Obey? Even When They are Wrong?
Romans 13:1-7
Okay, we're back in Romans 13 looking at the question of obedience to
authority. This is not always easy. One of the things that always comes up when
we start talking about this topic is how does this apply to the American War
for Independence, especially in relation to government which has come up at
least the forty-five years I've been conscientiously looking at this question.
This takes me back to pretty much to times when I was in high school. We got a
question the last time that came in towards the end of class from Paul Yost. I
know who Paul is. He's a professor with Tyndale Seminary and I think that's up
in the Pittsburgh area.
He asked a question, which I think, is important. Let me read this to
you. He says, "Sometimes a situation appears to be the same kind of issue
that faced the founding fathers of this country. One could very well wonder at
which point we pick up arms." That's a question many people have thought
about and I know I've been asked that question. Many at the time of the War for
Independence, had such concerns and were addressing it Biblically. "It can
be said that we went to war with a foreign government at that time." I
don't think we can put it that way but we did go to war with a government and
were seeking independence from the authority of Britain over us. So what about
the justification to take up arms?
I'm not an expert on all the things that went on with the American War
for Independence. I've read a lot on it on both sides. Paul goes on to comment,
"Apparently a pastor in Oklahoma believes that since we were founded as a
Christian nation that therefore our Constitution makes us different than
Rome." Yes, but it depends on what he means by a Christian nation and our
Constitution does make us different from Rome but authority is authority and
it's not any different whether it's the authority of Nero, the authority of
George Washington or the authority of "fill-in-the blank", whichever
president you despise the most. Okay, it doesn't matter because the Scripture
says that the authorities are established by God. Whether that's involving His
directive will or whether that's involving His permissive will, He is still the
One who establishes those authorities.
We'll look at examples historically as we go through this study that God
raised up authorities such as the Chaldeans. Habakkuk just gets his knickers
all in a knot when he found out that God has raised up such an unrighteous
authority to bring discipline upon Israel. Even though he was praying for God
to bring discipline on Israel and their disobedience, he just couldn't
understand how God had raised up such an unrighteous authority as the
Chaldeans. That's within the sovereign prerogative of God. God has His purposes
and we have to factor all these things in.
When we look at passages like Romans 13 and we'll look at some others,
no passage in Scripture says everything there is to say about the particular
topic or the particular issue. So we have to put together these different
passages and understand what they are saying. Paul Yost went on to write;
"I'm just wondering what your apologetics are regarding someone who
believes we were founded as a Christian nation so therefore we are justified to
go to war with anyone who they believe threatens that status." Although
Dr. John Hanna, head of Historical Theology Department at Dallas Seminary under
whom I did my doctoral work, said that we were founded as a synergy between
seculars and Christians. Yes, that was Hanna's position and that's one of the
positions that are out there.
You can read one segment of the historical scholarly view and they look
at what the situation in the colonies was in the mid-eighteenth century. They
say they were primarily influenced by secular philosophy. Then you look at some
other people who countered that. One is David Barton who has become a favorite
of a lot of people on the right and the Tea Party. David Barton disagrees with
Hanna and says the founding fathers were coming at it from a Christian
perspective. He will cite a number of people such as Charles Chauncey and
Jonathan Mayhew. You ought to look their names up in Wikipedia sometimes.
They're not orthodox Christian theologians. They're some of the early American
Unitarian pastors in New England. They're not orthodox. They're Christian only
in a broad sense of the term. Barton has been challenged many times on how he
uses the term Christian.
Really we're founded on a Judeo-Christian heritage. The precise way to say
this is that we're a country founded on Judeo-Christian values, which is how
I've always stated this. The primary worldview that governed the colonies in
the 18th century was a Judeo-Christian theistic worldview. Having
said that, that's a pretty broad concept. Just as today you have a lot of
Christians who hold to a lot of Judeo-Christian worldview, they've also been
influenced by other ideas in the culture. I can name you some theologians I
know who are generally conservative but the way they use history shows they've
been influenced by post-modern ideas. I can point out some Greek professors in
the way they use language in their linguistic theory they've picked up here and
there that shows elements of how they've been influenced by post-modern views
of language and language theory. That affects how they exegete and how they
interpret. The founders and leaders of this country were primarily influenced
by Judeo-Christian worldview, but there were other influences.
Now I disagree with Hanna. I came up under John when I did my Th.M.
work. He's changed a lot over the years and I'm told that lately everything
about him is about Jonathan Edwards. Well I did an entire doctoral program
under him and he hardly ever mentioned Jonathan Edwards. So he's changed a lot
of his views over the years and moved a little bit more toward what I would
consider to be a mainstream evangelical position. John's done a lot of
research. He's done a lot that's very valuable but the truth is closer to
Barton than it is to the other side but that doesn't mean Barton is always
right. As I mentioned earlier, one example is that he says that the ideas in
the Declaration of Independence and a number of phrases were frequently found
in the writings and the sermons of the pastors for the previous hundred years,
going back into England, even in the mid-1600s. Yes, he's correct.
We have to go back and look at our chronology. It is important to
understand that perhaps the most formative political document to come out of
Puritan Christianity in England was Samuel Rutherford's book, Lex Rex: The Law
is King. Its premise is that the king, even in England, is under the law,
that he cannot make the law and he is not a law unto himself. Lex Rex
influenced a whole generation of philosophers and political thinkers and
theologians including John Locke, who was formative in the thinking of many of
the American founding fathers. John Locke is a mixed bag. I remember studying
him when I did my Masters work in philosophy here at the University of St.
Thomas back in the 80s. Don't ask me to pull all of that back up off the memory
bank because it's buried pretty deep on the hard drive and I don't know if I
can pull it up. I've read a lot since then. I've read some things that Locke
said that were good. That's because he was brought up in a very strict Puritan
home and in a lot of ways John Locke has a lot of right things to say. But if
you look at his broad, philosophical framework he is considered one of the
founding fathers of empiricism.
Beginning with the Enlightenment you have Rene Descartes who's a Jesuit
mathematician who emphasizes rationalism His very famous statement was "I
think; therefore I am." He used the principle that maybe everything around
him was an illusion. Maybe God is just playing a big cosmic joke on me and He's
making me think that all this stuff I see and everything around me is just an
illusion. There's nothing real; nothing exists. I don't even exist." Then
he thought, "Well, if I'm thinking then I must exist so he came to the
conclusion that 'I think; therefore I am'. That's what he meant by that because
since he had self-conscious thinking he must exist. He never could get out of
his head. That was called Solipsism, which means you're just alone. You never
could get from the existence of yourself thinking logically on the principles
of logic and reason alone to the existence of other things outside your head.
Now that's a heavy thought for some of you tonight. That may be a heavy
thought for your whole life. That's where Descartes was. Eventually the
weakness in that system of Solipsism brought out the empiricists. John Locke
was one of the foremost empiricists. Now we've studied "how we know what
we know" many times. We have three basic ways that human philosophy has
come up with how you know truth. The first is rationalism whether you're
talking about Plato in the ancient world or Descartes in the modern world which
began the modern Enlightenment. Or whether you're talking about Empiricism
which would be Aristotle in the ancient world and John Locke and others in the
modern world.
But rationalism and empiricism always go bankrupt because no matter how
clear your thinking is; you don't have revelation to give you the bits and
pieces of important data that you can't get from thinking alone. You're going
to run into a brick wall. The same thing happens with empiricism. There are
some things you just can't get to. The greatest example is to remember that if
Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden and they were the most brilliant human
beings ever created, that no matter how well they thought in perfection and no
matter how profound their observation skills were they never could have figured
out by looking at that one tree in the middle of the Garden that if they ate
from it they would die. The only way they could learn that was through
revelation.
Revelation gives us the key data we need in order to interpret thinking
and in order to interpret the data of sense experience. Without revelation its
just data. We have to guess at what the unifying principles are in order to get
anywhere. But as Christians with a Judeo-Christian heritage we know that is the
only way we can ultimately understand absolute truth is if we start with the
revelation of God. So the problem with Locke is that Locke starts with human
experience in the good sense, the sense data from what we see, what we feel,
what we taste, what we touch and what we smell. This is what forms the basis.
The combination of rationalism and empiricism is what we often think of
as the scientific method. It's good as far as it goes but it can't get you
beyond a certain point. There are a lot of things that Adam and Eve could
learn, could discover, and could reason to while they were in the Garden but apart
from revelation from God they just couldn't get to universal, ultimate truth
and ultimate reality. So the weakness with Locke's political theory is that he
came to his position that government is from the consent of the governed.
That's not what we find in the Scripture.
In Romans 13:1, "Every person is to be in subjection to the
governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those
which exist are established by the people?" Is that what it says? No,
that's not what it says. It says there's no authority except from God. Now it
may be mediated through the voting booth where the people make choices but
ultimately whoever they choose and whoever becomes president, whether you agree
with them or not, or whether you like them or not, or whether there was massive
voter fraud that was overlooked, the person that gets elected is the person
that God in His permissive will has placed in authority. Now you may not like
it and I may not like it but that's the way it is.
Another thing that happened with the American War for Independence is
that it was preceded by at least a decade, maybe fifteen years, of intense
political negotiations with England. It was a last resort and it may have been
a mistake that flared and caused the shooting at Lexington and Concord. When
did it occur? Anyone know the date? April 19th and 20th
is the anniversary. It's a big holiday in Boston. That's the reason they picked
the day for the Boston Marathon. It's close to Patriot's Day and so this is
right before San Jacinto Day. Y'all can remember San Jacinto Day, can't you? So
just remember that. San Jacinto Day's date is just one day off from Lexington
and Concord. The reason you had the battles at Lexington and Concord, the
reason the Redcoats were coming, and the reason Paul Revere warned about the
Redcoats coming was that the Redcoats were seeking to arrest John Adams and
John Hancock who were hiding out in Lexington at the home of the pastor of the
Lexington Church. His name was Jonas Clark. When the alarm went out that the
British were coming Jonas Clark put the word out to the militiamen who were
members of his congregation. They came out and stood in the Town Square to
protect the life and the property of Adams and Hancock.
We don't know who fired the first shot. The ultimate goal of those
British troops was to go and confiscate arms that were being stored at Concord.
These arms were for the protection of the colonies. They still had Indian raids
and other threats and problems so this was important. Some of this was in
violation of accepted British law. Before the first shot was fired they were
still making moves in the courts to solve the problem. And that continued. That
happened in April of what year? 1775. When's the Declaration of Independence
signed? 1776. So for the next fourteen or fifteen months the leaders in the
colonies are still working through the legal process with England to try to
resolve it.
What we find is that people get impatient. We're hearing questions today
and for five or so years about when is this justified? We shouldn't even be
thinking the question yet. I made the statement that we're a long way from
that. I don't mean that just in a time sense. I mean that in a legal sense.
There are thousands of legal and court cases that need to be adjudicated and
are being adjudicated. We've got a major election coming up in the fall, mostly
Congressional election. It has the potential of turning the tide. There's
another major election coming in two years. The sad thing is that people who
believe like most of you believe or even who are conservative evangelical
Christians who are so "freaking arrogant" [my opinion' in this last
election because the Republican candidate was a Mormon and some in their
self-righteous haughtiness refused to even vote]. And whether you like it or
not, my opinion is that if you didn't vote you voted for Barack Obama.
That's the same thing I've said to every friend of mine who voted for
Ross Perot and stuck their nose up in the air and said they couldn't vote for
someone who's not right. They claim they're voting their conscience. Well, they
don't even understand reality. They're as divorced from reality as any
flako-liberal I've ever met because you don't understand the fact that this is
a two-party country and when you vote for the third party, whether it's on the
left or on the right, you're basically throwing your vote away to the other
major party. That's what always happens, like it or not. I don't like it and
you may disagree with me and that's fine, but we have to learn to work smarter.
The conservatives are so fragmented we're just like the Jews in the
Jewish Revolt in A.D. 66-70. They were so busy fighting each other that they
couldn't present a united front against the Romans who were literally besieging
the walls and coming over the walls to Jerusalem. The various Zealot and Right
Wing parties among the Jews were shooting each other and killing each other as
much as they were killing the Romans. How many Democrats talk about Democrats
who are Democrats in name only? You don't hear it. Whether they agree or
disagree with each other, they present a united front but we have Republicans
and conservatives who are shooting each other all the time.
Now there are a whole lot of Republicans that I really don't like. And I
don't think they are very conservative at all but one of the things about this
nation is that the party swings the vote in Washington. The speaker of the
House pulls people in line. We don't like that. That's the nasty side of
politics but that's what happens and if you don't get a majority of Republicans
in Congress it isn't going to matter because we're going to continue to slide
in the direction we're going. The same thing applies in Texas. We've had about
ten years of a great Texas administration and we have to be very careful whom
we vote in this time to continue that because there are a lot of people on the
right, myself included, who were very impatient. We have to be careful we're
not too impatient. You can be impatient for change and push things and create a
calamity. We have to be very cautious about what we're going to do.
Anyway, I tried to answer that question and we'll talk about the War for
Independence a little more as we go along. The second question that came in has
to do with this Bundy situation going on right now. I think this is a great
application. How do we take the Word of God and apply it to real world
situations because these are real world situations and they're not clear?
They're messy. I think Lexington and Concord weren't as clean as some people
would like it to be. Real life is messy because people have mixed motives and
people come from mixed backgrounds.
Now if you're not familiar with this situation it's that you have about
a 65-year old Nevada rancher named Cliven Bundy who apparently he and his
family's ranch have had grazing rights on federal land for a long time. About
85-90% of Nevada is federal land. That's the most of any state in the Union.
Can you believe that? That much of Nevada is actually owned and administered by
the Federal government. Now the reason that happened apparently is that when
Nevada became a state this land that was owned by the state became property of
the federal government.
Now the core situation with Cliven Bundy isn't about the little guy
versus the Bureau of Land Management, trust me. The Bureau of Land Management
and other federal agencies have overreacted and intimidated and bullied
Americans so much that this is created this scenario. But the reality in this
situation is that Bundy hasn't paid his bill to the federal government in
twenty years. The reason he hasn't paid his bill is that he doesn't think the
federal government has a right to that land. Now that's a problem that goes
back to Nevada state law and what happened when Nevada became a state, as far
as I understand it. I read the transcript of Bundy's interview with Glen Beck
last week and I listened to Bundy's wife interviewed by Greta Van Sustern last
night and they both were making the same case. They said they'd be glad to pay
the money but the federal government has no right to it. They offered to pay it
to Clark County or to the sovereign state of Nevada but they don't believe they
should pay it to the federal government.
Now the background to this is that Americans are really frustrated
because they view the federal government is becoming increasingly an enemy to
them and to their personal freedom. We have examples of the IRS targeting
conservative groups seeking a tax-exempt status and the IRS seeking not to
treat them fairly. Several times its been reported that not a single
progressive organization seeking tax exempt status is subject to any sort of
analysis or delay by the IRS but conservative causes were. Not only that but
according to e-mails released just this last week employees of the IRS and
Justice Department were trying to figure out ways they could bring criminal
charges against these conservative groups. So an environment of hostility has
been created, especially in this administration for individual citizens trying
to put down conservatives. As a result people are fed up, frustrated, anxious,
and there's going to be a spark that ignites something.
Unfortunately a lot of people showed up in Nevada with firearms. This
should not have happened. If you're going to do this, pick a case where the guy
you're fighting for is in the right. Like the old adage, "Be sure you're
right and then go ahead." It's not clear at all who is right here although
it's probably the federal government who has the legal case on their side.
Bundy has not paid his bill so legally the federal government has the right to
manage its land. Even if the government has other motives, it's irrelevant
because he hasn't paid his bill in twenty years. You know what would happen to
you or me if we hadn't paid our electric bill in twenty years. We would have
been really cold this morning and really cold all winter long. We would've been
hot last summer. That electricity would have been turned off for a long, long
time so I think in some ways the federal government has been patient.
There are a lot of other cases where the federal government has come
down really hard and they're more likely to have been in the wrong. So we
really have to look at each case and make sure we know all the facts. I should
have started this by giving you a little caveat. When we're this close to a
situation in history a lot of times we don't have enough historical distance to
know all the facts. And every day new information is coming out. We have to be
very cautious in jumping to a conclusion simply because there are things that
are going on that sound like things we would be sympathetic to. We have to
rally make sure we have all of the facts.
I think more has come out lately in listening to both Cliven Bundy and
his wife that indicate that the reason they are fighting the government on this
is not the reason I hear from a lot of the other people who are supporting them
so we have to be cautious. As Christians we have to recognize we have a higher
standard and that standard is the Scripture. We have to recognize that on the
one hand we have to be involved and be responsible citizens. We have to be very
active as citizens in the political process from the grass roots up. That means
getting involved at the local precinct level, all the way up to the state
level, being knowledgeable and informed about every race. If we're not we're
just abdicating our responsibility but now's the time when things are really
serious. We really need to stand up and be counted and be involved. That's the
legal process.
People say, "What can we do? How can we resist the
government?" By getting involved politically. By supporting positive
candidates. By finding out more and more information about legal cases. There
was a case that came out just a week ago. In fact the e-mail came in during
Bible class last week that Charlie Clough sent me about a professor that had
been fired at some university in southern California. He took his case to the
courts and the court reinstated him. He had an excellent record of doing his
job as unto the Lord. He had an excellent track record but because he disagreed
with the politically correct views of the establishment of the university they
had found some trumped-up reason to let him go when he already had tenure. So
the courts forced the university to back his tenure.
So when right is on our side, it may take longer and the process is
slower but we have to work through the system. As long as there are legal
avenues available, that's what we need to be involved in. And it takes time.
Unfortunately, a lot of us, myself included, happen to be just a little too
impatient to take the time to go through the process. But when we look at the
other side, we see that they have worked for forty or fifty years to build
their structure. They've been following the "Rules for Radicals".
They've been building things. They've been working. That's what conservatives
need to do. They need to take their own action. We didn't get here overnight.
We're not going to change it overnight and violence is not going to bring that
about.
So we need to work very, very smart and recognize that we are a nation
governed by a rule of law. Because of that, because of law, we haven't nearly
exhausted all of the options. That's why it's important to teach authority
orientation to children in the home. There's been a rather humorous little
thing going around through e-mail recently that says, "Yes, I have a basic
psychological problem. My parents spanked me regularly when I was a child. Then
they grounded me and they disciplined me. Now that that I'm an adult I suffer
from psychological disorder called "respect for other people's
property." If you want to see an example of what is happening to kids that
are not disciplined, you go into classrooms in many public schools and they're
absolute chaos because the teachers can't really do anything and there's no
discipline in the homes. It's been going on for a couple of generations. We
have to recognize we have a systemic problem here. Until we recognize the real problem,
which needs a spiritual solution, we're not getting anywhere.
Until people shift away from relativism and start thinking about life in
terms of the absolute, the political solution isn't going to go very far because
many conservatives are just as self-absorbed and just as arrogant as many
liberals. They're not grounded on Divine viewpoint any more than liberals. Just
because a lot of their opinions may align with ours a little more consistently
doesn't mean they're really right. Often we can get caught up in making a
selection between one form of arrogance versus another form of arrogance. The
only way to really change this country is what made it to begin with and that's
the influence of Biblical Christianity and a Judeo-Christian worldview. Until
that changes, nothing else will change.
I've got unfortunate news for you. Apart from a massive work of God (not
that He can't do it) it's not going to change. It's just going to get worse
first, a lot worse. People have been saying that for forty years and if you
look back since World War II there are a few places where the progression
slowed. It didn't stop though and it didn't pause and it didn't reverse. It
just declined less rapidly for a few years. What happened during those times is
that progressives reorganized and regained strength. For some reason
conservatives don't do that. I saw this little cartoon today and thought it was
amusing about the Bundy thing. The sign says "Federal Land. Grazing by
Permit Only." The cow in the middle is the Bundy ranch with hundreds of
guns pointed at him. He's saying, "I should have disguised myself as an
illegal immigrant."
The federal government's response on this was such a problem because
they sent in Special Forces. They sent in snipers and troops. Their reaction
has been horrible. Their action has been unacceptable. It hasn't been warranted
at all. It is typical of the way the federal government has been handling a lot
of things recently so it's no wonder people want to react to it because they
resent having a federal government that is so opposed to their property rights
and their freedom.
Now as we go on what we have to remember is that it was through God's
use of unjust authority, a tyrannical authority that accomplished salvation; tyrannical
authority both on the part of the Sanhedrin and especially on the part of Rome.
Jesus' crucifixion was the result of unjust rulers who were forcing their
politics upon the population in Judea. What was Jesus' response as He was being
forced to an illegal execution by the unjust powers? Did He react? Did He
assert His rights? Not at all. Philippians 2:8 tells us that, "He humbled
Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross." He was perfectly righteous. He was totally without sin but He
refused to assert His just rights against the unjust authority of Rome and the
unjust authority of the religious leaders in Jerusalem. What that tells us is
something we don't like to hear. It's not comfortable. In many cases it is more
Christ-like to submit to injustice and to put the situation in God's hand than
to rebel and to disobey because we know that God has a greater plan and we have
to learn to trust in Him.
So in the U.S. we're ruled by constitutional law. We're proud to say we're
a country based on the rule of law. Sadly too many people who say that are
breaking the law out the other side of their mouth but we are a nation of laws.
Under our constitution we're a republican form of government. That's a
representative republic. As conservatives like to remind everyone, we're not a
democracy. Democracy means mob rule. We are a representative republic. That
means we elect representatives and senators to go to the legislature and to
represent us as a body politic, we the people, to vote and to make laws.
The problem with that is that the laws that they make may not be the
laws that we want them to make. Whether your representative represents you or
not, whatever they do, represents you legally. They're your representatives.
Some of you may live in a district where you have a liberal democrat. And that
representative always votes ways you wish they wouldn't. But guess what? That's
your vote whether you like it or not. That's your vote. Just last week I heard
a speaker at a Republican Women's meeting and in the midst of his message he
did something that is typical rhetoric of someone trying to rouse the crowd to
action. He asked three questions. He said, "Did you vote for the IRS to
investigate conservative organizations for tax exempt status? Well, did you,
what's your answer? Did you vote for the IRS to investigate conservative
groups?" Everyone said "No.". He went on, "Did you vote for
the Bureau of Land Management to round up the cattle belonging to Cliven Bundy?"
"Did you vote for Congress to socialize our economy by voting in
Obamacare?" They all screamed no but the reality is that all of those
people live in one of the most conservative congressional districts in the
state and in the country. Their congressional representative voted against all
those things and is opposed to all those things. But the reality is that if we
believe in majority rule, which we do then under that principle we all voted
for this.
That's what representative republics do. That's what our representatives
do. You don't like it? Change them. My frustration is that I like my
congressman. He votes just the way I would vote. I like my senators. For the
most part they vote just the way I would vote. The problem is I can't go change
those idiots who get voted in from New York and Maryland and Virginia and
Connecticut and Massachusetts. We're outnumbered, especially in the senate but
not in the House. If we want to change things we've got to be involved somehow
in effecting this change. So we have to recognize we operate on the rule of law
and when we don't win the elections we don't get to make the rules.
It's sad when there are certain people on the other side who use that to
try to completely eradicate any future use of power by the opposing position.
It really is bad when their gamesmanship is better than ours. And what happens?
We get frustrated, very frustrated. We have this state that's the best state in
the union. We have a state that is the most conservative, well, not quite; I
think Oklahoma is more conservative than we are. But we're pretty conservative.
But we could do better. It's only going to happen when we vote.
Now the problem we have is this aspect in Romans 13:1 that says that
everyone should be subject to governing authorities for there's no authority
except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Right now
I want to look at that word authority. That word is EXOUSIA and it means an authority and a power. Now that word is
used in a very interesting context. What Paul is saying in Romans 13 is that
there's no authority except from God. You may think it's a bad authority. You
may think it's a corrupt authority. Guess what? Jesus had a conversation with
one of the most corrupt authority figures around and that was Pontius Pilate.
John 19:10, "So Pilate said to Him, 'You do not speak to me? Do You not
know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify
You?' " Authority there is the same word. "I have the authority to
crucify You and I have the authority to release You." Jesus answered in
John 19:11, "You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given
you from above." Jesus affirms that the power that Pontius Pilate wielded
wrongly was power that was delegated to him through the permissive will of God.
These are difficult things to grapple with when we're the one who get
put between a rock and a hard place by a federal government that isn't doing
what we think is right and when we believe that the Constitution of the U.S. is
totally against them. One of the problems we have is that for the last 150
years the legal entities have all agreed in all of the cases that go against
what we believe to be the correct interpretation, strict constructive interpretation
of the law. Maybe not all of them because they change.
But we have to realize that the tide of history is going out. It came in
before 1850. It's been going out since 1850. You know there's not a whole lot
we can do to change that. These things have happened. We can fight some battles
but I don't think we can win this war because we're living in the devil's
world. We have to remember that and that's not a pleasant thing to remember. It
was much worse for Christians who lived under the Roman Empire. God appoints
every ruler, though, even when they're unjust. He allows them to rule for His
purposes. So in Romans 13:1-5 Paul says, "Every person is to be in
subjection to the governing authorities. For 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; and they who have opposed will
receive condemnation upon themselves. For 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; for it is a minister of God to
you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the
sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on
the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not
only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake."
Now there's several things we're going to look at here as I continue
this study. There are some who take this word in Romans 13:1 "governing
authority" and argue that the core meaning is to excel, to exceed, and to
be better than. They then argue from that a logical fallacy and a linguistic
fallacy that citizens should only obey those authorities that possess a higher
standard or a higher value. But that's not what this word implies. As the
article in the Bauer, Gingrich, and Arndt lexicon goes on to demonstrate, a
word's meaning is determined by its context.
This word is used in the context of governing authorities and talking
about higher authorities versus of lower authorities. There's a hierarchy of
authorities in every country from your highest authority in the land, whether
it's a king or a prime minister or a president to the lowest authority in the
land. We have local city government, and then we have county government, state
government, and then federal government. There's a hierarchy of power there so
what this is talking about is higher governing authorities. That's how the word
is used when in a context of talking about government positions.
This is a reference to a book that was originally published in 1853 by
James Wilson, called The Establishment and Limits of Civil Government: An Exposition of
Romans 13:1-7. This book was republished by the American Vision Press. Now
this publishing company also publishes a lot of home-school material. Those of
you who home school need to be very much aware of this because these folks are
reconstructionists. They're post-millennialists and reconstructionists. What is
hidden behind a lot of their political theory and their activism is their
desire to change American into their version of a Christian nation.
Now this wing of evangelical Christianity is extremely small but they
have a publishing house and they influence a lot of people through their
publishing house and they've influenced a lot of families through the way they
promote their political theory in home school material. I know people whose
families have been disrupted because they had people in their families who have
changed to become hyper Calvinists because that's the position of these
post-Mil, theocratic reconstructionists. We have to be careful. This is a very
popular book promoted by a lot of conservatives because it's promoting the idea
that the U.S. is a Christian country and out of frustration, a lot of
evangelicals gravitate to these kinds of things because they're looking for
information. They're trying to understand the influence of Christianity in the
history of this country and especially the background during the American War
for Independence so they go for books like this.
Unfortunately Wilson's arguments and his Biblical exposition don't stand
up to accurate Biblical analysis and understanding the language of the text. He
will interpret these references to government authorities to mean only the
institution of government. But that's not what the text goes on to say. When
you compare it with other passages in the New Testament, Paul is not just
talking about authority in the abstract or the institution of government in the
abstract. He's talking about individuals who hold positions of authority. We'll
see this brought out in other passages. He makes the point that whoever resists
the authority. That means whatever the authority is. He's not just talking about
the king but any authority. Whoever resists that authority is resisting the
authority of God and those who resist that government will bring judgment upon
themselves. So this is talking about opposition.
I know there are some of you who are saying, "Well, wait a minute,
we're not just puppets under a tyranny." No, we're not. Whether you're
talking about children to parents, wives to husbands, students to the authority
in the classroom, or soldiers to officers over them, this is not a carte
blanche check. There are exceptions in Scripture. We have to pay attention to
those exceptions.
The reason I'm teaching it this way is because the default position of
your sin nature is to rebel. That's what you got from Adam. We are inherently rebels
against authority. I don't have to teach you to oppose authority if you don't
like it. You're going to figure that out all by yourself. My problem is getting
you to really understand how firm the Scripture is on obedience to authority.
We live in a nation, especially from those who are baby boomers and younger,
who have been influenced by a society whose mantra is to question authority, no
matter what. We think that's good because that makes us independent thinkers.
Well, there's an aspect of that that's true but if we're questioning authority
in the sense of always rebelling, never accepting it, it leads to chaos. Only
under authority orientation can we have order and can we operate as a team and
achieve an end.
The Scriptures are very clear. Remember the very first sin was one that
was in opposition to authority, the sin of Satan. The sin of man in the Garden
wasn't an egregious sin but it was disobedience to a command by God. Eve just
sat there and said, "Well it doesn't look all that bad. It looks pretty
good. It might even taste good. That's what the snake said." The snake
also said that God was just trying to keep good things from them. So there was
a whole rationale behind that. She said, "I'm just going to eat it and
find out for myself." That's the pattern. It's not so bad for me just to
disobey my parent this one time but it sets a precedent. It sets a pattern. It
happens in marriages. It happens in the work force. That's why the Bible is
emphasizing again and again this whole issue of submission.
Now one of the things that Wilson and others today do is come along and
look at a passage like Hosea 8:4. God is speaking to Hosea approximately the
time of Isaiah and he's pointing out the spiritual failures and flaws in the Northern
Kingdom of Israel. In God's critique he says that they set up kings but not by
me. Now this is taken out of the whole Biblical context of Biblical history.
Number one, if there's no authority established except from God [Romans 13:1]
then you have to reconcile Hosea 8:4.
Were the Jews in such autonomous rebellion that they could put up a king
that's not from God? No. What God is saying through Hosea is they set up kings
that weren't according to God's desired will, His revealed will, but He allowed
them to do this because they have volition. And they chose wicked rulers. They
chose bad rulers that weren't righteous according to God's standard but God
allowed them to do that because they have volition. They made princes but God
did not acknowledge them. From their silver and gold they made idols for
themselves that they might be cut off.
The people chose leaders that reflected the values of the people, the
spiritual rebellion of the people and if we've got a problem with the leaders
in this country, then we [and I'm using this collectively not in terms of us
individually but as a nation] we just have to look in the mirror to see what
the problem is. We're electing leaders that reflect the values of the majority
of the people in this country. Whether that's actually true I don't know
because there's a lot of people who won't get involved in the political
process. They think that since they're Christians, well, that's too secular.
John Nelson Darby was like that. He thought that it was carnal for Christians
to vote, or for Christians to even be involved in the political process. That's
the secular world. We're ambassadors from the eternal kingdom so we shouldn't
be involved at all.
Have you ever wondered why you've heard pastors say you shouldn't be involved
in political activism and have taken a strong stand that way and then the next
night they're railing about how awful the political system is? It's almost like
they've got a split personality or multiple personalities. It's because within
our tradition as dispensationalists and evangelicals, half of our spiritual
fathers were saying that you didn't need to know anything about the political
process because it's all carnal. The other half is saying that you need to be
involved up to your eyebrows. So you get pastors coming out of seminaries who
one day they're one way and the next day they're the other way.
They don't really define terms for us like Christian activism. On the
one hand they say it's okay for people to get involved in politics as a career
but don't go down and demonstrate legally and constitutionally for a just
cause. Don't lobby Congress. That's activism. That's insane. It's not Biblical.
It's not constitutional. Under the principle, "the squeaky wheel gets the
most grease", Christians have only squeaked to God. And they should squeak
to God but the people who are representing you need to hear your thoughts also,
legally and constitutionally.
Not by going and grabbing your AR off the wall
and marching on Washington in something like a Bonus March in the 1920's but by
writing letters, finding out what's the most effective way to communicate to a
congressman. I wonder how many people in this congregation have their
congressmen and their two senators on speed dial on their phone other than me?
One or two. That's very good. We all should. Every hand should have gone up.
Every time I hear of something or read about some legislation I'm calling John
Cornyn, Ted Cruz, and Ted Poe and letting them know what I think. It doesn't
take long to make your voice heard. They figure that for every person that lets
them know something, there's a hundred or two hundred who feel the same way but
don't have the time to call them. So the voice of one person has a tremendous
impact.
It's too bad that whenever I try to send letters to some of those other
folks that are representative sin the area, you can't get through because
you're not in their district so you can't ever say anything to them. But,
anyway, God has a permissive will and He allows rulers that are going to rule
but not according to the way you and I would like them to. That's when it gets
tough. That's when you have to address the issue.
Now there's another situation, which occurs in, the Old Testament
related to permissive will and that's seen in Psalm 94:20-23, "Can a
throne of destruction be allied with You, One which devises mischief by
decree?" Anyone want to put a name on that? Don't say it out loud. We'd
probably all say the same name. "They band themselves together against the
life of the righteous." In other words the governing leaders are evil and
they seek to destroy the influence of the righteous. "And condemn the
innocent to death. But the LORD has been my stronghold."
Notice it hasn't been the political action committee. Not that that's wrong in
our system. The system under the Hebrew kings didn't have the constitutional
setup that we have. The system under Rome didn't have the constitutional setup
we have. The constitution we have gives us the responsibility to be involved in
the system. It's a representative democracy so we need to be involved. It's not
an either/or. We need to be involved but recognize that ultimately the real
significant issue is spiritual and the protector is God, not the political
process and the political emphasis. The psalmist goes on to say, "And my
God the rock of my refuge. He has brought back their wickedness upon them And
will destroy them in their evil; The LORD our God will
destroy them."
We need to be taking this before the throne of Heaven all the time. What
the psalmist is saying there is that, even though we submit to authority, it
doesn't mean we agree with them and it doesn't mean that we don't do everything
we can within legal bounds to oppose them. Now we'll get into the topic of
legitimate civil disobedience later. There are clearly examples in Scripture
for legitimate civil disobedience and we understand that. But first we must
establish the principle of submission to authority and who establishes the
authority and then we can understand better how to apply the issues of civil
disobedience.
No authority has a right to tell anyone to do anything that violates the
direct, specific revelation of God. No authority has the right to tell anyone
to do something that harms his or her life, that is immoral, that is
unconstitutional, or unbiblical. No one has the right to do that. But when it
comes to issues like no one having the right to tell me what is
unconstitutional, you and I have to recognize that what is determined to be
constitutional is determined by Congress and the Supreme Court, whether we like
it or not. I understand the historical issues there but since the early 19th
century the reality is that the Supreme Court has been accepted as the arbiter,
whether you agree with it or not. They are the hermeneutical absolute for
determining the meaning of the Constitution. Do they have that right
constitutionally? I don't think so but that doesn't matter anymore because
that's not accepted.
This isn't easy to hear because most of us believe that our country is
on the skids and we just want to scream for people to wake up. That's not the
reality in which we live. If you had the privilege and the fun of living in one
of the dominant blue states, your frustration level would really be high. We
live in Texas and because we live in Texas we often recognize problems that the
rest of the country just doesn't see. Conversations I've had with many people
on the Eastern seaboard who are not conservative is that they think we have
absolutely lost our minds and that we are nuttier than fruitcakes and that we
are absolutely dangerous to the future of this country. They believe that down
to the marrow of their bones. And you believe just as strongly the opposite.
The only hope is the grace of God. That's why we have to be in Bible class and
we have to be learning spiritual truth as our highest priority. Because I don't
think it's going to get better. If it does, it's going to get worse before it
gets better.