In this podcast, Jason Dohm, Gavin Beers, and I discuss the first chapter of Pierre Viret’s “When to Disobey, Case Studies in Tyranny, Insurrection, and Obedience to God. In this chapter, Viret explains three forms of government, analyzing the positives and negatives of each and establishes a principle upon which all governments should be judged. We will ship the book to you for a donation of any amount. Click here to get your book. Also, don’t forget to get the study guide for this book. Click here. Get "When to Disobey" for a donation of any amount here. Get the companion Study Guide for just $4.95 here.

Hey, welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Let me tell you a couple of things real quick before we get going. Hope you can come to our Theology of the Family Conference at Ridgecrest, North Carolina, May 20 through 23. Just Before that, a singles conference called Holiness to the Lord, May 19 and 20. Also, go to our website.

We have lots of resources, over 5,000. Churchandfamilylife.com. Also, I just published a book called The Family at Church, How Parents Are Tour Guides for Joy. I think this book could really help sweeten your local church experience. Okay, let's get on now with the podcast.

Well welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture. And so Jason Dome, we have the privilege of having Gavin Beers to help us discuss a book. Welcome, Gavin. Yeah.

Good to be with you. Thank you, Gavin. Gavin, of course, is a pastor at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Mebon, and he is broadcasting straight from Belfast, from the harbor there in Belfast. Behind him is the place where the Titanic was built and launched. Of course, it wasn't a Scottish captain that commanded that ship to its demise, but we're grateful to have a Scotsman with us.

We're here to discuss a book that Church and Family Life just published called When to Disobey, Case Studies in Tyranny, Insurrection, and Obedience to God. This book is available on the Church and Family Life website for a donation of any amount. And We're just encouraging people to study this book. We think it will be very helpful for pastors and for church members to understand how to think through matters of church life and family life in the midst of tyrannical governments. This book is a compilation of the writings of Pierre Verre, who was a Reformation pastor.

He shepherded people through three very difficult governments toward the church. We've also written a study guide that's also online there that you can get. We're hoping people will study this book, and We're indebted to Rebecca Sheets, who translated and compiled the works of Pierre Verre. You can find her works. They're very, very helpful.

But we're really grateful for Rebecca sheets for giving her time to do such a thing. And so I pray that this will be a blessing to churches. You know, we published this book because we believe that now is a time to really shepherd our flocks regarding matters of her relationship with the government. And so we're here today to discuss the first and possibly the second chapters of this book, Chapter One, How Should Man Be Governed? How should man be governed?

And Verre begins with a proposition about the standard that we should use when we think about how we should be governed. And of course, that standard is the law of God. And I'm just going to read from the beginning of this chapter, in which it is shown that the law of God alone is the true standard by which all good and just government must be ruled and conformed. So that's really his first point. So let's just open up and dissect that a little bit.

What is Vierre advocating here? Well, it's interesting that even before that in the book, where this section is excerpted from is an introduction to the Ten Commandments. And so he's really showing that there's a civil use of the law. You know, there are three uses of the law. We preach it to drive sinners to Christ for their justification and it's a rule of life for the believer, but it also has a civil function.

And as he's writing this introduction to the Ten Commandments, he opens this up and says, yeah, this must be the foundation of all government, you know, whether it be in church or state or family. We have the law of God. And if we don't build there, we don't have a firm foundation. Everything is going to come crashing down in one way or another in those institutions. So he's asserting that good and just government can only come out of the precepts of the Word of God.

Well, that's because it's the Word of God that defines what is actually good and what is just. I mean, man is infamous for getting the definitions of good and just wrong. So, if you don't even really understand goodness and justice, you'll not build governmental forms or anything based on what's actually good and just only on wrong perceptions of what is. Right, and you know, the three of us, we subscribe to historic confessions, Jason and I, the 1689 Baptist Confession, and you, Gavin, the Westminster. And there's a chapter on what is a good work.

How do you know whether something is a good work or not. And the way you know is by finding out what God says is good. And so that flows through to this whole discussion about government. Now, Viré takes a very interesting approach here. He identifies three types of governments.

And I'd like for us to discuss each one of them individually. What he does is he defines them, and then he, in a really interesting way, unpacks the positives and the negatives of those different kinds of governments. So let's launch that discussion first. He talks about, first of all, monarchy, and then aristocracy, and third, democracy. So let's begin with some of the things that he says about monarchy.

So one of the things I noticed when I was reading was that he's clearly writing in a different time period, and we would probably affix different labels. I don't know how many true monarchies where you have a king over. We would probably call that a dictatorship. It's just like one person at the top of this structure. And one of the things he says that is a benefit of a monarchy is, when I was in the business world, we called it one throat to choke, meaning you had one person who was responsible, you knew exactly which throat to choke if something went wrong or which person to praise if something went right.

And so, you know exactly who is accountable. And if you have a good person there, then it's good news. You don't need a bunch of good people. You need one good king to have good government. So that's one of the things he says is a virtue of this system.

Yeah. And when you look at that, I think he also goes on to argue that it's a more stable form of government in some ways and that where we'll get to democracy, where you've got many people electing, governments change very quickly. Whereas with monarchy, you don't have that same potential to revolution, in the sense, because you've got concentrated power. But then the negative being, while it might provide stability over against revolution, it will also tend to work tyranny because of the concentration of power in one. Right.

So let's move to aristocracy. You know, he's speaking here of a modified form of government from monarchy. So let's talk about that. What were some of the positives and negatives that he identified there. So I think in terms of the definition, a monarchy or dictatorship would have one at the top of the structure.

The aristocracy, I think today we would be more likely to call it an oligarchy, and he mentions in the chapter that the Greeks call it that. Instead of one, you have few. So it's a class of people who have been designated as the Wisest and best to rule. Oh boy, is that a can of worms, right? That's in the eye of the beholder for certain.

But rather than all being on a single pillar, power being reduced to one, It's reduced to a small class of people who are entrusted to be the best qualified to rule. Right. Yeah, rule by experts. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

How's that going? Yeah. Well, it's popular, isn't it? It's popular today. You know, nobody can make their own minds up.

We have to, you know, on the news, wheel in the aristocracy, really the modern aristocracy, the experts, the few who are qualified to tell everyone else what to do. Follow the science, Gavin. Follow the science. Yeah. Yeah.

As Vire opens this up, you know, this is like a bridge between monarchy and democracy. He doesn't say as much about it because I think you can infer that it has some of the benefits of monarchy with stability of government concentrated in the few, less tendency to the instability that he will argue can come through democracy. But again, because concentration of power in a few, it's going to lead to tyranny. And I think in both cases, he does highlight the fact that it tends to be the lower classes and the poor who suffer as a result of that because they don't have a voice or representation. Right, they create a power block that eliminates those who aren't you know in their club basically.

And so then he moves to democracy and you know while he says that there's a opportunity for less danger of tyranny that That's not the end of the story. And of course, when we speak about democracy, this is a term that Americans have great affection for. Americans think that they live in a democracy. They actually live in a Democratic Republic where we elect representatives. It's a little bit modified compared to what Vire is speaking about here.

So let's talk about his description of democracy. What can we learn and what are the dangers and positives? Let me start again from a labeling standpoint. He does describe the election of representatives. So again, I think we would label it differently and call it a Democratic Republic or maybe even a representative republic where he calls it a democracy.

But he is talking about a broad base of people holding the power and exercising that power through elected representatives who then form the government. Yeah. When I was reading that, you mentioned earlier Jason, he's writing in a context. Monarchy, we might say dictatorship, kings were common in those days. Even in the 17th century, you've got everything going on in Britain, the argument over absolute government.

I thought, you know, this is remarkable Vire even speaking about democracy because he would not have had many examples to go from in terms of what we have. Democracy is a relatively recent thing. You go back to the formation of the United States, even in Britain, probably democracy has only been functioning around 150 years. So he's speaking theoretically of something. And I thought, wow, you got a lot right here for not having lived through it.

So benefits, there's the dilution of power in that it's not concentrated in one. Or in theory, It's not concentrated in a few. But unstable because the people are crying out for new government all the time. I was thinking even about the recent elections. This nation is so polarized.

And every four years, it's like flip-flopping around. You can. And it's almost like governments are paralyzed because you see who gets the vote and who goes in and who can really pursue and develop their agenda. I thought that some of the points he made there were valid. Linking that to law, you have the famous statement, we the people.

And I believe that many Americans probably have the wrong view of their own government. You know, Scott, you mentioned that it's a democratic republic and we elect our representatives, but what are the representatives to do? I think people think that the representatives are to do the will of the people, but look at Vera, Vera is saying here, Whoever is in power has to do the will of God, you know? And when you get democracy unhinged from the law of God, ultimately you're in danger of just replacing a tyrannical monarch with a tyrannical majority. He has some pretty harsh things to say about democracy, the way he defines it.

And he talks about the excesses that are resident in that form of government. I think one of the things that is really helpful about this whole section is that Verre is teaching us that we shouldn't think too highly about the form of government that we have. There's an tendency of Americans to worship their democracy or their democratic republic and preserving it is the only goal. We understand why people would think that way, but Viré doesn't idolize any one of these forms of government. It's interesting, if you look at the structure of the chapter, he talks about these three forms of government and the pros and cons associated with each, and then he says this, I'll just quote, he says, when all is well considered and mulled over, we can come to no other conclusion than that men can never be more miserable and more poorly governed than when they are governed by their fellow men.

That is by governors who are mortal men as they are, no matter what form of government they may employ. So he starts out by delivering the bad news, which is any form of government is only as good as the man that formed the government and the principles that govern them. And he speaks so elaborately about the susceptibility towards sin in every form of government. I think in some ways this is an application of the fall and a description of how the fall affects government in all of its forms. And I wish we had time to talk about all of them, but it's astounding how insightful he is in piercing into the various manifestations of sin, of flattering, of taking advantage of all kinds of sinful impulses in man that exist in every form of government.

When he talked about the potential for flattery and persuading those under a democratic government. You know, you think of that today, the lobbyists who come in, the vested interests, and then men are ruling in that capacity, not in the fear of God, they become respecters of persons. They're thinking, ah, the electorate might vote me out, you know? So they become very man-conscious, which then this snowball of sin in government just gets bigger and bigger and bigger because we're losing or it's becoming unhinged from the view of government under God according to his law. Gavin, I was thinking the same thing.

I was reading certain paragraphs in this chapter and thinking, man, if you just lifted out that paragraph and put it in a newspaper now, people would say, oh, this is really insightful commentary on the things that just happened last week. You know, one of the things that really struck me was when he talked in the section about godly leaders, holy leaders, and he says that even the most godly principled governor is susceptible to sinful forces at work around him. And he talked about how, you know, every godly leader has advisors. And godly leaders trust their advisors. They're not wise in their own eyes.

This right and godly disposition of not being right in your own eyes, also at the very same time, makes you vulnerable to advisors who are wicked. And you don't know that their advice is coming from wicked motivations at the time. And so you follow that advice and you become, he doesn't use this word, the pawn of wicked advisors. I thought that was very insightful. Yeah.

I think David and Ahithophel, You know, David trusts Ahithophel. Ahithophel betrays him. David ends up kicked out of Jerusalem and we get the Psalms from that, Psalm 55. You know, his words were smooth as butter, But war was in his heart. You know, that's a very potent example of one who's alongside as a counselor and an aid, but then who switches for his own end.

It was a concept he introduces in the chapter, which I thought was really helpful. He introduces the concept of bad government as coming from God as punishment for national sins. And it made me think, oh, man, all the bellyaching I've done about our current governmental woes, which really, if you think about it, we still don't have the government we deserve because of our national sins. We still have government that is better. With all that's happened over the last six months, we still have government that is vastly better than we deserve for our national sins.

And rather than, at a personal level, personal application, rather than belly ache about the bad government, The starting point for me should be to repent of the things in my own heart that are not right. We might stand a better chance of getting good government, not by trying to tweak forms or reform vote counting. And I think we should do all of that in actually, you know, turning back to the Lord. Yeah, it's a grind-up thing, especially in a in a nation where you elect your own rulers. If the people's hearts are changed, you know, If the gospel goes forth in power, then the people you would think would be choosing godly rulers, wicked rulers won't get elected.

So this ground up idea of focusing on our own sins, repenting of our own sins that the Lord's hand would be of anger would be removed away and seeking the gospel to penetrate the country. These are huge consequences and, you know, lessons to us from the government that we're presently under. I think another thing as well, even more fundamental, Bad government is better than no government. And maybe we move in the same circles, maybe slightly different circles, but I think among Christians there's Over here, there's almost this instinct towards a libertarianism that's bordering on anarchy. So all taxation is theft.

You see this, well, let's think about that again. An awful lot of it might be, but in principle, there are benefits to government, even a bad government. And bringing our hearts even to the point where we can accept that, that the Lord has not left us to utter chaos. That's a mercy in and of itself. Well, there's so much more we could talk about here.

I think maybe we should just conclude that sin is the problem. We'll always have governors that are subject to sin, no matter what kind of government structure we'll have. Let's don't idolize our government structure. I think I would just add this, Veret doesn't speak of this, but we are told what kind of leaders to choose in the law. And we choose men who have particular qualities, you know, in Exodus 17 and other places.

It's very, very clear the kind of people we should be, you know, promoting to be as our governors and as our judges. But the truth is, there is no one single form of government that will give us everything we want, and particularly because sinful and the men are operating it. So let's close out chapter one with that. So could I make one more comment before we close it out? And that's this.

He does make that point, and I think he makes it Well, all forms of government are subject to corruption because men are corrupt. But he also actually makes the opposite argument at the very end of the chapter, which is this, any of those forms of government can actually be good for the people if either the king or the few or the many who vote and those who represent them actually understand that they are under the law of God and that their job is to actually implement what God says is good and just. Any of those forms of government can be good. Right. He that ruleeth over man, whoever he is, king, senator, congressman, he that ruleeth over man must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

That's a principle that can apply to all three of those governments. Okay, well, the next chapter we can talk about at another time, chapter two, on the whole matter of what kind of citizens should we be. He has some very helpful things to say there. So there you go, when to disobey, case studies, and tyranny, insurrection, and obedience to God. Gavin, thank you so much for joining with us.

We're not done with this. We're going to do a few more of these. We'd like to, you know, move through this book and dissect the various things that are there to help one another and help our people and help churches to understand how they ought to operate in the midst of this government structure that we're under right now. Well, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure, Scott, and thank you for all the work you guys are doing for the kingdom.

God bless you. Okay. And thank you for joining us at Church and Family Life and this podcast. I hope you can join us next time. We're going to continue to discuss when to disobey.

And remember, you can get this book for a donation of any amount on the Church and Family Life website. Until we meet again. And family life dot com. See you next Monday for our next broadcast of the Church and Family Life podcast.