2023 Laborers' Conference- Session 4 The Government

We're good? Sorry about that technical glitch, but we are back with the Laborers Conference 2023. My name is Tyler Nubwe with Bread of the Word Podcast, and I'm here with Mr. Jeremy Hulmes from Faith Reform Baptist Church.

We just had our first session. Claude Ramsey preached on Psalm 110 and the reality that Christ is Lord and that informs everything we think and do. We had breakout groups corresponding to that, and so now we are getting ready for our second session, and Mr. Dan Self is going to be preaching on the role of the government and the authority of Christ over the government, and I am sure that we had dinner with him last night that we will probably end up on the subject of theonomy and what exactly it would look like for Christ to rule over the government.

What do you think, Jeremy? Well, you know, I spoke with Dan a little bit last night about that issue, and I think we're in agreement on it. I don't want to like to try to steal his thunder or anything, but it didn't seem like he held to necessarily a theonomic modern-day interpretation of that word position, but we'll see.

Sure, it has to come up. I mean it would come up if I was teaching the government from Christ's rule, but no, I'm actually very excited. Claude did an amazing job earlier, too, especially when he went to that overview of all the books and showed Christ and all of that.

It was a blessing.

That it was. I've not been through Psalm 110 in a while, so it's a beautiful passage.

Yeah, I've heard it said that's God's favorite verse because... I think I've heard that, too.

I think it's quoted more times in the New Testament than any other passage in the Old Testament. God's favorite psalm. God's favorite psalm, Psalm 110. Is that a text that you've.

Walked through at Faith. Performed? No, but I touched on it. I actually touched on it when I was just preaching on Patience, but I touched just kind of, you know, I touched on the fact that Christ is called the priest after the order of Melchizedek.

That comes right there from that passage. Obviously, that's quoted in our New Covenant over and over and over again, so... But no, I haven't went through it. The only thing we've been through is Romans.

Romans is a big book. In my breakout group, we were talking about the believers' battle with sin, and so we went to Romans 8. And we just kind of had a... honestly, the whole thing was really a Q &A. I talked for about 15 minutes, and the rest was questions and.

Some of that. Nobody had any questions for me,.

Unfortunately. Well, I think the first person to ask a question was Claude, so he had to break the ice there. But all in all, it's shaping up to be a great conference. Yeah, it's been great so far. I am looking forward to the rest of today.

We've got Dan on deck talking about the governments, and then we have Jonathan talking about the home after lunch. What is he talking about? On the home. Oh, okay, okay. He's preaching on... Watchman Jigger.

My brain just blanked here. On making disciples in the home. I'm back. Yeah, I think that's where our Christianity starts at, right? I would agree. Yeah, that's that's our...

I've just said it the other week. I can't remember the last Sunday or the Sunday before that. That's our Jerusalem. As you know, we'll be witnesses unto him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the world.

That's our Jerusalem, is our home. I like that illustration. I've not heard that before, but that is... I like that.

Yeah, that's where we started. That's where our Christianity starts, is right there in our home. And you know, I think the call to a pastor is... One of the qualifications is to lead his household. Yes, I would agree.

If you can't manage your own household well, how are you going to manage the Church of God? So it starts right there. It starts in your home. If you're not managing your home well, then you shouldn't be trying to manage the household of God.

I would definitely agree there. I think that's one of the great challenges of our day, is that specific facet of applying the gospel, is applying it in the home. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm really excited about Dan's message here, so...

It's a very timely topic, and Dan is the one to give it.

Yeah. He said, you know, why do they have to pick the Presbyterian to preach from the government?

He didn't pick that one, I don't think. I think he was volunteered for that one.

Yeah, I was volunteered for mine too, with the title and everything. I told Claude, he volunteered himself for Psalm 110, it sounds like. Yeah, that he did.

Some of us did. I volunteered to cover suffering, so we'll see how that goes. Yeah.

That would go right along with patience. Definitely. That's where our patience is most shown, displayed, is in our suffering. When everything's going good, we don't need much patience, right?

Absolutely. I think that applies to the government too, doesn't it?

They cause a lot of our turmoil and suffering.

You got one of those breakout topics that kind of fits into every category, didn't you? Yeah.

That's why I said, you know, I could have went a hundred different ways with that message. There's certain things, when you talk about government, the only thing he's going to be able to talk about is government.

When you talk about patience, you could go any which way with that.

It was a good time. I think your title was, Being Patience in the Midst of My Enemies or something?

Living in the Victory of Christ when Evil Surrounds Me. Did you go to Psalm 23 at all? No. Went to Psalm 22. Went to Genesis 3, Genesis 12, Genesis 15, and just kind of worked through patience from our forefathers in faith.

Patience in the fact that, and I went to Hebrews 11, where it says, all these died in faith, not having received the promise.

Love that phrase. Died in faith. God made them promises,.

And they had to be patient to get those promises. Well, they died not even having received those promises. And now we, in the New Testament, or New Covenant, we have promises as God's given us. And some of it, we might die before we see those promises fulfilled.

And it's just being patient with the Lord. Waiting on the Lord.

One of my favorite passages in Scripture would have to be Colossians 3, 1 -4. If you are raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things of heaven, not on the things of earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

And when Christ, who is your life, appears, you shall appear with him in glory.

Yeah, I mean, that's future promise, right? Future promise. It's a present promise and a future promise.

Live in Christ, die in Christ, be raised with Christ. Yeah, that's awesome.

Actually, it reminded me of another verse. Maybe it's like, I got it on my phone. Maybe talk and feel some air there. If you've been raised with Christ. Oh, yeah, yeah. Ephesians chapter 2, that's what I was thinking of.

Ephesians chapter 2, it goes, but God being rich in mercy, because there's a great love with... I told you about this. I was reading NASB. My mouth wanted to say, wherewith? And it wasn't there. So I changed the KJV.

But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us, has made us alive together with Christ. By grace are you saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show forth the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

People bring this up a lot, but I think it's brought up a lot because it's important that it says, he hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. It's present tense.

And I would often say, in the mind of God, it's already done. Now, it's a present reality in that sense, but it's also a future reality in the sense that I'm not really there yet, right?

Almost, but not yet kind of thing.

Actually, I think Romans chapter 8, when I preached through Romans chapter 8, I spent some time right there in Ephesians chapter 2 because it kind of, there's portions there that parallel and that, if you will call it already not yet.

I know a lot of people use that kind of like a scapegoat to get out of talking about certain things, but should we switch over to those?

I do believe it is time. So let's head over to the laborers conference.

All right. A baby baptized in Presbyterian. But this is one of those things. And that's what I'm saying. We can chide each other a little bit. But Dan likes to deer hunt and likes to turkey hunt. So I love him, right?

More importantly, Dan and his beautiful wife, they stand for Christ. Amen? And we have those things that we had a conversation a couple months back on baptism. We did. We had the Presbyterian perspective and we had a Baptist perspective and a reform perspective, whatever.

We had those things that went back and forth and it was a strong conversation. At the end of the day, we love each other. So Dan, we love you, man. Dan's a church planter. I'm so proud of him in that.

That's something, of course, as church planters, just like Claude and just like Jeremy, a lot of these guys, you may not have known that, but we're church planters, too. That's another powerful thing we have in common.

John is leading the next breakout at First Baptist. John, give us a five second overview, what you're going to be talking about. When it's okay to disobey government. All right? So that'll be at First Baptist.

Jesse, real quick, like five second, what you're going to be doing your breakout on. That's right. So a Christian's role in politics or when it's okay to disobey government. So that's your two choices for breakout.

And we are trying to record these. We're still trying to figure out a couple of these things. So you'll be able to follow up. If you miss one breakout and want to do the other one, you know that kind of stuff, you'll be able to go back and watch.

Come ahead, brother. Make yourself at home. And by the way, for the clock-eyed Baptist in the room, just don't worry about it, okay? We'll be done when we're done. I'm just kidding. Dan's going to wrap up.

I told him 12, 20, you know, something like that. Don't feel rushed. You preach till you're done. I don't want you to miss out on anything. Okay? And we'll just adjust our schedule as we go. So those of you that aren't used to that, vertical life folks are used to that.

Okay? It's just normal. Alright? So for everyone else, it's an opportunity to be sanctified today. Hallelujah. Alright? So just ride this train. Alright? We want you to get all you can get. You showed up.

You're here. We want you to be blessed. And so just hang right in there.

We'll adjust as the Lord leads. Alright? So don't cut any shortcuts. Alright? Good morning. It is, it's on. Talk some more. Coming through a little bit, a little bit more. There we go. I got a big head and it's just holding it farther away from my mouth.

So, when I was tasked to speak on the government, I got a little glimmer in my eye as one of the things that reformed Presbyterians love to talk about is government. We do so because we have some distinctives that make us different from the rest of the Presbyterians.

Not that we're all that much different, but one of the things is the government and how it relates to Christ. So when I got to thinking about the government, I had many, many questions. And it's calling me crazy, but one of the most important, not important, but one of the weight on my mind, the heaviest, was who shot John Fitzgerald Kennedy?

I kind of want to know. And so I got to looking at it and studying it and trying to look into the different theories on who shot Kennedy. Came to the conclusion that it was the US Treasury and the Mint that killed John Kennedy.

I have a $5 bill in my wallet to prove it, kind of. Now, there's a couple pieces of evidence that led me to that conclusion. One being the year that Kennedy died. And next, the event surrounding his death.

I'm losing it. Now, just because I had those two pieces of information on me doesn't mean that I came to a right conclusion. And that's the case with a lot of conspiracies. Conspiracies can go left, right, up, down, and usually they operate on the broken clock principle.

Well, there's a couple things that are right, but then they're taken way out of context to where you don't understand really where you came from or where you went, and you just end up being wrong. And some of my favorite of these conspiracies are this.

Did you know that birds are not real? Birds are nothing more than government drones sent out to spy on the people of America. You knew it? Amen. Did you know, and this one's a little bit more far-fetched, but did you know that there's a crater on the moon that has a dragon-shaped mining craft from a different planet that is nine times the size of Manhattan that is slowly hollowing out our moon and sending the materials back to the home planet?

If you didn't know, now you do. And here's one that caused me to stop and think, and we'll get a little bit more serious after this. Did you know that our government is controlled by reptilian shapeshifters, that the people in the highest levels of our government are actually reptiles from a different planet that shapeshifted into the form of men to work behind the scenes to subvert mankind and watch us fall?

It's the broken clock principle here because there are two points of information in that that are somewhat accurate. Number one, that there is shapeshifting reptilians. Now, hold on a second. I'm stretching for this one, but we're going to get there.

Remember back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter three, you have Lucifer, Satan, who is the most beautiful of all angels, coming to Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent and deceiving them, wanting to see them fall, wanting to see everything that was good and glorious about God's creation taken down and eradicated.

He wanted to see it ruined, and that made me stop and think. Is there a point in our heart where sin is not touched? And the answer is no. Is there a place where Satan is not trying to ruin what God has created?

Also, no. He wishes to see it destroyed inside and out. He wants to see the church torn apart and destroyed. He wants to see the family ripped apart. He wants to see individuals decimated. Not only that, maybe I do have a big head, he would very much like to see the government of men bound together to serve his purposes instead of Christ.

There is a push today by the men and women in our government to eradicate God from our country. And it comes under something that we as Christians used to say all the time, and they've taken this phrase and twisted it, the separation of church and state.

Now, the separation of church and state is a very good principle, that there are two separate spheres. There is the church and there is the state. The state does not have power over the church, and the church does not have power over the state, because that is not how God has set things up.

He has not given ministers of the gospel, officers in the church, the power to enact laws in this country. Nor has he given the officers of our country power to make laws and rules in the church. And yet, when you hear separation of church and state now, what is really meant is there needs to be a separation of God and state.

You might have noticed my Bible has been closed so far. This is the first topical message I've ever preached. So I'm going to, I hope you have your running fingers on, because we're going all over the scriptures now.

We're going to start in Psalm 110. We're already there this morning, so this is going to be very brief, and we're going to move on to a lot of different places. But I want to show you something that Claude brought out so wonderfully this morning.

Because if we're going to look at and understand the government, we have to first look at and understand the world in which we live. We can't do that unless we look at the Christ who is Lord over everything.

Look here. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your foot. So who is in charge is God, and who is called Christ is the Trinity. God, in all of his wonder and glory, has called Christ to come and be ruler, because he is ruler and creator over this entire world.

The people freely offer themselves on the day of power. Holy garbage, and speaking of salvation here, Christ has come and died on the cross in order to eradicate sin from the world, in order to save mankind, in order to bring a people to himself, in order to be Lord over all.

And he goes on even farther, because it's not just about salvation, though it is about salvation. Look at where else this goes. Look at verse five. Because our brother said something very right this morning.

I believe the scepter is the gospel, but listen to what he says in verse five. The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses.

He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. Our God is coming. Our Christ is returning. Jesus will come back one day, and not just individuals, but nations themselves will have to answer for how they have lived in this world.

How have we constituted ourselves as a nation? God will judge us for how we've done that. How have our rulers ruled over us? And that is a frightening, frightening thing. Flip with me to Matthew 28. You've probably heard that a thousand times while you've been here, and for good reason.

It's kind of the theme of the conference. Look at Matthew 28, and we'll start off in verse 17. And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ. I don't know if there's any other realm besides heaven and earth, but I venture to say that if there is, Christ has authority over those as well.

Because all things in heaven and on earth are Christ. And with that understanding, we can now look to what it means for a government to exist in God's world. Now back in the 1600s, the Scottish covenanters, struck a deal, not struck a deal, signed a covenant with the English parliament for the nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

And it read like this, a solemn league and covenant for the reformation and defense of religion. The government and the church came together to covenant between themselves and the sight of God for these purposes, for reformation and defense of religion.

And the honor and happiness of the king and peace and safety of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. They go on to say that we, the noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens, burgesses, ministers of the gospel, and commons of all sorts of kingdoms of England, Scotland, Ireland.

I don't know if you know anything about their hierarchy over there, but that pretty much covers it. That the folks who live in those three nations, they said this, that by the providence of God living under one king and being of one reformed religion, having before our eyes, having in front of our eyes, having the focus of what we're about to do, being the glory of God, the advancement of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as well as the honor and happiness of the king's majesty and his posterity, and the true public liberty, safety, and peace of the kingdom.

They were endeavoring, they were covenanting together that the church and government would, in their own spheres, work together to defend Christ's religion, defend Christ's gospel, to see it go out across the earth, that the church would tell its people to listen to God through the ministers of the state, who were to then enact laws and rules and to reign in ways that was honoring to Christ, to seek the liberty and prosperity of all those folks who were living in those three kingdoms.

And it says this, according to the example of God's people in other nations, and upon mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn league. Now, that means a military alliance and covenant, wherein all subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with hands lifted up to the most high God.

This is an act of worship, and they swore six things. To preserve the true religion, to recognize Christ as the rightful head of the church, to recognize God as the rightful head of government, and for the people of those nations to submit to it, to not tolerate those who would subvert a proper king who is ruling as God has called him to do, to keep the league and covenant for the benefit of their children, and above all, to seek God's power in order for them to do it.

That doesn't sound anything like America. That doesn't sound anything like England, Scotland, and Ireland right now. In the few short years after they signed this, England, Scotland, and Ireland went back on their word.

And pulled out.

They no longer wanted to be in covenant with God to do things His way. So if we're going to think about how we should interact with government, and how government interacts with God in His world, sometimes it's best to just burn it down and start over.

Now, I am not saying to literally burn it down and start over. Not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is perhaps we should take down some preconceived notions. Maybe some things that we thought before we should unthink.

Perhaps some things that we know that we should have been trusting in and believing in, we take and put in the forefront. And sometimes that's going to mean that we just need to quit acting like cowards.

Now, one of the distinctives of the Reformed Presbyterian Church is the belief in the mediatorial kingship of Christ. The mediatorial kingship of Christ is, you know, some of them big words, but maybe not kingship.

Mediatorial, you can kind of figure it out. But together, what does that mean? I don't think many would disagree. Run with me to 1 Timothy, chapter two. Look at verses one through seven. And I'm not used to people saying stuff, so if y 'all get there and say amen, we'll be okay.

First of all, then I urge supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. First of all, for kings and all in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

So it starts off, I'm going to pray for all people, for kings and people in high positions, why? For the benefit of all of us, that we may all live in a land that is at peace. Number one, pray for your leaders.

We'll come back to that a little bit later. But I just want to say, pray for your leaders. He says, this is good in verse three. It is pleasing in the sight of our God and Savior, who desires all people to be saved, to come to a knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle, and telling the truth, I am not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man. What our brother said this morning is absolutely right. Jesus is Lord, and because he is Lord, we are responsible to him for breathing his air and living on his planet.

And because we breathe his air and live on his planet, we have to go before him, sins and all, and we have to stand and take the judgment that is coming our way. We cannot stand before a holy God with that sin that is laid upon us.

The only way that we can go before a holy God is to have Christ stand in the gap, to take what was dirty and sinful and wicked and make it holy. And the way he did that was by taking the sins of men, putting them upon himself, and dying a death upon the cross, laying in the grave and then rising again three days later to stand and then sit at the right hand of the Father in heaven as King and Lord over all.

And he takes that wonderful, blessed salvation that he's procured through his death and burial and resurrection and giving it to men through faith in Jesus Christ. To that end, we must pray for our leaders.

We must pray for those who are in charge of us, those who enact laws in our nation. God desires presidents and senators, county commissioners down the road. We just passed, I don't know where it is, somewhere over there, Catawba County building.

He desires folks like that to be saved, to live in his world and rule and reign in such a way that it honors and glorifies Christ. That is what it means for Christ to be a mediator, to go in between those who are sinful and the one who is holy seated upon a throne in heaven.

Then the word kingship, Matthew 28 that I already read says all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Then he tells us to go, make disciples. Well, go with me to Psalm 2. Psalm 2 says this as well, only in different words.

When he asks the question about nations and governments of the world, why do they fight against God? Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers to counsel together against the Lord and against his anointing, that is Christ saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.

We don't want Christ to rule us. We don't want God to be in control of us. We want to do things our own way. We want the knowledge of good and evil for ourselves. We're going to eat the fruit. We don't care what happens.

And yet, what does God do? Verse four, he who sits in the heaven laughs. Laughs. Could you imagine, I don't know, maybe this may hit home for some folks, but could you imagine having a whole bunch of little kids, my kid's age, have them try to revolt against you?

They're in there plotting and scheming. Oh, they're going to get it. They're going to destroy every piece of furniture we have in the house. They're going to eat up all the snacks. I'm going to sit in my chair at home, hearing them talk this over, I'm going to laugh.

It's just as silly for the nations of the earth to look at the world in which they live, to breathe the air that God has provided for them, to live on the ground, to watch the sun as it goes up and down in the sky, and to think that they can do anything other than what Christ has commanded them to do.

They cannot. Because he laughs, and not only does he laugh, he says, you kings have to listen, because not only that, but I have set my own king, look at verse six, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.

I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Then he said this, ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, or your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them into pieces like a potter's vessel. And remember what Christ said in Matthew, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. It's not like he didn't ask for these nations.

These are his. Because when Christ paid for sin, he paid to have it eradicated from his world. And like the book of Hebrews says, at this point we don't see everything put under his feet, but what we do see is Christ seated upon the throne.

And it's in that that we trust. Y 'all like Christmas, don't you? Christmas? Christmas is great. Run over to Isaiah 9. Isaiah 9 is beautiful. You know what's great about Isaiah 9? This was right after Isaiah 8.

Isaiah 8 tells us that these are a people who are a nation of Israel who is struggling. They don't trust in the Lord. Or they have broken covenant with God. And God is sending someone to punish them, the Assyrian army, to take them off into exile.

And as the Assyrian army is there to take them away into exile, they're given a hope. In the face of one of the mightiest nations on the face of the planet at the time, we hear this. This is their hope.

Verse six of Isaiah 9. For unto us a child is born. For unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

And how is he going to do it? The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. The domain of Christ's kingdom is the entirety of heaven and earth. Put those two words that we're talking about together. Mediatorial, Christ going in between and saving a people from their sin and kingship.

Christ is king over all. His kingdom stretches through heaven and earth. Heaven, angels, demons, those who have departed. The spiritual realm, Christ is king. The earth, the animals, the humans, those who are sinners, those who are unrepentant, those who have repented and found salvation.

Family, church, and earthly government. The mediatorial kingship of Christ says this in scriptural terms, Romans 8. I told you to get your running fingers ready. Romans 8, starting verse 28. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good.

For those who are called according to His purpose. How many things? All things. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. All things, all things work together for Christ's purposes, one of which right here it says is to see as conformed to the image of His Son.

The ruling and reigning of Christ in the world furthers, serves, places an emphasis upon His salvation of mankind. He rules and reigns to see His purposes met. We'll continue on. For who shall bring a charge against God's elect?

Verse 33. I'll back up into 31. I miss a whole bunch of good stuff. Back up here into verse 30. 29. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He might be called the firstborn among many brothers.