I'm going to pass some of those out. Thank you. So as these brothers pass these notes out, I have to confess my sins. I messed up very badly. I'm very sorry. So it's not lesson three. It's supposed to be lesson four. And it's not our responsibilities toward those without. It's supposed to say our responsibility toward those in authority. And it's not Romans 12, it's Romans 13, verses 1 to 7. So, I've changed it in my notes, and so mine are right, but when I did the lesson to print out for all of you, I forgot to change the title at the top, so. You think it's my printer? I'll blame my printer, yeah. For those of you visiting, I have a theory on demon possession, that if demon possession exists in the New Testament church, it exists in printers. And I think that's where Satan lives, is in printers. But I might be wrong on that. But anyway, it's lesson four. It's our responsibility toward those in authority. And it's Romans 13, one to seven. So let's turn in the Bible to Romans 13. And as I mentioned last Lord's Day, this was not planned. I didn't, if you think I planned this, you have way more respect I have for myself. I did not have enough foresight to put Romans 13 on the Sunday after the election. That was, so this is not on purpose at all. It's just a, We call it a coincidence of providence that has put it on this particular Sunday. But we'll read the first seven verses here of Romans 13. and then come to break this down. I don't think I'm going to finish these notes today. Next Lord's Day, Jason Boyle will be here. I think he's going to be doing Sunday school. I'm not sure yet. If not, then I'll finish up. And if not, then the next Sunday after will be my last Sunday here until February. And then We'll just wrap things up that next Sunday. So anyway, Romans 13, first one. 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 evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For because 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, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For, for this cause, pay ye 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. Amen. So we'll end there at the end of verse seven. As we consider this subject of the life of the justified man, and so several visiting here just bring you a little bit up to speed what we're dealing with. In the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans, Paul is dealing primarily with gospel truth, what it is to be saved, what it is to be born again, what it is to be justified. And beginning in chapter 12, we come to a section that is heavy with application. And I'm calling this, you see at the top of the notes, that part is right, Christian responsibilities. Really the responsibilities of the justified man. And so verses one to two are responsibility toward God, complete and total surrender, present your bodies a living sacrifice. Starting in verse 3, there's more of an emphasis on the responsibility of a justified man toward those in the church, toward those in the body of Christ. How are we to behave ourselves and treat one another as Christians? Then we have a transition with a little bit more emphasis toward those that are outside the body of Christ. How do we behave ourselves and treat the unconverted, the ungodly, our neighbors in general? And now we come to our responsibility toward those in authority or government really more specifically. When the Apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans, it was at the end of his third missionary journey. Paul lived on a different day than we live in. Paul lived in a day of what we would identify as a government structure of a dictatorship. The Roman Caesars were dictators. Paul did not have the luxury, even as a Roman citizen, of being able to vote for his leader. The Caesars were a line of succession, like a king was a line of succession. We live in a different day. We have a responsibility to vote. We have the opportunity to elect our leaders. And so we can't take everything from Scripture and make an equal sign to our day, because there are many circumstances that are different. But at the same time, we have general principles, and really, in these verses, very straightforward truths that we'll look at here in just a moment that govern how we are to respond to those in authority. Specifically, government. but it does go broader than that to the higher power. There are principles here that have to do, I would submit to an employee-employer circumstance, there's different applications that can be made, but really primarily the application is to government. Now, Paul gives the believers some really very clear instructions. And if we can summarize all that Paul says in these verses, it really is obey the fifth commandment, obey your authorities. And these verses are really an application of what obeying the fifth commandment looks like in real life. Now, as we read these, in our context, there are definitely problems that arise. There are definitely questions that come to our mind, a but what if kind of situation. And we'll come to that in the second page of our notes here. But I don't want to get lost and bogged down in all the what ifs that this passage would bring up. I want to start just by looking at the plain, surface, straightforward, really unarguable meaning of the passage. And so that you have is Roman numeral I, the plain meaning of the text. And so, the first thing we can say about the plain meaning of the text found in verse number one, and that is, civil government is ordained by God. Now, that's what the verse says, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for because, here's the reason why you are to be subject to the higher powers, because there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. And so when Paul was alive, that had to do with the emperor. When Martin Luther was alive, that had to do with the emperor. When you and I are alive, that has to do with the president and the United States. It has to do with the, the president, the leader, the prime minister, the king, the whatever of whatever country you want to pick all over the wide world, the powers that be are ordained of God. Now, you know, we're on the heels of an election and I don't know what the numbers are. I guess I could have looked up some of this information, but I think it's very safe to say that millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars were spent on campaigns by people of both sides. And some may have had some suspicion that there was the potential for cheating. Some may think the elections were fair. Some may think they were rigged. You can have your opinion, whatever you want. I don't care. But here's what I do know. God ordained the authority. That is unarguably clear from the passage. Four years ago, the same thing was true. God ordained the authority. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't, call it rigged, I don't care what you call it. There's a sovereign God in heaven who puts a man on a throne. And we can't argue with that. We can be frustrated by that, but we can't argue with it. It is what happened. The God of Romans 13 of 54, 56 AD is the same God of 2020, the same God of 2024, and will be the same God in 2028. There'll be nothing to change. The powers that be are ordained of God. So you look at other passages of scripture, this is not just an isolated truth in the Bible. Proverbs 8, 15, by me kings reign. and princes decree justice. And so God is in charge of that. During Christ's trial before Pilate, you can make a note to yourself there, John 18, verses 10 to 11. Then saith Pilate unto Christ, speakest thou not unto me? Are you not going to answer me? Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee and have power to release thee? And Jesus answered, thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. And so Jesus tells Pilate, Pilate, you're a pawn in the hand of a sovereign God. You have no power against me. You can't do anything against me that the Father in heaven does not allow to be done. And so civil government is ordained of God. Ours in the United States, in Canada, in Mexico, in Liberia, in wherever, it doesn't matter. The second thing that we can say is a very plain meaning of the text in verses three and four. And that is that the role of civil government is to protect the innocent and punish the wicked. Now we'll come to a problem later because we know sometimes this doesn't happen. but whether or not it happens or doesn't happen in our experience does not change the fact that this is what God says is supposed to be. And so the role of civil government is to protect the innocent and punish the wicked. You look at verse four, for he is the minister of God to thee for good, but if thou do which is evil, be afraid. The other verses tell us that The rulers, they're not a terror to the innocent, to those that do good works. Their job is to protect those that do right, and their job is to protect those that do wrong. And so if you are obeying the laws of the land, then you should have nothing to fear from your government. Now, we'll see in just a moment, we live in a fallen world and things don't always play out as God has commanded them. But that's not God's fault. That is the fault of sinful humanity. The third thing that we can see is just a very plain, straightforward meaning of this text, is that it is the Christian's duty to obey civil government. So you look at the beginning of verse 1, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. Now, the word subject that's used there in Romans 13.1 is the same word that Paul uses in Ephesians 5.22, but it's translated there as submit. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. And so, if we want to keep a consistency of translation, we could read, wives, be subject unto your own husbands. It's the same word that James uses in James 4, 7. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. So be subject, therefore, to God. And so it's a word that means to be obedient. It's a word that means to put ourselves under the authority of a higher power in this context. Anyway. But verse two is also instructive here. It says, whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. Now, again, we have problems, we have difficulties. We look at verse two when we say, but what about, and we'll get to the what about part later on. But you just look at the plain, straightforward meaning of this text, and that is that the Christian has a duty to obey the civil government. And verse 2, I would say, tells us that to rebel against civil government. Now, I can qualify that, and I think this is clear for all of us. We qualify that to rebel against a legitimate law of the land is ultimately to rebel against God Himself. because God has ordained the power. And so that's what verse two says, whosoever therefore resists the power, what you're really doing is you're resisting the ordinance of God. Now, that's just what the text says. We come to the fourth one, and that is that it is the Christian's duty to support civil government. So verse six and verse seven, for this cause, pay ye tribute. for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing." I think that this very thing goes back to, they're the instrument of God to do good. They don't bear the sword in vain. They are to protect the innocent. They are to punish the wicked. Well, how do you do that? They need resources to do such a thing. And so I think in verses six and seven, we have some clear application and understanding for things like taxes and that sort of thing. Now, we'll get to some of these problems later on with taxes and where our money is spent, and we'll deal with some of those. Now, those are clear, just, I believe, very straightforward points in the text, but let's deal with some of these problems, right? Because there's obviously, but what about this, that, and the other thing? And so, Roman numeral two here, some problems raised by this text. A, well, what if the government is wicked? Then do I have to obey that government? Well, you look at the passage, and the passage doesn't address that. The passage really just addresses government and obeying the government. And so what's the answer to the question, if the government is wicked, do I still have to obey? Yes, that's what the passage teaches us. Yes, we still have to obey even a wicked government. And so let me give you some examples from Scripture that would support that conclusion. So the Apostle Paul, when he wrote these words, he was writing to the church in Rome, obviously, at the end of his third missionary journey. And the emperor in Rome, at the time that Paul wrote these words, was a man named Nero. His full title, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. So he was the man on the throne in Rome. He ruled from 54 AD to 68 AD. He was the fifth emperor of Rome. Most historians identify Nero as the first emperor to seriously and systematically prosecute, persecute Christians. you know, the Roman Colosseum where the gladiators fought and the lions. It was under Nero's rule was part of the heyday of the Roman gladiators, the Roman Colosseum, and Christians that were put in for sport against the lions and the lions killed these Christians. The church historian Eusebius, he tells us that Peter and Paul were both martyred under the reign of Nero. Peter, church history tells us, was crucified upside down because he refused to be crucified in the same manner that Christ was crucified. And so he was hung on a cross upside down. Paul was also martyred, killed under Nero's death. You look at the writings of some of the very, very early church fathers, and many in the early church identified Nero as the Antichrist. They thought the end had come, and Nero was the Antichrist. That is a point just to teach us that the church has always expected the return of Christ. Every generation of believers, as they read the scriptures, should come to the conclusion, Christ is probably going to come in my lifetime. Every generation of Christians has believed that. We believe that. Christ is coming. He's coming again. He's coming next. in the prophetic calendar. And even in the early church, they believe that the end was near and Nero was that one that was prophesied of as the Antichrist. There are stories told of Nero taking Christians that he had captured, tying them to poles, covering them with oil, and lighting them on fire so that he could walk through his gardens at nighttime. You know, we're not dealing with the Sunday school administrator here. We're dealing with a very wicked man. And Paul, while there was a very wicked man on the throne, he says, let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. We don't read in verse number one, if the government is wicked, rebel against it. We don't read that. Now, we all have our conscience as to how far we obey. You know, there's lots of debates as far as, you know, when the colonial Americans threw the tea in the harbor, rebelled against England, were they biblically warranted to do so? That's an academic argument, I think, that can be had. But the point here is that when Paul wrote this, Nero was on the throne, a very wicked, wicked man. We can look at another situation, two here, I put Christ paid taxes. You remember the situation where Christ sent Peter out to catch a fish, and by miracle, Peter caught a fish that had a coin in its mouth, and Christ told Peter, take that and pay the taxes. The government that Christ paid taxes to was the government that he knew well and good was going to, in two years later, crucify him. This may be overstated, but think about it this way. There is a lot of stuff that my tax dollars go to pay that I don't want paid for. I don't want my tax dollars to go to that. I say this as reverently as I can. I don't mean to be flippant in saying it this way, but when Jesus paid taxes, he helped pay the salary of the Roman soldiers that crucified him. He helped to buy the wood for the cross that he was hung on. He knew good and well what was going to happen, but yet he paid his taxes. Now, that's amazing. what love there was in Christ. It just goes to emphasize the joy that was set before him and the price that he paid for our redemption. He literally helped pay for it in paying taxes. Third one, you look at the Old Testament. So those are two New Testament examples. Look at an Old Testament example. David obeyed and submitted to Saul. Now, again, we have to understand something of a timeline here for this argument. Saul was the king of Israel, appointed and set up by God. Samuel was told by the Lord, this is the man. He was ordained to be king, head and shoulders above the rest, on and on. He was the king, he disobeyed God's command in saving Agag the king alive, not destroying the Amalekites as he was commanded to do. God sent Samuel to tell him that God was removing him from being the king. And God sent Samuel on a mission to anoint the next king. So he goes to Jesse's house. Jesse brings all his kids. Well, none of them were the right one. Don't you have another kid? Yep, he's out in the field. Go get him. David comes. He's the smallest one of them. Doesn't matter. You're the king. And so there, on the front porch, out in the front yard of Jesse's house, David was anointed to be king. David was the king. He had been anointed to be the king, but Saul was still on the throne. It was after David had already been anointed to be the king that his father sent him out with the food to give to his brothers. He sees Goliath challenging the God of Israel. David says, is there not a cause? David slays Goliath. David plays music for Saul, all of this after he had been anointed to be the king. But yet Saul is still on the throne. David has opportunity to kill Saul, but he doesn't do it. David submits himself to Saul's authority. And David goes so far as to say that he cannot touch the Lord's anointed. And so he submits himself to that one who is still on the throne. And David's attitude was, it's not for me to remove this man. It's for God to remove this man. And God did. God did remove Saul and David did become the king. But you look in that meantime, David obeyed and submitted to the rule of Saul. And so you look at those examples In light of this question, if the government is wicked, do I still have to obey? Well, yes, we do. But now we move another step. What if the government tells me to do something wicked? Do I still have to obey? Well, now we have a different situation. It can be a wicked government that makes laws that are not wicked. They're laws we don't like, but they're not wicked. We obey the laws. But what if they make wicked laws? Now what? Well, now we have a different scenario. a completely different issue. And so we can look at some examples that we're aware of. So in communist China, for example, they have laws. If you live in the city, it's different if you live out in far rural places. But if you live in the city, you can only have one child. And so there are tons and tons and tons and tons of abortions. And if a woman is pregnant and it's learned that it's going to be a girl, well, she's aborted. If it's gonna be a boy, then he will likely be carried to term and born. You have laws in places like Saudi Arabia. You have laws in places like Nepal, where it is on the books illegal to convert someone to your religion. So this has come up recently in our mission board discussions. We had on our church's website the name of one of our missionaries in Nepal. Well, we just have a policy. We don't put the name of our missionaries that live in Nepal because it ends up putting them potentially in harm's way by a government that would go and search them out. Because our missionaries there are not there to apply Band-Aids, although they may. They're not there to distribute bowls of rice, although they may. They're there to preach the gospel. They're there to convert sinners to Christ. They're there for evangelism. And it's illegal in that country to do so. They're not the only one. There are many, many, many other countries that have those laws on the books that if you're caught proselytizing, evangelizing, trying to convert people away from a pagan religion to the gospel, you can be arrested. Well, do we have to obey that law? What if the government set up a situation where, as a church, this happened in USSR Russia, that if you were a church, it's OK to be a Protestant church. You just have to register with the government. And you basically have to submit your sermon outlines. And you can only preach certain things. And you're not allowed to preach other things. Well, do you have to obey that? Well, the answer to that question is no, because there is a hierarchy of authority. The government is an authority that we have to obey, but we obey God first, and then we obey our authority. So you take, for example, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were told, break the first commandment. If you don't break the first commandment, you're going to be thrown into a fiery furnace. And they said, We can't do it. We're not going to break the first commandment. We are not going to bow down to the statue that you have set up. We're not going to do it. And they face the consequences. And they said, God will protect us. And even if God does it, we're still not going to do it. Well, God did protect them, but they were subject to a higher power. Now you take Daniel. Daniel was told to eat the king's meat. And Daniel and his three friends, they said, we're not going to violate the dietary laws that God has given to us. Now, he didn't do that in a way that was rebellious and canterous. He disobeyed that law. even in a way that was submissive and respectful, because he went to the man in charge, and he said, listen, this is the situation. I cannot do what you've asked me to do. May I please do this instead? Will you test me? May I do this instead? And the guy's like, I get in real trouble for this, but okay. And the Lord blessed it. The Lord prospered Daniel and his three friends. You take the Hebrew midwives as an example. They were commanded to murder the male Hebrew children that were born. And the midwives said, we can't do it. Now, there's a whole discussion of whether they lied or didn't lie. I don't believe they did lie. I don't believe they broke the commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness. But here the midwives purposefully disobeyed, strategically disobeyed the command of Pharaoh. And we read in the book of Exodus that the Lord rewarded them greatly for obeying God rather than obeying Pharaoh. You come to the New Testament, you take James and John, they had been arrested, put in prison, and they were told not to preach in the name of Jesus anymore. At night, an angel comes and releases them from prison. They are preaching again in the name of Jesus. They're called before the very council of people that had pulled the trigger, as it were, on the execution of Christ. And before the exact same set of people, Acts 5, 29, we ought to obey God rather than men. And they refused to obey a wicked law. The wicked law was you cannot preach in the name of Jesus. And they said, well, we don't have any other option. We have to preach in the name of Jesus. One, we have to preach. And we're not preaching in anybody else's name. We're preaching in the name of Jesus. We ought to obey God rather than men. And so there are many times when the law of the land conflicts with the law of God. What are our obligations? Our obligations is not to look for opportunities to break the law of the land. Our default should be we follow the law of the land until the law of the land conflicts with the law of God. We're four years off of a very practical application of this. You can't gather for worship. Well, no, we have to gather for worship. The COVID regulations, there were some completely legitimate. They were stupid, that's my opinion. They were stupid, but they weren't wicked. There were other regulations that were stupid, and wicked when they say you cannot meet for worship. Well, no, that's wicked. The Bible says we gather together as the Lord's people and we worship. And so churches had to make a decision. What do we do? Some churches made different decisions than our church made. There are other churches that made different decisions than ours and never didn't meet. They stayed the entire time. And I believe the Lord has blessed those congregations. And I think time has borne out those that did not obey God and, this is my opinion, caved to government regulations. I think we see the consequences of that in those congregations. So we'll stop here. We're out of time. And we'll come to some applications of this the next time. I'm not sure if next week Jason is doing Sunday school or if I'll be back here. If not, then the next Sunday will be my last Sunday here till February, like I said. And so we'll at least wrap this up. And we won't get into Chapter 14. Maybe when I get back in February, we'll go back into Chapter 14. We can do that and tie that in with love pretty easily. So anyway, let's pray. Let's close our time here and prepare our hearts for the service. Let's pray. Our Father, we have come to some passages of scripture this morning that in many ways are very clear to us, but in many ways do raise questions in our mind. And we know that as good men with good hearts to follow you, come down with some different conclusions on some of the matters that we've been discussing today. We pray for grace and charity. But above all that, we pray for a heart to honor you, a heart to obey your commandments, a heart to have an attitude. As we've been looking recently from Chapter 12, as much as lieth within us live peaceably with all men, a heart to have a good testimony with those that are without and what decisions we make. We make them that can be founded on your word and not necessarily just our opinion or preferences. And we ask that you would give us a very charitable spirit one toward another in these difficult matters. We pray for help as we go into this worship service to follow. We pray for Pastor Kimbrough as he preaches that you would fill him with your spirit for the message you would have for us today. And as we prayed in the Sunday school time, we pray that that word he would have would be used by your spirit to address each heart in that way that is most needful. We all stand in need of different admonitions and different encouragements and different challenges. And so we pray that you would work among us in a great way. We ask it in Jesus name, amen.