The Authority of Man - Part 1

Nero was one of the most despotic leaders in all of history. The man was evil. He was violent. He was a sexual pervert in any way that you can imagine or think of that he was that. He had no love for humanity. He stole. He cheated as the emperor. He did these things.

And yet when Paul writes Romans, in Romans 13, he calls the civil rulers of the Roman Empire the ministers of God. Now that makes no sense. So we have to be able to explore a much broader subject to explain what Paul means by that. This is the second of a series of sermons I'm doing. And if the last one, and we'll rehearse it a little bit and then even go through some other scriptures, I went through that all authority belongs to God. Because he is the creator, he owns everything. He owns every physical thing in the universe.

He owns every spiritual thing in the universe. He owns every human being. That ownership as creator gives him the authority basically to do whatever he wants with his creation.

Now that should make us incredibly glad that he's good. God is good and God is loving and God has mercy because we say, well, what right does he have? Can anyone stop him from doing what he wants with his creation? It's his. And that ownership is even talked about by God through the prophets, through the Old Testament, through Jesus Christ over and over and over again. He owns the universe. He owns us. Now he gave us free will. So he has given us the right to decide. He's actually given us the right to decide. But he didn't have to give us that, right? He could have made us totally different. So he's given us consciousness and the ability to decide between good and evil. And our relationship with him is coming back into, since humanity was driven from the garden because of the wrong choices, is to allow us the ability to come back into a relationship with him. But he brings us back into that. But remember, it's always based on, I owned it. I made it. And you know, that's not arrogance on God's part. It's sheer fact. In fact, it is amazing to me that God is not arrogant. He's not. When he states anything, it's fact. If he was arrogant, once again, we would be doomed. He could do with us whatever he wanted. Yet he treats us with a kindness that's remarkable. Let's look at Deuteronomy 10. I didn't read this last time, so I'll just bring a couple other passages here as we talk about God's ownership, because that's the basis of God's authority. He has the right to exercise whatever power he wants. It's his right to do so. He holds on to that right. He says it's his right to do with it, anything, whatever he wants. We have to believe and have absolute faith in his goodness and his love.

So Deuteronomy 10, verse 12, he's talking to ancient Israel, and he says to them, and now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Okay, he says, what do you think I want from you? Here's what I want from you. God says to fear the Lord your God, understand his majesty and his greatness and his power. And when we do, there is a bit of awe and there is a bit of fear in that. The understanding, not that we're afraid of God because we think he's mean and angry, it's because we understand his greatness. We understand his power. We understand that God can literally do whatever he wants. He could do it every once in our lives. And yet, we understand that he's not going to be evil towards us. But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, you know, loving God wasn't just part of what's brought in the New Testament.

When Jesus quotes the law of God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul as as the first great commandment, he's quoting the Old Testament. He says, what God wants from us is to love him and to follow his ways because only he knows how this works. God created this, only God knows how it works. And that's what the hardest things for us to accept. Why do you have authority over me? Well, I made everything and I'm letting you do what you want. But understand, if you don't do it the way I designed it, it will fail. And then we've lived all these thousands of years with all of us, all of humanity doing it the way they want to, and all of humanity failing over and over and over again to walk in all his ways and to love him to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. He says, and I don't want you just to do this because you're afraid of me or because you think I'm going to reward you. I want you to do it because you love it, because you understand what goodness is. You understand what it is to be right, and you want to be right. You want to do good. You want to actually love other people. And keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I command you today for your good. God says, when I tell you don't steal, it's not because I'm trying to make your life hard and difficult. I'm telling you not to steal because it'll ruin your life and ruin other people's lives. He says, I'm telling you what is good. And then he makes this little statement at the end. Indeed, heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the Lord with all that is in it. So he tells them, here's what I want you to be in a relationship with me. Here's what I want you to do. Here's how I want you to live and remember who made it. Remember, it's all mine. I'm sharing. I'm giving. I'm not trying to make you miserable or hurt you. I'm sharing with you, actually sharing with us who he is.

Everything good in life that happens is a reflection of God.

Everything that's evil is a reflection of what he is not.

So this all comes down to us accepting, absolutely, at the heart of who we are.

God made me. God owns everything. And only he knows how this works. And I wish to submit to him and make this work, to have my life better, to help other people, and to look forward to, and to look forward to, of course, when God's kingdom is on this earth.

But there's another aspect of this that's mentioned in the New Testament. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 of the Apostle Paul writes. 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

Verse 19.

Let's think about it something. God created all of us. We're created in his image. But ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, we have been, humanity's been moving away from him, not towards him, but away from him. The owner of the universe has allowed us to do that. And this is going to come up over and over again today. The owner of the universe has allowed us to move away from him. And then he calls people to come back to him. And here's how Paul puts this.

Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. God owns us twice.

He made us, so he owns us. And when we moved away from him and rebelled and lived our lives separate from him, Christ paid the price required by the justice of God to bring us back. He owns us twice.

He made us and he bought us.

Because where we were, we could not be brought back into relationship with him. So he did it for us.

So here he made us and he bought us. And he brings us back into relationship with him.

That's the basis of his authority. I own it and I've paid for it. I own you and I've paid for you.

And if he doesn't pay for us, we have no value at all. You might as well go live life however you want because you're going to die and there's no value to your life.

Now, when we really understand that, that actually brings us an appreciation of God.

There's a normal human rebellion against that. Well, wait a minute. He owned me. No.

Wait a minute. He owns me. Or this normal human reaction to I have free will. So he really doesn't own me. Yeah, but we have to give up part of that free will in order to not sin. And then we come face to face with, he bought me.

He does owe me. He paid the price for me. He does owe me.

And once we realize that, we understand what he's doing. Those are the greatest gifts that God could give. He gave us life and he bought us. There's no greater gift he can give you because with that you can receive eternal life.

Now, that's the basis of God's authority. We understand that. It becomes easier to obey God, to love God, to accept God. Easier to have faith when we don't understand. I mean, the most difficult thing as a human being is to obey God, but we don't understand. Why? I don't understand what you're doing. And that's so difficult. That becomes a little easier when we accept, wait a minute, he made me and he bought me. So whatever he does is for my good. Whatever he does is for me.

And we were able to follow that. And his authority, he says it, I do it. Now we all struggle with it, but when we really follow it's because we accept his authority. We accept that he deserves it.

He's that good. He's that great. We love him so much and we appreciate him so much that we're going to say, okay, you owe me.

But what about all other authority? Because I will say this, there is no other authority.

There's different types of authority, as mentioned in the Bible. There's no other authority that's based on ownership. Even the parental authority over children, the moment you say children obey your parents, there's authority there.

That is not based on ownership. That's a totally different thing.

It's not based on ownership.

God's authority is based on ownership so it's total and complete.

But when God created human beings, he gave us some authority.

Go to Genesis 1. Yeah, I'm back in Genesis again. Genesis 1.

Verse 26.

I mentioned this in a sermon here about three months ago.

And I was talking about Satan's dominion over the earth. But remember this first.

Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. So there are some differences. Obviously, biological differences, but there's even differences a little bit in the way men and women tend to process things.

All of that in both of us, men and women, is part of the nature of God.

We're all made in the image of God. So here we are in the image of God, and he says, look, this earth is yours. Let's see what you can do with it.

He gave human beings authority over the earth.

And we've had authority over the earth for all these thousands of years.

Pretty much so. We've messed a lot of it up. Although some of you, once in a while, will do something good with the earth. We'll do some good things with the earth.

But he said it's ours. He told Adam, take care of this garden, tend it. It's going to do all kinds of things. You're going to grow things. You're going to be able to eat. It's going to be absolutely amazing. And what happened when they sinned against God?

They lost their dominion because Satan now came over and he's influencing them. I say they lost it.

Human beings still have a certain dominion over the earth. God isn't forcing us to do whatever he wants with the earth. We still have this dominion over the earth.

Satan influences us and he has some dominion over us.

But we have authority here. We have a right from God to do with the earth. Now, we're not doing it the way he wants. Humanity had a choice. Do this God's way or Satan's way. Which influence do you have? Our first parents chose Satan's way and mainly humanity has lived under the influence of Satan. So we constantly mess it up. But he still gives us the authority as human beings to see what you can do with this earth.

That's what we have to understand about this second level of authority.

It is either delegated by God or allowed by God. Now, that's not the same thing.

Sometimes God delegates us. Okay, you have authority to do this. Sometimes he allows the wrong use of authority.

And that's a concept that's hard for us. What do you mean by that?

We're gonna have to go through that because when we get the Romans, how are we going to explain that Nero is a minister of God? You can't say he's a representative of God. You can't say he's an ordained elder of God. You can't say he's an evil man. How does that make sense?

It only makes sense when you understand the concept that God says, no matter what's happening on earth, it's still mine. God says it's his. He never gave this up.

He's allowed us to mess it up. He's allowed Satan to mess it up, but it's still his.

And so God says, anything you do, I hold you responsible for. And if you misuse authority, I really hold you responsible for it. Well, we get into the concept next time.

Husbands, we like that. We have authority over our wives, don't we?

You know, there's certain things the Bible talks about what happens if we abuse that.

We're really held accountable for that. Because God says, no, no, no, I delegated that to you.

And you misuse it. I take it personally. Well, all authority that's used by human beings, God takes it personally. An evil authority, he takes it personally.

Because this is the way he designed it. And it's not what human beings were supposed to do.

All authority that happens in the world, either God allows it, sometimes he chooses human leaders. Now, many times he doesn't.

Throughout history, most human leaders have not been chosen by God. He allowed us to do it.

Every once in a while, he'll choose one. We'll look at one that he does and work with in order to make sure his plan is accomplished. His plan is always accomplished at the end.

His plan for humanity. And every once in a while, I like the way Luke puts it, God sticks his finger into humanity. Okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and he makes sure what he wants happens. But he allows things to happen, or sometimes he's involved in it. And when we look at what God says about authority, we're going to find that all authority has specific goals and limitations. And what we will see is, and we already know, the majority of human use of authority is way beyond the goals and limitations that God puts on us.

It's the one thing we do really poorly, really poorly. It's because of the influence of Satan.

In Milton's Paradise Lost, I always like to ask, because nobody's ever read it, how many have read Milton's Paradise Lost? Oh, a couple. Okay. Nerds.

I've read parts of it. It's the longest poem in the English language, and it is fascinating.

It's Satan's Rebellion, right? Dares to me, Nealey calls me a nerd all the time.

He'll say, you read that? And I'll say, yeah.

And it's about Satan's Rebellion. And there's these conversations between God and Satan.

And sometimes it's pretty interesting. A lot of times it sort of goes on and on. But one of the phrases in there, it's amazing. When God talks about Satan, and he said, or Satan says to, I think, the demons, he said, I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

And that is the way humans usually approach authority.

It's the way Satan does think. It's a remarkable statement.

I'd rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. So there's specific goals and limitations.

There's responsibility towards God. It doesn't matter what authority you have. There's a responsibility before God in how you use it. And there are consequences from God on how people use their authority. So now let's go to Romans 13 and look at this difficult passage. Okay?

Romans 13.

And remember, he's writing this at a time when Nero was the emperor, and he's writing it to Rome, their receipt of the horrible Roman empire that was in every way imaginable against God.

And he starts this chapter with, 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. Now wait a minute, wait a minute, you stop there. This is all you're reading. And there are people who read this and say, you're to follow the government no matter what they say. No, that's not what he's saying. We'll see that. Or Paul is really messed up. No, he's making a point. Those who have authority only have it because God allows them to have authority. We do know from the Scripture that there's lots of times, including Paul, when the people of God have stood up to the governing bodies, whatever the governments are, and said, no, I will not do that.

Because we're citizens of the kingdom of God, and that comes first.

We're under the authority of God, that comes first no matter what.

But there's also lots of things that civil governments do that aren't against the law of God. They are what they do to try to keep order.

Many of them are superfluous. Many of the laws can be silly.

But if they're not against God, that authority has been allowed for them to do.

I mean, you know, drive down the road with no license plates on, and drive 80 miles an hour in a 50 mile an hour speed zone, and when the policeman pulls you over and says, I'm sorry, I'm a Christian, I don't have to obey those laws.

And he's going to say, I don't care who you are. In fact, I'm going to give you a double fine.

Okay, I mean, you're going to go before a judge on this one.

And what Paul is saying is, remember the authority that they've been allowed to have, not in context with... that we say, okay, that overrules God. I mean, think of the midwives at the time of Moses. Think of Peter and Paul standing before the Sanhedrin and Roman rulers and saying, no, we can't do that. Think of John the Baptist. Think of Jesus, right? So we know where the priority comes, and it comes from a relationship with God because he owns us twice. He owns us twice. The government doesn't own us, but here Paul says, and Peter says it, Jesus says it, as long as it does come in conflict with God, do it. And then he tells us why.

He says, therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. In other words, you break the laws of the land, and you're going to be judged by the laws of the land. You're not going to be able to argue in court, well, I don't know. My Christian sensitivities won't do that. Now, you can argue my Christian beliefs come first. I've done that. I remember the federal court once. Your honor, I wish to be excused from jury duty because I'm a Christian pastor, and I believe it's in line with the separation of church and state. That's federal court. That's not so local court. They have a lot of power. And he said, you know, he's got a good point. Do you know that for religious reasons, you can refuse to serve on a jury duty because, and he gave the reasons and everything, gave a whole, you know, there's like 60 or 80 people there, gives this whole reason why I can be excused. So Mr. Petty, would you go sit over there? Now, I had to sit there for the whole proceedings, which was fascinating. I was interested in watching him. I went over and sat down. He said, anybody else? Well, nobody else said that because nobody else could say that.

That was really his beliefs. But, you know, I had the ability to do that. I don't have the ability to go in court and talk myself out of a crime I've committed because of my Christianity.

He says, look, you're going to receive the judgment. And then he says, why God allows them to have that. Okay. Why does God allow them? Now, before I go to that, actually, let me take a little sidestep here because we're seeing, okay, God allows this. This was something that was instituted by God. We know from after the time of the flood. Let's go to Genesis 9.

The flood has happened. No one in his family come out and God gives them simple commandments on what to do now as they're beginning a new course for humanity. And he says, it's very interesting because you don't find this mentioned directly by God before the flood. Verse five, surely for your life blood I will demand a reckoning from the hand of every beast I will require it from the hand of every man or hand of man from the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of a man whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood shall be shed for the image of God he made them and you as for you be fruitful multiply and bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it now understand the gravity of what he says there in five and six he actually says okay you're going to do this on your own right I mean you I destroyed humanity but you know what's going to happen you're gonna start having children they're gonna have children they're gonna have children they're gonna have children and what we're going to have is humanity spreading out all over again so what I want to tell you this you're going to have to create judicial systems because a human being is made in my image and if a human being commits first-degree murder I only say first degree because we know in the laws that he gave to ancient Israel there was manslaughter there was there were different degrees of murder uh he doesn't say that and we don't have it recorded until the time of Moses but here he says so if someone commits first-degree murder you have the judicial right if you can if you've proved it obviously to take the life of the murderer you can you should kill an animal that murders a human being and you should take the life they forfeit their life he can only say this in the oasis that person forfeits their temporary physical life because they've committed murder and you have the right to take their life that means you have to set up a judicial system this is the beginning of governments after the flood they have a judicial system you have to have a government some kind of government somebody has to be the judge right there has to be a way to to enforce the law so he says here okay after the flood you're all going to be scattering out this whole mess is going to start all over again so you better create judicial systems so you don't have chaos he then expects those involved in the civil laws even though they're not following god he holds them responsible and this is what Paul's going to bring out in in Romans when we get back to Romans he holds them responsible you know we think how did Adolf Hitler how did he ever get away with that he's not he died he will appear before god and i have no idea what's going to happen then but i will tell you this god hates what he did according to the scripture god hates people who do certain things he hates the person and god does allow for repentance i don't know if that man received it or will receive it in the future it's not my say so it's his he may receive a chance for salvation in the future it doesn't change the fact he's going to have to bow before god for what he did or for christ he's specifically before christ he has to bow specifically before christ and be held accountable for what he did every human being but those who have authority he expects a lot of you know we we know about in Daniel the the famous dream that he had and there's this image and there's it represents four kingdoms right and we go through that all the time but there's another dream he had not long after that and let's put it in context Daniel has a dream Daniel or i'm sorry Nebuchadnezzar i said Daniel Nebuchadnezzar has a dream you know what i mean it's in Daniel Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and he calls Daniel Daniel comes tells him what it means now when god says through Daniel these are four great kingdoms and Nebuchadnezzar you are the king of the gold you are the beginning of four great empires now Nebuchadnezzar had to feel pretty good about himself but he also knew this had come from god the god of Daniel he knew that right because he didn't tell anybody the dream Daniel knew the dream but you know after he told him did he now repent did the entire Babylonian empire turn to god no he had authority god came into his his realm to show him where the authority came from and he didn't change so we had another dream let's go to Daniel 4 i won't go through the whole dream it's an interesting dream but in Daniel chapter 4 he has this dream he calls Daniel in again you know tell me this dream so this whole chapter is about the dream and he tells Daniel the dream and then Daniel says in verse 24 this is the interpretation oh king and this is the decree of the most high which has come upon by lord the king he said this is another dream that's come to you from god and it's about you you show they shall drive you okay there was these in this dream there was things that happened he said they shall drive you from men your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field they shall make you eat grass like the oxen they shall wet you with the dew of heaven and seven times shall pass over you till you know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he chooses he said you still haven't recognized who the ultimate authority is and somehow you think you are so here's what's going to happen to you because your authority is bad even your evil authority only is allowed by god and god can take it away from you before and you for whenever he wants verse 27 says therefore oh king let me advise be acceptable to you break off your sin by being righteous and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor and perhaps there may be a lengthening of your prosperity he told them by the way your kingdom is going to survive but for seven times you are going to be punished by god because you won't stop sinning because you really think that you're the source of what you do as the king as and he said no you're just allowed to do it and he read all what happened Nebuchadnezzar went totally insane absolutely insane he ended up he ended up spending seven years out in the fields eating grass like a like a cow hair grew all over his body he didn't he couldn't speak to anyone his fingernails his toenails grew he literally became an animal for seven years and then when he came out of it he said basically i'm going to paraphrase Nebuchadnezzar god is god he finally came to grips with who he really was before god he was never converted but god said no you don't continue until you at least you come to grips with you only exist you only breathe because of me i let you rule i could stop you at any moment because i own you he still didn't get it completely but he showed a lot of humility before god after that he didn't live a lot a lot longer after that but it's interesting god didn't want to convert Nebuchadnezzar he just wanted him to understand i own this you're on you're not even renting this for me you're a squatter okay you're the Babylonian empire you're just a squatter in my world and realize that so when Paul starts to talk about their authority this is what he's talking about all this authority can be taken away from any human being just like that because god only allows it it's not what god wants it's what happened when we gave up our dominion under his kingdom and our dominion came under satan's sway and he says okay we'll work this out the hard way but you seem to think this is yours and it's not it's his it's it's a remarkable testament to god's patience that he just lets us keep going on we think about that and then every once in a while he sticks his finger into humanity's history and says hey it's mine just remember that that's all what Jesus Christ came that's where Luke says it he says when Christ came god put his finger in the earth and said hey this is my son and this is mine so let's go back now to well let's look at one other place here while we're in this john chapter 19 let's look at what Jesus says i like this is uh one of those amazing little passages and when you put Matthew and Luke and John together you get the complete picture of what happened that night this is when when a you know itinerant preacher rabbi who you know crosses all through Judea and teaching people appears before the representative of the Roman empire verse five so Jesus comes out wearing the crown of thorns you know he comes out now he's been beaten it's it's terrible things have happened to him all night and he comes out he has this crown of thorns verse six therefore when the chief priest and officer saw him they cried out saying crucify him crucify him and Pilate said to them you take him and crucify him for i find no fault in him all all Pilate could see was this mystic Romans could be a little bit superstitious you know they were practical people but they were as far as the leadership but they also could be very superstistic the super super statistic you know what i mean man alive wow i needed some water so because there were pagans and so what happens here is that he doesn't want to crucify him because he's just a mystic and you know the gods touched people maybe he was a little touched by a god and you know the god of israel was a weird god to the to the roe they believed in the god of he just weird he didn't seem to get along with the other gods claimed he was the only one you know so he doesn't want to crucify verse seven that the jews answered we have a law according to our law he ought to die because he made himself the son of god now therefore when pilate heard that saying he was even more afraid that's interesting well maybe he is some kind of you think well how can he believe that the romans and the greeks believed in people that were half god half humans that the gods would mate with women and create half gods hercules was a half god right so they believed that so it's like oh no maybe i've got some kind of you know semi-devine being here and he went again to the britarium and he said to jesus where are you from but jesus gave him no answer that's interesting matthew says he actually asked him are you a king and he finds yeah but my kingdom isn't from here and he went back and said uh okay he's not a threat to rome he doesn't have an army he doesn't he's a threat to rome but here's what john adds then pilot said to him are you not speaking to me do you not know that i have the power to crucify you and power to release you says i have the authority to do this through the power and authority of the roman empire i can snap my fingers and let you go and i can snap my fingers and i can kill you i can horribly kill you i can punish you i can torture before i kill you don't you know i have that authority don't you know i have that power and jesus answer is verse 11 jesus answered you could have no power at all against me unless it has been given to you from above yes you're a squatter here you're just a squatter in my kingdom so yeah you have the authority to do that or you know it could be taken away from you just like that this is how paul understands human government it's the squatters because god has given them given humanity permission to create judicial systems which means you have to have governments to do that and they all end up bad you know the united states of america and i said this at the last uh sermon i what started this series will eventually end up in futility just like every other human government in the history of humanity it has to end that way because we're not rule we're not having the rule of god in us we're not living under the kingdom of god we're living under authority that's been relegated to others and it will always fail so let's go back now to rome's rome is 13 this is what government is supposed to be for rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil do you want to be unafraid of the authority do what is good and you will have praise from the same now paul was killed by living good under the same authority so he's not saying go against god what he's saying is within what god's realm of what he rules in the realm of this if it's not in opposition to god just do it live in peace with the government you're under as much as you can for he is here's where he makes the statement 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 his god's minister and venture to execute wrath on him who practices evil verse four is a change of subject it's about those who practice evil in other words as a christian we go out and you go out in and get involved in some kind of business scheme and you make five billion dollars by cheating other people and they come and arrest you god says you're going to jail the civil government's going to put you in jail for what you did and i'm not going to stop it why would he he said well yeah but the civil no no no he says here the original purpose now he's i'm i'm reading this from tying all these other scriptures together the original purpose was government was supposed to protect society unfortunately government becomes a way of protecting the government not protecting the people so you know in the terms of crime he said they're going to arrest you because they're supposed to that authority was given to them to arrest you if you commit a crime the problem is in the roman empire became a crime to be a christian he says verse five therefore you must be subject not only because of wrath but also for conscience sake now that's really interesting for your own conscience you do what is right even if it's not easy if if if they accuse us of being christians and that's a crime so be it if they accuse us of being anarchists or people who just lived their lives in rebellion against all authority then we're wrong they were wrong for conscience sake peter says for the lord's sake let them let people persecute us because of following god and his way not because we're just obnoxious just because we don't want to buy a fishing license okay no let it be for real reasons between us and god because we're citizens of the kingdom of god not because because sometimes what are stupid regulations and we'll go ahead and do them anyways for six for because of this he gives a prime example you also pay taxes where they are ministers or servants attending continually to this very thing render therefore to all their due taxes to taxes are due customs to whom tuck customs fear to whom fear and honor to whom honor jesus faced the same thing you know as christians i've seen it happen a lot where people say i don't think i should pay taxes the taxes i paid to the united states are used for all kinds of terrible things i mean military operations that are not righteous it's used for sometimes for abortion clinics i mean all the things they use taxes for remember jesus in the time of the roman empire when they asked him about paying taxes show me a coin looked at it and said who's pictures on it they said caesar give the caesars what's his it's his it's not mine so give it to him pay your taxes we shouldn't be arrested for tax fraud okay we're bringing shame we bring shame on the name of christ now that's hard but it's what it says because and because you know taxes aren't fair i remember a person of france tell me one time you talk about socialism i'd rather live in france and i said oh they said yeah i pay a lot in taxes but i know what i pay you americans i studied your tax system you're paying so much in hidden taxes you pay more in taxes than we do and you don't get near the benefits we do he said just take gas you ever look how much we're paying every time you buy a gallon of gas how much of it's tax you then you gotta get in the tax that's not fair this is the problem when god said if you're going to do it on your own you're going to have to have some kind of judicial government system all our government systems fail because they're not based on god's government and so they will fail and he said live in them unless they tell you to do something against god then we do have a responsibility to stand up i put it this way i always get in trouble for using this i haven't used it for years but every time i do i get in trouble for using this example so i think of my hunting rifles you know they they were both my dads one was one that my mother bought for my dad and gave to him at their first wedding anniversary i've used the the 3030 to hunt i don't use the 30-odd six because you know dislocate your shoulder i do like going out and shooting it and then watch other people shoot it because i've never had anybody i've handed it to shoot it more than once they hand it back to me and say i'm not shooting that if they change the u.s constitution and say you don't have the right to have guns and when the sheriff comes to my house do you have guns yes sir and i hand them to him but you know why this book doesn't give me the right to bear guns bear arms it doesn't give me the right to bear firearms that's the u.s constitution they change it that's the law of the man of the of the country i'll give him i'll give my guns back try taking my bible you can't have my bible i'm going to jail over that one because this is the kingdom of god you know the other are just some rifles that 30 odd six at about 300 yards now i'm not gonna get out um you see i'm saying that's what paul saying if it's their authority give it to them if it's not you know where your authority comes from because you're owned twice owned you were made in your bond twice owned you were made in your bot you were made in your robot so yeah someday they may come take my hunting rifles and it won't change my life one bit but they can't take from us what god's given to us and that's what we have to hold on to and the very people that paul told this to within the life not long after he wrote this book these very people were crucified and burned at the stake and killed in the well the head the coliseum wasn't built yet but in in the arena because they were christians because niro had to blame the fire of rome on somebody he blamed it on the christians because as everybody knew they believed that the earth was going to be destroyed with fire someday when their messiah came back so they caused the fire and they killed those very people and they accepted their martyrdom there's no record of any of them trying to kill and fight back and overthrow the roman empire they never tried to overthrow the roman empire the jews did numerous times you never have in this first century the christians trying to overthrow the roman empire they didn't obey it when it was against god and they obeyed it when it was just a matter of civil duty and paul's argument is remember they only reign because god lets them have it and god will take it away from them and god will hold them responsible for what they do so when we look at the civil authority i mean once you understand it in a bigger context it doesn't what paul says doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense at all but when you look at it in the whole context of the bible and the whole context of how paul lived his life i mean paul used at times he used the fact that he was a roman citizen to save his life i'm a roman citizen you can't do that to me and it saved his life at one point it didn't save his life because he would tend to deny he was a christian he wouldn't do that and we don't know exactly what happened we just know he was killed at some point there after niro's um either right during probably right during the end of niro's reign he's a perfect example of living what he meant and what he taught so we obey the government of this land not because it's righteous but because they reigned by permission only it's still god who gives them permission to do it but in reality they're just squatters but he lets us he says that your domain you chose satan go ahead but you better build some kind of governments now we have to look at authority now in a number of other ways what about parental authority what about the relationship between employer and employee the bible actually talks about the relationship between the employer and the employee how about husband and wife how about there's a certain authority given to elders in the church but understand in all these areas of authority there are specific goals which means there's limitations and in all of those areas of authority there is direct statements by god of how he deals with those who abuse that authority direct statements of what he does in the christian realm with employers with husbands with elders if we step outside the bounds of what god gives there's pretty serious statements made so next time we're going to be talking about authority in these other other realms that actually get a lot more personal than paying your taxes and helping us understand that our every one of us no matter what situation we're in our primary loyalty when it comes to authority is to god and god first and that's how what is applied then in all these other relationships