The NXR Podcast - THE CONFERENCE - Christian Power - David Reece - Session 7

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00:00:16.280 You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.

00:00:21.860 We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.

00:00:26.800 So my goal is to talk to you about Christian power in theory and then to also lay out for

00:00:31.020 you some principles for how to grow in power. So we'll start out, let's just, we'll get through,

00:00:37.080 and I had to throw away so many slides, I am so sad about that, but I'm probably not going to

00:00:42.140 get through all of them anyways, so we'll do what we can. So what I want to start out with for you

00:00:47.260 is a text of scripture that relates to thinking about power, and I think this is a particularly

00:00:54.020 really important text of Scripture that helps us to think about why it's important for Christians

00:00:59.200 to pursue power. So if you have a Bible on your phone or whatever, I encourage you to follow along.

00:01:04.540 But the book of Judges chapter 9 deals with this idea of men who are unwilling to seek power as

00:01:12.380 well as men who are willing. And so let's read the text. Judges chapter 9 verse 7.

00:01:21.080 now when they told jotham he went and stood on top of mount gerizim and lifted his voice and

00:01:28.280 cried out and he said to them listen to me you men of shechem that god may listen to you

00:01:33.500 context is there's a bimelech who is becoming king and he's coming to the inauguration party

00:01:39.840 to say something that a bimelech will really love to hear so let's see what he says listen to me you

00:01:46.500 men of Shechem that God may listen to you. The trees once went forth to anoint a king over them

00:01:52.340 and they said to the olive tree, rain over us. But the olive tree said to them, should I cease

00:01:59.560 giving my oil with which they honor God and men and go to sway over trees? Then the trees said

00:02:06.080 to the fig tree, you come and rain over us. But the fig tree said to them, should I cease my

00:02:11.800 sweetness and my good fruit and go to sway over trees then the trees said to the vine you come

00:02:18.780 and reign over us but the vine said to them should I cease my new wine which cheers both

00:02:24.460 God and men and go to sway over trees isn't that great sway over trees then all the trees

00:02:31.580 said to the bramble oh Abimelech actually might not be real happy being compared to the bramble

00:02:36.800 you come and reign over us and the bramble said to the trees if in truth you anoint me as king

00:02:44.700 over you then come and take shelter in my shade but if not let fire come out of the bramble and

00:02:51.400 devour the cedars of lebanon now therefore if you have acted in truth and sincerity in making

00:02:58.060 of him like king and if you've dealt well with jeroboam in his house and have done to him as

00:03:04.040 he deserves. It continues on for a bit there with negative things. The point is he's just gone and

00:03:10.060 killed a bunch of men who were from the house of Jeroboam. And Jeroboam was one who had ruled well

00:03:15.680 and killing all of his household was a horrific thing to do. This all is giving context for that

00:03:20.700 parable. But the parable that's laid out here is this. You've got these different trees. You've got

00:03:27.480 the oil from the olive tree. You've got the vine and obviously the wine that comes from it. You've

00:03:32.780 the fig tree and the sweetness of eating figs. And these are all productive men. And if productive

00:03:38.260 men, if productive men will not rule, the result will be that unproductive men will rule.

00:03:49.220 Now, what would you rather be ruled by? Somebody who's very useful, fruitful, effective,

00:03:54.240 competent, or somebody who says, I'm not very competent, I'm not very hardworking,

00:04:00.340 but I sure would love to control what you produce.

00:04:04.280 I would love to rule over you. 1.00

00:04:08.920 There's this danger that if godly Christian men 1.00

00:04:11.840 will not rule 1.00

00:04:13.540 because they have their own estates to enjoy,

00:04:17.920 they have their own property and positions to enjoy,

00:04:20.400 their families to enjoy,

00:04:21.540 they have other things to do.

00:04:23.260 If they don't do that,

00:04:24.240 the danger is that the bramble will rule.

00:04:26.860 There is this desire in the race of men

00:04:29.560 to dominate and control other men.

00:04:33.060 The desire to control other men

00:04:35.000 is the desire, the lust,

00:04:38.160 to take their productivity.

00:04:40.440 Now, you can steal a man's wallet.

00:04:42.800 You can steal property from a man.

00:04:45.320 But how much more effective to steal the man

00:04:47.720 so that you get everything he produces?

00:04:50.620 Do you ever feel like with the 30 or 40% tax rate

00:04:54.120 that perhaps 30 or 40% of you has been stolen? 0.54

00:04:57.280 so this danger this danger of being ruled by worthless men bramble bushes not those who

00:05:12.140 produce sources of honor or cheer or sweetness but those who would demand absurdities look at

00:05:20.880 look at the bramble bush what he says the bramble bush says in response to being asked to rule

00:05:27.320 right the nominating you know the first nomination is pretty good olives second nomination is pretty

00:05:32.040 good figs third nomination is pretty good buying you go productive people but by the fourth

00:05:36.540 nomination there was a mistake by the fourth nomination they got to the bramble bush and so

00:05:45.320 the bramble bush says, all the trees said to the bramble, you come and reign over us. And the

00:05:52.100 bramble said to the trees, if in truth you anoint me as king over you, then come and take shelter

00:05:57.200 in my shade. Now, real quick, when you look at bramble bushes, are they particularly tall?

00:06:03.160 Are they particularly useful at providing shade? This would be like a king who's short,

00:06:10.900 demanding that everyone who's tall around him walk on their knees this would be like asking

00:06:18.200 well the tall people should have the lower parts of their legs cut off so that my height can be

00:06:22.200 properly respected these are the kinds of absurdities that you start to see when worthless 0.91

00:06:26.840 men rule now the bramble bush demands that they take shelter in his shade and if they won't

00:06:34.400 if not let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of lebanon now cedars are

00:06:41.620 actually pretty tall they are taller than bramble bushes and so if the cedars won't hide in the

00:06:48.440 shade of the bramble bush he's going to burn them up these are the kinds of absurdities you get so

00:06:54.160 emperors think themselves gods you must worship me that kind of thing this this absurdity that

00:07:00.240 comes when unproductive men rule they start to in order to feel secure in their rule they start to

00:07:08.140 make absurd demands so that's the danger now on the other side of this we are told by the Lord

00:07:18.440 Jesus Christ in Luke about a way to view governing in Luke 22 we run into this

00:07:28.920 and there was also a dispute among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest

00:07:35.000 these are the apostles at the lord's supper and he said to them the kings of the gentiles

00:07:41.720 exercise lordship over them and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors

00:07:47.080 okay so the kings of the gentiles the kings of the heathen the pagan the unbelieving world the

00:07:53.280 only church that existed in the world at this time was the national church of israel to be replaced

00:07:58.820 by the universal church to go to all the nations and to bring all of them in. But before the church

00:08:04.220 went universal, when it was stuck there, when it was provincial, at that time the rest of the world 0.88

00:08:09.840 was darkness with the exception of some Gentiles being saved like Ruth, like Nineveh, things like 0.71

00:08:15.540 that. And so what we have is this situation where the heathen, the pagans, are the ones that when 0.91

00:08:21.880 they think about taking power, what they think of is taking power not to serve with power but to

00:08:28.800 use the power to make the people their slaves. They think, I am the benefactor of ruling over

00:08:35.160 you. I have this job so that I can use you. That is the heathen way of thinking about power. And

00:08:44.260 how many politicians in Washington, D.C. do you think actually have that attitude as opposed to

00:08:50.100 the attitude of, I'm here to serve you? They think you exist to be a cash cow.

00:08:58.800 the kings of the gentiles exercise lordship over them and those who exercise authority over them

00:09:05.820 are called benefactors the problem the word lordship is not a critique

00:09:09.360 they have legitimate office but they abuse it to extract from the people the problem is not

00:09:18.700 the word lordship the problem is thinking of themselves as the benefactor but not so among you

00:09:23.900 on the contrary he who is greatest among you let him be as the younger and he who governs as he who

00:09:31.060 serves there's where we get servant leadership servant leadership is an often abused phrase but

00:09:37.780 but we need not hate it the abuse of it is this well if you're the leader that means you have to

00:09:44.080 serve which means that you have to let the person you're leading actually lead you

00:09:47.160 that is not servant leadership servant leadership is you act as lord you act as the ruler you give

00:09:56.380 commands you order you give imperatives and they are followed but you do it for the good of those

00:10:05.540 you rule you self-sacrificially do the burden of planning of leading of deploying you prioritize

00:10:15.700 that is what lordship is but you do it not just to extract from those you rule

00:10:23.680 but in order to serve them and care for them

00:10:26.700 among the the believers we are not to treat those that we rule over as cash cows

00:10:38.320 not so among you on the contrary he who is greatest among you let him be as the younger

00:10:44.680 and he who governs is he who serves for who is greater the one who sits at the table or he who

00:10:50.600 serves it is not he who sits is it not he who sits at the table yet i am among you as the one

00:10:55.660 who serves right the lord jesus christ the lord jesus christ was serving with his lordship he was

00:11:03.320 instituting an element of worship he was commanding them to forever repeat until he returned

00:11:10.080 that ordinance of worship that he instituted he was exercising authority and doing it for their good

00:11:17.720 the one who sits at the table is greater yet i am the one

00:11:25.280 and i am among you is the one who serves but you are those who have continued with me in my trials

00:11:32.640 and i bestow upon you a kingdom just as my father bestows one upon me

00:11:37.680 that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom

00:11:41.040 and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

00:11:46.060 There is no negativity here about authority,

00:11:48.400 merely a negativity about the abuse of authority. 0.68

00:11:51.080 And so when we think about Christian power,

00:11:52.660 we need to remember that power is a gift from God

00:11:56.020 and it ought not to be hated.

00:11:58.900 It ought not to be scorned.

00:12:00.420 We should not take on the Anabaptist view

00:12:03.000 that you cannot serve in government in a righteous way.

00:12:05.780 The Lord Jesus Christ and John the Baptist, when they dealt with Roman soldiers, they did not order

00:12:12.520 them to leave their positions of imperial power. They ordered them to be content with their wages

00:12:18.340 and not to abuse the people that they had authority over. And so it is important that

00:12:24.200 there be righteous men who exercise power. And it is important that we not take on the attitude

00:12:31.460 of seeking to exercise power in order to be a bramble bush who demands absurd things of people.

00:12:38.860 And so that attitude, if you want power in order to enslave, that needs to be repented of.

00:12:47.120 And if you have resources and if you are competent, if you are a man of valor and you have the ability

00:12:55.320 and the characteristics and the qualifications for leadership and you are shirking it so that

00:12:59.880 other men can carry the burden. You need to repent of that too. It is the duty of godly men to rule

00:13:07.560 because if they will not rule, we will be ruled by bramble bushes. The great motive for godly men

00:13:15.260 to rule is the fear of being ruled by lesser men. And we are ruled by lesser men and even

00:13:24.320 by the tyranny of the rule of women. 0.99

00:13:28.860 We need Christian men to rule 0.98

00:13:30.700 and to rule well and wisely

00:13:33.500 and to do it for the good of those that govern.

00:13:38.780 Now, I want to talk to you about

00:13:40.360 the definition of Christian power.

00:13:43.240 The definition of Christian power

00:13:44.820 is first broken into

00:13:47.420 what does it mean to be Christian

00:13:48.320 and then secondly also

00:13:49.780 what does power mean.

00:13:51.260 So I want to talk to you about power

00:13:52.140 because it's a simpler component.

00:13:54.000 Power is two things when we talk about it.

00:13:55.600 We talk about power in terms of the ability,

00:13:57.720 and we talk about power in terms of the authority.

00:14:00.500 Ability is can I, authority is may I.

00:14:04.400 We have been given authority directly by God

00:14:06.520 to govern the world,

00:14:08.660 but there are institutions where different people

00:14:10.860 have authority to do different things.

00:14:12.220 I have authority in my house, you have authority in yours.

00:14:16.160 You don't have authority in mine,

00:14:18.980 and I don't have authority in yours.

00:14:20.100 there are different pastors of different churches and there are magistrates of different jurisdictions

00:14:26.140 and so all of these spheres and all of these institutions all their jurisdictions must be

00:14:31.940 recognized and dealt with properly there is a delegated authority from god that's where

00:14:37.060 authority comes from christian power has to do with two things power in the hands of christians

00:14:44.400 and power used in a Christian way. 0.69

00:14:48.900 Power in the hands of Christians involves identifying Christians 0.70

00:14:51.860 and power being used in a Christian way 0.85

00:14:54.520 involves identifying the way that Christians ought to rule.

00:14:59.220 Now, when we think about what a Christian is,

00:15:02.100 I've got a list here of stuff that I think helps to define what it is to be reformed.

00:15:05.700 I believe the reformed religion at its basic level is a specific religion.

00:15:12.060 The Reformed religion is identified with sets of doctrine.

00:15:16.600 And the Reformed religion includes the Solas, Tulip, Incarnation, and the Trinity.

00:15:23.500 In addition to that, we also have to deal with Adam and Christ as the covenant representatives.

00:15:29.840 And we have to deal with the Westminster Shorter Catechism as a summary of that in history.

00:15:33.980 It's a thing in history.

00:15:35.860 Now, you don't have to hold to the Westminster Shorter Catechism to be Reformed.

00:15:39.680 but if you are a reformed Christian

00:15:43.440 you're not going to disagree with the stuff

00:15:45.160 in the first of the eight questions of the shorter catechism

00:15:46.960 and if you reject any of these things

00:15:49.860 the solos, trinity, incarnation, tulip

00:15:51.780 Adam and Christ as federal heads

00:15:54.360 I'm suggesting to you that you and I do not have the same religion

00:15:57.380 we have to identify what the religion is

00:16:03.260 that we're trying to guard

00:16:04.180 and as we guard that religion

00:16:06.580 we want to identify Christian rulers

00:16:08.340 who hold to these things now the law of God also helps us to understand the way a Christian is as

00:16:17.820 well as how a Christian ought to rule and the idea here in terms of what a Christian is is this

00:16:22.960 you need to accept that the law of God is the thing that determines what you ought to do

00:16:28.460 if your ethics are not controlled by God commanding you to do things you don't think the

00:16:36.320 christian god is god he has the ability to tell you what to do because he's god he made you and

00:16:44.000 he defined what's your good and he tells you what's good for you so his law this this is a

00:16:49.380 this is a way of explaining you have to believe that jesus is savior and you have to believe that

00:16:54.460 jesus is lord if you reject his ability to command you you reject his lordship if you reject his

00:17:02.020 power to save, you reject his salvation. You must accept him as Lord and Savior. I'm not saying you

00:17:10.040 have to perfectly keep the law to be saved. You can't do that. You have to believe that Jesus

00:17:15.200 kept it for you in your place instead. Now, when we think about Christian power in terms of its 0.51

00:17:22.580 organization, these are the four institutions that God has made and they each have a direct

00:17:26.640 connection by chain of command to the triune God. You as an individual have commandments from God

00:17:33.360 that you must perform. Your household receives commandments from God and you as a husband or as

00:17:39.080 a patriarch have authority given by God and so does the matriarch. She reports to you, she's under 1.00

00:17:44.740 you, but she also has authority given directly by God in terms of her duties to make sure that she

00:17:51.620 is also raising the children in fear and admonition of the Lord. So there is a mutual authority,

00:17:58.300 but the husband is the ruler. He is the head. He can order the wife to do things, but she also has

00:18:04.920 an office. Just like you think about lesser magistracy in terms of the civil sphere, you have

00:18:10.820 higher positions of authority and you have lower positions of authority. And the higher positions

00:18:15.980 of authority receive their authority from God and the lower ones do too, which is why we believe 0.64

00:18:20.880 its Protestants that the lesser magistrate can resist a tyrant. The governor of my state, Arizona,

00:18:26.540 could and should have resisted many tyrannical things that the government has done over time.

00:18:31.680 For example, every governor in every state, when the Supreme Court said that it was now legal to

00:18:37.540 kill babies, the response of every governor ought to have been, you have made your ruling,

00:18:42.420 you have neither purse nor sword, we're ignoring it, and we will punish murderers in our state. 0.99

00:18:50.880 Every structure of authority has lesser officers, and those lesser officers have duties from God.

00:19:06.260 And so we have a duty of submission, but we have a duty of resistance when we are forbidden from

00:19:12.580 doing what God commands and commanded to do what God forbids. Now, individual household church state,

00:19:20.080 These are instituted in different texts.

00:19:22.820 Genesis 1 and 2 is where the individual is instituted.

00:19:25.780 He's made from the dust and from the breath of life, and he's told to do stuff.

00:19:29.420 The household is made then too.

00:19:31.500 We also find in Genesis 3 and 4, the church and excommunication.

00:19:35.500 And we find in Genesis 9, the establishment of the state.

00:19:38.380 Now, Stephen Wolf and I, when we discuss, one of the places we have disagreement is

00:19:42.340 on where the origin of the state is.

00:19:44.140 So you can see right here, a major place where we end up disagreeing, is I'm going

00:19:48.060 to say Genesis 9 is a place where God institutes the state. And he's going to say that there's a

00:19:54.400 natural place, like he mentioned with Turretin, the idea of the natural condition of the state.

00:19:59.200 So that's, I think, a significant place for you to be aware of where the discussion needs to be

00:20:02.920 able to deal with things over time. Now, when we think about getting power, what we have to do

00:20:10.980 is we have to have a strategy to get power because we have finite resources. And with that finite

00:20:17.000 set of resources, we have to accomplish goals. Now, a strategy is the art and science of optimizing

00:20:24.640 the choice of available means to the accomplishment of desired ends. Optimization involves speed,

00:20:31.900 cost, getting the most for the least, helping you to do more later. So the components of a strategy

00:20:38.200 include principles of law, determining, you know, the constraints of what you're able to do, what you

00:20:42.760 ought to do. Your strategy could involve evil things. And as Christians, our goal is to avoid

00:20:47.440 doing evil. The good may come, but rather to do what God commands to bring things about. And

00:20:51.380 here's the thing I think is beautiful about the law of God. I would suggest to you, there's been

00:20:56.420 a little bit of talk about this idea of sacrificing like economic growth in order to preserve the

00:21:01.640 family. I would suggest to you that if we follow God's law, it actually does the most to generate

00:21:07.500 wealth. I would suggest to you that when we are careful to allow women to not have to compete with 0.99

00:21:13.260 men in every sphere and to go out and have to do all the things that men are doing, that what ends

00:21:17.620 up happening is men make more. They produce more. They are motivated more. They are champions of a

00:21:24.580 house. They are encouraged to go do more. And the women in their house live happier lives. They

00:21:30.060 produce wealth and they produce human beings who are wealth generators. And that work together

00:21:35.720 does more for the economic growth of a country

00:21:39.280 than if you try to have them both pretend to be men. 0.55

00:21:52.880 Now, the principles of law are going to direct us what we ought to do,

00:21:57.960 and I think because God's commands and the nature of reality line up,

00:22:02.820 what we're going to find is that the fruit is better too.

00:22:05.720 I'm not a consequentialist. I don't believe that the ends justify the means, but I do believe that

00:22:12.120 the means that God appoints, pointed at the goals he commands, generates those ends. Now, in addition

00:22:20.260 to this, we have to deal with looking at the ground floor, the determination of the facts on

00:22:24.380 the ground of what's going on. We've got to make decisions about that. And beyond that, we have to

00:22:30.780 also apply the principles of law to those facts and then we have to choose an order of operations

00:22:35.860 of what to do okay so that's what we're doing inside of a strategy that's what i want to

00:22:40.080 encourage you to think about here so we have the goal which is to glorify god fill the earth with

00:22:44.320 knowledge of god we've got the means the law word of god the regulated principle of life

00:22:50.120 in the westminster confession of faith basically says this there are no good works except for the

00:22:56.480 things God commands. And we're supposed to do good works all the time. So that means

00:23:01.720 we should be doing stuff God commands all the time. That's what it means to redeem the

00:23:06.040 time. Now, if we think about this duty to do good works all the time and the fact that

00:23:15.760 God defines every good work for us, that's called the regulative principle where we say

00:23:19.980 we should only do the stuff God commands. And if we're only supposed to do the stuff

00:23:25.580 that God commands and we're supposed to redeem the time with good works all the time, we know

00:23:30.200 that our whole lives, everything we do should be the stuff that God has told us to do. So I'm

00:23:35.940 suggesting to you that is the reformed view. I'm suggesting to you that that's a view that's

00:23:40.380 necessarily flowing out of sola scriptura. The doctrine that we hold to is from scripture alone

00:23:46.480 and that means our doctrine of ethics would come from scripture alone.

00:23:51.440 now this is taught in second timothy chapter 3 verses 16 to 17 which says all scripture is given

00:23:59.420 by inspiration of god and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction

00:24:04.240 in righteousness and notice the word that the word that is purposive the word of god is profitable

00:24:11.800 for doctrine in order that or so that some goal can be accomplished what's the goal that the man

00:24:18.500 of God may be incomplete, insufficiently furnished for some good works. That is not what the text

00:24:29.740 says. The text says that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished for every good

00:24:34.920 work. That is the sufficiency of scripture for all good works. So I'm telling you that for power

00:24:41.520 exercise, the word of God is sufficient for that. In the history of the world, human philosophy has

00:24:47.520 tried to justify power from six different answers. Here are the answers. There's no justification

00:24:53.560 for power. Anarchy is what we should do. It's going to be great. Don't worry about it. Second,

00:24:59.280 the alternative is that's unrealistic. Human beings are monsters. They are going to control

00:25:05.320 each other. They must control each other. All that really matters is might. Might makes right.

00:25:10.380 power comes from the barrel of a gun that's realpolitik the next one is this idea of natural

00:25:18.100 law where the definition of man includes the idea of man having a political order

00:25:26.200 so aristotle's definition of man man is a political animal and so the political is inherently built

00:25:33.220 in to man and so once you have a definition of man that's fitting you've got a definition of

00:25:39.060 the polis and political power, civil power. The other idea, the Lockean social contract. Sometimes

00:25:46.360 people act like social contract theory is something that theonomy is aping. Samuel Rutherford was born

00:25:53.380 before John Locke, just so you know, and John Locke's efforts to make social contract theory.

00:25:59.960 John Locke was, he had Presbyterian parents and he tried to take covenant theory for government

00:26:05.540 and make it into contract to secularize it

00:26:08.940 and latitudinarianize it

00:26:10.560 and make it so that you can have all sorts of heresy

00:26:12.640 and idolatry in the land

00:26:14.080 underneath this humanistic contract.

00:26:16.940 The next thing is the divine right of kings

00:26:19.400 that says kings can do kind of what they want.

00:26:22.520 They're the rulers.

00:26:23.660 They're the father of fathers.

00:26:25.100 Maybe the state is even a household

00:26:26.960 and you're his children.

00:26:33.080 And then the next one,

00:26:34.220 divine law, theonomy. The idea that there's a limit to the government based upon God's law,

00:26:42.380 and there's also a justification for the government based upon God's law. And that

00:26:46.500 could be a normative view where you say the government can do anything unless it's forbidden,

00:26:49.680 or a regulative view, which is the government can do only that which is commanded. So that's

00:26:55.720 my understanding. Now, civil power has an origin in Genesis 9. Its nature is defined

00:27:02.920 for us in Romans 13. In both of those passages, Genesis 9, you have this idea that the state

00:27:09.360 exists as an avenger. And if you kill a man, you will be killed by a man. And that's not merely

00:27:15.940 he who lives by the sword will die by the sword in some sort of descriptive sense. It's prescriptive

00:27:20.480 that God institutes the sword of the magistrate to kill murderers, to stop evil men, because the

00:27:27.820 earth before the flood was filled with blood, that curse filled the ground, that the earth was full

00:27:35.800 of violence, and there were no men, no magistrates, no righteous kings, no righteous judges, none who

00:27:42.820 would stop these tyrants. And so there's a need for Christian power. God instituted the magistrate 0.95

00:27:50.820 to stop a world filled with violence, that righteous power would be brought to bear to

00:27:57.180 smash the teeth of the wicked and to save those who would be the victims of the unrighteous

00:28:04.560 and when we look at the application of this there's the general equity of the law of god

00:28:12.540 that comes out of the law that's laid out in exodus numbers and deuteronomy the the civil

00:28:18.260 laws are laid out there and they provide some things that are particular and some things

00:28:23.500 that are not particular to Israel.

00:28:26.260 There are general equity pieces.

00:28:27.960 Some of the things that are particular

00:28:29.060 have to do with the form or offices and processes

00:28:31.740 that have to do with the land of Israel or its technology.

00:28:34.900 So you might have low velocity rocks

00:28:36.880 and in our modern time,

00:28:38.600 you might have high velocity rocks

00:28:40.240 coming out of a firing squad's rifles.

00:28:43.320 And those things could be used effectively

00:28:44.980 to stop the wicked and to punish them.

00:28:47.500 Now, when we think about the powers of government

00:28:50.420 and we think about the crimes and punishments

00:28:52.980 that should be given to those crimes,

00:28:54.360 those are the types of things

00:28:55.240 that get addressed throughout Scripture.

00:28:57.540 So those general equity principles

00:28:59.480 are a part of what you need

00:29:01.620 for considering civil power.

00:29:04.520 Now, for a strategy, as a Christian,

00:29:06.940 we've already looked at this idea

00:29:07.880 that we need to determine the principles of law,

00:29:09.880 determine the facts.

00:29:10.600 We've got to deal with applying those principles

00:29:12.120 to the facts,

00:29:12.760 and we have to have an order of operations.

00:29:14.340 So I want to propose something to you.

00:29:16.220 We are not doing very well.

00:29:17.880 There are a lot of things that are improving for us.

00:29:19.520 That's great.

00:29:20.380 But we still are in a position of weakness.

00:29:21.760 We don't have the domination of the land by the righteous.

00:29:25.900 And as a result, what we need to do is to grow in power.

00:29:28.780 So to grow in power, I believe there's a divinely inspired strategy that is given to us

00:29:34.060 so that we know how to grow in power.

00:29:37.440 The book of Proverbs has a number of interesting section heads.

00:29:42.400 Chapter 30 is for those who are waiting to come into power.

00:29:46.360 And it has this little section in verse 24 that reads as follows.

00:29:50.740 There are four things which are little on the earth, little means weak here, but they

00:29:58.260 are exceedingly wise.

00:30:02.460 The ants are people not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer.

00:30:08.980 The rock badgers are feeble folk, yet they make their homes in the crags.

00:30:14.900 The locusts have no king, yet they all advance in ranks.

00:30:19.200 The spider skillfully grasps with its hands

00:30:21.940 and it is in king's palaces.

00:30:26.080 These are four activities,

00:30:28.640 four pieces of the strategy to be pulled together

00:30:31.260 that help you to gain power.

00:30:33.740 Strategy one, when you're weak,

00:30:36.340 you need to diligently work to pull in resources

00:30:39.200 like the ant.

00:30:41.880 Resources increase your power.

00:30:44.200 The accumulation of capital is a difficult thing.

00:30:46.940 The accumulation of capital is a part of the process of increasing your power.

00:30:50.660 The rich rule over the poor because they hire them.

00:30:57.480 Now the next thing is the rock badger.

00:31:00.840 You all know a ton about rock badgers.

00:31:02.740 I know they're your favorite animals.

00:31:03.860 You have them as pets.

00:31:05.400 They are groups of animals that live in groups of 5 to 80. 0.99

00:31:09.720 Individually, they are some of the most pathetic looking mangy animals you've ever seen in your life. 0.96

00:31:13.580 if there are five to eighty of them collected in rocks you will stay away 0.99

00:31:17.780 these weak animals are made strong by being in defensible

00:31:22.860 fortified positions where they consolidate together

00:31:26.680 when they're weak they get together in a place that's defensible they already

00:31:31.680 control it and they gather together their concentration into positions you

00:31:34.980 control if you're in a place it's not a

00:31:37.180 christian controlled place you want to think about is there a way

00:31:40.200 to consolidate with christians in a christian controlled place

00:31:42.460 now the next is the locust who advances together in ranks without a king a unified objective

00:31:51.940 and coordinated activity to accomplish a goal even without officers you don't have a christian

00:31:58.380 prince right now okay can you organize and unify and can you have a goal that you work towards and

00:32:03.480 coordinate your efforts then even without that prince right now you can display the strength

00:32:08.600 of the benefit of unification that occurs there.

00:32:12.680 The fourth one is the spider.

00:32:16.780 And the spider works skillfully with his hands,

00:32:20.140 and elsewhere in Proverbs we are told

00:32:21.740 that he who is skillful in his work

00:32:24.920 will not work before obscure men.

00:32:28.060 Who will he work in front of?

00:32:30.020 Kings.

00:32:31.380 And that's repeated here with the spider.

00:32:33.600 And when you work in front of kings,

00:32:35.540 kings tend to pay a better rate.

00:32:38.600 and they tend to have connections for you.

00:32:42.300 And as a result, you can grow in influence.

00:32:44.920 Influence and revenues increase

00:32:46.920 when you work before kings.

00:32:49.200 This is a set of things to do to grow in power.

00:32:53.300 Do you want power?

00:32:54.020 Work diligently.

00:32:56.140 Do you want power?

00:32:57.680 Consolidate with others who are believers 0.96

00:33:00.120 in places that are controlled by believers. 0.90

00:33:03.240 Do you want power? 0.96

00:33:04.720 Work together in a coordinated way

00:33:06.620 towards a common goal.

00:33:07.480 do you want power

00:33:09.180 then what you need to do is work skillfully

00:33:11.820 and you will become known

00:33:13.900 by influential men

00:33:14.760 now

00:33:20.620 the individual has a role to play

00:33:23.100 so does the household

00:33:26.520 so does the church

00:33:28.880 and so does the state

00:33:30.540 and I don't have time to tell you about them

00:33:32.400 they're kind of important

00:33:35.200 and you should read your Bibles

00:33:36.820 if you want the slide deck you can ask me and i'll send it to you and just grab a card back

00:33:42.400 there and we'll send it to you if you want to read any of the things that you weren't able to

00:33:44.860 look at here but we're talking about the state to a large part and the state is not the only power

00:33:50.680 source right the state is one that's important but here's the reality we have a state that is

00:33:55.340 the enemy we have ways in which we are being blessed by the state as certain parts of the

00:34:00.180 bureaucracy are being torn apart we're being blessed by a number of things the state is doing

00:34:05.180 but there still continues to be a cursed condition in having way too expansive of a state,

00:34:10.440 way too expansive of a tax rate, way too much regulation, way too much government spending.

00:34:15.680 All of this stuff is ridiculously oversized, doing all sorts of things it shouldn't do.

00:34:20.000 So we're nowhere close, nowhere close to what needs to happen.

00:34:25.320 But as we think about the state, the state's purpose in large part is to focus on the public administration of justice,

00:34:32.980 the waging of just warfare, and night watchman activities to preserve the peace of social order,

00:34:43.000 to stop people running through the streets and burning down police stations or something like

00:34:48.360 that. Now, if we think about the other duties there to praise what's good, there needs to be

00:34:55.520 identifying of what's good and what's evil, and the scripture is the source for that. 0.58

00:34:58.540 and then there's this recognition of the state's duty to like Israel which was a model for the

00:35:08.280 nations of the earth there's a need for the establishing of the true religion in the land

00:35:14.760 there's a need for the settling of the true church in the land and endowing it with resources to then

00:35:21.460 have it be independent and function not as a department of the state but to be able to no

00:35:26.300 longer be in a position where there is a chaos and unsettledness in the church. So these functions,

00:35:32.640 most of the time, Americans are not real happy at listing that out. The Westminster Confession

00:35:37.260 of Faith lays that out in its chapter on the civil magistrate. This is the historic reform

00:35:40.840 position on it. And in America, there was an alteration of the Westminster Confession called

00:35:46.080 the Philadelphia Confession that was written at the time that the American Constitution was adopted.

00:35:50.640 and typically I would imagine I would rather have my states, my civil sphere, conforming

00:35:57.140 themselves to the teaching of the Bible and the confessions of the Reformed faith as opposed to

00:36:01.940 having the confession of the Reformed faith conform itself to what the civil government

00:36:07.160 has put into place in terms of no longer establishing. But this is what happened in

00:36:12.800 our history. So these institutions, individual household, church, and state, they interact,

00:36:18.060 they are all spheres of power. And when we think about the state, this is the appointed function

00:36:22.000 of the state. And we live in a time where we have a civil order that is pretty chaotic and all sorts

00:36:30.180 of tyranny is in place. And there's a process called civil covenanting, which is a way for

00:36:34.760 Christians to organize for their mutual defense and to begin to have training for that mutual

00:36:39.420 defense and to begin to work together to seek to see the true religion established in the land.

00:36:45.560 There's a history of that that I can't really go into, but we have a book that I'd love to give

00:36:50.060 you for free back there called Civil Covenanting. You're free to grab a copy of it back at our

00:36:54.100 booth. Now, as we seek to expand our power, one of the big things that comes up is we have to be

00:37:03.680 pragmatic. You know, we can't do everything perfectly. We can't manage to do everything

00:37:08.580 that needs to be done amongst ourselves. And what we have to do is we have to recognize

00:37:12.400 they're co-belligerents. And I want to give you a clear definition of a co-belligerent versus an

00:37:16.320 ally. A co-belligerent is somebody who you're not allied to, you haven't made an agreement with,

00:37:23.620 you don't have agreements of mutual assistance, you haven't promised to do anything,

00:37:27.120 you don't have special duties to them. A co-belligerent happens to be fighting the same

00:37:32.860 enemy you're fighting. A co-belligerent is not somebody that you have shared coordination

00:37:41.680 systems with. An ally, on the other hand, you have an agreement to cooperate. You can give them

00:37:49.500 resources. They might give you resources. You can give them votes in a political order. You can

00:37:54.780 share organizations and institutions. You can partner together. You can yoke together.

00:38:00.880 But there are no pacts between Christ and Belial. 1.00

00:38:04.780 it is sin to covenant with 0.98

00:38:09.020 to ally ourselves with 0.99

00:38:11.100 unbelieving institutions

00:38:12.960 when Israel

00:38:17.480 united itself

00:38:18.680 with foreign powers that 0.65

00:38:21.080 did not accept Yahweh 0.82

00:38:22.620 the result was 0.86

00:38:25.400 condemnation by God that they had entered

00:38:27.260 into wicked alliances

00:38:28.380 and to put their trust in 1.00

00:38:30.980 that reed that broken 0.92

00:38:33.160 reed Egypt

00:38:34.160 the idea of a broken reed is this here's a reed you lean on the reed got a little pressure on it

00:38:44.120 okay it might hold a little weight a broken reed when you put your hand on it it stabs you in the

00:38:54.520 hand now if you can choose between a walking stick that stabs you in the hand or no walking stick

00:39:03.580 which would you choose? Not a hard question. You choose no walking stick. Alliances with the wicked

00:39:10.940 are broken reeds. They're walking sticks that stab you in the hand. So we are required, we can be

00:39:17.680 co-belligerents in the sense that we happenstantially are fighting the same enemy, but we don't form

00:39:22.840 alliances. And if we refuse to form alliances with the wicked, then you might go, how are we ever

00:39:31.780 going to have the numbers we need? How are we ever going to do what we need to do? How are we ever

00:39:34.820 going to be able to get the power that we need to have? Beloved, I would suggest to you that just

00:39:39.300 like following the law of God is going to make it so that we have more wealth, following the law of

00:39:47.260 God will make it so we have more power. When there's a group of people who will not compromise,

00:39:55.340 but they are like a rock who does the thing you expect them to do, you vote the way you expect

00:40:01.240 them to vote. They do the actions that the law of God commands. What starts to happen is your

00:40:06.760 enemies start to go, those stupid Christians, they're so predictable, we can manipulate them 1.00

00:40:12.140 by using the law of God against them. And when people start to mock you for the law of God and 1.00

00:40:19.480 think they can trick you by you doing what the law of God commands, you get God to come in and

00:40:26.120 shatter the teeth of your enemy. God loves to shatter the teeth of the enemies of the people

00:40:31.600 of God when they're obeying him. My encouragement is that we'd be careful to think about applying

00:40:44.340 the law of God in all of these spheres, and in particular, as we think about the state.

00:40:50.320 And as we gain power, if you have any power, if you're a man of prominence already,

00:40:53.760 remember my encouragement in the beginning, do not be ruled by bramble bushes. Instead,

00:40:58.300 be willing to rule. Be willing to be an officer at a church. Be willing to be a civil magistrate.

00:41:05.400 Be willing to take the risk of starting businesses, of buying capital goods, of deploying your

00:41:10.680 resources to make it so you have spheres that you control. And if you're in power,

00:41:17.260 the neat thing about Proverbs 30 is right after it tells you how to get power,

00:41:21.080 it immediately tells you how to keep it it says this there are three things which are majestic

00:41:29.840 in pace yes four which are stately in walk a lion which is mighty among beasts and does not turn

00:41:39.440 away from any a gray hound a male goat also and a king whose troops are with him now the lion it

00:41:48.440 explicitly says the reason why a lion preserves and maintains and extends his majesty. He's strong.

00:41:56.380 He's mighty. So strength is good. The glory of young men is strength, physical strength. And the

00:42:01.340 glory, once you've accomplished some things, is you also have strength in terms of what you've built.

00:42:07.340 And you have people that follow you to some extent. There's a strength that occurs. So this

00:42:12.460 the strength. And the display of strength is something that helps to increase your majesty

00:42:19.240 or your stateliness. The other thing is boldness. He doesn't turn away from it. He's strong. He can

00:42:25.940 beat the enemy. And in addition to being strong and capable of beating the enemy, he actually

00:42:30.600 pushes forward in the confrontations. Now, beyond the lion being strong and bold, there's also the

00:42:39.640 greyhound, and I don't know about you, but what do you associate greyhounds with? Any particular

00:42:44.500 attributes stick out in your mind that you know greyhounds for? Speed. Speedy action, like firing

00:42:52.540 80% of Twitter in a short period of time, is the kind of thing that inspires awe in unions everywhere.

00:42:59.200 And so there is this effect that occurs when you have people that rather than working in a way

00:43:05.020 where what they're doing is trying to build something,

00:43:08.280 if you have the firing of people quickly,

00:43:11.860 it terrifies those that were ineffectual

00:43:14.840 and caused the other 20% to do amazing things.

00:43:19.760 The idea of greyhound speed, decisive action.

00:43:25.300 Napoleon's armies were known not only for being powerful and effective

00:43:30.320 and him being bold and going on the offensive,

00:43:32.200 but he was also terrifying in his speed.

00:43:34.380 The core system that Napoleon developed was able to defeat the armies of the continent in large part because he organized a system of independent logistics where cores as miniature armies could spread out across multiple roads and increase the throughput of men on roads so the armies could move over distance faster.

00:43:52.560 He eliminated the point of constraint of a single road,

00:43:55.900 and rather than having an army file through one road,

00:43:58.480 he was able to take that and spread it out over a half dozen roads

00:44:02.420 to increase the throughput of men through a road by 6x.

00:44:07.480 That is impressive stuff,

00:44:10.020 which made it so that his enemies were constantly terrified

00:44:13.040 of the movement of his armies

00:44:14.460 and felt like they couldn't figure out where he was

00:44:16.640 or how to defend themselves,

00:44:17.960 which gave him early success.

00:44:19.320 later on people started to copy that and they could move fast too but speed is terrifying

00:44:27.220 and increases your authority and power speed of action the male goat is known for a couple of

00:44:34.420 things some people want to say it's because they ram into each other i don't think butting your head

00:44:39.140 against other men is likely to inspire awe in your opponents if you want to try it i'd be happy to

00:44:47.520 watch, I'll let you know what I feel. The male goat, however, is also known for jumping around

00:44:55.720 on rocks in a way that's very impressive. Agility of movement is the thing that is inspiring there.

00:45:02.420 So you have this idea of power, you have this idea of boldness, we have the idea of speed,

00:45:08.680 and we have the idea of agility, this skillful movement. And lastly, we run into the king.

00:45:14.940 a king whose troops are with him a king whose troops are with him office legitimacy inspires

00:45:27.280 majesty but so does having followers numbers inspire other people a king's glory is to have

00:45:35.200 many people and to have few followers is his downfall so building a movement is important

00:45:41.240 the concentration of people together and if they're troops as opposed to raw recruits if

00:45:45.840 they're skilled it inspires all majesty is encouraged and power thrives when you have

00:45:53.900 these things we have a recipe for growing in power and we have a recipe for growing it and

00:45:59.800 maintaining it and not losing it and so those things laid out here are the mechanisms for us

00:46:05.440 to grow in christian power and i would suggest to you the place where you can control that most is

00:46:10.120 in your own life, with you choosing to work with other people, to seek to work skillfully in

00:46:15.760 building your own estate, and to seek to work with other Christians in being churches that are solid,

00:46:19.960 that understand the times. And you need to work with people that understand the need to conquer.

00:46:28.000 Sitting around and waiting, or being pessimistic and unwilling to act, being fearful, these are

00:46:35.360 not the things that encourage Christian power. A bold might, speedily exercised with agility

00:46:43.480 is what is necessary. So my hope is that having considered these things, you will be encouraged

00:46:50.580 if you are fit to pursue power. You will be encouraged if you are not ready for power to

00:46:57.300 support men who are, to work with them and to support them, to gather around them like kings

00:47:03.240 and be troops that help to add to their ability to accomplish things.

00:47:07.360 I hope that if you have other further questions, whatever, you're welcome to reach out to me.

00:47:10.900 And thank you very much for your time and attention.

00:47:13.100 The Lord bless you.

The NXR Podcast - May 31, 2025

THE CONFERENCE - Christian Power - David Reece - Session 7

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