When we come to passages of scripture
like this, I'm reminded of how I've always said that true Christianity
is advanced citizenship. It's a thinking person's religion. It's not an easy way of life
because the children of light who are true believers We walk
in a dark world where people are walking in the night, scripturally
and doctrinally, and we realize that we're not of the world,
we're not citizens of the world, we're citizens of the heavenly
kingdom of God by his grace through Christ. But we are in this world
and we have to put up with it. And of course, we're gonna be
preserved by the grace of God. Christ told his disciples, he
said, in the world, you'll have problems, you'll have trouble.
But he said, but be of good cheer for I've overcome the world.
So whatever we have to do to exist in this world, as long
as we honor God and look to Christ and rest in him, we're fine. But there's so many challenges
to that. And one of them, you can look at the opening verse
of this lesson, verse one of chapter 13. He says, let every
soul, that's every person, every believer he's talking about,
and even this would apply even to lost people as far as responsibility,
but he's talking to believers here, children of God. Let every
soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power
but of God. Powers that be are ordained. They're set in place for ordain
of God. Now we all, you know, as we live
in this life, we'll complain about governments and politicians
and leaders and all of that. We do. And sometimes justly so. But here's the main issue of
this lesson. And that's one thing that every
true believer has to understand is that we are in submission
to Almighty God. And that's the main point of
this lesson. Now that includes God's workings
in this world. God works all things after the
counsel of his own will. And we know, we realize that
there's not anything out of its place in God's purpose and plan.
There's not anything that upsets his purpose and plan, no matter
how bad we see it going. We're to be in submission to
God's authority. Now, obviously, we can see that
in the realm of salvation, can't we? Because the realm of salvation,
when God brings us into a realization, of salvation, that he saved me
by his grace, that I'm only a sinner saved by grace, it's a matter
of God bringing me to submission. See, by nature, we want our own
way. People want salvation, they want
blessing, they wanna live forever, but they want it on their own
terms and in their own way. But God has his terms and his
way. God must be a just God and a
savior and he cannot and will not save sinners apart from his
justice satisfied and his justice is satisfied only in Christ. The glorious person in the finished
work of Christ. And so when he brings us into
the realm of salvation, he brings us to forsake our ways which
are evil and brings us in submission to his way, which is good. So our whole life is one of submission
in that sense, submission to God. God brings us rather in submission
to his judgments, to his truth. He shows us that salvation is
by the righteousness of his son. And what did Paul say in Romans
10 about the unbelievers there, the religious Israel, that they
would not submit to the righteousness of God? They continued, insisted,
stubbornly, wickedly, to establish a righteousness of their own.
So he brings us into submission. And that submission of grace
is opposed to our natural bent, our sinful ways of thinking,
because we fell on Adam. That's what Adam did, you see.
He rejected God's rule and authority. God said, you know, you can eat
of every tree of the garden except that one. That represents God's
rule of authority. And he said, in the day that
you eat thereof, you shall surely die. And think about it this
way. I've got this in your lesson.
You know, the heresy, the most popular heresy today, which is
freewillism in some form or another, all right? This thing of free
will, it's not an argument over whether or not we make choices.
Because we make choices all the time. We make choices every day.
But here's what the Bible says, man by nature, if left to himself,
will always make the wrong choice, even a sinful choice, when it
comes to salvation and a right relationship with God. So left
to ourselves, we'll remain lost. We won't make right choices.
We won't make good choices. You will not come to me that
you might have eternal life. No man can come to me. The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. He chooses
not to. And why does he choose not to? That's a foolish way of living.
He chooses not to because he has no regard or he's ignorant
of and not submitted to the righteousness of God, has no regard for the
glory of God. He thinks too highly of himself.
So the issue of free will is man's sinful desire to break
away from the creator and declare himself independent. I'm the
master of my own fate. I'm the captain of my own destiny.
Salvation is, it lies on me, what I do and don't do. Now the old theologians called
that autonomy. That means self-rule. But see,
when God brings us into his family, we're not autonomous. We don't
rule ourselves, we're theonomous. That's God ruling, you see. We're under his rule, so whatever
he says goes. So understand that. God is the
one who works all things after the counsel of his own will.
It's his purpose to save a people whom he's chosen before the foundation
of the world and save them by his free, sovereign, invincible
grace based upon the righteousness of his son. There's no other
way. I told a young man last week, I said, well, If I want
to look at somebody who's religious or moral in this world and say,
well, I believe they're saved, I can do that. I can make that
choice if God left me to myself. But that doesn't make it true.
It doesn't change what's in God's word, God's authority. Now, the
point here in these verses is that God himself is the highest
of all powers. You notice here he says, let
every soul be a subject unto the higher powers. Whatever power
is higher than me, I'm to be in submission to it, subject
to it. Well, we know God himself is
the highest of all powers. He rules in the heavens. None
can stay his hand or say unto him, do us that. We don't even
have the right to question God's authority. Did you know that? Who are you to reply, to argue,
to debate against God? Who do you think you are? Doesn't
the potter have power over the clay to do with it what he will? So God is the highest of all
powers. But here what he's talking about,
the higher powers, has to do with those who are in positions
in this life. For example, in government, in
law enforcement, positions of authority that are higher than
us as individuals. And he says these higher powers,
like civil magistrates, policemen, judges, even government workers,
from the president down to the law officer, the policeman, they're
higher powers, not because they are strong in themselves, not
because they are good, but because God put them in that office and
it's because of their office. And what he's saying here, we
who are believers. are to obey the higher powers
as they are ordained and put in office by God. We're to be
law-abiding citizens. Now, this is really significant
because one of the most popular accusations brought against Christians
back in this day was that they were seditionist. The self-righteous
religious Pharisees accused Christ and his followers as being in
opposition to Caesar And that was all their plot and their
plan to get them arrested, get them stopped, and get them killed.
But we're not to be seditionists, and of course those accusations
were wrong. And one thing you need to understand
here, he doesn't make any distinction between those who are in these
offices of authority, who are what the world calls good, and
those who are bad. He doesn't. And that's hard to
understand, but think about it now. In Paul's day, in government,
who was the highest of all powers in the government among humans? You know who it was? I don't
know, I can't remember which one it was at this time, but
he was called Caesar. Now, was he a good man? Was he
a believer? No. And always remember back in Matthew
22, you know, when they challenged the Lord, should we pay our taxes
to Caesar? And remember, he said, you have
a coin on you? He said, yeah. Whose name is
on that coin? Caesar. He said, well, render
unto Caesar that which belongs to Caesar. But you render unto
God that which belongs to God. So it's not a situation of where
we can make excuses and say, well, because our president or
our senator or our sheriff or whatever is not a believer, then
I don't have to obey him. No, you can't do that. We're
to obey the laws of the Lamb. Now, I'll say this right at the
outset. There's only one exception to
that rule. And what is it? It's when those
who are in places of authority try to pass and enforce laws
that are diametrically opposed to God's word. That's why. That's the only exception, and
we have that exception. I've got these cited in your
lesson. For example, Acts chapter five,
verses 26 through 29. Now you can check this out later.
But that's, remember when Peter and the apostles were preaching
the gospel in Jerusalem, and the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin,
they forbid them to do it. Said, stop preaching. They laid
down the law. But it was an ungodly law, don't
preach. And remember when they, and Peter
and the apostles, they went about and they preached the gospel.
And when they were brought up on those charges, what did Peter
say? Well, should we obey God or men? We're gonna obey God. In other words, your law, it
goes against what God says. And so when the legislature,
or when the, tries to pass a law that's against God's law, when
the Supreme Court makes a ruling and tries to enforce something
that is against God's law, we're not to obey it. We're to obey
God. Now, and understand this too.
In these verses specifically, he's talking to believers here,
sinners saved by grace. But he's not talking about our
spiritual condition, per se, right here. He's not elaborating
on that. He's done that a lot, hasn't
he, through Romans up to this point. What he's talking about
is our civil responsibilities as being in the world, but not
of the world. And so, you know, whenever somebody
says, well, we as Christians, we've got to rise up against
society, we've got to take up arms and all, don't believe them.
No, he says, be subject to the higher powers. There's no power
that is of God. And we quote this verse some. It's in Proverbs 20, 21. Listen to this. Proverbs 21,
one. The king's heart is in the hand
of the Lord as the rivers of water. He, that is God, turneth
it whithersoever he will. Now does that just apply to good
kings? That's all kings. Remember back when Moses was
dealing with Pharaoh? There are verses in there that
says Pharaoh hardened his heart. He was a bad king. Also verses
say God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Now how do you reconcile those?
You can't and you don't. You don't have that kind of wisdom,
neither do I. All I know is the king's heart
is in the hand of the Lord to turn as he will. And understand
this, sometimes a bad leader can be God's judgment upon a
people. That's what happened to Israel
when they were brought into captivity and sat down. Well, look at verse
two, he says, whosoever therefore resisteth the power, the authority,
resisteth the ordinance of God. So that when we have a president
that you don't like, understand, who put him there? Well, we voted. Yeah, we used the means and we're
to vote. If we don't like him, we're to
use all responsible, lawful means to get him out. We're not to
be liars and connivers like they're doing today. We can vote. We have that privilege. God has
providentially given us that privilege. But he says, they're
there by the ordinance of God. We may not like them. And he
says, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
Now that word damnation, you have to look at the context.
He's not talking about they're going to hell. He's talking about
they'll be punished. You break the law, you'll be
punished. That's what he's talking about.
The word is actually condemnation, but he's talking about, remember,
he's not talking about our spiritual condition. He's not talking about
how God justifies the ungodly here. He's talking about how
we stand in relation to civil courts and civil magistrates.
So if you go out and break the law, and you're accused of the
crime, and you're proven to be guilty, then you've got to take
the punishment. And turn over with me, let's
look at this scripture. Turn over to 1 Peter chapter
four. 1 Peter chapter four. And look
at verse 14. Peter's talking about this exact
same thing here. He's talking about suffering
for righteousness sake. You remember Christ talked about
that. If you suffer for righteousness sake, that is for the gospel,
for spreading the truth of Christ, then you're blessed. Because
that's a sure evidence of eternal life. But Peter says here, he
says, all right, look here, verse 14. He says, if you be reproached
for the name of Christ, that is for preaching that gospel,
happy are you. You're blessed. For the Spirit
of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part, he is evil
spoken of, but on your part, he is glorified. If we preach
Christ, he's glorified. But now those who oppose us and
reproach us and try to harm us, on their part, that's evil. They
think we're evil, they think our Lord's evil. It's like the
guy told the preacher one time when he was preaching on God's
electing grace, and after the service, one of the deacons come
up and said, preacher, my God wouldn't do those things. And
the preacher looked at him and said, no, your God wouldn't,
but the God of the Bible does. Well, look at verse 15 of 1 Peter
4. He says, but let none of you
suffer as a murderer. You see somebody out here, for
example, who's breaking the law and doing wrong, and you take
it upon yourself to be judge, jury, and executioner? Don't
do that, that's not your place. He says, or as a thief, or as
an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if
any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let
him glorify God on this behalf. For the time has come that judgment
must begin at the house of God. And if it first began at us,
what shall the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? Think about that. So that's what
Peter's saying. Now go back to Romans 13. Verse
two is simply saying, when he talks about damnation, he's talking
about the punishment that comes along with the crime. Now if
we were talking about eternal life and salvation here, And
the word condemnation or damnation, you're talking about eternal
death, eternal damnation. The context determines that.
So the condemnation here is the punishment for breaking the law,
not being submitted to the higher powers. Look at verse three.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid
of the power? Do that which is good, and thou
shalt have praise of the same. Now, you gotta understand that
this is speaking of things as a general rule. There are rulers who were a terror
to good works in the sense that there were, for example, the
Emperor Nero. They said that he was probably
the worst in trying to persecute true believers. and have him
killed, you know, get him into the arena and stick the lines
on him and all that. But what he's saying here is
as a general rule, civil authorities are not a terror to law-abiding
people. And I think about the Apostle Paul, you know, when
the Pharisees were trying to accuse him and to bring him up
on charges, who did he appeal to? He appealed to Caesar and
he went to Rome. And out of that came all kinds
of New Testament epistles. Philippians, first, second Timothy,
we could go on. But anyway, as a general rule,
the only ones who hate authority are lawbreakers, and we see this
again in our fallen Adam. The whole human race fell on
Adam when he rejected God's sovereign authority and chose his own.
You know, that's just the way we are by nature, and we as believers
have to fight that spirit, that fleshly spirit. But basically,
what he's saying here, I believe it just comes under this umbrella,
that without civil authority, without laws, what would our
world be? It would be confusion, it would
be anarchy, It would be destruction. That's what it would be. So somebody
said, well, bad rulers, bad government is better than no government.
Well, that's probably true in a general sense because we need
to have laws instead of anarchy and chaos. The good works and
the evil works here are not spoken of in reference to spiritual
and eternal things. All right, when he's talking
about rulers are not adhered to good works, he's talking about
simply obeying the laws of the land. He's not talking about
good works and evil works as they appear before God in the
matter of having a right relationship with God. Man by nature cannot
do anything good. There's none that do with good,
no, not one. But here in this context, he's talking about obeying
the law, obeying the laws of the land that do not conflict
with the laws of God. Look at verse four, he says,
for he is a minister of God to thee for good. That's civil authority,
whoever he is. He's a servant of God, even though
he may not know God. Now that's a mind boggler, isn't
it? When he say he's a minister of God, doesn't mean he's necessarily
a believer. Think about Cyrus, King Cyrus of the Medo-Persian
Empire. Remember what happened, how it
was said of him. I didn't write these in your
lesson, but if you go back to Isaiah, well, let's go to Isaiah
46. Listen to this. Isaiah 46, verse nine. In Isaiah 46, verse nine, this
is a prophecy. And he says, remember the former
things of old, for I'm God, there's none else. I'm God, there's none
like me. God's the highest authority.
Declaring the end from the beginning. From ancient times, the things
that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand, I will
do all my pleasure. I'm gonna do everything that
I wanna do. We're gonna be talking about
God's will this morning a little bit. God's not willing that any
should perish. What does that mean, that God's
not getting his way? No, he says, my counsel's gonna
stand, and I will do all my pleasure. God's gonna do exactly what God
wants to do. And verse 11, calling a ravenous
bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far
country. Most scholars agree, and I believe
they're right if you interpret scripture with scripture. that
this is a prophecy of the future freeing of the tribe of Judah,
the southern kingdom from Babylon by a heathen king named Cyrus. And I think if you go back and
look, I think it's in one of the last books of 2 Chronicles.
I'll have to go back and check that. I've got it written down
in another place. When Cyrus and the Medo-Persians came in
and destroyed Babylon and free and by God's providence, he allowed
the Israelites to go back into Jerusalem and rebuild that temple.
And you remember Nehemiah's a rubble and all of that. That's who he's
talking about. He was serving God. Now he himself
was an idolater. And God used him in his service
to punish Babylon. Later on, God used somebody else
to punish the Medo-Persians. It was the Greeks, Alexander. And then Alexander, you see,
God's working all this thing according to his power and his
wisdom. And it's an amazing thing, but Cyrus was a servant of God,
even though he didn't know the true and living God. Now he gave
lip service to God, if you go back and look at those passages,
but he didn't know the true and living God. Look back at Romans
13 now. So he says, verse four, he's
a minister to thee for good, but if thou do that which is
evil, be afraid. In other words, you don't have
a, You know that song, what was that rock song in the 60s? I
fought the law and the law won. Well, you don't have to be afraid
if you're not fighting the law, but if you are fighting the law,
the law's gonna win. You better be afraid. For he
beareth not the sword in vain. That is the law. It's not for
nothing now that we have civil authorities and laws, for he's
the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that
doeth evil. So now that sets in order. You
remember back in Romans 12 where he said, vengeance belongeth
unto the Lord. And it does. But see, they're
under God's authority. What the scripture forbids is
personal vengeance. And if there's somebody in civil
authority who takes personal vengeance wrongly, they're wrong.
But if they're acting in, as a representative of the law,
It's not personal vengeance. They're just a revenger to execute
wrath upon him that doeth evil. Look at verse five. He says,
wherefore you must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also
for conscience sake. That's simply saying this. Don't
obey the laws just simply because you're afraid to be thrown in
jail. But obey them for conscience sake. Now what does our conscience
tell us? It tells us God's in control.
God's on the throne. And whoever that guy is that
turns the light on behind me when I speed, he's acting in as a higher power
because I'm breaking the law. And so I may not like him. I
may get angry. But obey it for conscious sake.
This is the law of God. This is the work of God. Now
again, We can certainly see that in spiritual matters, can't we? Concerning the gospel and salvation,
we'll bring it right on down to where we live every day in
this subject. That's why this is advanced citizenship,
isn't it? Because it's not in us by nature
to do this. We'll always justify ourselves,
mostly. So he says, do it for conscience
sake. Verse six, for this cause pay
you tribute also. Taxes, that's what it's talking
about. For they're God's ministers attending continually upon this
very thing. Render therefore to all their
dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom
is. Custom is like taxes on goods
coming in. He says, fear to whom fear, fear
there is respect. Honor to whom honor. The office
now. You know, that's the thing about,
you know, that's like our president today is a lot of people don't
like him, but you've got to respect the office. Now that's what he's
saying. Respect the office. Don't do
damage to the office, which I think they're doing today. But be careful
there. And so render taxes. You say,
well, they tax too much. Well, they may. I know some of
them want to. They may, and God's in control
of that too. And so we just work in lawful
ways by our voting and even campaigning to change things. And if it's
God's purpose to change it, he'll do it. He may use us as the means
thereof. But this fear here is respect
to those in official capacities where to honor those in authority
by virtue of their office. He's not talking about them personally,
but them officially. All right, for conscious sake,
okay, we'll stop.