think that the reality is that we don't look at the family life very carefully. And we need to remember that what we're told in the scriptures themselves is the man has to govern his house well, he has to govern his wife well, he has to govern his children well, his wife needs to be of a certain caliber.

And if they don't have this, you know, the government of a man over his children is sort of a foreshadowing of what he's going to produce as an elder and how he governs his wife and leads her and washes her in the word and beautifies her and brings joy into her life is also a foreshadowing of what he's going to do as he leads in that local church.

And so I think examining that and the private life is very important. Hospitality is extremely important. It's one of the qualifications and hospitality lets people look into your home. They can see what your children are like.

They can see what your wife is like. They can see what you're like in person. And they're able to see, are you generous? Are you stingy? Are you willing to give time? Are you willing to serve? Are you willing to bless?

Are you willing to talk about the problems of your people and enter into their lives or not? And so I think that that is a significant piece of this is looking for the proper qualifications for men. But I would also say we look at the broader evangelical church.

There's a failure to guard the worship of God. And that is because there is not a concern to say. When we call the church together, they are obligated to appear. And if they're obligated to appear and they're obligated to stay from the assemblies beginning to its end, then everything we do in that worship is an act of authority.

It's the government of that church requiring the people to participate in that worship. And so the care to guard what the worship is and to be able to prove every part of it from the Bible, to do it in a manner that's pleasing to God rather than what's pleasing to man, is another part that has to be carefully guarded.

And then with the doctrine itself, so much of the teaching, people aren't willing to go through the hard passages of scripture. They aren't willing to look at trying to deal with doctrine in a full orbed way.

And so what we need to be willing to do is to engage with the word of God throughout its whole and to be desirous to teach the full counsel of God. So I think those are the three places where we tend to see those failings.

And I would also say one last part is this. I talk to pastors and I talk to them about the idea of a church court. And most of them have no idea what a church court is. They don't know that the church is supposed to hold court.

They don't know that the church before it disciplines people is supposed to call them to appear, require them to hear the charges, allow them to give a defense for themselves, have them have the right to challenge witnesses.

And with cross-examination, that idea that church discipline is a court process is something that is totally foreign to most evangelical pastors. And so that is necessary. It's a part of the government of Christ's church.

And if a church doesn't have discipline, doesn't have a court, it's not a church. It might be people who have the gospel, but it's not a church.

Yeah. And in fact, the probably the instinct, the instinctful reaction, if you were to ask an average pastor, do you have a church court? They might say, oh, yeah, the kids from the community play basketball at our church all the time.

We have a gym, we have a Starbucks. But we're going to our first commercial break right now. And once again, if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question. For our guest today, Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reformed Church of Phoenix, Arizona.

Send us an email to chrisarnsen at gmail dot com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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Puritan Reformed is a Bible believing, kingdom building, devil fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone. Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image bearing prophets, priests and kings.

We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline and exalt Christ.

This is Pastor David Reese of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona. Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth. Puritan Reformed Church. Believe.

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That's Royal Diadem dot com. And make sure you mention Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio. We're now back with David Reese, pastor of Puritan Reformed Church of Phoenix, Arizona. We're discussing a government appointed by Christ.

And David, one thing that we failed to elaborate on in the beginning of the program is your business, Armored Republic. We did discuss that in more detail the first time you were on the program. But why don't you let our listeners know something more about Armored Republic again?

I can't hear you, David. You have yourself on mute. Oh, wait a minute. I have you on mute.

Yes, I do.

Very good. So Armored Republic creates tools of liberty to help free men to defend their God-given rights against tyrants and criminals to the honor of Jesus Christ. So what we think of body armor as is a tool for liberty.

And so our broader mission is to figure out how to educate men, encourage them to lead and defend their families, and to encourage them to think about tactical tools they can use to defend themselves and to defend their rights.

And so one of the things I think it's important to do in order to see a nation organized properly is not to have a huge military establishment, but rather to see a citizen soldiery where men are able to participate in the call.

When you see the state going into a just war, the state would call the men to engage in a defense of the nation. And so this idea that one of the things you see warned about in, for example, the time of the kings, God warned that kings should not multiply horses or chariots because they were not to have a large standing army with a focus on offensive capability.

They were not to multiply gold. They were supposed to keep taxes low. And if there were tons of resources that were available for the state, they were to lower taxes further to avoid the accumulation of capital being held by the state.

So a free people could have their own property and use it to serve the Lord. And then also they were not to multiply wives, which is about not being a pleasure-seeking person as a ruler, but also about not making covenants that are wicked and not forming wicked alliances.

And so in order for a nation to preserve its independence and to preserve its liberties, there needs to be a citizen soldiery where there is this idea of the man being capable and competent to defend himself and others and to be well-trained.

So we encourage people to own body armor and to own a rifle. And frankly, if you don't have a rifle and you don't have body armor, buy the rifle first, because what you need is something that's a basic tool for defense and to be able to resist tyrants.

But then armor is sort of the second tactical tool. And so we think a good firearm is what a man needs to be useful, to be able to defend his own rights and the rights of others. And then secondly, body armor.

And when you have those two pieces of equipment, you have the basic fighting tools to be an effective infantryman so that you could help to defend your community, defend your home, be able to resist tyrants and to be able to resist criminals.

And I think that the church more and more as it looks around and sees the possibility of persecution, it is good to be well-prepared and well-equipped and to be around other men who are also willing to defend you and to be willing to work together so that you can preserve your liberties and preserve your safety.

Yeah, that's another sad reality, how many Christians, at least professing Christians, recoil with discomfort when you speak about a Christian arming themselves and so on. It's just a bizarre world we live in.