First Peter 1:13-20 Submission to Authority Part 2

Today is the study of 1 Peter, chapter 2, 13-17, the second part, submission to authority. And last week, we did all the doctrine, and we covered 13-17. But there were some comments that came up. This week I wanted to be more relaxed about going through word-by-word, verse-by-verse of it, and talk about broad concepts of this very important subject of submitting to government authorities. So it can be a little like the other class, our friends in the other class next door, or catty corner, I guess it is, where they ask questions and they discuss, right? So we'll be like them this morning, and then next week we'll go back to the more formal way of studying the Scripture, I think.

So 1 Peter chapter 2, 13 through 17 is, You submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and the praise of those who do right.

For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men, act as free men, And do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. fear God, honor the King.

So we looked at that all last week, went through it in pretty much detail, and I just want to throw up Romans 13, 1 through 7 here, the parallel passage, I won't read the whole thing, but it's 13, 1 through 7 of Romans, be in subjection to the governing authorities. They are established by God. Whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and those who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. And it says rulers are not a cause for fear, for good behavior, but for evil behavior.

So same parallel subjects and concepts of our 1st Peter chapter 2, 13 through 17 passage. And so there's Romans 1 through 7, just as a comparison, quick comparison. So last week we saw that we are to submit, and that we saw that that word was hupotasso.

And it's authoritative arrangement, ordering a chain of command, and it's in relation to your attitude toward the chain of command, so you are interested in submitting. It's not the middle voice, it's the heiress voice, but It comes out to the quality of being in the condition of having been subjected to authorities is how the Greek, the flavor, I guess you'd call it, of the Greek. So have the attitude of heart of being in submission to authorities. It's a conscious choice of subjecting yourself to someone or something.

All government is given by God. He has shared His power and authority with men. And in America, He has given them ability or given them the privilege to govern themselves to ensure individual peace and security. and we'll see that in like the preamble of the constitution and in the declaration of independence we have this this and here they are uh... and i just throw them up there and it's we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal they are endowed by their creator you know there's a biblical concept right there, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, and I put in there in parentheses, by God, as we saw in our passage today. This government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and that's us. That's all of us who have covenanted with each other here in this country to lay the power of government in the people, in the populace.

And then it goes on to say in the Declaration of Independence, whenever the form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter it, or abolish it, and institute a new government, laying its foundation on the principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them seem as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness."

And then in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, it's, we the people of the United States, and this is short and sweet. Look how short and sweet this is, and then it goes into the details of how to set up the Congress and things. But it says so much in this preamble. We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.

And those words, ensuring domestic tranquility, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty are really the crux of our freedoms in this country. And it's sort of open-ended, and it's meant to be. But what the Founding Fathers did with The let me get rid of something here on my screen There we go And I spelled concept drawing I'm sorry liberty and the concept of the protection of conscience is what we're gonna look at to start out this morning and this liberty of conscience is itemized in the first amendment to the constitution uh... and i'm going off what uh... a little booklet merriman put out ron merriman and here's the first amendment to the constitution congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. So we have the liberty in this country to believe in God or not, the liberty to worship God or not, the liberty to assemble with other believers and worship Him, the liberty to complain about government, how government is doing things. That's the redress of grievances.

And this all has to do with this biblical fact of conscience, the word conscience, which is, soon did they cease. And soon is with, and ido is to see or perceive or to know, so with knowledge or with perception. is the definition of a conscience. And I'll attach a, I finally got around to this, I put down in a presentation of Ron Merriman's, he goes into this doctrine of conscience, way back when, in part of his lesson he was giving in First Timothy, chapter two, I believe it is. talking about all the different types of qualities of conscience. So I'll put that in the supplements, but we won't go into it today, but I'll attach it to the lesson on the website.

So the fact of this, that we each, and even unbelievers too, all mankind have installed by God a conscience. So the fact of it is, put out in Romans 2, 14, and 15, where Paul says, for when the Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law are a law unto themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately, either accusing them or else defending them.

So you see a wonderful definition of conscience right there what that is it's a little uh... mechanism in us uh... a little uh... magnochromometer or whatever you call it that tells us basically what's right and wrong and everyone has this your souls and thoughts bear witness to what's right and wrong Conscience is a mechanism which will accuse you or defend you internally. It's a universal convictor of right and wrong. And then, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, 7, Man was created in the image of God, but he keeps on being in the image of God, which is with this conscience, with this sense of a God consciousness, moral authority, moral responsibility, and volitional choice is sort of the workings of this conscience. It's installed in every man at creation.

So the First Amendment is what protects our conscience, is the purpose of Ron Merriman's little missive he put out on conscience. And it's really cool, and I find these sections fascinating, that Paul gives in 1 Corinthians 8, where he talks about the strong or mature believer in Christ, who's, sorry, I think I spelled conscientiousness wrong there, who's aware of his, he has conscientiousness about his liberty in Christ. But what he's to do is to protect and secure the weaker conscience of a less mature believer. And he lays out how to do that with, and he's talking about meat, right?

Sacrifice to idols. So that the stronger believer is not to weaken or sully or defile the believer with the weak conscience. The believer with a strong conscience is not to, in a way, assault the believer with the weak conscience. And then in 1 Corinthians 10, 23 through 33, it's the same concept. And that even applies to an unbeliever. So the situation is there's an unbeliever who who invites a believer over for dinner and says, oh, this meat I'm giving you was sacrificed to the idol, whoever the idol is.

And so the believer in that situation is to refuse to eat it, to protect the conscience of the unbeliever. and that's so there's where to protect the individual consciences of both believers and unbelievers uh... in in these pauline uh... kind of dissertations the same with romans fourteen it details the same principle of protection of another's conscience You see how the spirit of all that, that Paul kind of sets forth, lines up with the protections of the First Amendment rather really beautifully.

You see, so it's a doctrine that we are supposed to kind of adhere to and exercise in being a citizen of The United States, you know, we have that. Other religions don't have that. If you were in a Muslim country, they don't have these protections, you know. Buddhist countries don't have these protections, but we do. It's kind of a great thing that the Founding Fathers, you know, put forth so we can, and that leads to living peaceably with each other and securing these blessings of liberty, which our founding documents kind of set forth. Here's an example.

In Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 1964, I think it is, Congress set forth that, well, they were trying to say, settle the race issue between black and white, and so they gave you know, they give black Americans the same right to attend college and things like that and gave them, sort of set things right in that way. And the purpose of Title VII is that an employer is not to discriminate based on race, color, sex, or national origin.

But then, back then, they said, well, but what about religious institutions? We're going to give an exemption to those organizations like Holly Hills or a Catholic organization to give them a right of conscience that they don't have to hire, you know, atheists or a Christian organization. or someone who's opposed to the Catholic doctrine there, and it goes on and on.

Can anyone think of any other examples? I just put etc, etc, but that's what it sets forth to do to protect the consciences of people within employment. And it goes to Gosh, when they did Roe versus Wade, and all around that with the abortion issue, they put in a protection for health care workers who had a conscience against performing an abortion. They could opt out.

But that's been in the last, since 2008 it's been kind of assaulted and we've been kind of forced to, the government wants to force us into going against our consciences in that matter. Take this, for example, remember Masterpiece Cake Shop, which is kind of near you guys, versus the Civil Rights Commission? That's an excellent example of this battle of consciences. So it's Craig versus Masterpiece Cake Shop was the original case, where down in, where is it, Lakewood, Littleton, A gay couple came into a cake shop, wanted a cake for their wedding, and wanted the owner to make a cake for their wedding, but he's a Christian. And he said, I can't do that because it would violate my conscience. I'll give you a plain cake. And just, but I can't put the message on the cake. And then so Craig sued.

And then the Colorado Civil Rights Commission came in against the cake shop owner and said, you have to bake this cake because you're discriminating against the plaintiff here. But then it went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court then correctly said, no uh... you know the owner of the cake shop has a right of conscience he he's a he's a christian he doesn't have to do this uh... so you see how that's a battle of one conscience with another and then the governing governing authority comes in the colorado civil rights commission uh... and it in fact civil rights commission shows the plaintiff over Masterpiece Cakeshop, and that was violating his conscience, kind of elevating the conscience of Craig, the plaintiff, over the other side.

So see how that kind of wraps into what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 and 8 and things like that? And then there was a really recent thing that came up, where there's these Christians who went to a coffee shop, and they broadcast this online. They're meeting together as a right-to-life group, but the coffee shop owner, who I assume was an atheist, saw that they were doing this in his shop, and they demanded that they not have this meeting, because he was offended, and that they leave his, not meet at his establishment. Did anyone see that recently? So, I put it out to you guys, what should those Christians do in that case?

Enjoy their coffee. Enjoy their coffee. Yeah, I would say go to another shop. Go to another shop. We're going to live peacefully with all men if we can, so go to a coffee shop. Right, because the coffee shop owner, and it's his coffee shop, has a conscience too, so somehow the, you know, our brothers and our sisters, I think they're all women, our sisters in Christ there, were weren't protecting his, he didn't like that he was pro-abortion. And it's his shop, so I'm wondering why these women can't, if they have a church, they could meet in their church for this meeting, right? Perfectly and fine. Or go to a coffee shop where the owner is a fellow believer, you know what I mean? So I think they acted, as you see up above, Craig, the plaintiff at the Masterpiece skate shop.

And then they broadcast it, and they were trying to bait it. It was not a good situation, I think. Do you guys all agree with that? Yeah, probably not a good reflection on the believers. Right. I was going to say, obviously there's an imbalance there in our culture, right? Because in the cake shop incident, it goes all the way to the Supreme Court. In this incident, but see that's the reality of being a Christian. We don't force our views on others, right? We don't. You know, if he doesn't want you on his private property, then you peacefully depart. And we don't take him to court over it either.

Right, yeah. And the Right to Life group, I think it was a Right to Life group, and they have, yeah, they have facilities in their, I assume they have a church, or a private home, and then they're not, you know, causing such a fuss. And I think that's the correct way to sort of apply, and we're talking about application of these verses today, apply these verses. Because, yeah, that coffee shop owner isn't assaulting their conscience in any way. But it's just over where to meet, which they kind of have the freedom to do that anywhere they want.

And what a wonderful testimony that would have been if they would have been, oh, you know, Mr. Coffee Shop Owner? we understand your concern and your position and we will pay for our stuff and we'll meet somewhere else. And then he would have been, his conscience would have been affected in a positive way towards the Christians and Christianity in general.

It would have been a good testimony in my- They lost their business. Oh, say that again, Margaret? They would have lost their business, and that was his option. And maybe they were moving there every week, who knows? And it was, you know, a nice little income, but it would also give him, you know, a way to think about, well, you know...

Well, keep in mind the passage that we're relating this to, Andrew. And the passage that we're relating this to really is a response to the group of women who are believing in a restaurant where they're not welcome. That's government that will support the decision that he is uncomfortable and would like them to leave. They should leave. That's a much better witness than, in fact, them remaining there and taking his report.

The second thing, welcome to how the world system can impact the government. And if we think of what's happening within one party now, in terms of the whole socialistic movement, just think, if that kind of momentum continues, we could have laws put into the government that would be even more abusive to the Christian faith, right? Yeah. I mean, I think it just shows the fallacy of human government, despite God's command.

That's an imperative, that we respond to the government that's surrounding us. And it's kind of, it's wonderful that in this country we have this Constitution, Declaration of Independence that isn't rigid. It's, you know, and it's not like Sharia law, I imagine, would be a very, we can petition and redress the government. So, next thing, what about the pandemic, and remember the COVID pandemic, and how were our consciences protected by the government in that? In some cases they were not.

I can tell you a personal story, now this is Canadian context, and this has to do with the local church that we were attending. And it got to the point where I couldn't conscientiously wear a mask anymore because I didn't see it as beneficial and I saw it as more harm than good. And so I made a conscious decision that our family would not wear masks unless in the case, sometimes in the case of going into someone's private business, if they asked me to put on a mask, I would. But in gathering in the local church, I decided, no, we would not. And so we arrived at church one morning, and one of the elders, he said, oh, would you guys like to put on masks?

And I said, no, thanks, we're fine. And we went in and sat down, but I realized I need to address that with him. And so I wrote a letter to the elders, and I said, we don't want to create a stir. This is our conviction. But if it's going to be a problem, then we'll just do something else until things change.

And you know, interestingly, they responded really well. And they said, you know, if that's your conviction of your conscience, then we're not going to tell you what you have to do or not do. And so they allowed us to... You know, they just said, please, you know, continue to attend. And so then we had the freedom to attend without wearing the masks. And it was all resolved really quite peacefully. I mean, I really give them the credit for their response to it. But we were willing to say, you know what, if it's, you know, if you, as our leadership, rule that you should not attend without masks, then we'll find something else to do for the time being.

But anyway, that's just one example of how some of that played out for us. Oh, yeah. And that brings in authority, too, right? Yeah. Because the elders had a governing authority over you. Right. Yeah. Yeah, you petition them. And that's a beautiful example. And it's cool how they respected, they addressed your conscience. Yeah.

And they addressed that exactly the same way. uh... yet so that what you know this anthony fauci and all his crew back then uh... with you know i have you heard about these uh... this diary that was released on uh... the line and that the that his personal thoughts were totally different the but he was giving out in public and that uh... And he was profiting off his position and all that. And we were told bad information. I can think about this. In fact, the high school downtown, we all went to get this, oh, it was a test of whether we had COVID antigens, right? It was an antigen test. So they offered it to everyone for free.

So we stood in a big line outside the high school, but there was X's that were six feet apart. And so you had to stand outside on these X's six feet apart. And those X's are still down there because they were spray painted on. And I was like, and that mandate, the six feet apart thing, was whole cloth just made up by whoever and it worked itself through and we remember the grocery stores that was a thing it was just um So people that the things that they did during that are just Astonishing looking back at it, you know, and you're gonna get one other story this ties into all this as well Yeah, probably most of you have heard that in our home province in Canada.

There were three pastors arrested Because they continued see this is the interesting thing They all had you know, groups of elders, leadership, you know, it wasn't a single man who decided we're going to keep the doors open. But in any case, these, and they also weren't the only three churches that kept their doors open. This was during a phase when, you know, there was to be no public gathering. what prop i don't know who do you have a scene which clips online and so forth but the one that the one that went most viral was the uh... one pastor who you know really resisted the police when they came to arrest it and on it is really terrible testimony because uh... yeah if you look at the other two pastors when they were arrested they went peacefully you know, they just calmly allow the officers to cuff them and seat them in the car. No shouting at them. No, you know, yelling and screaming and resisting. And so I guess to me that always just stands out as, you know, they both stood or all three stood on their conviction of conscience to continue to gather during that time.

But one of them, you know, responded very poorly when the consequences, because that's the thing, we should expect the consequences for, you know, for civil disobedience. But I still think there's a place for civil disobedience when, you know, when we have a conscious conviction on the basis of the Word of God. We still have to go with God rather than the government. But when the consequences come, we need to We need to take those in a Christ-like manner, right?

So, anyway, sometimes I wonder which footage different people saw of that, but... Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Looks like... Is that... Who's... Yeah, it's Norm. Norm? Yeah. I'm a bit of a historian, and the 1918 flu epidemic... Now, listen, I agree with the consensus in here, no question.

But the 1918 flu epidemic targeted a particular segment of the population, 18, 16 through 30 years old, and you had true stories of young men standing at the tramway stop on South, Broadway, Broadway, and keeling over dead. So, in a sense, Fauci and company really misread this. But you can't blame them for being wrong. But you can blame them for insisting that we do their wrong with them.

Yeah. That was a conundrum, right? Yeah. Yeah, because it was coming out in real time back then that, you know, because there was, there were other scientists that said, hey, where are we getting this stuff from? And so there was a clash of scientists. And instead of allowing that naturally to happen, they just really pounced on the scientists who were expressing caution. They chose the outcome they wanted. Yeah, yeah.

Like the scientists who put out the, what is it called? The Great Barrington Declaration, you know? Just, yeah, okay, let's protect the old and the aged population and protect the nursing homes, but everyone else sort of just you know, go about your business and...

Sorry, go ahead. i don't know i was done but i don't know i was i was just as i think i think what's what's really interesting about this is because we talk about freedom of conscience and and uh... it's a very deeply kind of insured uh... principle but uh... of course we all know that there has to be a limit to freedom of conscience uh... and so uh... typically did include you know that common street language is, well, when, you know, you'll often hear this from people, well, you have the right to swing your fist, you know.

My nose starts. Yeah, your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose starts. And so the idea is that, well, if your actions harm me, then you have to limit your freedom. And so what they do with something like a quote-unquote global pandemic is say that now your actions are harming all those around you and therefore on that basis we will tell you exactly what you can do and can't do. So they use that as a construct to be able to wield really powerful controls because we all, legally or not, we all kind of acquiesce to that idea that, well, my freedoms have some limitation, right? If it's going to harm someone else, then I won't. And so they use that. They use the same thing with environmentalism. They say, well, you burning this, I mean, you're harming the whole planet. And so they use a lot of these kinds of things these days in order to gain control over populations.

Yeah, and that's scary, and that's exactly with how the, I listen to Andy Woods a lot, and he has this thing about the anti-christ, you know, anti-christ technology, or what he calls Mark of the Beast technology, and all the things, these flock cameras, and how in the past that used to be You know, a hundred years ago, they were saying, how can the Antichrist know what everyone's doing and keep track of who's buying what and selling what?

Well, now we know, you know, and, and so, yeah, so the government can can really do that and force our Well, we won't be here, but who is ever here will force them into force the right consciousness of Whoever whatever the Antichrist wants it to be it's really amazing Just I won't go through this because we're pretty much out of time but James Madison, and if you want to know about what the spirit of the Constitution says in the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers are just a wonderful way, it's sort of all the thinking behind the Constitution.

So this statement, I won't read it in its entirety, but that's It's how, he says, under a government, there's factions. There's strong factions and there's weak factions. And you see that in the last paragraph there. Under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature. where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger. And as in the latter state, even the stronger individuals are prompted by the uncertainty of their condition to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves, the strong.

So you see how that sort of Paul's writing, or I'm sorry, Peter's writing in the second chapter of the book we're studying, that also, it's sort of parallel, these strong consciences and the weak consciences and things like that. And Paul in 1 Corinthians, when he talks about the conscience.

So you see how the founding fathers really knew this issue well, and they wrote about it well, and they kind of they knew how to separate these powers, and that's what we have, to promote this spirit of what the Declaration of Independence says, the pursuit of happiness. And I just thought it was interesting that in Romans 14, 22, it says, happy is he who does not condemn himself. in what he approves. So I think that pursuit of that happiness, that is happiness within your civil condition, with a good conscience.

So I just say here, the test then is Acts 5, 29, and you brought that up, Miles. when Peter says, you must obey God rather than men. So whenever something the government infringes upon what you know is right by God, you can disobey that. And to protect your conscience before God And that can't be assaulted And so that's the litmus test.

I guess you'd say is to always go by that rule and Then let's see Just to finish up, I have this guy that kind of illustrates the passage that we studied last week. So Salman Almi. And I put his name up in his face just because he's now a public figure. So I have the verses here on the left hand side of the presentation.

Submit yourselves to the Lord's sake to every human institution as to a king or one in authority or government governors sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right for such is the will of god that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil but use it as bond slaves of god So, old Salman here, he was a free man, he was a refugee, he came to the States, he had the blessings of freedom in America, and he used his freedom to become wealthy, he did well. You can see there's a certificate of commendation there that he's holding. He won Outstanding Refugee of the Year in Minnesota, so he got praised by the government. But he was using his freedom uh... his political freedom as a cloak for evil because he he was uh... committing this fraud therefore the the government condit uh... commendation turned to punishment because he is an evil doer so i just thought that was an interesting sort of uh... illustration of uh... not to use your freedom as a cloak for evil illustrated recently there in Minnesota.

I don't know. I think his case is still going through the system. And I think I put, just so I'm not, you know, doxing a private citizen. He's no longer really private. There's this court docket number down there. So, and yeah, it was just, it was a messy situation, but um, as just kind of interesting way to finish up here this morning. So I hope that was kind of fun. We usually don't do that in this class, but it's kind of neat to go through the practical implications of what we're studying. So any other thoughts?

I'll close us up in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you again that we have freedom in this country to worship you and protect our consciences for your sake. We have these blessings in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we thank you for all the things you do for us. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.