 All right, we are Theology of Public Life. Am I a little loud? You know, it seems like a little high for some reason. Okay, this is our 10th lesson in this series and we have moved along now working our way through a very critical text with respect to a Theology of Public Life and that's in Romans 13. So turn to Romans 13 with me and we're gonna continue working through this text. We're gonna do this verse by verse over the next several weeks, a couple of weeks. And one of the reasons for doing that is because there are multiple implications drawn from Romans chapter 13 verses one through seven here, multiple implications for developing a Theology of Public Life for our understanding of how we relate to civil authority. And so Romans 13 becomes a really important text and there's a lot there, more so than it might appear at first blush. And so we wanna take our time, we wanna understand how and why it is that we draw these implications and wanna think through exactly what the text is saying, what the text is not saying. And so we want to carefully observe what's going on in Romans 13 to help us in our understanding. Once we do that, the next step in this will be to sort of trace, briefly trace the historic theology, historical theology around the theology of public life and how that thought has developed over centuries now, really beginning before the Reformation with Augustine moving into the Reformers and then how we sort of conceive of these things today. And I think it's gonna really help us set the stage for then talking directly about a theology of Christian resistance and what that looks like. So we're sort of still setting the stage and I hope that as the weeks go by that it's just sort of adding to your understanding of these things. It's like, you know, best analogy I am maybe is a pot of stew on the back burner. You've got the oven set, stove top set on simmer and it's just sitting there simmering and we are adding all kinds of good stuff to that pot. And as it all blends together and simmers together it's becoming more and more flavorful and smells better and better. And so that's what we're doing. We're just gonna continue to add to our pot as this theology simmers for a while. And over time, what begins to take shape is a well-defined, well-thought out theology of public life that will I pray serve us as we sort of move on into this chapter that we now find ourselves in with respect to what's coming in our relationship with the civil government. Okay, so we're writing wrongs from Romans. This is part two, theology of public life, lessons for a lot in the city of Sodom. Let me read the text for us, Romans chapter 13, beginning in verse one. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil. Do you wanna be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid. For he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience's sake. For because of this, you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. All right, so this morning we're gonna give a brief, just a very quick review, get it's oriented. And then we wanna finish out verse one. And what we're doing here in verse one also is laying the foundation with a couple of important hermeneutical principles. We'll talk about what that means in a minute. But to help us understand the rest of the text, as we get past verse one, we'll move a little more quickly through these other verses and compile a list of implications or assertions from them. All right, so we began last week in this text with the source of governmental authority. We're gonna talk about the source of governmental authority from Romans 13. And then we're gonna talk about the substance of governmental authority from Romans 13. The source comes from verse one. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. That's the imperative that we talked about last week, the command, right? Let every soul be subject. Four, here comes the indicative. Four, there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. That's that assertion of fact. An imperative with a supporting assertion of fact, the indicative, okay? So we talked briefly about the imperative, literally every soul to surpassing or higher authorities be subject. That's the Lord establishing the rule, if you will, the derived authority of the civil authorities, the civil government, and the command there is to be subject, to be willing or to be inclined to have a heart disposition that is inclined to obey authorities that are over you and not only or simply governing authorities, that would respect any authority that is over you, but in particular, Paul has in mind here the governing authorities. The duty required in the imperative is submission. And Matthew Henry, well-defined, I think that is loyalty, fidelity, faithfulness, respect, and obedience. It certainly implies obedience to just laws and commands. We're gonna talk about why that statement's so important in a minute. And in subjection or in submission to legal penalties, the legal sanctions, okay? We introduced, in talking about that last week briefly, the interesting position in which someone may be submissive or may be subject without obeying. And there are times when, for example, we use the example of a loving submissive wife who may find herself at times in the position as a loving submissive wife subject to her husband as the scriptures call her to be, may find herself in a position where she's unable to obey her husband because her husband is given an unlawful, unjust, unbiblical command. We find ourselves in that position sometimes with respect to the civil authorities, and we need to be able to recognize when that is. So we talked about the imperative from Romans 13.1. Then we talked about the indicative, that assertion of fact, four, verse one, or because God being sovereign, God is the one who has absolute authority. All authority has been given to the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew chapter 28. And so then, all authority under Jesus Christ our head, all authority is given or delegated authority. Authority is derived from him. All governmental authorities are ordained, they are decreed or established by God, and so they receive their power, their authority from God himself. They're not autonomous or absolute, they don't have absolute authority or autonomous authority, okay? This is all understood, we talked about last week under the doctrine of concurrence, wherein God, being sovereign over all things whatsoever that come to pass, comes to pass, God uses secondary causes to bring about his ends. God determines all things whatsoever that comes to pass through his decree, and then in executing his decrees, God uses secondary causes to bring his will about, and one of those secondary causes is certainly government, and even the way that governments that are decreed by God, governments that are established by God, God uses secondary causes to bring those governments into power, so we talked about that, whether that's a lawful election or an unlawful election, whether that's through deceit or invasion or revolution, whatever it may be, God is the one who establishes earthly authorities, governmental authorities, those authorities are in place by the decree, by the determined will of God, and God does that through what is called doctrine of concurrence or the use of secondary causes. Instances, then we looked at imperative, we looked at the indicative, then we looked at instances, we looked at the Assyrians from Isaiah 10, the kingdoms of this world, as laid out in the book of Daniel, looked at that briefly, the Chaldeans from Habakkuk, chapter one, to the Hitler's and Stalin's of our own day, right? Even when they abuse the authority that God has delegated to them to wield for our good, even when they abuse that authority to do evil, what they mean for evil, God has determined for good, okay? However, we're gonna talk about implications now, however, this obligation on the part of civil authority, civil government, is not absolute. Governments do not exercise absolute authority, so our obligation to be subject, our obligation to obey, as Peter uses the word, or Titus, Paul speaking to Titus uses the word obedience specifically, both Peter and Paul here in Romans 13, refer to submission or being subject, that command implying obedience is not absolute, is not absolute, there is no absolute command, or command for our absolute obedience to civil authorities, and why is that? It's because governments don't exercise an absolute authority. Governments exercise a derived authority or a delegated authority. So let's look at some implications then. In discussing implications from Romans 13, I think it's important for us to be aware of, and this will help us with other texts also, but important for us to be aware of two hermeneutical principles for interpreting scripture. So one of you log college guys, tell me what hermeneutics is. Can we define that word for us? Let me, John Powell. That's you brother. Interpretation. Yes, interpretation. So the sort of the art and science behind the interpretation of the Bible. Hermeneutics is the study of how we interpret the Bible. Tyler. I was gonna say there was this guy named Herman. Take the mic away from him. Okay. So we have two then, two hermeneutical principles, or principles that help us understand and interpret the texts. Two principles that are important for us to consider, right? One is the analogy of faith. The analogy of faith. So you can hand the microphone back to Tyler since you're standing right there. And Tyler, tell us what the analogy of faith is. Use your understanding of, let's say the Bible teaches on several different topics, systematic theology, we divide topics into the Bible and proof text different subjects that the Bible speaks about. And so I know that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. And so when I go to a text like John chapter 10, where he says you're God's or something like that, I can use the analogy of faith, my understanding of systematic theology to help my interpretation with that. Because the Bible doesn't contradict itself. Very good. So yeah, the Bible does not contradict itself. Why doesn't the Bible contradict itself? Because God does not contradict himself. And God is the author of scripture. There are no contradictions of the Bible. And so if you find yourself in contradiction with known texts in scripture, you're on bad, heretical grounds. Get off those grounds. There are no contradictions in the Bible. And we use the Bible to interpret the Bible. So we go to other texts, clearer texts sometimes to help us understand texts that may not be as clear. And that's where really we derive systematic theology from to Tyler's point. And the more that we understand systematic theology from all that the Bible teaches us, when we come to a particular text, all that good information is brought to bear on the texts that we're looking at and helps us to understand what we're reading. That's one of the reasons why I would really strongly encourage all of us for a broad and large intake of Bible reading. It's good to study particular texts that we're doing in Romans 13 or like we're doing later this morning in Romans chapter two. Really good to take and break apart individual texts and understanding all that God intends in that text. But also very helpful to be able to do that is a very broad intake of a lot of scripture. So for example, if you're doing your Bible reading daily, which we should be doing, take in big chunks, right? Take in big chunks. Read big chunks. The more that you familiarize yourself with the Bible as a whole, then the more all of that depth of knowledge, that depth of understanding will be brought to bear on individual texts that you're looking at. It'll be really helpful to you. Okay, so the analogy of faith. Any questions about that? Okay, just Bible interpreting Bible, Josh. Yeah, sometimes the Bible actually interprets itself. Yeah. So like progressive revelation, you have that working in scripture and then also, especially with something like this, talking about submission, you have those common commands grouped together like in the New Testament, like in Ephesians, we're talking about submit to one another and then it talks about those different relationships. Same thing in 1 Peter. Very good, right? So just sort of fills out our understanding of what those things mean. The use of words in different places in scripture and JD brings out a really important point too with respect to progressive revelation. The more revelation that we've been given and later revelation is helpful for us to understand prior revelation. So yeah, that's the analogy of faith. Scripture, Holy Spirit-inspired scripture is the best interpreter of Holy Spirit-inspired scripture. London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter one, article nine, the infallible rule of interpretation of scripture is the scripture itself. That's not circular reasoning. It's not circular reasoning because God has authored the text of scripture and God is going to make clear what he says in the Bible and he'll do that through his own infallible word. Therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture, which is not manifold but one, the true sense is one, it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly. And I would submit to you that in a vast majority of cases, there are some hard subjects in the Bible but in a vast majority of cases, the Bible is crystal clear. Even amongst those things that may divide us as denominations or divide us as groups, it is not unclear, it's not unclear. Men are so prone to be tight fisted with their traditions that that becomes very difficult to break from but when you go to scripture and your intention is to draw from the scripture, the intended meaning of the text, I think the Bible is incredibly clear and really, really helpful and we use the Bible to understand the Bible. London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter one, article 10, the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are to be examined and in whose sentence we are to rest can be no other but the holy scripture delivered by the spirit into which scripture so delivered our faith is finally resolved. All right, so analogy of the faith is the first hermeneutical principle that we need to be concerned with. We're gonna look at other texts, other situations that inform our understanding of what Romans chapter 13 is saying. If you, what's often called proof text, right? If you take one text of scripture and you're taking it out of its context and when we say taking it out of its context we would include the entire Bible in our understanding of that context. When you can take a particular text of scripture and become a heretic in a matter of moments because you're not considering how that particular text fits with the whole of scripture. We've often said here that it's important that we understand from the text what God is saying. But very important is that we understand what God means by what God is saying. And the only way that we can understand that is with all of scripture being brought to bear upon that understanding, the analogy of the faith. All right, the second hermeneutical principle that we need to understand to help us understand texts like Romans 13 is called good and necessary inference. Good and necessary inference. If this, then that and the that must necessarily follow. Good and necessary inference. Westminster Confession of Faith addresses this, chapter one, article six. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith and life is either expressly set down in scripture or, and here it is, by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture unto which nothing at any time is to be added whether by new revelation of the spirit or traditions of men. Whereby nothing may be added. Charismatics, okay? And it's a good and necessary consequence because good and necessary inferences are binding, right? Good and necessary inferences are binding. God intended inferences or deductions from the text of scripture are binding on the Christian life. Now let me give you some examples of that and maybe I'll ask you to come up with one or two, okay? One example of a good and necessary inference is the doctrine of the Trinity. Where in the Bible does the Bible explicitly give us the doctrine of the Trinity under that name explained in a way that we've come to understand systematically the doctrine of the Trinity. It has to be drawn from the scriptures through good and necessary inference. You read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and what you come out with reading the Bible faithfully is a biblical doctrine of God as one God in three persons. You come out with a full-orbed doctrine of the Trinity. That's through good and necessary inference, okay? Another one might be the Christian Sabbath, for example. There are many who don't hold to the Lord's day, Christian Sabbath. And I would submit to you that the reason they don't is because they've misinterpreted the covenants, they've misinterpreted how God operates and they've missed out on good and necessary inference from the scripture. Christian Sabbath, for example, is something that is drawn from good and necessary inference. The regulative principle of worship and the implications of the regulative principle of worship we've talked about before is something that comes from good and necessary inference. Give me some others if you can think of those. Any other examples that you can think of for? Oh yeah, Ryan, thanks brother. I was just thinking how the Lord responded to the Sadducees who denied the resurrection when he said that in the Old Testament from the burning bush, Jehovah said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and because of the tense of the verb, he's saying, God is the God of the living. Not the God of the, yes, Abraham. So, you know, Abraham lives. Yeah. But I think that's a good inference, you know, just to show that we need to pay attention. Yeah, how the Lord Jesus Christ is drawing binding conclusions from good and necessary inference. Really good, right? Anybody else have one they wanna share? Okay, think about that. Like, let that ruminate for a little bit. I think if you asked most professing Christians, they'd have some difficulty answering that question or thinking about it in terms that good and necessary inferences from the Bible, deductions from Scripture, are binding on the Christian. That's something difficult. Think about that for a little bit. Josh. Inerrancy. Yeah, praise the Lord, yes. Yeah, we talked about it a minute ago. There are no contradictions in Scripture. We draw that from good and necessary inference based upon the character of God himself, right? Very good, very good. And I think if you think about that for a little bit, you just meditate on that truth for a while, you'll think of many, many, many, many binding good and necessary deductions. Many of those, to Josh's point too, relative to the character of God from Scripture, we derive much of our theology proper, our theology of God, the character of God, the nature of God, certainly from explicit statements in Scripture, but then from the implications of those statements and the inferences that are drawn from those statements become really, really important. Tyler. Just because I don't know if an example was given about necessary consequence actually being binding upon the conscience rather than doctrines, tithing, you know? I think tithing is an inference that we draw from Scripture because in Hebrews, it says that Abraham gave Melchizedek a 10th of all and in that same passage, Jesus is said to be of the order of Melchizedek, but he doesn't say that Christians are supposed to tithe. Well, we know that we're supposed to tithe because Jesus is of the order of Melchizedek and Abraham gave him a 10th. Drawing by necessary inference from Hebrews 7. And just so you know, I did not put Tyler up to making that particular statement, so he did that of his own free will. Yeah, no, it's a good example. Very, very much so. And there is a substantial portion of our doctrinal understanding that comes from necessary consequence and we have to be okay, so to speak, with God communicating to us in that way. He doesn't write the Bible like an owner's manual per se or a schematic on a TV, for example. It's not the way the Bible's communicated to us and the way in which the Bible is communicated in God's gracious and His infinite wisdom. I'm really grateful for the way the Bible's written. In the way that the Bible is written to us, we are to draw binding necessary consequences or necessary inferences from Scripture. All right, the analogy of faith and good and necessary inference, refusing to allow for contradictions, there are no contradictions in the Bible. They serve to keep us from errors, such as Biblicism, traditionalism, rationalism. You've heard people say, no creed but Christ, no book but the Bible. You're gonna find yourself, that's most often said by heretics. And oftentimes you'll hear a heretic say, it was just me in a room alone with my Bible and that's where I came up with this. Yeah, buddy, you need to get out of your room and start talking to other Christians, start talking to Christians. We are very prone to grip tight-fisted to our traditions. We can't do that. We need to hear, understand what the Bible has to say. Okay, a full and biblical understanding, a binding understanding of the Christian's relationship to civil authorities does not come exclusively from the text of Romans chapter 13 verses one through seven. It's gonna come from Romans 13 with good and necessary inference and with good and necessary inference from Romans 13, one through seven, we're going to look at the analogy of faith and other texts to help us understand what is being said and clearly what's not being said in Romans 13, one through seven. And it's important we understand those two hermeneutical principles when we come to a text like this. That should help you understand also, you'll see that without us or me identifying the analogy of faith or good and necessary inference in a sermon, you hear us do that all the time, right? Looking at good and necessary inference from the text itself. This is what the text, you notice that Paul did not say, right, and Paul said this and we're filling out our understanding, we're talking about good and necessary inference. And then when we go to other texts to correlate what that particular text is teaching, often to help us understand more clearly the texts that we're dealing with, we're working with the analogy of faith to hermeneutical principles, okay? All right, let's make some observational assertions then from Romans chapter 13. Let's begin that with verse one, right? We're talking about implications. Verse one, there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Okay, so one observational assertion is this, civil governments do not exercise an absolute or autonomous authority. Now that is a good and necessary inference from the text. How is it that that good and necessary inference is derived? Why did we derive it? It may seem simple at the beginning. We're gonna get some more assertions that won't be quite as simple, but how is it that we derive that good and necessary inference from the text, Ben? Well, one thing might be is that they were appointed by God so they didn't appoint themselves and so they don't have the ultimate highest authority. Very good, they're appointed by God. They didn't appoint themselves. Anybody else wanna add to that? Okay, so yeah, Romans 13 then, a good and necessary inference from the text is that Romans 13 limits the authority of the civil government. Well, how does it limit the authority of the civil government? It's a delegated authority. It's not an autonomous authority. Everywhere in the text, these authorities exist as appointed by God. Appointed by God, they are accountable to God for how they exercise authority, right? Their authority does not originate with themselves. They are therefore accountable. There is, as given to us by good and necessary inference from Romans 13, there's a scope, a boundary, an extent, a limit, or an extent to their authority that they cannot go beyond. Why? Because God appointed them. They're accountable to God for how they govern. There is a point at which their authority ends, in other words, right? A point at which it does not legitimately reach. Now, think about the analogy of faith now. That's a good and necessary inference, right? Romans 13 limits the authority of the civil government. Think about the analogy of faith and where do you see that elsewhere in scripture? You mean some examples of where you see God limiting the authority of civil government. What are some things that pop into your mind? Got to quiet this morning. Ha, ha, ha. Means I've been rambling too much last several weeks. I guess you're back in the habit of like, Rebecca, then I'll come back to Michael. We're thinking about the analogy of faith here now, right? Rebecca. I was thinking through the New Testament when Jesus rebukes the leaders of Jerusalem for just all the series of laws that they impose on their people. All kinds of stuff, right? Yes, they're rebuking. And that's, we don't want to confuse that. That's a civil authority, right? So although it's the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin oftentimes that the Lord describes, the Lord is rebuking these. And they do have, there is an ecclesiastical authority or a weight that they carry, but Israel's civil or judicial laws are based upon their governance. So when you see on the Lord Jesus Christ, for example, rebuking the Sanhedrin or rebuking the Pharisees, he's not just rebuking an ecclesiastical law, but he's rebuking them for the way that they govern civilly also, right? In several cases. Michael. I was gonna say, which I'm not 100% clear on this, but I was gonna say how the Jews, how there were certain times where the Jews would seek to stone Jesus for his teachings, but the scripture clearly says that it wasn't his time. So, would that be? Yeah, he escaped from their hands. Sorry. I guess to an extent, so I don't know if that was, because we know that there is an important time for where Jesus needed to be crucified based on certain events. So I'm not sure if that's God limiting Yeah, I think so, brother. Like so, if the Lord Jesus Christ would have been submissive to their rule or their authority, absolutely, then the Lord Jesus Christ would have submitted himself to the penal sanctions or the penalties of the law and he would have allowed himself to have been stoned to death, but the Lord Jesus Christ didn't do that. What did the Lord Jesus Christ do? He resisted, right? He did not subject himself to that unlawful wielding of the law, exercise of authority. Rather, Jesus Christ corrected that unlawful exercise of authority. And yeah, I think it's a good application. I saw it on the other hand, let me get Aramey. Oh, we got a microphone back here. Then we'll come over to Aramey. Yes, brother. Hello, brother. Hello, brother. With the example of King Herod. King Herod who was angry with the people of Ty and Sidon and they came to him and he began to, a narration of them and then they began to say the voice of a God and not of a man. And an angel struck him because he did not give glory to God. Yeah, amen. And he was eaten up by worms and died. Amen. That's a fitting end to someone who is a haughty. You know, it reminds me of Daniel 4 and Nebuchadnezzar. I put out in the field like a beast. God is the one who gives the kingdoms of men, gives the kingdoms to men, right? So yeah, a very good example. Let me get Josh, then we'll come back over to Aramey. Thank you. You guys are coming up with good examples. So a couple examples in the Old Testament. You have Saul and Samuel. Like Saul's like, oh, I'm gonna sacrifice. And Samuel's like, what are you doing? Yeah, and rips the kingdom from him, right? Yeah, and then also in the New Testament, I think of John the Baptist in his example and calling out sin of the governing authority of using their power. And then in the book of Acts, the disciples, when they're told not to preach Jesus, they preach and teach in the streets. Yeah, whether it is right for us to obey God or men, you choose, we are going to obey God. Yeah, in Acts 4 or 5, I forget where it's at. Yeah, Acts 5 is really good, good example. All right, yes, Aramey, good sister. I was thinking of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they didn't bow down to the idol, but then were cast into the fiery furnace and there was four instead of three. And Daniel, when he didn't pray, I mean, he prayed to God and didn't, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, very good example. And the thing I like about that particular example, we'll come back to Gina. The thing I like about that particular example is that Daniel, in particular with the golden statue, made absolutely no accommodation whatsoever. It was Daniel's custom three times a day to go into his upper room with the windows open and pray to God where everybody could see him and everybody could hear him. And then when the decree came down, it wasn't that, well, you know, for the sake of my life or so that I won't unnecessarily offend the agents of the king. Maybe I'll just close my windows. You know, maybe I'll go into a private closet and pray to myself, you know, or in my, you know, Daniel didn't do that. He made no accommodations whatsoever. He resisted tyranny and he prayed when the windows open as he normally did. I like that, no accommodations, right? And then Daniel, he is submitted. He's subject to the civil authorities. He's subject to the penal sanctions of that. And Daniel, you know, if there are sections in scripture where the believer flees, you see Paul, they're letting Paul out through a window. Was that, there's an example of that in 1 Corinthians chapter, or 2 Corinthians chapter one, letting Paul, Oritas the governor wants to arrest him, right in there, Paul is escaping out a window, you know? There are examples where believers flee. I really like that example from Daniel. Gina? I was thinking when crisis before Pilate and Pilate tells him, I have the authority to free you. Yes, amen. You have no authority, but that which had been given to you from above. Yeah, Chase, last one and then we'll move on. In the example you just gave about Paul fleeing, is it right to think of that even as him not obeying? Yeah, amen. That's resistant. I think so, yeah, brother. That's resisting the civil authorities, right? You know, I think a more clear example of that too is at Acts 28 where Paul is brought before the governor. The governor, he doesn't merely accept the judgment of the Jews, doesn't accept the judgment of that particular governor and appeals to Caesar, but not willing to be submitted to the Jewish authorities. I think that's an example of Christian resistance. And we're gonna talk about that specifically. Christians throughout the centuries have resisted governmental authority in that way and for similar reasons. And those reasons go beyond the government told me I couldn't pray, right? That's something like that. Something like that's very obvious, right? But Christian resistance, that a theology of Christian resistance can be implied in a very broad, in very broad terms to governmental overreach. And that's where we wanna get to in our understanding of Romans 13 eventually. So yeah, we'll talk about that soon also. Okay, the principle. Paul clearly upholds this principle in scripture, Romans 13 verse one, that everyone is to be subject to the governing authorities. That's the principle in play, but as soon as Paul announces the principle, there are qualifications from scripture that begin to come to mind. You've listed just a few of them. Paul intends the principle to govern in all matters that do not conflict with our higher authority, which is God himself. The principle should apply. When there is conflict, then there's a higher principle that applies. And that principle is that we should obey God and not men. So Paul is, you could say that Romans 13 is an expression of the principle in its ideal circumstance, in its ideal state. That's the way that it should be. Governments should exercise authority under the authority that God has. Governments should exercise authority in harmony with God's ordinance. They are, as Paul says here, the authority of the ordinance of God. There's another inference we can draw from verse two. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God. That's presupposing that the authority the government is exercising is the authority of God or the ordinance of God. What happens when the governing authorities do not exercise or apply the ordinance of God? What happens when they're applying evil laws? What then are we to do, right? These are good and necessary inferences we're gonna draw from the text. So Paul is stating the principle in terms of its ideal or the way that the principle should operate. We are to derive from scripture good and necessary inferences for the limitations on that principle when government does not conduct itself in the way that it is supposed to or the way that it's been ordained by God to conduct itself. There should not be conflict. That's gonna be the substance of governmental authority. We're gonna see that in point two. There should not be conflict between the ordinance of God and the exercise of civil authority. There should be no conflict. And that brings weight to bear on the accountability of civil authorities. The civil authorities in their exercise of their authority should never be in conflict with the decree or the determined will of God. Those things should function in harmony. And when there is conflict between civil authority and God's authority, we are to in every way, all the time, every day, go with God's authority, obey God and not men. But that's even to the point of resisting, when government exercises authority that is not in keeping with God's authority. When government does that, it is right and good for Christians to resist, right? That's what you call tyranny. And tyranny is a device of Satan. It's an evil, it's not a good. And when government begins to wield an authority, exercise an authority that has not been given to it by God, exercising that authority in contradiction to God's authority, that's when the problem arises, okay? There should not be conflict. There should be a complete consistency between the authority, civil authority, and the ordinance of God. But as soon as that principle is stated, we understand we can conceive of circumstances in which the principle, as it should be, meets with qualifications because men are not going to conduct themselves as they should. Where there is conflict in this fallen world, we go up the ladder, so to speak, with respect to authority, to resolve it. There are all kinds of ways in which God himself resolves some of those issues for us. Government is one of the ways that God seeks to protect and preserve the right of his people to worship him as they should. Another one that comes to mind is laws around divorce. The Bible is clear that God hates divorce. God hates divorce. But then when Jesus Christ is speaking about divorce to the Pharisees in Matthew 19, the Pharisees ask him, why then did Moses allow for a certificate of divorce? What is Jesus' answer? It's because of the hardness of your heart. Moses allowed a certificate of divorce because of your sin, because of your hardness of heart. It would be untenable for men living in this fallen world with fallen natures, sinful as they are. It would be untenable to have an absolute rule of no divorce, so God in his infinite wisdom, in his love and care for fallen men allows for divorce under certain circumstances. He regulates divorce for the purpose of upholding his law and for the care and concern of fallen men. And so divorce becomes regulated. That's an example too, I think, of civil authority. God regulates civil authorities. It would be untenable, untenable for an absolute command of unwavering, uncompromising obedience to civil authorities. God allows for Christian resistance and even calls for commends Christian resistance. When we think about good and necessary inference from the Bible, when we think about that which is commanded, but also with good and necessary inference, we think about that which is commended. And that which is commended in the Bible is also oftentimes binding on the Christian. And we'll talk more about that. Okay, let me give you a second assertion then. First assertion, after all that talk, let me go back and remind myself what that was. Civil governments do not exercise an absolute or autonomous authority. Assertion number one, they don't exercise an absolute or autonomous authority. Assertion number two, Romans 13 therefore, does not teach that we owe unlimited obedience to the government, doesn't teach that. That understanding is imposed upon the text. The text doesn't even explicitly state that. That's not explicitly stated in the command to be subject to governing authorities, right? Obedience is implied, but we can be submissive, we can be subject and still not obedient. We looked at examples of that. We'll talk about that more as we go. But that understanding of unlimited obedience is often, and frankly, often by professing Christians today, often imposed upon the text. And you'll hear professing Christians rise up today and say, listen, we've gotta obey the government. Whatever the government says, if the government tells you, you gotta mask up in worship, you gotta mask up in worship. If the government tells you, you've gotta close down, you gotta close down. If the government comes and shuts your doors, then you've gotta shut your doors. We're to obey the governing authorities, right? And there's this implication they're drawing that we should be absolute in our obedience to civil authority. It's not what Romans 13 is teaching. And apart from God, apart from God, the government has no authority. Apart from God, the government has absolutely no authority. And think about that with respect to the world. All authorities in the world are derived from God's authority. We have no authority anywhere apart from God. As a husband, I have no authority apart from God. As a father, I have no authority apart from God. As a pastor, I have no authority apart from God. As an employee, an employer, you have no authority apart from God. authorities have no authority except that which comes from God. One of the indications that we have, we owe accountability to God. We're gonna talk about this a little bit in Romans chapter 2 this morning and the idea of conscience. One of the implications that God, if you want to think about it in this way, God exists or that God has authority over our lives and we are accountable to God is the fact that we wield authority. Right? I was, I don't want to give it away because I was gonna use it as an example in the sermon this morning but I was always witnessing to a college kid not long ago and I don't believe in God. I don't believe in objective morality. I don't believe in to command. I don't believe any that applies to me. No objective morality. I said so have you ever done something that you had a guilty conscience over? He said yes. Well yeah. So much for your thoughts about objective morality. That's an objective morality. You wanted to do that. You thought it was right to do that. You did that. You felt guilty about it. Why? Because it's wrong. All right? There's an objective morality and so the fact that there is authority tells us that God exercises authority. Our exercise of any authority really is just an indication that we're accountable to a higher authority. All right. Romans 13 does not teach therefore that we owe unlimited obedience to civil government. Third, there are circumstances in scripture in which disobedience to civil government is commanded or commended. And you've listed multiple examples already. Let me give you a couple of more. The example of the Hebrew midwives, the Hebrew midwives, you'll find nowhere in that text. That's Exodus chapter one. You'll find nowhere in that text where God commends them for lying. You know, it's good that they lied. The text doesn't explicitly state that, but the actions of the Hebrew midwives are commended by God as righteous. And not only were they commended by God as righteous, God blessed the nation because of their faithfulness, right? Their resistance to tyranny. Daniel chapter six, and we've talked about that already, the law of the Medes and the Persians versus the law of Daniel's God, Paul and Paul's resistance of civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ and his resistance to civil authority. So when is then, when is civil disobedience or resistance necessary? Let me give you three examples. Okay. When is civil disobedience necessary? One, when the state commands something that God forbids, you're going to do this. And God says, no, pretty simple, pretty clear. There may be instances where that's not so clear. I would include things, state commands something that God forbids when they say anything, anything with respect to the worship of the church, not your jurisdiction, right? When the state commands something that God forbids. Secondly, when the state prohibits something that God requires, when the state prohibits something that God requires, that's pretty clear also. But here's where we need to flesh out a little bit more. Third, when the state presumes to exercise an illegitimate authority. When the state commands something that God forbids, when the state prohibits something that God requires, and when the state presumes to exercise illegitimate authority. And that's in terms of worship. I can think of many instances even here recently under the quote unquote pandemic. But you can also think in terms of the state overreaching its bounds with what can be said or not said from the pulpit, what can be proclaimed from a street corner from God's word and what can't. And there are already people arrested time and time again now for preaching, for example, against homosexuality. And that just from a base reading of the text, and you'll find a pastor on a street corner arrested, somebody arrested just for reading the text of scripture with respect to that. Government has no authority to do that. It's presuming to exercise an illegitimate authority over the proclamation of God's word. With respect to members of churches, I think I brought up the example not long ago. I was just shocked by it, frankly, shocked by it. Of the Texas Five, I think is what they're calling them. Five pastors in the Houston area, I believe it was, that had all of their sermons, all of their writing was subpoenaed by the courts to the mayor of the Houston. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Against their preaching on homosexuality. Wanted to make public and ring before the court. They're preaching against homosexuality is discriminatory, you know, that's in our country happened here, you know, just over the border to the north of us. I'm also shocked by that. How much the government is getting away with, so to speak there. It's ridiculous. Government has in the past wheeled in authority over the worship of the church, over the membership of the church, who would be members who wouldn't be, who could be admitted, who couldn't be admitted. That's coming to, by the way, who could be hired, who shouldn't be hired. What you can say in your hiring practices, what you can't say in your hiring practice, all this, an overreach of government authority in the church. That's something that we're seriously going to face here in short order. We must refuse to give the government any authority that isn't properly theirs. And we want to flesh that statement out and be cautious in how we understand it. Not to be in violation of Romans 13, but also to understand Romans 13 and to apply faithfulness to God before faithfulness to civil authorities, right? It's like the Lord decreed, determined to kill Eli, cursed Eli, and then determined to take his life. Why? Because Eli esteemed his sons more highly than God. We're not to esteem civil authority more highly than God's authority. God has ultimate authority. And so we must refuse to give the government any authority that isn't properly theirs. And that is authority that is in contradiction with God's authority. To do so, to do so is to abandon the responsibility that God has given elsewhere. Now it's this relationship in our working through a theology of public life, this relationship that we're going to flesh out and that we want to be clear about, right? I want you to put those two statements together. One, we must refuse to give the government any authority that isn't properly theirs, ordained by God. To do so is to abandon the responsibility that God has given elsewhere. Let me give you one example of that. When you, for example, abandon, when you give civil authority the absolute right to educate your children, you abandon your responsibility that's given you by God to educate your children. Now that doesn't mean that doesn't mean that you can't send your child to public school and not still take responsibility for teaching them. You know, they come home, you correct any garbage that was taught to them during the day. You educate them yourselves. I mean, I'm not ruling out those circumstances where parents may have absolutely no other option, right? They send their child to public school. They still have the responsibility given them by God to educate their children and they can still do that if they're careful in that responsibility. But to just delegate that responsibility to civil authority is to violate the responsibility that God has given you in the education of your children, right? Those two things have to fit together. We want to make it at this church part of our thought around this going forward is to make it a non-issue for any parent associated with our church whatsoever for any period of time in the future. Make it an unnecessary consideration to send your kid to public school at all, right? We want to provide a school if that's what it takes to help and facilitate obedience to God and these commands. But that's just one example of what are many, many examples, okay? We can be submissive or let me ask you the question. Can we be submissive while we practice civil disobedience? And I would submit to you that yes, we can be submissive while we humbly subject ourselves to the consequence of our civil disobedience, which in church history has been persecution by the state, okay? We maintain a submissive posture, 1 Peter 2 verse 23, while submitting to him who is Lord overall, okay? And following the example of Jesus Christ who when he was reviled, did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. When the civil government does not judge righteously, God always does. And we can submit ourselves to him, okay? Fourth and quickly, assertion. Those circumstances, those circumstances in which there is conflict, which there is contradiction between civil authority and God's authority are not the fault of the institution. God intended that institution for good, but is the practice of tyrants. We can be submissive as Paul was to the institution of the high priest when he called him a whitewashed tomb. Remember that? He struck him, had him struck, and Paul said, you know, Paul called him a whitewashed tomb. Somebody reminded him, you're talking to the high priest. And Paul said, I didn't realize. Paul showed reverence, showed respect to the institution of the high priest, although it was currently held by a wicked, deplorable man. It's not the fault of the institution. It's the fault of fallen sinful men and what becomes the practice of tyrants. God holds tyrants accountable. We see that throughout scripture and it may require resistance on the part of Christians with a posture of submission, a heart readiness to submit, a heart disposition of a wanting, desiring to be subject to God's good authority. From the perspective of the government, civil authorities have a stewardship from God to govern as God has called them to govern. And secondly, they must govern according to the standards by which they must be judged. Governing authorities should govern according to the standard by which the governing authorities themselves will be judged, which is what the word of God, right? The standard they'll be judged by is the word of God. For them to fail is for them to store up or to treasure wrath in the day of wrath. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. All that from verse one, right? Think about those good and necessary inferences and the analogy of faith. We're considering the source of governmental authority. Next week, we'll begin to consider from verse two the substance of governing authority or governmental authority. We'll talk about that next week. Thank you. If you have questions, let me know. We can talk about it after. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, grateful again to you, Lord, as we always are. So grateful for your word. Thank you, Lord, for how clear your word is communicated to us. Thank you, Lord, for how you've communicated your word to us and how we can go to your word and the extent of your word for understanding this text in particular and applying insights from the Bible, applying principles from the Bible with respect to this text so that we might obey you, first and foremost, esteeming you higher than any earthly authority and how we can be faithful to living the Christian life. Help us to do that. Strengthen us to do that. Strengthen us for what appears to lie ahead. Lord, I pray that if you will, that you would preserve us from persecution. You would preserve us that we may live a quiet and peaceable life, as Paul tells Timothy, that you might, Lord, in your grace and mercy to us, extend to this time of peace that we might serve you, preach the gospel as we are, to preach the gospel without persecution, without fear of reprisal from the state. But Lord, if it's your will, then that would not be the case. Lord, I pray that you would strengthen your people, give your people wisdom as we seek to understand our relationship to governing authorities. For your glory, God, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.