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Pastor David Mitchell
All right, we are going to get into Romans chapter 13 today, we might finish that would be interesting, but we might not we'll just have to see.
So let me, let me share my screen once again here, and we're happy to have all you guys with us today at Park Meadows, and we're doing online only today.
Mainly because we had so many people out traveling for Christmas holidays, they're not here today and, and then just all of a sudden, you know, as the week went on this new
COVID thing is spreading like wildfire, we've got folks in our church that have it and probably was a little better that we didn't meet together anyway, although I'm convinced that eventually we're just gonna have to treat this like colds and the flu, even though I know it can be worse for a lot of people, but it is what it is and it's here to stay.
So we're not going to be able to shut down the entire world for COVID forever.
So I think you know that and that's coming. But anyway, we were staying at home already today so I think, you know,
I think the Lord worked that out for good for us. So let me go ahead and share my screen here and we'll get started.
Okay. All right,
I think that's got it right. Certainly hope so. I can,
I can see what I need to see, and I think we're ready to get started.
So here we are in Romans chapter 13. And really the whole idea of the chapter.
If you've been with us for a few Sundays is how God governs the actions of men in the world.
And so that's kind of what we're talking about. And we've got five different ways that he does this and we'll be talking about all these different ways as we go, we've already talked about the
Christians relationship to human government a little bit, we're still kind of in the middle of that one. Today we're going to get into reasons that Christians should obey their earthly governors and leaders.
And then we're going to talk about Jesus Christ's law of love, that's the law that we're actually under now, we'll talk about that in this chapter.
And then how does the second coming affect how we live.
So that's a part of this as well. All right, so let's review just a little bit
Romans chapter 13 verse one says, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers for there is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God.
So let's have a word of prayer. Once more and then we'll get started into the scriptures Lord we just thank you for this time to meet together once again we ask you to be our teacher.
Lord may your spirit fill each one of us, and we know you connect us to one another, help us to sense that today.
And you connect us to yourself and to the Father and we thank you so much for that great truth. And so be our teacher today and we ask it in Jesus name.
Amen. Well, as we look at this verse, you know, it elicits some questions and we asked this couple of times ago.
If you'd have been a German prior to World War Two and you saw Adolf Hitler rise to power.
Would you have thought that was God's will, would you have thought that he was ordained by God to be the leader of your country at that time?
That's a great question. We had some people attempting to answer that one in, you know, in church that day, a couple of Sundays ago.
And sometimes we ask this right after that. Now, you know, some of you guys might not have been on for that one.
Most of you probably were though. And the answer to that was that you would not have had a modern state of Israel right now if Hitler hadn't killed close to eight million
Jews in World War Two. The only reason that the nations of the world from a human viewpoint, the only reasons that the nations of the world allowed
Israel to rise up again as a nation and to actually be a nation is because they literally felt sorry.
For them, they felt sorry for them and felt they needed a place to go for safety. And that's how
God used what was going on in the world or caused these events to come to pass.
Because Israel had to be a nation again in order for all the prophecies of the end times to be fulfilled, because there's going to be another temple.
There's going to be a pig offered on the altar of that temple. That temple has to be there.
It has to be in a place called Jerusalem. It's got to be in a country called Israel. So if it hadn't been for Hitler, none of that would have happened from a human viewpoint.
So, yes, that was part of God's will. And he was in control of him being a leader.
But you might not have thought so if you had lived there in that time. So that brings the next question.
Is God's will sometimes mysterious to us? And there's my implied answer.
And then so you might ask the question, is God fair? Well, you know, there's a lot of interesting ways you could answer that.
If God were fair, all human beings being from a fallen race would probably end up.
No, probably about it. We would have ended up in hell if he were fair. So God is better than fair.
Now, if you ask the question, is he just? Absolutely, he's just. And the reason it's fair for him to save us is because he is just and the justifier of those to come to him by Jesus Christ.
So when Jesus gave his life for us and his body became the bread of life and his blood became to be pictured by the wine that we drink together.
It is that body and that blood that was given to pay our sin debt in full.
And so when Jesus, right before he died, he said it is finished. And in Greek, it means paid in full.
And that's why we get to go to heaven, not because it's fair, but because God is just.
And since Jesus died in our place and ransomed us, paid the price to free us from Satan, from sin, from our own sins, then he's just to save us.
And so, yes, God not only is just, but God is fair. It's just sometimes we don't see the whole picture that he sees.
We don't have all the information that God has. And we try to make our base, our opinions on the little dab of information we know.
And a lot of times we blame God for things, which is really foolish. And we should repent from that the second after we do it.
And because we don't have all the information. God is loving. He is omniscient.
He knows everything. He is just. He is good. And so sometimes we don't think so in the moment, but we need to get over that and realize he sees the whole picture and he loves his plan.
There's not another plan. There's only one plan because he's perfect and a perfect God does not need to make additional plans.
We're in it. We're in the best plan. Does it include suffering? We talked about that in Sunday school under Brother Bill Nichols this morning.
Yes, by God's ordination, by his predestination, predetermination, it does include suffering.
But I think it was really smart that Brother Bill pointed out that when Satan tempted
Eve, he said, well, surely you think God would want you to know good and evil, not just good.
And Eve chose to know both. So that's why we have both. So you can blame that on man. Blame it on Adam and Eve is why we have evil along with the good, because they ask for it.
And that is a fact. And the entire race is fallen. And by God's grace, he has chosen to save some from every people group in the world unto himself to be his own children.
And only because of what Jesus did for us. Right. OK, so when we're trying to think about that and think about sometimes things happen that make us wonder, why does
God bring these things to pass? We need to remember Isaiah 55, 8. For my thoughts are not as your thoughts,
God says, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
We need to remember that we don't know all the information. Only God does. And his plan is perfect.
Verse five. In that same context, says for thy maker is thy husband and the
Lord of hosts is his name. And thy redeemer, the holy one of Israel, the God of the whole earth, shall he be called.
And so in that context, it talks about this. And we asked the question last time, is this who's this talking to?
What is the context here in Isaiah 54? God says to whoever this is he's speaking to, he says, just for a small moment, have
I forsaken thee? And sometimes when we go through tribulation and trouble, we think
God has moved himself away from us. Normally, often it's because we've moved ourselves away from him.
And as soon as we go to 1 John 1, 9, and we confess our sins, in other words, agree with God that we have done sinful things and that they are sinful.
Then it says he is just. It says he's faithful, which means he'll do it every time.
And just, which means it's right for him to do this, to forgive us of all of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And so, you know, it may feel like he's forsaken us, but he hasn't. And to the
Old Testament's sake, a saint, which was a little different because the cross hadn't happened yet. God had not sent his son into the manger that we think about this time of year.
He wasn't born into this world yet. He hadn't died yet. He didn't present his blood at the throne in heaven yet from the
Old Testament's viewpoint. And so for them, it did feel like God had forsaken them.
But he said, even when it feels that way, it's just for a small moment. But with great mercies, will
I gather thee? And the question is, who was he speaking to in this passage? What's the context?
And whoever this is, he says this. No weapon that is formed against thee will prosper. And every tongue that shall rise up against thee in judgment, you will end up condemning or judging.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me, saith the
Lord. That gives us a hint that he is not only speaking of the nation of Israel, which is the primary context here, but there is a secondary application to all servants of the
Lord throughout all time and in every place. And so to all of these people, chapter 55, verse 1 says,
Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye.
Why? Because you cannot buy salvation. You cannot do good works to earn it. It's free. So if you have no way to pay
God to be saved, then that's who God's talking to, a person that understands that. A person that understands the church can't save you.
The actions that we do at church can't save us. The good works we do can't save us.
Not by righteousness of our own are we saved, but by his mercy are we saved through faith.
The Bible teaches so that we cannot boast about it. Right? And so those that have no money, that's just a picture of the fact that there's nothing that we have that we can buy salvation with.
But once we realize that, and only after we realize that are we prone to be moved to come to the
Lord and receive free salvation. So he says, come you. Who's you there?
The person who knows he can't buy it. He can't earn it. It's grace. And by definition, the word grace means undeserved favor.
So it's got to be free. It's undeserved. You can't earn it. That's who he wants to come to.
People that understand that. So come and buy and eat. And that's a figure of speech.
You're buying it with nothing except the blood of Jesus. He's the one who paid for it. He is the one who gave the ransom, the payment to pay for our sins.
Yay. Come buy wine and milk without money. See, without your ability to pay for it, get it.
The word buy means obtain there. Obtain it. And you get that without paying a price because Jesus paid the price.
But who is this beautiful verse speaking to? Not just the Jews. And we talked about it last time in John chapter four, verse 13.
Jesus said to the woman at the well, such a beautiful story. This woman who was not yet saved, but the
Lord was tracking her down. That's why this was no accident that they met. This was
God's ordained history for this woman to be at the well exactly at the same time Jesus Christ was.
And he told her, if you drink of this water, you will never thirst again. But whosoever drink it, he says, you will thirst again if you drink the water of this well.
They were standing at a well together. If you drink this water, you'll thirst again. But look what he said in verse 14, whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.
But the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life.
This is the same exact water that Isaiah was talking about. In fact,
Jesus most likely was quoting that verse we just saw in Isaiah to this
Samaritan woman who was half Gentile and half Jew. So I ask you again, who is being spoken to in Isaiah?
Just the Jews only or to some people from every people group, both
Jew and Gentile and from every nation. We see it again in Revelation 22, verse 17.
And the spirit and the bride, the bride, of course, is the church. So the Holy Spirit and we as the church are supposed to be giving an invitation to the world.
And we're supposed to be saying, hey, come to Jesus Christ. He's the savior of the world.
And we're supposed to say to them, let him that hear say come. So there are people who won't hear.
The Bible is very clear. There are people that don't have ears to hear God. Jesus calls them goats as opposed to the sheep who do have ears to hear.
He calls them tares or weeds as opposed to the wheat, which do have ears to hear.
But everyone that has ears to hear, they will become a Christian and be part of the bride of Christ.
And they will then give the invitation. And so that invitation goes out to the whole world to come to God through Jesus Christ.
And let him that is a thirst anywhere in the world from any nation, Jew or Gentile, anyone who is thirsty, let him come.
And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Who was this written to appears to be to people from all over the world, not just the
Jews. And we know in Galatians three, starting verse six, it says, even as Abraham believed
God, it was counted to him for righteousness. Know you, therefore, that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
So it doesn't just include the Jews. But Abraham, as we see here in verses eight, nine, was made the father of many nations.
And so anyone who comes to God by faith in Jesus Christ is adopted into the family of God.
And what a beautiful thing. So this is spoken. This is actually spoken to anyone in the world from any nation who will have ears to hear.
Right. OK, so now this is interesting. And I sort of botched this last
Sunday's reason I'm doing it over, but I do like to review anyway so that you guys that weren't here last time know the context of today's lesson.
But I really messed up the ending last time. And so I want to just show this to you because it's actually amazing.
And I was at church, you know, in course kind of preaching from paper, which I had been used to preaching from these
PowerPoints. And so I didn't have some of the notes on the paper that I needed, unfortunately, and I couldn't see the PowerPoint.
But let's just think about this. Every truth that God gives us in the
Bible is interwoven together throughout all the 66 books of the
Bible. Now, you think about this. You don't find any actual truth or major doctrine that is a standalone doctrine.
It's just you'll find it from Genesis to Revelation again and again and again, reviewed again and again.
How many times did the Apostle Paul let me remind you, brothers? How many times did he say that?
Let me remind you, brethren. So these truths come up again and again and throughout the Bible.
Think about this. 66 books written by over 40 different human penman separated by thousands of miles and hundreds and decades and centuries of time and wrote the same book with the same story and all pointed to Jesus Christ.
Only God could have done that. So the word of God is God breathed. God is the author of it, not humans.
And if you remember that, it'll help you as you study the Bible. Every word you read, in fact, every little word, in fact, every cross of the
T and dot of the I is exactly where God wanted it to be when he put this book together.
It's an eternal book. It came from a place that isn't a place where there is no time into time.
And now we have it. And not only did God breathe it or inspire it, but he says he protected it.
And not only that, but he preserved it to the last generation. So we still have it. And you can count on that.
And so it's interesting to think about how these truths are so intricately interwoven throughout the
Bible so that the believer is constantly having his faith increased on all of these different doctrinal truths as he reads through the
Bible. In fact, we know that's true because Romans 1017 says, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
So God has to give us ears to hear, though. There are a lot of people that won't hear it. There are some people the Bible says that have no faith in that.
Interesting. They will never have faith, have no faith. Jesus said they are called tears. And Jesus said, I did not put them here.
Satan put them on the earth. Think about that. That's a whole other subject, isn't it? But there are people who do have ears.
And if you're here this morning, it's obviously because you have ears to hear. You say, well, you know, maybe I'm not sure.
Maybe I don't. Well, does it bother you when you sin? Do you think about your eternal destination?
Because if you do, then you're a sheep. Now, you may not be a saved sheep yet. You might still be a lost sheep.
But Jesus said, no man comes to the father. Sorry, no man comes to me unless the father draw him.
And he said this of them, I will lose nothing, but we'll raise it up in the end. So Jesus isn't going to lose one single sheep.
So there's a huge difference between a lost sheep and a goat, because goats don't care about their eternal destiny.
They don't care about God. They're bored by the Bible. They love their sin.
And the lost sheep, they will run with the goats, but they feel really guilty every time they sin.
And eventually the Holy Spirit will show up in their life on their spiritual birthday and open their eyes and take their chin and push it up and say, look at that.
There's the shepherd, your sheep, you're hungry. He's got the food. What will you do with him? And the Holy Spirit makes him irresistible at that time.
Jesus becomes totally irresistible and you receive him because you want to. But the
Holy Spirit had to help you want to. He changed your want to in a moment of time. And that's called conversion. That's the born again experience.
And it's all by the workings of the Holy Spirit on your life. So if you're feeling that, yes,
I've always been drawn to God, but I just don't think I know him personally, but I do care about my eternal destiny.
Then you're a sheep. All you have to do to become a saved sheep is just look up.
And once you see him, you will desire him and you will receive him as your personal Lord and Savior. Just by saying,
Lord, I open my heart up to you. I'm calling on you today because I want to and I want you to be my
Savior and walk with me the whole rest of my life. And then you'll know that you're born again and you'll know that you're a saved sheep.
And that's just how it works. But even after we're saved, as we study the Bible, our faith even grows beyond the original saving faith that God gave us at the moment of our salvation.
It's interesting if you have the King James Version, it's the only accurate English version.
And it's the only one that comes from the correct Greek. I can prove that if you got two years to study with me. Happily do it.
It's an amazing topic. But in the King James only, it's the only English version that I'm aware of.
Where it says in many places in the book of Galatians, I can think of places in Romans, Ephesians, I believe, but many places, it says that we're saved by the faith of Jesus, not faith in Jesus.
Now, there are places where it says we're saved by faith in Jesus, but that is an effect. The cause of the salvation is when the
Holy Spirit gives us Jesus's faith. He does over 33 things to us in an instant of time at the moment that he saves us.
And one of those things the Holy Spirit does is he gives us Jesus's faith, which can walk on water.
Our faith is here one day gone the next. We doubt God the first time he doesn't answer a prayer, but Jesus's faith never doubts
God. And that's the faith that saves us. God gave that to us as a gift in Ephesians 2, verses 8, 9, and 10.
You'll see it very clearly. And in Galatians 2 .20, you'll see it's the faith of Jesus, not faith in Jesus.
Our human faith comes as a result or an effect of it, not the cause. That's great doctrine, great
Bible. So true. But once we have this faith given to us by the
Holy Spirit, our faith can grow every time we read the word of God or hear the word of God preached.
Now, let me remind you from last Sunday, Sunday before last, we went into chapter nine of the book of Genesis.
And we talked about the Noahic covenant after the flood was the first time that human law and capital punishment was brought into the world.
You'll find that in Genesis chapter nine, or you can go back to Park Meadows Church dot com and click the previous sermons from the last two or three
Sundays, a couple of Sundays, and you'll find more detail on this. But the dispensation of human law began right after the flood and capital punishment was introduced by God to the to the world.
And it was allowed for the first time men could eat meat and they needed that for strength.
All that is found right there in chapter nine. So you see the covenant thought of the
Noahic covenant where he promised never to destroy the world by water and he gave the rainbow. That happens at the same time the dispensation of human law is given.
And so we talked about that last time. But in the context of this, I want you to think about this, because as we ask that question, who was the book of Isaiah, that little passage in Isaiah, where he said, come to me and receive the water of life.
The passage in the New Testament, the book of John, where Jesus told the one of the well, come to me and you'll have water that you will never thirst again.
It will be like a spring of water rising up like it's always flowing fountain of water in your heart and in your life.
Come to me and ask for it. And then in the book of Revelation at the very end of the Bible, the last book of the
Bible says that the spirit and the church say come and whosoever will let him receive the water of life freely.
Who is that written to? Well, it's really interesting if some people say, well, in Isaiah, it was just to the
Jews. That is not correct. The primary context is to the Jews, but the secondary interpretation is to some people from every people group.
And if you go and look carefully in this passage in chapter nine of Genesis, you'll see proof in it.
And this is amazing. So look at this. Genesis 9, 26. This is right after the flood.
And Noah was prophesying over his three sons, and he said, blessed be thou
God of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant. Now, we know that Shem was the father of the
Jewish nation, the spiritual nation. Right. And so it mentions
Shem, the father of the Jews here. And I look at the next verse and God shall enlarge Japheth.
That's the Caucasians of the world. Germans, French, Spanish, you know,
Americans everywhere in the world where Caucasians are. He prophesied that Japheth is their father and he says
God will enlarge Japheth and make him the larger of all the people of the world.
But look what this says about Japheth. This would be the Gentiles, right? Part of the
Gentiles anyway. But look what it says. God will enlarge Japheth and Japheth will dwell in the tents of Shem.
Have you ever seen that before? I got goosebumps just now when I read that. Because Japheth will dwell in the tents of the
Jewish people. Listen, the Jews were given the oracles of God. The Gentiles didn't have it.
Go study the Greeks, study the Romans. They did not have a clue about God. They were so ridiculous in the things that they thought.
Now they thought about God. They believed there was a creator, but they had multiple gods, didn't they?
They didn't know anything about God. They did not know him personally. They only knew that a god or many gods existed, and they figured that out just from the creation.
Just like Roman chapter 1 says, they're without excuse. But they got it completely wrong. The philosophers, as brilliant as the
Greeks were, they got it totally wrong. They had no revelation. And the fact is, man in and of himself, from a humanistic viewpoint, cannot draw from within himself any knowledge of God other than the fact that he exists.
He cannot know anything about him. And that's what's so humorous about humanism to me. And it tries to creep into the church through Arminianism.
And every church group, the Catholics were the first one, but then the Protestants, the Baptists have gone through it.
They all go through this cycle. They start out knowing God is sovereign, like Augustine, one of the greatest fathers of the
Roman Catholics, knew God was sovereign. He believed in predestination. He believed in eternal security, that once you were saved, you could not lose it.
He believed in foreign nation and election and taught all these things, but no one believed him.
So the Catholic Church went a different direction. They went more towards humanism and they went around the cycle that Satan takes every group through, where they get more and more humanistic and man has a bigger role.
In fact, the Catholics don't believe you can get saved without the human component. You got to have the church, right?
The Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible teaches it's the blood of Jesus plus nothing. But the
Roman Catholics went through this circle. Now, so the Baptists have too. I grew up Baptist. I call them Bapto -Catholics because they've gone through the same cycle.
They add more and more of man to it, the necessity of man to help man get saved.
And the Bible just doesn't talk about it. What's beautiful about this is that in this ancient writing, in the very book of Genesis, the beginnings of knowledge of God and of man,
Noah prophesies and says Japheth will be enlarged. He will bring so many amazing things into the world.
And the economies of the West were brought into place by Japheth, the modern economies of the
West. But if he didn't dwell in the tents of Shem, Japheth would know nothing about God.
But Noah said he would. And so the Lord has adopted us into the family of God through the knowledge of the
Scriptures that the Jews brought to the world. Isn't that a beautiful thing? And Jesus died not only for those
Jews, but also for all who have faith in him. And that's so neat that this is found in the earliest portions of Scripture.
Six thousand or more years ago, it was written and it's been true all through the ages.
So who is it written to in Isaiah where it talked about this water of life is written to all men.
And everyone who has ears to hear may hear it and come to Christ. And there we have it.
Isn't that cool? So it's written to both you and Gentile God's children everywhere.
All right. So we talked about the Christian's relationship to government.
And secondly, let's go into our second thought here in Romans chapter 13.
Reasons that Christians should obey their earthly leaders. Now, this one is not so comfortable for a lot of us.
I mean, like you go back to the question. The very first verse that we read that says that God has ordained every leader that exists in the world, that includes in China, that includes in Russia, and that includes in Washington, D .C.
Right now, this very minute, that's a little hard for us to chew on that, isn't it?
But it's a fact. I mean, anybody that was with us the last two Sundays, we don't even doubt it at this point.
The Scripture just proved it in Romans chapter 13. Right. So why should we obey them?
Well, verse one says we should obey them because they're ordained of God. But now we start to see why. Look at verse two.
Now, this is talking about the earthly human governors and leaders and presidents and whatever they are.
They might even be a dictator that God puts over a particular nation. All the nations of the world, they rise up into power.
And anyone who resists the power that God ordained would be there at that given time. He is resisting the ordinance of God.
Wow. He's resisting the predestination and foreordination of God, which put that person in leadership.
Isn't that something? Now, that's a truth that we forget about. And boy, we shouldn't forget about it.
Now, on January 6th, the media of this nation along together have conspired with the
Democrats to call that a coup. If that had been a coup and there were any Texans in that crowd, which
I personally know friends who were in that crowd, they would have won that battle because they would have gone in there with weapons, right?
With guns flaming. That was not a coup. That was a peaceful march expressing what the
Constitution gives us. Freedom of speech is what that was. Now, were there some bad apples in the group?
Absolutely. And some of them forgot verse two here. They forgot that if they resist the power that's there and they say, well, but Trump actually won.
So Biden didn't have a right. Well, why don't you look at how God is ordained as who is sitting in the White House right now?
Biden, not Trump. So God ordained that Biden would win even through cheating.
OK, if you believe that, I believe it. I've seen that before. I saw it when
John Kennedy beat Nixon. My grandmother was a worker and among the only few by like four or five
Republicans in Texas. Everybody else was a Democrat back when I was a kid. But guess what? They were Democrats who didn't believe in abortion.
They did believe in God and they didn't think you should kill babies. And there's a lot of other stuff
Democrats believe today that they did not believe. In fact, when Ronald Reagan became president, they all switched and became
Republicans. Most of them, nearly all of them. So anyway, one thing that these these folks forgot that day on January 6th, some of them.
In fact, the huge majority didn't forget this. The huge majority were peaceful. But a small minority of them resisted the ordinance of God.
They forgot that God put Biden there. Now, they were still doubting that he should be there. I understand that. But look what else it says.
They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. Now, whoa. Let's take a look at this, though.
Sometimes we do have to take a look at the Greek because the King James being the only actual
English version that comes from the correct Greek. Sometimes it has archaic
English words in there that that are difficult for us to understand. You might want to jot this down, but you've got to get every word right or you'll end up the wrong
Bible. But there is one that's out of print called the new and has to have the word new in it. The New Schofield Study Bible KJV.
If you can find those only be in the book used bookstores and they're going to cost you about 50 bucks, but it's well worth it because that is the
King James. But where these old archaic English words are, they put bars around it and put a modern
English word where it translates correctly for us today and then puts the original one in the in the margin.
It is so good because it comes from the correct Greek, but it's in readable English. But now don't confuse that with the thing called the new
King James, because that's a lie. That's not even a King James at all. It comes from Westcott and Hort and the wrong
Greek. And he got two years. Like I said earlier, I'll show you how that works. But just if you don't want to take the time to study, you got to trust me on it.
But it's a fascinating study manuscript evidence where our Bibles come from. You don't want one of the modern
English versions that comes from Westcott and Hort. It's from totally terrible theory of how
God preserved the word of God is not how he did it. And they totally messed up. And I am not convinced
Westcott or Hort. That's their last names. Either one was a born again Christian. I'm convinced they weren't because we can read letters that they wrote to each other.
And if you read those, they don't talk like Christians to me. But anyway, every the sad thing is every seminary is bought into their theory, even the ones that our kids would go to.
So it's pathetic. But anyway, that's a that's a good rabbit trail. New King James.
I'm sorry. The new King James is a farce. It's not even it doesn't even come from the correct Greek and it's a lie.
It's not a King James. So forget that one. But if you find one that's called the New Schofield Study Bible KJV, that's a good one.
Right now, it's interesting here that it says that people that will resist these leaders, human leaders that God ordained should be there, that they will receive into them damnation.
Sounds like you go to hell if you resist them. That is not what this is saying in the Greek. So let's take a look at this.
What it is saying is that God ordained government and none exists outside of his ordination.
And secondly, you will be punished if you disobey these ordained leaders. Now, let's take a look at the couple of Greek words here.
Look up there in verse two in the top line where it says if you resist the ordinance of God, the word ordinance there in the
Greek means the arrangement of God, how God has arranged order in the earth.
And sometimes we have what we would call bad leaders like Hitler, like some others
I could mention that are in power today. And sometimes we have good leaders. But anyone that we have is there because God put them there to fulfill his purposes for that time in history.
Some of it is either to accelerate the end times from our viewpoint or to slow down a little bit from our viewpoint because the end times have to happen at exactly when
God ordains that they happen. And from our viewpoint, these leaders, good or bad, come into place either to speed that up or slow it down.
Right now, I think we're in the speed up mode. Some of you laugh at that one. All right.
So the end is closer than it was before January the 6th in many ways.
But this word just shows that God is the one who arranges all of this. He institutes it, puts it into play.
He is the instrumentality behind it. That's what this means that he ordained these powers.
Now, when it goes on and says, if you resist them, you receive damnation. I think we should look at that word. In the
Greek, it is crema, which means it's where the
English word cremation comes from. But it doesn't really primarily mean that in Greek. It simply means a decision.
But it carries a little bit of a different color to that meaning. Specifically, the function or the effect of the decision that's made for or against a crime.
So when you have a judge and he makes a decision, that's the root word crema here that this word damnation was translated.
I think it's an old English word. We wouldn't use that in a modern sense. And I'll show you what we would use to make that relate to the actual
Greek. It literally means the decision, but it's also the effect or the function of that decision that that judge makes for or against you when you've done a crime.
So it can be translated condemnation or judgment, which is probably a better modern
English translation. And it comes from a different Greek word, a different root word crema, which means simply to decide judicially to judge or to sentence someone.
So now we start to see the actual meaning here in the Greek. It's not talking about God sending you to hell, as it seems in that old
English. But it's actually about the power on earth making a decision against you because you broke the law that that power made judging and condemning and sentencing you to punishment.
That's what it's talking about. So we could translate verse two a little bit better this way. Whosoever therefore resisted the power, that means the person or persons that God puts in power over the nation that you live in.
You are now resisting the ordinance of God because God put them there. You can't debate that.
That's just a fact. I don't care whether it's Hitler or whether it's Ronald Reagan. God put them there. Right.
And they that resist shall receive unto themselves judgment, condemnation and be sentenced to be punished by that earthly power that God put in place.
And that's what the scripture means in verse two. Does that make more sense? It reads a little better that way, doesn't it?
All right. Look at verse three. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil people.
Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same.
Now you say, well, all right. That sounds like what it's saying is. That God puts these leaders in place to to make people that do evil to be punished and those that are doing good things to be left alone and to have peace and be able to do their work.
And that is the primary meaning of this. But, you know, when you have a bad leader, sometimes it seems like he does punish some good people.
We know that every apostle except John was killed because they believed in Jesus.
They gave their life for their faith in the resurrection, that they had seen him after he rose from the dead.
They wouldn't die for a lie. They had seen him and therefore they gave their life. And so there we see that the power seemed to be a terror to good works.
But generally, here's actually what verse three is talking about, is that in every situation in this world, in the cursed world that we live in, you would be better off to be under the current leader of China than to be in a country that had anarchy and no leadership.
That's what this is saying, because when you have anarchy, which is what we will have in the end times as we get more into the tribulation period or get into the tribulation period, is you'll have anarchy where just whoever the strongest man on the block is is going to run your life.
And that is the worst there is on the planet. So God puts these leaders in place to keep those kind of people hemmed in.
Unfortunately, sometimes one of those people becomes a leader and a dictator in part of the world.
But even then, it's better than anarchy. And that's what verse three is talking about. Generally, even in China, if you understood the
Ten Commandments, even if you don't talk about them over there, but you understood them and you kept those, that government would not bother you.
All things being equal. Now, if you start trying to evangelize their children, they will bother you for that.
Right. And you may be called to do that. And the problem is you're breaking their laws and you will be sentenced for it.
And you just have to understand that. But in general, if you just live a good life, most of these dictators will leave you alone as long as you're not a threat to their power.
Right now, what is the biggest threat to to these kinds of leaders is a Christian, right?
Someone who understands and believes there's a higher power than them. Right. So soon as you let that be known, you could be punished by them.
So you see verse three is kind of a general statement that you're better off with leaders, no matter who they are, than you would be under anarchy.
And that generally under any leader, if you kept God's laws and just quietly lived a peaceful life, they'd probably leave you alone.
That's what verse three is talking about. However, it goes in and says for this person, that God put in place of leadership is a minister of God.
Does that mean he's a preacher? No. Does it mean he believes in God? Absolutely not. It's kind of what
Brother Otis taught when I asked him the question one day. And if you're new, Brother Otis was this older gentleman that joined our church that had been teaching the
Bible 50 years. I'd have coffee with him to learn things, pick his brain. Right. I was his pastor and I was 40 something and I wanted to learn from this man.
And one time I asked him, why did God make it? So there's so many lost people and so few Christians. And he said, Brother David, all the lost serve
God, too, because God is sovereign. They wouldn't like it if you told them, but they put God put them on the earth to put everything on the shelf that God's children need.
And that's a beautiful thought right there, isn't it? So in that sense, these leaders, whether we would deem them good or evil,
God put them in that place to serve God's purpose is what that means, that they're a minister to God.
They're going to do exactly what God put them here to do. In Hitler's case, he killed eight million
Jews, give or take a million or two. And it left the world where they had no choice but to create a nation for Jewish people to live in called
Israel. And that had to be there for prophecy to be fulfilled. So that was God's will. And so Hitler was a minister of God in that sense.
And if you don't believe that, you've just got to go back and reexamine all these scriptures we're reading through right here.
But verse four goes on and says, But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid of these people, for he bears not the sword in vain.
For this leader and the people that serve under him are ministers of God, and they are revengers to execute wrath on him that does evil.
So people go around murdering, they're going to get them. And that's a good thing. It stops anarchy from happening.
So you can see components of good even when you have a bad leader. And that's what these especially verses three and four are talking about here.
And we understand that and it helps us to understand it even more because there are things
Christians shouldn't do if they're mature Christians. I mean, you know, you shouldn't go to the capital and break into it and do damage to it and hurt people.
You're not obeying any of this in Romans chapter 13. If you do that, in fact, you're ignorant of it and you're a baby
Christian at best and you're going to be punished. I mean, almost every one of these people, if not all of them, the
FBI tracked them down. In fact, another prophecy that Jesus gave was partially fulfilled in all of this because he said there will come a day when daughter will rise up against mom and mother against daughter and will send you to be arrested, turn you in to be arrested and in some case to be killed.
And, you know, after January 6th, there were 200 ,000 cases where younger adult children turned in their older parents because they saw them on TV at the
Capitol and turn that into the FBI. That's the fact of history. That's prophecy fulfilled in a sense, isn't it?
So anyway, we see kind of clearly what these are talking about. Look at verse five. Wherefore, you must needs be subject not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake.
So now, you know, we're in this passage we're talking about. Why should we obey these leaders? Well, that gives two reasons right there because of their wrath.
In other words, they will punish you if you disobey their rules, their laws. And secondly, your conscience, because you now understand
Romans chapter 13 verses one through five, your conscience now should bother you when you resist these leaders.
All right. So the word wrath there, it simply means it comes from the little word, the word for wrath.
The word for is from dia, which means the channel through which something happens. It can often mean because of.
So that means one reason you should obey these powers is because of wrath. Now, when we look at wrath, it means violent passion or can mean punishment.
So they're going to punish you when you break their laws. And for that reason, you should keep their laws.
Right. Wherever you must needs be subject.
You know, why should we be subject to these leaders? Number one, not only because of your fear of punishment from the powers that be, they will punish you when you break their laws.
But secondly, because of your conscience, because now we've read Romans chapter 13 verses one through five with understanding down to the
Greek. We know that now that we know that even the ones we perceive to be bad, God put them there for a purpose.
And that if we disobey them, we're going to be punished by them. And secondly, our conscience should bother us when we disobey the law for these reasons, because God put that there.
So God is also given this imperative in verse one. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God.
The powers that be are ordained of God. They're there at this time on purpose by God.
And we have to understand that and it can protect us if we know that. So let's review a little bit now.
All right. Number one, the Christians relationship to human government has has been brought out in just verse one.
Right. Of chapter 13 of Romans. Roman numeral two is what we're just now covering.
What are the reasons why we should obey these earthly governors, even if we don't like them? Well, one, because God ordained that they would be there.
And number two, because they will punish you when you don't. And then here's the third reason we just studied.
Because our conscience should bother us now that we understand Romans chapter 13, verses one through five.
Our conscience should bother us if we don't obey the earthly government. And then what about taxes?
It even mentions that in verse six. For this cause, pay your tax. Pay your tax also.
Not only keep the laws, but pay your taxes. For they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing.
What? To protect you from murderers and and to protect you from anarchy.
So pay your taxes. The word of God says, I do not like this verse. Right. But I have to obey it.
Now, if Marian's still with us, he's he's our tax attorney over at Exos Aerospace.
He's an international tax attorney and my new friend. And I've already come to love him.
And it's like we've known each other for years. But but he knows the tax laws of every nation, every significant nation in the world.
And he knows, too. He knows this first because he grew up with the Bible, too, is that, you know, you pay your taxes.
But that means look into these laws of the land and keep their laws.
But what you'll find out is the leaders have put laws in there so that they don't have to pay as much tax as they might have to.
I mean, the congressmen have put laws in there so that they can have ways to pay less tax legally and still be keeping the law.
And if you have a good tax attorney, you can figure those out and you can pay less tax and still be keeping the law.
That is good stewardship. Amen. All right. So look at verse seven.
Render, therefore, to all their dues. That means pay your taxes, pay the federal tax, pay your state tax if you have one, pay your county tax if you have me.
If you don't agree with them, I do not agree with property tax because it means I don't really own my property. The government does.
But it's their God ordained that those people would make that law. So I have to pay it, pay tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom is due, fear to whom fear is due and honor those human leaders.
Isn't that something? Scripture says so. So we got to pay our taxes. Right. But we want to pay the least legal tax that we can pay.
I'll throw that in for free. Just think about that. That's what we need to do. All right.
So we should obey the government. But let me just be quick to say this before we finish this morning. There is an exception to the rule.
Can any of you guys think of what that exception is? I'll give you a second. I'm going to get a drink of coffee while you try to answer that.
What's the exception to the rule where we don't have to obey human government? All right.
Time's up. We'll see if you got it. Acts chapter four, verse 18. Peter and some were out preaching, teaching people about Jesus Christ.
And the government called them and commanded them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus.
Now, let me ask you a question. If Jesus called these men to be his apostles and disciples, and he said, as the father has sent me into the world, so send
I you. Then if they don't speak of Jesus Christ and salvation in his name, would they then be sinning against their savior?
Of course they would. So the government is now asking these Christians to sin, to do something that the
Lord told them not to do or to stop doing something that the Lord told them to do.
That would be a sin. And the government is now asking them to sin. So look at the answer.
But Peter and John answered and said to these government leaders, whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than to God, you be the judge of that.
Wow. You might want to memorize that one because you may well have to use it someday. And the implied answer is that the exception to the rule is you obey the human government unless they force you to sin.
And then you have to disobey. So if government asks us to sin or to do something
God doesn't want us to do or to not do something he expressly told us we need to be doing, then we not only have the right, but we have the obligation to disobey that.
But remember, even though that's true, if we do disobey, what might the result be?
Let's go back to verse two, whosoever therefore resists the power, resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves judgment, punishment, imprisonment, death, whatever, whatever they say, because you broke their law.
So even though it's true that we must disobey at certain times, when we do, we need to understand we also are going to suffer the punishment that that ruler says.
And you're under that. And God ordained that as well. So that's some amazing teaching that we don't always think about if we don't review
Romans chapter 13. The Christian's relationship to human government is clear in verse one.
The reasons why Christians should obey the earthly governors is pretty clear in verses two through five.
God ordained the government exists because of him. You'll be punished if you don't obey him and because it should bother our conscience not to since God told us to do it.
Right. All right. So next time we're going to pick it up with the last few verses in this chapter.
And the next great Roman numeral or great point is going to be the law of love. What is the law of Christ and how does that fit in with all of this?
We're out of time today. So we'll pick that up when we get started next Sunday. And I just want to thank you for being with us today.
It's been great to be with you. And I hope you'll have a wonderful rest of the
Christmas weekend with your family. And we'll sign off now. Have a great time with your family.