Deuteronomy chapter 20. We've
been studying here for the last couple of our studies. I want
to begin and read most of this chapter to us. It's good sometimes
just to read God's Word. If we don't comment on it, just
read it. Let's begin in verse 1 of Deuteronomy chapter 20.
And when thou comest out to battle against thy enemies, and see
horses and chariots and a people more than thou, be not afraid
of them, For the Lord your God is with you, which brought you
up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be, when ye are
come nigh unto the battle, that the priests shall approach and
speak unto the people, and shall say unto them, Hear, O Israel,
ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies. Let not
your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble, neither be
ye terrified because of them. For the Lord your God is He that
goeth with you to fight for you against your enemies, to save
you. The officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What
man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated
it? Let him go and return to his
house, lest he die in battle, and another dedicate it. And
what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not eaten
of it? Let him go also, and return unto
his house. lest he die in the battle, and
another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath
betrothed a wife, engaged to a wife, and hath not taken her,
let him go and return her to his house, lest he die in the
battle, and another man take her. And the officers shall speak
farther unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there
that is fearful and fainthearted, let him go and return her to
his house, lest his brethren's heart faint as well as his heart.
And it shall be, when the officers have made an end of speaking
unto the people, they shall make captains of the armies to lead
the people. When thou comest near unto the
city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it
shall be, if it make the answer of peace, and open unto thee,
then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein
shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee. And if it will not make no peace
with thee, but will make war against thee, then shalt thou
besiege it. And when the Lord thy God hath
delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof
with the edge of the sword. But the women and the children,
and the little ones and the cattle, and all that is in the city,
even all the spoils thereof, thou shalt take unto thyself.
Thou shalt eat the spoils of thine enemies, which the Lord
thy God hath given thee. Thus shall thou do to all the
cities which are for all from thee, which are not of the cities
of these nations. But of the cities of these people
which the Lord your God giveth thee for thine inheritance, thou
shalt save nothing alive that breatheth, but thou shalt utterly
destroy them, namely the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites,
the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, as the Lord thy
God hath commanded thee. that they teach you not to do
after all their abominations which they have done unto their
gods. So should you sin against the Lord your God." Now, let's
stop there. I want to look this evening at
something that's hinted at here in our text concerning the church
and the state. That's what I want for us to
dwell on this afternoon just for a few minutes. The church
and the state. Not the church-state, but the
church and the state. And I'll show you there in just
a minute where he hinted at that. But you and I really, the time
we live in and the place that you and I live in, we know nothing
about what we call a theocracy. You
and I have always lived under the separation of church and
state. But Israel at this time was a theocracy. Their church
was the state, and the state was the church. And these priests,
here we have this hint, these priests here in verses 2-9, you'll
notice this as I read this, that the priests first spake to the
people. I'm sure they had prayer with
them, but mainly they encouraged the whole army. This was the
church of old. And then when they had finished
encouraging them, we're told here, Then they turned the whole
nation, the fighters, over to these officials. And then the
officials appointed officers over them, probably a captain
or a sergeant or something over 50s and 100s as they usually
did. You and I have the advantage now of all these thousands of
years later of looking back over the history of the world, and
what we can see is what they probably couldn't see at this
time, that God's intention was, His purpose was, after a while,
to separate the church and the state. Now before the flood,
as far as I know, they had no government. They had no state. We don't ever read of one. When
Abel was killed by Cain, his brother, there was nobody. to
say, you've sinned against your brother, now we're going to kill
you. We're going to try you and kill you. Nobody said anything
to him but God. God put a mark upon him, but
no man touched him. It indicates there was no courts
to try him and no punishment meted out for it. But immediately
after the flood and just before the flood, and I think this indicates
something to us, that there was no government to keep the peace
and to punish evil doers. Remember in chapter 6 of Genesis,
the scripture says the earth was filled with corruption, the
imagination of men's heart was only evil continually, and the
earth was filled with violence. When men's imaginations run wild
and they obey those evil imaginations, it always leads to violence.
And God looked upon the earth and it was filled with violence
and He destroyed it. But immediately after the flood,
we see God advancing society. And here is one of the ways we
see Him advancing it. He began to give them government. He began to give them a rule.
Here is what was said right after the flood to Noah in Genesis
chapter 9 verse 6. Whosoever shall shed man's blood,
by man shall his blood be shed. So it implies there that God
had begun to give them a limited, some kind of a limited government
to punish the evildoers, especially the severe evil of taking another
man's life. In Abraham's day, right after
the flood in Genesis chapter 14, we see there that they had
very limited government still in Genesis chapter 14. In the
land of Canaan, if somebody had did you wrong, You were apt to
avenge yourself. The church had to arm itself
and go to war and kill people. You remember when Lot was kidnapped
and taken hostage and his family and his stuff? They came and
told Abraham. Abraham didn't have a government
to appeal to. He didn't have a police station
to go make a report to. There was none to deliver his
nephew. And the Scripture says he armed
the men that was in his house and went and fought a battle
and slew people. And that was the way it was in
those days. And that was right and just to
do that because Melchizedek met him coming back from the slaughter
of that king and blessed him with the blessings of God. So
even then, they still had a very limited amount of government. But history tells us that God
was going to gradually change society in regards to church
and state for the most part. They're going eventually to be
separated. Ever since the fall of man, this
has been an evil world. It's been an evil world. And
there's two entities, if you want to call them that, that
this world needs because it's evil. One is the church. The
world needs the church. Why? Because the world's evil.
And the world needs forgiveness preached unto it. The world needs
reconciliation preached to it. The world needs to know the way
of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. So there's a church in
this world. But the world needs government
too, doesn't it? Why does it need government?
Because it's evil. This world is evil, and the world
needs a government not to preach forgiveness, but to hold a sword
to threaten and punish evildoers. So we need both, don't we? We
need both. We need the church, and we need
the government. We need authority. We sometimes
quote that verse. You've probably heard it quoted.
It's the very last verse. in the last chapter of the book
of Judges. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
How many of you have heard that quoted? All of us have. You know
what the first half of that verse is? In those days there was no
king in Israel. There was no authority. There
was nobody to punish the evil doers. So every man did that
which was right in his own eyes. And if you want to read about
a time of chaos, a time of anarchy, a time of murder and confusion,
read the last three chapters of the book of Judges, and you'll
see what it is to be without a government, and for the most
part to be without a church. When you and I come to the New
Testament, it's obvious what God had intended all along, and
that was a final separation of the church and state. We've got
the advantage of looking back, haven't we? They didn't understand
back in Abraham's day. They sure didn't understand,
I imagine, in Moses' day when the church was the state. But
in the New Testament, we begin to see the separation and God
manifests the separation. Remember when the Lord Jesus
was standing before Pilate and Pilate said, Are you a king?
He said, Do you say that of yourself or somebody else tell you that
of me? And this is where he made this wonderful statement. My
kingdom is not of this world. If it was, my subjects would
fight for me and deliver me from this death. But now is my kingdom
not of this world. Now there's kingdoms that are
of this world. They're governments that God
has set them up. And then there's the kingdom
of the Lord Jesus Christ which is not of this world. The kingdoms
of this world are set up to punish the evildoers. but the kingdom
of God is set up to deliver us from evil and to forgive us our
sins. There is coming a day when the
kingdoms of this world, all of its governments, will be subdued,
they will be conquered, they will be eliminated, and every
last one of them will become the kingdoms of our Lord and
of His Christ in a new heaven and a new earth. The best nation on earth is those
people who realize the need of having both a state and a church. And the best is when those two
are separated. And you are wise people when
you know the line that separates them. And it's not always easy,
is it? That's one of the problems we're
having today. Where do we draw the line, the separation between
church and state? And notice our text here in verses
10 through verse 18 that I read to you about going out here to
battle and besieging one of these cities and making war against
them and killing all the males. And that was when they had battles
with these nations that were outside of Canaan. I imagine
some nation had come against them and maybe attacked them
and then fled back to their own country. And Israel said, we're
going to get you. But when they got there, they
had to offer conditions of peace. And if they accepted the peace,
they taxed them. And they became their servants. But they didn't do so in the
land of Canaan. Boy, they destroyed everybody.
Men, women, and children. Everything in the land of Canaan.
Can you imagine what an intolerable burden this would be for the
church today if we had to develop weapons, make our own arms, arm
ourselves and go kill people? Go make war on people? Or as
a church to physically defend ourselves from some invading
force? Aren't you glad that God lays
this burden upon the state? Aren't you glad that finally
in His own time and according to His own purpose, He made a
distinction between these two? had the church today and theocracy
as they had back here in Israel's time, it would look more like
Islam, wouldn't it? I wonder sometimes if Mohammed
the Prophet didn't come here and read some of these passages
and developed some of the conditions that he put upon cities that
he attacked. He attacked cities. And the first
thing he did was offer them terms of peace. I can't remember all
the conditions. One was you submit to us and
we'll save your life, but you'll have to pay us taxes. You can
go ahead and worship your God, but you can't remodel your building.
You can worship your God as long as your building will stand,
but don't let us try and see you remodeling it. Or you can
convert and begin to worship Mohammed. You can do that. Allah,
Mohammed's God. Or, if you don't choose those
options, we'll cut your head off. Wasn't that basically what
they did here? This is what the church did back
in Israel's day. They said, here's your terms
of peace. You surrender to us and you pay us taxes. I doubt
if they made them convert. They said, if you don't do that,
we're going to kill you. Aren't you glad God separated? The making
war today, fighting, taking up physical weapons and fighting,
is the sole responsibility of the state. The church just don't
do it. You may work at the police station. You may join the military and
be a Christian, a godly man, and have to go off to battle.
And that's probably our responsibility. Nothing wrong with that. But
the church doesn't do it, does it? has the gospel. The state may go and battle with
people with physical arms, but the church is to go with the
gospel. Arm with the gospel and preach forgiveness. And boy,
when you get these two mixed up now, it's a mess. It's a mess. Let me read you
something. If you don't know much about
the history of John Calvin, they're in Geneva. They talked him into setting
up a government in Geneva. Geneva was a mess, and I'm not
here to judge Calvin and those men. I imagine if we'd have been
in the time that they lived in and what was going on there in
Geneva and France and Germany, we'd have probably saw a need
to do the same thing they did. But they set up their own government.
The church set up a government and ruled in Switzerland for
several years. Let me read you some. I was studying
some history on this, and I quote, were to preach to the people.
The doctors, the doctors of education, they were to educate the young.
The elders were to supervise the morals of their fellow citizens. And the deacons were to take
care of the poor and the sick. The private lives of all citizens
were under strict supervision and even small breaches of discipline
which we would regard today as mere nuisances or would not notice
it, were severely punished. Between 1942 and 1946 alone,
58 persons were executed and at least 66 vanished besides
all of those numerous people who were put into long prison
terms. No dancing, no drinking, no gambling,
no playing of cards, no instrumental music, no ornament in dress, no jewelry,
or no plaiting of the hair for the women was allowed, and all
were obliged to attend every sermon. Now Calvin set this up,
him and others there in Geneva. There was a man by the name of
McGill Sievert. He was a Spanish doctor. universal
Unitarian pastor, preacher. He didn't believe in the divinity.
He didn't believe in the Godhead. Calvin had him burned. See what
you get into when you try to mix both of these together. It
didn't last long. I say I'm not here to judge them,
but I'm just saying that when our forefathers set our government
up, I think they had some direction. probably secret direction from
God Himself. They gave us a constitutional
right to worship according to our own conscience as long as
our worship did not involve any harm to the bodies of men. They didn't judge what it was
doing to a man's soul. They couldn't. That wasn't their
business. They dealt with the body. The
church deals with the soul. The government deals with the
body. And here is what they said in the First Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting
that establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof. And we look on that now, we can
see God's hand in the setting up of our government. If false
religions and cults are established and prosper in our nation. The
Church probably has nobody to blame but itself. We should oppose
false religion. We should oppose cults. We should
seek to win them to the truth from their lies. But that is
all we can do. We cannot punish them physically. We cannot burn them at the stake,
and neither can the state. Now, that's our government. And
I think I like ours better than I do Calvin's, don't you? And
that's why his didn't work. And I think God let him do that
maybe to show us that he separated these two, the church and the
state. Somebody says our government
is failing. How's the church doing? How does
the church do it? Our government is abusing his
rights. Don't the church often abuse
her liberties? The government is opposed to
the church. Sometimes the church is opposed
to itself. The government is trying to devour
the church. How many times have we seen the
church bite and devour itself? The church needs to keep itself
pure. The church needs to mend its
ways. The church needs to pray for
the government and to be a light and example of truth and justice. And then if the government is
not what it should be, at least the church won't have it on her
conscience. That is her fault. The old Puritans used to say,
as goes the church, so goes the state. And that's so in so many
realms and so many We need to remember this concerning the
church and the state, that God has ordained them both. There
is a true church in this world among all the mess that we see
in religion. There is a true church in this
world. She is established by the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is His building and there
is a government. And wherever there is a government
in this world, the Lord established that as well as He did the church. He upholds the church and the
Lord upholds the government. And when any government is set
up, He sets it up. When any government is pulled
down, He pulls it down. We have governments today that
are rising and falling. We have since the history of
this world. One takes over another government. One country whips
another country. And God will judge the justice
or the injustice of such action. But no government will arise
and no government will fall except God removes His hand. We have
here this in our text, Israel coming into the land of Canaan.
And look how many nations fell. Seven great nations fell. But why did they fall? God moved
His hand, didn't He? God gave their nations to the
nation of Israel. When they set up our government
here in the United States and it began to spread west, look
how many tribes were in this country that were defeated, that
were literally wiped out. Little governments in and of
themselves. Was some of it unjust? Probably was. And God will judge
that. But you know why those tribes
failed? And you know why this nation prevailed? It was in God's
purpose. It was in God's purpose. Listen
to Psalm 75, verse 6. For motion cometh neither from
the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is
the judge. He putteth down one, and setteth
up another. By me kings reign, and princes
decree justice. By me princes and nobles rule,
even all the judges of the earth. By me they rule. That's in Proverbs
8, verse 15. He removeth kings, and setteth
up kings. Daniel 2, verse 21. The most
high rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever
he will, and sets over it the basis of men." Daniel chapter
4 and verse 32 and verse 17. Listen to Jeremiah 27, 5. I have
made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground,
by my great power and by my stretched out arm, and I have given it
to whom it seemeth fit, proper meat unto me. See what a story
the Bible tells? There is no government any more
than there is a church, but what God has ordained and established
it and upheld it in this world. And as you look back through
the history of the world, look at all these nations, even large
mighty nations that have arose and fallen. Another rises, it
fell. Now our nation has arisen for
hundreds of years. And you know something? It will
fall too. It will fall to Him. As much as we love it, it will
fall. If it don't fall to the coming of Christ, it will fall
there. And it will become His kingdom.
And this little man-made kingdom will be abolished. Our Lord rises up governments
to try His church. To try His church. Boy, look
how governments have tried the church of Christ. Tried them
sore. God raises up governments to
purge His church. That's what happened after World
War I there when Russia took over those eastern bloc countries,
Poland and all those countries. They had churches full and probably
about three or four percent of them were true Christians. And
boy, they started putting those people in prison and labor camps
and the church went down to nothing. But you read the history of those
men, those pastors that came out of those prisons finally,
when the church was purged, when they had about eight or ten percent
of the Christians left, he said it's a wonderful place to be.
They had forgot all their little petty differences. They had fellowship. What happened? God purged His
church. You know that's what we need
today, isn't it? We don't even pray for it because we're afraid
to. What's it going to take to purge the church? It usually
takes great afflictions. It usually takes trials. I don't
think we want that, do we? Only the Lord can do that. Sometimes
He raises up governments to chasten His church. He raises up governments
to protect His church. But there is no government any
place at any time but what God Himself has instituted. He's the Lord of the government.
as much as he is the Lord of the church. Well, this takes
a great burden off of the church, doesn't it? Let the government take care
of the government. Let the state take care of the state. That
will leave the church time to take care of the kingdom of Christ
in this world. I don't say a Christian can't
be a part of the state as far as influencing it, maybe serving
in an office But we have another kingdom to care for, haven't
we? That's the kingdom of Christ. Our attitude towards the government
as the church. Listen to Titus 3.1.2. Here's our attitude. Here's what
we're instructed to do as the church. Put them in mind to be
subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates. to be ready to every good work,
to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing
all meekness unto all men." Obey our government. Boy, I tell you,
there's no government that's perfect. We know that, don't
we? The best of governments has got
faults and flaws and felons, but what would it be not to have
a state? The worst state in the world,
the worst government in this earth is better than no government
there at all. We had the Arab Spring last year. Last spring we had the Arab Spring.
We thought we could overthrow some of those mean dictators.
They're in Libya. Like we did Hussein. But that
created such a vacuum. What happened then? Look at those
places now. when the law was abolished. The
only way to rule some people is with a hammer. With authority
is with a fist. And when we removed the authority,
the law, boy, look at it now. Is it better now? Boy, Libya
was bad. Qaddafi, he was a wicked man,
wasn't he? But is it any better now? So we need to be mindful of our
government that we have. Secondly, in 1 Timothy 2, 1,
"...exhort therefore that first of all supplications, and prayers,
and intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men,
for kings, and for all that are in authority, that we may lead
a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." Our
church needs our prayers. Our leaders need our prayers.
They need the prayers of the churches. We need both of these. We need to pray for the church
and we need to pray for the government. And thirdly and lastly is this. The church must hold the government
accountable to obey its own laws. There is nothing wrong with that.
Sometimes we get a feeling guilty when we get on to our government.
But when our officials do not obey their own laws, we need
to hold them accountable. Sometimes when you read Acts
chapter 16, you remember there at Philippi when those government
officials whipped the Apostle Paul and Silas and put them in
jail? They didn't have a right to do
that. They should never have did that. They were Roman citizens. Well, the next day, those officials
sent word to let those men go. Let them go on their way. And Paul said, we're not going
anywhere. You let them come down here and you let them turn us
out of jail. Because we're Roman citizens,
they've done us wrong and we're going to hold them accountable.
There's nothing wrong. with the church holding the government
accountable. And this hurts, but there's nothing
wrong with a state mocking the church when the church is not
walking in truth. The professed church I'm talking
about. We see a lot of that today, don't we? I want to read one
portion of Scripture to you in closing. You're familiar with
this, Romans chapter 13. I think this tells us a lot about
the Lord's purpose in finally separating the church and the
state. Wayne will be teaching on this
probably four or five years from now. He's going through the book
of Romans and he's chapter three. Let's read this in Romans chapter
13. Let every soul, let everybody,
be subject unto the higher powers, the governing powers. For there
is no power but of God. The powers that be, they are
ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth
the power, the authority, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they
that resist shall receive to themselves judgment, damnation. For rulers are not a terror to
good doctrines. You know what that said? That
wasn't what it said, was it? They sometimes are a terror to
good doctrine. But they don't know any better, you see. They're
carnal men. They're the basis of men. They're
not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Usually governments,
the worst of governments, North Korea or China, will not punish
you for being good to your neighbor. But they will punish your neighbor
if they try to invade your space, your house. Most governments
will do that. For rulers are not a terror to
good works, but to the evil. Will thou then not be afraid
of the power, the authority? Do that which is good, and you
shall have praise of the same. Now look at this. For he is,
the government, the state, is the minister of God to thee for
good. But if you do that which is evil,
be afraid. For he beareth not the sword
in vain. For he is the minister of God,
a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Now if
you're on the highway and the speed limit is 55 and you're
running 65 and you suddenly see a cop, what do you do? It scares
you, doesn't it? Why does it scare you? He bears
the sword and you know it. And that's a wonderful thing.
That's a good thing. But there are countries that
when they see a cop, they don't care. Some countries have no appreciation
and have no reverence for authority. Thank God for hundreds of years
this nation has not been that way. And don't you appreciate
that? That's of God. It's of God. Wherefore you must
needs be subject not only for wrath, but for conscience sake. And for this cause pay you taxes
also, for they are God's ministers. attending continually upon this
very thing. Render therefore to all their
dues tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom custom, fear to
whom fear, honor to whom honor." One of the reasons I wanted to
look at this tonight is because you and I should be so thankful. I know that you and I love our
country. We love our form of government
and we see it slipping. But still, still, we have the
best government yet today of any nation in this world. And
with very, very few exceptions, our government does not interfere
with our life. And we come here this evening,
we can worship, and they'll say nothing about it. And if we have
to call them because of disturbance, we know they'll come, don't we?
They'll be here. So we ought to be so thankful.
that we have a government and we have laws to protect the good
and to punish the evil. And there's only one exception
when we cannot obey the government, when we have to violate God's
law. When they told Peter and the apostles, you better not
speak in His name anymore, they said, it's better to obey God
than man. We cannot help but speak the
things which we have heard and seen. But we don't have that
problem here, do we? We don't have that problem. We
pay taxes, and sometimes our taxes go for things we don't
like. But that's not our responsibility. When Israel were taken captive
into Babylon and Assyria and other countries, they paid taxes.
Those who stayed in Israel paid taxes to foreign countries. What
did they do with those taxes? There's no telling what they
did. They probably built churches to idols. They built idols temples
out of the taxes they collected from Israel. But Israel wasn't
responsible for that. They were commanded to pay taxes.
And you and I are today, aren't we? Can you imagine Paul riding
here to the Romans and say, pay taxes to your government? But
Paul, don't you see what they're doing? They're building this
huge gymnasium, and they're going to throw Christians in there
to the line. And you want us to pay for that? Yes. Because
you're not responsible for what they do with it. You're just
responsible to obey God and give tax to whom tax is due, and tribute
to whom tribute. And the Lord will judge their
government money. He'll judge the state. They'll
come before Him in judgment just like everybody else. I tell you,
I wouldn't want to be a politician, would you? I wouldn't want to
be a leader of this government. I just wouldn't. I wouldn't want
to be responsible for everything that's going on because God is
going to judge it. He's going to judge it. But you
and I are in a heavenly kingdom. We've already been judged. Christ
has taken our judgment. And now there's no condemnation
for us, but we're in Christ Jesus.