Romans 13_3-4 The Divine Purpose of Government
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Summary
In this episode, we continue our series on Romans 13 with a look at the concept of tyranny. God is the founder of government, but what does that mean for us as Christians? What does it mean for the church? And what role does the church play in resisting tyranny?
Transcript
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Amen. Well, I appreciated Corbin's point around religious tolerance. I think we have been
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misapplying this idea for many years. I often talk about religious freedom. I think that it
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It is the most anti-Christian idea that you can have in a nation.
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Jesus Christ is certainly not for religious freedom.
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We just recited together the Great Commission to essentially baptize the nations and teach them to obey all that Christ commanded.
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We know the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.
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We also know that it is the second commandment in the Decalogue to have no idols.
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no Christianity should not be for the freedom of religion we should be desirous that all people
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come to Christ now what a privilege it is to continue this series on Romans especially chapter
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13 especially at this perfect timing around the inauguration of this new presidency and
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administration. I believe that we have set a fairly solid foundation for this particular
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chapter. As many of you know, Corbyn offered several weeks ago a sermon on the spheres of
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sovereignty, kind of the intersection between family and church and the state. It really gave
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us an understanding of how these spheres function and how they relate to one another, not
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just individually, but together. Ultimately, that sermon taught us that God did not only
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institute the family and not only institute the church, but he also instituted the state.
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And I believe that is what this passage in Romans chapter 13 firmly teaches, and I believe
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we will see that. God is the founder of government. Now, we've grown up, many of you that are
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millennials or or you know gen z we've grown up with a pretty bad experience with government
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but god is the founder of government he holds all authority appoints all kings and rulers according
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to his will and for that and i'll say this in and of itself government is good government is good
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But government, when ran according to the law of God, is great.
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Three weeks ago, I offered a sermon on the theology of authority.
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And this is important because it showed how Jesus reclaimed the earthly authority that was lost in Adam's fall.
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And that authority has been essentially taken back through the cross, resurrection and ascension, where now all authority has been given to Christ.
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So I need you to understand this because all authority has been given to Christ in heaven and on earth.
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Essentially, authority is good because Christ has restored authority and power.
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Now, we also learned that Christians have to distinguish power from persons.
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It's important. That's a very vital distinction, to distinguish power from persons.
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Power is pure because it all stems from Christ.
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But persons can be perverted because of the fall.
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Now, this distinction really gave way to this concept of conditional submission,
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which teaches that Christians are called to submit to these God-ordained powers or rulers.
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But that is conditioned upon those rulers submitting to the power and rule of Christ.
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In other words, when the person perverts the power, which we have seen, when the person perverts the power, and they do that by violating the law of God, the principles of righteousness in the scriptures, that's called tyranny.
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We're not required to submit to those people in those particular moments, but are called to submit to their ruler's ruler, who is Jesus Christ.
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This is the concepts we talked about, is that we must obey God rather than men.
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But last week we also learned that God often permits tyranny.
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He often permits tyranny as a way of expressing judgment upon a nation,
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of disciplining a particular nation or people, or to drive those people to repentance.
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And I don't know about you, but I have seen actually in the last several years a significant degree of repentance in America.
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I think it got so incredibly painful for the last several years with the sexualized agenda, pushing it on our children.
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I believe we finally hit bottom and realized that this is not right.
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And there was a fair degree of repentance that I was seeing among our nation.
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But our response to tyranny needs to be examined.
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And here's the important point that I made last week.
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Unfortunately, when facing tyranny, which again, we all got to experience in a fairly significant degree during 2020,
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the church Christians often rush to righteous rebellion.
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They rush to righteous rebellion without first asking what sins brought such divine judgment upon us.
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But doing so without first examining why God allowed such a judgment upon us is wrong.
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And I think that is something that we can look at as a church and as a country.
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In the face of tyranny, repentance needs to precede rebellion.
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when when you get a country that has such difficulty from rulers yes we are to rebel
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against their tyranny but not before we go oh lord what are we doing to deserve such evil and
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wicked rulers why have you appointed such people well and again you quickly find out through the
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narrative of scripture that it's to drive us to repentance it's a upon judgment which would drive
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us to repentance, or it's upon discipline to drive us to repentance. God causes all things
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to work together for our good. And America, we know, by God's grace, is certainly experiencing
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some degree of reprieve from moral tyranny. But if we asked ourselves what sins and unfaithfulness
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caused God's judgment under the previous administrations?
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Again, we've been granted a mercy under this new administration,
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But we should not be content with the state of America.
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We came off of the ICU, and we shouldn't be content that we're now walking the halls of the hospital.
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Homosexuality, pornography, divorce, feminism, abortion, they all continue to plague our land.
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Prescott is like, that's the flag over this town.
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We're conservatives that are on our way to hell.
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I often say to people, you know, the one thing that conservatives and liberals have in common
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is that they're both going to hell if they don't repent and trust in Christ.
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Oh, you're a gunslinging, an NRA wearing, you know, conservative.
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Now again, this administration is a step in the right direction.
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But I believe it's merely a lesser form of judgment.
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Trump's great, but he's not the Christian president
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But we still have much purging to do within the church
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Secondly, what is happening nationally must also be applied locally.
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And yes, I promise I'll get to the text here in a minute.
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But what's happening nationally has to be applied locally.
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This administration has simply made it easier for us to Christianize our towns
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through the gospel primarily to uphold righteousness and we shouldn't ask national
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political leaders to do what we are unwilling to do locally and that is what that is the ditch
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of the conservative movement we love what you're doing over there but i'm afraid to say anything
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locally we love pete hegseth uh how he's banning transgenderism in the military
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fantastic uh but are you willing to push for that here in prescott
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now again we speak the truth in love but are you willing to say anything
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we love that tom homan is tightening down our borders and making a community safer
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we love that are you willing to uh report illegal immigrants
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or do you just like it when someone else does it for you we're a republic this nation
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we love that trump is banning teachers from discussing gender ideology
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in elementary schools but are you willing to tell your employers
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the places that you work the education committees that are here in our town
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And again, this isn't stand back and watch Christianity.
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Quiet Christianity is really what got us here.
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from the 1700s and early 1800s from Christian ministers and from Christian politicians,
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We have forgotten the degree of masculine Christianity,
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and we've traded it in for an effeminate form of Christianity.
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And so what I want you guys to do this week is I want you to pray that you, in whatever moments the Lord may give opportunity,
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to carry the change that's happening in D.C. to Prescott.
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Now, last week, we got a chance to discuss Romans 13, 1 through 2,
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which essentially taught that all authority comes from God and that every living soul is to submit to that authority because they come from God.
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essentially authority is derived derived authority any authority that is had by a pastor or by a
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parent or by a father or by a ruler is derived authority there is no authority nobody has any
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intrinsic authority when a wife submits to her husband it's because she's submitting to god
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through her husband she submits to her husband because the authority that her husband has is
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only given to her because the authority that christ has and so it is derived authority
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so rejecting rightful authority means rejecting not only the rulers that god has appointed but
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also rejecting god himself you can't reject authority and not reject god that that is the
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real message that's coming through here now this week i saw an elementary school teacher on social
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media uh on her you know tiktok or whatever she was doing bragging about you know she's at a
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federally funded school bragging about how how many ways she's rejecting Trump's executive order
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to remove transgender ideology from schools and what she needs to realize is that this isn't just
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rebellion against Trump it's rebellions against God and there will be judgment upon her for that
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reality it said actually at the end of verse 2 it says those who resist authority will incur
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judgment. Now, this principle of rejecting authority doesn't simply apply to the civil
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sphere. There's authority figures all over the place that we need to discuss. Any rebellion
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against rightful authority will incur some form of judgment or some form of discipline.
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And this applies to children, it applies to wives, it also applies to husbands, it also applies to
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mothers and servants and masters and civilians and magistrates. There is authority figures all
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over the place and there is calls to submission. Again, we live in this world that doesn't want to
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have any authority at all and doesn't want to have any sort of honor system or respect.
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But God is a God of order. And again, yes, we are to defy tyrants. A wife is to defy her
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husband when her husband is calling her to belligerent sin.
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But the reality is, is that the vast majority of those commands that a husband might give or that
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a ruler might give, or that a teacher might give, or that a police officer might give,
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we are to submit, even if our flesh does not like it or agree with it.
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increasing, or the increasing number of people resisting
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You just watch these people resist arrest and get shot.
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just obey what the police officer says and you won't get shot it's really easy
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so again i believe this rebellion against the root a rebellion against authority is the root
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of our own corruption and i want to talk about that as we open up here our flesh hates authority
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i'm not talking about your neighbor i'm talking about you you hate authority in your sin in your
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flesh, you hate authority. Every single one of us in this room hates authority in the flesh. We
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despise submission. We long for autonomy. We love individualism and independence. And in America,
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freedom reigns, right? We love it. Now, we have to remember that every sin that we have ever
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committed is a rebellion against authority. Every sin you've ever committed is a rebellion against
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authority. The first sin, Adam and Eve, a rebellion against authority. Now today, Paul reminds us of
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the antidote for our hatred of authority. Obedience. Do what is good. You want to know how you stop
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hating authority? It's just obey it. Obey authority. Authority, as we learn here, is not
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Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is
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good, and you will have praise for the same. It's really
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hate authority? Then have a heart of submission. Now that's only going to happen through the Holy
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Spirit and Christ. But first, if you look down at verse three, because we're going to follow this
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expositionally, I want you to remember that whenever we see the first word of a sentence
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begin with four, that is an indication that you're about to have an explanation clause or a
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clarification clause of the previous claim. And so at the end of verse two, it said, those who resist
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authority will incur judgment. So this verse is an
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explanation of that. So those who resist authority will incur judgment
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and then he gives an explanation. For rulers are not a cause for fear, for good behavior, but
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for evil. Do you want to not have fear of authority? Then do
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Those who resist authority will incur judgment.
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Essentially Paul is saying is if you fear judgment, obey. You want to get
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done with the fear, then obey. The second, I want you to note that the term rulers here is in the
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plural. And it's not limited in my study to magistrates or governors at this particular
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point in this passage. In the Greek, it simply means first in rank. That's what that word means.
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It means first in rank. Arkone, the Greek. In other words, it's speaking to rulers in a universal
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sense and i think this is very helpful and very practical for everybody in the room because it
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would include police officers and teachers it would include ceos of companies it would include
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parents and pastors and ruling elders and even hall monitors and high schools and those terrible
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hoa presidents okay it's going to include all of those people anybody that has some sort of
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rightful authority that's ruling again rightfully appointed rulers who wield authority are not a
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cause for fear if you're obedient the problem is is that we have a soul that outside of christ is
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prone to autonomy we don't like authority even we know that the curse to the woman in the fall
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in the garden, is that her desire will be to dominate her husband, but he will rule over her.
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The vast majority of feminism that we're dealing with today is a result of people who hate
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authority. Men love to abdicate authority and to be passive, and women want to take it.
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There is a confusion of moral and gender chaos that is ensuing because of this particular reality.
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Now, one of the best ways to mitigate our fallen hatred for rule and authority is to recognize the value rule and authority's presence brings and the pain their absence causes.
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I think I'll show you an example here in a second.
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But I think you're going to really love that we have rule and authority in this land and that it's not absent.
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The fact that no one can come and rob our home or steal our car without punishment.
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I love that if I pay my electricity bill, they have to keep the lights on.
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Children, are you grateful that your parents can't sell you for profit?
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yeah it's a good thing wives are you grateful that a husband cannot hit you and abuse you
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without crime yes this is a good thing these are all blessings of rightful rule and authority
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we like rightful rule and authority it is a good thing when it is godly on the flip side imagine
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the chaos that would erupt in a world filled with sinners and no rule and authority. Imagine
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that just for a moment where everyone does what is right in their own eyes. No law to
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uphold justice and no rulers to punish evil. I'd give it about 24 hours before we'd be
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When you look at it that way, we begin to appreciate the presence of rule and authority.
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Yeah, okay, I like rule and authority when it's Christ-like, when it's godly.
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Proverbs 29.2 reminds us that when the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the
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I certainly groaned the last couple years.
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Now the only reason a person would hate or fear rightful rule of authority is because of selfishness and sin.
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That's the only reason that you would really hate rule and authority is because of your own selfishness and your own sin.
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Paul even says, rulers are not a cause for fear for good behavior.
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and again I think if we're honest and again self love is blinding
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if we can look at ourselves honestly I think we'll get to a place of repentance
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in fact you have every reason to appreciate that authority
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whether in the family whether in the church whether at the state is an immense blessing
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order god is a god of order according to first corinthians but when the power is not perverted
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by the persons and the law of god is executed righteously what happens happiness joy we we can
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enjoy our community, economic prosperity. A lot of really wonderful things erupt out of order.
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It actually helps us understand 1 Timothy 2, verses 1 through 2. It says,
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First of all, I urge that supplications and prayers and intercessions and thanksgiving
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be made for all people. And then he says, for kings and all who are in high positions
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that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
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Because when we have righteous leaders, we get to live a quiet and peaceful life.
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Now, Romans 13.4, Paul offers further explanation.
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If you're following along here, you see the word for in verse 4.
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For he is the servant of God, an avenger, who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
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So first, I want to point out that the object of the pronoun he,
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Again, I'd love to see your heads down looking at your Bibles, but the ruler is God's servant for your good.
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You can read verse three or verse four that way.
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It says, for he is God's servant for your good.
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You could really say, for the ruler is God's servant for your good.
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Second, I think the focus narrows on ruler here.
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Because it was talking about rulers and the plural in the previous verse.
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verse. Now it's talking about a specific ruler, and it's qualifying that ruler as a particular
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person with civil power, especially capital punishment, as we're going to see here in a
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second. And third, I want to point out that the ruler is male, because the word ruler,
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archon is in the masculine gender in the Greek. Now, this is no small issue. This is a massive
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issue. The word ruler, archon, is used 10 times in the New Testament. Its usages are in every
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single gospel and the book of Acts and Romans. And in every single one of those usages, it is in
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the masculine gender. That is to say the Bible assumes masculine civil rule. Now you guys have
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heard my sermons and expositions on biblical patriarchy and the inconsistency of complementarianism
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and the fact that complementarianism believes that you have father or masculine rule in the church
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and in the home, but then all of a sudden it disappears in the civil sphere. And all of a
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sudden the wife who is to submit to her husband at home and the woman who is to submit to the
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elders of the church all of a sudden is the leader now in the civil sphere she cannot lead in the
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church she cannot lead in the home but she can lead all the churches and all the homes in the
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entire state it's radically and logically and theologically inconsistent it also creates a
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situation where you're as a man you're a husband at home you're leading your home you're a husband
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or you're a pastor at church you're leading the church and then you go to work and all of a sudden
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It creates all types of logical and theological confusion and perversion that has never been bought into by the church or the state up until the movement around feminism.
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And so, again, we've got to figure out our moment.
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I want to remind you, just because something's common doesn't mean it's normal.
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It's common to see an egalitarian, feministic culture.
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History is even very helpful on telling us what is normal.
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You just go back 120 years and just go, let me look at society real quick.
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It'll give you a little bit more of a taste of what is normal.
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It's because it had always been the same from 1900 all the way back to the beginning of time.
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in terms of order of society and male and female rule
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and all those generalities and principles regarding this particular issue.
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The Bible calls us to pray for kings and princes, not queens and princesses.
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Every New Testament usage of judge or governor or elder is in the masculine gender.
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Again, this directly challenges this complementarian view.
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Complementarianism was a word that was invented in 1988 by men that I respect.
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And we're afraid of patriarchy because our wives will be mad.
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So let's come up with this middle way, complementarianism.
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I've never met a woman who struggles to follow her husband if her husband acts like Christ.
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In fact, every time I meet a woman that struggles with submission, it's because her husband is not acting like Christ.
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Now, according to Scripture, male authority is the exclusive God-ordained pattern in all areas of life, including civil government.
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And that's a big deal because most Christians and almost all conservatives believe that the Bible sanctions female civil rulers when it does not.
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There was never a, did you know the only female queens that are mentioned in the scripture, the Queen of Sheba, Queen Vashti, Queen Jezebel, they're all of foreign pagan lands.
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and the whole example of deborah is i'm going to raise up a woman because the men are such
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cowards i'm going to shame the woman or shame the men with this woman
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that was an exception of judgment not a standard for how we should run
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there was a recent study on the historical voting records and bills passed under female
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political representation it proved just by looking at the historical voting records
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that the legalization of abortion and homosexual marriage would not have passed under an all-male
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voting bloc so again there is something that we need to address as a society something
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women were designed in a beautiful and glorious way to be nurturers
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You've seen this picture maybe on social media.
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You know, it shows Pete Hegseth and all the different appointees that are there and RFK.
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And it shows on the other side, all these women yelling at these men.
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And it causes so much conflict between the moral and gender chaos that's going on.
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And so there's something that needs to be had around male and female order in society.
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what we have done in this particular civil sphere has not proven to be better for this nation
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it has proven to be worse we have gotten over the last hundred years more morally corrupt as a as a
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nation statistically so under the egalitarian feministic movement i don't know what the solution
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is. It's complex, but we need to do something different, and we need to change at a deep
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and theological level. Next, Paul makes two interesting claims. First is that the ruler
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is God's servant, and actually the word servant in the Greek is the word we get for deacon.
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I mean, anyone who formerly is God's servant, is appointed, ordained as God's servant,
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And we live in a society that really lacks honor and respect.
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If you watched the recent inauguration, you saw the Master of Ceremonies.
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He would say, the Honorable Mike Johnson, the Honorable George W. Bush, right?
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I would say even for the position, not even for the particular person.
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You've heard in the military, it's salute the rank, not the person.
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I think that's helpful. Salute the rank, not the person.
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If that person has been put in authority over this particular nation by God,
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you can honor and respect that position without necessarily honoring and respecting the man behind it.
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One theologian remarked on this statement, and I thought this was interesting.
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He says, quote, even a dictatorship is better than no rule at all.
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The darkest days in Israel's history were those days described in Judges 17.6 when, quote, everyone did as he saw fit, end quote.
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Just a few days, even a few hours, without law in today's society would result in utter chaos.
0.96
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I often use the phrase to describe the romantic state of our relationships in America as bad love is better than no love.
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And so everybody runs to bad love instead of having no love.
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And I think the point he's trying to make there is that tyrannical order is even better than no order.
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Now again, we're not to settle for tyrannical order.
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We're to repent for those sins that brought apart that judgment and that tyranny.
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and were to defy that tyrannical rule and were to pray for those leaders and disciple those leaders
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that they might actually submit to the law of God.
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But again, I expect in the past few weeks, as moral order has seemingly emerged
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in a way that we haven't seen for, you know, a decade or so,
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we can start to see how these rulers are for our good.
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They protect our rights. They secure our freedoms.
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Paul says, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.
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I like to understand what the word is being said.
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I think that's why the vast majority of great theologians were actually attorneys before they went into theology.
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the word but is a contrast clause and it's showing the difference between the peace
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that's had from those people that obey and the fear from those people that are disobedient and
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insubordinate that's the contrast here if you do not obey the rightful rulers and authorities
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you should be afraid then we see a four again you see it again it says but if you were if you do
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wrong be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain he's explaining why you should be afraid
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it's the explanation clause of why you should be afraid that is under god's authority these
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rulers have the right to take the lives of lawbreakers
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okay that's a big statement right there in order to maintain order these rulers have been given
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the sword to maintain that order. Now, this, I would argue, again, is the justification to assemble
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even things like armies and military to deploy against those nations that threaten our liberties.
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This is part of that systematic justification for those realities. Then the apostle closes
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with one last explanation clause saying, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out
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God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Not only are rulers authorized to use deadly force against
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evildoers, but that force, this is key, that force is to be seen as the hand of God carrying out the
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Lord's wrath upon evil. When you watch a police officer on a social media video
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taking the life of somebody who is resisting arrest and causing harm,
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you are not necessarily to see a man taking the life of another man.
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You are to see God's justice and wrath being executed through one of his deacons.
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Now, I believe that this passage, if taught correctly,
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for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
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These men must learn that justly taking the life of evildoers is lawful and even righteous.
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In the same way that God uses an ordained pastor to baptize a person,
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i'm a lawfully ordained minister of the word i am i am here by the calling of god by the laying
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on of hands to administer the sacraments to to baptize and lay the mark of the covenant upon
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the bodies of god's people and to give the lord's supper which offers assurance for your salvation
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in the same way that the lord is working through me to to bless you in the same way the lord is
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working through the government and the police officers and the rulers of this land who take
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life to punish evil. That is a very important point that this generation must take into consideration.
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So as I close here, we learn that authority and rule are part of God's ordained structure for
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society. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. If you want to know where government came from,
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And just as the family and the church can be corrupted,
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every one of our families and our churches are corrupted,
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But the corruption of those particular entities
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or that they're inherently or intrinsically bad.
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That's simply a reason to purify them and reform them.
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how is scripture said that the family ought to be run?
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How is scripture say that the church ought to be ran?
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How is the state supposed to be ran according to scripture?
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And so as Christians, it's our duty to disciple the state.
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The separation of church and state is not the separation of God and state.
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It is the separation of the church and the state in the sense that the church is not to be
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And the church, or sorry, and the state is not to be baptizing people.
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Yes, that separation of church and state is good.
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But it does not mean that we have a secular or godless state.
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There is no secular, sacred divide in Scripture.
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And so our job is to disciple the state, to call the rulers to obey God.
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And then, and this is the hard part, our duty is to submit to those rulers.
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Lord, we ask that you would help us understand it more,
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to our homes and to our families and to our churches.
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that we have lived through for the last 10, 20 years
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Lord, we ask that you would motivate this church
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and these people here that this isn't a time to rest.
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And Lord, that we would push as the church locally
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and nationally, that we would push further and further
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We ask for your help in this, in Jesus' name, amen.