Lesson 54d
Romans 13:1-7 · Courtney Hemenway · Jul 5, 2020
Romans (2018-21), No. 119
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261919267220

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

All right, so we are on lesson 54. I think we are to question 6 now. So this is on the Romans 13, 1 through 7. Again, as we have spent several weeks on this, this is very pertinent to what we're going through today. So I think that's why it's stretched on a little bit.

Question six, what does it mean to be in subjection to the authority for, quote, conscience sake, in verse five? So it says in verse five, therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake. The first verse says that you need to be in subjection to the authority to avoid the wrath of the authority, so that's number one. But then it says, secondly, for conscience sake.

So what does that mean? Anybody? So let me, the Greek word for conscious is senito, to see completely, respectively meaning to understand or become aware or to be conscience or informed of. So if the word means that, so the word means that we're by conscience to be aware, what are we aware of? All right, we need to get coffee to everybody. What is going on?

Well, would it mean because God set up that authority? So we're aware that God set up the authority? Yeah. Okay, anybody else? Because of the wrath. Wrath is who? The authority? Yeah. We're to be in subjection to avoid wrath, number one, but then number two, because of the authority that we're to become aware of conscience of, of something and that that that's it. Cheryl, you got it.

God has placed the authority in place, and we're subject to it. We are placed under an authority in an orderly fashion to the governing authority, which governs our behavior under its authority. So it's basically we're to be aware of the fact that when we're under an authority, again, what this whole section has been saying is that God set up that authority. And so whatever it is for conscience sake, you're supposed to think of it as the fact that God set up that authority.

So when we go through this, I said, is that how you feel now or embrace the authorities today under quarantines, shutdowns, and lawlessness that we see? Do we have that conscience that God has put that authority in? Is that what we're thinking? He's allowed it to be in, too. True. So for conscience sake, now who of you will raise your hand who have the visual or will say yes, that when the governor shuts down or they shut down the businesses or there's lawlessness and all this, we think consciously that's God's authority. How many people think that way? Probably. Honest answer from everybody, not a single person.

It's hard sometimes to see the all things in scripture in these kinds of situations. And that's really what you have to go back to, is that he is the one who put this in authority. And it is the all things. It's back to what I've been beaten in my head by the Spirit, is that God is sovereign. God is sovereign. He is in control of all this stuff. And he uses, as you say, Alan, all things. And rarely do I think of when they're shutting down businesses or they're not responding to what's going on, and that's what I say about lawlessness, oh yeah, we can have that chop zone, we can have Chaz or Chop or whatever, and we can let them do that.

Go ahead, let them tear down that statue. You know, when we think of it, it's still that authority God has placed them in. And I guess my thought is we're supposed to think of, from this verse, our conscious is to think, well, God's put that authority in there. And I, reviewing this, I don't think that way at all, but the verse tells me I'm supposed to. We shouldn't call it lawlessness, and that's what's happening, but it's lawless.

How reliable is your conscience? Well, why does it say for your conscience sake? It's very interesting because conscience is talked about in chapter one of Romans that it's probably not a reliable barometer for your behavior. But here as a believer, later on in the book, it talks about that not the primary thing that is to be the verification of truth, but it's now included.

Paul says in Acts and other places about things, he says his conscience is clear. He's okay. His conscience is not condemning him for his behavior. But for a non-believer, their whole Their whole system is based on their own conscience, and their consciences are faulty. And I think it's cool here that Paul would mention our conscience as being probably reliable at this point.

And I think it's different. That's why, from the definition of the word, we think of conscience as this little person in our head that says, hey, remember this. where the meaning is to be under, to understand or become aware. And I think it's, it's not really, we have this, well, maybe kind of take it to the full extent, but it's really just, you're aware that God has put them in, in, place. It's not like this, you know, conscience the way we think of conscience is, you know, a little red guy on one shoulder and a little angel on the other and the conscience is telling us right and wrong and all this. It's not that way.

I think it's just to be aware, as a believer, what? That God put him into place, this authority. So I think it's not like we think of conscience, but it's a different. It's just from the word, it's be aware. And like I said, right now, it's awfully difficult to do that. And one of the things is the lawlessness. I think of that right now.

I think they have a sphere of authority and God's put them in, the police, the whatever, the mayors and all these things. and they're not fulfilling their authority by letting a lot of these things go through. But God has put them in there, and we have to understand that. It's a very difficult thing, I think, for me, as I look at that, and they have their sphere of authority to be the defenders, which we've seen in the previous verses, so we can leave, like last week, a tranquil and quiet life. But if they're not doing their work, It's still, they're the authority and they're not doing it. So again, I'm kind of torn in my, and that's why I asked this question. Does anybody think in their conscience that God put them in and we have to be under their authority, but they're not doing it?

What do we do? And that's the hard part right now. What do you do when they're not doing their, Authority when the police don't police when the mayor's don't control or the governor doesn't control. What do we do? We're still in the in the check of this verse and that's really hard for me, you know fully, you know confessing that that's really hard to think they're still the authority and we have to be under that authority You know, and that's that's just tough right now so Well, there's so many incidences in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, where if you were a social justice warrior, you're outraged at what God is allowing to happen.

Yet in the middle of all of that, God is carrying out his purposes in spite of the frailty and the sinfulness of the people he's using. Yeah, that's the thing you have to put, and that's why I'm saying, and this is the conscience, this is what you have to be aware of.

In that time, he is still in control. Again, whatever your political persuasion, if you're an Obama guy, you think it's great, but now Trump's here, you hate it, vice versa, but God is using them all for his purposes. And the mayor, the governor, the police chief, they're all being used by him. And that's really the conscience that you have to put on, is that he's using it for his purposes. It's the same thing when a trial comes. When a trial comes, God allowed it.

And so by the same thing, an authority that's not using their authority correctly or whatever, we still have to understand that God is in control. He's sovereignly in control, as Alan says, using all things for his purposes. And that's very difficult in some of these times right now, but that's what I think this verse is very important. We have to be conscious or aware of the fact that even in these times, God is in control and he's using his authorities for his purposes. but it's difficult, so. Newell had it this way, which is kind of interesting. When you think of what's going on right now, I think, and again, Newell was back in the 40s, I think, when he published this book. When he puts this, What's that? 1937. Yeah.

So, when you think of what he's saying here, and then you transpose it to today, the constituted authorities include all civil officers, state, county, and municipal, together with the police, militia, and military forces. There are many indeed in these foolish days who call themselves pacifists and decry the work and office of the soldier, or police, or anything like that. Yet we believe that they would, with all alacrity, telephone for the police if they found marauders breaking into their house. Police protect towns and cities. State constabulary and militia under the hand of the governor protect life, liberty, and order in a state, and a national army does likewise for the nation.

And you think about that today, I think it's hilarious that CHOP in Seattle was the summer festival of love. The mayor was saying it was great. They're just having fun, they're loving, they're doing this. Oh, she changed her tune when the mob came to her house. And suddenly CHOP is taken down when the mob went to her house. So it's like, yeah, wait a minute.

Yeah, police are bad, but come to my house and get these guys out of my neighborhood. And it's kind of like the Minneapolis council, the three council members who were absolutely set on defunding the police. Oh, wait a minute, they had $63,000 worth of security people for these three council people to protect them, paid by the public. So, you know, it's this, ooh, yes, pass, oh, no, we don't need police. Oh, wait a minute, they're coming to my house? Let's get the security over here right now.

So it's very much what Newell was saying back then. And I think it's hilarious that all these people who are talking about defunding the police, as soon as it gets in their neighborhood, oh wait, wait, no, not in my neighborhood, down there where I'm not having my house burned, go ahead and do it.

So I think a lot, the Lord is using a lot of this right now, I think to make people aware of what's going on. And I think in the end run, it's gonna be amazing what he's gonna get done. You know, I know he's in control of all this, so he's using it for his purposes. And is this going to create a revival? Is this going to create people who are, you know, at the end of their rope between no jobs, lawlessness, all this, where are they going to turn? I think a lot are going to turn to the Lord. He knows what he's doing. I cannot question what he's doing. I think it's incumbent upon us to look at these verses and realize consciously that he's the one who has all these people in authority. Difficult right now.

All right, now the other fun ones. Question seven, as a believer, should you not pay taxes if you don't like the government? Verses six and seven. For because of this, you also pay taxes. For rulers are servants of God, hammering that again, devoting themselves to the very thing. Render to all what is due them, tax to whom taxes due, custom who's custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. First of all, the verse starts off with, because of this. So what is this again? Because of this, what is the this? God's sovereign. God's sovereign, and what did he do? Put rulers under his authority. Yep, this is all about the authorities. So this is all we have been reviewing with respect to the fact that God has set up all authorities.

Therefore, if any authority has taxing rights under the laws of the land, we should pay taxes. So the question comes up, what if the authority uses taxes improperly, such as for abortions? Do we still render taxes to them? Yes. Well, look at in Paul's day when Nero was persecuting Christians and burning them on crosses and stuff, you know, I mean, sending them to the lions, whatever. Yeah, that's murder. So when they're using it for all these stupid programs and funding Planned Parenthood and all this, we're still supposed to send taxes to them, right? You mean I can't carve out one 325th of my taxes that go towards an abortion?

You can, but guess what happens? They'll be knocking at your door going, I want that other three quarters of a cent. know, you know, one other thing I think we need to be aware of in in going through these verses, we're getting instructions and how to live in a society that we don't belong to that we're heavenly people, members of the body of Christ seated in the heavenlies but we're happen to be temporarily camped out in this environment and and what Paul's telling us as well, here's how you You have to understand that God's totally in control of all of it, whether it seems fair or not. And, you know, your money, your belongings, everything that you have is a gift from God to be used. You're the custodian. And if he says pay the taxes, you pay the taxes. It's his money.

Yeah, and that's the thing, you know, when we look at this and, you know, I think Ron Reagan's day, he commissioned a blue ribbon commission about, you know, checking the efficiency of government and all this, and unfortunately it came up and it said that, yeah, we can reduce government by 50% and still have the same services. However, to my dismay, he never acted upon that. You know, I'm thinking, even though they waste all this money, and I've seen waste in amazing ways, working with government contracts and different things. Horrible waste, horrible inefficiencies, horrible things.

However, I still pay my taxes because that's what I, you know, render what is Caesar's. And we'll get to the verses in Luke on that. You know, and Cheryl, it's the same thing. Did God allow the Jewish leaders, kings, and Roman authorities to persecute Christians and still have them render unto Caesar what is Caesar? Answer is yes. They still, even though they're persecuting them and they're doing how the Romans were doing all these different things, they still paid the taxes. Even though they're persecuting them and doing all this, they paid their taxes.

And so, again, even though I don't like it, even though we don't like what they spend it on, again, Mike's perspective is what he's saying. Our perspective is we are ambassadors here. We are not citizens. I mean, we're citizens, but our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. And so we render what is earthly, to the earthly authorities. And even though we don't like it, even though they spend it on things we don't like, we still have to do it because of this, which the this is, that God set up the authority.

So if you look at the Luke 20 through 26, and this is Jesus speaking, is it lawful, they question him, is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? They're trying to trick him. But he, Jesus, detected their trickery and said to them, show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have? They said Caesar's. And he said to them, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God. and they were unable to catch him in saying in the presence of the people and being amazed at his answer, they became silent.

So again, it's the fact that, you know, we pay, we're here, that God has us here in this citizenship that we have and under the authorities he have, and we render unto them what they want. And that's, you know, it's difficult sometimes, but again, the this is that God set up that authority.

So if they want to tax us into oblivion, we go with it. Or, as we said on the last ones, if you don't like this sphere of authority, you can flee or move to a different authority. So if the US is taxing us into oblivion, move to Bolivia, whatever. But again, under the authorities, and there's limited sphere of the authorities, So you can remove yourself, flee, as we looked at the scriptures last time, flee to the next city or move because if you don't like that authority, you can move. Or you can resist, face the penalties, don't pay your taxes, you'll face the consequences of that.

But again, it's the this is, God set up that authority. We have one other thing we can do. You know what it is? We can vote. Well, and that's it. Legally, we can do that. We can also, as they say, as two things, we can vote and we can pray for them. I think those are the two keys that we have under this authority. We have those two. Under our system that we're under, we have voting privileges.

Unless they really mess that up, but the other is then pray for them. And the entreaties, as we did last time, the entreaties for kings and rulers. We're to pray for them. And so between voting and praying for them, that's what we can do under any authority that we have.

You know, it's interesting, I was thinking this week that because we have this thing called the vote, there's an Old Testament principle that has to do with the nation of Israel that they always got the leaders that they deserve, right? They didn't have a vote about it, but we do have a vote and we get the leaders that we deserve and we voted those people right in.

Yes. Yes, we did. Well, or we were outvoted in getting those idiots in. Yeah. So, I mean, but as a society, we did. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I didn't vote for a lot of these people who were were suffering through right now. Oh, where are that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's why I have to go back to this conscience thing.

God put him in. I tried to vote him out but god had a different plan. This goes back to the Job theory where God is telling me, you know better than me? Okay. So I don't know better, and gee, I sure wish there were a whole lot of different people in authority right now that I voted for that are not in authority, but somehow God overruled me for some reason. I don't know why. I thought I had a better plan.

Well, God's gonna let sin run its course, and then he's gonna step in. You know, I don't think so, but it might be. You know, what was that? What's that? Did Donna, did you say something? Oh, no. You know, the other thing, it's kind of with, I was down at camp and you know, this last week and somebody was praying, you know, they were saying, you know, letting Satan attack and, you know, not attack the kids and this and that. Well, number one, I said, if it's Satan, it's your, it's a special day for you because he's not omnipresent.

The other is that God allows sinful actions to happen. God allows you to sin. God allows the authorities to sin. And it's ultimately the sovereignty of God that allows this. And I question, I think, but God has a better plan. And when they do stupid things and they allow stupid things, You know, I definitely should have voted in somebody else, but it didn't happen. But God said, no, we're going to put this person in place. And that's for the conscience sake, he did it. He allowed it.

And, you know, as he allows us to sin or people to sin or authorities to not do what they do, he's allowed that. And we derive the rest, peace and comfort knowing that God put that authority in and he's fully aware of what's going on. And that especially is really critical in these times now that we're going through, that we understand that.

Because I look at it, I mean, you can get depressed very quickly to see what's going on. When you see the lawlessness, when you see all the statues coming down, when you see people marauding through the thing, our state capitol is boarded up and has graffiti on the state capitol. When did you think that? When did you ever think of that? And the Aurora City building is boarded up and graffitied. And all these things are going on. When did you ever think that would happen?

But God's allowed it. And somehow I just think I look to the end game, which is ultimately to bring people to his son and to glorify him. Somehow through all of this, he's using that. And that's why these verses are so important that we realize that even though the authorities are there and we don't understand it, we didn't vote him in, we couldn't vote him out, they're doing stupid things, God knows about it and put him in there. That's why I think it's so critical about these verses right now. Can you hear me? Just to digress just a second. I was thinking about the Sanhedrin in those days of Paul.

They were a type of authority, and they were telling the Jews you can't eat a certain type of food. And yet God told Peter he could eat any kind of food. So he kind of went against the authority of the Jews. But at the same time, I think I remember It's like, but be careful, you don't want to hurt your brother for conscious sake.

I don't know, I don't remember the exact language. Christ worked on the Sabbath and yet it was illegal to work on the Sabbath. Of course, Christ is God, but he gave his wonderful reasons of why he did that. So it seems like there's a fine line in all of this. This goes back to last week's. What happens if you can resist authority? What is the consequence of that? You're under their authority.

What happened to Peter when they were preaching the gospel? What did they do? They threw him in jail. he resisted the authority but he said i've got to obey god but he has a clean conscience when he went there well and you can do that you can be and a resistance but if it's against that authority and against that law or whatever they can do what they want to do because of that and and uh... you know so all those like i said with peter with paul i mean he resisted ultimately and narrow martyred him You know, and the stumbling part is eating. You know, that was against their, all of their laws and traditions. And when Peter got that, you know, you can eat anything, God created it all and you can eat it all. Yeah, they weren't real thrilled about that. You know, that he's eating at Gentile houses. And so what did they try and do with them? They persecuted him wherever they could. And so they suffered the consequences of that authority, but they went on with what God had told them. So again, it's the same for us.

We can resist, but if it goes against that authority's laws or whatever, they can evoke the penalty. So, you know, if you don't want to pay your taxes because they do abortion, you know, pay abortions and that, you can do that, but you'll suffer the consequences for it under that authority that God set up.

So, yeah, I mean, it's, it's tough. It's tough, you know. It's true that under the church age that we're no longer under law, but under so there was a shift from all the legal types of foods you eat and everything to being in an era of grace. If you're a believer. Yeah, if you're a believer.

And does that mean I can go down I-25 at 130 miles an hour? No. Why not? Because there is authority over me not to do that. Yeah, there are laws that say you can't go 130 miles an hour down I-25. Like you were saying, conversely, if you do that, you can pay a $300 fine. Yeah.

When you do those kind of things, they take you directly to jail, and then they talk about the fine after that. I know some police officers who've done that. It's like the guy's doing down Sixth Avenue, a guy doing 110 miles an hour down Sixth Avenue, blew by him, couldn't catch him, but then the idiot decided to turn around and come back. And the cops said, okay, we're done with this. And yeah, they take you directly to jail and then decide the fine.

So anyway, Mike. In all of this, I think about Joseph and talking to his brothers after, Jacob died, you know, his brothers were afraid that now that Jacob was out of the way, Joseph was going to really hammer him. And his line was that, you know, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. And the good was was to save the Jewish nation.

So that's a lot of times we don't know. We look directly at the circumstances that are right in front of us. and without ever even giving a thought to the fact that, well, maybe God has something else going on here. I think of that verse a lot. When trials come up, when something bad happens, we look at a very narrow area or a narrow focus. We don't see the entire plan of God.

That's why I say when you know, when Joseph did that, you know, he's thrown in a pit and he's sold as a slave and you know, and and guess what? The other thing that is is important in these things is the time frame that didn't happen overnight between the time they threw him in the pit and the time he was, you know, uh Pharaoh's right hand man. You know, II can't I can't remember the time frame but it was not overnight. So, he was 30 Yeah, so 13 years of, you know, being in a pit, being a slave, being, you know, accused by Pharaoh's daughter or whatever it was, you know, and all this, it wasn't a streamlined thing that once he threw in the pit, he's going, God has great things for me.

Well, you know what else, Courtney? I think God is very careful, especially for the believer, to tell us the end game. Here's what I'm doing. He told us in Romans that he's working all things together for good to those who love him, to those who are called according to his purpose. So what's the purpose? The purpose is to conform us to the image of Christ.

So at least we have that much information about if you say, well, God, why me? And he says, well, here's why. And that's what's cool about Paul's epistles. They tell us an awful lot about why God is doing what he's doing and why he allows stuff that he has goals and purposes that he intends to carry out in spite of what the circumstances may look at look like today. Well, and I think just we're talking about this conscience sake to be aware of that or to be aware of that. And that gives us the peace, rest, comfort that he's told us.

Right. And that's why these verses are good for us to go through today, because we don't understand. But the end game is just what you said. And, and had we designed it, we'd never go through this like this, you know, but then when will we ever do a thing where, okay, I'm going to sacrifice my son for all you sinners. You know, he came up with a plan that, are you kidding me?

So, I mean, he's got, we, and the job, you know, you, I'm, I, I don't question his, his knowledge and his purposes. And yet I have the comfort and rest knowing that he's in charge, he's sovereign. And he's using it for his purposes. And that does give me peace through all this. I don't understand. I mean, there's so many different things he may be doing and a revival or taking the US out so he can come back. I don't know. I just rest in the fact that all of this is still under his control. And that's awesome. That's great. Anyway, so we can blow through these last couple pretty quickly.

What is the general difference between a tax and a custom? It says, render all what is due, due them. Tax to whom taxes due, custom to whom customs due, fear to whom fear, and honor to whom honor. So is there a difference between a tax and a custom? Can we get out of paying some things because it's not a tax?

You have to ask Chief Justice Roberts about that. No, I'm not asking him a thing right now. As Debbie says, he's having a senior moment, I think, right now. Like I had last week. I think he's having a little bit of senior moments, like, oh, yeah, I don't remember the ruling I did three years ago. Oh, yeah, I forget about that. I don't care. Yeah, he's having a bit of an issue there. I don't mind Joe Biden's basement. We can't even get into that one. Don't even start that one. No, no, I shouldn't have said anything. No, no, we're good. I'm in the basement. I feel a little bit more cognizant than him right now. Anyway. Okay.

The Greek word for tax is foros, which means to bring, particularly what is born or brought, hence a tax or tribute imposed upon persons and their property annually. in distinction from telios, a toll or custom, which is usually levied on merchandise and travelers. And we can see that in Luke 20 and Romans 13, six and seven.

So a tax is something that is related to property or income. Custom is related to purchase goods or items. So are there taxes or customs that we're not to pay? Is there something that you don't like paying a tariff on? When Trump does a tariff, We're not supposed to pay the tariff or we only pay taxes.

The implication here is if they put a tax on something or a fee on something, remember whose figure or name is on this? US. So we render what is Caesars, we render what is US, we render what is local, state, whatever. It doesn't matter. We don't have an out that says, well, this really isn't covered. This isn't a tax. I can get away because it's a fee on something, so I don't have to pay that fee. So this verse basically says, hey, whatever they're taxing you or putting fees on you, remember, It has their likeness on it and you're rendering what is theirs to them.

Your citizenship's in heaven. We're ambassadors here, so all we're doing is paying what they want because God established them. So again, I think it was kind of interesting, because I looked at that and said, tax custom, what is the difference? But there is a difference, kind of.

And so it basically was a catch-all that says, no matter what the authority that's set up, whatever fees, taxes, whatever they impose, you are to be under, because that's the authority. So I was wondering why he put that in, but that's, I think, what it is, that you didn't have an out for a certain fee or tax or something.

Question nine, what is meant by give fear to whom fear is due? That's kind of a weird one, give fear to whom fear is due. What is that? What would fear be, respect or? Yeah, the, to greet you this morning to our service of worship. What's that? Who's that? It sounded like JD. I don't know who that was.

Anyway, the Greek word for fear is phobos. What does that sound like? Phobia. Phobia. So it's alarm or fright. So it's a fear of. It's an actual fear of. And so it's not as much, Gary, as respect. It truly is more of a fear, like phobia, arachnophobia. You're afraid of spiders or whatever, snake phobia or whatever. It's an actual fear. So it's not as much the respect. It's more of a true fear, being in fear of. So why are you afraid of them? Or fear, why do you fear them?

If you're breaking the law, the police will come after you. What was the last verse we did before this? Right. Yeah. They're the ones with the sword. That's right. They're the ones who can impose prison on you, can impose death on you if you have a capital punishment. There is, you know, fear for it because they have the authority over you to do what that authority has.

So again, Gary, it's not as much a respect. I thought that too, and that's why I looked up the word. Because a lot of times we do this, like fear, and it means a respect or honor. The words that say fear God, it's a different word, and it means respect.

This one is phobia. I'm afraid of them. So it's because they yield the sword. So let me quickly get through this. From Newell, it says, fear does not here designate terror, but which removes terror, a conscious regard for and awe of men whose hands God has placed, government authority, whether police, magistrates, judge, governors, presidents, or kings. It's not terror like they're terrorizing you. but it's a fear of their authority if you go against their authority. So again, it's kind of a different aspect of that. But it's not respect. It's an actual, they have the sword and the authority.

We should fear them for that power that they have. So last one, whom do we render or give honor to? Okay, I have a question here. We need to go quick. You hear all the time that people will say they don't like like the president. Well, I respect the office, but I don't respect the man. I think here we're talking about honoring the man. It's the authority. It's the person. It's not the, I mean, that is a great point, Mike. It's not, and I hear that, you know, unfortunately, I probably said that in the last presidency. Yeah, sure. Sure we did. And that was wrong.

Because the honor is an attitude of reverence for a person, and this is the way Newell put it, honor is an attitude of reverence for the person of those who have authority over us, as also for those who stand in any place of earthly dignity. So it is not the office, and that's basically what he's saying, it's not the office, it's the person. And all these anti-Trumpers right now, if you're a Christian anti-Trumper, are you honoring him? You're not honoring God's word. No. And that's, you know, and I look back at mine and I think, you know, from the past administration, I probably was in violation of this. I did say, you know, I honor the office, but that guy in the office, well, he's not anything, but this verse tells me otherwise. And I'm not honoring God because of his authority who would put in place. You know what's interesting about that? I used to find myself praying for Barack Obama, even though I didn't agree with anything he did.

But it's the same kind of attitude that Paul talks about in Philippians. He knows that he's going to have a day with Caesar, and Caesar's got life and death over him. But then he begins to discount Caesar and put the whole emphasis of his focus on God who's sovereign. And so, whatever Caesar's gonna do, he's gonna do it because God has directed him to do it.

And it's the same way I can pray for any politician or any leader and pray along those lines, you know, that, you know, Father, that your will be done in this circumstance. The person may or may not be cognizant of what you're doing, but we know that he's going, that whatever happens, it's your will.

That's why this whole passage is so important. Again, we're to pray in treaties and prayers to our leaders. Why? Because God put them in there. We're to pray for them, even Barack or Trump or whoever, or Governor Polis or Governor Newsom or whoever. You're to pray for them. And you're to be under their authority. And you're to do all this.

And that's so tough during this time. But this is what scripture says. And again, to lead a quiet and tranquil life. you know if this happens and that's the the purpose of you know and it's really difficult these are incredible verses at this time and it's you know i i stand in all of these verses and challenged by these verses and it's very difficult sometimes but again the pieces understanding when you look at these verses if you understand that it does give you that peace that he promised though even in these trials All right, we need to close. And then, so Mike, you're up for next week on 55? All right, sounds good. Let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for this time. We thank you for this section of Scripture.

It's very challenging to us as believers to see this and understand it in the times we're in. However, we have to look at it beyond and to see the end game, which is ultimately to, as the Scripture says, to conform us to your Son's image and ultimately to glorify you. And you're using all things, as we see in the scriptures, all things to accomplish the purposes.

And we just rest in that fact. Even in these tumultuous times and periods that we're in, we rest in that fact and understand it, that you are still in control. You're a sovereign God, and we love that. That gives us the peace and rest and comfort knowing that you're in charge and we're not. And that is so good. When we think our plans are better than yours, it is very faulty. that you have ultimate knowledge and ultimate purposes.

And we rest in that fact. So we thank you for this time. We thank you for this time or this portion of scripture that is so important for us right now as believers. And we just we thank you for this time. And again, that we pray that the remainder of this day, all the same do honor and glorify you. And we pray.