Is Armed Resistance Ever Justified?

Well, good morning to you, and it's nice to be with you this morning on this lovely morning that we have together.

And I'm thankful for Pastor Quatro and his kind invitation to come here, and the friendship

I'm able to develop with him over these last few days, and to be with a number of you and other brothers and sisters yesterday, and then now here this morning on the

Lord's Day. What your pastor has asked me to do while I'm here is to talk about the relationship between the church and the state, and the relationship between the church and the state is something that we've had to think about more than we're used to over these last few years.

It's a muscle that we've had to flex and work that we haven't had to flex and work as much in times past, at least in recent times past, but we certainly had to do that in our neck of the woods.

You might have heard about some of the shenanigans that our government put us through in Canada, and there was times where all of our elders,

I'll tell you, during the COVID lockdowns, we actually had a, in our church, we had a document that if I got arrested, who's the point man, if that guy got arrested, who's the point man, if the entire elders board gets arrested, who's the point man, and then there was a dossier of documents that would be transferred from man to man to man, and we had a chain of command if all this were to happen.

We had a, we have a large number of children in our church, a lot of little babies and so on.

My daughter, who's my administrative assistant, recently ran some numbers, and she said that, she figured out that between zero and eight on a typical

Sunday, there's about 270 children, so under eight years old, so that's a lot of babies, and there's a lot of pregnant women and so on, and we have a nursery and a little children's ministry that we do on Sunday, but for that whole season, we canceled all of that because we were afraid that the police would come in and separate the mothers from the children, and so we wanted to keep the mothers and the children and the fathers together for that entire season.

We had secret codes that we would use in case the government was monitoring your phones. We had policies that you had to put your phone in a,

I think they're called a Faraday bag so the government couldn't track the phones because it came up that the government was tracking your phones and so on.

So these were interesting times, and we're thankful that they're behind us, but during these times, you have to sort through a lot of things that you don't, it's in the fire that you sort through these things, and so I suspect that's why your pastor wanted me to come and talk about the relationship between church and state, and what

I'm going to talk about this morning during Sunday's school is I'm going to talk about when is, is this the question

I'm going to ask or answer, is when is armed resistance to the state justified, justified armed resistance, and you might think that's kind of an irrelevant question, it doesn't need to be answered, but I will tell you this, that when you find yourself in a situation that you don't expect to find yourself in, and there's a lot of tension in the air, and combustible fumes in the air, you have to answer these questions fast because there's a lot of people that are reacting in ways that you never even thought you'd be experiencing, and so you hear conversations or you see things online, and people start spreading things, and you're like, okay, so what is acceptable behavior, and what is unacceptable behavior according to God's word as it pertains to our relationship with the government and armed resistance to a tyrannical government, and that's what

I'm going to answer this morning as best I can from scripture. Turn to Exodus chapter 20, and we're going to look at Exodus chapter 20 here, and we're going to look at the sixth commandment which is found in verse 13, and once I read the sixth commandment to you, it's very short, it's four words, you know what it is,

I'm going to bounce around a little bit, but we're going to spend our time talking about the sixth commandment, you shall not murder, and how that pertains to armed civil resistance, but let me have prayer.

Father in heaven, we pray for your blessing upon our time together, this hour that we will share in Sunday school,

I pray your people's hearts and minds would be formed by the truth of your word, and that we would all be strengthened, that sinners be saved, and that our

Lord Jesus would be brought much honor and glory, and it's in his name we pray, amen. So we have right there in chapter 20 verse 13, the sixth commandment, you shall not murder.

I'm going to talk about this in the service this morning at, I believe it's at 10 .30, but the ten commandments are the abiding law of God, these are the constitution of reality, this is

God's natural law that's revealed in the ten commandments, and I want to talk about this commandment, you shall not kill, or you shall not murder.

And one of the keys to interpreting the law of God, as you look at the law of God, one of the keys to interpretation that we can use, is that when the law forbids something, it commands the opposite good.

So, I hope you heard me, when the law forbids something, it commands the opposite good.

So, for example, if you look at the seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery, well what's the opposite good?

You shall love your wife, right? So one of the ways that you love your wife is you don't commit adultery, but that's not the only way, hopefully, there needs to be some warmth and tenderness and love in your marriage.

So when it forbids something, it commands the opposite good, or if you look all the way up at the first commandment, where it says, in verse three, you shall have no other gods before me, what's that, what's the opposite good?

It's forbidding something, it's commanding the opposite good, what's the opposite good? Well, the opposite good is that God shall be your only

God, right? So it forbids having other gods, well the opposite good is that the

Lord God, the triune God of scripture shall be your only God. So what I'm trying to say to you this morning before I begin this sermon, or as I kind of set the table for this sermon, is that what a commandment forbids, it also demands the opposite good as a duty to be performed.

And so we go back down to the sixth commandment, you shall not murder, and then we have to say, okay, well what's the opposite good?

What's the opposite good? It prohibits killing, at least murder, but the commandment, by prohibiting murder, then demands that human life be protected.

So sixth commandment, you shall not murder, prohibition, what's the opposite duty?

You shall protect human life. That's the opposite duty.

If you shall not murder, that means you shall protect human life. Or I could say this, you shall not murder, what does that mean?

I could say, you shall not murder means you shall love your neighbor, and one of the ways that you love your neighbor is by protecting your neighbor's life.

You protect human life. Matthew Henry commented on the sixth commandment and said, it does not forbid killing in lawful war, or in our own necessary defense, nor the magistrate putting offenders to death, for those things tend to the preserving of life.

So, what's he saying? Lawful war, lawful war is lawful because it is designed to preserve life.

So, you obey the sixth commandment, how? By defending your nation in lawful war.

Or, defense of yourself or your family. What's that?

That's preserving innocent life. So one of the ways that you uphold the sixth commandment is you defend yourself and your family, self -defense.

Or, the death penalty, capital punishment. One of the ways you uphold the sixth commandment is by upholding, the government upholding the death penalty, so that they execute murderers to uphold the dignity of human life.

So, there's these principles that the sixth commandment are articulating that are embedded in there.

If you can simply interpret it by saying, what it forbids, it demands the opposite good.

So, what's it demand? It demands self -defense, it demands engaging in lawful warfare to protect your nation, it demands the defense of your family, and it demands that the government use its sword, the sword of the state, to execute, at the very least, murderers to protect human life.

One of the problems we have in my community, in Canada, I want you to know that not every

Canadian is like Justin Trudeau, okay? So, I'm certainly not like him, nor do

I like him. But, he has this catch and release policy now basically of criminals.

And so you have these guys who kill people and he puts them back on the street, and then they go and kill someone else.

And then, he's tried to disarm the citizens, so you can't lawfully carry a pistol on your side, so you have no means of defending yourself lawfully on the street from one of these, you know, goons that go around killing people, gangs and so on.

Well, that's it, he is violating the sixth commandment by doing that. Because if he wanted to protect the community and uphold the sixth commandment, he would execute these bad guys.

And, he would seek to protect his people's ability to defend themselves by letting them arm themselves.

So, what I'm trying to tell you is that there's more to it than just you shall not commit murder, there's this positive duty that is within it, which is you shall protect human life.

And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take that principle and I'm going to apply it to armed resistance against the state.

How do I apply this to armed resistance against the state? And here's what

I'm going to do, I got three headings this morning for your Sunday school lesson. I'm going to talk,

I'm going to define tyranny, okay, and then I'm going to give you some historical examples of lawful use of force against the state, and then

I'm going to give you some scriptural justification for lawful use of force against the state. But when

I say lawful, I mean biblical law. So I'm going to define tyranny, I'm going to give you historical examples of lawful use of force against the state, and then

I'm going to give you scriptural justification for it. And so, and what

I'm stating here is I'm not saying that lawful use of force is an exception to the sixth commandment,

I'm saying the sixth commandment demands it. Because the sixth commandment demands that we protect human life.

Now, when I, as I set the table and I move into the definition of tyranny,

I need to establish a few facts here, some facts. And when

I'm speaking of these facts, or when I'm speaking of tyranny and I'm speaking of the use of force against the state,

I'm assuming that there are branches of government that are independent of each other.

This is a system that you have in your country, I have the same in my country. You have the executive branch, which would be the president.

Ours, technically, is the king of England, would be the executive branch in Canada. But either way, it's the president or the king, they hold executive powers.

And then you have the legislative branch, Senate and Congress, right?

And then you have the judiciary, the courts. So you have three separate independent branches of government, I'm assuming that.

You know, the president doesn't control the judiciary, at least he shouldn't theoretically. The president doesn't control

Congress, the representatives that you send to Washington D .C. These are all separate.

And then, I'm also assuming the independence, while I'm assuming the independence of the three branches of government,

I'm also assuming the independence of the levels of government. I'm assuming that the federal government is independent of the state government is independent of the municipal governments.

So the Perryville government is a government that is independent of the federal government.

They have different jurisdictions. The Arkansas government is independent of the federal government in Washington D .C.

They have different jurisdictions. So I'm assuming the independence of the executive, the legislative and the judiciary, and then

I'm assuming the independence of the federal, state and municipal government.

And, assuming those distinctions and their independence, assuming those,

I will submit to you that when one level of government becomes tyrannical, the sixth commandment requires the other levels or branches of government to resist.

So, if the federal government became tyrannical, it would be upon the state government or the judiciary or the legislatures, if it's the president that's become tyrannical, or the municipal government to resist the tyranny.

So it would be like this. It would be like this. So let's say your president became a tyrant.

It's probably hard to believe that he would ever do that, but let's say he did. And let's say the president of the

United States decided that he is going to kill the firstborn child in every household, just like Pharaoh did, by executive order.

Every child must die that is firstborn. And then the state of Arkansas says, no, that's not happening within our borders.

We don't allow that type of activity in Arkansas. And then the president of the United States says, well, you better think twice about that, because I'm sending in the armed forces to occupy

Arkansas. And then the state of Arkansas says, you will not send in the armed forces to occupy the state of Arkansas, because we will line our borders with the

Arkansas National Guard and with all state police officers, and we're going to call up the police officers from every major city in Arkansas, and we're going to call our citizens to arm themselves to defend the borders against the federal government, because there's no way the federal government is coming in here and killing the firstborn child of every family.

And at that point, you have a hypothetical situation whereby civil war is justified. Now, you say, well, killing the firstborn child might be a little extreme.

Well, let's paint another picture. Say you live in the state of Texas, and there is thousands of illegal immigrants pouring across the border.

And the federal government doesn't want to protect the borders, and the state of Texas decides to protect the borders, and then the federal government sends in their forces to remove the

National Guard of the state of Texas, and the state of Texas says, no, the federal government is not welcome to do that in our state, and the state of Texas calls its

National Guard and calls its police forces and calls its citizens to remove the federal government from the state of Texas, because they want to protect the borders.

There's another flash point where you have a civil war. So let me, painting that picture, assuming the distinction and independence of the various levels of government, and assuming the distinction and independence of the various branches of government, let me get into my sermon here and define some terms.

Let me define tyranny. Let me define tyranny. And this is what

I'm going to do, is I'm going to turn to Romans chapter 13 quickly, and then

I'm going to look at Revelation chapter 13, and I'm going to define tyranny for you. Because I think defining and understanding what tyranny is, is key to understanding when you should resist levels of government with arms.

And so Romans 13 chapter, or verses 2 and 4 defines the role of the magistrate.

Romans 13 verse 2 says, so verse 13 once says, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, and verse 2 it says, therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what

God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment, for the rulers are not a terror, through good conduct, but to bad.

Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. For he is

God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out

God's wrath on the wrongdoers. So you have in that the purpose of government. What's the purpose of government? It's to punish the wicked and protect the good.

Tyranny occurs when the government starts protecting the wicked and punishing the good. That's tyranny.

Now turn to Revelation 13, and we'll see tyranny defined also.

Revelation 13 verses 15 and 17 says, speaking of the beast, and the beast is a reference to the book of Daniel where the beast is clearly a government.

Then Revelation 13 verse 15 and 17 says, and it was allowed, the beast was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast.

So you have two beasts. So that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.

Also it causes both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave to be marked on the right hand or the forehead so that no one can buy unless he has the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

So do you see what the mark of the beast, where it goes? Where does the mark of the beast go? It goes on the forehead and the right hand.

Now what's that a reference to? The mark of the beast being on the forehead and the right hand.

Well what do you do in your head? You think, and what do you do with your hands? You work. And then with that knowledge you look at Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 5 and 8, and I'll read it for you.

You'll recognize the verse, you already know what it is. In Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 5 and 8 says,

I'll read verses 6 through 8 I guess. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not, oh I'm sorry I'm looking at the wrong passage here.

I don't even know where I am, I'm getting lost. Anyway what I'm referring to when

I speak of these things, it's been a long night, or a long few days. But what

I'm referring to is where the Lord God says in his law that you are supposed to, here it is, yeah there it is,

Deuteronomy 6 verses 5 through 8, 6 through 8 is what I'm looking for. It says in these words

I command you today, Deuteronomy 6 verses 6 through 8, in these words I command you today should be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children, you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

So what's God saying? He's saying the law of God is to be between your eyes, your forehead and on your hand.

The law of God is on your forehead and on your hand. But where's the beast put his mark? He puts the mark on the forehead and on the hand.

And so what's tyranny? It's when the beast wants his rules to replace the law of God because the beast wants his mark on your forehead and on your hand.

And in Deuteronomy 7 God wants his mark on your forehead and on your hand.

And what's his mark? His mark is his law. And the law of the beast replaces the law of God on your forehead and on your hand.

Tyranny occurs when the beast tries to replace the law of God with his own law.

That's tyranny. So that's tyranny defined. Revelation chapter 13, the mark of the beast on the forehead and on the hand, it's a reference to the law of God when the beast tries to replace the law of God on your forehead and on your hand with his laws.

So we've seen this type of stuff, I've seen it. You shouldn't go to church because there's a disease, it's

COVID, right? Or you shouldn't, you know, my extreme example, the government is not going to protect the sixth commandment so it kills the firstborn son, right?

Or the government is binding your conscience to not say certain things.

We have, in our country, hate speech laws that are coming down the pipe. You can't speak out about LGBT, it's hateful.

So what are they doing? They're trying to bind my forehead and my hand, replace the law of God with their law. So that's tyranny.

That's tyranny. And John Calvin spoke about tyranny in his commentary on Daniel and he said a tyranny is when earthly princes lay aside their power when they rise up against God and are unworthy to be reckoned amongst a number of mankind.

They rise up against God and they reject his law. And then Calvin said about tyrants, he said we ought rather to spit on their heads than to obey them.

When a government replaces God's law with its own law, you have tyranny. When a government uses its sword to protect evil and punish the good, you have tyranny.

That's what tyranny is and that's what justifies civil war. Tyranny. So I'm arguing that there's a time to use arms against the state and it's when the state is becoming tyrannical.

Now let me give you a few examples historically of when this has been justified. And remember what

I'm assuming as I talk about using, justifying civil war in arms against the state.

I'm assuming that the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government operate independently.

And I'm assuming that the federal, municipal and state governments operate independently. So you have three levels of government, three branches of government typically in each jurisdiction.

Let me give you some examples of when force was used successfully and justly against tyrannical governments.

Number one was in the year 1215. King John was abusing the people through rapacious taxation, confiscation of property and attempts to control the church.

The barons and clergymen hunted down King John, found him and forced him at the point of the sword to sign

Magna Carta which restored the rights of the people to not be taxed without representation, the rights of the people over their own private property and the rights of the church to operate independently.

So the lesser powers in England united against King John to force him to cease and desist with the

Magna Carta in 1215. There's your first example. Here's another one.

In 1548 the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V attempted to turn the church back from Protestantism over to Roman Catholicism again.

All of the Holy Roman Empire capitulated except one city,

Magdeburg, Germany. The city of Magdeburg entered into defensive civil war against the

Holy Roman Empire. That one city stood up against the Holy Roman Empire and said we will not let you control the church in our city.

The church in our city will remain Protestant. Two years of armed resistance against the

Holy Roman Empire, Magdeburg, Germany and finally as the Bible promises, if you resist the devil he will flee from you.

The Holy Roman Empire backed off and the Reformation was saved.

Had Magdeburg not resisted it is likely the Reformation would have been over.

Here's another one. 1642 the English King Charles I abused the power of taxation.

He meddled with the church. He abused his emergency powers. In Parliament defended the

English people and the English church and they went to war against the King eventually defeating him and beheading him.

Restored liberty to the church, restored taxation with representation, restored private property rights.

So what happened? In the King John instance it was a nascent Parliament that defended the people against the

King so you assume the independence of the Parliament from the King. In the Magdeburg instance it was a city so you assume the municipal government is independent of the federal government.

The city defended the people against the Holy Roman Empire. In the 1642 instance the

Parliament defended the people against the King so you assume the independence of the King and the Parliament, the executive and the legislative are independent.

Here's another one. 1688 the English King James II abused the people and meddled with the church.

Various lords and clergymen united and they invited the Dutch Prince William of Orange to invade

England, depose the abusive King and eventually defeat him sending him back to Europe.

It was an organized coup against the King on behalf of Parliament and the lords and you assume in that instance that the

King is to be independent of the legislative branch. The legislative branch is independent of the King so the legislative branch with their backing invites the

Dutch King over to depose the English King because the Dutch King promised the people liberty.

He gave them liberty so that you go from 1688 that revolution which was called the Glorious Revolution and that goes to 1689 where the

English Parliament under King William, Prince William of Orange and his wife

Mary, under King William and Queen Mary the English Parliament then passes the

English Bill of Rights which guarantees the people the right to bear arms and freedom of worship. 1689 after that English Revolution.

Here's another one. 1776, you know this one right? Britain's Parliament was abusing

America, the colonies, the American colonies with taxation and there was real fear that they were about to take control of the church by installing bishops over the independent

American churches. The colonial governments resisted with the Declaration of Independence and the

Revolutionary War. The American Patriots stood in their justification of their cause, stood on the shoulders of English Patriots who fought against King James in 1688, against King Charles in 1642 and against King John in 1215.

So the American Patriots really in that sense viewed themselves as loyal to the vision of these ancient

English men who defended their people against tyranny. And then in the

United States you had the forming of a union of states who promised to uphold the rights of the people.

And then private property rights, the right to bear arms, no taxation without representation, so on.

So there's some historical examples of where this has happened. Five historical incidences of civil war where a lesser magistrate rallies the people to defend against higher magistrates.

A French document called Venditti Contre Tyrannos written in 1579 says, and if the tyranny have gotten such a sure footing is there is no other means but to remove him that it is lawful for them to call the people to arms.

Now what you need to understand is what I'm advocating here is not mob rule like the French Revolution or the

Russian Revolution. That was mob rule. That was a mob in the street storming the governing offices or whatever you have and dragging the king out and killing him, so on.

That's not what we're talking about here. I'm talking about one level or one branch of government defending the people against another level or branch of government.

So I'm saying that the American Revolution was not like, for example, the

French Revolution or the Russian Revolution where it was mob rule in France or Russia. I'm saying the

American Revolution was an organized revolution around the colonial governments who interposed between the people and the tyranny coming from England.

So it's very different. So when we talk about the use of arms to resist the state, we're not talking about a bunch of people gathering in the streets and firing guns at the governor or the president or something like that.

We're talking about one level or one branch of government calling the people to resist so that it's organized.

And I think the Bible would forbid us from the type of resistance that you saw in France or Russia, but I believe that the

Bible would uphold the type of resistance that you saw in 1776 or in 1688 or 1642 or 1215.

Those are ones that I think the Bible protects, but when it comes to mob rule, I think the Bible condemns that.

So let me give some scriptural justification for this. Let me give you some scriptural justification as I wrap this up, what

I'm teaching you. And the first scriptural justification I want to give you is back in Romans 13, verses 2 through 4, which says, therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what

God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is

God's servant for your good. But if you're doing wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he's a servant of God and avenger who carries out

God's wrath on the wrongdoer. And so what is Romans 13 telling us? It's telling us the role of the government, which is in this context to defend the good and terrorize the evil.

That's the role of the government, which includes terrorizing evil that is perpetuated by other levels of government.

So when my hypothetical example, the federal government comes in and says, we need to kill every firstborn child in every family.

And the state government says, we will not comply. We will defend our borders.

What is the state government doing at that point? It's obeying

God's commission to it, which is laid out in Romans 13, which is to defend the good.

So at that point, the state becomes the rallying point to defend the good. And they're saying, no, we won't comply because our job is to defend the good and punish the wicked.

And at this point in time, it's the federal government that is the wicked people. That's happened in 1776.

That's what happened in 1688. That's what happened in 1215. As you had levels or branches of government that were independent from a federal government that then said, we will, even if our federal government is not upholding its duties, these lesser levels of government will uphold their duties.

And part of their duties is to protect the people in the lesser levels of government or under the lesser levels of government.

Now, this is a interesting story in the Old Testament. It's a few in the

Old Testament here. King Saul in 1

Samuel 14. So go to 1

Samuel 14. And we see there's a conflict between King Saul and King David, verse 44 -45.

King Saul threatened unjustly to kill his son, Jonathan. So he had a son,

Jonathan, and Saul wasn't happy with Jonathan. And King Saul threatened to kill him.

And what happened? Saul's army launched a coup against Saul.

They stood between Saul and his son in verse 14 -45 of 1

Samuel 14. And the first strike which Jonathan and his armor bearer made killed about,

I'm sorry, 44 -45. This isn't my day. Verse 44. And Saul said, God do to me and also you shall surely die,

Jonathan. Then the people said to Saul, shall Jonathan die who has worked this great salvation in Israel?

Far from it. As the Lord lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day.

So the people ransomed Jonathan so that he did not die. So in that instance,

Saul was going to kill Jonathan and the people said, no, it will not happen. They refused. They put themselves in between the king and Jonathan.

The Magberg Confession written by the Magberg men, the resistance against the Holy Roman Empire, said in this case, they either defended him by force or certainly were ready to defend him by force and that not without just reason.

Interestingly, in 1 Kings 15 -11, they're under tyranny.

There's another, here's another example of it that God blesses. 1 Kings 15 -11.

And King Asa was a righteous king, it says in verse 11. It says, and Asa or Asa did what was right in the eyes of the

Lord as his father David had done. He was a righteous king. And he begins his reign as a righteous king by deposing the queen.

Verse 13, he also removed Maaka, his mother, from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah and Asa cut down her image and burned it at the

Brook Kidron. So Asa begins his job as king by removing the queen.

So again, what did he do? He put himself between the queen and the people. The prophet

Elisha in 2 Kings 10 -30 anointed Jehu as king of Israel and his first order of business was to assassinate

King Joram of Israel, then Queen Jezebel, then Ahab's descendants, then the prophet of Baal or the prophets of Baal.

And then in 2 Kings 10 -30, God blessed them for it. So they launched a coup against the government lawfully and then

God blessed them for the coup. So what's my point in listing all of these instances?

Is to say a justified civil war occurs when a civil magistrate takes a principled stand against another civil magistrate to defend the people from tyranny.

He organizes his people against the tyrant. This is not mob rule.

This is an organized effort but under one level or one branch of government to arm the people against another level or another branch of government so that those people will resist tyranny successfully.

And this is all rooted in the 6th commandment because the 6th commandment means that we must defend human life and natural rights.

When one level of government disturbs the peace of the people, other levels of government have a

God -given duty to resist that disturbance of the peace. So if a guy shows up at your house tonight and there's a home invasion, well you have a right to defend your home.

If the police show up at your house tonight and want to murder you, you have a right to defend your house and your family.

If it was an unlawful and corrupt police force. And if another government, so the federal government decides to show up in a state and occupy that state, then the state has a right to defend itself and a responsibility to.

And so what I'm suggesting to you is that in these tumultuous times, you never know when things are going to get real lit.

And sometimes when things get real lit, there's people that will try to suck you into crazy ideas.

Well you don't want to get sucked into mob rule type mentalities like popular uprisings.

That goes nowhere good. That's French Revolution and it's just blood pouring through the streets. But if there is a level of government that rises up and says it's time to resist, then

I don't think it's just a matter of will you, should you, it's you must help them.

You must get behind them. And I don't know about you, I'm starting to wonder if in these crazy times in which we live,

I watch what's going on here and I watch what's going on in my country, I'm starting to wonder if things are going to get solved or if they're able of being solved any other way.

It's almost like we're getting very close to the point where we actually need a civil magistrate to stand up and say no more.

That's not going on within our city. I don't care what the state government says. Or that's not going on in our state.

I don't care what the federal government says. And then for the people to support them.

And if that lesser level of government calls the people to arms, then it's the people's duty to back that lesser level of government.

So we have an instance in our country where we have a federal, the federal government is imposing a carbon tax to save us from global warming.

If they tax us more, then Canada will get colder apparently.

I don't know why anyone would want Canada to get colder. But apparently this is how they're going to do it.

Well one of the provinces in Canada has said, they've told the federal government, we are refusing to collect the carbon tax in our province.

And one of the ways that they're taxing the people is on their heating. So heating bills are going up by two, three hundred bucks a month in the winter.

Like it's cold country. And so they're taxing them on their heating. And this one province in Western Canada, Saskatchewan has said, we are not collecting the carbon tax and we are not allowing the federal government to come into our province and tax the people this way.

And there's an example of a lesser magistrate rallying the people to a just cause, an unjust tax.

That's just basically trying to freeze them out in a cold winter when it gets 30 below.

And now they're having to pay two, three, four hundred extra bucks a month. And when we're already dealing with record levels of inflation just to keep warm.

And so what would happen if Justin Trudeau sent in the army to that province and said no, you're going to collect the carbon tax and if you don't like it, we're going to call their people to arms.

And say the army has to go, we're employing our own police force, we're employing our own citizens and we're driving the federal government out of this province.

We're not dealing with this. That's justified. It's a lesser magistrate.

The lesser magistrate becomes the rallying point. The political, so here's what

I'm trying to say is, is you have this, you have government that's ordained by God to protect the people.

And so when one government gets out of whack, it's upon another level of government to put things back into check.

And so I think, I think that this, the overturning of Roe versus Wade is something to celebrate in the

United States. God's blessed you. We don't have anything like the pro -life movement in our country that you have here.

And God has, that's a sign to me that God is still showing favor towards America. But let's say, let's say

Biden got in for another four years and he was to appoint a majority on the

Supreme Court. And then the Supreme Court overturns the overturning. So now

Roe versus Wade is now brought back into effect and now abortion is now lawful again, lawful.

But the state of Arkansas has all these laws against abortion. I believe that in the interest of defending human life, it would be upon the state of Arkansas to say we will not comply with the

Supreme Court order to allow abortion within our boundaries. Because we must defend the life of the unborn.

And I think the states made a, I mean, I'm commenting on this as an outsider, so forgive me for that.

But I, I do believe that this principle applies, that the states made a mistake when they complied with Roe versus Wade.

I don't think they should have. I think they should have said the Supreme Court is mandating murder within our states and God has appointed our independent states to defend the unborn in our land.

So we're not going to have the blood of the innocent spilled in this land, in this state. So there's another example where this could happen.

But it's not upon individual citizens to stand outside of abortion clinics and start, you know, knocking off abortion doctors with guns.

That, that's wrong. Because that's not the, that's not the rallying point. Right? God hasn't appointed you as, as a government.

Now, if the government shows up in your house and wants to kill your kid, now you have a right to defend your home and your family.

But you don't have a right to show up at an abortion clinic to defend the child. That's the government's job.

And it should be the government that's going into those abortion clinics and arresting the abortion doctors and hanging them for all to see.

That's what they should be doing. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to caution against one side.

Don't get involved in mob rule, vigilante justice, any of this stuff, if things get tense. But what I am trying to say is if there is a level of government that stands up against tyranny, you have a responsibility to back them and rally to them.

And I think that's a scriptural prerogative. So I hope that's helpful for you. And I hope this helps you think through things in these very strange times in which we live.

Let's have prayer together. Father in heaven, we thank you for the word of God. And we are grateful for the wisdom it provides.

And we pray that you would restore liberty in this land and across the world.

And you would use lawfully appointed magistrates to do so. That magistrates would rise up who would have a backbone.

And that people would stand behind them. That you would embolden your people and embolden the church.