Welcome to church. Welcome to the Lord's Day. And today we're going to start probably a two-part series, maybe a one-parter, but I think just a two-part series on how to handle bullies, really. how to deal with people who are trying to take advantage of you and who are stronger and more powerful than you, who have bigger guns. And as a Christian, we have more options than death. We are not kamikazes. You know what a kamikaze is, right? That's, yeah, suicide bombers. We have a lot of options. No, let's leave it open. Is it loud? Are the kids? It's fine. We have more options than fight and die when it comes to dealing with bullies, dealing with powerful entities. And in this day, you can see on the news that this is a big topic of discussion for Christians. The government is clearly overreaching and corporations are clearly overreaching. Right? I'm sure you all watch the news. I've been talking about the sin of overreach for many years, way before COVID ever came and gave a really good opportunity for overreach. But crises always provide a great opportunity for overreach. Every hurricane season, we see it kicking the gear. I mean, the crisis, Whenever there's some saving that needs to be done, all the counterfeit saviors say, here I am, trust me. I mean, that's just how life is. Even in your own personal individual life, when you go through sickness or when you have a financial crisis, that is a time when you are vulnerable to idolatry, vulnerable to counterfeit saviors. And when you trust in a counterfeit savior, you are placing yourself in a position of slavery. And they're overreaching. They're promising what they cannot accomplish. They're exerting authority and prerogative over what's not theirs. And you're submitting to it and entering into slavery. And so this can happen on an individual level, on a church level, on a nation level. So we have a lot of overreach that's taking place right now. As a great example, the CDC this last week declared a continuation of a moratorium on Evictions. Now, I don't know if you know what this means, but anyone who is a landlord knows what this means. I'm a landlord. I have one property that I manage and I have one fairly good tenant. They have their issues, but they don't owe me too much money. They're not too far back. But I'm concerned, I'm wondering, do they watch the news? Has the CDC given them justification to stop paying me rent and to squat on my property? Now, of course, that's theft. The CDC obviously has no authority over that. This is clear tyranny, clear theft, clear overreach. And it's not like there's a moratorium on mortgage notes, okay? I will still have to pay my mortgage. there's a moratorium on evictions. You see the difference? So this is a hypocritical, evil overreach. And this is an easy example that I think everyone can agree on. And I recognize that teaching this particular class at this particular time puts me in a particular camp. But I want you to understand, I'm not in whatever camp you think I'm in. I am against all overreach. OK, whether it be corporate overreach, which is clearly an issue these days, government overreach, father overreach, pastor overreach. I'm against all of those things. Amen. I'm against overreach because Jesus is king and Jesus sets the limits of what a father is is to do and what he is not to do. You see what I mean? Same thing for a pastor. Same thing for a president. Same thing for a CEO. So responding to overreach when the overreacher is, you know, has big guns. This is kind of what we're dealing with today. So persecution. Persecution is on the rise. I'm sure you have heard this. Depending on where you get your facts from, persecution is on the rise in the Western world. You don't know this, but record numbers of churches are being burned in Canada. This is happening in the United States as well, happening all over the Western world. And the persecution that I'm talking about is real persecution. Oftentimes when we speak of persecution, Secularists, statists, idolaters, and well-meaning Christians who run interference for bullies like to say that's not persecution. They like to say, what a shame that you would call being arrested and fined persecution when there's people in Nigeria, which is like the ninth worst place on earth for persecution, being murdered in mass graves. No, that's worse, sure. But it's not a dishonor when we say we are persecuted against them at all. It's like saying to someone who says, I was sexually abused as a child. Oh, so you were raped? You experienced intercourse from a rapist? No, just touching. Well, just touching, that's not molestation. That's an insult for people who've really been molested. You see the problem? The term is still the same. Persecution is a category and there is different degrees of persecution. But the category of persecution is taking place in the United States. In fact, when the Bible speaks of persecution, one of the first examples in the New Testament is an arrest. Paul is going around arresting people, and the Bible calls that persecution. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? What had Saul done at that point in time? He had gone around arresting people. So, stealing their houses, stealing their property, cancelling them from the public square, and even participating in a stoning. So persecution is on the rise, persecution is happening. Those people who say you shouldn't cry persecution, you're shaming real persecuted people, are running interference for the enemy, and they should be swiftly ignored. Just ignore them. No use in even debating. Just ignore them. Persecution is on the rise. We have the Alliance for Defending Freedom, Heritage Defense, Liberty Institute. These are different legal organizations that work Um, for Christians, um, to defend them against persecution. And so we have these types of people for a reason, right? And they'd be good to, to donate to your free will offerings. If you ever want to donate to them, you know, one day we might need them. But how do we respond when the state and corporations or any big bully assumes more and more authority in all of life? Okay, you understand my expression here. Only God has authority over all of life. What do we do when a wannabe God begins to assume authority over all of life? How do we respond? Do we love our enemies? Of course, right? Do we pray for those who persecute us? Of course, of course. But do we pray the imprecatory Psalms against them? Of course. Is this mutually exclusive? No, it wasn't for David who wrote them. David wrote them for Saul. But he also loved Saul, didn't he? There's no dichotomy here. Jesus quoted the imprecatory Psalms, but he loved everyone. He loved his enemies. Do we use the court systems or do we refuse to use the court systems? You know, what does Paul say in Corinth regarding a squabble between two believers? He says it'd be better to be defrauded than to sue one another in a public court. But then Paul uses the public courts in other places. So which is it? Or is it both? Do we duck and cover or do we die on principle at every point? Ecclesiastes says that when you're dealing with a tyrant, you'd better keep your head down. because he'll play whack-a-mole with you. You don't want to be the one kamikaze. No way! There you go. God has called us to be practical. He's called us to win the war, even though that means we will lose some battles. We have to understand the difference. We have to learn to be shrewd. 21 year olds aren't shrewd. They're filled with zeal and passion. That's why they're privates in the army. That's why they get sent on the front lines to run the gap because they're like, but older men who get promoted realized not everything is a nail, right? We have more weapons at our disposal, right? A shrewd poker player doesn't call on every hand. Right? As the famous philosopher once said, you got to know when to hold them or you got to know when to fall. All right. That was cheap. That was cheap right there. So Jesus says, you're going to be hated for my namesake. You're going to be persecuted. What did he say to Peter? One day you're going to be executed. He told Peter to be crucified. Right? For what? For what? Because there would come a point in time where the principle would cost Peter his life. Could Peter have avoided death? Could he have avoided death? He could have denied his calling. He could have been unfaithful. He could have, instead of going to Rome, he could have gone to Tunisia, right? And avoided death. But there does come a point in time in Peter's life where he must die on principle. He must stand up and say, give me liberty or give me death. This is where I draw the line. That did happen for Peter at one point in time. But there's plenty other examples in Peter's life where he runs and hides. There's plenty of other times where he maneuvers. OK, Jesus even told his disciples, I want you to go from town to town. And when they persecute you, what do you do? Wipe the dust off your feet and go to the next town. So what are they, a bunch of cowards? Like there's a 21-year-old in every town being, cowards, you know, they're running. You're like, we need to, no, dude, we got to win the war, right? We preached it in this town. Jesus didn't call us to establish Alamo's in every town, right? There's a time for an Alamo, but not every town has a time for an Alamo, all right? So he goes from town to town. And because the overall war was preach the gospel in every Judean town to fulfill the covenant that he would make with the children of Israel as predicted in the book of Daniel, the way I see it. And so he had to go from town to town preaching the gospel of the kingdom and offering up the terms of the new covenant to all the Judean towns. They couldn't stay in one town and camp out, shake the dust off your feet and get going. We have a particular mission here, okay? So that's the thing, how do we know when to hold and when to fold? We have to know, when do we fight? And when do we run away? Remember the old Puritans, who here loves the Puritans? I'm sure you do, I'm sure you do. Not perfect, of course, you know, like anyone. But the Puritans, by and large, stood up for what was right and they worked to reform the church. Oftentimes from the inside. You know, oftentimes they would stay within the church and work for reform within it. But then what about the pilgrims? What did the pilgrims do? They got on board the Mayflower. Who should we follow, the Pilgrims or the Puritans? No, to each his own. There's a season in this life for fighting and there's a season for running. And I believe the Bible gives us principles on all of these things. And I do believe good people are gonna differ over particular issues here and there. Is this something we die for or is this something we hold on? See what I mean? So that's why in every war you have different generals with different strategies. But fortunately, God uses all of us in our own way, right? He used Elijah, the one lone gunman, to go against the prophets of Baal, to mock them, to preach against them, to call fire down from heaven. And then he went under the broom tree and he cried. He's the only one left in the whole kingdom because no one else had his strategy. He was fighting, he was dying on that hill. He's like, am I the only one gonna die on this hill? And God said, no, I have, there's a remnant all over who haven't bowed the knee to Baal. And later we learn in the story Obadiah, who had been secretly in Ahab's court. You're like Obadiah, right in the court of Ahab, being faithful, being secret, being shrewd. So not everyone is calling fire down from heaven. Some people are being sneaky and shrewd. Some people are calling fire down from heaven. We all have our role in this life, and it's complicated. So let's start with the first principle here. There are actual lines in the sand. There are things that Christians can't budge on. Amen? So we've got to start there. We're not pragmatists. There comes a point in time when you have to say, okay, give me liberty or give me death. For Samuel Adams, who was a devout Christian, he believed that liberty on that point, liberty from the overreach of the parliament and of the king was a hill to die on at that particular point. Samuel Adams, one of our greatest founding fathers, a true, genuine Christian. And so he said, no, this is where we have to draw the line in the sand. There comes a point in time for that, right? Jesus told his disciples they would die on principle. He told them they would be persecuted. You don't get persecuted if you are a pragmatist. Do y'all know what a pragmatist is? You do it if it works. If John the Baptist would have been a pragmatist, a politician, a diplomat, he would not have preached against Herod because that wasn't very, quote, effective. You know, losing your head isn't an effective political strategy, but we're not pragmatists. Efficiency, effectiveness is not our concern. That's God's concern, right? And so there comes a point in time where you have to know your principles, guys. You've got to say, no, there's a line in the sand. I'm not willing to cross this. I'm done. Now, not everybody's going to draw that line in the same place, especially these days when things are complicated. But we all can agree there's principles at stake. There has to be a line somewhere. If we have no lines, we're cowards, pragmatists, traitors. But is there a time, we do draw lines in the sand, but are there times when it's okay to back down? Of course, to live to fight another day, to regroup. Yes, we have to know when, right? Let's look at Matthew 17. Actually, I have it right here for you on the screen so we can read it together. Matthew 17, 25. When they came to Capernaum, that's Jesus and the disciples, the collectors of the two drachma tax went up to Peter and said, does your teacher not pay the tax? Oh, you see here the Bible has something to say about taxes, about political oppression, about tax collectors, about door-to-door tax collectors. Yeah, I've been accused of tax fraud by a Pharisee before. It's a scary thing. I told them that pastors don't have to pay income tax on their housing allowance. They use that as an opportunity to accuse me of tax fraud, to spread that around the whole church. I'm like, it's not tax fraud. That's the most by-the-book thing there is. Pastors have a housing allowance, a parsonage allowance, and we don't have to pay income tax on it. It's something that comes from old custom and old law, and I'm happy to capitalize on it, okay? But it's not tax fraud. But I've had a Pharisee coming after me about taxes before. It's a scary thing because the IRS has. Big guns, the IRS sent us a letter this week, said we owed about 2,500 bucks, 2,534, something like that. Well, that's the exact amount we already paid. So, it's like, so do we owe it again? Or did they not get the bill? And most of the times I would say, ignore that. But with IRS, you don't ignore it because it'll just come out of your account. Plus some, plus pain and penalties, interest and pain and suffering. It'll just come right on out. You know, they're powerful. They're big. If you want to deal with Social Security Administration, you can ask my wife about this later. If you want to get something from them, expect a five hour hold. If you want to let them know they no longer owe you, expect no hold. Right? They have big guns. They're powerful. You don't mess around. You got to duck and cover sometimes. But here they come. They're approaching Jesus. And these are probably like temple Jewish officials. You know, they have all the levers of political power at their disposal. They're big shots. And he said, yes, does your teacher not pay the taxes? And yes. And when he came into the house, so she just takes him off the side in the house. So Jesus spoke to him first saying, what do you think, Simon? I like this. This is a real world. Pharisees come around, doesn't Jesus pay the tax? And then I'm assuming it's Peter. Yeah, he pays the tax. He's a good guy, you know? And then Jesus takes him aside inside the house and says, what do you think, Simon? Think about this with me. From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others? Okay, what does that mean? So, King Herod. Did King Herod's boys pay tax? Oh, no they didn't, right? King Octavius, who was the emperor, I think, when Jesus was born, he said, does his kids pay tax? Julius Caesar's kids pay tax? You know they didn't pay tax, of course not. Of course the taxes went to them, right? So he says, from their sons or from other people? And when Peter said, well, it's from others, Jesus said to him, then the sons are free, right? This is interesting. And of course, this has a lot to do with it being a temple tax. Then the sons are free, right? However, not to give offense to them. Interesting, Jesus was winsome, right? Jesus was worried about offending people. You wouldn't think so, right? Sometimes he didn't mind offending people, right? He seemed to make a career out of offending the Pharisees. But here we have this one instance, there's not a lot of these instances, but in this particular instance, Jesus says, look, I don't know this money. You don't know this money. We don't know this money. They have no authority. They have no prerogative here. but to not give offense to them. Go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up." It's like, watch how easy this is. The kingdom is more than tax. The kingdom is more than meat and wine. Jesus is like, look, okay, right now, take the first coin that comes out of its mouth. You'll find a shekel and a fish mouth. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself. Okay, all right, moving on. You see why? He's gonna lose that battle. because he's got a war going on. That's shrewd right there. That's shrewd. They probably went away thinking, yeah, we're the boss of him. We put him in his place. Little did they know their time was coming. So I think we have here at least a good example. It's not always time to throw down. Got to know when to hold them, when to fold them. Depends on the overall strategy. Amen. All right. We aren't to be apathetic. We aren't to be cowards. We don't fold like lawn chairs, but we aren't kamikazes. We are called to be practical. Any general knows this in any war. You don't. If you have a squad of five men and a brigade is coming down, that's when you run and hide. Right. You don't engage at every point. You got to pick your battles. You got to choose your own territory. We aren't ideologues. What's an ideologue? Can you help me with that? You don't know what an ideologue is? I suppose we could use this word in many different ways, but what would be a good, what I'm trying to say? Someone who is ready to fight over every ideal. Every idea, regardless of the practical implications. You see, I don't think as Christians we're ideologues in the modern sense of that term. We're not perfectionists, okay? We want to win the war, not every single little battle, right? I think that, I hope that makes sense for you. What does Jesus say? Be as harmless as doves, and what? shrewd as serpents. That's right. So with all this being stated and with a few more minutes left, we've got 40 minutes left. I think I got 11 options. All right. This is from a pastor named Philip Kaiser. He lists them given Bible verses. So I think this will help us. But here's 11 options. scenarios that you can choose from as a member of a church or a father or mother or a pastor. So your first option is just to give in, okay? And we see this in Genesis chapter 26, and you'll have to read it yourself if you'd like. But Isaac's father had had dug all of these wells in this desert wasteland. What's going on? It's some sort of a cough in his contract. Call the CDC. Let it bake in the fluorescence right there for a second. No, just leave it there. Let the fluorescence do their work. In Genesis chapter 26, Isaac, he had these water wells, and these wells had been dug by his father in the middle of a wasteland. And they were his. It was his land. It was his family land. And wells in a desert are the most valuable thing that could have been in that day and age. And Abimelech, an evil tyrant, basically breaks his covenant with Isaac, breaks his contract, and steals all the land, eminent domain. You know, and, um, I'm taking all this land. It's mine. And what does Isaac do in Genesis chapter 26? He moves on, goes to another place. I think that's interesting. Um, and the Bible, the Bible, I believe is painting it as a picture of wisdom and, uh, Sometimes God told his people, I have put a tyrant over you. Just go on over to Babylon and behave yourself, right? And at other times he said, no, now's the time to fight. And I think this is an example of Isaac not wanting to spill blood over water. and recognizing that he had other options on the table. Well, I'll get to it later. But that's an example of giving in. What did Paul tell the Corinthians? First of all, he said it is wrong for individual Christians inside of a church to publicly sue one another in such a way that would shame Jesus and shame his church. And what other option did he give? He said, are there not wise men among you whom you could use as mediators who could judge this for you? Right. Make a church court. Let the church court figure it out. Submit yourselves to the leaders of the church. Let them work out this contract dispute. Don't shame Jesus in a pagan court. OK. You can't get justice there. I would hope that the church could offer up wise men and courts that would do better than our court system in the world. I would hope that we could get to that point. But you have to have wise, mature Christian men to be able to do that. And the church lacks those these days quite a bit. But Paul said to them in the midst of all this, he said, even if you don't have wise men that can mediate between you and set up a church court to do all this, it'd be better just to be defrauded. Just give in, rather than shaming Jesus in a pagan court over this little individual dispute. So he's basically saying, it'd be better to give in on this point. So sometimes you give in. And in our Constitution, you see an example of this. It says in our Constitution, it says the patient sufferance of these colonies, they gave in for a long time to many different things. You know, give me liberty or give me death wasn't uttered right out of the gate. You know, patient sufferance for a long period of time before you finally say, okay, that's the line, not going any further. And everybody draws a line differently, but there is an option you can give him. That's one option. There's another option, fight on principle. How about Naboth's vineyard? Y'all know Naboth? The story of Naboth? Not totally different than the story of Isaac and the wells in Genesis 26. He owned a vineyard, and who wanted it? King David. Ahab, okay, how we're dealing with overreach here. King Ahab wants his neighbor's property. He covets his neighbor's field. He is in direct violation of the commandments, ninth commandment. His wife Jezebel is, you know, she's an evil dictator and she basically kills Naboth. She tries to get it from him, but he says, no, you can't have my vineyard. Now, why does he draw a line in the sand? Why would he face, go toe-to-toe with Ahab and Jezebel knowing that his life was on the line? Why would he fight? Isaac didn't fight over property rights. Naboth fights over property rights. Is one of them the coward, right, and the other one the courageous one? We don't know all the scenarios involved, but I think if you had to guess, it would be because Nabof understood that the long-term war involved his children having an inheritance, and he was ready to fight that his children wouldn't be disinherited. That was the issue of war, not a skirmish, not a little battle. So maybe, I don't know, we don't know all the details there. And you know what happened to Naboth? He died. So other people probably looked at him and said, you see, that proves he was wrong, that proves he was wrong. He should have given in like we said to, but no, that doesn't prove he was wrong. His death actually has gone down in the annals of time, and it's probably produced a whole lot of fruit, even this class right now. So we don't necessarily know the results of giving in. You give in, you might become a slave. You fight, you might die. We don't precisely know the results, but we do know these are options from time to time. Of course, you can preach against the tyranny and the overreach. Remember what John the Baptist preached against? What was he preaching against? Yeah, adultery. He was preaching Old Testament sexual ethics to a non-christian pagan governor. Okay, see that? So do we expect non-christians to obey God's law? No. John did, didn't he? We expect them to? Yeah. John says, hey, pagan governor who hates God, you're not allowed to do that sexually because of God's commandments here in the Old Testament. We should at least not be surprised. Well, we shouldn't. That's what I know. You're using the word expect in different ways. But yeah, we should preach the law of God to them. recognizing that the capacity to obey God's law comes by the Spirit through the preaching of the gospel, which is also why John preached the gospel to him as well, I'm sure, calling him to repent because of the gospel of the kingdom. But we do, God does, Jesus the King, who is King over all, holds non-Christians accountable according to His law. even the one in the Old Testament. You know, of course, things have changed in form here and there, but his law is over all of life, right? And now it also says that John preached for all the evil things that Herod had done. So it wasn't just sexual ethics. It was all of his problems. He was on him probably often, right? And eventually, Herod's wife had John killed. So that's one option to preach against him, right? To preach against him. But John died. Oh, you know, he finally learned his lesson, finally learned his lesson. He was being arrogant. No, no, it was time to fight. He had to preach. He had to preach. And yes, he lost his life. And that was part of God's plan. And then, of course, we can ignore or disregard. When someone who has no authority over a particular area begins to exert their authority, one option you have is to say, all right, scram. Mind your own business. That's like when a little brother comes into his big sister's bedroom and starts bossing her around. You know what the big sister does. She doesn't necessarily always fight him. Sometimes she just ignores him, because he has no authority in that place, right? And there's just no, hey, get out of here. And if he doesn't go away after a few minutes of ignoring, then she might get up and punch him or something like that, right? But this is an option with someone who doesn't have genuine jurisdiction. You can just ignore them. They might be trying to overreach, and you might recognize they don't have the power to do it, and so you just disregard. You don't necessarily have to preach against it and make a big stink. You don't necessarily have to go down swinging. You don't necessarily have to give in. You just be like, just go about your business. I feel like that's like half the religion of Acadiana anyway, is we just pretty much just go about our business in all of life. Laissez les bons temps rouler. Like, you know, even with things we should take seriously. Ah, let the good times roll. I feel like that's part of our culture here, this disregard thing. Oh, it's Lord's Day worship. Ah, you know, let the good times roll. It's festival day. It's family day. We just do whatever the heck we want. So that is a little bit of a problem. But Luke chapter 13, verse 31, Jesus is preaching in the public square and says, at that very hour, some Pharisees came and tattled and said to him, you know, Pharisees, they were, you know, it's like the tone police or the, you know, the Twitter mob, they're out there. And they said to him, to Jesus, get away from here, you know, for Herod wants to kill you. You know, you better run along. You're not allowed to do this. You know, here it's coming for you. And Jesus said to them, go and tell that Fox name calling Jesus seriously. You know, you're better than that, right? Go and tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow and the third day I finish my course. So he's in the public square. The Pharisees say, you better get out of here. You're not allowed to do this. Herod's going to kill you. And what does Jesus do? Does he run along? He's like, I got my plans. I got my routines here. I have every right to continue to preach in the public square. Right. I'm not breaking any laws. He has no jurisdiction here. I'm on my schedule. Right. Was Jesus sinning? Was he violating Romans 13? No, none of those things. But he is ignoring Herod's mandate. You know, Herod has no authority over that. Jesus had every legal right to be preaching in the public square. This often happens when Christians preach on the sidewalk at abortion clinics. The cops will come along and force them out of there when they have every right to be doing that. And the cops will make up rules and tyrannically push them aside just because it's easier for them. Perhaps, you know, but then he had every right. So he ignored. He disregarded. I will also point out to you that Fox and, you know, none of the none of the translations I've seen get it right. And it might be because we don't have a word in English for a female fox. But this is female fox. It's feminine. Isn't that funny? So I don't know. Does anyone know what a female fox is called? I know. You know? A fox head? Jesus is like, yeah, yeah, go tell that fox head. I'm on my own schedule here. And you know the crowds were like, oh yeah. The crowds probably were cutting up, laughing, because you know what he means. You know what he means? Well, it's an insult, but what is the insult? He's not calling him squirrely. What is the insult? He's saying, I know we're dealing with Herod's wife. It's really, he's like, it's like a who wears the pants in that family comment. I think, I mean, there's no way for me to know for certain, but he's like, I know who's really, Herod's probably, Herod probably doesn't care at all. He's just off having his parties and whatever. It's his wife that's coming after me and John. Probably, maybe, maybe, we don't know. But one thing we do know is it's him, So, interesting. But yeah, Daniel ignored. Remember the decree in Daniel? What does he do? He keeps on praying. He keeps on praying. Windows open. He has no jurisdiction over that. He was violating the mandate. He was disobeying the authority. But it wasn't their prerogative. It wasn't their jurisdiction. So he ignored. Now Romans 13 is oftentimes given as an example of why we should obey every single mandate. Every single decree, but of course, nobody does that. I promise you, there's plenty of laws that you disregard all the time, based on just the way you were raised. And we'll think of some examples here in a second. But Romans 13 actually says there's no authority but from God, right? And you can look up your translations for all the precise quotes. Well, oftentimes, think of that and we say, oh, you see, if they're authority, then it's like God's telling me. That's not the only way to interpret that. The other way to interpret it is, if they're not in submission to God, if they're not of God or from God, then they're not actually the authority. You see what I mean? There's other ways to interpret that particular phrase. And in our society, we know this. Everybody knows this. If a dad is acting like he's God, what is everyone saying? Patriarch, you know, how dare he? How dare he? And he'll be stoned. He'll be tarred and feathered. You know, pitchforks will arrive at his door because he is a dad trying to take, you know, trying to be abusive. Everyone knows that. What if a pastor starts, you know, what if a pastor starts, like, commanding people to do things? You know, like the way they did in the Bible, stuff like that. And the pastor says, you know, you've read Hebrews, honor the authorities over you, obey the authorities that are over you in the church. What are you going to hear? You're going to have 25 comments on Facebook the next day saying, you know, pastors who are concerned about their authority are secretly abusive. You're gonna have that. It's gonna be all these theologian gals saying all that about the dads and the pastors, just hammering them, hammering the dads and the pastors because they are overreaching. Well, it's because they're doing business for the spirit of the age, which is actually about propping up Real tyrants, okay? Real tyrants. Have there been times in history where abusive fathers were a central problem of our society? I'm sure. Have there been times in history when pastors were a problem in society? Yes. It's called the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, the Inquisitions and whatnot. That is church overreach, okay? But what is the problem that we face today? It's not church and family overreach. I promise you that. So don't run interference for the people who are actually overreaching. Recognize that we don't submit to anyone who's not in submission to God. If they're overreaching outside of their bounds, then we just can't. Ignore them. You see what I'm saying? We don't have to fight them. In fact, if you pick your head up, you're going to get whack-a-mole. Right? Now's not the time. Live to fight another day. But we don't have to kowtow to tyrants. We don't have to. It's not biblical. We would never do it for dads. We would never do it for pastors. And we don't have to do it for any public officials either. OK? So. Right now in our own government, the CDC, and I gave this example already, said moratorium on evictions. Keep paying your mortgages, but the renters don't have to pay you rent, okay? President Biden said, guys, we looked into this and some people said this is illegal, but the CDC said it. So, and I'm not making this up, I'm just paraphrasing what he said. Well, I don't care what the CDC said, right, okay? The CDC is not in charge over tenancy rules and tenancy laws, okay? But the Supreme Court weighed in on this. You know what the Supreme Court said? This is illegal, this is totally unconstitutional. Wait a second, so the President is disregarding the Supreme Court? Yes, he is. He's disregarding him. All the governors, Romans 13, Romans 13, all the government, all the governors that are going along with this are disregarding the Supreme Court. Now, strategically, I'm OK with this because I would like all the governors to disregard the Supreme Court and other issues. I would like us to all just go ahead as a country and say, actually, no, that is not in the Constitution. We can read. You are engaged in tyrannical behavior, Supreme Court. So maybe this is going to backfire on the spirit of the age. I don't know. Well, my point is that everybody disregards laws all the time. It just depends on what battles they're fighting when they want to say, obey the authorities, obey the, yeah, come on now. You know what y'all are doing, OK? Everybody disregards sometimes. What we need to do is regard and disregard biblically and have a biblical basis for it. Know where we stand. Know where the lines are drawn. Amen. All right. I have 11 options, but I'm only up to four. OK. OK. Option five. Get out of Dodge. That's what the pilgrims did. That's what Jesus told them to do in Matthew 10, 23. We're all moving forward. No, sir. No, sir. Paul in Acts chapter eight, verse one, he escaped from jail with the help of with the help of a police officer. Really? Puritan stayed. Pilgrims fled. Got to be wise here, OK? And then option six, lawyers, guns and money, right? Lawyers and legal threats. Now, we might think of it as tacky or un-Christian to use lawyers, but no, no, no, no, no. Paul used lawyers. We need to use lawyers. And I love the scene when they take Paul for political expediency and for political maneuvering. You remember that a riot was starting. And they took Paul, and the guy's like, just beat him some to make the rioters happy. And so they get Paul strapped down on the rack, his shirt's off. And apparently when the guy's arm is in there, he's like, is it lawful for you to beat a Roman citizen who has not had a trial? All of a sudden, it's a legal threat. It's a legal threat, timed perfectly, I do believe, right? I mean, look, we don't have to be two-dimensional, impractical kamikazes. Right? We're not all sandwich board street preachers. We're not all cage stage and all of life. We can wait and let them strap us down and then be like, you know, we can be shrewd. We can fight like we can fight with all the tactics that God gives. We can mock. We can run. We can preach. We can be strategic too. The devil shrewd, but Christians should be shrewder. Shrewder. All right. Shrewder, is that a word? Shrewderist. In Titus 3.13, I think this is very interesting, Paul sends his best. He says, do your best to speed Zenos the lawyer and Apollos on their way. Isn't that funny? Like there's a lawyer mentioned right there in Paul's disciple band. That was his lawyer. That was his guy. It was like when I call Aaron, I'm like, Aaron, you know, I got a little tax problem here. So, co-belligerency, another great scene. Paul was shrewd. He's in the crowd. Everyone, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they're like the Republicans and the Democrats, okay? They're really like the right wing and the left wing of the Enlightenment. They're there. They all hate Paul, all right? And in the middle of it, it says this. It says, when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other part were Pharisees, he cried out in the councils, brothers, I am a Pharisee. I think that's funny. Like in other parts of the Bible, Paul's saying, Pharisee of Pharisees, I count it all as dung. He's like, I don't care about this one bit. But then he's in the middle of this, basically they're trying to crucify him. And he said, hey, hey, I'm a Pharisee. So now all of a sudden he's got half the room on his team. That's called co-belligerency. Now, unfortunately, Christians can't walk and chew gum at the same time. And so all the other Christians watching this were like, Paul, you know, don't you know that Jesus is King? I was like, we're not Pharisees, we're Christians. I know that, relax dude, like I'm on trial right now. Can I be sneaky for a second? My life's on the line. We gotta be able to be strategic. Make sense? I'm a Pharisee, son of the Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope of the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial. And of course, that was a debate. He's like standing up with the right wing and the left wing. He's like, I'm right wing. I'm only on trial because you're trying to take away free market principles. And they're like, yeah. Actually, Jesus is king over the market, but don't tell them. And when he said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. See, we've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We've got to be strategic here. We have a lot to learn. We can't all be privates in the culture wars. We can call the cops. Paul did that. Well, actually, one of his disciples called the cops and got him snuck out of the back window when he was in jail. You can just do the time. That's what Peter did. Peter's like, I know they're going to arrest me. They're going to stick me in prison for a little while. It'll be all right. So he preached the gospel. It did the time. The angel lets him out. He goes back and does it again. Y'all know that story. So you can just do the time. A lot of people do that when they sit in an abortion clinic. They're like, I know they're going to arrest me. I'm going to have bail at 750 bucks. I'll be out this afternoon. They just do it. Okay. You can go to war. That's, you know, there's a time when you have to go to war and you can pray the war songs, a lot of options. So that's just 11. There's a bunch more, but, uh, That's it, and the last slide, how much, what time is it, Josh? We're past? And finally, last slide. Not every issue is equally drastic. Not every issue and not every tyrannical act is equally destructive. Not every sin is central to the war. We have to learn to distinguish between battles and the war, and we have to learn to be as shrewd as vipers. Amen and amen. Y'all have a great Lord's Day.