WWUTT 1360 Q&A Romans 13, Opening the Church, Confidence in Christ

Are you in sin if your church is shut down and there's nowhere for you to go to church? Does Genesis 9, 5, and 6 say that a government is to preserve human life?

And how are we to submit to governing authorities? The answer is when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text, a daily

Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me for this episode, but you knew that was coming, right?

In fact, I've had to come to a decision regarding the Friday episode of this broadcast. I'm going to have to keep this the same length as all of the other episodes that I do during the week.

So between 20 and 30 minutes in length until we can close on a house and I can move my studio back home again.

Right now it's at the church and I'm driving back and forth from the house that we're staying in to the church.

That's a lot of extra time adding in the prep that I have to do and all of that kind of thing. So and especially when it comes to the

Friday episode, I'm often tired by the time I sit down to do this. And those of you who are regular listeners, you know how tired

Becky is already when we sit down to do the Friday episode. So this is going to be on the shorter end until we're able to to move the studio back home and be praying for us about that.

We've found a place that we really like. We've made an offer on it. The owner came back with an offer.

We made another offer. They've come back with an offer. And now we're just kind of sitting and waiting to see if we really want to take that offer because we're at top dollar already.

We're like at the very top of our budget. Can't go any higher. But this market here in Lindale, it's tough.

It is a very, very tough housing market right now. Be in prayer for us that that hopefully the seller will take our second offer.

We really do like this home. We think that that it would it would do great for everything that we need. So be in prayer about that for us.

If the seller decides not to make the deal, it's not going to be the end of the world. We'll just go back to hunting again.

But of course, we really want to be able to get our own place and get settled in.

There's a lot coming up for us in the near future. And having our own house would certainly be a blessing if the

Lord would so open that door for us. Please, Lord, let it be so. Thank you so much for all your encouragement and support.

We've had a few people that have emailed and said, how can we support the ministry? Because previously, the links on our website directed you to First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, which, of course, is not where we are anymore.

We're at First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas. So how can we support the ministry? I've mentioned in the past that you can pay palace if you like.

My email address connected to my PayPal is Pastor Gabe Hughes at Gmail dot com.

In fact, actually, I did link the when we understand the text Gmail to that as well.

So you could always send it to when we understand the text at Gmail dot com.

I've been talking with a few people about the possibility of turning when we understand the text into its own nonprofit.

Justin Peters does that with his ministry. I've talked with him a little bit. Tom Buck here, who's the pastor of First Baptist Lindale.

So we've had some discussions about that. That's probably not going to be any time in the near future, but maybe somewhere down the road when we understand the text will become its own thing.

In the meantime, if you would like to give a donation to us, it wouldn't be tax deductible, but you can send it to when we understand the text at Gmail dot com through PayPal.

That's the email address connected to PayPal. And of course, that's also where you can send your questions.

On Friday, we respond to questions from the listeners. All three of these questions have to do with the study that we did this week in Romans 13 on Monday and Tuesday.

We did exposition of Romans 13, one through seven. On Wednesday, I did some applications specifically responding to an article that was written by Jonathan Lehman about why churches need to obey the government and shut down in the midst of a pandemic.

I responded to that and said, no, that's not what Romans 13 says. And we must instead go with the apostles in Acts five, who said we must obey

God rather than men. One of these questions that I have here has to do with that article from Dr.

Lehman. This first one comes from Andrew. He says, hi, what I have watched a bunch of your videos and they have been a blessing to me.

I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and they have imposed lockdown orders on religious gatherings to 10 people or less.

And it's disappointing that the church I attend decided to close down. And there doesn't seem to be a church to go to that wants to fight these lockdowns and restrictions where I live.

I'm quite disappointed and I feel like I'm under great sin because I'm forced to stay at home for the next two weeks, at least not going to church.

What would be your advice to me? I want to be very clear that I'm not afraid to go to church, just that it's hard to assemble where you can't find a church in my area to gather because of church leaders shutting down and not putting up even a little fight.

Well, Andrew, whether you're in sin, that's going to be between you and the Lord. My suggestion was that all churches should remain open and each person can decide on their own, according to their own conscience, evaluating their own health, whether to go to church that day or to stay home.

But if the church is just closing its doors, then it's shutting out even the healthy and the message that is being sent to people, because there is a message being communicated in that action.

The message that's being sent is that your physical health is more important than your spiritual health. Another message that's being sent really is that the government has more authority than God.

Now, that's not expressly being stated, but that is what is being communicated. Even though God says that we must gather, show love to one another, which, as I said earlier this week,

Romans 12, you're just following those instructions. You can't do it unless you're together with the church. So as God has said for us to be together as the church and love each other, practicing church discipline, coming to the

Lord's table, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, sitting under the public teaching of the word of God, these are instructions that have come from God.

But if we're not gathering to do that, because the government has said, hey, there's a virus, so you need to close your church and stay home, and we're all going, okay, then the message that's being communicated is the government really has the supreme authority here.

And we're obeying the government rather than God. That may not be expressly stated, but that is the message that's being communicated.

And it's killing people. There are people that are already very, very depressed, struggling in deep anxiety and feeling farther from God than ever because churches have been shut down.

In fact, I just saw a survey that was published from Lifeway. This was a couple of months ago, but that people's

Bible reading habits have diminished in 2020. So it was something like an 8 % drop, which was the largest drop in a single year ever of the number of people saying that they read the

Bible regularly, an 8 % drop. So even though people are sheltering in place and they're staying at home, and we are connected to Bible teaching more than we've ever been through the technology that's available to us, yet more people in 2020 said that they're reading the

Bible less than they have in a long time. This is having a massive detrimental effect on our spiritual health, and that is far more deadly than whatever this virus is doing.

By the way, if this were to have happened even 100 years ago, let's say at the early part of the early part of the 20th century or even going back to the 19th century.

If this were to have happened 100 years earlier, a virus just like COVID -19 were to have affected a massive population of people, and it had a fatality of less than 1%.

Less than 1 % of you who get this virus will die. You know what everybody would have said back then? Wow, really?

That's it? Okay, I'm taking my chances. Now, again, I don't think that we throw caution to the wind.

I think that there is a wise way to handle these things, but closing the church down is not wise.

In fact, it's disobedient. And the shepherds that are locking out even the healthy from the church are going to have to answer to God for this, and that should be the scariest thing of all.

We must obey God rather than men. We cannot be in fear of a virus or even our government.

And so we keep the doors of the church open, there probably are going to be repercussions for that.

I'll be real with you. In some of the places where you live, the government may crack down on you more than in other places.

There might be some repercussions for that. But we live in the fear of God. As I've read to you from Proverbs 1 -7 in the

Proverbs study we're doing right now on Thursday, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge.

And Isaiah 66 too, all these things my hand has made says the

Lord. And so all these things came to be, but this is the one to whom

I will look, he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

I think that we do need to honor the emperor as Peter says in 1 Peter 2. But we recognize that the emperor has the authority that he has because God has given it to him.

And he would not have any authority if not for the fact that it had been granted by God. We must still obey

God. We must submit ourselves to him who judges justly and be an encouragement and a strengthening to one another in the church as we should be, especially in these trying days.

Let us gather together as the church being respectful. We're not trying to be rabble rousers.

We're not trying to cause a disruption. We're not trying to shake a fist at the government with one hand while we have a hymnal in the other hand.

We just desire to be with the people of God, worshiping and glorifying God. And so anyway,

Andrew, if I have any answer in there for you in that, it would be to encourage you to talk to your elders about that and talk to your other brothers and sisters in the

Lord that are part of your church and get their feedback on it as well. Start talking about these things.

What is it that we need to do that we can be together again as the body of Christ because we want to be, but most of all, because we want to obey

God. We desire to honor Christ who died for us, who purchased us with his blood, who is purified for himself, a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works, as it says in Titus 2 14.

And one of those good works we're zealous for is the gathering of the church. This next question comes from Kevin in Lubbock, Texas.

Dear Pastor Gabe, I know this question is tired and I feel silly even for asking it.

Well, I'm glad to help you feel silly by answering it for you, Kevin. But I'd just be curious to hear your answer.

You mentioned that we should submit peacefully to governing authorities. What about the

Revolutionary War? Should Americans have submitted to the King of England and not gone to war against them?

Would we be a nation today if we followed Romans 13 1 through 7 to the extent that the Bible gives us these instructions?

You may have answered this on the podcast before. And if so, just shoot me a link to the episode and that would be great.

Thank you for your ministry and being willing to tackle hard subjects. Well, I think in response to this question before, because I have had this on the podcast before,

I may have just said I'm not a historian in the sense that I could really give an informed answer to that question.

But I simply would say this, that the King of England was not our king in the Revolutionary War.

And so for England to send soldiers over here to fight us, they were invaders. The Revolutionary War was a defense of our freedoms here to be our own country.

The king had no claim on us. So in that sense, we're protecting ourselves from an invader.

We're not defying the king's authority because he didn't have any authority over us.

We were our own government at that time. And I, you know, I use the term us very, very loosely because that was the beginning of America and I'm an

American. Anyway, that would be my answer to that question without going into something deep and probing into history.

This next question comes from Jonathan in Franklin, Tennessee. And Jonathan has a question about Jonathan Lehman's article.

This isn't Jonathan Lehman. Anyway, now that I've confused everybody, dear

Pastor Gabe, I have so appreciated your explanation of Romans 13 this week. Do you have a link to that article from Jonathan Lehman?

I'm interested to read the rest of the article. Yes. And I've sent that back to Jonathan. I had one question about your explanation on Genesis 9, 5 through 6.

Lehman said, as you quoted, that governments possess authority if for no other reason than to preserve human life.

You read Genesis 9, 5 through 6 and said Genesis 9 does not say anything about that.

I agree with you. But before you read that, I would have agreed with Lehman that a government's responsibility is to preserve human life.

You said a government's responsibility is to uphold or preserve justice. And that makes way more sense.

My question about that, though, is this. Is it wrong to say that a government exists to preserve human life?

Is that not a good thing for a government to do? I've heard a few teachers say this in regards to Romans 13.

And I'm just wondering if it's a nuanced thing and not necessarily an error in interpretation.

Thanks again. OK, let's come back to the statement that Jonathan Lehman made. And then I'm also going to read

Genesis 9 and give the same answer that I gave on Wednesday. Hang on.

I'm bringing up Genesis 9 here because I didn't have this in front of me first. Here's the statement that Dr. Lehman made.

Governments possess authority if for no other reason than to preserve human life.

See Genesis 9, 5 through 6, Genesis 9, starting in verse 5. And for your lifeblood,

I will require a reckoning from every beast. I will require it. And from man, from his fellow man,

I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.

For God made man in his own image. So Dr. Lehman, and according to Jonathan here, several other teachers as well, have used

Genesis 9, 5 and 6 to say that a government's obligation is to preserve human life.

And I said that this verse actually doesn't say that because this would be the

Lord enacting the death penalty, a life for a life. So you're not preserving human life by killing a person who kills another.

There can be just some confusion in the language there. So a better way to say that would be that the obligation of the government is to preserve and uphold justice.

That's really what Genesis 9, 5 and 6 says. And that's definitely what Romans 13, 1 through 7 says, that the government's responsibility is to uphold justice, to promote that which is good and to punish those who do evil.

If you want to use the language that the government's obligation is to preserve human life, if that's their primary responsibility, then you're really giving the government a license to do whatever they want to do as long as it's in the interest of preserving human life.

That just leaves the door open to all kinds of possibilities. It's such an ambiguous statement that wears the limitations on that.

It's not what Paul says in Romans 13 or what Peter says in 1 Peter 2. And both of these apostles are in agreement.

The government is to promote that which is good and punish those who do evil. Good according to what

God says and evil according to what he says in his word. That's very specific as opposed to that the government's responsibility is to preserve human life.

Anyway, so Jonathan, I'm sending you the link to Dr. Lehman's article. I'm going to come back to that article since I've got a little time left and I'm going to pick up where I left off.

So the last statement that I read on that article Wednesday was this paragraph that concluded with Romans 13, 1 and 2.

Dr. Lehman says this, if the government has a reasonable argument to ban every kind of gathering in order to protect life.

And once again, that's not what the government has done. Then churches should act the part of dutiful citizens and obey the government.

They should not just go along with the government by our own free will. As a friend of mine put it, they should positively submit.

Submitting to it is submitting to God. Romans 13, 1 and 2. And I responded to that by saying that is not what

Romans 13 says. And rather, we must go with the apostles who did submit to governing authorities and follow their example in Acts 5, 29, when they said we must obey

God rather than men. Dr. Lehman continues by asking this question, why should the government's authority come first?

Now, he should be following that question with an answer from Scripture.

Well, here's what the Bible says, but that's not what he does. So let me repeat the question and here's how he answers it.

Why should the government's authority come first? Because preserving life now allows for the freedom to gather later.

You cannot gather as a church if you are dead. Paul, therefore, tells us to pray for kings and to lead peaceful and quiet lives so that people can be saved.

First, Timothy 2, 1 through 4. First, peace and safety, then church work, at least typically, unquote.

That's the paragraph from Dr. Lehman. So why? Let me let me go back through that again.

So why should the government's authority come first? Because preserving life now allows for the freedom to gather later.

Was that how the apostles responded to the threat of death?

When they were told, if you don't be quiet, we're going to beat you up. Did they were they quiet?

Peter's response in Acts 5, 29, we must obey God rather than men. That comes because they continue to preach the gospel and that Christ was the risen

Lord. They had been warned not to teach in that name, but then they let the apostles go.

Then they arrested them again and said, we warned you, we strictly charged you not to teach in this name.

That's what they said in verse 28. And Peter and the apostles answered, verse 29, we must obey

God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

And we are witnesses to these things. And so is the Holy Spirit whom

God has given to those who obey him. And so we, just like the apostles who proclaimed

Christ, though they knew that they would be persecuted for it, they put Jesus to death.

Christ was put to death by these same men who had now brought the apostles before the council and said, if you don't be quiet, we're going to do the same thing to you.

And they said, we have to obey God rather than men. We've seen Jesus risen from the dead.

So you're going to threaten us with death. What difference does that make to us? And really, that's what our comfort should be as Christians.

A virus might kill you. OK, I worship Christ who raises the dead.

And I just have to wonder how much Dr. Lehman's confidence is in that.

Because he says here, preserving life now allows for the freedom to gather later. You know, the apostles didn't go, hey, let's just wait until all this persecution blows over, because preserving life now allows for the freedom to gather later.

They would never have said something like that. So Dr. Lehman goes on, you cannot gather as a church if you're dead.

Well, that's not what we see in the book of Revelation. We see the gathered church that is in heaven surrounding the throne of God, singing praises to his name forever.

That is the church glorified. And as I said to you earlier this week, what we're doing right now is the church here on earth.

This is practice for what we're going to be doing for eternity in glory. This is a small taste of what we will be doing forever with God in heaven.

Let me read you this from Hebrews 12, starting in verse 22. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living

God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable angels in festal gathering and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of a of Abel.

So you have the assembly who are enrolled in heaven. That's us.

We as the church, we are enrolled in heaven forever with God. When the roll is called up yonder,

I'll be there as the as the old hymn goes. I don't care what a virus can do to me here. I don't care what the government can do to me here.

My trust is Christ who raises the dead. Here's how

Hebrews 12 concludes. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe for our

God is a consuming fire. Amen. I think that's where I'm going to conclude.

Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the goodness that you show to us.

And I pray that we wake up every day rejoicing in God. There's all sorts of things in this world that may kill us and destroy us because the world is coming to futility.

All things are wasting away. They've been subjected to futility because of the sin of mankind. But you have sent a savior who is reconciling all things to himself.

God is reconciling all things to Christ through the through his person and work, making peace by the blood of his cross, as it says in Colossians 120.

Let that be our confidence and our hope. Help us to, as Paul said in Colossians chapter three, to seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, setting our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

For we have died and now our life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, we also will appear with him in glory.

And that's the day we live for. Not for peace and tranquility here on this earth, because we've been told we have no guarantee of those things.

It's wonderful when we can receive those things and we we give praise to God that we would be blessed to have such peace and safety where we live.

But we're not guaranteed those things we must hold to Christ. Let that be our confidence.

Fill us up with the promise of your kingdom and the love for our savior who died and is risen again and has given us the guarantee of that resurrection for all who have faith in him.

I do pray for godly leaders in our nations. I pray for God fearing leaders in our churches.

May they shepherd the flock well. And I pray that for myself as well. Forgive me of any pride that I may have in the midst of these things as we ponder how we are to live as Christians in our present time.

And may I do all things in the fear of God, holding forth your word, teaching it soundly according to the gospel of our

Lord in Christ. It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. This is

When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, gospel -teaching,

Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.