Q&A 5: A mandate to enforce a Christian culture? Q&A 6: Resist the government?
Vern Peterman · Feb 7, 2010
Questions & Answers, No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926154145276

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, the question here, this is Q&A number five. It says, do Christians have a mandate to take over the U.S. government, influence voting, and enforce a Christian culture on the U.S.? There are varying degrees of this kind of teaching that are prevalent. This particular view, in other words, the idea that Christians have a mandate to kind of take over the U.S. government, usually it's thought of in some political action mode, that has various names. Reconstructionism, Kingdom Now Theology, Theonomy, and or Dominion Theology. Those are some of the various terms. Anybody heard of those before? Any of those? Some? Yeah, it's interesting. It has various names that have cropped up.

The king of now theology is a term used more among those who are of this persuasion out of the charismatic realm. This view is generally out of Reformed or Calvinist theology, but can even involve some who are of charismatic persuasion. Those who hold this view in general have the following viewpoint.

So we've got a set of bullets down here. One is that Christ is the king over all the earth, present tense, and the church is the agent of his reign over the kingdom on earth. So it's a little different from the church is the kingdom. It's Christ is now the king over all the earth.

Frequently this teaching includes, and we'll mention it below, that Satan is already bound. I see people chuckling. Some within this group hold anti-semitic views since they hold that God has rejected the Jews and chosen the church as his earthly agent instead. Some of these hold the view that God hates the Jews. and we're supposed to take the places the Jews were originally intended to hold, but out of their rejection of Christ, the church was put in as a substitute, according to their teaching. The next one, the Bible is interpreted by varying degrees of allegorization. I say varying degrees because depending on, you know, where one stands in this range of theology, they will allegorize or force an allegory on the text in various places. Overriding the literal meaning of the text.

The next one, the views of biblical prophecy within this group range from amillennial, that is, there never was nor will there ever be any millennial kingdom. Not happening. Postmillennial, the millennial kingdom has already come. And some are also preterists. The preterist view is this. Christ came in judgment through the Romans in 70 AD. A full preterist will teach that Christ is not coming back again ever. Not happening. That's the whole teaching along with this view. Next bullet down, the church should both keep, this is their teaching, and institute all the laws of Moses except for the sacrificial system and the dietary laws.

Why stop there? Yeah, well, they don't like them, I guess. Yeah, it's too much trouble. It's rather bothersome, you know. When you go to church on Sunday morning and you want to go and have lobster or crab or shrimp Not only are Israel's laws assumed to apply to the U.S., but the promises to Israel are assumed to apply to the U.S. as well. Either Jesus will return when the church has control of things on earth, or he already has returned in a figurative way, and we Christians most certainly should be taking control of things on earth. I've had conversations with folks of this belief, and they can be extremely antagonistic. They'll look at folks who believe, like we teach here, as being profoundly irresponsible, false teachers.

It's not like, you know, yeah, you're Christians too, and, you know, let's talk. It's an extreme fierce attack, is frequently what I've seen. And my brother was running a website that included discussions. And boy, they ended up just poking them full of pins. I mean, they came at him with vicious words and posted his picture up on their website. And he had awful things to say about it. So anyway.

The next one, Satan who once took control of the Garden of Eden is either bound already, this is in Revelation 20, that's already past tense. Because what we look at in the book of Revelation, they see that's already all happened. This is the new heavens and new earth by the way. We're there, Satan's bound, this is the new heavens and new earth, we're there. That's it, that's the way they interpret it. It's a little hard to explain why there's no more sorrow and crying and pain and death and things, but let's see.

Christians must take this country, make this country a Christian nation by every means possible, including spiritual revival, social influence, political influence and control, and expressing in government, life and society the authority of Christ the King as his royal agents. So that's the teaching. While we have briefly described the views of some who are of these persuasions, we also said that there are degrees of this kind of teaching in other realms of Christianity. Some of those who have leaned in this direction without embracing everything given above include Jerry Falwell.

I heard him speak about eight years ago, something like that. And I think the Lord took him home. But another one who's still alive, Pat Robertson, founder of the Christians Coalition. D. James Kennedy, Corporate Ministries. I think the Lord took him home, too. But those would be some who don't fully embrace all the teachings, but kind of lean in that direction, where we're all supposed to get out there and get busy with political things.

Now, one of the verses that will be brought forward, this time on the top of page two, on the flip side there, 2 Chronicles 7.14. You will see it frequently in emails and letters that get sent out and TV programs and things of that sort.

2 Chronicles 7.14. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I'll forgive their sin, and will heal their lame."

Even the National Day of Prayer frequently has this as a leading and primary verse. And there's some of that leaning in that direction. Now, the one reason why I would say that's not to be taken quite directly is because this is God's appeal to Israel. It matches the promise of conditional blessings.

Now, here's something we're going to address a little bit later, and that is the law was never a means of salvation. Why is that the case? The law of Moses was never a means of salvation, even for Israel. Well, there was blood in the sacrifices, but why else is the law not the means of salvation? Salvation is by what? By grace through faith. It is by faith that they would be saved. Always. That was true for Abraham. It was true for Noah. It was true for Enoch. It was true for Moses. It was true for Isaiah. All these people. Salvation is always by faith for all time.

What is the law therefore? The law determines who gets blessed and who gets cursed in this life. And that's why we point here to Deuteronomy 28. The first 14 verses of Deuteronomy 28 tells the Jews, here's Moses speaking to the Jews for the last time, okay? He's telling all the Jews in Deuteronomy 28, first 14 verses, if you are obedient, here's all the ways you'll be blessed here on planet earth.

Does not have to do with eternal salvation, okay? Here's all the ways you'll be blessed on planet earth. The verses after that, Verse 15 on down to past verse 16 are all the curses if you don't obey. None of it has to do with eternal salvation. It all has to do with how you're blessed or cursed on this earth for the Jews. But it's not about their salvation. The law never saved anybody. And it never could. Because salvation is always by faith.

Okay, and one of the things we point out here is the reference to the land or your land in Deuteronomy 28. That's the chapter that talks about your blessings and churches. Verses 8, 11, 12, 24, 52, 63. And now there is a biblical basis for Christians, those of the body of Christ, to carry out something similar to portions of the above verse.

And that's one reason why the verse has things that sound right, even though the verse is explicitly for Israel. And by the way, what's the context of this verse? The context is Solomon had just finished building the temple. Solomon had just finished building the temple and then this was given to the Jews under Solomon. The first bullet we have under there shows why some aspects of this verse seem right.

One of them, the church is not a replacement for Israel. Okay? Nor has God rejected his people Israel. It fits It fits Israel now. It fits Israel in the times to come. Okay, secondly, but we in the church are also called the people of God. So that's why I say, if my people, are we in the church his people too? Yes. We also are a people of God. So it seems to fit. We are not a replacement, however, for Israel. We are also a people. It's the word also that counts there. The next one, we in the church are called Christians. The Jews are called by his name. What's meant by that? What's meant by the Jews are called by his name? No ideas? Any guesses? Okay. Salvation. Pardon? Salvation. Well, let's see.

If we're saying the Jews are called by his name, what does that mean? Okay. They shall be his people and You shall be their God. And it gives the name which comes across in Hebrew as Yahweh or we've carried it over, kind of anglicized it with Jehovah, okay? And so that's one thing is an identification. Even what was the name of Jacob given to Jacob? The other name was? Israel, okay? And so here's Israel, the very name, El means God, okay? There are ways in which Jehovah, or Yahweh, and even the name of Israel is connected there.

When you look at by what name are we called in the church, the identification, we're called Christians. The book of Acts records that those in the church did things in the name of Jesus. From very early on, the very second chapter of Acts, all the way towards the very end, and repeatedly. The name of Jesus is the identification for the church.

So there is a different name. We in the church are called to humble ourselves before the presence of the Lord. James 4. So there is an application there. We are also to pray and to behold the Lord. Now it is interesting. To seek my face is the expression given there. There is something similar in the Church where we are called to behold the Lord. And so there is something there.

There is also where to confess that is to agree with God regarding our sins and to walk in newness of life. If we are walking in dependence upon the sin nature, the sin nature will faithfully pay a wage, temporal spiritual death, even for Christians. The next one, we are to do godly things because we've been forgiven.

Ephesians 4.32.

Ephesians 4.32 is the verse that says not forgive in order to be forgiven, but forgive, why? Because you've been forgiven. The important distinction. and we do not have an earthly land to be healed, we do have a heavenly citizenship, which means no healing.

So there are things about this verse, some of them fit, and some of them don't. We're not Israel, we're not a replacement for Israel. And so that's why, as this verse is often quoted, there are things about it that do fit. And there are some things that don't. And it's a matter, as we've talked about previously, we can always look at what fits and applies to us from things that are written to Israel. And what is different? What's in contrast? And it's appropriate for us to look at both of those things, just like we've done here.

Is Israel a people of God? Yep. Are we a people of God? Yep. but a different people. Okay, let's look at page 3 in the handout there. We as Christians do have biblical guidance regarding prayer for our leaders. So this is, and I think now here we are in election year, all sorts of political issues in front of us. How do we deal with that? How do we pray for these leaders of ours? How do we pray for this nation? And we have a particular direction here in 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2. And by the way, what was the nature of the political system when Paul wrote this to Timothy?

Who was in charge of things? Pardon? Rome was in charge, right? The Romans were in charge. And tell me, what were the Romans like? Pardon? They're kind of bullies. Bullies, yes. They came in and enforced their reign with military action, if that's what's called for. Most certainly. They had soldiers spread throughout their empire. And what else can we say about the Romans? How were they spiritually?

Yeah, you have that the emperor was to be recognized as a god, as deity. Later on it became required that everyone in the empire swear allegiance to the emperor and go to the emperor's temple and even have a certificate that said that you've done so. Of course that put the Christians in a lot of trouble, right? because they wouldn't acknowledge the emperor's deity.

So when Paul is writing this, we're not talking about a Christian nation or a Christian political system at all. And also in terms of things being messed up morally, all the laws that we have in place to protect children and the various agencies, everything from our police departments and sheriff's departments to the child protective services and things like that.

None of those were in place. There was nothing to protect children. It was perfectly legal for a father to kill a son at any age unless He was adopted as a son through the official process or legally accepted. Other than that, perfectly legal to kill a daughter or son at any age. Molestation, no protection whatsoever. Abuse, no protection whatsoever. Not even any laws to call upon. Nothing.

In terms of sexual sin, most of the emperors up to this point in time had a homosexual relationship, they were bisexual as you would describe them as. The Greek culture had four different categories of prostitutes. and married men were expected to participate, both before and after marriage. It was a horrible place. Okay, with that as a background, let's read this verse. 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2.

First of all then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, now notice, what does he say? Is this kind of I suggest? I recommend? No, what word did he use? I urge. So there is an urgency to this, right? I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men. Isn't that interesting? For what?

How does verse 2 start? For kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. Okay, who are we praying for? We're praying on behalf of all men, but for the kings and all who are in authority.

By the way, how many people have we got in authority here in the United States? Oh. I don't want to take up our time listing, you know, all the different authorities. I mean, we've got authorities for everything under the sun and authorities for things that they never dreamed of having authorities for.

So there's potentially a lot of praying to do. Okay. So notice that what I'm talking about and pointing to here is not a matter of, oh, don't pray for our country. That's not the point at all. But notice that the prayer has a different character to it.

And it says, for kings and all who are in authority, so that, what's the end? What's the end result that you're looking for? They may be coming to know the Lord Jesus. Yeah, but in this you're so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.

Isn't that interesting? That that's the direction of praying for those who are in authority. Now, is it inappropriate for us to pray for the people of our country? No, no it's not. I think what this does, however, is it offers a perspective. It answers in part the question, do we have some mandate to take over the government? Do we have some mandate to try to make everything Christian? Now, notice what the end result of the prayer is. So to allow us the latitude to live as he describes, lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.

Okay. So it's interesting, the end result isn't, Lord, let's make all those pagans out there act like Christians. Okay? Lord, let's get all these people out here, I mean, even if we can't convince them, we'll get laws in place and make everybody act like Christians. And we'll make Jesus king whether they like it or not.

And notice that's not the message here. The message is pray that we may have the latitude to live out life as is described in scripture. That's the direction that he calls for. He does not prohibit prayers of other kinds that certainly would seem appropriate. What Ark had mentioned here, that people would come to salvation.

Are there a whole bunch of people in this country that need to be saved? Oh, yeah. A whole bunch. And there's some back in Washington, D.C. that I particularly like to see saved. They particularly like to get out of the snowstorm they're in. But anyway, it is very appropriate for us to look at other things.

But I think if you look at this, this is not in the nature Paul's prayer, guidance, even urgency to Timothy. It's not in the nature of take over the government. It's not in the nature of make this a Christian nation. There was just not even the slightest hope of that.

What did you say about the praying for their salvation? Well, what I'm saying is this doesn't immediately address that. But it was certainly, in other words, there are other prayers we might pray that are certainly appropriate, and including praying for the salvation of, we could pray for the salvation of everybody, you know, that doesn't know the Lord in Washington, D.C. We could pray for the salvation of people, you know, right here in our own Capitol building. a capital area. We could pray for salvation, and I think a lot of us do, of people we love and care about who don't know the Lord.

And that's fitting and appropriate. I'm just saying that there isn't some mandate to enforce a Christian culture and a Christian set of laws. That's not what Christians are called to. That's the point. Yes? In the 17th chapter, John, Then let's say that I pray not for the world. Yeah. I pray not for the world. Good point. Yeah. And let's ask this other question that I haven't addressed here.

What is the work of the Holy Spirit with the unbeliever? What is the work of the Holy Spirit with the unbeliever? to convict regarding sin and righteousness and judgment. There is a ministry of the Holy Spirit to those who don't believe. And that's a fitting place. But notice that while we see that's the Holy Spirit's ministry and we're called, even urged to a ministry here, none of that is a matter of mandating that we somehow take over the government or influence people or get Christian laws in place and try to enforce those.

I think there's another category of things under the acid test there on page 3. When the Apostle Paul came into Ephesus, he came to a grossly pagan city. This is Acts 18, 19, and 20. I'm going to address that. Ephesus was a Roman provincial capital with a Roman governor and about 3,000 Roman soldiers were stationed there. It's been said that Ephesus and Corinth were known as some of the most immoral cities in the Roman Empire. Here's a sampling of some of the moral and spiritual issues in Ephesus.

Prostitutes were common and even available in different categories. There was a house of prostitution to the immediate left of the public library in Ephesus. That house of prostitution has, and it's visible to this day, footsteps that are engraved in the stones that lead up to the House of Prostitution, starting in front of the public library. Next bullet.

Like some of the Roman emperors in the New Testament times who were known to have been gay or bisexual, such practices were common in Ephesus. The record we have is that lesbianism was extremely common in Ephesus. Slavery, of course, was common, and even some Christians were slaves. A person who bought a slave was free to molest or abuse the slave in nearly unlimited degree.

I say nearly because there were some restrictions, but not a lot. Next bullet. It was legal in Ephesus, as in all the Roman Empire, for people to abuse, abandon, and even outright kill their children, even in public, at any age, for any reason, or without one. Abortion was not only legal, but accepted in the culture, as was the killing of a child right after birth. A father might be head off to work, and his wife, who might be at the point of delivery, receive an instruction, something like, if it's a girl, kill it. And that's supposed to be done before he gets home.

Next one, the making of idols and the presence of pagan temples was very prominent. Acts 19 is a recording of how that gets done. The Temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The presence of temple prostitutes in Ephesus has been both claimed and disputed. So I won't try to scan anything on that. There may or may not have been those. Theft was without penalty as long as the thief could get within a bow shot of the Temple of Artemis.

That's maybe one reason why he wrote and Paul wrote in Ephesians 4.28 about stop your thieving. Page 4. In view of the above gross immorality, child abuse, molestation, and murder, and other evidences of rampant moral and spiritual depravity, do we find any evidence that the Apostle Paul instituted demonstrations, voter canvassing, political campaigns or in any other way sought to change the culture or take over the political system or exert social influence such as to directly reduce the immorality, child abuse, etc. Do we find any evidence that Paul invested time in that direction? None. Okay.

In a word, no. Paul did carry out evangelism among both the Jews and the Gentiles, and then taught at least the church elders for three years, day and night. That may have included others, but certainly the elders. Later, he sent Timothy to Ephesus to correct the false teachers. Four decades later, the Lord even spoke to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2, 1-17, should be 1-7.

And they were corrected, but nothing was said about their need to influence the world or act as agents for the king so as to reign on earth and establish a kingdom now. So in view of all the above, a biblical understanding of what the apostles did and what the apostles called for believers to do, both individually and in the churches, does not set forth a mandate for Christians to change a culture, take control of the government, influence voting, or enforce a Christian culture upon the U.S. or anywhere else. When the apostles did set, excuse me, what the apostles did set forth was focused upon one's relationship and fellowship with the Lord, personal and spiritual, church spiritual growth, and the living out of the gospel among believers. Prayer for the leaders in the government are called for so that believers are free to carry out these things. Believers are free to exercise the rights granted to them by the government. An example would be Here is the Apostle Paul, and what does he do?

He takes advantage of his Roman citizenship to appeal to Caesar. Did he have the right to do that? Yeah. Did he do that? Yeah. He exercised the rights that he had. So that would indicate we are free to do the same. To vote, it influenced voting in lawful ways, and that's not because You know, I see an example of it, but certainly we are free and there's no prohibition of scripture against that.

And even to seek and hold political offices. There's a possible reference to a fellow who was a city treasurer in Romans 16, 23. And by the way, this Erastus is the fellow's name, and there have been two inscriptions that seemed to support this guy's name. Actually, two inscriptions that had his name on the inscription. Believers are also free to be involved in lawful political and social action of various kinds. So, can a Christian be involved in social and political action? Yes, you certainly can.

But it is different from saying that there is a mandate to do so, right? Law in the U.S. does limit the political involvement and expression of churches and church leaders if those churches desire to have and maintain their tax-exempt and tax-deductible contribution status. So we will teach here, and I can even tell you all these things politically. it would threaten our tax deductibility status for contributions. If I were to go and say, now vote for this person, make sure you vote this way, you know, stay away from this fellow, support this guy, any of those kinds of statements would put our category of deductions at risk.

What about issues? There are issues that we can speak to if it is an issue that is directly related to what our church teaches. For example, we made available a ballot initiative sign-up that was pro-life. And that would be consistent with what we teach. So that doesn't pose a problem. But, you know, particularly candidates get to be, that's off limits.

Ballot issues may, if they have some spiritual and moral applicability and the scripture addresses it, it would be a different thing. Okay, now, questions? Comments? Any aspirations? Inspirations? Because we've got another question here, but before we go on to that, any thoughts?

Well, there's two things. One is that the Jews operated under special exemptions. And so, for example, you know, the Jews had their own courts for certain things. and particularly in Israel, certain ranges of things, they were actually carried out within the Jewish system. If you were farther away from Jerusalem, for example, here's Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. The indications are that there was a, both from scripture and archaeology, that there was a synagogue there. The synagogues were not only places of Jewish worship, they were also places of law enforcement.

Let me give you, for instance, if a man was not being compliant with his obligations in marriage, he could do it. They had a graduated series of fines that they enforced at the synagogue. And when you got to the end of those fines, if he was still not compliant, they could whip him. So you can imagine, and so if we come to church, we think, well, gee, I wonder if I'll get whipped today. Probably not. But in the synagogue, that was actually one of the things that could take place.

What the Romans took away But it occasionally happened anyway. Stephen is an example. What the Romans took away is the power of capital punishment. The Jews under the law of Moses were supposed to have that, but when the Romans came in, they said, no, that's reserved for us. Occasionally, something took place that went around that. And I mentioned Stephen, the death of Stephen is an example.

But for the most part, the Jews were not to carry out capital punishment. All they could do in that instance was recommend Caesar's Roman government who would have to carry it out if they chose to do so. They didn't just simply do it as a matter of course. They did their own reviews like we see with Pilate and Jesus.

Okay, does that answer your question? Yeah, okay. Other thoughts? Yes? Oh, one thought comes to mind is the Jews that were being protected and hidden illegally when they were being persecuted in Nazi Germany. Yes, during the World War II era. Yeah. What about that? They broke the law. Yeah, well and that is where we get into the second point here.

Are there limits to how far I should be subject to the government should Christians passively resist government controls and obligations? Christians over time have kind of held a range of positions. So, we'll answer it this way. While the questions above deals with those who believe that Christians have a mandate to take over the U.S. government, influence voting, and force a Christian culture upon the U.S., this question goes the other way. It asks either what circumstances would indicate that a believer ought to refuse to be subject to the government, or whether a believer ought to have a constant stance of passive resistance to the government.

There are those who have a constant stance of, in varying degrees, resisting the government. Can you think of certain groups that tend to do that in one way or another? So-called Christian groups, or groups within Christendom, who resist the government in various ways.

Pardon? The Quakers? Yeah, the Quakers are one of those groups. Their area of resistance is in the area of pacifism, we would say. Resisting military involvement or even support of military actions would also be another area. Can you think of others? The Mennonites. Yes, that would be another name that I would come up with. Yeah.

See, during the time of the Reformation, what happened? You had groups like the Lutherans, who, they took a stance in opposing the religious political system that the Roman Catholic Church had set up, right? But what the Lutherans did was develop alternate political and military powers. Martin Luther wrote A Mighty Fortress, and that's because there was one of the political leaders who was helping him to stand apart and to resist the Roman Catholic religious and political and military system. And basically what ended up becoming the Thirty Years' War, the first half of the 1600s, was a battle between Catholics and Lutherans in great part.

It was also during this time that the Calvinists, who also fought against Rome, but were able to take more of a strong defensive stance because they were centered out of Switzerland, which was a place you just you know, didn't want to attack. Hitler didn't even want to attack Switzerland.

So you end up with alliances with government and military officials as the standard. During the same time that the Lusernes and the Calvinists had their military and political alliances, the Mennonites set up their little kind of rural towns and settlements, but didn't take part in any of these different groups that were battling. And so what they did is they developed a stance of, you know, we don't do government. Why? Because that goes along with attacking people and you know, that whole military thing. So by kind of isolating themselves and staying in rural areas, they kept that stance.

And when the numbers were drawn out of the poll, you can imagine, Dan's number was one of the first ones drawn out. Because he was married, and he had a husband, and he had a son, or at least had a child. He was deferred for a little while, but didn't keep in. So he decided to join the Air Force and get it over with. being in that county, that he was one of the first to be called out. Yeah, because the others were excluded. Right.

We have additional groups that have clusters of concentration here in the United States, and that's the Amish, the Hutterites, which are lesser known, but they're north of us, up in Montana is one of their areas of concentration. So those are groups that have a constant You know, we don't get involved with government, we don't support the government anymore, and we absolutely have to, kind of thing. So that's kind of the opposite of take over the government and institute all this stuff. This is, we don't, we don't want to, you know, head that direction. There are times, however, when as opposed to a constant situation, you might have a particular exception.

And that is the question that Pat asked here. And that's, for example, what happened during the time of World War II. There were people who refused to cooperate with, for instance, the treatment of the Jews that was being brought about. And some of them paid a price for doing so. Nancy and I had a Jewish friend, by the way his name was Paul Silas, but a Jewish friend years ago, and he was saying, you know, I recognize now, by the way he was a Jewish Christian, but he says, I recognize now that certainly many Jews lost their lives during this period of World War II, but a great many Christians did too for protecting them. because Christians who protected the Jews were given essentially much the same treatment.

And now, we're obviously not going to have time for all that, but I would point you to pages 5 and 6 as carrying this out. There are certainly passages, and we see them bulleted and listed at the top of page 5, that talk about being subject to the government in varying respects. But we also have these examples in Acts chapter 4 and 5, where the apostles resisted what the governing authorities were telling them to do. And we see that in bold here in the middle of page 5. Here they tell them, we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. What were they told to do? Stop speaking. Right? What do they do? We cannot.

There are points at which a believer has a biblical line where they say, God tells me to do something different than what you're telling me to do. God tells me to do something different than what the government is telling me what to do. And these Jewish authorities were ones who had an arrangement with the Romans. And the apostles said, sorry, we've got to listen to God and not you.

Chapter 5, there's some areas we have in bold there. Go stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this life. And by the way, this is a direction from the angel. And upon hearing this, they entered into the temple about daybreak and began to teach. At the very end of that passage, here's what is quoted, we must obey God rather than men. That is the point at which we say, if God says to do something and that conflicts with the government, we must obey God rather than men. Did the disciples then pick up guns and start?

No. Or swords or anything? No. Nothing of the sort. They took whatever consequences came along with following God. Didn't they? Even though they miraculously got an exemption. Because the angels let them out, right? But notice that they didn't go into some sort of armed resistance. What they did is they said, we're going to carry out what God says. And whatever consequences you've got, that's what you've got to do. But we're going to do what God tells us to do.

Well, let's look briefly at the life of Daniel. Here's a law is made, nobody's supposed to pray to any other god except, you know, this head of the Persians. So what does Daniel do? He prays just like he always does. And so what happens? He gets thrown in the lion's den, right?

Now, Daniel didn't say, well, I know I can do this because I'm going to get exempted. He went ahead and did it. He didn't have some feeling like, well, I'm always going to be let off the hook. But when he was thrown there in the lion's den, the Lord spared him. The Lord can choose to do that. But that wasn't why Daniel did what he did. He did what he did because that was the right thing to do and that's what the Lord would have him do regardless of what the government said.

We see a similar situation with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego earlier in the book of Daniel. Now, the other thing I would point out is while we have these various pacifist groups in the United States and other parts of the world, we mentioned Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, that just simply we don't do military.

One of the things that's very interesting is every reference in the New Testament and we list several on page six. Every reference to the New Testament to a Roman centurion is positive. It is left in a positive light. No exceptions. And that starts with, here's a centurion who asks the Lord to do a miracle, and the centurion says, I order somebody to do this, and I order somebody to do that, and they're under authority. And so he tells Jesus, I know that you also can carry things out because you have authority, and so I'd ask you to do that. So the example of military authority is used as an example. And Jesus responds to this guy with a, I've never seen such faith in all of Israel. Okay? Not a negative statement. How dare you be our soldier? All right? But instead, a positive statement about his faith.

Think also of the centurion who was in charge of things there at the crucifixion of Christ. What did that centurion say? as he saw Christ dying, he said, this truly was the Son of God. The centurions who were involved with Paul at various stages, including the last one that took him to Rome, listened to Paul's guidance and even allowed him to stay once he landed on the Italian Peninsula, once he landed on the Italian Peninsula, and to stick around and let Paul participate in prayer groups and meetings with other Christians. Every centurion is described in the New Testament, from the Gospels into the Book of Acts, in a positive light, no exceptions.

None of them were ever told, you had better get out of the military. Soldiers come to John the Baptist and say, what should we do? Now, isn't this a great time for John the Baptist to say, get out of the military, quit being soldiers, right? What does he tell? He tells them to carry out their duties ethically and be satisfied with their wages. The support for pacifism. for being a pacifist across the board just isn't there. And by the way, these are soldiers for the Roman government, which isn't necessarily a nice government, right? So the biblical support for pacifism is not there.

And we're plum out of time. We're all out of plums, too. Okay? So let's pray. Lord, we thank you that as we look to your word, you have actually some very clear answers. And there are answers that don't leave us without any issues on this earth. No, those are still there. There are answers that, however, give us clear direction. And at each point it causes us to turn to you. And we want to do that now. And we just thank you that that is eternally profitable. We give you thanks for everything you've revealed because you love us. In Jesus name, Amen.