 All right. So we're in our series, The Theology of Public Life. And this morning we come to connect what we've been talking about in the last few weeks with the rise of the new religion to the role of government in that. And what we wanna slowly begin to do now over the next several weeks is to examine or consider the relationship of the Christian to the state, relationship of the Christian or the relationship of the church to the state. We are gradually going to work toward taking several weeks in an exposition of Romans chapter 13, which I think will be really helpful to us, but we're working our way that direction. And I want these things, I would like for these things to be clear in our heads as we sort of attempt to rightly discern, rightly diagnose what is taking place today in our country and our culture. We're a part of that. And we as Christians, we as the church have a responsibility to our culture. We have a responsibility to be salt and light in this dark world. And that certainly is through the preaching of the gospel. And even in the preaching of the gospel though, that has a context to it. There are ways in which we should be addressing this world with the gospel. And we're going to be talking about all of those in the application section once we get through some of these studies together. So this morning we wanna talk about the role or the relationship of the Christian to government. And we just wanna breach that subject, we want to give you an overview or maybe just a cursory glance at it. And we're gonna get to more detail in that over the next several weeks. Let me read this quote to you. This is from Glenn Sunshine. It came from a book that Dr. Sunshine wrote called as all of that name, Dr. Sunshine. Dr. Sunshine wrote a book called Slaying Leviathan. And it's on our book shelves out there, a featured book. So if you're interested in that, I have some time to read something along those lines. I highly recommend it to you. It's a very good sort of synopsis of the relationship of the Christian to the government. But in the book is a quote that I thought was helpful that would get us started in talking this morning. Dr. Sunshine says this, no matter how much the revolutionary government trumpeted its support of liberty, like any good propagandists, they redefined the term. Now what Sunshine is talking about is the French Revolution. And French Revolution sort of adopting the thinking that we've already discussed of Rousseau, where the will of the people is sovereign. God is no longer sovereign. The will of the people is sovereign. And what we have to do as the people under a government is to submit ourselves to the common will or to the common good, right? The government governs at the consent of the people. So whatever the people determine is good or right goes and the government should conform itself to that. In other words, the will of the people, not God, the will of the people is sovereign. So Sunshine says, no matter how much the revolutionary government there, trumpeted its support of liberty, like any good propagandists, they redefined the term. Following Rousseau, they claimed that true freedom was found in submitting to the general will, will of the people, which of course, they alone understood and embodied. In other words, there was a ruling class of elites who claimed to represent the people and they knew what the will of the people was. You hear that in the news all the time, right? The American people say, or this is what the American people want, people standing in place of quote, unquote, the American people, giving you their opinions, giving you their ideas, telling you they represent the American people. It's the same kind of thing there. We should submit, they would say, to the general will or the will of the people. If you did not agree, if you insisted on your own faith or defended your own right to property or were found wanting and revolutionary fervor for their cause, your existence threatened the promised utopia and you had to be eliminated. Now this is writing of a time and this was the mental state, if you will, or the political theory, if you will, of the French Revolution in the 1780s, 1789, and it's as true then as it is today. He says, this is what happens in crisis situations when the government claims the right to control all areas of your life. You end up with a totalitarian nightmare, a monster that reaches into everything we do, everything we say, everything we think, that claims authority over everything we own and lets us live only in line with its values and interests. What you get is Leviathan and Leviathan is a name given to government. We'll talk about that in a moment. That was true at the time of the French Revolution and that is true today and we'll see that as we work through this. Okay, Leviathan rising. We're gonna talk about this morning. We wanna begin with the life and times of Roman first. If you have your outline there from the welcome desk, the life and times of Roman first. We created this fictional character last week, Roman first. It's because he's represented by Romans chapter one. Roman first is futile in his thinking. His heart is darkened, proclaiming to be wise. He is a fool and Roman first is living his life. Roman first is a psychologized man. It turns everything in upon himself. His desires, his feelings, his want, his interpretation of freedom is what he is going to pursue and he's going to pursue that by casting off external impositions upon his freedom, external impositions upon what he believes it is or means to be an authentic human being. So Roman first turns everything in upon himself. Everything exists to serve his needs, his wants, his preferences. He is a psychologized man. In addition to being a psychologized man, Roman first is a secular humanist. He is either atheistic, agnostic, or a nun, I don't know any. And his morality as a secular humanist, having dethroned God, having deified man, Roman first is, his morality is an exceedingly dangerous Marxism, psychologized Marxism. Tearing down power structures in order to reapportion power to the weak. Tearing down those who oppress, those institutions who oppress and setting up an environment, according to his own thinking that would support and give power to the weak and marginalized. In this situation, Roman first is an adherent to the new religion and Roman first is a religious zealot, affirming others who think like him, shaming others who do not think like him and placating an unfulfilled Godward bent. That's something that's wired into Roman first DNA as a man made in the image of God. He is attempting to fulfill what may only be fulfilled by pursuing right relationship to God. He's attempting to fulfill that and placate a guilty conscience by or through an unfulfilling manmade or manward counterfeit, which is the new religion, right? He believes he's doing good. So all this makes Roman first, a card-carrying member of the new religion. Roman first as a religious zealot for the new religion represents astounding ignorance secured through or protected by closed eyes, blinded eyes, stopped ears and a hostile refusal to reason with the truth because he sees his resistance as moral. His ideas, thoughts, conceptions have a moral weight to them. And so he sees any resistance to challenges to his way of thinking as a moral imperative to resist and professing to be wise, Roman first became a fool. And remember, what we're experiencing now today is a generational replacement. Millennials who overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly represent the thinking of Roman first. Millennials are slowly replacing aging adults who are more mimetic in their thinking than poetic in their thinking. And over time, that generation as it dies out is being replaced by more and more people who think like Roman. The population is being transformed before our very eyes. And what that means is that a social revolution is already underway. It's been long underway. It's been underway since the enlightenment period. But even more so in our own country, we see it since the sexual revolution of the 60s. There is a social revolution taking place and that social revolution is marked by this generational replacement. Increasingly, overwhelmingly, new adults added to the population share Romans values. Romans community of faith that replaces the church and the inherent need that people have for fellowship in the spirit, fellowship with God, communion with God's people. That's been replaced by a community of faith with others who think and act in the ways that Roman thinks and acts. And you can see there's zeal propagated there. It's there in that community of faith. People who think like he does that Roman is validated. He's taught to conform his thinking. He's encouraged in certain ways of thinking. A social imaginary develops. We've talked about all these things. And Roman is taught to understand his authenticity, his pursuit of freedom, the sacraments of equality and autonomy, and the unarticulated desire that Roman would reject, which is a reconciliation with God or community within the church, is replaced with this different religious community that seems to fulfill Roman's need for that kind of community or fellowship. But ultimately, Roman will find to be completely empty. With that, the media parrots the same thinking because the media is driven by this community of faith. Broadcast media, entertainment media, social media, all driven, all fueled by this thinking, right? And they are puppets, if you will, lackeys to Roman and this community of faith. Together with education, media and education become the primary delivery system, if you will, for this kind of thinking. And it is, we've heard about things today in social media going viral. Well, there is a viral spread to this kind of thinking, this mentality that Roman has, this psychologized man mixed with secular humanism, mixed with a Marxist morality. You get that kind of thinking and it is spreading virally through media and through education. College campuses are given over to it, social media, media platforms are all given over to it. You can't, I'm just so aggravated by it. You can't watch a show, you can't watch a commercial, you can't watch anything anymore without that being intentionally, and it's like, right, the blinders are off, we see it, intentionally inserted in every bit of media that we're exposed to. It's absolutely absurd, but that's the way that it is today. That social imaginary is being developed at lightning speed, it's going viral and it's just, it's accelerating the rate at which we replicate Romans, right? We'll talk about that more. That morality, those with power got it by exploiting the weak, those with wealth, got it by exploiting the poor, those with privilege, sustain it by exploiting those without it, and those with power, wealth and privilege use them as a means of control and oppression. Keep Roman and others like him marginalized or off to the side, out of the center of the public sphere. The only way to stop this travesty of justice, as Roman would think, is to eradicate, destroy the people and institutions that support it and free people from the rules of forms and institutions by taking control for themselves. I thought it was really fascinating last week after Sunday School, Anya and I were talking and Anya, her parents grew up in the shadow of the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks and Marxism and Leninism taking root in Soviet Russia grew up in the shadow of all that and Anya was showing me the hymn of the proletariat. In Marxism you have two, essentially two classes, you have the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, you have the ruling class and the working class and the hymn of the proletariat, essentially you have to ask Anya for the exact words and Anya can tell you. But essentially we're going to destroy the ruling class, the bourgeoisie and destroy their violence. Now how are they going to destroy their violence with violence of their own? We're going to destroy them through revolution. The hymn calls for revolution and it's a revolution on the part of the working class against the ruling class and it's fascinating how just listening to the words of that hymn mirror the thought of Romans and those like him today. Very interesting. All right, they're calling it social justice. Calling it social justice. What we're going to see is that it's social injustice and we'll look at that soon. That social justice is the bankrupt morality of the new religion and that social justice, that bankrupt morality is a cloak for institutionalized or socialized discontentment. Right now think with me, right? This bankrupt morality, what is it? It's nothing more than a cloak for licentiousness. What form does that licentiousness take? It's discontentment. I don't like my lot in life. I don't like what I have been handed. I'm entitled to so much better, I'm discontent. It's a cloak for institutionalized envy. I'm fascinated by the New Testament and the sin that the Jews were accused of in crucifying their Messiah, that sin was envy. It was the sin of envy. The Romans are going to come and take away both our nation and our place, right? And this Jesus is the one who's going to hand it to him. Jesus taking away both our nation and our place by assuming to be the king of the Jews. So what are we going to do with him? We're going to kill him. What was it? It was institutionalized envy on the part of the Jews that led them to their murderous plot, this murderous plot to kill Jesus, the sin of envy. This social justice is a cloak for institutionalized covetousness. I don't have it, you've got it, I want it, I deserve it, I'm entitled to it, I'm going to take it. That's essentially what we're seeing. And we're already beginning to see theft of property. What's happening now really is a desire for a theft of control, theft of power. This covetousness, institutionalized covetousness, institutionalized greed, and what will eventually become institutionalized theft. We already see institutionalized theft in some respects, theft of property, and we'll see more of that. This bankrupt morality that they're calling social justice is based on the writings of Karl Marx, based on Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin. The writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin all tap into and exploit this social sin. I don't think that the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin led to this kind of social sin. It's the writings of guys like Marx, Engels, and Lenin that expose or exploit this social sin. These are guys in power or guys who want power, who are charging up people or encouraging people in this thinking by formulating it, by systematizing it. And that's where we get Marxism, for example. They systematize social discontent. They formalize social covetousness or social greed or social envy. They systematize that. They pit the proletariat, the working class, against the bourgeoisie, and they call for revolution. That's what Marxist ideology, Engels, Lenin, what they all did. That mindset of I'm entitled to it, I deserve it, I don't have it, I want it, you need to give it to me, that mindset has already leached into the social imaginary of Roman and his buddies. It's the prevalent way of thinking today, right? Come up and these are things that I deserve. That's why someone could actually say that health insurance is a right, not a want, right? Health insurance is a right. Everything today is a right, right? We have a right to free college tuition. We have a right to socialized medical care that I don't pay for. I have a right to this and a right to that. The only way that that happens is through this kind of thinking. And a social revolution, as a result, is already underway that will transform us. Eventually it's transforming us socially. It already has. It will transform us economically. It will transform us further politically. We already see that at play. All this is in keeping with the new religion. Okay. Into the vacuum then, left behind by the disavowed ruling class, Slytheres Leviathan, okay? In this kind of social revolution, what takes place is a casting off of all that that was formerly considered to be those in power or institutions that held power. It's a marginalizing of those, the destroying of those, the casting off of those. And in the vacuum left behind, somebody's gotta lead. Somebody's gotta rule, right? And in every case like that, when the socially, they believe themselves to be socially marginalized, covetous, envious, discontent, begin to want power for themselves, somebody has to step in and lead. And there's always, always those like Marx, Engels and Lennon, Stalin, who are only too willing to step right into that position and lead them, right? That tends to be the response of government. Into that vacuum left behind by a disavowed ruling class, Slytheres Leviathan. And encroaching, opportunistic, totalitarian expansion of worldly government, right? We distinguish worldly government from God's institution of government. Governments today don't look like the institution that God had intended, but into that vacuum Slytheres this encroaching, opportunistic, totalitarian expansion of government bent on taking power for themselves while they promise power, promise provision for the proletariat, the oppressed. That happened in the French Revolution. Let me read, you see it there. What happened as a result of that, you get an authoritarian, totalitarian dictator in control. Happened with the Bolsheviks in Russia. Millions of people as a result, eventually dead, consigned to gulags and camps, and ruthless rulers like Stalin in place. Happened in China in the 1940s. Chairman Mao, others. Happened across Southeast Asia. Happened across Europe before the outbreak of World War II. And what is the fruit of that? Totalitarian regimes cropping up, millions dead. The pink tide, they call it, the totalitarian socialism that spread through Latin America here in the last 20 years. And it's happening in our country today. All in the name of social justice, freedom, equality, and liberty. Now, what you get when you start talking about things like that is you'll have some people who will sort of instantaneously jump up and cry conspiracy theories, right? Conspiracy theories. Now, when you say something like that's happening today, what's happening today is what is, they're already referring to as a soft totalitarianism that is creeping into our government, creeping into our culture. It has already crept in, it's already got a big fat foot in the door and already beginning to wield its influence. It's happening in our country today. And what's interesting is if you, there was a book by Rod Dreher, I can recommend it to you. It's called Live Not By Lies. I think I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago where Rod Dreher is interviewing those who lived through the results of the October revolution in Soviet Russia, or they lived through the gulags, lived through some of those changes before World War II in Europe. And what they'll say is that exactly what they saw in Czechoslovakia, in Poland, in Hungary, as the Nazis were taking countries on the weekend, what they saw is exactly what they're seeing in our country today, this slow giving away of all of our rights, giving away of all of our freedoms, the government only too willing to take those rights and freedoms. And what those will say is that, if you read those accounts, those interviews, is that we're just allowing it to happen, right? It's happening right under our nose and we like it. We're willing to have Alexa in our house listing all our conversations because it's so convenient. So they talk about this giving away of all our freedoms. Okay, in order to enjoy the privilege of leading us into this utopian freedom and this utopian equality, the government is all too willing to slither into every area of your life to ensure that we get it, we get what we want. Glenn Sunshine, slaying Leviathan. This is what happens in crisis situations when the government claims the right to control all areas of your life. The government is increasingly doing that, right? Increasingly doing that. Our founding fathers would be horrified at what our government looked like today. Huge, massive government spending trillions of dollars creeping into every last area. Your family, the education of your children, the healthcare of your children, your own personal healthcare, what you personally do or don't do, the government is leaching into every area of your life and that expansion will continue unless something or someone stops that. It just continues to happen and that's what leads to, Marx and Engels would say that democracy inevitably leads to socialism because democracy inevitably leads to revolution, this progress towards totalitarianism. He says it's inevitable. And many, many after him have said the same thing. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. So the time in which we're living, and if you read, for example, Francis Schaefer in Christian Manifesto, we also have that on the bookshelf, and read other Christian thinkers like that, we're already living in a society where that's taking place and so now it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and Christians need to be prepared in their thinking and their understanding to face that and to think about how are we gonna live and what Christians can't do is just to continue to, almost through a campaign, if you will, of appeasement, continue to stand by and just let it happen. Christians have a responsibility to address it, address the culture, address this government, this nation with biblical truth for the sake of the gospel and what we have a tendency to do or what we can find ourselves doing is just sort of being asleep at the wheel while all this takes place and doing nothing. And I don't believe that we have the luxury of doing nothing. I think we have the responsibility to preach the gospel, to do something, okay? So we'll talk more about that. You end up with this totalitarian nightmare, a monster, Leviathan that reaches into everything we do, everything we say, everything we think, claims authority over everything we own and lets us live only in line with its values and interests. What you get, sunshine says, is Leviathan. As more and more authority is claimed, Leviathan's tentacles reach farther and farther into everyday life. This happens through what is a quasi-symbiotic relationship between worldly governments, which tend to be power hungry control freaks, and the oppressed class, which hopes to exercise its will through government. Right, if you go back to the French Revolution, you have the will of the people and the will of the people, they wanted to express through their government what happened, their government took over and subjugated the will of the people. That's what governments do. So there's this, in the beginning, this sort of symbiotic relationship between government, who are power hungry, and the oppressed class or the proletariat who hope to establish their will through governments. Where the state, in that case, obeys the oppressed, obeys those people, so to speak, caters to or curries favor with those people, rather than the oppressed obeying the state. It gets flipped around. I grew up being taught constantly, obey your authorities, right? You never resist the police. If you have a complaint against the police, you take it up with their commanding officer after the whole thing settles down, or you take it up with the courts. You don't resist authority. You don't resist the authority in the classroom at your school. You don't resist the authority at the mayor's office. You don't resist authority, right? You learn to respect your authorities, respect government. That's all gone. It's been flipped now where the state is to curry favor with or cater to the oppressed class. And if the state doesn't do it, then the state knows. Those people who want power know they can be voted out. They can be shamed, canceled, marginalized in a moment on some viral tweet on social media, right? And before you know it, it would take one wrong move, one wrong statement, and all of a sudden a politician just vanishes out of the public square altogether because the mob silences them, right? They know that full well. So what we're in the process of right now is the state catering, currying favor with that group of Roman first in his community of faith and his buddies in order to expand power. What happens though, when that power becomes more institutionalized in the hands of a ruling class or a ruling elite, pretty soon you have to totalitarian control. They'll take it, okay? Rousseau's The Will of the People is now sovereign even beyond logic, beyond morality because The Will of the People lends itself to mob rule. It was one of the downfalls when Aristotle, we're gonna talk about how our government formed. We'll deal with that over the next few weeks, but when our founders were forming our government, they were considering the writing of Aristotle. And that was one of the faults. Aristotle viewed democracy as not a good thing, it was a bad thing, and he viewed a republic is what you want. The republic is what you want. And we have a constitutional republic in the United States. We're not a pure democracy. We're a constitutional republic. A republic is a good thing. A democracy is a bad thing. Why? Because a democracy leads to mob rule. So it devolves into mob rule. And that's essentially where we're devolving, aren't we? And in many cases, the mob is increasingly putting pressure on our government institutions to bend to their will. The most recent example of that was this last week as you had a group of people standing on the steps of the Supreme Court arguing for packing the court, destroying the filibuster, which would ruin our Senate, and packing the court, which would politicize the Supreme Court and marginalize the decisions of the court. All that was happening this way. And that's all based on pressure from Roman I and guys that think like him, right? And that mob. In particular, the new religion has used the courts as a way to begin exercising their will. Because the courts don't have the difficult and messy problem of having the legislate, they can just make a decision by fiat and that becomes the law of the land. And as long as you have a dynamicists, people who don't, difference between dynamicists and originalists on the court, originalists believe that they should interpret the Constitution based upon the original intent of the authors, a dynamicist believes that it's a living document. You can make it say what is pertinent or relevant to people today. In other words, liberals and conservatives, they want more liberals on the court. And with more liberals on the court or with the Supreme Court making decisions like that, it's easy to assert their will. And a good example of that is abortion. The decision, the Roe v. Wade decision was made by a, for one I understand, a six, three majority conservative court that where that decision was made, Roe v. Wade, and it was horribly decided nowhere near constitutional. And yet because the court believed that it was best or the will of the people, so to speak, that decision was made. Anyone studying those decisions would agree that it was horribly decided. We call the encroaching form of this totalitarian government, a Leviathan. That's where the word Leviathan comes from. That word Leviathan was coined from a book on political theory by a Puritan era, not a Puritan himself. Book on political theory by Thomas Hobbes, 1651. And he called government Leviathan. In his book, Thomas Hobbes essentially argued for doctrine that we know as the divine right of kings, where Thomas Hobbes asserted that the king alone had absolute authority in any kingdom. Now, if you can imagine, governments very quickly picked up this divine right of kings and it was used, that doctrine used as an excuse or justification for subjugating and killing thousands across Europe as kings asserted their authority. The king alone had absolutely authority in any kingdom. The king could make law, change law, violate law. He could give rights, take away rights because all authority had been yielded to him by his subjects. The king was sovereign. The people end up being entirely complicit in their own subjugation due to a cult of government provision or government care or a cult of safety, a cult of security. God doesn't exist to give it to us or we can't trust God to give it to us. We don't trust God to give it to us, but the government can and the government will, the government should. So anything in our day, we see the same kind of thought process. Anything from food to medical care to stop the virus. Who's gonna stop the virus? The government's gonna stop the virus, right? And the government's gonna pass policy and the government's gonna control the virus. What's gonna keep the planet from just being destroyed by harmful greenhouse gases? The government is gonna, the government is going to protect this all from the horrific nightmare of climate change. The government does all this. The government is, gives us, will give us wages. The government is where we get a $15 minimum wage. The government in many cases and even in our country right now are passing laws where they're giving what they call a base livable wage. You apply for it. They'll just give it to you $500 a month for doing nothing. It's just because that's what you deserve. That's what you're entitled to as a human being, right? The government does that. The government takes care of our retirement. They better not touch our social security. The government gives us a social agenda. All that comes from the government, right? All that comes from the government. So the people then willfully, gladly, rejoice to give up all their rights and subjugate themselves to the cult of government for the sake of safety and security, all these provisions that the government has said to give. That kind of encroachment is taking place today. There's no question about it. And every time you turn around, there's some new right that's being asserted, right? We have a right to have all our college loans paid off. The debt that I incurred for taking classes to get an art history major that now I can't work in because nobody hires art history majors. I have to pay that back, right? But no, no, I don't have to do that. The government will pay it back for me. And the government should, right? They should do that for me, right? It's my right or I'm entitled. It's ridiculous is what it is, right? We see that thinking all over the place. That encroachment is happening. Has been happening. It's just continuing to happen. We can't be fools. We can't be ignorant to it. All that is resulting in an erosion of rights given to us by God, an erosion of rights that not given to us by government. Government doesn't give us those rights. God gives us those rights. When our constitution or declaration of independence says that we have the right to liberty or the right to life, the right to, those aren't given to us by the Declaration of Independence, God gave us those rights. And when those rights are infringed upon, the government has lost any authority to govern. And the Christian not only has a duty but a responsibility, a right to resist. We'll talk about that. Okay, all of that, this picture we're painting is not the government that was instituted, that is instituted by God. It is a man marred, sin corrupted, power hungry, perverted picture of something that God intended when he instituted government. But it's not what God intends. This is government operating exclusive to God, outside of God's intent. This is a government acting autonomously. They don't believe in God, don't consider God, don't have anything to do with God. And that government then becomes wielded by the mob, which is increasing what's happening. It's becoming wielded by the mob. Now, if you think about that with me for a second, okay? Someone would say, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. All governments are instituted by God. All governments are instituted by God, that's true. Government instituted by God. All marriages are instituted by God. Marriage is an institution that God created. So what about homosexual marriage? Are you gonna say that marriage is instituted by God? No, it's a disgusting perversion of what God intended. So the government that you see today is no different. It's a disgusting perversion of what God intended. God instituted the family, but God didn't institute spousal or spouse abusing, child molesting, fatherlessness. He didn't institute any of that when God instituted the family. What is that? That is a destroyed, marred, perverted, corrupted institution. That's the institution when sinful man gets his hands on it, right? When fallen man gets his hands on it. That's what happens to God's good created order. Well, what you see today in terms of government, what you see today is what happens when sinful, corrupt, fallen, godless, God-hating men get their hands on government. What you're seeing today is what that looks like, increasingly so. There's fascinating similarities. Just something to think about popped up in my head. Fascinating similarities between mob rule and the Jews wielding mob rule power over the government of the Romans in the mock kangaroo trial of the Lord Jesus Christ before they crucified him, right? You have the government catering to, cow-towing to mob rule in crucifying. Pilate comes out and says, I find no cause to condemn this man. And yet because he feared the mob, what did he do? He sent him away to be crucified, right? The Jews exercised a mob control over their Roman occupiers in order to have Jesus Christ crucified. Just a lot of similarities to what is slow wielding of that in our country today. One of the reasons that we wanna do this study is because Christians, I think by and large, have lost sight. I say that about myself. Like I am guilty of before, not thinking of these things in the ways that I think that I should. And if we don't take notice of them, if we don't begin to seriously address them, you know, remember, we lose sight of how to deal with them, right? It was a hymn writer, a woman I can't remember her name, Elizabeth, I'm drawing a blank on her name, who said that if the battle is raging, if the battle is raging on this one particular front, or in this one particular place, and the Christian is doing anything else, like godly, otherwise holy, or good, but they're not addressing the front at that particular point where the battle rages hottest, they're not being faithful to the gospel, right? They're not being faithful to the gospel. And so we want as Christians, we can't just sort of sit behind the four walls of our church and talk about the Bible and good things. That's wonderful, and we should be doing that. But we have a responsibility to do more than that. We have a responsibility to wage our battle where the war is fought most fiercely, right? And I think that's in this area, or coming to be abortion, other places like it. So Christians, I think, have lost sight of the biblical weights and measures by which we are to evaluate the limits of government authority. We've lost sight of the biblical weights and measures by which we are to evaluate the limits of government authority. And what you have sort of ringing out today as James Coates is being arrested, as his church is being fenced up, as MacArthur's church is being sued, as orders are taking place, all of that. What you have are professing Christians rising up and saying, we're to obey the government. What are you people doing? You're sinning against God, right? That is a ridiculously absurdly oversimplistic reaction to what's going on, an unbiblical reaction to what's going on. And my mind, in many cases, an absolute treasonous response to what's going on. And we don't want to be guilty of that. Christians have lost sight of the biblical weights and measures, the biblical weights and measures by which we are to evaluate the limits of government. New religion has attacked and plundered, and they've done that largely through the arm of government, and they'll do that more through the arm of government, predominantly the courts, because it's easy through the courts. Therefore, let me stop there for a second. We're gonna make a connection here. But at that point, I know I ramble every week. What questions? Any questions, thoughts, anything that's confusing? Terms don't make sense. How can I help? Yes, 6-0. The state is a state where they want to pass where an adult can marry their own child. Yep, just happened this weekend. Yep, craziness is happening. Tom, yep, all that happening by legislation, right? Hey, brother. Good morning, brother. Good morning. At some point as you continue with these lessons, can you expound on what you mean when you talk about revolution on the part of the Christian? Yes. The intent that the Christian is to go to with different circumstances when it comes to revolution? Yeah, thank you, brother. That's a really good question. Yeah, we definitely will get there. We'll get there actually pretty soon. If you have time to read Frans de Schaefer's Christian Manifesto, that's a short book, and it's a pretty simple read with respect to consolidating some of these issues. But what Frans de Schaefer mentions in that book is a three-pronged approach. We're going to talk about it more in detail. But he mentioned sort of a three-level response on the part of the Christian. And this is strictly from not necessarily a preaching the gospel standpoint or an offensive force or movement, but defensive. Defense, if he says the first option is to protest. The Christians should resist or protest laws that are passed that are wicked. And we're going to talk about ways in which we can do that. I sort of like the idea of standing on the Capitol steps and open air preaching and singing hymns and with a bunch of people out there with signs protesting the wickedness of rulings that our government makes, in particular, like abortion, those kinds of things. So the first response of the Christian is to protest. The next response of the Christian is to flee. If the persecution, if the government encroaches to the point where it makes following Christ, where you're going to be faced with persecution or called upon to disobey the government in order to obey Jesus Christ, then one option to the Christian is to flee. The last option, he says, is force. And it's under the last option, force that I think the founders of our country defended their families, defended their property as part of the American Revolution. We'll talk about that when we get there. So it's a really good question, brother. Well, we're going to get there for sure. And revolution, when we use that term revolution, yeah, there's a way in which we sort of understand that term today, we think about armed conflict, right? Militaries, militia coming together and bullets are fired and people are killed. That's certainly good in our history and in our recent history, that has been the case. But the revolution that's taking place today really is more of a social revolution, entire reformulating, re-understanding of what it means to be a human being, what it means to be an American citizen, what it means to be a person, right? It's a social revolution, a social transformation in the way that we think. But we'll look at that more as we go. Yeah, brother. Kind of related to the previous question, I've watched different presentations from like voices of the modders and different groups like that. And in other countries that have oppressive regimes, when Americans go over there and ask them, why don't you have kind of like revolution, their response is you're thinking like an American and they're saying, some of them have a different perspective of suffering through the regime and going underground. So I'm just under, this is a secondary question. When is that type of thinking kick in of just not necessarily having a revolution but suffering under persecution, having an underground church? How do you think through those two options? Yeah, we're gonna get there too, brother, when we talk about the very same question. I really, there is a point at which you can't protest, you can't flee and you can't fight. And when you can't protest, you can't flee and you can't fight, you're underground, right? And there are places in the world that are exactly in that kind of circumstance and the church is forced underground. But what happens is you continue church, right? You continue to have church, you continue to follow Jesus Christ, you continue to preach the gospel. And those are situations in church history where you'll see Christians by the thousands that are martyred for their faith. And we know that that exact experience is coming because the Lord has warned us ahead of time that it is. Matthew 24, things will continue to get worse and worse and worse and revelation. You have those who are beheaded for their faith, crying out from under the throne of God, how long? So that kind of persecution, I don't think we're going to avoid. And frankly, the church has glorified God through that persecution and he's worthy of that glory, worthy that we should give our lives. So there may come a point in time when that takes place. But yeah, we'll talk about that some too. Last question. Just a comment. Everything that you're mentioning is of the utmost importance because if you go back through recent history, this always ends in millions of people dying. It's amazing. Not dying, murdered. Amazing. So it's not gonna be just a social thing. At the end, when the people can't fight anymore, they end up getting murdered. So that's what the future looks like. Yeah, it's fascinating. And that's not in a distant past. That's in the recent past to Sean's point. People talking about revolution in those countries say we're thinking like Americans in part because we don't know anything about that. But there are a lot of people who've lived through that or anything. And if you look at all of those revolutionary movements, virtually all of them have led to the deaths and the French Revolution. That group that talked about wanting their will turned around and killed 100,000 of their own citizens. The will of the people ended up in the deaths of 100,000 of their own people. It happens, it leads to that. It seems like in every case and just, yeah, it's wicked. Okay, we're gonna ask several questions over the next several weeks and look at the relationship then of the Christian to the state. God has commanded us to obey the state. God has commanded us to obey the state. But under what circumstances would that obedience be unlawful? That's the question we have to ask. God has commanded us to obey the state, but under what conditions would that obedience, would God say that obedience is unlawful? We'll look at the historical development of that biblical theology. I think we have to do that so that we understand it. We'll lead up to the theology that formed the basis for our own system of government so that we understand that. And then we'll finish this section of the series by looking carefully exegetically at Romans 13. Here's one question. Here's one question. Has God established an authority with the state that is autonomous or independent from himself? No, right? Has God established an authority with the state that is autonomous or independent from himself? No. Then what is the extent of the obedience that we owe to the state? What is the extent of the obedience that we owe to the state? Government does not have autonomous authority. Government has a derived or delegated authority. Governments, therefore, are subject to God. Now turn with me to Matthew 22. Matthew 22. Governments are subject to God. We'll look at a couple of texts here before we close briefly. Matthew 22, verse 17. Pharisees are attempting to trap Jesus Christ in his words. And so they ask him in verse 17, tell us therefore, what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? All right, they're gonna trap Jesus in his words. I absolutely love these interactions that Jesus has with the Pharisees, just so the wisdom in the economy of words. Jesus, verse 18, perceived their wickedness and said, why do you test me, you hypocrites? Well, that doesn't sound very loving. But Jesus being truthful. Show me the tax money, verse 19, so they brought him a denarius. And he said to them, whose image and inscription is on this? And they said to him, Caesar's. So he said to them, render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. When they heard these words, they marveled at his wisdom and they left him and went their way. Caesar at this time had virtually, I had authority over virtually every aspect of life. He was a totalitarian dictator. Caesar is Lord, was the confession of the empire and you were expected to confess the same thing. Caesar is Lord. Caesar even had authority over religion. He could mediate disputes between various religions, could mediate disputes within a religion under his authority. Conflicts among religious groups mediated by Caesar or his delegate. And Jesus is saying here, Matthew chapter 22, that Caesar does have a legitimate authority. Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, right? So Caesar has a legitimate authority, but Caesar's authority is limited. Something only belongs to God and Caesar has no authority there. Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's but to God the things which are God's. Caesar has legitimate authority but that legitimate authority has limits and does not apply to that which you must render to God, okay? Question was a trap, a yes or a no would have implicated him, right? Yes or no would have implicated him but Jesus Christ doesn't dodge the question at all, clearly understands the truth and gives the clear answer. From the early church, the early church understood set limits on what government can and can't do. Government always wants to expand its reach but the church says this far and no farther. And I think the church is responsible for that, this far and no farther. Schaefer said, respect to this passage, he said it's not God and Caesar, right? It's not God and Caesar, it's God and Caesar, right? That's the difference between the two. The civil government as does all of life stands under and is subject to the law of God. This fallen world, God has given us certain offices to protect us from natural consequences of our fallenness. Government is one of those, but when they operate contrary to the word of God, contrary to the law of God, those institutions abrogate their authority. When our government operates contrary to the law of God, the word of God, then our government abrogates its authority and should not, as far as those things are concerned, should not be obeyed. And we'll talk about that. Romans 13, turn there with me. Just a quick glimpse of this. I'm gonna let you go. Romans 13, verse one, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God. So God has established that governing authority. And the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God. You have to ask yourself, if that authority contradicts the ordinance of God, right? Those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. That presupposes that that authority institutes good works, right? Or protects good works and not evil. Do you wanna be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good. You'll have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. What happens when he refuses to be God's minister? And is now Satan's minister for evil, right? What happens? If you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister. What happens when he abrogates his duty as God's minister and becomes Satan's minister? An avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, when he is God's minister, or because he is God's minister, you must be subject. What happens when he's not God's minister, when he's Satan's minister? Not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience sake. For because of this, you also pay taxes. For they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. What happens when they don't attend continually to that very thing? Render therefore all their due, taxes to whom, taxes are due, customs to whom, customs fear to whom, fear honor to whom honor. We're gonna look at this text in great detail in the coming weeks. The state has a delegated authority. In other words, it's not autonomous and it's not to be obeyed as autonomous. It's not to be obeyed as autonomous. The state is to be an agent of justice. The state is to restrain evil by punishing the wrongdoer. The state is responsible to protect the good and to restrain the evil. What happens when the government doesn't do these things? Governance, as God has intended, when it doesn't do those things, falls apart. Has no proper authority. Then it has usurped the authority that God has given it or the authority that God has delegated and becomes what we would consider to be a lawless tyranny. First Peter chapter two, verse 13. Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and for the praise of those who are good. This is a will of God that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. At a certain point, what we're gonna get to is that at a certain point, there's not only the right but the duty to disobey the state. And we'll support that from scripture and we'll go through that very carefully. The Puritan Samuel Rutherford wrote a book called Lex Rex, we'll also talk about that book. The concept of Lex Rex is that the law of God is sovereign, not the people, not the government. The law of God is king. God himself is sovereign. Therefore, if the king and the government disobey that law, they are to be disobeyed. Opposed to the divine right of kings where the state or the king ruled as God's appointed regent, the king's word in that case is law. Rutherford said that all men, even the king, are under the law of God and not above it. At this time, at the time, the divine right of kings was considered to be, they would consider those words to have been rebellious and punishable as treason. It's quickly becoming that way today. He held that the acts of the state which contradicted God's law were illegitimate and acts of tyranny, therefore immoral. Tyranny is a work of Satan, not a work of God. The civil magistrate is a fiduciary figure. They are to rule on behalf of God and he holds his authority in trust for the people. Violation of that trust gives people the right to, gives Christians the right to resist. That resistance is to be biblical, is to be God honoring and it's to be measured. It's to be judicial. We'll talk about that in the coming weeks. All right, any questions, let me know. We'll get you home and we'll talk more next week. Pray with me. Father in heaven, thank you for this subject. Thank you for the blessing of a church like this where we can take time and consider this and we wanna be very careful in this Lord to honor you above all and to obey you in these things. And so give us wisdom in the coming weeks as we consider these subjects. Help us think clearly about what is honoring to you and for the sake of some oversimplistic conception of what may be honored, we don't wanna disobey you by giving autonomy or authority or power to the state which you've not intended but we want to respect and obey you above all. Help us to do that, help us to be wise in the way that we apply these truths and live according to them for your glory God in Jesus' name, amen.