1689 London Baptist Confession (part 60)

Our Father in heaven, we thank you this morning for your kindness, for your love, for your mercy, for your grace, for the abundant pardon that you so freely grant us.

And Lord, as we gather together this morning, we look to your word, to the confession, what it says about government, what it says about our role, what the role of government is, how you have ordained it.

Lord, I pray that you bless our time and guide our thoughts in Jesus' name, amen. How many of you are familiar with the writings of Ayn Rand?

A huge number of hands, I'm so thankful for that. She wrote a book, well, she wrote several books.

And the gist of it is, I mean, she was, I believe, an atheist. But the, was she?

Yes, see? But the gist of the book was about self -reliance and about the evils of government.

And out of that strain of thought comes an idea that you may or may not be familiar with, but it's anarchy combined with capitalism.

It's called ANCAP theory, or anarcho -capitalism. And what they believe in is dismantling the state and allowing unchecked capitalism to govern the world in its place.

Because if you need protection, you hire people. That's the idea.

So, the hero of her story was somebody named John Galt. So, in real life, we have somebody here named

John Galton. So, he named himself after the character in the book.

And he wanted to live in a libertarian paradise. He was a drug dealer.

He and his girlfriend, Lily Forrester, they moved to Acapulco, Mexico in 2017.

They were very excited to go there because they had escaped American justice. And had set up shop in a place that became known as, let me see if I can possibly pronounce this.

Anyway, it was Acapulco, but they called it Anarchapulco. Because it was a little enclave where anarchy reigned.

And they could do what they wanted. And so, they went into the artisanal bong business.

Now, don't ask me what's artisanal about bongs. I really couldn't tell you. But that's what they did.

And so, they were looking at 25 years in prison if they stayed in the U .S. And instead, they went to Anarchapulco.

But last week, gunmen burst into the couple's mountaintop home, killing Galton on the spot and seriously wounding one of the couple's friends.

The girlfriend survived, but she was badly shaken. The killers are presumed to be a drug cartel.

Drug cartels don't look kindly upon competition, which is what these people were, essentially.

And I bring all this up because of one thing. The purpose of government.

Some people hate government. They hate it so much that they want to move to a little enclave in Mexico and be free from all the constraints of government.

But why do we have government? To restrain evil.

And there's a fundamental principle there, that evil exists.

And in fact, our nation was pretty much founded on the idea that evil exists, and it must be restrained.

We have three branches of government. Why? Checks and balances because people are evil.

You can't trust anybody, right? This way, there's always somebody looking out for somebody else or checking on them.

The Confession says this, God, and I love the way this reads,

God, the Supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates to be under him, over the people for his glory and the public good, and to this end hath armed them with the power of the sword for defense and encouragement of them that do good and for the punishment of evildoers.

That's why we have government. Over the people for his own glory and the public good.

That's why we have government. When the Confession, or what the

Confession does succinctly here, is remind us that there is no authority in this world that God himself has not appointed.

R .C. said this, he said, Virtually every aspect of this opening statement is on a collision course with the assumptions that hold sway in our culture with respect to civil government.

Why does he say that? Why does he say that this seems to be in total conflict with what people think about government?

Well, first of all, how about this? Just the idea that it's ordained by God. If you walk up to somebody and say, why do we have government?

Just somebody on the street, they're probably not going to say, because God appoints governments. And you know what?

It's for his glory and it's for our good. That's probably not what you're going to hear. R .C.

goes on to say, Adolf Hitler in his Third Reich, Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, illustrate what happens when government goes berserk and declares its independence from God.

In other words, when we eliminate the idea that there's any ultimate authority above government, if the state becomes the end all and be all, if the ultimate power in the universe is the head of the government, you wind up with something like the

Third Reich or the Soviet Union. Why is that?

Because if a man imagines himself to be essentially God, bad things happen.

The general idea today is that civil government is not under God, but is independent of him.

And he points out that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao and many others often held that same belief.

Americans conclude the same thing based on what? What's the principle that people like to throw out there today?

The separation of church and state. Sproul says the First Amendment does not express the idea that our nation is independent of God or that it was founded on atheism.

It was actually self -consciously theistic in its origin, but refused to grant any particular theistic group favored status under the law.

That's more or less just an aside, but it's this idea that we were essentially an atheistic country in the beginning is false.

They were theists, but they just were probably more deistic than Christian.

Back to the confession. The confession is clear. God is the sole authority in the universe.

We say this all the time. God is sovereign. And what that means is not only is there no random molecule, atom, electron.

What's smaller than an electron? Something smaller than that. There's nothing smaller or there's nothing that's in rebellion against God.

But the confession says that he delegates his authority to men, to governments.

And if we go back to Israel, why is it that Israel had a government other than a theocracy?

In other words, they started as a theocracy under God through a prophet. Why did they get rid of that theocracy?

They wanted to be like everybody else. They were jealous. Let's look at Daniel 2, verses 20 and 21.

God delegates his authority to men.

In other words, he's sovereign. He's in charge of the universe. Nobody is his rival, but he appoints people to run the world, so to speak.

Daniel 2, verses 20 and 21. Would somebody read those, please? I mean, ultimately, the core of that is in 21, where it says that he removes kings, he sets up kings.

So here's a question for you. Why would it be that we would have bad rulers? Why did

Israel have bad kings? Why did Israel have kings who committed idolatry? Why did somebody like Stalin or Pol Pot or Mao or Hitler come to power?

Okay, sin permeates the earth, right? So it would be difficult to imagine not having sinful rulers and God uses that sin for his glory.

When we think, I mean, really, history is pretty amazing when you think about it, even

World War II. Just the idea that people did what they did in terms of charging the beaches and all these kind of things and all the heroics.

Well, let's put it another way, though. Supposing there were never any bad rulers. Then what?

Then we'd be in heaven. I mean, there are reasons that we long for heaven, right?

The whole creation groans. It's bowed down under the weight of sin, the oppression of sin.

We long for heaven because we're surrounded by it and if we had good and godly leadership all the time, maybe we wouldn't quite feel all the way to that.

And certainly Satan is active. We talk about sin, but Satan is active too in deceiving and really kind of pushing sinful governments and sinful men.

Let's look at Daniel. Just turn over to Daniel 4 verse 25, continuing this idea of God delegating authority.

Would somebody read 425, please? And there you go right there. I mean, that says it right there in a nutshell.

He rules the kingdom of men and then he gives it to whomever he wants.

There is no government that exists without God's ordaining it. Whether the person leading that government is righteous or not.

I found this interesting just kind of reviewing the kings of Israel.

The southern kingdom, Judah, had a good number of good ones. Still had more bad ones than good ones.

But in the north, in the kingdom of Israel, there were zero good ones.

If God's chosen people had bad kings, why would we think that any other country deserves good ones?

You hear people say from time to time, we get the government we deserve, right? And actually,

I don't think we get a bad enough government. It's bad, but it could be a lot worse and maybe it should be. But even the worst rulers have a

God -ordained purpose. Let's look at Romans 13 verses 1 to 4. And again, why did

I read that thing about the anarcho -capitalists? Because it shows what happens when we have no government whatsoever.

When we just allow people to do whatever they want and there's no restraint of evil.

Romans 13 verses 1 to 4. And would somebody read that, please? Thank you. And if we think about the

Caesars, who ruled during the time of the apostles, these were not good men.

They did horrible things. This is the time where they were putting

Christians in the Colosseum. They were using Christians as torches. All these things are going on.

And what does he say? He says, you know, submit to the authorities because there's no authority except for from God.

And you look at today. We have legalized abortion. We have homosexual marriage.

We have all manner of unbiblical laws and rules. How is it possible that God permits that to happen?

Charlie said earlier, was talking about the sin that permeates everything. Here's the issue.

God does not promise us heaven on earth. He promises us heaven in heaven.

Sproul says, what is government? The simplest, most basic definition is this. Government is legal force.

Governments are agencies that have the power and the legal right to coerce people to obey their dictates.

Their laws are not simply suggestions but requirements. Like if you thought the

IRS was just suggesting that you pay your taxes, you know, hey, just a guideline, you know, like tithing as a guideline.

Here's your guideline. Just pay it if you want to. How many people would pay, and I don't mean here, but how many people do you suppose would pay taxes, income taxes, if there was no force behind it, if there was no

IRS, if you didn't have to worry about audited, being audited, if you didn't have to worry about going to prison for not paying your income taxes?

I don't think they'd get quite as much money as they do now. I mean, I'm sure everybody in this room would pay, but I'm just saying.

And government is necessary because of evil, because of sin. It says that in Romans 13.

It's a restraint. It's a terror to bad conduct, right?

The government bears the sword. Augustine said that civil government is a necessary evil made necessary because of evil.

It's a necessary evil made necessary because of evil. The function of government is to restrain evil and to maintain, uphold, and protect the sanctity of life and of property.

And I like that definition because so often our government fails to do both.

Sanctity of life, I mean, abortion, that's pretty obvious. What's the first thing, if you say government is supposed to uphold the sanctity of life and abortion is an ill and the government is failing to uphold the sanctity of life, what does an atheist or an unbeliever say to you?

How could you then support capital punishment? The problem with that is it's right there in Romans 13.

Capital punishment is laid out. It doesn't bear the sword for nothing, right?

It's for punishing evildoers. Abortion is not the punishment of an evildoer.

Abortion is the murder of an innocent life. Protect property, and yet we have a government that in a decision not too long ago,

Kelo versus the United States, ruled that private property can be taken from one party and given to another party.

That's not the way the law reads, but that's what they did anyway. But the

Christian understands that government is ordained of God, and Christians are called to respect whatever it is that God institutes and ordains, right?

We must do that. And for the glory of God, we are called to be model citizens.

We are told to bend over backwards to honor the king or to be obedient to the civil magistrates.

Now, that doesn't mean slavish obedience to the civil magistrates. There are occasions in which

Christians must disobey the civil magistrates, and those occasions would be what?

When you're commanded to sin. Can you think of an example when you might have to disobey the government?

While you're thinking about that, I'll just give you an example of what it doesn't mean. I've known some professing believers who said they were anarchists, and therefore they didn't pay taxes.

They don't believe in government. What's their motto, do you suppose? I'm a

Christian, and I'm an anarchist. What do I say then? How do I justify that in my mind? We will have no king but Jesus.

No king but Jesus. Is that what the Bible says? No. It says

God appoints governments. The government says, excellent point, the government says you must worship

Caesar. You must proclaim Caesar is God. Can you do that? The answer is no.

The government says you must participate in the systematic extermination of the

Jewish people. Can you do that? No.

The government says you must participate in abortion.

Can you do that? I don't think so. The government says you must marry homosexuals.

Can you do that? No. If marriage is to be a picture of Christ and his bride, you can't participate in that.

And that's what the scripture says. So how is

God glorified by ordaining governments that deny him?

How is God glorified by that? I mean, here.

Go ahead, Joe. Yeah, I mean, you certainly would appreciate a government that acknowledge

God and that worship God, right? So it gives you that longing again for heaven. And sometimes,

I mean, you could just say, instead of asking how is it possible that God's glorified by ordaining governments that don't acknowledge him, you could ask this.

How is God glorified by the existence of sin? I mean, just back up a little bit and just go, well, how is

God glorified because sin exists? And yet, does he ordain it?

Does he, you know, some people would say, allow it. And ultimately, all things work together for his glory.

How is it possible that sin, evil governments glorify

God? Okay, it still restrains evil.

I mean, I'm reminded, I don't know why, but I'm reminded of the, sorry, the Disney movie

Aladdin. What's that? And what happens, you know, what happens to a thief, which

Aladdin is, what happens to a thief in that part of the world, right? You go and steal a loaf of bread, what happens?

Cut your hand off. Now, that is a restraint against evil, right?

I mean, you do that twice and you won't do it a third time. Even bad government is a restraint against evil, not against all evil, of course, but it's a restraint against evil.

Yeah, go ahead, Bob. That's very true. I mean, God uses even bad governments for his own purposes.

And you're right to point out that if it weren't for the Holocaust, it certainly is the case historically that Israel would not be back in the land, the

Jews would not be back in the land now in Israel. You mentioned also

Cyrus. It's interesting because Cyrus is key in getting Israel back in the land after the exile, right?

But he was no worshiper of God. He was just an instrument in the hands of God. And so many times that's what evil governments are.

R .C. says this. He says there are only two places where God is given all the glory. Where do you suppose those two places are?

There's one that should be obvious. Two places where God gets all the glory. Well, the church would be ideal.

Heaven, right? God gets all the glory in heaven. You know, nobody's walking around heaven going, you know, talking about anything else other than the glory of God, right?

I mean, this is it's all consuming. Where do you suppose the other place is that God gets all the glory?

Hell, right? The sinner gets no glory in hell, but God does.

Perfect righteousness is vindicated by divine punishment. And nothing is more insulting to God's glory than our sin.

Therefore, he established government to uphold righteousness and to punish wickedness and evil.

That's why we have government. Okay, now the confession goes on to say this.

It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate when called thereunto.

In the management whereof, as they ought to or as they ought especially to maintain justice and peace, according to the wholesome laws of each kingdom and commonwealth.

Wholesome laws. Well, you know, we'll take a pass on that one. Here's what the confession is saying here.

It's affirming that it is legitimate for Christians to serve in offices of the states.

To take part in the government and in maybe being a representative of government, a mayor, a senator, president of the

United States, whatever. Why does the confession affirm that?

Okay, so it refutes this idea that we're not to be involved in earthly affairs. And in fact, we'll get to that in just a second.

But I wanted to just throw in some of this stuff. I know people,

I've heard men teach this, that owning a weapon, owning a gun, is murder.

It's equivalent to murder. And the rationale goes like this. Why else would you own one other than to take a human life?

Then the man said, that's malice of forethought. I remember reading that and just going, hmm.

I don't know if there's a burglar in my house defending my wife, but, you know, whatever.

R .C. says at the time of the Reformation, there were three views of the relationship between church and state.

And I think, you know, what he doesn't talk about, because it wouldn't really suit his purposes, but what he doesn't talk about is,

I think there's some tie -in between baptism and some of these things.

But I think that was all political. Anyway, three views. One is the unity of church and state.

The church is absorbed into the state, or the state is absorbed into the church. In either case, you have a form of theocracy.

And that's why you could wind up with the Pope being the most powerful man on the face of the planet, with armies at his disposal and kings shaking in their boots.

But there are some who believe that this should be the goal of Christians, even some who hold to Reformed theology.

There are various men who would describe themselves as theonomists or reconstructionists.

And what that means is that they think that we should establish the Ten Commandments as the law of the land, hold unbelievers accountable, that sort of thing.

I don't even understand that, but okay. We're going to make Christianity the official religion and government of the

United States. Then there is the second view is the separation of church and state.

Some groups, namely the Anabaptists. What does Anabaptist mean?

Re -baptism. It meant they were baptized typically as Roman Catholics. Then when they came to faith, they got baptized again.

But there were other things that they did that were not so good. But some groups, the

Anabaptists, believe that a Christian could not serve in secular government because it would involve compromise with his commitment to Christ.

I wouldn't say I agree with that. I would just say that I do discourage people from getting into law enforcement these days, but that's for other reasons.

They declared, the Anabaptists declared, that church and state are not only two different spheres, but spheres that are not to have any kind of joint activity, no overlap.

So kind of what Corey was saying. Some Anabaptists refused to take oaths in civil courts.

They would not serve in the army or in the government. They would have nothing to do with the evil in the secular state.

We have people like that today, and they are called Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh, sorry. There are people who kind of have this theory.

So that's another theory. Complete separation, complete unity. And then the third one is kind of the halfway in between.

Two kingdoms or two spheres. This is the theory of Augustine in his work about the city of God.

Both the state and the church are ordained by God. When the state is carrying out its

God -given mandate, a Christian certainly may be involved in the fulfilling of that mandate. So there's nothing wrong with participating in government.

And then the reformers had this idea of a vocation or a calling. So being a banker, a farmer, a plumber, a soldier, what have you, is a legitimate vocation.

And it contributes to the general welfare of the states, of the people, of the society, of human beings.

And the Reformation concept of vocation was that God's calling is not limited to the ministry within the church.

In other words, whatever you do, do everything unto the glory of God. So whether you're a glazer or a guitar player or whatever you do, some people like to say guitar slinger, but whatever you do, you should do it for the glory of God.

That does not mean that every job is something that a Christian can in good conscience do. And R .C.

gives the quintessential example. Even if it's legal, like in Nevada, prostitution is not something a

Christian should be involved in. Well, why not? Duh. It's sinful in and of itself.

It's a violation of the word of God. I mean, I can think of other things where I would say, boy, I don't know if I'd want to be engaged in that sort of business.

Can you think of businesses that probably not the wisest choice for a Christian?

What's that? Tending bar would be pretty tough, right? Because I'd be like, okay, pal, you've had enough.

And the guy's like, I just sat down. I probably wouldn't make much money as a bartender.

What's that? An abortion doctor, you couldn't do it, right? You just couldn't do it.

I'm sorry? A pot shop. Boy, I would have, because something's legal, right?

We know this because of abortion. But because something's legal, that does not make it moral. That does not make it right.

That does not make it biblical. And I have argued and would argue that marijuana falls under that umbrella as well.

I saw this week, I don't know how many of you saw this, but that Denver's actually talking about, Denver, I have to go to Denver, that they're actually talking about legalizing psychedelic mushrooms.

And I'm like, it was bad enough when they legalized marijuana. I don't know, as you were saying that,

I was like, what about working for, say, what do you call those gambling things?

Casino. Yeah, those gambling things. I think they're very difficult.

Let's say your choice was between being a blackjack dealer or being unemployed. I think it's a matter of conscience, but I would tend to go with the,

I'd rather be unemployed. Because really, why do casinos exist?

I mean, we're doing a little field here, but casinos do not exist to pander to the best in humanity.

They appeal to your greed and everything else, and other people say, what about advertising agencies?

And that's where we run into what if, what if, what if, what if, what if. But I think there are some professions that are just wrong.

Would I want to own a casino? No. Would I want to, I mean, I can think of a lot of things that I would not want to do because I just think all

I'm doing is ensnaring people in sin, destroying lives.

And that's not what, I mean, can you imagine, I own a casino so that I can wander around while people are gambling their lives away and walk up to them and preach the gospel to them.

Yeah, I mean, the Anabaptists probably took it too far, as Pastor Rob said, and not wanting to be involved in much of society at all.

But there are some places that would really kind of strain your credulity as a messenger of the gospel, like being a bartender or owning a liquor store or whatever.

Yes. I'm going to have to ask my lawyer about that.

What about being a lawyer? Well, you know what? If you're honest, I don't really know that there's a problem with that.

But here, I have one for you. How about this? I'll take what you said and just kind of specialize it.

How about being a divorce attorney? That would be pretty rough. That would be really rough. Joni?

You could teach science in a public school. You might not last a week, but you could teach it.

Yeah, that would be a hard one. Well, I mean, you know, if you have to pick an employer with whom you agree, if you have to, you know,

I mean, I probably mentioned this before, but it felt like when we, on the

Sheriff's Department in L .A. County, we had our old sheriff die just a few days before an election, and so we got a new sheriff in.

And so I'm just kind of wandering the halls, fat, dumb, and happy one morning, and somebody says, well, what do you think about that sign up there?

And I'm like, what sign? They go, well, it's been there for months. And I'm like, I don't pay any attention to, you know, this huge sign as we're just walking in because I'm just walking in like this, and it's way up there.

And it says, you know, I will fight. As a leader on the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, I will fight.

And then it lists a number of things that we'll fight, and including one of those was homophobia.

I'm like, you know, first of all, nobody's ever defined that for me, and secondly,

I'm not fighting it. You know, so I mean, but can you, you know, pick somebody to work for that necessarily agrees with you?

And that's a pretty tough deal. You know, if you get into corporate policy and everything like that,

I mean, I can name a lot of corporations that you couldn't work for if you had to subscribe to everything that they do and believe.

And, you know, same with unions. You know, I guess I'm going to have to give my SAG card back because I'm done.

Okay, so you work for the only four honest lawyers? It's only a joke.

What's that? Chick -fil -A's hiring. There you go. And you can get Sundays off.

So, we'll see. Thank you. Okay, so back to the confession.

It says, so for that end, they may lawfully now under the New Testament wage war upon just and necessary occasions.

Okay, government can wage war under just and necessary occasions.

What's a just war? Self -preservation is just, right?

I mean, I can give you examples of non -just wars. Like, here's one that you may not have thought about.

Anybody know what the cause of the Mexican -American War was? A well -studied war, you know, in history.

Yeah. The cause of it was we wanted to be able to go from sea to shining sea.

And so we looked for a reason. You know, we were actually sending troops into Mexican territory to provoke an attack.

They attacked. Yes. There's our casus belli, our reason for war. And, you know, it was a pretty good deal because we got

Texas and Utah and all kinds of territory there, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, California, which today doesn't seem like quite such a good deal.

Yeah. Well, let's not even go there. Okay. But that was written to refute the

Anabaptists who developed the theory of pacifism. No warfare. They believed it was sinful for Christians to participate in war.

In fact, they were willing to be put to death in order to maintain their pacifism. That's about as pacifistic as you can be.

Now, it would be wrong for Christians, this is kind of my distillation of what R .C. was saying, it would be wrong for Christians to participate in a war of unjustified aggression.

And R .C. cites the invasions of Poland, Holland, Belgium, or World War II.

He says a Christian in Germany should not have participated in Hitler's aggressive war. He says we cannot hide behind the axiom, you know, my country, right or wrong.

Kind of, you know, jingoism writ large. He says, of course, sorting out a nation's errors is not always simple.

I mean, some of the wars that we've been involved in, the

Spanish -American War, again, started on a pretext, probably not the best, but it takes some historical perspective to sort it out and see that maybe that was created and not necessarily a just war.

And in the Civil War, Christians stood staunchly on both sides. From the

Southern point of view, they wanted peace and the freedom to withdraw from the Union, and the North believed that the

Confederate rebellion was ungodly. Now we look at it and we go, well, how could anybody ever have fought on the side of slavery?

But it was only a small percentage of people, I mean, small relatively, when you look at the entire population of the nation, that really wanted abolition.

That became a cause later on in the war. There were

Christians who refused to participate in the American Revolution. They saw rebellion against government as ungodly.

Others saw the government as corrupt and thus believed it was right to overthrow it.

See, it depends on your perspective. During World War II, Nazi Germany, six million

Jews were put to death and millions of others, and I was reading this yesterday,

Auschwitz alone, more than two million people were murdered, as many as 12 ,000

Jews per day. And I just started thinking, how many people do you suppose had to work together to kill that many people?

It's quite a few. You have to have people to guard them, you have to have people to put them on trains, all these things that were done to them and even after they were dead.

A lot of people had to be complicit in those murders. And I'm sure some would be professing

Christians. What can we do?

How should we be involved in terms of government? Well, we have to close.

Are there any questions before we close? And then we'll wrap this up next week and we'll start talking about, we'll go from this light topic to talking about marriage.

I like how it does this though, oaths and vows, then civil government, and then marriage. It all just kind of sort of flows.

There's a logic to it. That's a good question. I was going to say, why don't you ask your dad?

But I think what we have to think about is, like some of the wars that we're involved in now,

I don't think there could be much question that we are pursuing bad people in these wars, that they are terrorists and that kind of thing.

Should you sign up for four years not knowing what the government's going to do? Well, I think here's what you have to think about.

When I signed my name, and I only signed it for three years because I was very cautious.

Actually, there is some truth to that. I didn't want to go in the Marines because you had to do four years. When you sign up for it, you have to think to yourself, okay, now this is a calculated risk.

I am presuming that the orders that they give me will be such that they will not offend my conscience.

And if they do, to the point where I am willing to stand up for what I believe, then

I could wind up going to prison. So, you know, it's a weighty thing when you agree to sign up.

You need to think about, okay, what happens if, you know, a president comes into power or the president makes decisions that I really,

I disagree with so strongly. You know, he wants to invade Canada, and I have friends and neighbors in Canada, and I can't go up there and invade them, and they didn't really do anything to us anyway other than send us, what's that restaurant,

Tim something, Tim Hortons, you know. So, I don't like Tim Hortons coffee, therefore.

So, you know, I think it's something you have to weigh, but I think, you know, the idea, could we be involved in an unjust war where the government covers up the cause or whatever?

It's possible. Are you responsible for that, I guess, is another question, you know.

Do I need to, before I agree to sign up, do I need to know that my government didn't do anything deceitful?

Is that my responsibility? I think everybody has to sort that out for themselves. For me,

I would tend to think no. I mean, you could even, you know, I mean, you could go back in history and argue whether the

United States government knew about Pearl Harbor, didn't know, you know. I mean, some people think that our government knew about 9 -11 in advance and didn't do anything to stop it.

I mean, you can get into all kinds of conspiracy things. Or you can just say, not my government right or wrong, but unless I am convinced that the government is doing something wrong,

I'm just going to do what I'm told. Well, that's very true. We need to close, but Pastor Bob brings up a really good point.

You know, how much different is it to sign up for a war or sign up for the military and then get ordered to do something which you don't disagree with than to pay taxes every year, knowing that some of your money is going to, say,

Planned Parenthood or whatever in spite of the fact that, you know, we have parties that have promised to eliminate that, then for whatever reason somehow it doesn't happen because they really don't care would be the reason.

So, yeah, I mean, if we expect our government to be moral and just and perfect and God -honoring, then we're probably going to be disappointed like every single day.

We need to close. Father, thank you for this time. As we look to your word, look to the confession, we just think ultimately we have to trust you.

We know that even the best government is flawed and filled with sinful people.

Nevertheless, you command us to submit to that government, not because we agree with it entirely, but because we glorify you by submitting to the government.

And we think even of Paul and Peter, the other apostles, the governments that ruled and reigned over them and how evil they were, how they persecuted

Christians. And nevertheless, they never said rebel against government under these conditions.

They said submit, honor the king, pray for the king. Lord, we would pray for our government.

We would pray that you would grant us God -honoring leaders who would make it easy for us.

But nevertheless, Lord, give us hearts that would desire to honor you by honoring those you have appointed to rule over us.