In this study of Chapter 24 of the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689, Jason Dohm discusses how the people of God ought to relate to the governing authorities. He provides three keynote passages to help us better understand this theme.

All civil magistrates have been ordained by God. While they are under Him, they are over the people they govern. This is all God's plan.

Let's pray. Our Father, this has been such a rich time to come for all these hours to be around your word and to consider the things that you have said. Oh God, I pray that you would make us faithful to the things that you have said. That we'd be so pleased to have our thoughts set off to the side and trained and conformed to your thoughts. God, we pray in this category of the civil magistrate that it would be so that you would help us to think rightly about how we ought to relate as your people with the governing authorities.

Help us, oh God, in Jesus' name, Amen. What the Bible says about the Holy Scriptures, what the Bible says about the Trinity, what the Bible says about God's decree, what the Bible says about divine providence, what the Bible says about Christ the mediator, what the Bible says about the mayor, about the city council. Does Anyone else think that this is out of place? We're heaping up the great mysteries of God, one on top of the other. And now we come to this, and it's what the Bible has to say about the mayor.

It is a great mystery. I think this flows from the American mindset. And it's hard for us to imagine why how God's people relate to the civil government gets a whole chapter in this confession. And I think that's because we're the exception. We're not the rule the rule is a lot more like the year 1689 when pastors as Representatives of churches were gathering in London to adopt this confession.

Just the year before in 1688, their brethren to the north in Scotland were being martyred by the tens of thousands. It's a period of time in Scottish history called the Killing Times. So when we think about what these men were affirming about the civil magistrate, this is part of the context. Their brethren were being martyred in the tens of thousands just the year before. And we find as we look at scripture that how the people of God relate to the governing authorities, the civil government, is a very prominent theme in the Bible.

And it deserves its chapter in the confession. Point one, God the Supreme Lord and King of all the world hath ordained civil magistrates to be under him, over the people, for his own glory and the public good. And to this end hath armed them with the power of the sword for defense and encouragement of them that do good, and for the punishment of evildoers." The confession starts with this, that all civil magistrates have been ordained by God. They're under him but they're over the people and that this was God's design. That what we see in existence isn't human invention but has been ordained by God that civil governments, civil magistrates, aren't an institution of man, It's actually an institution of God.

Here's our first attack on this doctrine. Only good officials are from God. That's an attack on this doctrine. Only the good ones. So that when Ronald Reagan is president, the angels sing a chorus from heaven.

A beam of sunlight comes into the Oval Office and God is on his throne. But when Barack Obama is president, that God has been replaced by the devil and there's dark clouds only, and that the train is off the tracks. This is not the teaching of scripture. And so the confession is contradicting that attack against this doctrine. We're going to go to Romans 13, but I just want to say right off the bat that I think there are three flagship passages that if you understand these three passages then you understand the overwhelming majority of what needs to be known in this category.

The first is Romans 13, the second is 1 Peter 2 and 3, chapter 2 and chapter 3 of 1 Peter, and the last is Psalm 2. If you have a firm understanding of those four chapters of scripture, you know a lot about what God teaches about the civil magistrate. Beginning in Romans 13, one through six. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and The authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority, resists the ordinance of God.

And those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good.

But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake. For because of this you also pay taxes for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing." Paul is writing to the Romans, to the church in Rome, and he says, be subject for there is no authority except from God. There's no authority anywhere in the church, in the home, in your city, in your state, in your country that hasn't been ordained by God. And there's a logical flow to his argument.

Therefore, when you resist the government in your city or your state or your country or your church or in the family you're resisting what God has ordained and so you're resisting God. First half of verse 4, he is God's minister to you for good. Second half of verse 4, he is God's minister and avenger. Verse 6, They are God's ministers. Paul is just saying this again and again.

That guy, the mayor, God put him there. That woman, your governor, we have a woman governor in North Carolina, God put her there. That guy in the White House, God put him there. He is God's minister. He is God's minister.

He is God's minister. And so therefore, continuing with the argument, therefore pay your taxes Because God wants these men and women to be fully financially supported in this role. Not only has he ordained civil magistrates, he's actually commanded a financial structure that allows them to continually give themselves to this, just like in the church. There's a financial structure in place to allow men to be set aside, to be continually devoted to prayer in the ministry of the word. Here in this other jurisdiction, the civil government, same thing.

We tithe in the church, we pay our taxes as citizens because God actually wants civil magistrates to be in place to encourage people who do good and to punish evildoers. Now, we read this text and we say, well, what about this? What about that? And Romans 13 doesn't even address it. It makes no carve-outs.

It gives us no caveats. It just says that we ought to be subject. Now, does this mean there are no carve-outs? No, we're going to get to that. There are exceptions.

But Paul doesn't want his readers in Rome where there's Roman government as there was in Jesus' time, as there was where Jesus was. He doesn't want them to immediately go to thinking about the exceptions so he doesn't even address the exceptions here. And we're going to see this over and over as we look at the texts of scripture that substantiate this doctrine, that most of them don't have the carve-outs and caveats because we're being taught that we ought to have a bias. We ought to have a predisposition. And the bias that God desires for us to have, The bias that God is teaching us to have, the predisposition that God is teaching us to have is to be subject, is to work with and obey the governing authorities.

Next, the confession says that the intent was and is good. God intends good things by giving us this institution of the civil government. And his own glory is the intent. We've been saying that about every other category. Why not this category?

His glory is the intent for giving civil magistrates and the public good is the intent. God has given this to us as a blessing for the public good. Here's our second attack on this doctrine. Antinomianism against law. Authority is bad.

Question authority. Isn't that the bumper sticker? Question authority. Authority is bad. Back to Romans 13, there is no authority except from God.

God doesn't say authority is bad at all. God says authority is good. God says civil authority is good. Now we're going to 1 Peter 2. And we'll only be looking in detail at 1 Peter 2, verses 13 and 14.

But it's part of a larger flow of thought that Peter is writing in chapters 2 and then in chapters 3. He starts here in 1 Peter 2, 13 and 14 with these verses that we'll be looking at in detail. And he's talking about civil government. But he's talking about authority, how the people who are governed should relate rightly in a godly way with those that God has put over them. And then he begins to talk about servants and masters, and he's talking about authority, and he's talking about how godly servants relate to their masters.

And then in chapter 3 he talks about wives and husbands and he talks about how godly wives relate rightly with their husbands who have been given authority. And then In chapter 5 he talks about people in a church and how they relate in a godly way with their elders, the people who have been put over them. This is a central theme of 1 Peter, how we relate in a godly way with those that God has put over us. And in 13 and 14, it's talking about the institution of the civil government. Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme or to governors as to those who are sent by Him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good." Again, Peter gives us no carve-outs, no caveats.

He just tells us that we're to submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. Now this is something that carries over from child training, isn't it? What do we teach our children? And this is based on Ephesians 6 and based on Colossians 3, so we're not making this stuff up when we tell it to our kids, but kids, you're learning to obey me. Why?

Because I'm the king of the universe? No. But because there's a God in heaven And you need to learn to obey Him and you're in boot camp. You're in the training grounds for that. And as you learn to submit yourself to me, later in life you'll be ready in a more independent way.

You'll have been made ready to submit yourself to God and obey Him. When I'm not even around anymore, you'll know how to obey God. The same way here. We're to submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake because the Lord is beyond the civil magistrates that God has ordained, whether to the king as supreme or to his designates or to people who are under him. So this extends not only to the president, the person at the very top, but also the designates.

Titus 3.1, remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work. Another small verse saying the same thing also with no caveats, no carve outs because God wants us to have a bias and a predisposition to obey those that he's ordained and put into authority over us. Proverbs 24, 21, my son, fear the Lord and the King. Fear the Lord and the King. Because when you fear the King, you're really fearing the Lord.

It's connected in the parent-child relationship and it's connected in the husband-and-wife relationship in 1st Corinthians 11 and it's connected in the citizen civil magistrate institution that God has given us. Different jurisdictions, same principle governing. For the antinomians, this is what they must understand that There is something worse than bad government. Bad government makes the people groan, no question about it, but there's something worse than that and that is no government. It's never worse than when there's no government.

No government is the book of judges, hundreds of years of time where the people do what's right in their own eyes. Everyone just does what's right in their own eyes. There were dark periods of history in Israel where they had evil governors but nothing was worse than the time of the judges. Next the confession goes to the civil magistrates wielding the sword. This is what the civil magistrate does.

The civil magistrate wields the sword for defense in a corporate sense to protect the nation from ungodly people coming against them to be able to defend the nation and to benefit those who do good and to punish evildoers. So in a corporate sense there's national defense and in an individual sense they punish evildoers and it benefits those who do good. Consider this, Genesis 9, 5 and 6. From the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed.

For in the image of God He made man. God is telling us all that there's to be a death penalty for murder. And yet, he's also saying that there's a mechanism for that. God is not going to do that directly, normally. Whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed.

There's God's law, But God, according to his good purpose, normally is not the mechanism for the enforcement of his law. He's put in place the civil magistrate to do that, and he's put the sword in his hand to be the agent of vengeance for God himself. I'll never forget a far side cartoon that had a piano hanging from the third story on a rope and there's the unsuspecting, goofing, blinking guy below. And then the box off to the side, there is God and he has a keyboard and there's a smite button on the keyboard. And he's just ready to push the smite button.

And you know the piano's going to drop down on the unsuspecting guy. This is not the universe as God has created it. The normal mechanism when a man murders isn't that a piano drops on him because God hit the smite button. That's not the design of God. It's that the civil magistrate has been given to be the avenger for God in the place of God and the sword has been put into his hand.

Now is that always the way it happens? We just looked at Ananias and Sapphira. Sometimes he just does it himself. He maintains the right to just do it himself. But thatís not the normal pattern.

The normal pattern is that heís given societies the civil magistrate to constrain evil. And that's what Genesis 9, 5 through 6 is teaching. So all jurisdictions have this structure. The church has this structure. They have shepherds.

But the shepherds aren't at the top of the structure. They're under shepherds. There's a what? There's a chief shepherd and there are under shepherds. And in the civil realm, it's the same thing.

God is the King of Kings. He's the king and then he has under kings that he has put in place. In a family, there's a father, but he's not the father. In a sense, he's an underfather. This is how God works, and this is how he works in the civil realm as well.

Here's an attack against this doctrine. Unlimited scope of government is an attack on this doctrine. A government that can dabble in any category is an attack on the biblical doctrine of The civil magistrate. All governments are instituted by God. All governments derive their authority by God.

And so they don't get to decide for themselves what their purview is. It must be defined by God because it's God's institution, not our idea. We don't set the boundaries on it. God sets the boundaries. There is a theology of government.

Theology should drive the scope of what a government tackles, not the best ideas that we can come up with. It ought to be theologically driven. 1 Peter 2, 14, to those who are sent by him for... And then there's a list. And we can go other places to build our theology of government.

But the point is that the scope of government isn't unbounded. It's God's institution, so He provides the boundaries. Point two, it is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate when called there unto. In the management whereof as they ought especially to maintain justice and peace according to the wholesome laws of each kingdom and commonwealth. So for that end, they may lawfully now, under the New Testament, wage war upon just and necessary occasions.

So the confession starts with this biblical fact that Christians can be public officials. Christians can be public officials. In Luke 3, people are coming to Jesus and saying, what should we do? People come and say, what should we do? He says, you who have two tunics, share.

And then the tax collectors come. They say, Jesus, what should we do? And he says what he says. And then in verse 14, Luke 3.14, a soldier comes. Likewise, the soldiers asked him, saying, and what shall we do?

So he said to them, do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely and be content with your wages. This is Jesus, so we're New Testament teaching here. And Jesus is asked by a Roman soldier, what should we do? Quit. Man, Christians don't have any business in civil affairs, just quit.

It's not what Jesus says. He says, conduct yourself righteously in your vocation. Conduct yourself according to justice. Daniel in Babylon, Joseph in Egypt, both rising to second in command over the whole nation, both part of the civil government, almost supreme civil magistrates. So the thought that we have a defiled government can't be part of a defiled government.

Okay, Babylon, Okay, Egypt. Secondly, the confession says that when Christians are public officials, they should act righteously. Not according to what we think is righteous, but according to the revealed will of God. That's how Christian civil magistrates should conduct themselves. It says they should maintain justice and peace according to wholesome laws.

Those are the duties of a Christian magistrate, to maintain justice and peace. This is why it's such a blessing for the people. Isn't it a blessing for people when they have civil magistrates who think it's their mission in life to maintain justice and peace according to wholesome laws, according to the principles that God gives us in His Word. Here's an attack on this doctrine. The modern interpretation of separation of church and state.

And I say the modern interpretation of it Because there is something that's correct about saying that the church and the state are different distinct institutions. Amen. That's good. The Church of England being the established religion is the wrong direction and is not biblical. But to take that a completely different way to say that God is unwelcome in several affairs and to make a sacred, secular distinction where God's not welcome over here, that is insanity.

That is madness. Ezekiel 45 verse 9, thus says the Lord God, Enough, O princes of Israel. Remove violence and plundering. Execute justice and righteousness and stop dispossessing My people, says the Lord God. Does God want government to be a blessing to the people?

Look at this verse. Look at what God is calling for. The people are being defrauded. The people are being plundered. And God comes and says, enough, Enough, O princes of Israel, remove violence and plundering, execute justice and righteousness, and stop dispossessing my people.

This is the design of God. It doesn't always function perfectly, but it is better than no government. And God can deal with wicked magistrates that have been appointed by him. God can deal with them. Psalm 2, this is one of those texts that I mentioned as one of the three flagship texts in this category.

Psalms 2, verses 10 through 12, Now therefore be wise, O kings. Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest he be angry and you perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him." You want separation of church and state?

When the future of the nation rises and falls on whether a people follow the Lord or not, you do not want separation of church and state in that sense. You do not want that. Be wise, O kings. Kiss the sun, lest he be angry and you perish in the way. Here's another attack on this doctrine.

Appeal exclusively to natural law. Translation, what seems right in your own eyes? Common sense government. Well, itís just common sense. We donít really need the law of God.

Just function by common sense and weíll be okay. Well, What do we know about common sense? Well, we know that it's not that common and we know that often things that are identified to common sense, once we've come to maturity, we find out that it's very unbiblical, can be. Proverbs 29, 14, the king who judges the poor with truth, his throne, will be established forever. Go back to the book of John, sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth.

When people who have no confidence in God, no saving faith, start deriving truth from the best that they have available, things go really Badly. Truth is the revealed Word of God. Your Word is truth. But the kingdom that's established is the one where the king who judges the poor with truth. That's the kingdom that gets established.

Next the Confession goes to waging just war. It says that in the New Testament era, you can still wage just war. And there's objectives to waging just war that the Confession gives us, and that is justice and peace. And then it gives us further constraints on just and necessary occasions. So really what the Confession gives us is a high bar for war.

It's a high bar. It must be to accomplish justice and peace and it must be on just and necessary occasions. All of our wars should be weighed against those standards, defining the terms from the Bible. Here's an attack on that doctrine. A pacifist view of the New Testament.

No war ever again. The New Testament, Jesus did away with that. The swords turned into plowshares forever. That day is coming, but that day has not come. And so the confession affirms that there is such a thing as a just war.

To a lesser extent, the attack on this is by New Covenant theologians. It doesn't end at the Sermon on the Mount, but it starts with the Sermon on the Mount. And they take the five or six, but I say unto yous, And they say, that is a change in the law. That's a change in the law. It was this, but Jesus said, but I say unto you, he changed it.

It was this, but now it's this. And a careful, exegetically sound review of those would tell you that it's a correction of bad interpretation. So it is a correction, but it's not an overthrow of what God gave us in the Old Testament. It's a correction on how those things had become to be reviewed. But they say, stay right there in the text, and they say, see it says, it used to be eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but now it's do not resist an evil person.

How can you go to a war when Jesus said that? How can there be just war when Jesus says it was eye for eye, but now it's do not resist an evil person. And this just comes down to a simple confusion over jurisdictions. Simple confusion over jurisdictions. And they're applying commands given to individuals to governments, And it's not legitimate to do that.

Eye for eye and tooth for tooth was always to civil magistrates, to governments. It was never legitimate in the Old Testament or in the New Testament for a person to go and take their own retribution. That was against the law of Moses. But governments were given the sword to avenge evil, to punish evildoers in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Point three, civil magistrates being set up by God for the ends of Forsed, subjection in all lawful things commanded by them, ought to be yielded by us in the Lord, not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake.

And we ought to make supplications and prayers for kings and all that are in authority, that under them we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty." So what the Confession is teaching here is that Except where civil laws prevent obedience to the law of God, subjection is required. I'm going to say that again because there's a close derivative to this that gets you into trouble. So it's important that you get what's being taught and not read further things into it. Except where civil laws prevent obedience to the law of God, subjection is required. So here's the attack on this doctrine, a wrong expanded view of civil disobedience.

Now the Bible does teach civil disobedience, and we're getting ready to talk about that, but it contains it. And so there is a wrong expanded view of civil disobedience that is an attack on the biblical doctrine. So here's a statement of that expanded view, that wrong view. I'm obligated to obey public officials when those officials are acting biblically. Governor Perdue, you act biblically, I obey.

I'm in subjection. You don't act biblically, I don't have to be in subjection. I don't have to obey. Acts 4, 18 through 20. The guys had been preaching and they're in trouble for preaching.

The disciples had been preaching. So they called them, the religious leaders, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God you judge, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." One of the things we must notice from this passage in Acts 4 is that What they were told to do was in direct contradiction to a command of Scripture, the Great Commission. No more teaching in the name of Jesus. No more Zip, zilch, none.

Well, they can't obey that without disobeying God. To obey what is being required of them is to disobey the Great Commission. Not only should they not obey, they're not at liberty to obey. They're not even at liberty to obey what they're being told here. They're being commanded to sin.

When you're being commanded to sin, you have a license from God to disobey when you're being commanded to sin. So the proper sense is I'm obligated to obey public officials unless they are requiring something of me that is sinful. Now that's not very different, but the difference makes a world of difference in how you apply it. If you're being commanded, required to do something that's sinful, then civil disobedience is very biblical. If the civil authorities are just not acting biblically, sorry, that's not the threshold.

That doesn't meet the threshold for civil disobedience. Matthew 5, 41, also right here in the Sermon on the Mount, and whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Now we just read that and say go above and beyond, But this meant a lot more to the people who would have first heard it because this had to do with very specific Roman law that you could be pressed into service by Roman soldiers to carry their stuff for a mile. Now, nowhere in the Bible are you obligated to carry the government's stuff for a mile. This is not a biblical concept that a Roman soldier would come and say, carry my stuff for a mile.

Now Rome had limits. It was a mile. And so Jesus says, okay, they have their unbiblical concept. Nowhere in the Bible does it say it's sin to carry their stuff for a mile, but it's not a biblical concept to press a citizen into service. That's certainly not an appropriate application of bearing the sword for the government.

But Jesus says, okay, they press you into service, take their stuff two miles. The government gives warrant for one, I tell you, take it two. And he's reaffirming a bias towards subjection, towards obedience to civil magistrates, a predisposition to humbly submit to those God has put in authority over us. Now does that mean that Christians have no recourse when public officials are not acting in accordance with the commands and principles of Scripture. We see all manner of government overreach today, don't we?

Reaching into things the government has no business in. Does that mean when we see this happening, we just, We're just doormats. They just walk right over the top with no recourse. No, that's not what that means. Especially in a society where the government is of the people.

Not only do we have recourse, we have a responsibility before God to exercise the recourse that we have when a government is acting unbiblically. Consider Daniel chapter 1 verse 8. This is right at the beginning of the book of Daniel. There have been taken into captivity. They're in Babylon.

And Daniel is part of a special group that's been set aside and they're going to be trained for three years and then put into the service of the king. And it includes all sorts of things that they're going to learn. Everything is spelled out down to what they would eat. So they're going to eat of the king's delicacies. And Daniel thinks, I'm going to be defiled by the king's delicacies.

So here's what happens. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself for the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. So he makes a respectful, humble request of the authority that God had put over him. As we read the rest of the story, he actually makes a counter proposal that takes all of the risk out of it.

It's a very wise way to proceed. And we would call this a righteous appeal. And in the dome house, my children are welcome to make righteous appeals. They say, Dad, can we discuss that? And that puts me at liberty to say, no, we can't discuss that.

Or yes, take your best shot. We can discuss this. But it means that they're coming respectfully in humility to make an appeal. And Daniel does that in Babylon. He makes a respectful, humble appeal.

Proverbs 25, 15 says this, by long forbearance a ruler is persuaded and a gentle tongue breaks a bone. By long forbearance a ruler is persuaded and a gentle tongue breaks a bone. This is how we relate with our civil magistrates when they're not acting well, when they're not acting biblically. We're patient. We're respectful.

We come in humility. We make righteous appeals to them. What are some of the practical outworkings? Well, we want to protest against abortion clinics. So, we're going to get our certificates.

We're going to comply with law. We want to preach at the gay pride parade. We're going to call the civil magistrates in advance to say, we want to be out there. We're going to act lawfully. We're going to exercise our rights, but we just wanted you to know we're going to be out there.

What do we need to do? Proactively engaging them respectfully, in humility, patiently, and then if they jump their bounds while we're out there, we'll be predisposed to obey them, to offer subjection to them. But afterwards, we're going to want to have our say to their authorities because we're citizens, that we have rights. And so We're going to make righteous appeals before and after. That doesn't mean that there are no times where we just have to say we cannot obey.

Sometimes they will require us to do things that are sinful and then we'll just have to say I'm not even at liberty. And we'll remain respectful, we'll remain humble, and we'll just be as disobedient as we can possibly be in that moment because we're not authorized to disobey God. We're just never authorized to do that. They cannot command us to sin. Finally, the confession ends this way.

We should pray for our public officials. We should pray for them. Is there anybody who hears that who doesn't feel a lack, who doesn't feel like they haven't conducted themselves as they ought to have been? Just as I say it right now, I feel a lack, that I haven't conducted myself as I should have in this category. We ought to be praying so regularly for those people that God has ordained and put over us.

And what's the attack on this doctrine? The prevailing disposition. The prevailing disposition towards our public officials in modern evangelicalism. We don't pray, we complain. First Timothy 2, 1 and 2, Therefore I exert first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

It's almost as if Paul's saying, I'm really not re-translating it as this, but there's a sense in which he's saying, if you won't do it to obey God, at least do it for selfish purposes, that you can live a quiet and peaceable life. Pray for them. There's so much at stake for you, Christian, with how your civil magistrates conduct themselves. So pray for them. Give thanks for them.

How different is that from our disposition? Supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks for those that God has put in authority over us. Jeremiah 29, 7, and seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive and pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace. Babylon. Pray for Babylon?

Pray for Babylon. Seek the peace of Babylon? Seek the peace of Babylon because when Babylon has peace, you'll have peace. If you can't do it for any other motive, do it selfishly. Pray for Babylon because you'll have peace if Babylon has peace.

But we live in such a wicked nation. We don't know wicked nation. The logical conclusion of all this has probably already dawned on you. But if it hasn't, I'll connect the dots. When we grumble instead of praying, We're not grumbling against Barack Obama.

We're grumbling against God. God has called us to give thanks and to pray and to intercede and to offer supplications for the ones that He has ordained and appointed. Grumbling against those men and women isn't grumbling against those men and women. It is grumbling against God Almighty. We should give thanks for them and we should pray for them.

In conclusion, in Matthew 22, they come to Jesus, they finally found a question that will trap Him. Should we pay taxes? Knowing that the government is so wicked, Jesus could never say yes to that. It's the Roman government. So we've got him.

Okay, bring me a coin. Whose face is on that coin? That's where we pick it up in Matthew 22, verse 21. They said to Him, Caesars. And He said to them, render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.

Not dependent on the quality of the authority, how biblically they conduct themselves. Every father should know your authority is not dependent on your performance of the day. We should render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God and not think that they're completely separate categories because they aren't. Let's pray. Father we Thank you for the things that you show us that contradict us and cause us to see things in a new light.

I pray, God, that you would make us people who beg for help and mercy for our leaders, the ones that have never acknowledged you, the ones that speak against you and act contrary to you, that we will pray for them and that we'll give thanks for them, not because they have merited anything any more than we've merited anything, but because we want to obey you, we want to honor you by following you and all the things that you've told us to do. Oh God, help us to repent, help us to turn from patterns that haven't been good and be conformed more to the mind of Christ, to your good and perfect will. We know that it will result in our own peace and our own blessing. God, we take this moment to pray for all those that you put in authority over us in this country, from our president and on down, that you would cause us to have leaders that uphold justice and peace as you define it. You would be merciful to them, even the ones that have railed against you in some ways.

Oh God, Please help us. Help us by helping our leaders. In Jesus' name, amen. On to our website ncfic.org.