Why It Is Important to Obey Government

Transcript

GR 2263
1/17/2021
Why It Is Important to Obey Government
Romans 13:4-7
Gil Rugh

Well, welcome back on Sunday evening. We’re going to Romans 13 and we’re going to continue what we were looking into earlier today. Romans is our normal Sunday evening study, but I’ve bumped up Romans 13 to include this morning since it’s directly addressing issues that are so much before us in our day. The whole political situation, not only just the election, but also how the church responds to restrictions that have been put in place, and our country particularly what we’re concerned about and how that impacts the church. We are limited in our seating here, we are marked off, roped off, to only allow limited seating because of certain restrictions and recommendations the government has. I may say a little bit about that specifically after we work through the things we’re going to look at this evening.

Important, we noticed this morning, that really the section from Romans 12:14 through chapter 13 is really covering primarily our relationship with the world. That statement in verse 14 just got us going in chapter 12, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” Then in verse 17 he said, “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.” The chapter ended, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Then we move into submitting to government. Paul doesn’t deal with exclusions. The first thing that comes to our mind is a government overreach, what about the government intruding into the church in a wrong way? Well, we ought to be careful we keep the biblical emphasis, by and large, the Bible doesn’t deal with exceptions. That doesn’t mean there are not exceptions, but they are basically pretty clear and relatively limited. It’s part of our fallen nature that has yet to be dealt with, you know, that when anybody wants to tell us something we can’t do, we right away are sort of ready to challenge it, so we want to be careful.

Chapter 13 opened up, “Every person,” every soul, “is to be in subjection to the governing authorities,” and the reason is God established the authority. Of course, we’re writing to the church in Rome and believers want to be obedient to God, and we noted as we began chapter 12, and we reviewed that earlier today, this is part of our worship of God. The life that we live day by day is part of worshiping God, carrying out His will in how we use our body, how we conduct ourselves, what we do and do not do. Verse 1 said, “There is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” That does not mean that every ruler is a good ruler or that every form of government is a good government, because we live in a fallen world. Remember Satan, we talked about this in earlier studies, Satan when he tempted Christ said what? I will give You all the kingdoms of the world. In Luke’s recording of that he says, for they have all been given to me. So we understand with all the variations going on, they were all kingdoms under satanic authority. Now God has not abdicated His sovereign rule. So there are those going on. God rules over all; His will is being done, He raises up rulers and takes them down but it’s all within the context. Perhaps Job is a good example. It’s not a governmental situation, but it’s Satan attacking a child of God. He can only do it because it’s part of God’s plan. What he does is evil, he kills all ten of Job’s children with one blast of wind that brings the building down. But you can’t say God’s not in control there anymore, He is. Because Satan couldn’t have done it; Satan acknowledged I can’t touch Job because You won’t let me. Well, so you see it works together. We can’t necessarily resolve it all in a nice, clean way that satisfies all of our questions and interests, but the fact is God is totally sovereign. Satan is working his purposes and plans to attempt to frustrate God’s plan for a kingdom ruled by His Son, we saw that in Revelation. So we want to keep our perspectives clean and clear, even though that doesn’t answer everything that comes up.

So when we’re dealing with government situations, we’re dealing with Satan. Remember when Daniel prayed, there was a fallen angel who could keep a good angel from coming in to bring David his answer. It took three weeks! It finally took that angel calling on an angel with greater authority to come and enable him to complete his mission to Daniel. God has structured authority and with the fall of Adam, he abdicated the position God gave him, so now Satan is operating, rather than God directly operating through Adam, in ruling the creation. Now Satan has usurped by the action of man in sin, and he is at work. So we have good government, bad government, all government it ultimately satanic, in one sense. I say that with the understanding of what we’ve talked about and yet it’s under the authority of God so it’s going to where God has ordained it to go. But it’s going where Satan wants it to go because he thinks he’s going to win. It makes no sense, but you know the verse I always quote, ‘sin makes you stupid.’

That puts us as believers now in a position. We want to do the will of God, we want our worship to be acceptable to Him and our life pleasing to Him. Well, there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God, therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God. Now, there are certain exceptions, and even that is in God’s plan and purpose. Paul got arrested, unfairly and unjustly, but he said I haven’t broken any Jewish laws, I haven’t broken any Roman laws. He’s still going to be executed, it is an unjust world. You don’t find Paul railing against ‘the system.’ We look back and say well, that was God’s plan for him; even when we look at Job that was God’s plan. What I have to have in my mind is I want to be ready to deal with God’s plan for me and how I should function in the situations that will come into my life, both positive and negative. They will, and when you resist the authority that God has appointed, you’ve opposed the system God has set up. They who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. This will connect us back to chapter 13 because where we’re going is governmental authorities have authority from God to mete out justice, vengeance, and payment for crimes; we don’t individually. That was the end of chapter 12, “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone… Never take your own revenge,” verse 17 and verse 19 of Romans 12. But don’t say that governing authorities don’t have the right. We see that, debates go on all the time. Well, the government doesn’t have the right to take a life. They do. What people are opposing is the ordinance of God and the authority God has given them to punish, that’s what Paul’s talking about.

Verse 3, “Rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.” Again, that’s a general rule. As I mentioned earlier today, when we were in China many years ago, I visited different pastors who had spent 20-25 years in prison and it was all because they had a church and preached the word of God. One night the authorities knocked on the door and took them to prison. The way you could get out was to agree that you would never preach that anymore. We couldn’t do that so he had to stay in prison. So we’re not… we run to these kind of exceptions, and I mentioned that this morning. We still have freedom to preach, the issue comes when they say we can’t preach what God’s word says anymore, that’s where Paul was. I went back and again read this afternoon the times in Acts where Paul confronts… you can do it, just pick up in the end of Acts, those later chapters, he’s before Festus and Felix and Herod. He’s always with respect and always brings it back to the same issue. Not the unfairness and injustice of the system, although he points out he hadn’t broken any of the laws. Not the laws of the Jews and not the laws of the Romans.

I am here because I preach; he’ll talk about the death and resurrection of Christ because that’s the real issue, that’s the battle that’s going on. So that’s where we have to be careful. Again, we have rights and we can exercise those. Paul will end up, when the Jews unjustly want him brought where they can get their hands on him, he tells the Roman governor, I appeal to Caesar. Even that Roman governor, when he talks to Herod, says what? It’s embarrassing for me to send him to Caesar in Rome, I don’t have anything bad to write about him, I can’t find out that he’s broken any laws. It’s all about a religious conviction about a man who died and was raised from the dead, so even he sees… But he says I’m going to send him to Rome because he appealed, and that’s Roman law, he has the right. But can you help me maybe write something so I don’t look like an idiot sending him there? He didn’t use quite that language, but that’s what it was.

Okay, so verse 3, “Rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same.” When societies began to cave in on themselves, the Roman Empire had the same… We may be experiencing it in our own society. It becomes more lawless and people become opposed to any authority, we have to do away with authority. I mentioned we defund the police, they don’t have authority over us. But what do we have? We have chaos. Then when it gets too close to home where the governing authorities are then they believe we ought to have some kind of authority. But we realize our society will disintegrate. All of us are somewhat taken aback and appalled as we saw our cities burn and nobody seemed to do anything, and then we look and see our Capitol being attacked… You say you don’t have to obey the laws, and nobody should punish you, so the courts free those who broke the law because, well, they had a right to break the law because they didn’t like it. Well, where do we go?

So laws are good. We’re all happy for it and we benefit from it, even though we’re aware that it’s all working to try to stifle the people of God because they’re the ones who represent God. So it’s not, well, don’t you realize if we don’t stop it here it’ll go to here? That kind of argument is not the biblical argument, because it’s going to hell. Where are we when you get to Revelation? It’s as bad and worse than it will ever have been. So in a sense, we want to realize what we’re dealing with is the system as it is under the authority of God. But recognizing God is superintending it, so it all is moving according to His plan. But our responsibility is to obey God. If you’re out rioting in the street breaking windows and setting fires you deserve to get arrested, you deserve to be punished. I had good reasons. No, you don’t have good reasons to do that, we don’t.

As believers, we want to be careful and that includes our speech. I realize they would like to restrain our speech and someday they’ll be saying we can’t preach the truth, but we’re not there. That’s where I say we ought to be careful because everything, we could say, “Well, this could happen.” Of course! That’s what Satan wants to do, stifle it, we all agree on that, he is opposed to the truth. Jesus said… What was the problem of the leaders of the day with Him, particularly the Jewish leaders where He concentrated His ministry? I teach you the truth, what’s the problem? Unbelievers hate the truth, that’s not anything new or exceptional.

Then I encourage you to mark your Bible, and I remind you in case some of you may not have been part of our study this morning, there are several repeated statements here. Why it’s important to obey government, verse 4, “It is a minister of God.” From that word ‘minister’ we get the English word ‘deacon,’ it just means a servant. Civil government, if I can use that as a broad term, is a servant of God. God has established order, the unbelieving world is against hierarchy, the entire hierarchy in the home. That’s the heart of man, he’s in rebellion against God. It is a servant of God to you for good, but it is a servant of God. Further down in that verse it’s repeated, it is a minister of God, a servant of God. Then down in verse 6, I had you mark, “Because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers…” He picks up that idea, these governing authorities are servants of God. There they translated it differently, translated ‘minister’ as minister because it’s a different word but it means a servant. It’s another word, but that word used. And I mentioned it to you as we were getting near the end earlier today, in verse 6, “Rulers are servants of God,” if you went to the Greek dictionary or referred to the standard one, it would tell you this always has a religious connotation. It would be used of priests who are serving God, or something that is specifically a service of God. We get the word ‘liturgy’ from this word, so it’s a different word than the word ‘deacon.’ The one that we get the word ‘deacon’ from, we carry it over into English.

So this is a reminder this is God’s work that they are doing. We looked back at Nebuchadnezzar. God called Nebuchadnezzar what? My servant. Cyrus in Isaiah… hundreds of years before he’s born calls his name Cyrus. I’ll raise him up; he’ll be My servant. You know what God says in that context? Even though you do not know Me. Well, Nebuchadnezzar did become a believer, but there’s no indication Cyrus did, in fact, get to his knees. You’re My servant to do My will but you don’t know Me. And there again you see the sovereignty of God over all, even though Satan is moving for his purposes. So, important. Do we really understand that, do we really believe it? Then that puts us in a context. I’m not involved in much of what this world is doing. This is why he’s instructing believers on their conduct. We are part of this world, but this isn’t our ultimate home. We want to be careful we’re functioning here in the role that God has given us now that we are His children.

Okay, we’ll pick up with verse 4, “For it is a minister of God to you for good.” So, he’s not talking about good government-bad government, because you could say in one sense all government is bad; we’re just talking about how bad, because all kingdoms are under the authority of Satan. They’ve been given over to him by God in that sense, so he has the power to distribute them. Remember, that’s what he offered Christ. He showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and said bow down and worship me, and I’ll give them to You, for they’ve been given to me. Christ didn’t say, no, Satan, you don’t have that authority. He does, and the world systems, so we want to recognize that. But God’s still sovereign so the world is held together for these thousands of years.

“It is a minister of God to you for good.” Paul benefited with the protection of the Roman government, even with a Nero on the throne, or a Caligula, godless men. But Paul claimed their protection; that spared him from the plan of the Jewish authorities to have him assassinated. Forty men were put under oath, we won’t eat or drink until we’ve killed Paul. I wonder how they kept that oath, they had made it publicly known. If they were held to it they had a short life. But Paul was protected by the Roman citizenship. When the Roman authority received that word, you know what he did? In the middle of the night he gets the soldiers ready and they transported Paul out of there to protect him. He sent enough soldiers, he sent centurions and centurions are in charge of a hundred, and he had two centurions with two hundred. Well, Paul was benefitting from the system, he was being protected, there was good in that, it was a minister to him for good. It spared him to go on for further ministry, he will go to Rome and be in prison, but he’s released and will continue on with ministry for some time before he is rearrested later and ultimately executed. So you say, well, the government was good. The Romans had developed the system and so on, that allowed Paul to travel the known world then, preach the gospel, and benefit from being a Roman citizen, having a certain protection that came with that. They developed the travel system and the road system and so on. There are a lot of good things that come from government, so it’s good.

But if you do what is evil be afraid. This goes good. If you go out and riot and you break the law, you deserve to be punished. “It does not bear the sword for nothing,” and that’s a picture of capital punishment, the sword was used for execution, people are beheaded. You are familiar with accounts of that down through history and not just in Rome. So the sword became a picture. One of the statues of a pagan goddess that I picked up at an auction, not because I worship that goddess, but it reminded me of something of the time. It’s the scale of justice in one hand and the sword in the other, and treading on the snake. It portrays something. That sword is there and justice, but the scale it to mete out justice and avenge wrongs. It’s there, it’s built in.

So because God is totally sovereign the system doesn’t just go to pot. It is an avenger of evil, so that’s where the next part is. He repeats it in verse 4, so don’t forget, it is a servant, “a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” That’s why I say, now it’s important to keep this in the context of the end of chapter 12, because if you just read chapter 12 and you misapply it, you say, well, the government doesn’t have the right to mete out justice like that. That’s what it says, doesn’t it? We don’t pay back evil to evil to anyone so it’s wrong for the government to pay back evil. Wait a minute, that’s for an individual, I can’t take the law into my own hands, as we would say it, but the government has the authority. I don’t have the authority to execute someone no matter what they do to me. I may be able to defend myself, but in that they will check. Was I really defending myself or was I using the circumstance for an occasion to mete out vengeance on someone? The law makes those distinctions, here, the ultimate authority. That’s why Paul told the Roman authorities if I’ve done wrong I’m willing to die, I think you have the authority. You don’t tell them they don’t have the authority to take my life. He acknowledged it. “For it does not bear the sword for nothing,” a reminder, it is a minister, a servant of God, an avenger. You keep that, remind yourself of that so that verse 19 of chapter 12 doesn’t confuse you, “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God.” And the wrath of God is meted out through human appointees, ultimately, He’ll mete out the final wrath. But how is it meted out down through history? In Paul’s day, that’s God’s representative. So they’re carrying out His will. As a country disintegrates and begins to reject any authority over it, refuses to subject itself to the authority, it’s just the rebellion against God becoming more open and clear. Again, we as believers don’t want to act like the world and say we don’t understand what’s going on. It’s an opportunity for us to say it’s very understandable what’s going on, God addressed this in His word, here’s His plan, here’s His purpose. You reject that, the consequences are severe.

So there is an avenger for those who practice evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. We as believers have two things, we realize we’ll be punished if we do wrong, and when we sin, our conscience bothers us. Now again, we want to be careful the conscience is conditioned by what it has been given as the standard. This is what’s happening in our school systems where you start with the young and you give them an unbiblical standard. They don’t have to listen to anyone, they don’t have to listen to the teacher, they don’t have to listen to their parents, and they don’t have to do what they’re told. Their conscience won’t affect them the same way, it has been seared and it’s conditioned because the conscience operates on the standard it’s given. So when the standard is given, well, people will say, my conscience doesn’t bother me. I don’t doubt that, you know how it is, the first time you sin, even as a believer, and see nothing happens and you enjoy the sin, the next time maybe I’ll do it. Then my conscience doesn’t bother me as much. If we’re not careful, pretty soon unbiblical conduct becomes okay with me because my conscience doesn’t bother me. If it was really wrong, then my conscience would bother me. Then we get into the confusion that we’re dealing with unbeliever or believer and even we get confused about ourselves. So we have a conscience.

We as believers have the Spirit dwelling within us who convicts us. We don’t want to resist that, we don’t want to fight against that. There are consequences that we bring in for ourselves when we disobey the word of God. We want to be careful in becoming comfortable with disobeying the word of God because we think other things and circumstances have justified our doing that. I wouldn’t have done that if they hadn’t done this, and we talked about that when we were in chapter 12, someone else’s sin is never an excuse for my sin. Someone else does wrong and even does wrong to me doesn’t mean I now have the right to do wrong. I’m accountable for my conduct, ultimately, I’m not responsible for someone else’s. I want to be careful that I keep my conscience sharp. Now, my conscience may trouble me. Maybe I have an artificial standard, a wrong standard. Is it really biblical? I was raised in a context for a number of years where certain things were wrong. Pool tables were wrong, oh, if you get a pool table in your house, you’ll play pool. If you don’t have it in your house and you like to play pool you’ll go to the bar. And when you go to the bar pretty soon you’ll have a drink. Pretty soon you’ll… Yeah, that all makes sense, it doesn’t really have anything to do with the pool table though. I have to decide is this right or wrong, is it a biblical standard or maybe it was a standard of the time? I take that into consideration. So our conscience.

Maybe this is a good time to take a break and look at another passage, so I don’t cluster them all together at the end, come over to 1 Timothy 2. We aren’t going to spend a lot of time in other passages, but it is important to see that they coordinate. They come up through Paul’s writings, Peter’s writings, and that’s why I gave you the list of some of the Roman emperors they had to live under so you can check on those men and see how, and the kind of people they were. Because we say, oh, I don’t know if I could submit to what they’re going to be doing. I will, why? Because God says it’s His will. He put them there. Well, it doesn’t seem that that’s for the good of the country. Who says God is working for the good of our country? Well, I heard it on the news. You know there is only one country that is the apple of God’s eye, the pupil of God’s eye, and it’s not the United States of America. I appreciate and God has blessed our country, and we have spit upon His blessings and openly rejected Him and pride ourselves in our rebellion. What makes you think He ought to be doing good for this country? So I want to be careful.

Come to 1 Timothy 2. What’s Paul say here? And he’s writing to Timothy but he is in Ephesus where the church at Ephesus is. “First of all, then, I urge…” and that word ‘all’ I have marked in my Bible because it’s repeated again and again down through verse 6. “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties, prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men.” He’s not just talking about other believers. “For kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.” You note where we go to so quickly with Paul; I just love how quickly he gets you right to the gospel. He doesn’t sidetrack here and say, well, you know I have a hard time praying for our senator, our president, because I don’t agree with them. Well, he says you pray for all who are in authority. It’s not that they’ll change but so that we may “lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness.”

Lord, I would ask that You would work in a way that You only can so move and guide in their lives that maybe the decisions will be such that we are allowed to continue to have the freedom. But you know, sometimes I say, well, the freedom to what? That we take so for granted and don’t avail ourselves of, but we can talk about how terrible it would be if we didn’t have the freedom. Well, freedom unused is freedom abused. Where are we going? So, I pray, this is what I am doing, I am praying for them. He didn’t say I pray, Lord, You’ll throw the bums out. That’s not it. And he quickly goes he “desires all men to be saved,” I’m praying for them, I’m praying for believers who may be in situations to have contact with them. This is where Paul is. He’s in prison. He writes a letter to the Philippians and what’s he say? I’ve had opportunity in prison here to have contact even with those who are connected to the royal household. This is great, how else would I get there? I couldn’t go knock on the door and get in, but I can have contact here. We don’t want to miss the opportunities. Well, they’re going to arrest us, what do we do? I guess we’ll say, to the best of my ability I haven’t broken any laws. That’s not my desire to break any laws because I serve the God who says I should be obedient and the God who has put you in the position so you can mete out justice according to His will. He has brought me into contact with you because He wants to give you the opportunity to experience the salvation He’s provided for you just as He provided for me.

Let’s get on track. I don’t need to give them a lecture, the unbelieving person may be able to give a lecture on the injustices of the system but only I can tell them the gospel. He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator also between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all…” and I was appointed a preacher and an apostle for this task. This is why we are here, this is what we are about. We’re not apostles but He saved us and now I am a light in the darkness. That’s what he’ll tell the Philippians, you are lights in the darkness. We get caught up in trying to say this darkness, it’s not right. Of course, it’s not right! It won’t ever be right until Christ comes and rights it.

So these are the authorities. What are we to be doing? We pray for them. We don’t just pray at election time that the people we think should be in. But I would pray, Lord, You are sovereign, my desire is that the man of Your appointment, whatever means You use and allow to be used, be the one. The desire of my heart is that we as believers and as the church would be able to continue to meet and grow and on and on. That’s our desire. And Lord through all this turmoil and conflict and open hatred may the truth of Your gospel shine through. That’s what we’ll do, pray for them. Here’s the will of God again, He desires all men to be saved. He didn’t say He desires all men to become conservatives. He doesn’t say He wants all governments to be fair. He says He wants all men to be saved, even kings and those in authority.

I like to periodically read books of the martyrs, “Mirror of the Martyrs,” “Foxes’ Book of Martyrs,” and I am reminded they are going to the stake and they are praying for the governing authorities. Lord, may this be an opportunity to open the eyes of the Queen of England or something like that. They haven’t lost their perspective, they are not railing curses down on them, this is maybe: my life will provide an opportunity for people’s attention to be drawn and then that’s fine, I give my life for that. So you can see 1 Timothy 2 a guideline for our prayers. If they invite you to Washington this is what you would want to do. I’d want to pray for them and with them. I’m not there to tell them what he ought to do in government. Like Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar God put you there, I would like you to understand He is the God who rules over all. Encourage Nebuchadnezzar to repent so that when God told Daniel to tell Nebuchadnezzar in interpreting his dream it doesn’t have to happen to you -- railing on, yeah, you deserve it, you’ll be eating grass like an ox, you deserve it. You put your nose down in the grass for seven years and you’ll have learned a lesson -- no, I would really like you to avoid that and get saved.

Alright, back to Romans chapter 13, look at verse 5, “It is necessary to be in subjection,” two reasons, because of wrath we get punished and because of conscience. I have to maintain a good conscience. Paul says I maintain a good conscience. My conscience isn’t the ultimate authority for me, the word of God is, but if my conscience is bothering me I want to bring it in line with the word of God. When we get further on in Romans and down into chapter 14 he’ll tell us we shouldn’t operate against our conscience. Now I want to be careful because the conscience is not the ultimate authority. In some things I have liberty and I might not have the same liberty that you feel - I used a pool table. But if your conscience bothers you by having a pool table, don’t have a pool table. The Bible doesn’t say you have to have a pool table either, it doesn’t say you can’t have it. So every man’s conscience will have to guide them. Don’t say Gil preached a sermon on pool tables. It’s just because in my past, in my younger days, that was an issue and there were other issues that were superficial. People had a right but they did not have a right to impose those kind of standards in the church on others.

Quite frankly the first Bible-believing church that we attended, after we got saved, we as a family, the beginning of my teenage years, a woman could not sing in the choir if she wore lipstick because it was worldly, she was drawing attention to her lips. Those kind of things, we don’t want to get into that. Now an individual who is uncomfortable wearing lipstick, don’t go out and say Gil said you should wear lipstick. The Bible doesn’t say. Song of Solomon seems to indicate we can enhance our beauty, we don’t have to purposely look ugly. We may not be able to win that beauty contest, a handsomeness contest, but we all try to do a little bit to improve things and we do it thinking about others who have to look at us. Sometimes we forget that. What’s wrong with me, I like the way I look, when I’m with you I like to close my eyes. No… This really isn’t directly related so let’s move on. Alright, wrath and conscience.

Verse 6, “For because of this you also pay taxes.” Now we get to things. How much are we hearing about how much your taxes are going to go up if we get this government and what it’s going to do. God didn’t appoint me to decide what the tax rate will be. Like all of us we like to pay less taxes but get as much government benefit as we can. Render all to what is due and that will be in verse 6, “Pay taxes, for rulers…” And that’s where maybe he changes that word to a word for servant that carries that religious, spiritual connotation because taxes seem to be an unspiritual thing. Paying my taxes is part of my spiritual responsibility before God. That doesn’t mean I want to pay as much taxes as I can. The government allows me to take certain deductions, so yes, I want to be honest with my taxes I want them to be done as carefully and properly as I could.

I was only audited one time many years ago, and they asked for all this little detailed stuff, but I was pleased at the end of it the government sent me a check and said, after working through your taxes we owe you $600 you overpaid. I was glad to get the check, I didn’t return it. Whatever they set and when they take away some of the deductions I get am I going to say, oh, this government… and complain? I will say the Lord put them there, I render to them what is due them. They are servants of God, that sustains our operation, they are devoting themselves to this very thing, so they deserve to be paid. I never thought of all these governing authorities (I thought we had too many of them) and they are all servants of God and we pay taxes to pay them? Yep. Well, do I want to be fighting against that? You see why Paul feels this is important and Paul just doesn’t feel it’s important, it’s the Holy Spirit impressing upon Paul what he has to communicate to God’s people and God’s church at Rome. And then to the other churches that will receive this information how you worship and serve the living God. It’s a life and a lifestyle, it’s not just meeting together a few times through the week, this is my life. When I see it that way, this is my life, so they are servants of God, am I going to complain because what God says I ought to pay? Well, no, I’m not complaining about what God says I ought, I’m complaining about what the government says I ought to pay. Well, God put them there, they are His servants. When His servants tell us what to do and when we don’t do what His servants say we are rebelling against God. That’s the whole line the argument is going through this entire section.

Verse 7, “Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.” And again, that’s not just going grudgingly what I have to do. I show honor and respect to governing authorities.

On rare occasions, ultimately rare, and it was Marilyn’s fault, but I got over the speed limit. When the state trooper came to the window and I put the window down I said, it’s my wife’s fault, she was supposed to watch the speedometer and tell me. He just smiled. When he gave me the ticket he said, well, maybe your wife can take the class for you. But I don’t want to be angry at him, he did his job, I broke the speed limit. Well, I’m a pastor, don’t I get a pass? I don’t even want to tell him I’m a pastor. What are you doing breaking the law? We want to be careful, they deserve honor, they deserve respect. It’s a disgrace to our country that law enforcement officers are being treated with disrespect and it shows the depraved condition of our country that governing authorities did nothing about until they were climbing into their offices. You could burn down buildings in other cities, you could go and throw water and other things on policemen and they didn’t send in the National Guard to do anything, they have a right. They don’t have a right and at the root of it man thinks he has a right to rebel and reject God. They deserve to be honored, they deserve to be respected and that goes through the whole of society. I know you recognize that and appreciate it. We want to be careful when certain circumstances come up.

I really get concerned with: well, evangelicals are going to vote this way, I don’t know that’s the identity evangelicals have or should have, because now we have those that they said evangelicals wouldn’t vote for. Now we expect them to be nice to us, support us, or what? We get caught up in the system. That doesn’t mean you can’t vote for those you think you should and nothing wrong with talking about who you are going to vote for. That’s part of, or at least it was, the rights we had and the freedom of speech we had. But I want to be careful, I don’t want to be identified that way. I want to be honest with you, for many years I wasn’t registered to vote because I didn’t want people to find out how I was registered or what I would vote for because I didn’t want that to be a distraction for what God called me to do here. That’s not my identity and I was comfortable… then I forfeited the right to vote. I’m supportive of whoever is in. I’m not saying you shouldn’t. The Bible doesn’t say I have to exercise that right, the government doesn’t say I have to exercise that right, I can choose not to. Now I am registered but I must admit I don’t like it. I get mail at election time. I’ve been identified as part of this. (I’m hard.) I support whoever gets in, I want to pray for them, I want to submit to them, I want to recognize that they are God’s appointed person. But my political connection is not my identity (don’t go too far with that). But we respect them, once they are in the position they deserve to be respected, shown honor.

We operate with the customs so there is flexibility, one country will be this way, the other… we operate within the system but not being conformed to the system. This is where God has placed us I appreciated that. And I’ve used communist China, when I was there they would not allow you to talk political things, they would just shut you down. You mention something about the government they just [tell you to be quiet], that’s it, that conversation is not going. Wait a minute, you were in prison for how many years did you tell me? One of them, the pastor, he was in for twenty-four years and his wife for twenty, and you don’t want to talk about this system? I’m an American, I can go back and tell what you told me, how terrible it is. They accepted this is the system God put us to live under, we show it respect, we submit. We’re so use to, you know… the great song, “I Did it My Way,” we as Christians can get caught up in that. It’s a different world for us.

Alright, I’m going to run through the points. Let’s do those. This was the morning sermon, you got it in two parts. Let me just review what we’ve covered in these first seven verses. Number one, everyone is to be subject to the authorities. I put the verse in parentheses afterwards, we won’t go back through those. Everyone is to be subject to the authorities so none of us are exempt. Now the world, they will think they are exceptions and they have reasons because they weren’t treated fairly when the system works against them. That’s their business. I can tell you what God says and how I’m going to function.

All authority is from God. That gives me confidence, things aren’t out of control. It wasn’t something crooked that was done that ended up… Maybe something crooked was done and that brought about the result we have but doesn’t change the fact that all authority is from God.

Point three follows on that. The present rulers have been appointed by God. So I don’t have to think about, well, if this had happened we’d have this but that’s not what did happen. Did God fail, is this an exception to what He says? No. We better be careful we don’t begin to order our lives as though we’re exceptions.

Point four, to resist authority is to disobey God. I think it’s put pretty bluntly.

(5)Rulers are God’s servants for good. Well, they’re all… even in bad systems there’s a certain order that enables life to go on, just a fact of life.

Point six, rulers are God’s servants for vengeance. They have the right to mete out vengeance. Capital punishment and other forms of punishment is decided by the government. Paul talks about multiple beatings he got, was the system fair? No, but he recognized the authority of governing authorities to mete out punishment of all kinds, they decide, they mete out vengeance.

(7)We obey authorities out of fear of punishment. Fear is good. I’ve shared with you, when I was in grade school my Dad sat me down and he always pointed his finger so I would know what to look at and I didn’t look away when that finger was pointing. He said if a policeman ever tells you to stop, you stop! If you turn and run, he’ll shoot you in the back and it will be your fault. That’s not the thinking of today. But it was a reminder, there is authority, you better obey or the consequences might be more severe than you anticipate. I’m not recommending that.

Point eight, we obey authorities to maintain a good conscience. That’s what Paul was concerned about, to maintain a good conscience, a conscience that’s consistent with the word of God. It doesn’t convict me in any area that I’m out of line with the word of God.

(9)We pay taxes because rulers are God’s servants and He said they should be paid for the service they are rendering by His appointment. We think, well, we pay pastors, and I appreciate that. These are God’s servants, also, carrying out a spiritually-appointed ministry as we noted in that word in our passage.

Point ten, believers should be good citizens. There’s not going to be any trouble from them. If there’s going to be any issue with us it’s going to be because of the truth that we teach. It’s not because we’re stretching it. The fire department said we don’t want any vehicles parked in front of the entrance and exits because we have to have access with our equipment if there would be a fire. We didn’t way, well, this is a church, you don’t tell us what to do here, that’s government intrusion. No, we make an announcement and anybody who parks out there will be told that they have to move their vehicle. Well, you’re just letting them get their foot in the door. Well, it’s already in the door, we had to build the building in a place that was zoned where we were allowed to build the building. There are certain areas we can’t. I’m glad for that zoning, I don’t want them building a big church building in my back yard, so I’m glad there’s zoning restrictions. Well, that’s government authority, so we can’t just decide, well, we are spiritual people, we are doing God’s work and we believe God wants us to build our building on this site, period. Well, no!

Years ago when we were expanding we had an option on the property down at 84th and O Street where the insurance building is now; we had sixty-eight acres or something like that that we had an option to buy. But you know what the authorities told us? You could only utilize a limited portion of that because it’s not in the watershed, there won’t be services to that. You won’t be allowed to put a building on that, so that, and other reasons, we let the option go and we ended up being able to buy property here and there were other things. But the government’s in it already, they come in and inspect, we have to have certain sprinkling for the building, we have to have certain aisle widths. It’s not like it’s all of a sudden. Now I realize the government always wants to add, insert more authority, and ultimately Satan, who is the ultimate authority over what is going on, as we have clarified. So don’t put the ultimate authority above God, but he’d like to put the church out of business, that’s his goal. We found out about that when we did Revelation. What’s he going to do? He wants to annihilate all Jews and all Christians, they don’t fit in his kingdoms. When he finally has enough control over everything he’s going to do that with a final sweep. He won’t be successful. Yeah, we do. We see it all over and it is. And I have no doubt.

That brings me, and this is our question and answer, we’re just morphing into it. What about the COVID-19 restrictions? I want to talk a little bit about those. I’ve had discussion with other pastors. Let me say we have to deal with Hebrews 10 and you might want to turn to Hebrews 10. Let’s read the passage because this is the particular passage that is used because we come to a verse. We agree government has authority. Government restricts us in a variety of ways, good or bad. Here’s what the writer of Hebrews said in chapter 10 verse 23, “Hold fast the confession of our hope.” “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” Note how the writers of scripture, particularly the New Testament in these epistles, keep in these sections… keep drawing our attention back, we are looking for the coming of Christ. We are looking for the coming of Christ, that’s why we talk about the imminent coming, we are expecting Him at any time. I can’t say He’s coming tomorrow, I can’t say He’s coming in the next ten years. But if He comes tomorrow I won’t be surprised, I won’t be caught off guard, and I should be living every day expecting that He may be coming.

But this command, this instruction, “not forsaking our own assembling together.” I would say first, the government has authority in areas. If we had a wildfire raging and they said we couldn’t meet at this site anymore… like perhaps on the west coast, they have wildfires and they require everybody to leave the area. I couldn’t claim Hebrews 10 and say, well, we’re an exception and God protects us, so we’re not leaving. The government has authority to say something overrules your right in this area. Now I realize everything, the government… the squeeze is on. Government rules make building a building more expensive. When we did our parking lot I believe it cost us a million dollars to meet the requirements of doing what the city required us to do before we could pave anything. Well, you put us out of business just because you want to intrude. Well, that’s part of it, part of what we look at when the elders are involved.

Obviously, I think each church has to make its own decisions in some of these areas. We’re not the authority for another local church. I want to be careful of that. We are still obeying the COVID-10 restrictions. We might be in a position to open up a little more with the loosening of restrictions but we’re not trying to run and get ahead of things. As much as we can we want to be good citizens because as our board has looked at it these are requirements that are broad, they haven’t singled out the churches. In some places they have, perhaps if we were in those areas we would be more open to object and stand against it. We have to deal with where we are and how we would understand the scriptures to be applied. For where we are I believe the pandemic has been used as an excuse for the government to assert its overreach and once you give up freedoms it’s hard to get them back. I realize all of that, I read the stuff that you read, I hear the news that you hear, but I can’t apply that to everything. That’s right, everything has a potential abuse. I can’t put a fence around the building here and say, ‘no government authority, no government restrictions, this is God’s territory. We are sovereign.’

So when it comes to the government has decided the best thing for stemming this pandemic is – and that’s going to affect secular businesses, it’s going to affect individuals as individuals, it’s going to affect various things and churches are included in that. Well, our board looks at it and says, well, they haven’t singled us out. They haven’t limited what we can preach. It is time limited. Yeah, they may not lift those restrictions, in fact, they may just say churches are among those that are never allowed to meet. Then we will have to deal with that. I want to be careful. Remember Ecclesiastes? That we deal with today, we can’t fix yesterday, and we can’t control tomorrow, so I want to be careful.

So many of the arguments come, well, this will lead to this, this will lead to this, this will lead to this. We had some pastors who chose to opt out of social security because they didn’t want the government to control them. Pastors could take that; I have a religious conviction that I should not be tied to the government to control my retirement and so on, so they opted out. But you know what happened? When they got old they wanted the government to let them back in. Wait a minute, I thought you didn’t want the government’s money. Or you didn’t want the government handling it? Was it a religious conviction or was it just something you decided not to do? Where did it come from? The Bible? I have personal convictions but all of a sudden they come… Our insurance company for the church said when I turned 65 they wouldn’t insure me anymore, you’ve got to go on Medicare. Well, I’m glad for Medicare. Where would I go if they won’t insure me? Certain things of the government I benefit from. You don’t want to go into it, I’m not saying you have to, there are certain consequences, so I want to think it through to decide.

I remember sitting down and going through: is this really a government intrusion or a reason for me to reject it, I want to be as biblical as I can. So on the COVID-19 you can see we’re still taped off. Could we open up a couple more? Well, you can pick your authority. For me it is the authorities who are in power. Now we have a new government in power, they may increase the restrictions, they may loosen, I don’t know. When we were in Colorado recently you couldn’t go to a restaurant, there were no restaurants open, they had shut them down completely. You could go to a pick-up, but you couldn’t go and sit in. Now when we were there in the summer you could go in for a certain number of people, but they had taken that away. We respect that.

So we as a church are trying to fit within the government and I realize there is government overreach and I realize the devil would like to put us out of business, but that doesn’t give me the right to disobey government. As much as possible we will try to work within that so that they’ll have to say they’ve been good citizens. They may say what they preach is not acceptable, we don’t want that in our city. But I don’t want them to be able to say they weren’t good citizens, they took advantage of it, they tried to be the ones that didn’t have to obey the laws that we thought were necessary for everybody’s good. But every church has to decide. I don’t see that I have any authority in another church or the elders of another church. I would say to them you ought to decide in light of the Scripture. If you think, and are convinced in light of “you can’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together,” you have to do that but then you have to be willing to take the consequences. Paul says if I have broken a law I will take the consequences.

So that’s why we are where we are, but I want to be careful I don’t see it as a standard for everybody else. I try to observe that, I tell people from other churches I don’t have authority in your church and our elders don’t and that’s true in this. So sometimes when I’ve expressed disagreement with some public statements it’s because of the fact that maybe another church has taken upon itself to say this is what everybody ought to do. I think everybody, every church for example, since this is churches…

It is the same with the masks, agree with masks or disagree with masks, are they good or bad? Well, right now those in authority say you must wear them. Well, I think they are stupid, I think they may do more harm than good. What did God tell me to do? Think about it and decide whether you want to obey a governing authority. He just told me to obey! That’s the problem we have with government. We think, well, when I agree I will obey and when I disagree… and that goes through all the structures. That’s one of the key areas where we as believers become comfortable in an unbiblical way, with not being biblical. God has ordained hierarchical structures through society, and you can’t avoid it. When we decide to operate against it because…

The test of leadership I always say is when we disagree. You know, Marilyn follows my authority when I tell her yeah, go, sure you want to buy something, go buy it. You want to do this, go do it. Yeah, you want to do that, sure, go do it. But if I have to say, no, I don’t think that’s best right now she shows really that she follows my leadership by accepting that. Right? Well, when government is doing everything… we have the government we want and they are passing laws, this is the way it ought to be, this is good. Well, we want to be biblical so my responsibility is to be sure I know what God says and do it. And don’t do what He tells me not to do. And that’s our testimony of the church. Again, I’m not saying churches that take a different view on this whole issue on the virus are disobeying God. They have to decide. They have the same scripture we do. God hasn’t appointed our elders for their church, He’s appointed our elders for our church. And some of you would say, well, I disagree with some of their decisions. That’s fine. I wouldn’t have made the same decisions. That’s fine. But somebody has to make the decisions and God appoints it.

One closing remark, and I’ve mentioned this before. As far as I can see in the Old Testament one of the most severe punishments is found in Numbers 16. You can read it there where a man decided that Moses and Aaron weren’t the best leaders for Israel. And he got two hundred and fifty men of high esteem in the nation Israel to join with him in that rebellion. So they came at the time and said look, you men have taken to yourselves too much authority, we’re all holy, we are a holy nation. And you know that was true! God says you will be a holy nation to Me. But you know what else was true? God appointed Moses and Aaron to lead that nation. What happened to that man and his followers? Read Numbers 16, the ground opened up under his family and they went straight to hell, hades. For the other two hundred fifty, fire came out from the Lord and burned them to a crisp. You know, other people, David, he sinned, he committed adultery, he committed murder. He numbered the people and seventy thousand men died because of that and the ground didn’t open up and swallow them. What was so serious? You know what happens? When you undermine the leadership God has appointed you destroy the structure, that’s true at all levels. Where would Israel be without the leadership God appointed?

So that’s where we want to be very careful about this. I think God made that example. We realize this is serious business. If we don’t see that as serious a sin -- and we just don’t like what they decide whether governing authorities, church authorities, whatever level, so I don’t have to do it. Wait a minute, anytime I think I can tell God ‘no’ to something He tells me to do I’m in trouble. And I want to take that seriously, not oh, I’ll just do my own thing. I go out and do this or do that and I’m challenging God? These are serious matters so we want to be careful. Our society is nowhere where we are as believers and the pressure is always on us to be consistent with the Word, that’s our goal.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of Your word. How amazing it is that You, the God who created all things, all things are created for Your purposes, You are the one who is sovereign over all -- yet in bottomless mercy You have reached out to us, brought us Your salvation, given us Your very words to instruct us to guide us. We don’t have to sit and wonder what would God have me do, how should I conduct myself? Lord, Your word is so clear and when we follow Your word with hearts and minds bowed before You, the desire to honor You with our obedience, then Lord, matters that aren’t clearly addressed seemed to be clear to us as well. We recognize Your hand at work. So may we be an obedient body of believers to You in our individual lives and in our corporate life together. Lord, in these days of change and turmoil in our own nation, Lord, may we have a stability, and may our godly character be clear that we are not caught up in this, we are not part of it all in that sense. We are serving the living God and we are good citizens and we have consistent conduct. Bless the week before us. Lord, You will put us in a variety of places in a variety of situations. Lord, may we be ready to obey You and be used of You wherever we are and whatever we do. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.