Christian And Government (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

The Stagecoach Illustration and the Problem of Ungodly Government

Well, it was about 150 years ago that Wells Fargo stagecoaches put out a little rule book what to do while you were on the stagecoach. Abstinence from liquor is requested, but if you drink, share the bottle.

To do otherwise makes you appear selfish and unneighborly. Buffalo robes are provided for your comfort for cold weather. Hogging robes will not be tolerated and the offender will be made to ride with the driver.

Don't snore loudly while sleeping or use your fellow passenger's shoulder for a pillow. Forbidden topics of discussion on stagecoaches are stagecoach robberies and Indian uprisings. If ladies are present, gentlemen are urged to forego smoking cigars.

Chewing tobacco is permitted, but spit with the wind, not against it. Turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 13, please, a passage that has prevented a lot of spitting into the wind of ungodly government.

You're going to love this passage because you're not going to hear this message on TV or on the radio unless you listen to a Christian station. How do we live underneath a government that's not righteous?

Anything less than Jesus on the earth ruling and reigning, how do we live? In a democracy? Fascism? Nazism? Socialism? For someone we didn't vote for, how do we live? J .C. Neal said in his commentary in Romans, these seven verses have caused more unhappiness and misery than any other seven verses in the New Testament.

I totally agree. This is going to help us because many of us don't like the government that we're in or under. So what do we do? The bigger question is this. Are Christians different than unbelievers when it comes to their response to the government?

That is to say, if you're a justified sinner, declared righteous based on the work of another, do you act differently than your neighbors do? Is there something different about you? If you submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, how do you submit to the government?

This is the Christian view of politics. For those of you that worship politics or are preoccupied with politics, ask the question, do I ever disobey the government? Is it okay to run for office? This is a great passage.

How do we respond to less than godly government as justified people? F .F. Bruce called this the most important passage ever written on the history of political thought. Now there's one word that should typify all justified sinners in the response to government.

What is that word? Romans 13 says that word is submission. Let's take a look at that word and then we'll work on the outline in just a little bit. Romans chapter 13. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.

That's the key thing that works all the way through the first seven verses. NAS says let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. Remember what's going on in Romans? Remember we're not supposed to be conformed to this age.

Don't let your mind be conformed to the spirit of this age. And so if I'm not to be conformed to the world, well, maybe I don't have to submit to government. Maybe I don't have to pay my taxes. Paul says you're to be subject to the governing authorities.

Justified people obey the government. Submission here is not obedience. Those are two different words, but Paul is after the internal aspect, and that is submission. If you are in submission, internally you will manifest itself by obedience.

Paul wants heart religion from justified sinners. Now you say, what's a justified sinner? I'm so glad you asked. Romans 3 says now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

William Wilberforce prayed this prayer. Oh God, deliver me from myself. But before anybody could ever pray that prayer, in eternity past, in God's counsel, he decided to go do that very thing, save sinners from themselves.

To save them from sin. To save them from Satan's domain. To save them from the wrath of God. How can anything less than perfect obedience satisfy a thrice holy God? It can't. And God just can't overlook sin.

Oh, you know, it's no big deal. They just sin. I'll just do what Mike does if somebody sins against me and I say, I forgive you. That's all that I need to say. I forgive you. But God can't do that because he's righteous and he's just and he's holy.

So we need the righteousness of God through faith alone because we're sinful. And think about it. If God has saved you from all your sins, don't you want to do what he tells you to do? You say, well, God, you've saved me.

And my response to you is, I just want to do what you tell me. And so here Paul tells us to submit to the government. If you have been acquitted, if you have been pronounced righteous based on the work of Christ Jesus, then you are to submit to the government.

Now that word submit there or be subject to see it in verse one. Again, that's the key verse, key concept that deals with the first seven verses. It's an imperative and it's a continual imperative. Always be in subjection.

And it's a military term. So if you're a private, you are under pretty much everybody else. You're under the sergeant. You're under the corporal. You're under the under a corporal. No, under Colonel. See, what do I know?

Voluntarily giving yourself a subordinate position because you realize somebody is over you. And isn't this interesting? Look at verse one to the governing authorities. To those who have something to hold over you.

That's what authority means, to hold over. They have power. They hold it over you. And what I like is God's word is so transcultural, so transchronological. How would God ever anticipate, well, are we going to be under fascism or Nazism or communism or the latest ism?

He just says all governing authorities be subject to them. Whatever kind you have. Say, yeah, but they're ungodly. Submit. They're godly. Submit. They're incompetent. Submit. They're good. Submit. They're wicked.

Submit. It's reasonable. Submit. One man said, no caveats. Yeah, but Paul, you certainly didn't suffer much under government. Really? So let's go over Romans chapter 13. If you're new here to the church, we're going chapter by chapter.

So it's going to be pretty fast. Let's look at Romans 13 verses 1 to 7 as we deal with submission. Then he circles back around to talk about love and the second coming. But for the first seven verses, let me give you some helpers on the hows and whys of submission to government.

I think it will help you submit to the government because it's hard to do. It's hard to submit to a government that kills babies in the womb or at least funds it. It's hard to give money to the government, submit to them when they pay for RU486 and other day-after drugs and give them to our 15-year-old girls.

It's difficult. So let me give you six hows and whys of submission that should help you since you're a justified person. Number one, submit because all government comes from God. Submit because all authority comes from God.

God is sovereign over everything. God delegates his authority to humans on this earth. See the verse, verse 1 of chapter 13. For there is no authority except from God. And he gives another little nuance here.

And those that exist have been instituted by God. True or false, God has all authority. True, he's sovereign. And God then delegates authority. He delegates authority to a father in the home. He delegates authority to elders in a church.

And he delegates authority to the government for nations and societies. God has all the power. And he in his sovereign working has decided to delegate authority. He could be on this earth like he will be one day, like the sun will be.

But for now, he's not. It was God's idea to have government. It was his plan, his wisdom. Proverbs 8, by me kings reign. Daniel 2, he removes kings and establishes kings. Daniel 5, remember Nebuchadnezzar was acting like a cow until he realized that the most high God is ruler over the realm of mankind.

And he sets over it whomever he wishes. It was Romans chapter 9 when Paul, speaking for God, says, I raised up Pharaoh. Nero had delegated authority. The first 12 out of 14 emperors who were homosexual had delegated authority.

Going back to Nero, he's the one that opened up his mother's womb to see the place where he was born, out of where he would be born. President Obama has delegated authority from God. Do you refuse to speak to me, Pilate said?

Do you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you? Jesus answered using the exact same word here. You would have no authority over me unless it had been given to you from above. Delegated authority from God.

Paul goes on to say, see the other nuance there at the end of verse 1? Those that exist have been instituted by God, the ultimate authority. How do I know that a government is ordained by God? Answer, because it exists.

Anarchy is not good. Whatever kind of government there is means that God has ordained it. He's established it. It is his idea. We don't want when everyone did what was right in his own eyes. What you have in America is better than anarchy, and it is designed by God as the ultimate sovereign.

Literally, the Greek would be standing permanently established by God. The starting point of the argument about government is God is sovereign in granting government to be over us. Daniel 4, three times it says, the most high is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whom he wishes, verse 17.

Verse 25, most high is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever he wishes. Verse 32, most high is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever he wishes. And he has wished to bestow it on our current administration.

You see, I didn't vote for him. I didn't vote for the president. I hope you do vote. It's fine to vote. It's fine to run for office if you'd like. But three persons voted for President Obama to guarantee his victory in a theological landslide.

The father, the son and the spirit all voted for President Obama and he, God, bestowed the presidency on whomever he wished. No loopholes here. Number two, see, it's kind of hard, isn't it? Simple, but hard.

How do justified sinners act? Well, they submit to government. One, because all authority, all government comes from God. Number two, submit because opposition to God's ordained government is really opposition to God.

If you're going to stiff-arm God's government, you're stiff-arming God because it's related back to verse one. God has ordained government. If you go against God's ordained government, you go against God.

Same military kind of terminology here, where you're pushing against, you're in battle array, lining up against God. Who wants to line up against God? I don't. This is just logically coming from verse one.

Military array against enemy forces is the one who lines himself up against God. The word opposed there means against, stand, to stand against. Now, what does the text say in Romans chapter 13? He resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur.

King James is wrong here, thinking it's eternal judgment. They say damnation, but it's incur judgment. You break the law, there's going to be a payment. You say, yes, yes, yes, but I know there's a time to disobey the government.

Well, of course, when is that time? When they say, I cannot say from this pulpit that homosexuality is a sin against God, albeit forgivable sin. When they want me to celebrate an unrighteousness of any kind, or they force me to do a gay wedding, I will not do it.

They say, well, you can't preach against sin. You can't preach the gospel. We will respond with Acts chapter 4, judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God, for we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.

Acts goes on to say, we must obey God rather than men. The government can't force me to abort my second child if it's a girl, or fourth, and it can't force me to say, I now will call evil good and good evil.

But anything less than that, it has all the rights and privileges to do. By the way, if you are aspiring to be an elder, that's a good thing to do, but I think you should probably think twice if you're a young man who wants to be an elder, because it just could be possibly in our generation where myself and the rest of the leaders are hauled off into jail and the aspiring leaders are next.

There's a time to disobey, but even then we don't flop on the ground like a fish in a canoe, like Operation Rescue People used to do. If they come in and arrest me because I'm preaching the gospel to you, I'll preach the gospel to the men and women as they arrest me, and they say, put your hands behind your back, and I will submissively put my hands behind my back.

Why? Because justified sinners are a submitting people. Number three, why do we submit to the government? Well, because authority comes from God, number one. Opposition to God's authority is really opposition to God, and we don't want that.

Number three, submit because God says there will be consequences to rebellion. Submit because you should fear the government as God's minister. Verses three and four. For rulers are not a terror, ESV says, to good conduct, but to bad.

Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Well, then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is God's minister, our ESV servant, for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword.

That's the shorter sword that you use to chop off people's heads, like probably they use for Paul's beheading. It's not for spankings on the rear. For he is the servant, our minister of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

Now, as we're going through this, let me just kind of get into you a little bit preaching-wise. Those of you that know me realize that I don't think I'm a legalist, but I don't think you think I'm a legalist either.

You can do what you like with your free time, but I'll tell you what I do with my free time. My free time is not spent getting a barrage of information, both through my ear-gates and my eye-gates, that don't help me submit to the government.

I don't listen, I don't watch, but when I listen to Rush Limbaugh back in the day, and watch O 'Reilly, and watch Hannity, and maybe you're a left-winger, maybe you're watching MSNBC, I don't care who you listen to, and you read Slate Magazine, it doesn't matter to me.

Ask yourself the question, do those things help you submit? Now maybe you're stronger than I am, but they don't help me submit. They help me get mad, and angry, and frustrated. They don't help me submit.

So you know what I do? I just don't submit. No, I don't submit myself to them. I never watch Fox News for political stuff. I mean, if it's on the Drudge Report, I might say, you know what, I need to at least know about this.

But I don't concern myself with that, because I know me. And I start getting mad, they do this, and they do that, and it's this scandal, and that scandal. But none of those things that these people do, with their right-wing conservative agenda, and by the way, if it was back in the days of Reagan, people who were anti-Reagan, they don't help me to submit.

So I personally don't watch that, because I personally have a hard time submitting to ungodly governments. Now, it's interesting what they're called here. God's ministers. God's servants. Just two weeks ago, someone is new to the church, they said, Mike, what do you want me to call you, and what do you want my kids to call you?

I said, well, I want you to call me Mike, and I want your kids to call me Pastor Abendroth. Don't call me Reverend, because there's nothing in me to revere. That's only used of the Lord in the Bible. When I officiate weddings, it says there, at the very bottom, who you are, and it says, clergy, imam, a rabbi, justice of the peace, or other, please explain.

So I always write, minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am a minister in the sense that I minister, I serve. And so, so too, the government is a minister. The people in government are ministers. If you want to call me a minister, you can.

I prefer High Holy Father, but that's another sermon. Fascism is better than anarchy. So the text says, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. There's a reason why in my drug days, in my breaking the law days, I feared authority.

Would you have no fear, verse 3, for the one who's in authority, then do what's good. And if you're going the speed limit, driving down Route 12, and you see the blue lights behind you, you don't have any fear, do you?

But if you're going 85 miles an hour down Route 12, and you see the blue lights, you should be afraid. He's God's servant for your good. God, His goodness and His generosity wants to make sure that people don't run around running amok.

So there's rules and there's laws. Fear of punishment, true or false, is a deterrent. True. Our society doesn't seem to think that, but God does. And so ministers, think about this. Police men and women are ministers.

Fire men and women are ministers. Toll takers on 90. You say, well, they said they were only going to put the tolls up until they made the bridge, you know, and it'd take 10 years, and then they'll stop.

And now we still have to keep paying tolls. I wonder if you said to them the next time you paid, it's hard to do this with E-ZPass, but if you just said, thanks, minister. I wonder what they would say.

A minister of God, doing God's work. If you do the right thing, fine. If you do the wrong thing, they've even got a sword up to the point they can kill you. See the text? Does not bear the sword for nothing.

That word sword there, makarai, means the short sword that you would behead people. And this gives us one justification for military might. Number two, capital punishment. You say, well, I don't believe in capital punishment.

Well, God does, and he's given that over to the government. Whether they want to recognize it or not. Theological justification, both capital punishment and military service. God's an avenger of those who do the wrong thing through his ministers.

Conscience, Wrath, and the Internal Life of Submission

Number four, hows and whys, helpers to submit. Submit, number one, because all authority comes from God. Submit, number two, because opposition to God's government is opposition to God. Three, because there are consequences to insubordination.

And now number four, submit to keep a clear conscience. You want a clear conscience, don't you? Now the other stuff is talk about external, and now we move to the internal. God has given everyone a conscience, and here it says in verse five, therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, through the ordained ministers, the government, but also for the sake of conscience.

I might get punished by the government if I disobey, and I also might be punished by my own conscience that God has given me that light to say right, wrong. What God has given you to distinguish in your heart what's good and what's bad.

Internal standard of defining right and wrong, that guide. It's infallible guide, but it's still a guide. I love what Tozer said about the conscience. There's not a greater quote about the conscience.

The conscience, Tozer said, singles you out as though nobody else existed. What does the conscience have to do with submitting to the government? God wants it from the inside. The right attitude. You ought to be a law-abiding citizen, because you are a justified sinner.

Down with government should never be the chant or thought of a Christian.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're located on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.