Caesar and the Church

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Get started today at cambridgecollege .edu. Welcome. Hey. How are you?

01:03

Hey, bud. How are you, brother? Andrew Shove. Hey, bud, you want to know what we're talking about?

01:12

Oh, wow. I've seen that. I know something about that.

01:17

Little bit. It's my copy. It's all marked up on my shelf somewhere here. Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host,

01:27

Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the

01:34

Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:46

Welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport.

01:52

Glad to have you here. I am the president of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. I am joined with none other than Bud the

02:01

Wiser. Greetings, brother. How are you? Well, I don't know that I'm any wiser, but I hang around you and it rubs off, you know, proximity matters.

02:12

Yeah, well, we surprised you with this guest that we have in the back.

02:19

I refuse to tell you what the topic of this show is going to be. Didn't even tell you that there was going to be a guest.

02:25

Just figured I would surprise you. You do know this guest personally. So you've actually, wait, you actually endorsed his book.

02:34

There was a thank you in this book to Bud here, as I think

02:40

I remember seeing in the, I got to look for the preface here, where it dedicates to you in this book.

02:48

I was joyously surprised by this, but now my concern is there are two witnesses against me.

02:56

Yeah, yeah. I'm still anxious to see where this goes. It says, I am thankful for the many people who challenged me to think through these issues and whose thinking has impacted my own, especially

03:06

Andrew Smith. Bud, you're number two in this. You know, wow.

03:13

And then Kofi's mentioned in here. Wow. I mean, you're mentioned with guys like Andrew Smith, Kofi, Mike Riccardi.

03:25

I mean, you know, come on, man. You're up there now. I'm blessed with being in an orbit I do not deserve.

03:32

So welcome to the show, Anthony Forthis. I know I mispronounced it, but you're going to correct me on this pronunciation of your name because I've never actually heard anyone pronounce it.

03:46

Forsythe. Forsythe. Okay. So you recently, thanks to a fake pandemic,

03:53

I mean, a disease that was spreading so violently and wildly that we had the same exact death rate as we had years before.

04:04

But it caused you to think through some issues and you've come out with a book called Caesar and the

04:09

Church, A Biblical Study of Government and the Church. And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode is really

04:18

Romans 13. What is it? We've heard a lot of people explain Romans 13.

04:24

And I'm going to encourage people to get Anthony's book. I'm going to just give a plug for it first and then

04:30

I'll have him introduce himself. But Caesar and the Church is the title. It is, what, about 150 pages?

04:38

Yeah, 147 pages. I got through it in one Sunday afternoon. So it is, it's a quick read, but a very good, thorough handling of what really should be behind our thinking when we approach

04:54

Romans 13. So let me first ask you to introduce yourself to the audience.

04:59

And then after that, why did you write this book? I don't know what you really want for introduction.

05:08

I'm Anthony Forsythe. I'm a pastor in Burbank, California, living under the shadow of John MacArthur, who's just 15 minutes up the road, which is small.

05:20

But I've been a pastor for about 20 years, just over.

05:30

And why did I write the book? Mostly because my understanding of this topic was,

05:44

I wouldn't say it was wrong, but it was certainly shallow. It was certainly insufficient. And I'd taught through 1

05:53

Peter not that long before. And the understanding that I had and the depth to which

06:03

I had it just proved to be insufficient for the challenges and the issues that were being raised through the government overreach during the

06:15

COVID era. So I kind of had to find answers.

06:21

I had to know, okay, what are we doing and why are we doing it? Is it okay to open? It's not okay to open. But at the same time, you're seeing different churches take very, very different viewpoints.

06:31

One of the most strange things in our area was that there were other churches that we considered to be absolutely on a par with us theologically, who just totally bowed before the governor, doing everything that he asked and more.

06:46

And so it became essential to really have answers and reasons.

06:51

And for me, it was very much a gradual process. I got some things right initially, and there were some things that I kind of had to work through.

07:01

And I kind of read and listened and took input, heard out people who had different views, and gradually worked myself into what

07:13

I believe is a biblical understanding. And then after a year or so, year and a half after the church reopened,

07:27

I kind of was like, okay, I think I understand. I have the parameters of understanding here biblically that I can just,

07:37

I think I finished teaching for a book of the Bible and I was about to start another one. I just did a, I did a three week series of sermons that was just designed to draw a line under it.

07:47

It's like, you know, we've talked about this a lot. I done a kind of a 15 minute pre -sermon ramble of, you know, this is where we stand on masks.

07:56

And then a 15 minute, this is where we stand on this and what have you over the course of time. And it was a case of, okay,

08:03

I can say what I need to say, cover all the main bases. And in a few weeks,

08:10

I can draw a line under this whole issue. And then courtesy of people like Bud who heard the sermons and started sharing them around, the sermons became a book and I still haven't finished talking about it, but it certainly wasn't drawing a line under it, but it drew a line under it in the sense of,

08:28

I feel that, I feel that in the book,

08:34

I covered everything that, I mean, you know, you could do this in far more depth.

08:41

And I always try and point people to the sermons of Chris LeDuc up at Canon Bible Church up in Oregon.

08:49

He's, he's doing an astonishing job just going through all the thinking and ramifications and what have you.

08:55

But, but my whole book was designed for somebody who isn't particularly heavy in their theology, who is theologically light, who perhaps goes to a church, doesn't even do expository teaching, just so that you can, that you can understand the principles in a simple way that we can walk people through it step by step.

09:18

And it is, it is logical. And it's progressive in the sense that it, it just goes from point to point building on the previous points.

09:27

And it makes, I think, a fairly irrefutable argument. And if anyone does take issue with it, nobody really has in any major way yet.

09:37

Then the structure of the book allows them to say, okay, well, it was chapter six or chapter seven where, where the argument broke down for me.

09:47

So I think, I think it's, I'm really happy with it, quite honestly. I think it's a good, it's a good thing to present to anybody from any church background.

09:56

And as long as they theoretically believe in the authority of scripture and the authority of God, it should walk them through to the correct biblical conclusions.

10:04

Well, that's actually how I described it recently. Someone is, it really is the first book that I'm recommending to folks now to get when they're trying to deal with the whole issue of the role of church and government, because it really is a good primer for it.

10:18

This is, this is like the first book to get, before you jump into any of the deeper ones, because this lays that good, easy to understand foundation.

10:28

And like I said, you can get through it. Funny story for you, Andrew, there was debate over whether the subtitle should include exactly that word primer, because it is a primer.

10:38

That's what it is. It's a starting point. And there was debate over whether the, um, the top, the subtitle should include the word primer.

10:46

But, um, I, I, I, I opted out. On the basis of the argument that the, some of the people who

10:52

I thought should read it might not know what primer a primer was. There you go.

10:58

Yeah. We need a primer to explain a primer, you know, but I just realized on do we, do we need translation for him?

11:04

He, you know, what is that language he speaks? Well, it is English, but it's the pious

11:11

English. I have no ability. We've not been gifted with that tongue. You've not listened to enough

11:17

Lloyd -Jones sermons. So you're originally from the deep

11:22

South, right? The deep South of England, close to the channel.

11:28

Yeah. So, um, you know, one of the things I, when

11:34

I ended up teaching midweek Bible study through this past year through first Peter, because I anticipate that we as believers are going to be dealing with more and more persecution.

11:46

And as I went through that and was getting to Peter's explanation with government and submission to government, and he puts that in,

11:54

I mean, there's, he has a whole category of submission period and lots of ways the extremes of submitting, submitting, you know, to government, submitting to a, you know, a slave to a master, a woman to, you know, to an unsaved husband.

12:09

So it's all these kind of extremes of, of submission. And I was going through it and this is one thing you picked up on when, when

12:17

I was teaching through first Peter, I made an argument. I didn't really hear people making with this whole throughout all of COVID with submitting to government, because we were hearing this, right?

12:30

Bud and I, you, you and I've talked about this on the show and on Apologetics Live, this whole idea of what does it mean to submit to government?

12:38

Do we, do we, is it really loving our neighbor by wearing a face mask, you know, which you've made it all the way,

12:46

Anthony to was, I think Ireland without a mask. So, you know, on a flight. So, I mean, it took a few hoops, but you, you're actually were able to do it.

12:55

I I've, I've only, I would, I'd get on the flights. I have to wear getting on and off the flight. And then after that I would take it off.

13:02

But, one of my proudest moments getting, getting from my house via Uber to LAX from LAX to Heathrow from a

13:12

Heathrow in an Uber to, um, to the place I was staying in England and then getting to Stansted airport and flying from there to Belfast airport.

13:22

And every single step of the journey had a mask mandate and I didn't have to put a mask on once. So rebellious, but I love, but you know,

13:32

I mean like you, we think through all of these things we've been hearing about all these mandates and obeying the law and loving your neighbor.

13:42

And I started as I was going through first Peter, and this is one of the things early in your book, you make the point, and you're the only person that I've really heard make that this point other than me was in, in America, the president's not, then when we talk about who is

13:58

Caesar, it's not the president, it's not Congress, it's the constitution. And so when they make, when the president makes mandates that are unconstitutional, it's not, and you make this case, we're not going against Caesar.

14:14

Yeah. It's funny you picked up on that actually, Andrew, because, and say you hadn't heard it because I only mentioned it almost as an aside.

14:23

Yeah. It's so much. Um, and one of the, and I think the context in which

14:30

I mentioned it early on was in the context of it's all well and good you Americans saying, well,

14:35

I'm going to submit to government and the government is ultimately the constitution and not the president. And that is all well and good and accurate, but that doesn't help our brothers and sisters in Christ.

14:45

Correct. In Australia, in New Zealand, in Canada, in South Africa, in, in Europe, and so on and so forth.

14:52

And so I kind of almost mentioned it in passing because I think there's, there's two aspects here. I think aspect number one is, is, is, is that that is absolutely true.

15:01

The way that the American government struck with the highest authority, um, is the constitution, um, in, in, in a, in a, in a legal sense.

15:10

And, and so, um, that is, that's something that obviously needs to be remembered, but my concern about it was actually almost the opposite.

15:21

It was that there were Christians in America who were saying, well, Romans 13 says

15:26

I have to submit to the government. The government's the constitution. This, this mandate is not constitutional. Done.

15:33

Finish. Period. That's it. And that, that, that a doesn't help your brothers and sisters in other countries who don't have the constitution and don't have a constitutional government and are in a more sort of socially democratic democracies.

15:46

Um, but equally it doesn't wrestle with Romans 13 at all because Romans 13 doesn't say that.

15:52

And that's really the whole premise of the book is that Romans 13 is, um, Romans 13 one has,

15:59

Oh, you know, even there's even half a verse there. It kind of ranks alongside Romans one 16 as being one of the, the most quoted half of verses in the

16:09

Bible. Grab a phrase and wrench it from its context. And, uh, okay.

16:14

That means you've got to do what the government tells you. We've got that done. That's finished. And, and so I think,

16:20

I think the kind of the, this, the strength of the book is that it builds up on a logical foundation.

16:28

And by the time we get to the center in the heart of the book, dealing with Romans 13, I exegete

16:34

Romans 13 in such a way that a Christian who goes to a seeker friendly, charismatic, um, non -expository teaching church, who doesn't even know what exegesis means can be walked, held by the hand and walk through Romans 13 in a way that is simple enough that they understand it, but in depth enough that they've been introduced to exegesis and expository teaching without even realizing it.

17:02

And that, that's my strength in ministry, I think. And that was always the goal of the book. Well, that was one of the things

17:08

I saw with the book was you lay out before you get to Romans 13, you lay out, okay, let's, let's look at culturally, what's going on, what, where we get the whole idea of, um, you know, delegating from, because so you first, and let me just mention,

17:28

I mean, so part one of this is a biblical foundation for principles and that, that whole, those five chapters in each of these chapters are short folks.

17:37

I mean, you can get through a chapter very quickly, but that laying of the foundation I thought was outstanding because you, you didn't even really deal with Romans 13 at that point.

17:48

You're just like, let's look at the issues. And, and, and then, then you're into part two of your book is what is

17:56

Caesar been delegated? And this, that I thought was so great because I don't think people really thought, think through it the way you laid it out of, you know,

18:04

God is the one that gives Caesar the delegation. Caesar doesn't have it. Government doesn't have a delegation because they're government.

18:13

They think they do. And then you, you, you, you can't, you can't do it. And it's very, you know, just in, in principle, you, you, you can't deal with the question, what authority has

18:24

God delegated to Caesar until you've helped people establish the fact that, Oh yeah,

18:29

God has all authorities delegated anyone else to have authority. And it's such a basic concept, but, but ironically it's something that most

18:37

Christians haven't actually worked through. And so that's why the foundations were necessary.

18:43

Before, because otherwise, how would you execute Romans 13? If you're just coming with the premise that the, the, you know,

18:50

Caesar can make up rules and do what he wants and why, why wouldn't he be able to, you know?

18:57

And sadly that's where most Christians are coming from today. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, cause you're two, two thirds through the book before you get to part three, which is responding to a biblical understanding of authority.

19:07

Like you're two thirds through the book before you actually deal with Romans 13. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's,

19:14

I think the structure is the real strength of the book. I mean, you know, like one example is that, you know,

19:20

I am, I'm a, I'm seeing a chiropractor at the moment and I, I gave, it's a

19:25

Christian chiropractor, their Christian office, everyone who works there is a Christian. And I gave everybody who works there a copy of my book when

19:33

I showed up. And each time I go, he says, Oh, I've got a little bit further. He doesn't, he doesn't read much

19:38

Christian books, but he's, so he's kind of just doing a few chapters, you know, a week and he's gradually working it through and he's,

19:44

Oh yeah, that's really good. And he's the target audience. He doesn't go to this kind of church that we go to.

19:49

He doesn't read a lot of Christian books and he's only reading the 10 minute chapters and he's maybe reading one or two a week, but he's getting through it and he's following the argument and he agrees what

19:59

I'm saying. And he said, I've never thought it through like this before. That's who it's for, you know? Well, I, one of the things

20:06

I just want to interject that is so powerful about the book, even though it's, it's pithily written, the principles there are bottomless.

20:16

I mean, there is such depth there that you need to be launched into your ability to have put it in a pithy format and make the argument, especially with and before ever going to what is authority from Romans 13, you're dealing with the principle of authority and Christians don't look behind the content of the text that's being cited to them.

20:39

Oh, well, we've got to shut down because the governor says we have to. Well, you're not asking the question about the issue of authority and you lay that out.

20:48

That is, it's an exceptionally wonderful benefit for people that will work through that and think through that biblically because this is the foundation of Romans 13.

20:58

It is dealing with authority who can do what, what can they do, what are the parameters and most churches didn't do that.

21:06

and you and I talked about it back in January when we did our podcast, you know, people just sort of pluck a verse out of scripture and say,

21:12

Oh, well, there you go. Well, no, it's not. There you go. There's a lot behind the content.

21:19

The problem with Christianity generally right now, I did another podcast with a lady called

21:25

Lynn Brown who, who, who mentioned to me that by the first time I've heard the phrase, she talked about soundbite

21:31

Christianity. I thought that was a really lovely expression, you know, that we are in this, this, this generation of Christianity where our faith is expressed in a meme or in a, on a coffee mug, or you know, we have these, you know, everything is, is boiled down to these kind of little soundbites and you know, there's, there's times when that's good in the sense that, you know, like, you know, being pithy and communicating a lot in a few words clearly is a helpful tool, but in time, the, the, the impact it's had on the average

22:05

Christian's ability to comprehend the concept of context has, has been devastating and it will impact the church for generations forward if the

22:15

Lord tarries, you know? Yeah. I mean, the thing with the need for something pithy is because we're in a culture now where people don't read generally.

22:27

Yeah. I mean, you know, we're, we're helping support the film that hopefully at the time that we're recording, it hasn't fully funded on Kickstarter, but we hope it will.

22:40

The, the film cessationist, um, the, the whole thing with that film is, you know, people look at strange, the strange fire conference, no one, no one is going to go online and watch, you know, however many sessions were there and no one's going to get the book and read.

23:00

I mean, there's people that will, but these guys realize they need something that is in a entertaining media format that's teaching, but it's got to be like no longer than two hours, you know, an hour and a half or two hours because the culture just, they're not going to read a book.

23:17

Generally a large portion are not going to read a book. They're not going to watch something that's too long.

23:24

we're in this culture where it's got to be quick. And, and this book, I mean, it's less than 150 pages, uh, quick for someone who reads a lot, like, you know, you can get through it in, in an afternoon like I did last, uh, uh, was the last

23:38

Sunday, Sunday before. Um, but, but this is, this is a book that anybody can pick up and read.

23:47

I just want, I want to defend the brevity of the book. That is not, um, a liability.

23:54

That is an asset. Correct. Because ultimately we need to understand that. And, and I don't mean this in a bad way.

24:01

The Christian faith is a simple faith. It's, it's very simple. There are principles there that are easy to grasp, easy to understand.

24:08

But if you jerk a principle out of its context, then you can go crazy with it.

24:14

And that's what's happened with this. And, and what Anthony has done is taken these simple principles that, that logically and reasonably build to, well, how should

24:25

I respond in a COVID you've got to shut your church down situation. Is there authority there for them to tell me to do this?

24:31

So the, the brevity of the book is a, is an asset because it reflects, we've got a simple faith.

24:38

It's not simplistic, but it is, it is a simple faith and we can understand the principles.

24:43

I hope that I would. I mean, that's what I was trying to say is that you got me nervous there because, because the thing, look, this is the thing that I liked so much about the book is that it is short.

24:57

I mean, it's what like 15 chapters or 16 chapters. Let me just double check 16 chapters in a book.

25:03

That's, you know, 147 pages. So obviously every chapter short, you can, you can get through this quickly, but the, the thing that I think, you know, let me, let me talk to Bud and pretend

25:16

Anthony's not here cause he'll get a big head. We don't want to give him a big head. but you know what, what

25:22

I really appreciated out of this book is that it deals with the issue of the, the

25:29

Christian view of government and the church and, and how they interact. But there's so much that as I was reading through it,

25:38

I was realizing there's many things that people that are discussing this subject take for granted.

25:46

And what Anthony did was say, Hey, let's step back, start at the beginning.

25:52

This is a really simple thinking here. Let's step back and get our thinking straight. And then once you did that, it's like everything, it's like dominoes.

26:01

There wasn't the need for a long lengthy diatribe because he, he, he backs up the reader says, okay, let's back up and get an understanding of, of the, the concepts here.

26:13

What are we dealing with? What's the, what's the, the context of Romans 13 and then just let the dominoes fall.

26:19

And, and as soon as you get started, it's like, yeah, it makes sense. Like you, the reader is getting there as Anthony is, is leading us to there.

26:27

It's like, I'm, I'm naturally getting going, well, this is the, this is the result of that. And then he says that it's like, he's just leads you in that way.

26:36

In a way that you can interject, we're talking about you in a way that maintains my humility.

26:47

It's the part of the reason for that is because I wasn't informed. So, so people,

26:54

I mean, so many people have said this, that, you, you know, you take the reader and you work on the premise of no understanding and you walk them through.

27:01

Well, that's because that was my journey in a lot, a large degree. You know, when, when this all happens, you talk to a guy like Christopher Duke, who's kind of so well versed in all of this.

27:11

You know, I spoke to Chris a lot and he really helped me in my own thinking and, you know, you know, sphere sovereignty and, you know,

27:18

Kuyper's books and blah, blah, blah, and all of this and that and stuff. And I haven't read any of that. Otherwise I'd have known

27:24

I'd have been doing as well as he was from, from months earlier. And, and so, and so for me, the, the, the, the, what the reason that the book is walks the reader through so carefully and slowly is because that was my own journey.

27:42

And, and if I, if I had been more well read when I started the book, the irony is the book wouldn't have been as good because, because I would have just made too many presumptions and I wouldn't have been as clear.

27:56

And I wouldn't have broken things down as carefully. And certainly the structure in the sense of, you know,

28:03

God has all authority. He delegates authorities, authorities, limited that came about was because simply because that's how it clicked for me.

28:11

And I tell you, I look back at that book now and I look at, okay, so how did I come up with this?

28:18

Well, I did it. So I did it in the preparation for the sermons. But how did I come up with that? Well, I kind of was kind of working through this in the year before.

28:26

And I kind of look back now and it's a blur and I just, I just praise God because, you know, it's,

28:34

I don't think it was through any ingenuity. I think, I think that, you know, God just providentially took me on a journey so that I could help other people who needed to go on the same journey.

28:45

If I'd been smarter, it wouldn't have been as good a book. That's my cliff notes version.

28:50

But funnily enough, an embarrassing, sorry for Bud, this is funny. Bud, when he was helping me with the early drafts, he made a couple of like, why don't you put this?

29:00

And he had a couple of suggestions for like a paragraph here and there and rewrites. And I was like, Bud, I don't understand half the words you've just written.

29:09

There's no way, you know, my target audience is going to understand it. Some people just are too clever and read too many of the

29:16

Puritans to be able to find a book that I wrote. That is not a liability, sir.

29:26

Me being a little less educated than some people is, it worked out as putty in the potter's hands on this occasion.

29:37

You're not implying that Bud's large words would put your audience to sleep or anything, are you?

29:47

Listen, listen, I, I, but my, I'm jealous of Bud because my wife says that his, his voice is the most soothing and listenable to voice there is, or I know that if I say anything for more than about two minutes to her, she'll switch off.

30:02

So Bud is, Bud is eminently listenable too. And no, and you know what?

30:09

I, I'm not, I'm not stupid, too stupid or too proud to recognize my role in ministry.

30:16

And that there are, and in all seriousness, there are guys out there who are astonishingly bright, astonishingly clever, astonishingly well read.

30:25

And people like that help people like me and my realm and my gifting is communicating to those truths to people who wouldn't be able to read that amount and cover that kind of depth and wouldn't have either the ability or the inclination and to simplify these things without short changing them on the meat, uh, either.

30:49

And I, and I think that's kind of my niche in ministry. No, I think it's wonderful because the Lord providentially puts you in this context, historically, this historical context of the

30:59

COVID thing where so many churches, so many pastors, so many believers were getting this issue wrong and they were getting it wrong because they didn't have the fundamentals and you were gifted to be able to come and bring a biblical and reasoned argument on the fundamentals that necessarily lead you to a right application.

31:22

That's your gift, brother. That's not that. That was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is the strength of the book.

31:29

I, but I, you know, with what you said about Bud's voice, I don't know that's necessarily a good thing because we do have, we do have a listener to, to the podcast that she called the ministry one day and, and was saying how she, she listens, she has to listen to my podcasts and Matt Slick's podcasts every night.

31:49

And then she told me the reason is because her dog won't sleep without hearing our voices.

31:55

So she plays it in a loop. She's like, she goes, so I'm like, so you're telling me that I put your dog to sleep.

32:03

You're playing the ministry fame as a canine sedative. Well, hey, listen, this will be a rabbit trail, but we have a woman in the church who she went to witness to a neighbor this week.

32:17

And she's talking to her neighbor and her neighbor says that Christianity is all made up. It's all, you know, she used the word for BS, right?

32:25

So it's all, it's all BS. Right. And you know, then she proceeds to tell the woman in our church that she's got to go because her dog is going to have surgery and she has a pet communicator coming over to the house to help her understand how her dog feels about the surgery that's coming up.

32:50

The woman in our church puts us out in our church group and goes, and she thinks Christianity is the one that's made up.

32:57

She believes in a pet communicator, but it's Christianity that's made up.

33:03

We're back to Romans one again. Oh man. Yes. Amen. We should, we should, she should have got her friends have gotten you around cause you could have put,

33:12

I could have put the dog to sleep and yeah, you know, I tell you what, that's the sentence that, um, that is a really good illustration of the importance of context.

33:21

Yes. Puts dogs to sleep. Yeah, there you go. But listen, if, if, if you do need to get a good sleep,

33:28

I would suggest that you get a good pillow from our sponsor, my pillow, you know, there you could get yourself a good night of sleep, even without the sedative of Andrew's voice.

33:39

That was an amazing segue, but, but, but laughs at my segues.

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34:17

That's 800 -873 -0176 and use the promo code S F E. So yeah, bud never knows how the segues are going to come.

34:25

He's starting to get used to it, but, but bud is actually wearing a t -shirt in, in, in honor of not knowing you were coming in by God's providence.

34:34

But what does your t -shirt there say? Yeah, this is shout out to Rashad, my brother, the government is not

34:40

God. And that's right in line with Anthony, your book that what you deal with, because so many churches were actually acting as if the government was

34:50

God. I mean, government says shut down, shut down. There are still, still,

34:56

I know of churches that are still closed. Really? Yes.

35:02

Yes. Yeah. I mean, I know, I know. I live in La La land out here in LA County, but I mean,

35:11

I still see people occasionally driving in their cars alone with masks on. Yeah.

35:17

I, I, okay. I saw a guy driving a motorcycle with a mask on. I've got a photo of a guy in a convertible with the roof down and a mask on.

35:28

Yeah. So. Pulled out the camera and took the photo and put it in the stoplight. It was like, I have to, I have to document this.

35:36

Wow. Cultural insanity. Yeah. So, you know, this book that you wrote,

35:42

I mean, I don't think you set out to say, Oh, I want to write a book. Cause I mean, this is your first book. And so this is something that I think for a lot of folks, there's been lots of debate on the issue.

35:57

And so let me ask you the question of why do you think, because I think this book is really helpful for people to kind of start in this discussion of debate of how churches should respond to government.

36:09

But to ask you, why do you think there is so much debate on the church conceding to government?

36:20

It's simply because we've, you know, it's like that old meme about, you know, hard times create strong men, strong, you know, strong men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men create hard times.

36:34

And, you know, we've had a period where we've lived in the Western world where we've been able, free to worship.

36:40

And we haven't, we haven't had to address this issue. And I think it's created that, that, that kind of cultural background combined with church going into government into this era of soundbite

36:54

Christianity, where, you know, people's understanding of scripture is determined by memes and, and Instagram posts and these various little soundbites.

37:04

You put those together and everything is overly simplistic. And so, you know, the

37:11

Bible saying, you know, submits to, to governing authorities. That's it.

37:17

That's as deep as most people's Christianity goes, sadly. And so, and so, you know, the, the issue that I address at the beginning of the book is that the reason that churches have had such different views, well, rather than me, the surprises is that churches have had such different views on what to do in practice, despite having the same interpretation of Romans 13.

37:48

So in America, you've had churches that have said, well, the Bible says we've got to submit to the government. So we're going to submit to the government.

37:55

And you've got two churches that believe that. And one of them has their church open in defiance of the government because they say, well, the highest authority is the constitution.

38:03

And another church has got his church closed down because when Newsom says jump and they say how high, and he says six foot and they jump seven to be safe.

38:11

And that, that, that's how bizarrely we've had in California.

38:18

Certainly we've had churches doing the exact opposite in practice and yet having the same flawed interpretation of Romans 13.

38:27

And like I say, the cultural background in the church background has led us to this kind of this volatile cocktail of misunderstanding.

38:37

And the solution, you know, I think I I've expressed in the book, which is working through the issues one at a time, working through these foundational principles and, and really what they're doing in a, in a subtle way is

38:52

I suppose, negatively speaking, you could say they're giving them enough rope to hang their own principles, but, but it may be in a more positive sense.

39:01

What we're doing is we're, we're taking the principles and we're, we're making them think through the false logic that they have.

39:07

So when a Christian says, well, we've got to submit to the government. So the government says, do this. And we have to therefore do it.

39:13

End of story. You're like, okay, so, so why does the government get to say, do this? Is there anything that they would say do that you wouldn't have to do?

39:20

And you're making them think through these things so they can see the ridiculousness of what they're actually saying.

39:27

And it all begins with the first principle, which is something that all Christians seem to agree on, which is that the

39:35

Bible clearly says that God has all authority. So if God does have all authority, then any authority that anybody else has, it's essentially

39:46

God's authority that's been delegated. It's not their own authority. And I think once you've gone over that first hurdle, then everything else just starts to fall like a line of dominoes.

39:56

Yeah. That's a brilliant point. We're, we're with a author, Anthony forces of the book,

40:02

Caesar and the church, which we recommend you getting, because what you just said there is, is helpful because I think that is why when

40:09

I, every book I've been reading on this subject, it goes back generations ago. We haven't had to deal with it because we have had an easy, you know, we've had hundreds of years, at least in America, we've really had it easy, but we haven't had to really struggle with persecution in a lot of the world.

40:30

I mean, there's some places where they do in Middle East and elsewhere, but for the most part,

40:37

Western Christianity hasn't had to deal with persecution. And so that's probably why we're going back several hundred years to find people that are writing on this.

40:46

And I think that's a brilliant point to make. Yeah. And, and, and like I said before, you know, my, my book is, is by someone who hadn't read that history for people who've not had, not read, or are likely to read that history and just to take them through the principles for, you know, for somebody thinking simply in our era.

41:07

Yeah. So, you know, with, with this, I mean, you've, you've said who your target audience is clearly not bud.

41:17

He knows too many big words. I was going to buy it anyway.

41:23

He likes, he likes the topic. So, you know, I got those sales anyway in the bag is for the other people. But I was listening to the sermons back to what you said earlier.

41:32

I was listening to your sermons as you went through this. And, and yeah, so I read a lot of Kuyper.

41:39

I'm, I mean, I'm a Kuyperian kind of guy. So you're, you're teaching and preaching what the same principles that he developed from scripture and, and you're applying them in this unique circumstance.

41:54

So I immediately saw that. Yeah, this is absolutely biblical. The, you know, particularly with a sphere sovereignty that you didn't define things the same way, but that's okay.

42:06

It's still biblical. It still is principle. This still is the fundamentals. And, and that's what the church needs right now, because what we've gone through, this is a blessing of the

42:16

Lord, this whole COVID thing, not only to teach the church, and you've been part of helping teach the church, but also to prepare the church because the other side, the enemy has learned something through this

42:29

COVID too. They've learned that they can assume control where they don't have authority.

42:34

They've, they've learned that and they're not going to forget that lesson. So it's been preparatory for us as a, as a church to know how to respond when the next thing does come down the, down the pipe.

42:46

Yeah. Amen. Couldn't agree more. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that is a good point, but the government has been trying to encroach upon the church.

42:54

I mean, you just have to look at the history of this, of the statement to separation church and state in America, right?

43:01

You think about when Thomas Jefferson first said that he wrote that to a church saying the government won't encroach on the church.

43:11

There's a separation of church and state. The state is not coming into the church. How's that used today?

43:18

They're saying that this, this church has to be completely out of, I mean, we just had a ruling from the

43:23

Supreme court where they said that if you're giving money for, for education, you can't say that your taxpayer dollars can go toward any school of your choice, except a religious one, because that is violating the constitution.

43:41

That that's discrimination because you're choosing a certain people that can't get that tax money.

43:46

But what, what was their whole argument? They're going, well, they can't get it because there's a separation of church and state. They're saying, no, the state, they were, you know, the argument has been for last 50 years is that the state or the church can't be involved in the state at all.

44:03

But now since COVID, we're seeing a new change in the definition of church and state where the, the state has the right to encroach in and speak for the church.

44:14

I mean, the reason I think churches have to be open is because it's kind of in the name church ecclesia.

44:20

It means a gathering together. That's what church means. You can't do church without gathering it's required.

44:30

and zoom just isn't a gathering. So the thing is that it's within the name, but the state is trying to say that they can say what the church can do.

44:42

This, this was one of my arguments when in New Jersey, when I lived there and they were looking to legalize same sex marriage.

44:51

One of the questions I asked when they had the open town hall is, are you in favor of a separation of church and state?

44:59

And every one of those congressmen said yes. And so once I got them all committed to that,

45:06

I said, then you need to stay out of the religious issue. Marriage is a religious issue.

45:12

It's not a state issue. You are violating your, your view of separation of church and state stay out of our issue, which they all just laughed at and went and voted for it anyway.

45:22

Yeah. But doesn't that illustrate Andrew, just how far we've gone with statism. Yeah. They don't.

45:29

The reason they laughed you off is because they don't view marriage as a religious issue. They took over marriage.

45:36

God's God designed marriage, God created marriage, God defined marriage, and now it's theirs.

45:43

They've taken it over. They get to define what marriage is. They get to control it.

45:49

They get to regulate it. It's theirs. They've taken it over. That really is, you know what we're talking about in the book with statism is, is, it's, it's this, this encroach in which the government says,

46:01

I'll have that. Oh, and I'll have that. Oh, and I'll have that. Oh, I'll have that. And they are taking things from God, but God never gave to them.

46:09

And you know, it's, it's, I think one of the things that's come out from the book is just how few

46:16

Christians understand the purpose of government, why

46:21

God has delegated authority to government and what authority the government does have. I mean, I have one kind of, uh, sort of guy on social media just in the last 24 hours following the, the

46:32

Roe versus Wade announcement, um, saying, Oh, you know, look at you

46:38

Christians. You, uh, you know, where's your small government now, you know, you know, government getting involved in this, the government, you know, and all of this.

46:46

And I'm like, you know, I believe in a tiny government. I don't believe in small government. I believe in tiny government.

46:52

I believe that God has given the government a very small amount of authority to do a very limited number of things.

46:58

But one of the things that is authorized to do is to deal with people who kill unborn children is to, is to not legalize that it's to protect the innocent is to, to punish evil.

47:09

Um, and, you know, again, Christians just aren't, aren't, um, educated enough in these kinds of principles.

47:18

And, you know, and again, as we come back to that, that's what the book is seeking to do is give a basic education in these kinds of principles.

47:27

And so the book again is Caesar and the church. The author is Anthony, Anthony forces.

47:33

I keep saying it wrong. So, um,

47:40

I'm just saying it with it, with an American accent. That's no, no, you're not. You're just butchering it.

47:46

I'm losing count of a number of different ways in which you're butchering it. Yeah.

47:51

Yeah. I'm trying though. Try it. but, uh, but, but, uh,

48:00

I think this is really helpful. And I, I do think this is a book that, that every Christian should get their hands on because I don't see this issue going away anytime soon.

48:11

If you think that, well, we're getting back to normal. No, no, we're not.

48:17

This, this is round one of the, the socialist agenda. I mean, they're, they're not done.

48:24

Uh, this is going to continue. And, and if you, you know, my prediction, you know, the

48:32

Democrats will steal the next election. They, they have to, uh, to, you know, to keep, to keep what they have stolen.

48:39

And once they do that, I think they're, you're, you're good. The, the, what you think we went through already is going to be nothing.

48:47

Cause, cause they're, if they do that in another election, they're going to need to keep it and they're going to have to lock down quickly.

48:55

And it's, it's going to be, you're, you're going to see more censorship. You're going to, it's just going to be, we government saying we have the right to close churches because we don't like what they're saying.

49:05

Period. Yeah. That's the next thing. And if you're not prepared to defend that, if your church is saying, well, you know, government says

49:15

I got to put it, you, you guys all have to wear masks in church when singing, you know, we, we have a gentleman in our church who he left his church because they were saying, yes, we, everyone has to wear a mask while singing.

49:28

Everyone has to be six foot away from each other. We, we, we came across local church that was meeting outside and socially distancing and wearing masks and not singing all at the same time.

49:45

Yeah. Well, we had, I mean, here's the thing. If, if anyone needed to understand what this was really about when this shutdown first happened, there was a church in New Jersey where the pastor was arrested.

50:00

So here's the situation. Police came, the pastor is the only person inside the building they were doing through through a, like AM or FM radio.

50:12

Everyone else was in their cars, windows closed outside, listening to the radio.

50:19

And that's how they heard the sermon. The cars were even socially distance. They did the cars.

50:24

So they alternated the spot. So even the cars were not like right next to each other.

50:30

Every person that was there, got a $1 ,500 fine. And the pastor was arrested for violating what there's no one in the building, but him.

50:42

Meanwhile, that next Friday, just up the street, there was a police car as they had always been right there at the, to let people into the mosque.

50:55

Parking lot was filled and everyone was inside the mosque. And there was an officer right there at the, at the entrance of the, of the driveway as he would be every

51:08

Friday. Now the same police department that arrested a pastor for being alone in church and ticketed everyone for being in their car with their family.

51:19

Let's everybody meet in a mosque. Now, at least you think that's just one, you know, just one example.

51:27

Well, you can go and look at New York. New York was the, the, the mayor of New York was shutting down in New York city was shutting down the churches, shutting down the, the synagogues.

51:38

There was a whole issue in New York on Passover. There was a whole issue on, on resurrection Sunday. But when it came to Ramadan, the, the state was paying for places for people to pick up Halal food for the, for the break, the fast in the evening.

51:56

And when the state was actually going into the mosques to mark off where people could be for prayer.

52:04

Now you're saying, wait, there's a separation of church and say, yeah, the state was doing that for the mosque. And by the way, they didn't need, they don't need to go and buy

52:12

Halal food. I mean, you can make it, but at the same time, they're shutting down the churches. So if you think this is not coming again and coming in a stronger way, it is.

52:24

And if you're as a Christian, not prepared to answer these things, well, that's the very reason you need to get this book

52:32

Caesar in the church. Absolutely. This will equip you biblically. And it is going to be going to be interesting seeing how it all pans out in this country.

52:41

I mean, we're all spit balling in a sense that, you know, we don't know, and God could throw us a few curve balls.

52:47

We're not expecting, but you know, it's like overturning row. Yeah, that's, we're glad for the sovereignty of God more than ever, you know, and I've said,

52:59

I've been on record for many years saying that I, I think I will live to see the divorce of the

53:05

United States of America. I just don't see how it can not happen at this point.

53:11

And I think the way the Supreme Court is going at the moment in a positive sense is such that we're just going to see a greater divergence between states.

53:22

You know, you're going to, you're going to be going from Florida to California and it's going to be like different worlds, you know, different countries.

53:29

And, and, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it happens and when it happens and what have you.

53:37

But, you know, like you say, people, Christians, it's just going to have to be equipped. I mean, the one, the one thing that this is doing though, which is good.

53:45

I was, my wife and I, we follow a Bible reading plan together and just, you know, she reads it out loud and we kind of, we do it that way.

53:54

And it's just a nice thing for us to do together. and we were reading through, we've been reading through, through first, second

54:00

Kings. And, you know, it struck me, some of the parallels in that, you know, when you're looking at the ball worship and you're looking at the integration and these kinds of things, you know, the exposing of, of statism in this era has been so important.

54:22

One of the, the more radical conclusions I come to in the book is that if God does have all authority, which he does, and if he delegates it to those he chooses, and if that delegated authority is always limited, if he's given government limited authority, if we then allow government to take authority that government hasn't been granted, if we side with government in that matter over God, then that allowing of government to take the role of God in the distributing of authority, that is statism.

54:57

And that is a form of idolatry. What, what COVID has done is it's exposed a lot of things.

55:04

It's exposed Christians who are half -hearted. It's exposed Christians who love the world more than they love the things of God.

55:12

It's exposed Christians who fear death and sickness more than they fear God. It's exposed

55:18

Christians who have a very low ecclesiology, that their understanding of churches is shallow.

55:25

But it's also exposed statism and how rampant it is amongst the church. And statism in this era of, with very little persecution in the

55:35

West, in churches, statism has been allowed to creep in in innocuous ways, just a little bit more here and a little bit more there.

55:44

And we've gotten to the point where I would, I go so far as to say the majority of the evangelical church, those who would describe themselves as Bible -believing

55:56

Christians, the majority have subscribed to statism, that they have given the government the role of God in their lives.

56:07

And if the government says, I want to do this, then the government gets to do it because they are government and they have that high level of authority.

56:17

And if nothing else, the book in its most bold moments, it does try to have a lot of the book not being so bold and patiently, gradually walking people through principles.

56:30

But by the end it gets pretty bold and it is a challenge to the idolatry of the church, all to repentance that we might turn from our idolatry, turn from our statism and say,

56:45

I will no longer worship these other little gods, small

56:51

G alongside Yahweh, but I will worship Yahweh alone. Well, that's, that's a great way to end it.

56:57

So folks go get the book, Caesar and the church. It is a good read for you. A good, a good thing to have on your shelf and have the knowledge of it.

57:07

So, but before we wrap it up, I should just ask, are you, are you happy with the surprise episode?

57:14

This was wonderful. Discipline was forthcoming. I'm even doubly overjoyed.

57:20

Well, we're going to do that after we, we stopped recording. Okay. Anthony brother.

57:27

Great to see you, man. Yeah, you too, bud. It's, it's always a pleasure. You are, you have become over this last couple of years, not only become a good friend, you become one of my favorite people and I'm always grateful for you and your ministry.

57:39

well, you need to get it out more. Well, I agree. I agree with Anthony on that. I feel the same way.

57:46

So, you know, Anthony, you don't know how much bud has been fretting over not knowing once he discovered that I wouldn't tell him what we were doing this episode.

57:55

He he's, he's been fretting over this. And, uh, so I told him he'll thank me in the end.

58:00

So bud, are you going to thank me? Thank you. All right. Rick Warren. Thank you. Cause I know you probably deserve it.

58:07

Yeah. He put this together. And, and with that, that's a wrap.

58:14

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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