Human Authority in Civic Government

Nero was one of the most despotic rulers of all time. I mean, just the name Nero, if you know anything about the Roman Empire, everybody knows this was a terrible person. He almost bankrupted the entire Roman Empire, spending money on himself. Now, that's amazing. That'd be like one person bankrupting the United States, just spending money on themselves. I've been in the Vatican Museum. They have a bathtub that was his. You can put probably 20 people in it. It's so huge. He had one house. The estimate was a mile long. It's just a house for him and his, well, not really family, but just for himself. Nero was a horrible murderer. He was cruel. He tortured people. His sexual perversions were just, even at that time, were considered strange.

You have this despotic, despicable, evil man. And yet, it was during the reign of Nero that the Apostle Paul wrote and told the Romans, the church in Rome itself, to submit to the governing authorities. It is a remarkable statement. How in the world could the Apostle Paul tell them to submit to this government? It was pure evil. And yet, they were told to do so. So what does that even mean? What was Paul telling these people to do? And how do we apply that today? What is the relationship between the Christian and the civil government? The authority of the civil government? Last week, I started this series of sermons when I talked about God's authority. One of those words we don't like to use very much, authority. That's a terrible word. And yet, God does not back down at all that he has the authority to run his creation. I talked about how in the Declaration of Independence that launched what is now the United States, it stated that they were defending these unalienable rights that were given to them by their Creator, which is a remarkable statement. In other words, we have rights given to us by our Creator. God gave us these rights. Of course, if God gave rights, he also gives the laws that govern those rights. Rights are given to us by authority, and whoever gives those rights creates the laws that govern those rights. So it is very strange that we live in a country that people fight for rights that they say were given to them by God, but you won't find many of the laws of God in our Constitution. There is no law that says, don't have graven images. It's not in the Constitution. There are lots of laws in there that aren't laws that God gives, but we are fighting for our God-given rights. You even hear people say, well, I'm just fighting for my God-given rights. So there is an inconsistency in our own government that will eventually lead to its own downfall. It's the problem with all civil government. We'll talk about that in a minute. Let's recap a little bit about God's authority. To understand what we're going to talk about today, we have to start with and understand the absoluteness of God's authority. His authority is based on ownership. He owns everything. Now, talking about the authority of God, that makes me uncomfortable, and I don't like to think about God as being authoritarian and we'll have all these things, these emotional reactions to that. Let's understand something. God has the power to do whatever He wants. Are we going to stop Him? The issue that comes down to here is understanding God's goodness, God's purpose for His creation, and what God does with His creation. He has the authority, He has the right to do with His creation, whatever He wants. That ownership is really important to understand. The scripture I didn't use last week is Deuteronomy 10, because in this passage, God is telling ancient Israel what He expects of them. It is not a whole lot different than what He expects of us as Christians today. What I find interesting, then, is the reason He tells them this. Let's start in verse 12 of Deuteronomy 10.

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him. It wasn't just obey because God's going to punish you if you don't. He said, what does God want for you? He wants you to fear Him. He wants you to understand how awesome He is and how terrible it is and the terrible things that happen when you do bad things, when you participate in evil. He wants you to walk in His ways and He wants us to love Him.

To serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul. Serving God with everything we have, not just some kind of ritualistic service, but with all of our heart and all of our soul. And to keep the commandments of the Lord in His statutes which I command you today for your good. It's a question. What does God want from you? He wants you to love Him and obey Him and serve Him and keep His commandments.

And then He says why? He says, verse 14, In other words, the support for this God's authority in your life and what God wants in response is God made you. And there's nothing He hasn't created. And as the Creator, He's the only one that knows how this works. He actually knows how life is supposed to work. And He wants us to respond to Him that way because He is the Creator. Well, we understand this in the light of being a Christian. We understand that actually God...I don't know how else to put it.

He owns this twice. He owned us because He created us. He made us. He owns us. He looks at us and says, I love you. I made you. I want to do something with you. But remember, humanity also turned against God. We rebelled against God. You know, when God found every one of us, it wasn't because we were righteous people.

It's because God came and did something. He did something for us that we understand in the work of Jesus Christ. So let's go to 1 Corinthians 6. Once again, I'm just quickly sort of covering very succinctly what we covered last week. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 19. I found it interesting this week how many conversations I had with people about the sermon last week.

As people worked through what was covered, worked through the Scriptures, and actually in many ways found comfort in it. God knows what he's doing. God made us. God made everything. And he has a long-term plan for this. And he's working it out. And each one of our lives has importance to God. Every one of us has value to God. And it's part of what he's doing.

I like the way Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 6, 19. I read this on Pentecost when I covered how we are the temple of God's Spirit. It says, or do you not know, Paul says, 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. You are not your own.

Now he doesn't just say you are not your own because you are created by God. Notice what the rest of the sentence is. For you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

God created us. He owned us. We left. God paid a terrible price through the life and death of Jesus Christ to buy us back. He owned us twice. He made us, we ran away, and he paid a price to get us back. That shows you the value God puts on everyone of us. He owns us twice. That ownership is the basis of understanding, you know, God can tell me anything at once. What's amazing is, and this is where we have to have faith, we have to believe at the core of our being that God's faithfulness, God's love, God's genius, God's wisdom, that whatever He's doing is for our best.

It's for us. And therefore, we submit to His authority. So God's authority over us is based on ownership. He created us, and He paid a price for us. Once we grab hold of that, that helps define our relationship with God. In a very court way, to understand that I can give up my own determination to God, which comes, and that's really what faith is, it's giving up your own self-determination to God because God knows what He's doing.

We follow God, just like we read in Deuteronomy. We follow God. We submit to Him. But once we work through that, then we have a whole other problem with Scriptures like, submit to the Romans. Wait a minute! Surely He doesn't mean that like we submit to God, and actually He doesn't. And that's what we have to work out. What does Paul mean when he says to submit to the civil government?

Actually, as we work through this, this actually creates a third sermon, which I'll give next week. And that is, once we work through how we're supposed to submit to civil government, we have all kinds of other issues inside the Scripture, especially in the New Testament, where there are instructions to, okay, employees submit to the employer. What does that mean? What kind of power does an employer have, and what does he not have? Or children submit to your parents? We'll go through and show something very interesting next week, how parents have authority, and that's the word that's used in the Scripture, over children, but they can't kill them. Now that's... you might feel like it sometimes, but you can't kill them!

That was a joke, because no one feels like actually killing their children, but... you're not allowed to. That authority does not allow you to do certain things, and yet you do have authority. If you use that authority properly, certain things will usually happen in that child's life that are good. If you misuse or abuse that authority, usually certain things will happen to that child as they develop that aren't very good at all.

So there's all kinds of issues about authority in the Scripture. So we understand God's authority. It's total and complete because of ownership, and we have to trust in the faithfulness and goodness of God. What about the civil government? Before I go there, let's go to the first place in the Bible where human beings were given authority, and that will help us begin to define this, okay? Let's go to Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis chapter 1.

Authority is a bad word to a lot of people, and I'll tell you why. Because there has never been a human being that has used authority totally and completely right. There's the problem.

But we have to understand what it actually means. Where there's a whole lot of parts of the New Testament we're going to be uncomfortable with and not talk about. Like wives submit to your husbands. They say, no, no, no, I can't mean that. What does it actually mean? And if our only experience is abuse of authority, then that's going to seem like a Scripture that is actually harsh and mean from God. So we have to define all this. We have to define all this. Here's the first authority that God gave to human beings. Genesis 1 verse 26. And God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion.

That means rulership.

Human beings are given rulership, dominion, authority over what? 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. Then God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion. God now tells them, this is for you. This creation is for you. Do something with it. Have dominion over the fish, of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

You and I, every one of us, have some kind of dominion over our immediate environment. I truly used to believe I had dominion over my lawn.

This year, I was going to fix everything. I was going to get it right. I bought the weed and feed. I put down dirt. I mixed in the best grass seed. I watered it by hand. And my front yard has the highest quality weeds in the entire neighborhood.

I should have taken dollar bills, ripped them up and threw them on the grass, and I would have had as much productivity.

That's as we have dominion over this. He's given us this earth to have dominion over.

But there's a couple of things about delegated authority. Now, that doesn't mean God gave up ownership of the earth. He delegated to human beings some authority, but He didn't give it to us to destroy.

God's still the God of this earth. It's like Satan, as I mentioned last week. Satan is the God of this age, but Satan can't do anything that God says he can't do. God's kingdom still exists. God's still on His throne. God still has all power, and He still owns it all. He just lets Him have it for a while. He lets us have His creation for a while. But you know, whenever God delegates authority, there is within that limitations. You can't find any place in the Scripture where He gives unlimited authority to any human being. That's His prerogative. There's also responsibilities. Any authority given to any human being, God holds them personally responsible for it. It's a little scary when you get into concepts like the husband's authority, because we're held directly responsible, not to our wives. But to God on how we use that. There's also ramifications. When God delegates authority, there's ramifications. And with human beings, almost always the ramifications are bad. We're not very good at this. I've often said, you know, the quickest way probably to destroy any human being is to give them some kind of authority. This destroys us. So God said, okay, I've made the earth for you. You have dominion over it. You can control it. You can tame the animals. You can do all kinds of things and produce the food. But notice what He says in Genesis 2.15.

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden. And notice it says, to tend and keep it. In other words, He said, here's the garden. Here's where you're going to have direct control here over this part of the environment. And it is your job to take care of it. We as Christians have a responsibility to take care of our environment. Now, I'm not saying we all need to go become tree huggers, okay? I'm not saying that's where we go here. But you know, we can't do the other extreme and say, I can do with my environment whatever I want. I can destroy it. I can pollute the creek running through my yard so that all the neighbors' animals die. We can't do that. I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania. They used to strip mine. When I was a kid, they'd come in and find coal, right under the... because there was coal all over the place. They'd find it right under the soil. And they would come through, strip everything. They would cut down all the trees, take out all the soil, strip off all the coal. That coal might be six feet deep. There were places where they'd create holes that were 20, 30 feet deep. I remember going out as a kid and playing in strip mines. My parents didn't know where I was. If they would know it, they'd have been scared to death. I mean, some of those holes are filled with rainwater, and they're 20 feet deep. The kid falls in there, and it's just rock. They would destroy acres and acres, get out, take the coal and leave.

That's not exactly keeping and tending it, is it? Now today, you know what they have to do. They can go in. They still do it. It's still very economical. They can go in, they can cut down the trees, strip off the soil, take all the coal out. Then they have to fill it in with dirt, plant trees. And 15 years later, you can't even tell something happened.

That's tending and keeping. Destruction of the environment isn't what they were told to do. So you and I have an authority over our little environments to try to take care of that.

That's an authority every person has. Actually, when you go through the Bible, you'll find all of us have authority in one way or another. And all of us are under authority in one way or another.

So there's the first authority. A lot of people don't even think about that as Christians.

They were told, take care of what I give you. It's yours. Take care of it. And when you think about what does the mismanagement of the environment bring?

You know, overcrowded cities filled with crime is a mismanagement of environment, for one thing. People never should be living on top of each other like that. And there's a Scripture that says that, by the way. The Scripture talks about that.

Sometimes famine and drought and disease is man-made. We do it to ourselves. And we do it to ourselves because we abuse the environment.

So just because there are people who misuse that concept into almost a weird religion, you know, that's not what we're talking about. But we can't go to the other extreme either. That we have the right just to do whatever we want with this dominion. No, we're to keep it intended. So that's the very first place God gives humanity authority. And you can see that there are limitations, there are responsibilities, and there are ramifications of all this, of what He tells them to do. So now let's go try to figure out what Paul means in Romans 13. Let's go to Romans 13.

Because actually this is a fairly long passage.

And it's a very...

I mean, He makes some very strong statements here. The clarity of thought. And yet it leaves us, if we don't put a lot of Scripture together, it leads us to some very strange conclusions. In fact, Romans 13 was used in the Middle Ages because the kings of Europe and the Catholic Church were at constant war with each other over who had the most power. I mean, they fought each other constantly. So what happened was, the kings would say, no, we have power. And the church would say, no, we have the power. So here's the compromise they came down to. The kings were crowned by the Pope, which told everybody, wow, the Pope's most powerful. And then the kings would declare that they ruled by divine power, and they could do whatever they want. Both sides got exactly what they wanted. The church could say, nobody rules without God giving them power through us. And the kings could say, yes, and since God has given that power to us, you have to obey us without question.

And equilibrium never quite worked out. The Pope eventually had to, the prophecy had to eventually actually have an army to fight different kings as they fought each other over power. Look at what he says here. This is the passage that was used to support that. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. Now you stop there and you say, yep, you've got to do whatever the government tells you to do, and if you don't do it, God's going to punish you.

Is that what is being said here? Well, let's go back and see where God actually gave power to human beings to form governments. Now, they did so right away. Once Adam and Eve left Eden, and they began to form tribes. First it was families, then it was tribes. Then eventually there were groups of people in city-states, and they began to form governments inside these city-states. Usually it would be some powerful person who would take charge and say, I'm in charge. Usually through violence. But God actually gives human beings, he delegates to human beings, the ability to have judicial power. Once you do that, you will have the formation of governments. It's right after the Flood. Let's go to Genesis 9.

Genesis 9.

God is talking to Noah after the Flood. We'll break in the middle of what He tells him here, but He says in verse 5, Surely for your life blood I will demand a reckoning. From the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man. So He said, if you kill somebody, if someone commits murder, they are to pay with their life. Now the moment you do that, somebody's got to do that. Somebody's got to be the judicial power to do it. Somebody's got to have the police force or the army or whatever law that does that. And somebody has to kill the person. You now have the beginning of government. You have the beginning of government. Notice that the purpose that God delegated this governmental authority to was the protection of people. Now this is very important. We have to understand the difference between God's delegation of authority for a purpose and what we as human beings use that authority for. They're not the same. That's not God's fault.

It's not our fault that we mess it up. So we have to understand that. Well, God doesn't know what He's doing when He gives people authority. No, God knows exactly what it's doing. It's the people that are messed up.

God says, okay, if you're going to not live under my government, you know, there was God's government. That's all there was in Eden. Understand, there was nothing but that.

They leave that, and over time God says, okay, you're going to have to have government power to do this. So I give you the authority that takes human life if they have committed a murder.

Now, that's still very limited authority, isn't it? That's a whole lot different than the government you and I live under. Or any government. When we were in Germany last July, it was so sad. We went, you know, we produced a whole program on that sighting that's still there, where those boxcars would pull up right outside of Berlin, and Germans were put on the boxcars to go to concentration camps. German Jews, political leaders, Lutheran ministers, and Catholic priests that didn't, that spoke out against Nazism, they were sent, they estimated half a million, maybe, half a million Germans were sent to the concentration camps.

Their own people! This is what human beings, under Satan's guidance, this is what we do with what God gave us.

Fortunately for us, by the way, when God delegated some authority to human beings to have governments, He didn't give up His government. Any authority God delegates, He can take back. In fact, He will take back. He promises He will take back. When Jesus Christ comes, guess how many governments there are? But that's it. There's one. He takes it all back. By that time, we'll have learned we can't do this. But right now, there's delegated authority to human beings to have governments. But God always reminds those in power, by the way, of their limitations, their responsibilities, and their ramifications. Now, unfortunately, most human beings never know that. They just misuse and abuse their power. There are places where God has intervened. One is in Daniel 4. Nebuchadnezzar was an arrogant man. And like so many rulers, his sole purpose was to possess power and have wealth. That's all he wanted. Personal power, personal wealth. And he obtained that.

And God gave him a number of visions, a number of dreams, where God revealed to him all kinds of things. And yet, even though God was revealing him to those things, had Daniel come along and telling the meaning, Nebuchadnezzar stayed arrogant. He's probably the most powerful man in the world at the time. He's got power. He's got authority as wealthy as anything he wants. He's worshiped as a God. Isn't it amazing that when people all through history reach a certain amount of power, they're all worshiped? Somehow. That's what authority does to human beings. It makes this desire to be worshiped. So God sends him this dream, and I'm going to read just one statement that happens in this dream in verse 17. This decision is by the decree of the Watchers and is sentenced by the word of the Holy Ones. In order that the living may know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men gives it to whomever he will and sets over it the lowest of men.

This is God's message to Nebuchadnezzar. I delegated some authority to you, but I didn't give up any of mine. I still own the earth and the universe and every human being and every squirrel and every blade of grass. I own all of it. And you know what he did to Nebuchadnezzar to make him realize that? He drove him insane.

He spent seven years like an animal out in the fields eating grass. And when his reason came back, the first thing he wrote was, Now I know the Most High is God. I am not near as big and bad as I thought I was. He is God. So what God does is allows people to have little bits and pieces of authority, and almost all the time it is abused and misused. It's not God's fault. It's humanity's fault. None of it is conducted the way God wants it to be conducted. One of my favorite instances of this is in John 19. Because it's what's not said that I think is so amusing here. Jesus Christ is being brought before Pilate. This is the Son of God. This is the Word who preexisted. And he is now in flesh. And Pilate, of course, is an arrogant man. He has lots of authority given to him by Caesar himself. He is the governor of Judea. He has an entire legion at Caesarea at his command. I mean he has a fist of power that he can do whatever he wants. And here Jesus is before him. And Pilate talks and Jesus doesn't say anything.

In verse 10, Pilate says to Jesus, Are you not speaking to me? Do you not know that I have the power to crucify you and power to release you? He says, okay, so you're not even a talker. Don't you understand? I simply nod my head and you'll be dead in three seconds, or I can torture you or it will take you a week to die. Or I can say release him and you're out that door right now. Don't you understand the power and the authority I have? And I love Jesus' answer. And Jesus answered, You can have no power at all against me unless it had been given to you from above. His answer is, you little man.

Oh, he says it in a nice way. But he looks at me and says, oh, you little man, my father's given you a little bit of power. And look how powerful you think you are. Well, finally, I didn't realize his response is, you know what? I could kill you in three seconds. This is a prayer. I could give you leprosy and it could take you ten years to die. Anything you want to do, I can do a hundred times more. You little man. But he still submitted to him at this point. He submitted to him the whole... because this is what human government was going to do to him. This is what Satan and corrupt human nature does to the authority. When we look at why God gives human beings government, or authority, it is to produce certain things. Let's go back to Romans. And I know of no human government. I'm a student of history. I hope someday, maybe. I know it's not going to happen. To find one example of a government that actually did this. There's a few that have tried. They never, ever function.

Verse 3. So we're back to Romans 13. We're going to go back and forth to Romans 13 for the rest of the day here. Verse 3. He says, Now let's stop there. This goes back to Genesis 9. Okay. Is this true? God has given the sword to... an authority to certain human beings to protect the good against the evil. And to judicially have a way to execute or imprison the evil.

Now that's not what the Roman government was doing. Paul here is now saying, this is what God gave human government's authority to do. It's not what they were doing, but he's talking here about the principle of why the government exists. Because if you were a Christian at this time, and you lived in Rome or any place in the Roman Empire, you could easily come to the conclusion your role in history was to overthrow the empire. What you're supposed to do is fight against it. And yet all through the New Testament, you see no attempt by Christians to violently overthrow the empire. Or to even fight against it because of passages like this.

God gave this to them for good. They're using it for evil. But all authority comes from God. Therefore, live in the situation you're in. Remember, Satan is the God of this age. I mentioned it before. But that power is limited by God for a period of time. Human government is limited by God for a period of time. The authority was given to human beings to do good. We all do good with it. It doesn't change the fact that God gave it. So there are times we are to submit to a human government even when it's a bad one.

If you find it good, let me know. Actually, you and I probably live in the best human government in history. This is as good as it gets. There's nothing been quite like this. And it's going to fail, too. It will fail. It can't succeed. God is not in it. There are bits and pieces of truth and pieces of God in it.

But this isn't God's government. This isn't God's way. And so it, too, will fail. You and I are just privileged to be living in a good time. This isn't how most people have lived. And so what happens? We live like it says in Proverbs 29, too. It says, and I'm paraphrasing, but when the righteous rule, people are happy. And when the evil rule, everybody is unhappy. That's what it's like. That's what all human beings have always lived in throughout time. So let's go back now to verse 5 of Romans 13.

Therefore, you must be subject not only because of wrath, in other words, not only because of the wrath and the punishment that could come from the government, on him who practices, or I'm sorry, of wrath, but also for conscience's sake. He says here, we have to have a clear conscience before God. And this is very important in us being able now to discern when we are to submit to civil government and when we don't. Because there are times we do not, as Christians.

But you know what? We are, we read this, we are required to submit to this government as long as it's not telling us to do something against God. Remember, all authority delegated by God has limitations. It's in a box. If it goes outside that box, it is not legitimate. But it is within the box. So you and I need to buy a fishing license. You and I need to go ahead, and as silly as it seems, go down and buy that permit to put up a little shed in your backyard because it's what the government requires.

You and I need to make sure that we have our motors on our cars meet the smog parameters that they put on. You and I need to make sure that we are doing those things. We're not setting off fireworks within the city limits when it's against the city limits ordinance. We keep the laws of the land as long as those laws are not against God. Why? Because as messed up as it is, God gave authority to human beings to create governments.

And we've created all kinds of governments, all kinds of ways of doing things. And governments usually also then create economic systems, or sometimes economic systems create governments, and they're all mixed together. All these different ways of doing things.

And of course, all of them are affected or influenced in one way or another by Satan. And yet you and I are required by God to live within those parameters. We are required to be good citizens within the parameters of what? As long as it's within God's parameters. It's not easy to do all the time. Go to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2. Verse 13. Peter says, Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man.

Now this next statement is very interesting because when we go through next week certain concepts of authority and submission and all these different relationships of life, you're going to find terms like this show up all the time. Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or for governors, as to those who were sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.

For this, we do this for God's sake. We do this because God tells us to do so. We do this because He owns us. And God says whatever government you're under, the best of your ability, as long as it's not against Him, just do. Even though sometimes it seems ridiculous. Just do. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may be put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

As free, you're not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God, honor all people of the brotherhood, fear God and honor the king. Honor the king? Those are Roman emperors He's talking about. He didn't say they were good. What He says here is, our good. Let our good shine in the midst of evil government. It is interesting that at the beginning of the second century, one of the emperors, I can't remember whether it was Trajan or Hadrian, received a letter from one of the governors who said, I don't know what to do with these Christians.

They don't seem like such bad people. Basically, they obey the law. Their religion doesn't even seem to be that wacky. I can't even figure it out, except they believe in this Christ fellow which we killed. So I don't get to what that's all about. And I've even tortured some of them just to find out what's wrong with them, and I can't find anything wrong with them.

And the emperor wrote back and said, I know, just sort of leave them alone. You know, it's sort of hard to go around killing all the best people in the empire. These people don't really cause any trouble, and they sure don't. They're not, like, violent. They're not trying to overthrow anything. That's one incredible example that the emperor gets a letter that says, I don't really have anything against these people.

Why are you giving these orders to kill them? We are to do good by being law-abiding citizens within the limitations of what God has given human beings to do. It's not always easy. I'll give you a perfect example of this. Every time I say this, I get some criticism for it. You know, I used to hunt. I haven't hunted for years. I have two rifles, honey rifles, I have a couple of shotguns.

And I have the right to have those. Right? But where does that right come from? It comes from the U.S. Constitution. Right to bear arms. I have them. I can't find any place in the Bible where it says I have the right to bear arms. If they would change the Constitution of the United States, which I mean you can't do that.

You can change the Constitution. It's hard, but they can change the Constitution. What if they came along and changed the Constitution and took out the right to bear arms? The sheriff knocked at my door and said, we're collecting everybody's guns. I would give them my guns. You say, well, why would you do that? I mean, what if they come back to persecute you? What are you going to shoot them with? You see the problem? I don't have the right to shoot them. And they have the right, if they change the law, they don't have the right to take it, if they don't.

If they change the law, they have the right to take them according to the law of the land. And if I have to obey this, I have to give it to them. We have to stop thinking in political terms and think in scriptural Christian terms. We think too much in political terms. Yeah, it's theirs.

I complain about it. You know what they don't have the right to do? Keep me from preaching the gospel. They're going to kill you for that one. Nobody has the right to do that. That's what we begin to understand in this. What is it they have the right to do and what is they don't? It's the Scripture they don't have the right. God doesn't give me certain rights.

They come from the government I live in. If you are here illegally and you are not registered, you are not obeying this, I would not go to any country in the world illegally. Because I'd be breaking this command to do so. Every place said, go, I have my passport. And I handed in, except the time I went to Italy. They all took a break, all the passport guys. I walked up, they were all gone. We looked around, my wife and I looked at each other.

We waited. Then we just walked into Italy. There's nobody there to even look at the passport. It didn't even get stamped. We just went into Italy. There we were.

Because why? Because I honor the law of the land that requires me to do so. That's why I do it. It's my Christian duty. I have a Christian duty to do that. It's my Christian duty when I go to another country to live by their laws, as long as they're not against God. I have that Christian duty to do so. And you go to different countries, you find out some of the laws are different.

Look at what Titus says, or Paul says to Titus. I'm sorry, Titus chapter 3. So yes, my right to bear arms is given to me by the U.S. Constitution, and if somehow they would ever change the Constitution, Sheriff shows up and give him to him.

I'm sure not going to fight him over.

Like I said, I'd complain, but, you know... Titus 3, verse 1, Paul says, The titans remind them, the church, to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. Once again, our obedience to the laws of the land is to produce something. It is to produce an example to all people. This example of peaceable people. You know, it even says in 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 4, we're told to pray for those.

Pray for the rulers of the land. He said, well, okay, let's see. I had a hard time, some of us, praying for Mr. Obama. I have a hard time praying for Mr. Trump. Well, just to let you know, I have a hard time praying for both of them, okay? The bottom line is, why are we to pray for them? He says, so that we can have peace. We can have peace as the people of God. That's why we are to pray for them.

So how, when do we disobey the civil government? We disobey the civil government when it comes in conflict with the authority and the ownership of God. See, we already know what that is. But think of examples in the Bible. The midwives at Moses' time, the Egyptians said, you bring all those babies to us and we'll kill them, and they didn't. And when the Egyptians called them in, they sort of went, what babies?

Now, they could have been killed. I mean, the Egyptians knew they were burdening all these babies. They refused to turn them over. They refused to turn them over. That was right.

John the Baptist. John the Baptist stood up to King Herod. He wasn't the first King Herod. And he said, your marriage is not right. Your marriage is adultery.

It cost him his head. Now, isn't that interesting? He wasn't beheaded because he was out leading a protest because the aqueducts weren't clean or something.

It was because he was standing up for God.

He was standing up for God.

Acts 5. What's very interesting, all through the book of Acts, you will see Peter, John, then Paul, and those are with him, Silas. You will see them be subjected, or they will subject themselves to the civil government, and many times they're being persecuted by the civil government. They're being jailed by the civil government.

Another thing you'll find is they're in jail, and never once do you see a riot of Christians come knock down the doors and drag them out and save them. Doesn't happen. Now, you'll see mobs of pagans or Jews that come along and try to kill them.

But you won't see this. There is this faith in God and a belief that they cannot violently overthrow even this evil government. There's a reason why they believe that, and I'll show you that in a minute, because it's very important for us. Because we live in an evil world. This is the evil government we have. Like I said, there's parts of it that are good. It's the best there's ever been. But it's not God's. This government isn't going to save the world. Bring everybody to Christ.

Look what it says here. Acts 5, 27.

And when they brought them, they brought John and Peter before the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jewish government in Jerusalem. When they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest asked them, saying, Did we not strictly command you not to teach this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with all your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood on us. They had commanded them and had the judicial power to do so, not to preach in the name of Jesus. They could go out and preach the Sabbath all they wanted. They could go out and preach the Ten Commandments all they wanted. They could go out and preach, you shouldn't commit adultery all they wanted. They could go preach those things all they wanted. They just couldn't preach about Jesus.

And they commanded them, and the power that they had, which they had the authority to command people what to do and ought to do in Judea.

And they went out and did it anyways.

But Peter, verse 29, and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. And what's hilarious is that they start in verse 30, The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. And then they just go out and talk about Jesus. Wait, commanders do not talk about Jesus. Come here. Why don't you listen to us? Well, let us talk to you about Jesus. And they did. They stood up against the civil government and talked about Jesus.

As I said, they can't tell us not to tell people about God. They can't take our Bibles away. No government can take this book away from us. Period. They can't.

I mean, they can. They have to kill us or whatever to do it. We have to hide them or whatever. They have to hide us. They have to kill us or whatever to do it. We have to hide them or whatever. But you see what I mean? They don't have the power or authority to do this.

Because that is given to us by God.

We have to hold on to what God has given to us. It submits to the government the best we can.

How do we think about that? How do we work that through? It actually becomes a very simple concept. Philippians 3.

And then we only have two more verses to do in Revelation. I mean Revelation. Romans 13. It's taken this whole time just to go through the passage of Romans 13. Philippians 3, verse 20. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our citizenship first and always must be to the kingdom of God. Our citizenship first and always has to be to the kingdom of God. And that's why, as I've told you before, because I get a kick out of it every time I do it, when someone asks me what political party I belong to, I tell them I'm a theocrat. In the Greek it means God party. And I'm waiting for my king to come back. My king. My king? A king? You bet! And I'm going to fall down on my face before him, flat out on the ground, because that's what you do before a king.

A little different than the democratic idea we have in the United States. It's not really a true democracy, it's a republic, but it has a democratic concept to it. Democracy is part of it. Our citizenship is to a king and a kingdom.

And as I said before, when Christ comes back, the first thing he does is he says, all power now, folks, is back with me. I've taken all governmental power back because you don't know how to do it, and you don't do it very well. So let's go back and now finish up here in Romans. Romans 13.

Because this actually comes up from time to time. People will ask this question. He says in verse 6, because of this, because we are to be subject to these civil powers. Remember, he said, the reason God gave civil powers to people was to protect the innocent and the good and get rid of the evil. Well, they haven't done it, but that's the reason God gave them. What happens when your whole government becomes evil, like Nazi Germany, or Communist Russia, the whole government becomes evil? What do you do then? You submit to the laws that are in the framework of what God gave them power to do. And you don't submit to the others, which in those kinds of systems means you're going to probably get killed.

For because of this, you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Renter therefore to all their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor.

I've had people say, well, I can't pay taxes. They use taxes for abortions. They use taxes to finance a military that participates in unjust war and does some terrible things sometimes. And that's true. But how did you think about the world they lived in? The Roman army didn't do anything that was just.

Now, they did a lot of good things for the world, too. I mean, the Roman Empire actually did amazing good things. Built roads and aqueducts and cities. Created wealth for lots of people.

Raised people out of poverty. There were lots of good things they did. It's still the evil system.

And he said, pay them their taxes. You and I are. It is a duty to pay our taxes. They may misuse it, but God gave them the authority. Remember, God holds people responsible. My favorite explanation of this is when they came to Jesus and said, are we to pay our taxes? It is a loaded question. If he says yes, they'll say, see, he's just in bed with the Romans.

He's just in bed with the Romans. He's just like a tax collector. He's not truly for God. He's not waiting for the Messiah. If he says no, then they can turn him in as an anarchist and a rebel, and the Romans will kill him. And his answer is beautiful. They got a coin on you? Yeah. He takes the coin. There are pictures on there. They said Caesar? Whatever belongs to Caesar, give to him. That's what the coin meant. You can't argue that one. It's Caesar's economic system, so give to Caesar what belongs to him. Give to God what belongs to him, which is our lives. Give to God what belongs to him, because he owns us. Give to Caesar what the little man wants.

Jesus, I'm sorry, but Caesar is a little man. No, I'm not sorry. I'm glad. So we can see that all authority is delegated by God, but it's handled so terribly by human beings that it produces evil. On this civil level, that's usually what happens. There is some good. You and I live in a country that's done more good for humanity, probably, than any other country in history. It's easy to look at the bad, but there's been more good done by this country for humanity than probably any other country in history. If you studied history, you see that. It's still not God's. This isn't the kingdom of God. So we're fortunate. But all authority comes from God. When Christ comes back, he's taken all that authority back. Until then, we are to submit to you in government as long as it's within the limitations of what God gives them, and it's not outside that box in which we are to submit to God. We are to do what God wants. That's why you can't talk about any kind of submission until you talk about God first. Talk about God first. Now, we have a whole other set of issues. Children submit to your parents. Servants submit to your masters. We have all these other submission issues of authority. How do we deal with those? Well, that's what we'll deal with next time.