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The mission of Church & Family Life is to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture for both church and family life.
The Jurisdiction of the Government
Oct. 28, 2020
00:00
-1:59:11
Transcription

Well, welcome to the Jurisdictions Under Fire, Church and Family in the Balance. This conference is being provided by Church and Family Life. Our mission is to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life for the spread of the gospel. And we are broadcasting for three nights in a row. Tonight, tomorrow night, and the next night at 8 o'clock.

And tonight we have three men with us to help us think through the jurisdiction of the government. Tomorrow night we'll focus on the church. The following night on Friday night we'll focus on the jurisdiction of the family. So let me introduce our guests. First let me introduce Joel Beakey.

Welcome Joel. Great to be with you. Thanks so much. Joel is the president and professor of systematic theology at Puritan Reform Theological Seminary. He's also a pastor at Heritage Reform Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

And Joel, so here we are having this online conference. For 10 years, we've been together at Ridgecrest Conference Center with there. I'm told there were about a thousand people signed up for this. So, at least at least a lot of them are are here with us but boy, I sure miss those live meetings. We're not, we're not done with live meetings for sure.

You know, Charles Spurgeon said that he learned to when he preached, he learned to preach the people that were in the pews and now to the empty seats next to them. So, I think now we've gotta learn to preach to people that are listening that we can't even see. Right. Right. Amen.

Well, we also have Tom Askel. Welcome Tom. Thank you very much. So glad to have you. Tom's a pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida.

He's the president of Founders Ministries, a very, very like-minded work with our work. I really recommend that you tune in to the Founders Ministries podcast. It's fantastic. They're saying things that are really really needful for the time and they have remarkable resources on on the Founders Ministries website. Tom, thanks for joining us.

Really appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. Glad to be here. And finally, we have Jason Dome. Jason is a pastor at Sovereign Redeemer Community Church in Youngsville, North Carolina about 15 minutes from here and he's a regional facilitator for Church and Family Life.

Jason and I have been laboring together for about 30 years. Wow. And we had and Jason, hey, Jason. Hi, good evening, everyone. Good.

Glad to be with you. Jason, I put you last so that you can clean up all of our errors. You know, I don't know if there's enough time for that. Oh my. Well, our format tonight will follow a consistent pattern.

Each man will bring a 20-minute message to us. We'll open it up for discussion. If you have questions, please send them in and we'll try to handle as many as we can. I will do that after every message. And also, if you're on the live stream, we're offering 50% off of all of our resources.

So go to our website if you'd like to do that. So we'll start with Joel and then Tom and and then Jason. And I think maybe it's important to ask, why are we doing this? Why are we handling this matter of the jurisdiction of the government and jurisdictions under fire? Well, our government, like never before in U.S.

History, has inserted itself into churches and families the government is kind of broken out of their boundaries at least they're biblically defined boundaries and kind of in a way like a flood flowing over the levee and endangering everything below. That's our view. On the other hand, in many ways this has been very invigorating for the church. This has been very good for the church. Pastors have had to think on levels they never dreamed they would have to think on.

We've had to study the Word of God. We've had to talk together and debate matters relating to Romans 13, 1 Peter 2, of Scripture. It's been very good for us. I think it's been a good trial run if there are more difficult times ahead. We're far better prepared now to deal with them.

I'm really very thankful for the pressures that we have been under. And, you know, we're conducting these sessions because Scripture is sufficient. The Lord is so kind to us. He teaches us how to think about everything. And He's taught us in His Word how to think about civil government, its role, our role in it.

And we have before us a sufficient guide to help us understand on the one hand and help us to understand in a holy way, in a biblical way, to the governments that we exist under. So we're going to start with Joel Beakey, who will lay a foundation for us. I've asked Joel to explain what the Bible teaches concerning the civil government. And as Joel speaks, if questions come to your mind, feel free to submit them, and we'll try to deal with them. So Joel Give us the foundation.

What does the Bible teach about the civil magistrate? Okay I'd like to I'd like to just begin by reading from Romans 13 Romans 13 1 through 7 a classic text as you as you turn there let me just say that today Christians are facing well just tons of questions regarding our relationship to the civil government. But before we can get into, as you'll hear later tonight, excesses of civil government and so on. We need to have a basic understanding of what the Bible teaches regarding civil government. And so that's what I wanna do tonight.

It's a huge topic. I have to be very condensed, but I actually wrote up a 20 set where we wrote up 27 pages of material just to get the basics down, and I've condensed it way, way down now. So just in 20 minutes, I wanna cover with you The Old Testament view, what Christ brings to the equation in his teachings, and then the apostles Paul and Peter. So three points. Old Testament, I'm going to give you eight principles.

I'll repeat each of the principles once so note takers can get them down, they'll be short, and then four principles from Christ and seven principles from Paul and Peter. So I'm going to give you really quickly tonight 19 principles from the Bible about civil government. Romans 13 1 through 7. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.

Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same.

For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil be afraid. For he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God to thee for good but if thou 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. Wherefore you must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake.

For for this cause pay you tribute also for they are 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, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. Let's pray. Gracious God, we ask thy benediction upon the three addresses this evening, and we do pray that taken collectively, they may impart to us much valuable biblical instruction about civil government. It's extent, it's foundations, it's overreach and other issues involved.

Help us, each one of us as speakers and bless this evening to all who are online with us. And we pray for every family gathered with us that by benediction would be upon us all tonight and the further nights as well. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so I'm going to give you eight principles that the Old Testament lays down for the foundation for civil government. Number one, God alone is the Creator and Lord having absolute authority over men.

That's an obvious one. God alone is the Creator and Lord having absolute authority over men. You see that already in the opening verse of the Bible, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. He's the king of the nations, Jeremiah says. So no civil ruler, no matter how rich, majestic, powerful, may be treated as a god.

Civil government is a divine institution. So all civil government is under God and dependent upon Him as one man exercises authority over another. Principle number two, God created human beings in his image and authorized them to rule as his servants. God created human beings in his image and authorized them to rule as his servants. So God said, let us make man in our own image after our likeness and then let them have dominion, etc.

Genesis 1 26. So as God's image bearers, human beings have the capacity to exercise government over living creatures, including over each other. Principle number three, the creation of all men and women in God's image makes them essentially equal. The creation of all men and women in God's image makes them essentially equal. So God created man in his own image, the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.

Lactantius said in around the year 300, God who produces and gives breath to all men will that all men should be equal because all humanity bears the image of God. Principle number four, God instituted the family as a creation ordinance before civil government. God instituted the family as a created ordinance before civil government. God said to the first man and woman be fruitful and multiply Marriage and child rearing are ordained by God as part of the order of creation Genesis 2 therefore whatever authority Civil authority has over many women regarding say criminal activity it does not have the authority to define marriage or parenting, but should receive and uphold them as they are created by God. So heads of households do not derive their authority from civil government, but from God.

And the raising of children is not the responsibility of civil government, but of their parents with a particular calling upon their fathers. Principle number five, God authorized civil punishment for those who destroy his image bearers. God authorized civil punishment for those who destroy his image bearers. So after Adam's disobedience plunged mankind into that dreadful state of sin, the human race descended into violence. And the Lord purged the world with the mighty waters of the flood and instituted a new order in which he required the death of any animal or man that unjustly killed a human being." Genesis 9, 5, and 6.

So civil government originated from God's sovereign institution and it exists for the good of mankind by the punishment of evildoers. Irenaeus said at the end of the second century, earthly rule therefore has been appointed by God for the benefit of the nations, so that under the fear of human rule, men may not eat each other up like fishes." The Belgian Confession, Article 36, put it this way, we believe that our gracious God, because of the depravity of mankind, has appointed kings, princes, and magistrates willing that the world should be governed by certain laws and policies to the end that the dissoluteness of men might be restrained and all things carried on among them with good order indecency. For this purpose he has invested the magistrates with the sword. Principle number six. The Mosaic law shows the wisdom of distributing authority among officers whether in church or state.

The Mosaic law shows the wisdom of distributing authority among officers whether in church or state. So God himself is the chief lawgiver or legislator, revealing his law through Moses. And under the Old Covenant, Israel was ruled by elders, judges, priests, kings, and other officials, which led John Calvin to say, men's faults or failings cause it to be safer and more bearable for a number to exercise government so that they may help one another, teach and admonish one another, and if one asserts himself unfairly, there may be a number of others to restrain his willfulness. Principle number seven. God's moral law is the basis and standard of civil authority.

God's moral law is the basis and standard of civil authority. God's moral law is the basis and standard of civil authority. It's a very important one. Israel's supreme national constitution was the Ten Commandments, which defined the fundamental duties of all people and so make known the basic human rights that civil government must protect. So these include the rights to worship God in the manner of his appointing, to exercise authority in one's own family, to preserve one's life from unjust harm, to have the faithfulness of one's spouse, to possess and enjoy one's property, and to be protected from unjust accusation and slander.

So the righteousness of God's law is essential to the very foundation of civil government. Proverbs 14, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. And again, Proverbs 16, it's an abomination to kings to commit wickedness for the throne is established by righteousness. And finally principle number eight, God's people may serve righteously in the administration of wicked civil rulers. Think of the exemplary Kabbalonian regime.

They show us that godly believers may serve in the administration of unrighteous rulers, though not without difficulty. Believers in this situation must resolve by faith not to compromise their purity. They must seek wisdom from God by prayer, Daniel 2. Refuse to worship the idols of this world, Daniel 3. Remind their rulers of God's sovereignty and urge them to repent of their sins, Daniel 4, and persevere in their prayer and worship toward God, even if it's rendered illegal." Daniel 6 So those are eight principles then from the Old Testament that are foundational for civil government.

Now four principles from Jesus Christ that clarify the authority of civil government. Four principles. Number one, Christ thought that the authority of every civil ruler comes from God. Every civil ruler, their authority comes from God. When put before the Roman governor by the Jews seeking his crucifixion, Jesus told Pilate he would have no civil and punitive authority over him except if we're given thee from above, John 19.11.

The civil government is not independent from God's sovereignty But it exists under God's sovereignty That's what Jesus is saying. Its authority is Delegated from heaven so Christ addressed Pilate individually indicating that not only government in general But he a particular ruler had power only by God's will Principle number two of Christ Christ said men have a true obligation to civil authority, but total obligation to God. Christ said men have a true obligation to civil authority, but total obligation to God. So the Pharisees and the Herodians attempted to trap Jesus by asking, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? And Christ asked, you know the story for a Roman coin, and he queried, whose is this image and this superscription?

And he said, Caesar. And he said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God. Now Tertullian in the year 200 made this profound statement and I love this statement. Render to Caesar what are Caesar's and what are God's to God's. That is the image of Caesar which is on the coin render that to Caesar.

And the image of God which is on man, render that to God. So as indeed we render to Caesar money, but to God you must render yourself. Principle number three. Christ's kingdom advances by biblical truth not by civil force. Christ's kingdom advances by biblical truth not civil force.

Pilate asked Christ, aren't thou the king of the Jews? And Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from hence. Thou sayest that I am a king to this end.

I was born for this cause I came into the world That I should bear witness unto the truth You see the kingdom of God is not Not a political kingdom asserted by military force on earth, but a spiritual heavenly kingdom asserted by the proclamation of God's truth and its reception with faith and obedience. That's why the church doesn't use the sword, but uses the Word of God. Principle number four, Christ's kingship over his church overrules human civil authority. Very important one. Christ's kingship over his church overrules human civil authority.

So with the resurrection of Christ came his exaltation to supreme authority over heaven and earth and the launch of the church's mission to all nations. Matthew 28. So though the rulers, elders, and priests of Israel commanded them not to preach in the name of Jesus, they just replied whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than to God judge you judge ye but we ought to obey God rather than men so it's inconceivable that the church's worship and ministry should be under the direction of any civil government The only monarch in the church is the son of David and he reigns from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit speaking in his written word and that has all kinds of ramifications for a present day and age which I believe the third speaker is going to address tonight. Now that leads me to my last major point, the apostles. I read to you already what Paul said from Romans 13 1 through 7.

Let me just read A few verses from Peter as well, Paul and Peter. So this is Peter, 1 Peter 2, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake whether it be to the king as supreme or to governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God that with well-doing, you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. Well, from Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2, we can draw these seven quick principles as I close with these tonight.

Number one, every man's duty towards civil rulers normatively is to be subject to them. The verb translated be subject here or submit literally means you put yourself under another so long of course as they don't command you to sin. So it has the sense of acknowledging the legitimate superior authority of another person and voluntarily acting according to one's proper place under that person in the structure of society in terms of social rank or order. Kelvin said by mentioning every soul, Peter removes every exception lest anyone should claim in immunity. So subjection to civil authority is the duty of all people and all Christians providing that civil authority does not command sin.

Principle number two, submission to civil rulers is an act of obedience to God. It's an act of obedience to God. For the Lord's sake, says Peter, for the authority of some men over others is the ordinance of God. Paul's reference to plural powers and then rulers indicate that God not only ordained civil government, but also the individuals who have authority in it. So as a sovereign king of the world, God both authorized the institution of civil government and places whom he will in those positions of power.

Principle number three, rebellion by private individuals against civil rulers is resistance against God, as long, of course, as it doesn't involve sin. So to resist means to oppose or fight against an enemy. And it's often used a physical warfare in the original language here. It's the opposite of being subject. And so implies the attitude that the civil ruler has no right to exercise authority over us.

Fighting against God's ordained authorities when they don't command us to sin brings damnation, Paul says, which is literally in Greek judgment, God's judgment in this life and even possibly in the life to come if we don't repent. Principle number four, the civil ruler is God's servant appointed for the good of the people. Literally, Paul says this, it's for the good of the people. He's the minister of God to thee for good. That's the way magistrates should be.

Calvin put it this way, magistrates may henceforth learn what their vocation is for they are not able, they are not to rule for their own interests but for the public good. Principle number five, civil rulers do good by punishing doers of evil and praising doers of good. This is the way it should be, this is obvious, God is given to civil authorities, said Paul, the sword, the power of deadly force, to restrain and punish criminals or to wage just wars against the nation's enemies. So What Paul and Peter are both saying is that when they speak of good and evil they imply that the civil government must follow the principles of God's moral law. Now without a transcendent moral standard of good and evil, that's one of the big problems we face today, recognized by both people and the government, then there can be nothing except the tyranny described by Henry Smith in the 16th century, the tyranny of might makes right in every cause.

Civil rulers are then themselves subject to the law, and when they commit crimes, it's the duty of other civil authorities to rebuke them, and when necessary, to remove them from office. Augustine, the church father, said, without justice kingdoms are no different than bands of robbers. Principle number six. Christian subjection to civil rulers protects the church from false accusations. Peter says, with well-doing you may put the silence, the ignorance of foolish men as free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as a servants of God.

So by our subjection to civil authority when they don't command us to sin, Christians are not men of violence or arrogance or injustice but a peace and humility and righteousness. And finally principle number seven, our duty toward rulers and all men is to love and honor them. Paul and Peter both recognize this. They say, oh, no man anything but to love one another, honor all men, also honor the king. So in civil government, we must realize that we also have to do with real live human beings created after the image of God.

And we must treat them as such, respect them, even love them as our fellow men and women, and show compassion to them as sinners who need the Savior. And as important as it is to debate candidates and policies, our political rhetoric should never become a hindrance to the gospel of Christ and the salvation of sinners. Well, I hope this brief survey of the biblical doctrine of civil government and these 19 principles will be helpful as a start off tonight and provide a basis for discussing some of the more difficult questions to come about exactly what it means to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to the thing, God the things that are God's. So may God give us a wise, humble, courageous, and God-fearing spirit in this very contentious age. Thank you.

Joel, Joel, thank you so much. That sounds like the beginning of a book to me. And I'm going to be the first in line to buy it. So brothers Tom and Jason, if you have any comments or questions, you know, one of the questions that came to my mind as I was thinking about these 18 points, and maybe, Joel, you could comment on this if you if you can in the current moment that we're in what are the ways that you see the church getting some of these things wrong yeah you know I I had a brother who was 19 years old and I was 16 when he got engaged. And I, as a younger brother thought it was a little foolish He was I thought he was too young and I made up mild.

I made a mild complaint little criticism of his bride-to-be and we were driving down the road and he stopped, pulled off the road and he took, shut the engine down, he took his finger and he poked me three times in the chest and said, you don't ever, ever, ever criticize my woman again, you can criticize me but not my woman, That's my bride. And I thought about that later. You know, the bride of Christ is the church, and Jesus gave everything for her. My brother didn't die. He didn't shed blood for his engaged fiance, but he loved her.

And Jesus loved the church so much that he died for her. But we live in a day and age, Scott, where people can just criticize the church at random, they can criticize political leaders at random. So how do we handle that? I think the church makes a mistake when the church allows terrible things to be said about ministers, but also about political leaders without weeping, as we say it. So Jeremiah complained about the church, but he did it weeping.

Oh, for the slaying of the daughter of my people, and he's weeping because the church was so far off the mark. Well, that's something different. But we have such an audacious age and Christians are prone to be influenced by it, but we think we can just spout off about the church and then we can spout off about political leaders however we want. Now, you may be very against one of the two running for president right now in America and I understand that. I am strongly against one of their policies.

But I still pray that God will protect me from not saying unjust things about that individual. But yes, I must speak against the policies that are sinful. You see, so we have to be careful what we say about people, also people in positions of leadership, whether in church or society, even as we weep over the state of the nation and over the state of the church. I don't know if that's helpful, but that's where I would begin. It reminds me of Peter saying, honor the king.

We live in a time where the civil discussion is uncivil. Of course, it's always been that way. But yeah, that's that's that's really helpful. Any Jason or Tommy, anything you want to add to this? One of the things that struck me listening to you, Joel, and it seems so evident to me as I look at the situation we're in in our nation today and what's gone on over these last many, many years, especially what we've seen come to the surface over the last year, is we have lost sight of the fact that the God who gave us the gospel has also given us the law.

And he loves his law as much as he loves his gospel. And I think we desperately need a recovery of an understanding of God's law and how the moral law of God still obtains for Christians today, that He's the one who determines what's right and what's wrong. You underscored that point in one of your principles. And that's almost a foreign concept in our nation at large. And even sadly, sometimes in our churches that we desperately need to recover.

I appreciate you emphasizing that. I think that is a vital message for us today. Yeah, and that's exactly where the church needs to speak out in that situation. And that's our domain also. We are to preach that law.

And that's where we can speak up also about political issues when one party or the other is promoting immoral issues, say the degradation of Romans one, it's incumbent on us to speak out even if it means that we get jailed. Right. Where we cannot speak out is areas that are not immoral, not against that law, but are areas of preference. There we have to be careful. I mean, we can speak privately to people what we prefer, but not from the pulpit, because then we have to respect the different domains and spheres.

Amen. You know, in light of that, I read earlier this year, forced myself to read the Democratic Party's platform. And I know it's been revised some, but I reread some of the sections that were revised. And it not only advocates, it glorifies abortion in the platform. And it's wicked.

And sometimes I think that we get hung up because we don't want to call wickedness wickedness. We're afraid that we're engaging in political speech or sounding like a partisan hack. None of us should be that. None of us should be any kind of political action committee. We should guard our churches from that.

But in doing that, we can't be silent whenever we have a party celebrating the slaughter of unborn children as we've seen this platform for the Democrat party do and as we've seen Democrat politicians do publicly celebrating, applauding laws that expand the abortion laws. And we can point out, and I do, I mean, boy, you get me going on abortion. I get very, very strong on the pulpit. I just think it's abominable. I think it's century from now, people are gonna look back and say, this is far, far worse than the Holocaust.

Six million Jews got killed. We've killed 60 million babies, Entire lifetimes from every one of them. That's ten times the amount and you think okay We've lost two hundred thousand people from the corona virus as terrible as that is. What is 200000 compared to 60 million? Right.

That's right. That's right. You know, you know, also, Tom, you remind me of John the Baptist, you know, who spoke out about the sexual immorality, you know, in the state and the same platform glorify sexual immorality in such an extreme way. The whole platform is a violation of the law of God almost point by point. And it really is a violation of these jurisdictions.

And there's no end to it, Scott, there's no end to it. I mean, my brother's, you know what he just told me? He said in parliament in Canada, in Ottawa, right now, right now, there's a bill almost ready to be passed that says if you have a seven year old child and that child wants to change into another son, it is a criminal offense. You can go to jail for telling your own child. No, you should be content to be a boy.

I mean, this is insanity. It is insanity. Yeah, I had a brother in New Zealand the other day tell me that a very similar thing has come is is being threatened by the new liberal government. Course, our own presidential candidate, Joe Biden, proclaimed pretty much the same thing in one of his speeches recently, that he would stand in the way of a parent who was standing in the way of a sex change by a child. This is an eight-year-old.

This is crazy. Well, OK. A lot of people and yes, it's true. OK. So let's transition here, Tom, to you.

We'd like for you to talk about unbiblical government usurpation, what it looks like. And of course, you know, we're we're getting little pictures of it here. I'm sure you've got a lot to talk about that's right on our radar screen now, but what does unbiblical government usurpation look like? Yeah, well, I want to lay some foundation first and some of this will touch on and recover or go back over some of the ground that Joel addressed. But One of the fundamental truths that we must recall is that all authority comes from God.

We need to start there. Genesis 1-1 can't be assumed any longer in our churches, certainly not in our culture. God is the one who created us. God is the one who establishes the rules whereby his world operates. To put a finer point on it, God is the one who determines how his image bearers are to live.

So, all authority comes from him. He has revealed in his Word clearly, as this whole conference is about, three clearly defined spheres of authority. The family, the church, and the state. That doesn't mean there's not other areas of authority that all of us have to deal with. If you're a student, then your teacher, your professor has a measure of authority in the classroom.

If you're an athlete, your coach, the officials of the game have an authority in the sport that you play. But the family, the church and the state are the three realms where God has established a foundational basis for human society. And each of those realms has its own God-given authority. Now obviously, there's going to be overlap in some of those jurisdictions at times. A woman, she can be a wife and a family, she can be a member of a church, she can be a citizen of a state and nation.

And as a wife, she is to be submissive to the authority of her husband. As a church member, she is to be submissive to the authority of elders and to the congregation. And Hebrews 13, 17, Ephesians 5, 21 would say that. As a citizen, she is to be submissive to the civil magistrates, as the passages that Joel read earlier in Romans 13, 1 Peter 2 indicate. And because of the inevitable overlap that sometimes occurs, Christians can become confused about how they should respond to legitimate authorities when those authorities call for contradictory actions.

So, for example, what's a wife to do when her husband instructs her to disobey a civil law? Or state government tells her to disobey her husband. There are admittedly some situations like that that are very difficult to sort out. I don't mean to minimize the complexity that can occur. However, I'm convinced that if Christians will remember one vitally important truth about all earthly authority, then most of these conflicts can be more easily navigated than they tend to be.

And here's that truth that all legitimate human authority is delegated authority. It's not inherent. It's delegated from God. It's vested. Jesus before his ascension said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

So what that means is that all legitimate authority that exists in the world owes its legitimacy to King Jesus and the fact that he has delegated it. So a husband has authority over his wife, not because he's inherently smarter, bigger, stronger than his wife, but because Christ has granted him that authority to sacrificially love his wife. Same thing with elders in a church. We have authority over the congregations that we serve because Christ is best at his authority in us, not because we're smarter, better, older or wiser, but because there is this office that Christ himself has ordained to carry out his will in the church. Same thing is true with civil magistrates.

And this is where I think that American Christians have not been as clear in their thinking as we need to be. All civil magistrates are servants of God, and they have been authorized by him to punish evildoers to praise those who do good, as 1 Peter 2 indicates. So we're to be submissive to legitimate authorities as long as they exercise their authority in compliance with King Jesus who delegated it to them. Husbands, churches, civil magistrates exercise their delegated authority properly when they do two things. First, when they obey what God's commanded them.

And then secondly, when they operate within the sphere that God is prescribed for them. So, any attempt by a lawful authority to get us to disobey God's commandments is illegitimate. So, if a husband tells his wife he wants her to steal from the store, that would be a misuse of his authority, and she should obey God rather than her husband and refuse to steal. It would also, however, or that they must sing 12 songs in a worship service. Now, there's nothing inherently sinful about singing either just one song or singing 12 songs in a worship service, but the governor has no business giving such orders to the church.

He's overstepping his God ordained jurisdiction. So I would say that he needs to stay in his lane. He needs to stay in his sphere. Each of these authorities are operating their own God-assigned spheres and to do so in obedience to Jesus Christ. I like the way the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith puts this, 1689 Confession, chapter 24, paragraph 1.

It uses language that's also found in the Savoy and the Westminster. It says, God, the Supreme Lord and King of all the earth, hath ordained Sib magistrates to be under him over the people for his own glory and for the public good, and to this end hath armed them with the power of the sword for defense and encouragement of them that do good and for the punishment of evildoers. So God's purpose for governmental officials is to encourage those who do good, punish those who do evil. The power of the sword has been given to civil authorities for that purpose and they are to rule, they're to fulfill their responsibility for the glory of God and for the public good. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon learned this the hard way because he failed in his responsibility.

He demanded worship of the golden image that he set up. When Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego refused, he had them thrown in the fiery furnace. Even after that, he remained arrogant and hard-hearted until the Lord gave him a deranged mind for a season and forced him to live in an animal. And it was only then that Nebuchadnezzar came to understand his lane and the fact that God is the one who has all authority and that he rules at the pleasure of God. And so in Daniel four, he says the Most High gave him his reason back.

He praised the Lord, lifted his eyes to heaven, declared, all inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing. God does according to his will among the host of heaven, among the inhabitants of the earth. Nobody can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? In Acts chapter 12, Luke records what happened to King Herod when he accepted the people's declarations that he spoke with the voice of God and not with the voice of a man. And Luke tells us that immediately an angel struck him down because he did not give God the glory, was eaten by worms and breathed his last.

He usurped authority that didn't belong to him. God judged him for it. Well, man, over the last several months with this COVID pandemic, we've seen many examples of governmental officials overstepping their God-ordained boundaries here in the United States. In Nevada, Governor Steve Sisolak issued an executive order that allowed businesses, including casinos, to operate at 50% capacity in June, as they were beginning to open back up their state. But he required churches, no matter what the size of their facilities or their congregations, to have no more than 50 people to gather in worship at any given time.

Well, Calvary Chapel of Dayton Valley, Nevada, asked for emergency relief from the court system in order to be able to have more than 50 people gathered. Finally, their case made it up to the Supreme Court in June, only to be denied by the Supreme Court by a 5-4 decision. It's fascinating to read some of the minority reports from the justices, like Samuel Alito said that the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion, but it says nothing about the freedom to play craps or blackjack or feed tokens into a slot machine or engage in any other game of chance. But the governor of Nevada apparently has different priorities, and good for him. Justice Gorsuch wrote this, the world we inhabit today with a pandemic upon us poses unusual challenges.

But he goes on to say, there's no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesar's Palace over Calvary Chapel. And I particularly like what Justice Kavanaugh wrote. He said, Nevada's 50-person attendance cap on religious worship services puts praying at churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques on worse footing than eating at restaurants, drinking at bars, gambling at casinos, or biking at gyms. In other words, Nevada is discriminating against religion. That in my estimation is a clear case of government overreach, both in exceeding its God-given jurisdiction and violating the very Constitution which its justices have sworn to uphold and defend.

Even worse examples have come to us from the state of California with Governor Gavin Newsom. Newsom initially, in the immediate wake of the pandemic, closed churches, calling them non-essential. That's his language. Then he said they could have no more than 100 people, no matter what the size of the sanctuary or the congregation. Then he banned singing and chanting and ordered the details of worship.

And Then he banned all worship, even in private homes for Bible study and fellowship. In July, he issued a public health order that has this title, COVID-19 Industry Guidance, Places of worship and providers of religious services and cultural ceremonies. And I'm just going to give a few bullet points from this 14 page document of the things that he dictates in for churches in California. One is the removal of Bibles and pamphlets from their building. A second is removal or disuse of sacred fonts or baptismals and vessels.

He gives instructions on how to wash religious garments, directions on how ministers must wash and prepare themselves, how collections plates must be used if they're used at all, how to open and close doors, how to greet guests, how he wrote that singing and chanting must be eliminated, And it just goes on and on and on. And religious leaders and church members who violate those orders face criminal prosecution and fines of up to $1, 000 a day for every occurrence and even imprisonment. On June the 5th, it's interesting, Gavin Newsom, the governor, has put on social media this comment about the protests taking place in his state. Protesters have the right to protest peacefully. This is after he had said that churches don't have the right to meet together as their consciences would dictate.

Well, I'm grateful that there are many churches that are defying Governor Newsom's orders, some like Pastor John MacArthur at Grace Community Church in the Los Angeles area, Pastor Rob McCoy of Godspeed Calvary Chapel in Ventura County. And there's many, many others whose names we don't know, but they are accumulating fines every time they meet as a result. I'm in touch with pastors in California pretty regular, even today, that are living under these draconian overreaches of the governor and their counties because of the pandemic and trying to, these officials are doing what they say is trying to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, but doing it in discriminatory ways. So I applaud pastors that are standing up to these edicts and defying them. We must stand up to tyrannical overreach by government officials, and we must remind civil magistrates that they are ordained by God and they're accountable to God.

They have a God-given jurisdiction and we must honor that and respect them for that, And yet they must be informed that we will not allow them to usurp the authority from other jurisdictions that God has also prescribed by their own governmental overreach. And when we see governmental overreach, I think it's incumbent upon the people of God to resist our governing authorities to do so humbly, to do so with a willingness to suffer the consequences that come, come what may, and to do so for the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many of the freedoms that we enjoy in this nation, we enjoy because there were those who went before us who did exactly that. And if we're going to honor Christ and if we're going to continue to try to educate this nation and preach God's word to this nation, we must be willing to say to the civil magistrates, you must obey King Jesus. You may not go beyond what the Lord himself has prescribed for you to do and in your office as his servant.

Tom, that's fantastic. You know, you've answered several of the questions soundly that have come in. One of them was does the government have the authority to limit Christian worship? I think you answered that. Is it the duty?

Yeah, let me Let me say, Scott, I do think that in extenuating circumstances, like at the beginning in March, when we had this pandemic, nobody knew what it was. And it looked like it was going to just wipe out a large portion of our society. Well, I think the government has a right to say, okay, these are emergency situations, we must take emergency measures. But when we were told two weeks to flatten the curve and that becomes now whatever, however many months it's been and there's more and more information and things are not what we were told they were, and then the government begins to continue to tell churches they cannot meet or restrict how they meet, while allowing casinos and protests and liquor stores and obituaries to stay open. Well, in that regard, the government officials are showing themselves to not be honorable and to not be operating in accordance with the prescriptions that have been given to them by our Lord and savior.

Amen. You know, I think all of us would embrace the idea that the government does have a role to protect the populace and you know, if there's an army moving through, it would be legitimate for a government to say, please don't meet today or you know like the explosion in Beirut where everybody had to wear a mask recently the government ordered that well everybody would recognize that was wisdom so there are I don't think any of us would say the government has no voice, but that voice has to be tested. And actually our confession speaks to that, that whole issue that a matter is studied and understood to be what is it, what's really happening here. And I think that's happened with us. I think we've realized what's really happening.

Joel and Jason. Any thoughts or comments to Tom's presentation? Well, my only comment would be, I mean, it was very good, and thanks, thank you for it, Tom. I've talked with some pastors who struggle when certain churches, which I have sympathy for, say we're going to just stay open and we're going to have, I mean we were one of the early churches too that just went back to full seating and so on, but as church leader I struggle with this question, Does my example influence other churches to have more divisiveness among themselves because they're trying to find a way in their own church, in their own situation with their own governor to find some kind of balance where They feel they're doing justice to the extent of the coronavirus in their worship service, taking the right precautions. And at the same time, yeah, not feeling overly pressured by maybe a few churches down the road or a few churches in the other state who are completely open and they're not completely open yet.

How do you how do you handle that? How does that pastor handle who finds himself in the midst of a of a a thunderstorm on all sides? Well, yeah, That's a big issue. I've had lots of conversations with pastors struggling with division in their churches. Tom, what's the right answer?

Well, yeah, right answer. I can tell you there are lots of ways to approach this. And our elders have never worked harder than this last year. We went through line by line our governor's executive orders and sometimes exchanged probably a dozen pointed, lengthy emails back and forth debating a sentence and a clause and a word in order to make sure we're understanding and are we within this order? Are we having to violate this order?

What are we going to recommend to the church? And so just knowing what we ourselves went through, we've never spent more time and energy, exhausting energy, trying to sort out these things, especially in March, April, May, right in those months when we were trying to get our bearings. So I want to be very, very generous and loving toward my brothers and other churches, pastors, elders, that are trying to sort that out in their context. We'll offer counsel that we've gone through, But in Florida, praise God, we've got a governor who very early on said, church is essential and we are not going to dictate to churches. Well, praise God for that.

That's not the case in Michigan or in California. I know in other places where these kinds of overreaches seem to be more common. So I wouldn't try to dictate to other bodies, elder bodies, but I would want to say, brothers, we've got to be really clear on law and gospel and on conscience. So one of the things we did in preparation for this is we spent a lot of time teaching our people to be sensitive to one another because no one knows your life better than you do. Some have very serious health issues or concerns about health of others that they care for or in their circle of influence.

And if you make a decision about whether to attend or not to attend that is different than someone else in the church because of your particular set of circumstances, then love dictates that I recognize, okay, you're doing what you're doing as to the Lord, we're gonna do what we do as to the Lord, and let's show deference to one another. By God's grace, we've seen that in the congregation, and we've had our bumps and still will have them, I'm sure. But our elders have been unified for the most part. Our congregation has been of one mind as well. And we still have some that are not meeting with us for various reasons.

And It's been going on now eight months and it's heartbreaking. We want to see them back because we're basically open and meeting regularly again. But I would just I'd say let's be generous to one another, humble, kind, try to offer counsel, try not to issue too many hard, fast rules in contexts where we're not living, but exhort our fellow pastors to think seriously and not simply go along. One of the things that's been disappointing to me is to see how so many, many pastors have just said, well, Romans 13, you know, the governor says we can't meet. So Romans 13, we're not going to meet.

And with that one very highly respected man, I've known for many, many years, said, we just won't meet again until the civil authorities tell us that we can. Well I think that's a dangerous precedent and that's putting too much in the hands of the civil authorities. So I guess my counsel would be, brothers we need to wrestle through this. Don't put off doing the hard work of trying to sort it out and and pray that God will guide you and in your particular context And doesn't that bear witness to the wisdom of God in concentrating The jurisdiction of elders to guide a congregation elders who know those people they know those people It's kind of like in the Old Testament, but the priests knew the people that they were giving the money to. And so what God does is he narrows down jurisdictional authority.

You know, a father has jurisdictional authority over a very small number of people he knows very, very well and gives him enormous authority. And he does the same thing with elders. He gives elders authority over the people that they know and that they're in covenant with. And that's just the wisdom of God. And so, you know, elders being unified in those things is really critical.

Anything else on this matter of unbiblical jurisdictions? Tom, let me just ask you a question about, you know, maybe what you see in the future. What do you think the hot spots I think we will see things coming that will be worse than what we've lived through in 2020. And I say that as a fairly optimistic person, at least in how I read the scripture and what's coming. But one of the things that does concern me is we have demonstrated pretty quickly how easily, our populace has demonstrated how easily we can be manipulated into doing things out of fear.

And, you know, health, we ought to be concerned with health. But the statistical analysis that now is available to us about the morbidity rate of COVID-19. It's far more dangerous for most of the population to get in their automobiles and drive to work than it is to fear that they will die from this disease. Now the disease is deadly. We know people who died and were deathly sick from it, gotten sick from it.

So I'm not trying to discount the seriousness of the disease, but it's not the way that it was portrayed that it might be early on. And yet we just have seen the whole country shut down. We've seen businesses destroyed, whether it's 60 something percent of the businesses, they say will never come back. And I mean, we've watched people's lives be destroyed, their livelihoods, suicide rates up. We've got relatives, I'm visiting relatives now that are in elder care facilities and the depression rates and what's happened to many of those and even some of our own elderly members has been horrific and it's going to take a long time to try to shepherd them beyond that if it can happen.

So those kinds of consequences that I'm sure no one anticipated ought to fuel us to get as clear as we can get on these issues that this conference is about, the jurisdictional authorities, God's law, God's gospel, what the church is, how we're to function in the church, and how the church is to function in the society. Because I think healthcare will be a significant one. I think safety, civil unrest, I think all of these things can be utilized to issue similar kinds of orders in the future that may be even more draconian in nature. And I just think we need to do the hard work now of thinking through biblical principles of how we will respond if called upon to go against what the scripture has to say. We need to be prepared in our nation to suffer consequences for saying no to government overreach, right?

Amen. You know, our government has felt free to to destroy men's vocations and to destroy their livelihoods And this is just another just really egregious overreach. Just before this broadcast, I went into a restaurant close to me here and I looked around, I thought this is like restaurants that I've been in two and a foreign foreign countries, just because of the suppression of the prosperity. But it's but it's sinful to shut down a man's livelihood. A man is commanded to work.

And the government doesn't have any business shutting down a man's livelihood. Well, anyway, we could talk about all this. You know, there are lots of questions here. Here's a question. In your view of the Benedict option, is it viable for a Christian to begin removing themselves from these jurisdictions?

Are you asking all of us? Yes, yeah, all of you. Well, I would say that there's some things in the Benedict Option that Roger's book that I found attractive and helpful, but I would not be enthused about the overall thesis of the book. I don't believe if I remember it and understood it right. Because I don't want us to withdraw.

We mustn't withdraw. However, we should build communities. That's what our churches should be. And not just in the gathering of worship, but certainly that, but from that gathering of worship and how we live together. And I think there's great wisdom in seeing strong churches encourage members to take ownership of the area in which we live, to do their best, to be involved in government, to be involved in business, starting businesses.

We're encouraging our younger men especially to think seriously about businesses that they can start and ways that they can develop income streams to serve the community. You know, It's happening almost every day now with some of our members. Two of our young men just recently sent me things. One of them was told at work, given in a meeting they were called in, that Steve is now Sally. And so you're not to refer to Steve anymore.

He's referred to as Sally with feminine pronouns. Anybody that calls asking for Steve, here's the script you must say to them, Steve is now Sally. And he's saying, as a Christian, I can't do this. I said, well, amen, I understand that. Another, the books they're being forced to read for sensitivity training, diversity, equity training, are goddess books that will foment horrible ideas.

And we've had young men in our church turn down promotions at work because to get at the next level puts them then in a responsibility of teaching things that they do not believe on these issues. So what's the alternative? Well, start businesses, develop your own ways of living, develop industries if possible. And so in that sense, what Dreher argues for, yes, caring for one another, building community, building ways of life together that benefit society and that are not going to be as easily overrun and destroyed by society. I'm all for that.

Amen. And I don't think there's anything better we can do with our time that have built biblically ordered churches and biblically ordered families, these small communities where the law of God is honored and the gospel is preached. And, you know, there's nothing better than to have a community where true conversion has taken place. And I just think that has to be the greatest part of our priority as we go forward. Whatever the government is going to do, we don't know, but we know what we can do in our families and we know what we can do in our churches.

Right. And what Joe said earlier, but one of the principles is that the Kingdom of God is not limited to any kind of governmental jurisdiction. Communist countries can thrive in the most wicked governmental societies. The Kingdom of God is not going to be thwarted, And yet God has given us great opportunity and we've enjoyed so many freedoms in this nation for so long. We shouldn't take those for granted nor throw them away lightly.

But neither should we despair if those things are taken from us because we know ultimately that in and through it all that the Lord Jesus is going to build his church and we should be busy about that work above any of the other endeavors that we might give ourselves to. Let me just throw a couple of questions here. Some of them are in different realms. How how would you encourage a Christian man considering a position in law enforcement in view of the current state of things? That's for anyone who would like to answer.

I don't know how to bring maybe necessarily a chapter and verse to this, but I would think any young man looking to engage that line of work right now has to go in with his eyes wide open and know that it isn't right now what it has been in the past in terms of enjoying the support of other branches of government. And in terms of what they're likely to face, if you've been watching the news and seeing what's going on in Philadelphia right now, and this could be playing itself out over and over again in cities around the country one week from now? Yeah, I have two, we have two very mature policemen in our congregation. I'd probably send that young man to them and say, count the costs, but it's a wonderful field of service right now, you can really get a great witness but go talk to these two men and ask them about the consequences and pray together about it and just really talk to people who are in that position, who feel it as a vocatio, a calling and not just a job. Maybe if you're a strong Christian young man, maybe that's exactly where you've got to go because we need we need Christian leaders in all areas.

Amen. I mean, the word of God gives has good things to say about those who are, you know, in police work. The Lord Jesus is a great example. It's a wonderful profession. It's a needed profession, and men who think biblically are really needed there, for sure, But there really are challenges.

There's a question here about the duty of pastors to be available to preach the word and administer the sacraments at all times? Should pastors always be available regardless of the government orders? I'm not sure I understand the question exactly. We are to be ready in season and out of season, so there's never an out of season time for preaching the gospel. That may mean you do it at midnight or you do it at four in the morning out in the field.

But yeah, I think I would say that the pastors should be prepared, willing to preach under dire circumstances, if need be, in order to minister the word of God that's been done historically and May be required again bus Yeah, I always tell my theological students whenever you're invited to preach if at all possible You I mean your natural Trajectory your natural response should be yes. This is this is my calling, you know I don't I want to try to get away with preaching as few times as I can This is my number one calling so you want to do it But that Tom's comment just reminded me of a 19th century independent pastor over in England His name was John Barrage and he was preaching out of doors and stuff. It was illegal at the time and so a judge brought it, you know, was gonna throw him in jail for it, brought him in front of him and said, Mr. Barrage, you're preaching all the time everywhere. You're doing what's illegal.

No sir, he said, I'm only preaching on two occasions. What do you mean the judge said you're preaching everywhere you're breaking the laws. He goes no, sir I'm preaching in season and I'm preaching out of season That's great Okay. Well, hey before we bring Jason Dome up here and put the spotlight on him, I want to tell you about a couple things that are happening at Church and Family Life. First of all, I just finished a book called The Family at Church, How Parents Are tour guides for joy.

And this is a book that's really written for young families to really help them make the most of local church experience. In this book, I'm gonna say that a local church is the most important place you ever take your children. So make it a sweet time. And I hope it's a book that will be helpful to parents. We'll be shipping hard copies.

This is a beautiful hardback book before the end of the year. And also, We have a national conference coming up that got pushed out. We're supposed to be doing it right now, but we pushed it to May 20th to 22, called Theology of the Family at Ridgecrest Christian Conference Center. And also we're having a singles conference just before that, May 19th and 20th. And Joel will be there to speak, and Paul Washer and some others to speak to singles.

We really want to just encourage them. This conference is called Holiness to the Lord. And I'm just really, really looking forward to that. And also too, Joel, this has to do with you. We do a marriage conference down here in Wake Forest every year, and Joel, you and Mary are going to come this February, the weekend of valentines, to come and speak to these couples gathered.

So anyway, those are a few things that are happening coming up here. Also, remember to submit We're going to be able to get to them, but please keep submitting them. We'll get to as many as we can. Jason, let's turn over to you now. Explain legitimate biblical civil disobedience.

In 20 minutes. In 20 minutes. No, that's wonderful. I appreciate it. My topic for tonight is a legitimate biblical civil disobedience, and let's just ask the Lord to help us.

Our God, I thank you for the place that you've given to your people in the world, and I pray that you would help us to engage it with all of our hearts. We would never be driven by fear, but that it would burn in our hearts to see the kingdom of your son expand, the joys of his kingdom come to the ends of the earth, and to never be afraid of the other kingdom pushing back and attacking and attempting to advance on us as your people. Make us a bold people, help us to have wisdom as we encounter trials and persecutions in this world, the ones that have been promised to us as we're faithful to you. I pray that you would make us faithful people in Jesus' name, Amen. I would like to begin by building a framework with two verses that I'll then hang a number of points on by bringing a couple of texts forward.

And my intent here is to back up and to see the big picture before we examine the finer point. So let me just give you these two scriptures as the framework. The first is 1st Corinthians 6 verse 20. In 1st Corinthians 6 verse 20, Paul says, for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

So every Christian knows that we're not our own. We belong to Jesus. We were purchased by his own precious blood. And so since he bought us, he's the ultimate king. There are other kings or other spheres of authority but all of them are subservient to King Jesus so that doesn't devalue the other spheres of influence.

They've actually been Instituted by God as my brothers have already been teaching This evening but it does mean that they're not ultimate in any sense that really Jesus is the the king of kings And so this is the starting point for the doctrine of civil government It comes from him and he is above all of the other authorities. The second verse I'd like to bring to your attention are really well-known verses, loved verses by us, which is 2 Timothy 3 16 and 17 where Paul writes, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So I just want to bear down on that phrase for a minute, Thoroughly equipped for every good work. So I just want to bear down on that phrase for a minute. Thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So the question relative to my topic is, is civil disobedience a good work or isn't it? The Christian would say if it's not a good work then we have no business engaging it at all but if it is then the Word of God will tell us what what we need to know about it and we're not left to our own thoughts in our own ways. Isaiah 55 so clear that God's thoughts are infinitely above our thoughts. His ways are infinitely above our ways, so we should be trusting in our own thoughts and ways. If it's a good work, then God's word is sufficient to tell us what we need to know about it.

And I'll be arguing that civil disobedience in its biblically defined place is a doctrine of scripture that is regulated and supported and encouraged by texts of scripture that we can mine out. Now because of time I've decided to stay right within the book of Daniel and to take you three places in the book of Daniel. Daniel chapter 1, Daniel chapter 3, and Daniel chapter 6 to make some, I think, very important points on civil disobedience in the Bible. So the first is Daniel chapter 1. If you're on the live stream and you have your Bible with you, go ahead and open to Daniel 1, if you'd like to track with me.

Now, in Daniel 1, it's the very beginning of the book, and Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I know I'm mixing Daniel's Hebrew name with the Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but you'll forgive me because I think those are the names we know these men by primarily. They've been taken into captivity and they've been put into a training program, which even includes an allotment of food at the king's table. They're called the king's delicacies here. So let me read Daniel chapter 1 verses 8 through 16 and you can follow along if you like. Daniel 1 8 through 16.

But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the Kings delicacies nor with the wine which he drank Therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God had brought Daniel into the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuch said to Daniel, I fear my lord the king who has appointed your food and drink, For why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who were your age? Then you would endanger my head before the king." So Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, please test your servants for ten days and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance to be examined before you and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king's delicacies and as you see fit, so deal with your servants.

So he consented with them in this matter and tested them 10 days. And at the end of the 10 days, their features appeared better and fatter and flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies. Thus the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink and gave them the vegetables." So this section begins with Daniel convinced that he would be defiled, that's the word used in the text in verse 8, by eating the king's delicacies, but even though that was the case, his impulse was not immediate disobedience. So the first thing I want to say about civil disobedience is it shouldn't be the knee-jerk reaction of the believer We should Our impulse should not be immediate Disobedience And I think Daniel is a good example for us there. In verse eight, verse eight says, he requested.

So Daniel didn't start by making demands. He started by making a request. And in verse 12, Daniel says, please. And he proposes an alternative that was acceptable to him and that he thought might be acceptable to the one who had been placed in authority. Sometimes what I'm speaking of there is referred to as the righteous appeal, by righteous appeal, I mean, an appropriate respectful appeal to someone that God has put in authority over us for a change in what's been determined.

Now, would Daniel have died on that hill? If the answer had been, no, you have to eat the king's delicacies, would he have made his stand there? Well, the answer to that is interesting. The answer is we don't know. And the reason we don't know is because the approach he took removed him from a collision course.

He was able to resolve the matter peacefully and successfully because his knee-jerk reaction wasn't immediate defiance and disobedience. It was a righteous appeal, a respectful appeal to the one in authority for a change. So I think that's a good place to start with civil disobedience, that the believer in Jesus shouldn't be overly eager to run to that off the bat, but should be looking for ways and opportunities to appeal respectfully to the authorities that God has put over us. Now to Daniel 3. So if you're with me, flip to Daniel 3.

Daniel 3 begins with Nebuchadnezzar making a giant image to be worshipped, a giant golden image, And then I'll pick up my reading in verses four and five, Daniel three, verses four and five. Then a herald cried aloud, to you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, you shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. So then it's discovered that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are unwilling to worship this golden image. And they're actually brought before the king. The king confronts them.

And he says, when the music starts, if you worship the image, then fine. But if you won't worship the image, you're gonna be thrown into this fiery furnace. There's no God that can save you from it. And here's their response. This is still in chapter 3, Daniel chapter 3 verses 16 through 18.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up." So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are in this instant actually quite defiant. They are bold in their assertion that they will not obey. They will not comply with what the king has ordered them, whether they live or they die, whether God delivers them or God lets them go to their death, that they're not going to do it.

So as this relates to Daniel chapter 1, I think we would say that a righteous appeal is appropriate and a good idea, but it is not a prerequisite in every circumstance. They don't appear to have done that here. The circumstances were dire enough that they went right to actually to a defiant, bold refusal to obey. Now, let's describe exactly what has happened in this text. The civil government required something which the Word of God forbids.

The civil government required worship of a false god and the word of God says that there's only one God, it's the God of the scriptures and that there to be no images. And in that instance, the King of Kings is to be obeyed and the earthly King is to be disobeyed. And In fact, I think the right way to say it would be the believer is not even at liberty to obey. There's no choice to be made for the believer in that instance. The believer must disobey when the civil government attempts to require something which the word of God forbids.

And we know the end of the story, which is that God puts his stamp of approval on their defiance and disobedience. Think about that for a minute. Defiance and disobedience are almost always cast in the negative light. But in this particular instance, God puts his stamp of approval on their defiance and disobedience because as believers they were not even at liberty to obey this thing that the Word of God forbids. Now let's go to Daniel chapter six, that'll be our last stop.

In Daniel chapter six, Daniel has been elevated over the other government officials in Babylon and their jealousy has them plotting against him. And so I'll pick up reading in Daniel chapter 6 verse 7, all the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisors have consulted together "'to establish a royal statute and make a firm decree.'" So this is actually what the other government officials are saying to the king, advising the king, I'll just pick it up in the middle of that verse, that whoever petitions any god or man for 30 days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. So this is what the other government officials advised the king, make a decree that no one can pray to any God except for you for the next 30 days. They have him sign it, which means there can be no change to the decree. And then in verse 10, we see how Daniel reacts.

Daniel 6 verse 10. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed he went home and in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem he knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days." So it should be noted that Daniel was also very bold in his disobedience. I suppose he could have gone secret with his normal practice of prayer, but he opened his windows and he repeatedly prayed. Why did he do that? Well, because that was his custom and he wasn't changing his custom for an illegitimate governmental decree.

Now again, let's describe exactly what happened. In this instance, the civil government forbids something which the Word of God requires. The civil government says No praying, no praying, only pray to the king. And the word of God requires that we only hold the God of scripture to be the one and only God and that we call upon him. So the civil government is forbidding something which the Word of God requires.

In that instance, the King of Kings is to be obeyed and the earthly king is to be disobeyed. Again, the believer is not even at liberty to obey. If we ever get a governmental decree that we may not pray as believers, we wouldn't even be at liberty to obey that. We must disobey the civil government. And again, as with chapter three, God puts his stamp of approval on Daniel's bold disobedience by delivering him from the lion's den.

So in summary, the biblical doctrine of personal civil disobedience is that if the civil government requires something which the word of God forbids or forbids something which the word of God requires, the King of Kings is to be obeyed and the earthly king is to be disobeyed. To put it in the language of Peter and the apostles in Acts chapter 529, we ought to obey God rather than men. But at this point, I think I should observe that this is a narrow window. I think it's so important for me to say that. This is a narrow window that leaves a lot of room for bad government, unwise government, even ungodly governors and ungodly government.

There's a lot that fits between the civil government requiring what the Word of God forbids, or the civil government forbidding what the Word of God requires that it isn't good government, it isn't wise government, it isn't godly government, but the Christian is called to submit because these other spheres of authority are real spheres. They really are given by God, and it is real authority. So the standard isn't you think it's good government, or you think it's wise government according to what you might find in Proverbs, or you think that it's from a godly governor, or it is godly governmental influence. However, that does not keep us from exercising the rights and the remedies that are afforded to us under our current system of government. In other words, Christians are also American citizens that have certain rights and remedies that are afforded to us under our system of government.

And the fact that something may not give us the right to civil disobedience under what the scripture puts forward is legitimate doesn't mean that we don't have other rights or remedies that we may very well should engage. I think we definitely see Paul engaging rights and remedies as a Roman citizens even while he is not being disobedient to the civil government. But I think it's important that we not confuse those things. One of the things that sort of given me pause as this is played out, as churches have been trying to determine how they should move forward in the so-called pandemic, is it seems like there's not been a clear distinction between rights and remedies that we have as citizens of our nation under our current system of government and what the Bible teaches about civil disobedience and I think it's it's clear that we understand where one ends and the other begins and that we not confuse the two. The truth is if we didn't have those rights and remedies, if those rights and remedies were to disappear, the Bible may very well simply call for us to suffer well.

So my question for everybody on the line is, do you have a place in your your doctrine in your theology for simply suffering well for giving a testimony of suffering well engaging in civil disobedience potentially for conscience sake and being willing to accept the consequences of that. I'm really glad Tom brought that out in the prior session. And to suffer well as a testimony to the world that this world is not our home and that there are greater things for the Christian than enjoying governmental approval. Now, there's a word that I said a minute ago and I'm wondering if you caught it. I said personal civil disobedience.

Almost everything that I've been saying so far deals with personal civil disobedience. And there's a very related topic that both Joel and Tom have spoken about preceding me, which is jurisdictional overreach. It's a very related topic where one legitimate jurisdiction, civil government's a legitimate jurisdiction, illegitimately moves into the territory that was given by God to another legitimate jurisdiction such as the church or the family. And it seems to me that that is where most of the action is at the moment, is jurisdictional overreach. And so while there is personal civil disobedience, I'd also like to suggest that there's institutional or jurisdictional civil disobedience as well, where it is incumbent on those given authority in one of the God-ordained jurisdictions to stand at the border of their jurisdiction and enforce the boundaries of it and not allow another jurisdiction to illegitimately come over into territory that has been given them by God in the same way that I said.

It's not even a believer would not even be at liberty to obey the government in certain instances. I would say that jurisdictions established by God, given authority by God, are not at liberty to give away things within their purview given to them to allow another jurisdiction to encroach that way. So let's close in prayer. I'm sure there are questions. God, I thank you for your all-sufficient word and as we begin over the next minutes or months or years to tease out the complexities and nuances of this that you would just cause us to be humble before you and cause us to be so happy to be under your authority and desire to please you in all things in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen. Thank you, Jason. I really, really appreciate all that you said there. So, Tom and Joel, what do you have any additional thoughts or questions related to all these things that Jason's just presented I thought it was very, very well done and I love the way you handled Daniel 1.

Daniel 3 and 6 are, you know, you spoke clearly to that. Those are more obvious. Daniel 1 is sometimes the area where you get conscience pangs and you don't know if you should die on this hill. That's one of the battles I think that is going on in America today with pastors. Shall we die on this hill that open the worship service to everything and to everyone and or shall we go every other pew and or is that compromising with the government?

And Yeah, I think some of the comments also combine what you just said, Jason, with what Tom said before about showing love and respect to one another, even if in some of the more debatable issues, we come out in slightly different opinions due to our different circumstances and cultures. I think that's apropos too. We need to respect one another. But I think both of your talks have actually jived well with each other and been very helpful. I think the listener will be very helpful.

We had a webcast early. It was pretty early on, Scott. I don't remember which month it was in, but John Snyder was on it. And One of the things that he said he used language that I thought I want to adopt that language I like what he just said and he was talking about The the governmental decrees and what They're the elder board of their church had decided. And he said it this way, he said, we felt like we had the liberty to do what the government was asking of us.

And so I liked that for a couple of reasons. One is it makes clear that they understood that it was their jurisdiction and it was their call and they were not going to cede that to the government, but they also made it clear that they were looking for opportunities and ways to work well with the civil government and to comply where they could. And so I like that language. When either individuals or other jurisdictions can, I mean, I think we should try to minimize the number of hills to die on through the righteous appeal? Do it where we can.

If you're willing to die on every hill your life expectancy isn't very long. So anyway, I think we can potentially minimize... Scott, you and I saw this in North Carolina where we actually did hope Baptist, where you're an elder, made some righteous appeals to the government. They were very firm, very respectful, and actually I think our governor realized that he was on legally tenuous ground and he backed off. So we actually didn't have to decide whether we're going to die on that hill or not.

That's helpful. Right, And by the way, we weren't asking for permission. Yeah, we were just declaring our position and asking him to clarify his words, kind of like what Tom was referring to earlier, you know, elder groups of elders pondering over what do these words mean in this declaration? So yeah, I don't believe that we, when there is something that God has commanded, it's not necessary for us to ask permission. Maybe we have the liberty to ask permission, but I'm not confident asking permission to do a God commanded is the right thing to do.

I agree. I think the thing you said about the rights and remedies that are afforded to us in this nation is very, very important. We've discussed this as we've sent people into other nations to take the gospel. They go in as guests of that nation. They submit themselves to dress codes.

They submit themselves to dietary expectations, and they do that willingly for the sake of the gospel. And so, as we think about what we're willing to do for the sake of the gospel, and Paul was willing to be a vegetarian the rest of his life for the sake of weak consciences among brothers. We ought to have that same spirit amongst ourselves. As citizens in this country that is governed by the rule of law that is a constitutional republic, I find myself at times thinking this is an appropriate response for a thoughtful American citizen. And as a Christian, it's very fine for me to have this response.

Whereas if I were in China, or if I were in Pakistan, I wouldn't try to make this case or this argument. But I think it's important to make it for America because of what God has done here in our past. I do believe it fits in with what you alluded to, Jason, about Paul in Philippi when he'd spent the night in jail, been mistreated, and then the government authority sent word that they want to just release you. And Paul said, No, not so quick. They have beaten us.

I'm a Roman citizen. Make them come down here themselves. And you think, well, you know, is Paul being just a hard case there? No, I think Paul was actually serving his fellow Roman citizens in doing that and forcing the magistrates to own up to their missteps. And that can be done.

I mean, you know, we can do it in unkind ways or in ways that are not honorable. But we can do it in very forceful ways too, where we look at the magistrates and say, you know, what you've done here is wrong, and you need to own your wrong. And just be willing to suffer the consequences for it. So sometimes that's a difficulty. And I feel like there's two big ditches.

You know, you can fall into either one of them saying, well, I'm an American, so I'm not going to respect the governmental authorities because that's what Americans do. I'm a Christian and God's ordained the governmental authorities. And so I just need to to kind of bow and and never raise a concern and that's a challenge but it's a challenge that comes because of the blessings of god on this constitutional republic that we enjoy. Yeah, right. And I have I have a man in my church who has lived in about 20 different countries, you know, from Dubai to Singapore to Brazil, all over the — lived there, not just visited.

And his perspective is, America is the last bastion of freedom in the world. It's the only place where you can make appeals. Everyone else has lost the ability to do that. And his perspective is, as a new American citizen just recently, is we need to try to preserve these freedoms that we have because they don't exist anywhere else. And I think, you know, we're at a moment like that now.

It sure seems like it to me where it's time to do everything we can to preserve those freedoms. There's a question here about insurrection that I wanted to throw out. We're getting ready to wind up here. But the question goes like this in the book of Judges. God raised up solitary men like Gideon, Ehud, Barak, Samson, etc.

To rescue God's people from idolatrous governments. How does one know when to rise up? How does one recognize someone who rises up as being raised up? By God, when do we be Daniel's and when do we be Ehud's? So it's really a question of insurrection.

What are your thoughts about that? I don't know and I'm not touching it. Well, I'm getting, I'm getting ready to publish a book of case studies by Pierre Verret who is a French reformer in the 16th century. He was called the Angel of the Reformation. He has an entire chapter on insurrection.

And his view is that Christians are not insurrectionists. The bloodshed that is caused by individual insurrectionists is shameful, it's always defiling, it never turns out right. He does acknowledge that if one has been given jurisdiction, if one has been given authority, then one can rise up against another jurisdiction. But Verret would say that individual insurrectionists are unbiblical and ungodly, and they always they always turn out bad, so there's Verret for you. I think he's right about that, that Christians really aren't insurrectionists.

Christians should be the very best citizens. Those who believe in the gospel should be the most honorable, the most faithful, the most obedient under God. They should be the most encouraging citizens in the realm. And we should be very careful when we disobey that we really are disobeying on biblical grounds and biblical grounds alone, not because we're wild donkey, rebellious, you know, uncontrollable kind of people who are against every kind of authority. That's not Christianity.

And so I think that, you know, the kind of insurrection that often happens by individuals really falls outside the pale of Christian wisdom. That's a good point, Scott. You know, Kelvin takes that position and most of the reformers did, and you've got Samuel Rutherford's position. I think they were all very, very cautious about encouraging any insurrectionists at all and only as a very, very last resort to disobey government. So that's where Jason's comments about is that the hill that Diane and Daniel won is very important.

I think Calvin would say you may express your opinion, but then you really got to decide is this something so serious of a nature that I will actually go against what the government is saying. And of course in the area of church, and so some of us said, yes it is. But this is never anything we take on lightly. Calvin also said, which I think is very interesting, that sometimes on things that are not overwhelmingly major that if the government Requires it and it's not a hill to die on a covenant use those exact words But that's what he meant if It's not a hill to die on And you actually go along with it It is no longer your sin, but it is the government sin I'll give you an example when I was young I grew up in an atmosphere where my dad and some people in our church when I grew up were totally against compulsory insurance. But my dad did not get any insurance for his car.

He said, the Lord has to protect me and so on. Leave that theology aside a moment. But when the government said, you have to have car insurance, I was surprised that my dad went and got it given his convictions. And I asked him about it. I thought he was being inconsistent.

Oh no, he said, I'm just following Calvin. I said, what do you mean? Well, Calvin said, it's the government's sin. So I'm participating in it against my will, but it's not a major, major thing to die for. So that's an interesting thought too.

And I think somebody would study in that area of Kelvin and Verret and some of the reformers because you've got the category here, where we must disobey the Daniel three, Daniel six, right? Then you got the other category where you say, oh, that's not even worth disobeying, even though I would do it differently. It's not a direct sin. Then you've got that in between category of Daniel 1. And actually, If Daniel had to go along with that or say he did decide to go along with it.

Would he be able to say, well, that's the king's sin, not my sin, I'm just not dying on this hill. And I think Calvin would say yes, But that's a bit of speculation. But interesting. Yeah. Well, let's wind it up.

I'd like to just ask each of you to to give just the last word to church leaders and the families about this matter of the jurisdiction of the government. And then I'd like to read a passage of scripture to wind us up. So, Joel, let's begin with you. We've had this long, very I'm really grateful for this discussion. Fantastic propositions all the way through.

Thank you, brothers, for doing that. Joe, what what's one last thing you'd just like to say to everyone? Well, maybe maybe it's a personal thing, Scott, if I may, because I just went through COVID and so did my wife, but in my colleague, one of my colleagues and his wife who had it quite seriously. So did one of my elders and his wife, sort of my mother-in-law. So we didn't have any COVID for quite a while, and then all of a sudden we got hit with quite a bit of it.

And I went through a kind of a dark, three dark nights of the soul as it were, where I just couldn't lay hold of God and it was very frightening for me. I just felt no contact with the Lord and I felt like I couldn't pray. And I had a colleague who had COVID who went through the same thing out in Iowa. So I have learned through it, I believe, one of my major takeaway lessons is, without me, you can do nothing. We are just really frail and fragile creatures and we need the Lord every single moment.

And I'm a little concerned with people on one side who lightly acquiesce with the closing of churches and that type of thing and just give the state all jurisdiction over areas where the state does not belong to intrude. But I'm also a little bit concerned now having gone through this with people who just lightly dismiss everything and say, well, you know, COVID is next to nothing and all these church, all this fear. No, when you have COVID and you actually experience some of the consequences, it's no small thing. It can really impact you. So I think we need to be realistic about that.

We opened our church, one of the earliest churches, and we didn't have any problem for a long time, and we felt very strongly about the church being open. Some of us got it. We were also reasonable and said, okay, we're gonna shut down the church for two weeks. And then we're gonna bring people back every other row again for a couple of weeks. We need to be reasonable here.

And this was not without any governor persuasion, but we need to be realistic about the potential damage that this disease could do. So I would just like to say, don't be hard nose on one way or the other and just kind of dismiss it as if it's nothing. At the same time, don't ever keep your church closed even to half the people lightly. That's a huge decision, but seek wisdom from God to do the right thing and walk in God's ways and fear Him. Amen.

Amen. Tom, what about you? Yeah, I'd say amen to what Joel said and and II do think this is a wonderful time to revisit these these fundamental triggers like you know to fear God to learn to live in the fear of God and not fear man, not fear death, to help people prepare for death. There's things far, far worse than death. And so we should try to encourage one another, not to be motivated by fear of people or circumstances, but to trust God and to live with a holy reverence toward Him.

And then also just to think about our governmental officials as difficult as this has been for us as individuals and elders, I'm sure that there are multiplications of difficulties that have come to our civil authorities. And so I've made it a point to call our local sheriff, our local police chief, we've called other civil officials in our church, through our church, and we've just said, look, we're praying for you. We want you to know we're behind you. These are difficult days for you. And the scripture tells us that we're to do this with Thanksgiving and We're to pray so that we might live peaceful and quiet lives with godliness and dignified in every way.

And so the aspiration should not be to be a cultural warrior that's always engaging in some kind of battle, but I long for a quiet, peaceful life. And hopefully by God's grace, we might be able to see something like that come, but it certainly should be our prayers with confidence in the God who's on the throne, ruling and reigning. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Tom.

Jason. Two quick ones. The first point being that there's something that's even worse than bad government, and that's no government. And it's a point to keep in mind, nothing's worse than anarchy. You can just look through the pages of history and you find out that that's true.

And Joel and Tom both made the point that God has instituted governments for our good. And we really experience a lot of benefit from the governments that we have with all the complaints that we might have about them. We still are experiencing tremendous amount of good for the governments that God has given us. Then finally, you know, perfect government is coming. And, you know, heaven is governed by God.

He's the temple, the light, and it's coming. There will be no more tears. Amen. Amen. Oh, that's great.

Well, I would I would just like to close by saying that when the Lord Jesus Christ said, I will build my church, he sent COVID. He sent COVID, and He's bringing these things to us to strengthen us. There are so many wonderful opportunities in the things that are upon us right now, and this is our finest hour in many ways. God is preparing us for things. He's doing good things for his church without question.

I do pray for a quiet life, but God may not be giving that to us for a season, and he will give whatever kind of time to us for his own glory, and we'll be able to get through it. He's given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. We don't have any need to fear at all, any government at all. So I think, you know, helping our people not to fear and recognizing God's great sovereign hand over his church, that he's building his church. And there are a lot of opportunities.

I want to close with Psalm 37, verse 10. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall be no more, indeed you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more. But the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. So I pray for that. Brothers, I've really been thankful for the discussion.

Thank you so much. Really, really good sound judgment and discernment came out of you guys tonight and I really, really, really appreciate it. So we're going to do this again tomorrow night, eight o'clock. We're going to speak about the jurisdiction of the church and continue the discussion. But thank you so much for joining us and hope to hope to see you next time.

And brothers, thank you so much for the investment in these people and in me and all of us together for such helpful truth from the Word of God. Thanks so much. It's been nice. Thank you. Thank you, Scott.

Good night.

Speakers

Scott T. Brown is the president of Church and Family Life and pastor at Hope Baptist Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Scott graduated from California State University in Fullerton with a degree in History and received a Master of Divinity degree from Talbot School of Theology. He gives most of his time to local pastoral ministry, expository preaching, and conferences on church and family reformation. Scott helps people think through the two greatest institutions God has provided—the church and the family.

Dr. Joel R. Beeke serves as Chancellor and Professor of Systematic Theology and Homiletics, as well as Academic Dean for students from the Heritage Reformed Congregations. He is currently a pastor of the Heritage Reformed Congregation in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a position he has held for thirty years. He is also editor of the Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, board chairman of Reformation Heritage Books, president of Inheritance Publishers, and vice-president of the Dutch Reformed Translation Society. He has written, co-authored, or edited 125 books and contributed over two thousand articles to Reformed books, journals, periodicals, and encyclopedias. His PhD (1988) from Westminster Theological Seminary is in Reformation and Post-Reformation Theology. He and his wife, Mary, have three children: Calvin, Esther, and Lydia, and eleven grandchildren.

Tom Ascol has served as a Pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida since 1986, and serves as the President of Founders Ministries and The Institute of Public Theology. He has a BS degree in sociology from Texas A&M University (1979) and has also earned the MDiv and PhD degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. He has served as an adjunct professor of theology for various colleges and seminaries, including Reformed Theological Seminary, the Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, African Christian University, Copperbelt Ministerial College, and Reformed Baptist Seminary. He has also served as Visiting Professor at the Nicole Institute for Baptist Studies at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He and his wife Donna have six children along with three sons-in-law and a daughter-in-law. They have fifteen grandchildren. 

Jason Dohm is a full-time pastor at Sovereign Redeemer Community Church in Youngsville, North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992 with a BA in education and proceeded to a lengthy career in electronics manufacturing. Jason has been married to Janet for thirty years and has six children and five grandchildren.

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