In his sermon, Scott Brown discusses the relationship between Christians and governing authorities, drawing from Romans 13:1-7. He emphasizes that all authority is established by God, and resisting authority equates to resisting God's ordinance. Christians are called to submit to authorities not only to avoid wrath but also for conscience's sake, acknowledging that authorities are God's ministers for good. The sermon explores how the gospel calls for a life of submission and love, applying faith in practical ways within the church and society. Brown addresses the challenges of living under civil government, citing examples like the case of a pastor in Canada facing restrictions for his biblical stance. He explains that while Christians are to honor and submit to authorities, there is a higher allegiance to God, and disobedience is warranted only when human laws contradict God's commands. The sermon also highlights the importance of doing good in society and reflects on historical and biblical examples of faithful resistance to ungodly authority.

Romans 13 verses 1 through 7. 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 conscious sake. For Because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due taxes, to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, and honor to him honor." Dear Heavenly Gracious Father, we just thank you for this beautiful day that you've given us. We thank you for the rain, the cooling and rain that feeds your creation, dear Lord, and enables it to grow. Dear Heavenly Father, we just pray that you would feed us with your word today and that you would enable us to grow.

Dear Lord, that you would put your very words on our hearts and on our minds. Dear Lord, that You would put Your words into the mouth, the Heavenly Father of the teacher of the Scripture today. In Jesus' name, amen. I had a delightful experience earlier this week in interviewing a baptismal candidate, which would happen to be Emily Watson. And as we walked along and talked along and I quizzed her about the gospel, I was so touched by the joy, by the giddiness, by the bubbliness with which this young daughter of Zion has embraced the gospel.

And we had just a wonderful time walking around here talking about the gospel, which she was applying the gospel. She has been saved from her sins and she is applying what the Lord Jesus has taught her to do. She's going to do something about it. She's not just going to keep it in her little brain, you know, all her life long. She's going to do something about it publicly and declare her loyalty to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, ending his work all her life long.

And Romans 12 through 16 is about applying the gospel. Chapters 1 through 11 is the gospel of the doctrine of justification by faith, what God has done to rescue sinners. What do you do with sinful humanity? What do you do with sinful hearts? Well, 1-12 tells us what God has done to deal with the sins of our lives.

He has called us to embrace the gospel and to be justified by faith alone. Then there's that wonderful word therefore in chapter 12 verse 1 and you should never forget the therefore because at least in this in this case it introduces a new section in which the gospel is applied in every day of life here's the logic of 12 1 through 16 I'm sure I'm sure 12 chapters 12 through 16 we've made Christ our King we've been justified by faith And what do we do about it? First of all, we submit our bodies as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service That's the first thing that you do and you apply the gospel you take your senses all of your senses your eyes your ears Your mouth every part of your body and you say oh Lord. You are my king. I submit it all to you I will quit submitting my eyes and my ears and my feet and my mouth to the devil, then I'll submit it to you That's the first application of the gospel Then we see how the gospel is applied in the church, how every member has faith that brings forth fruitfulness and gifts, that all of us are not the same, but all of us have a contribution.

And what's our responsibility in applying the gospel there? It's to build your faith because it's the faith that drives the works and the gifts of the Spirit. And then now we come to this, And then the third part of Romans 12 is that we apply the gospel through loving one another. He begins that section by saying, let love be without hypocrisy. Let it be real love, not fake, not a glad hand on Sunday morning, But true love that forgives sins, true love that has been sinned against.

In the church, let it be without hypocrisy. And then now in chapter 13, we come to still yet another application of the gospel. And that is, how do you live out the gospel in the midst of the authorities that are in your life? And These are challenges that we must face. And there are biblical commands and principles and responsibilities for how we would relate to the civil government.

Just this month in Alberta, Canada, the Canadian Tribunal, the Human Rights Commission, just sentenced a pastor to a lifetime of silence. How about that? What is he going to do? Steven Boistman published letters to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate newspaper, arguing against same-sex unions. And they were just biblical, plain old biblical stuff, nothing tricky, Nothing defamatory, just Bible appearing in these letters to the editor.

And the Human Rights Commission found this man guilty of discrimination, and without the benefit of testimony, They have forbade him from saying, quote, anything disparaging about homosexuals. The ban didn't ban him from speaking about anything illegal, just anything that's negative toward gays and lesbians. And the official punishment was issued without a hearing. Now, what this ruling means for this man is that neither in emails, personal conversations, or congregational sermons in his lifetime can he utter a negative thing about homosexuality? And they order him to pay a $5, 000 hate crime fine.

This just happened last month. And under the terms of the sentence, he must cease publishing his remarks. And then he's supposed to submit a letter of apology to the Red Deer Advocate. Well, there are challenges that we face in living under civil government. And what does Romans 13, 1 through 7 teach us about how to walk through situations that include the civil government.

The question is, who is king? Is the Human Rights Commission King or is Jesus the King? And you know who is the head of the government or is the civil government a law unto itself free to do whatever it wishes while the church just follows along? Well what we find here in Romans 13 is an extremely practical guide for we here right here at Hope Baptist Church and the implications for dozens of areas of life. This applies not only to us but every person who is under any kind of authority anywhere on the planet And so it's enormously important.

For God would always have his people under authority. So the text, really, it's remarkable in this sense. It has a voice for us regarding politics, regarding laws, regarding concentration camps, regarding taxes and homeschooling and seat belts and speed limits and driver's licenses and baby seats and radar detectors and building codes and zoning and preaching the word of God and hate speech and Obama, Hillary and McCain and voting and really anything that happens under the realm of civil government. And it has to do with, you know, some of you have been presidents of neighborhood associations. It even has something to do with neighborhood associations.

And the town of Rollsville and the town of Wake Forest or wherever you might live and what ought you to think, what ought you to do, and what ought be your attitude in the midst of the different challenges that are raised as a result of living under the civil government. You might just count in your brain right now how many authorities there are over you. Well stop that we'll get to that later. But the first thing we bump into in this text is in verse 1, the first part of it, there's a command. We are first faced with a command regarding governing authorities.

Verse 1, let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. And so this statement here would be read by the Romans, and it was extremely practical to the Roman Church as well. I believe as they were reading this they were on pins and needles. The book of Romans was written in 55 AD. What happened the year before?

Our dear friend Emperor Nero was put on the throne of Rome. This was a highly practical a letter to these people. They were, the church was suffering and believe me they were challenged to sin against the government as we all are. And then you know just 10 years later Rome would burn and who would be blamed for it? The believers.

And an outbreak of persecution and violence would come against the church as a result of it. And the civil authorities and their actions would take on new meaning. Now he is speaking of, notice the term, the governing authorities. Do you see that? Let's get very focused on these words here, the governing authorities.

Now these are authorities of different kinds. This is a general statement regarding the different kinds of authorities that there are over us. It includes the authority of a father and a mother. It includes the authority of a husband over a wife. It includes the authorities that exist in the church, elders as they rule the church of God.

It also includes the authorities in the workplace and the servant master relationship. So it's very practical. It includes just the way that authority works. When I walk on another man's property, in many ways, I have placed myself under his authority and I just can't do whatever I want to do when I am on his property. There's this idea, There's a duty to respect what is right in the sight of all men.

So there are a number of kinds of authorities, it's very complex, that we need to pay attention to. We are not a law unto ourselves. There's a sense in which we submit to one another in the church. That's another authority. We are all under one another's authority in a certain sense.

Now there are ascendant authorities and there are other categories of authority that we're always under. In one sense, I must be submissive to every single person in this church. But it's not the exact same kind of submission that I have to the Lord Jesus Christ, or that my wife has to me. My wife is not submissive to everyone in the church in the same way that she is to me. There are different categories and reasonable ways that submission and authority works.

And we have to think clearly about that. The commands of scripture regarding the ways that we submit to one another in the church really help us to know what that means. But everyone is under authority. No one under heaven escapes authority. And you might be thinking, oh you little children, you might be thinking, especially if you might be like 16 or 18 or something, you might be thinking, you know when I get out of this house, I'll be on my own.

I'll be the captain of my own destiny. Nobody will tell me what to do. Nobody will tell me to take out the trash or when to clean my room or how to clean it up or how to dress or whether to put on a tie or whether to comb my hair or whatever it is. No, no, I'll be out. I'll be free.

Not quite. Not quite. There are still dozens, dozens multiplied of forces of authority over your life. There's no way you can escape it. And so you must, under the authorities that God has given you, function beautifully right there.

If you can't, young children, operate happily under the authority of your father and mother, you will have problems with all those other multiplied dozens of authorities that you'll bump into every day of your life. When you step on someone else's property, when you step on the sidewalk owned by the city, when you walk by the way, wherever you go, you find yourselves, When you cross the borderline of a city, you are under a different jurisdiction and authority than you were the moment before. You will never for one second of your life be out from under authority. And so God has given you these dear parents that you might learn what this authority is all about so that you'll operate beautifully in it and you'll understand these things. Well the Romans, the Romans had specific pressures from the government.

Romans 13 was written to these very real people who were living in this city. In Romans 8.35-38 we read that these subjects of King Jesus, these Roman believers were being killed all day long. They were being killed all day long. By what? By the sword, by this sword that is being spoken of in Romans 13.

And We read in Romans 8 that neither life nor death nor angels or rulers shall be able to separate us from the love of God. What rulers were they? Those were the rulers in Rome. Those were the overall governors and the smaller governors who would have jurisdiction over smaller areas of this Roman geography. Geography and and so Paul has already began to comfort them in their relationship Under the government and saying that he that nothing can separate you from the love of Christ not even rulers Not even rulers now.

That's really comforting That means that no matter no matter what authority you're under, of the multiplied dozens of authorities that you are under, when you cross city and state lines, when you have a father, when you're in the meeting of the church, when you have elders, when you have mayors and governors and presidents and senators, when you have all these, here's one thing you must know, that nothing, there's not one of these governments that can separate you from the love of Christ. What a wonderful thing it is that Paul is doing for these believers here. We should never be overly fearful about what any government should ever do. We should not be walking around wringing our hands about what the governments of the world are going to do. No, and brothers and sisters, let me just speak very frankly to you, especially you parents.

It's unfortunate that parents would so worry in this life that they would pass on their worry to their children and create a hand-wringing generation. Let's not do that. Neither life nor death nor powers nor principality nor rulers shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ." That means that you have everything you need at all times in your life. You are never deprived. You are depraved but you're not deprived and often we pass on this great depravity of lack of thankfulness for the governing authorities that are in our lives that God Almighty has put there and we curse them and we should not do that.

So Romans 13 is being read to these people who are being threatened by the sword of Rome and they needed sound wisdom, They were being put to death all day long. We learn in our study in the book of Acts that there is this banishment of the Jews and also the believers about five years before this. And remember, we find Aquila who is still there and they're disobeying the government they didn't leave there are a number of believers that didn't leave these believers didn't leave five years earlier when they were commanded to. Isn't that interesting? Are we supposed to obey the authorities?

Aren't we just supposed to leave and do whatever they say? That doesn't actually seem to be how they're applying it here. So the first thing we bump into is a command regarding governing authorities and that is to be subject to them. Every soul is to be subject to the governing authorities. Nobody gets out of it.

So be subject. Now the source of authority is identified and this is very critical. God is giving us wisdom regarding how to think about the whole world. The source of authority is identified. For there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

They are appointed by God. And so there is an authority over all other authorities and he has established lower authorities by his own sovereign hand. Last week we spoke of 1 Corinthians 11 3, which says, For I want you to know that the head of man is Christ, And the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. And that's the order of authority in this world. And there is an ordering of authority.

And so we can live in confidence knowing that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the authority of all the other authorities is governing. The Father and the Son are working and they never stop working and governing this world. And in their government, they have placed sub-authorities. Children are under the authority of their parents and how dangerous it is for children to become hard against it. Wives are placed under the authority of their husbands.

Men are placed under the authority of government and employers. And Christ himself, who is under the authority of God Almighty. This is the way that God has identified these authorities. And Christ's title as King of Kings means that he alone governs all of these sub-spheres of government that exist and that have been established. The three spheres that he has established require submission to his authority.

The sphere of the family requires the authority and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The sphere of the church requires that Christ would be head of the church. The sphere of the government requires that Christ is the King of kings. There is an authority over all other authorities that must be hearkened to in the Misfits. Do you see the scheme that Paul is laying here?

He's laying out very logically how this works. He first speaks of you and I. We are to submit to authorities. Then he further defines it and he says, why? He almost said, why should I do that?

And he answers the question. And he says, well because there's no authority except from God. This order of Structure that the world finds itself in is divinely ordained You know, you know Nero didn't just wake up and say I think I'll be king No, he was operating under something that God Almighty had established And so we find these authorities here, and He is the King over all the authorities, and all authority has its source in God. There are so many wonderful places to go to establish this principle in scripture. We could go to Daniel and his experience and we can see him having a night vision.

And Daniel says, blessed be the God of heaven, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are his. And he changes the times and the seasons. He removes kings and raises up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. And then his dear friend, King Nebuchadnezzar, was turned into a beast because he hated the authority of God, which happens to all men who throw off authority.

They become beasts. They get rained on and they become uglified as a result of their rebellion. And after these seven years of uglification and a terrible submission to divine authority, he says this. First he lifted up his eyes to heaven and his understanding returned to him and he blessed the Most High and he praised and honored him who lives forever. He says, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation.

All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of his earth, no one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done? This is the authority that God has placed on the earth by his own hand, and all authorities lead to his own authority." You know, we had a really interesting time this week. It seemed like almost everywhere we read the scripture this week, something that related to Romans 13 popped up. We were reading the Gospel of John, and we saw the power of God over government while we were reading John 19, and how God controls the civil magistrate.

John says that an amazing thing happened during that time. The Jews wanted, They wanted the legs of Jesus to be broken after the crucifixion. And they went to Pilate and they said, would you break his bones for us? And the civil government said no, we will not do it. And in doing so, they fulfilled Old Testament prophecy that his bones would not be broken The civil government is so puny They are puppets.

They are nothing. They are reputed as nothing All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing and cannot say what have you done. Because they are all under subjection to King Jesus in this world. Well, so we've seen here the source of authority is identified. And then in verse 2, we find that there is judgment for those who resist authority.

There's judgment for those who resist authority. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. So now he addresses this problem that we have as sinful human beings. We overreact, we react in a sinful way. He's exposing pride that's opposed to all authority.

It's the pride that says the government is nothing to me. I do my own thing. I do whatever I want. And This is a defiant spirit that is being attacked here the Romans Perhaps were struggling with this they were struggling with a defiant Terrible attitude and in their civil disobedience they were tempted to throw rocks and scream and mix molotov cocktails and curse the government and perhaps some of them did and the Apostle is coming and saying do not sin against your government do not sin because there is judgment awaiting you if you sin against these authorities. And there's a rebellious spirit that is not fitting for God's people.

There is an independent rebellious spirit that must be checked if we find ourselves sinning against the government. Yes, you can sin against ungodly civil government. We see that Christ submitted to authority. He paid his taxes. He honored his father and mother.

And though he was finally wrongfully handled by the civil government, he continued to speak the truth and love to them. He's a wonderful example for us for how one would experience the shame of the civil government and yet continue with an understanding of what he should do. You know, Solomon said, Do not curse the king. Do not curse the king, even in your thought. Do not curse the rich, even in your bedroom.

For a bird may carry your voice. A bird in flight may tell the matter. So it's important for us to understand what our attitude should be We are we are not we are not authorized to be the ones to curse the king we should not be cursing the king and We should do as Peter has said 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. For this is the will of God that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as free not using liberty as a cloak for vice that's what we do we use our liberty as a cloak for vice and we deserve punishment we sin against the government but as bond servants of God honor all people love the brotherhood fear God honor the king servants be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only the good and the gentle, but also the harsh. Now, honoring the king, not using our freedom as a cloak for vice, you know, here's something that can happen to us.

We can be like the people who make handgun targets with Hillary's face on it or something like that. That's not honoring the authorities that we have. People who make targets with those who are in authority, I think have crossed the line. It's just my own opinion. If you've done that, you don't have all the shame for my soul.

But I'm just saying, I think that we need to be very careful for how we speak of and what we do regarding those who are in authority. We should be very careful. We have a requirement from God to speak the truth in love and there are ways that you do it and the ways that you do not do that. And then we come to the focus of our duty. We've just seen that there's judgment for those who resist authority.

So we should be very careful. Our attitudes should be right and our actions should be lawful and we should never break the law unless it's an ungodly law. We'll get to that in this next point. The focus of our duty is clarified verse 3. Do what is good.

To do what is good. There's a way to live under the authorities that God has given us and that is to do what is good. This is the, I believe this is the thrust of this text. What do you do while you're living under the authority of government? Well here's what you do.

Do everything you can to do good while you're living in the realm. That's your responsibility. You find people to bless them. You be a blessing to the governments of this world. You rise up and do, do something.

Not just think something, but you do something that is good in this realm. The lifestyle of the church in the great cities of the world should be to mobilize themselves to do what is good in the community. A church should not just be cloistered away by itself. The church should be involved in the community in different ways. The church should be visible in the community.

The families of the church should not hide out in their houses exclusively. Neither should the church hide out in its own meeting place, but should be visible and part of the community. The church was meant to do good under this realm of civil government and to be a blessing to them. And who knows what might happen as a result of it. We know that God often withholds his judgment against nations because there are people who are doing good in those cities.

I am not responsible for what my government does, but I am responsible for me. I'm responsible to do good. As Galatians 5 says, against these things there is no law. There's much that we can do under which there is no law. And then fifthly, not only do we see the focus of our duty being clarified, but the scope, what is the scope of the governor's authority in verses three through six?

We read there that, 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. Again, we have that statement, do what is good. And you will have praise from the same.

For he is a minister, he is God's minister for your good." So here, one thing we find is that there's a definition of the role of government and in that role is the boundary of government as well. Romans chapter 13 limits the role and the authority of civil government strictly by clearly defining and limiting its purpose by saying, for rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil. You see that? This is the godly application of government. For he is a minister of God to thee for good.

This is also the purpose of government. The purpose of the individual is the same in one way, not in every way, as the purpose of government. All people are, both the government and the individual is supposed to do good. The Government is supposed to wield the sword, not the individual. We don't all do the same thing.

But in this area, we do have this exact same responsibility to do good. All those who would be in office should seek to do good. Notice the word not. Do you see the word not here? This shows us what unlawful government is.

An unlawful government is a government that is a terror to good works. There is government that's a terror to good works. We all know that. It's the first thing we think of when we read this. We don't want to read do what is good.

We want to think about how government is a terror and just talk about that the entire time. It would be attempting to do it And perhaps we might even be talking about it too much in this, even the sermon, in view of the forcefulness and the clarity of the text and the emphasis of the text. The emphasis on the text is submission and you doing good. And then we get all wrapped up around the axel of what do we do when the government is bad. Well let's feel that axel, let's take a look at it here for a moment because it's being proposed right here.

There's something that government is not to do. And so God has given boundaries to government as characterized by this word not and has allocated certain kinds of activities. And so any government that abrogates its responsibility, any government that does not do good is disobeying the government of King Jesus and finds itself now in a secondary position because the servants of King Jesus have a higher authority than the civil government and that is that they must be careful to do the will of God. Now this is true with the authority of a father in a home. When a father leads his family into sin, the family is obligated to resist.

When an employer is enforcing sin upon an employee, It's the obligation of the employee not to follow everyone off the cliff of graft. So you can rebel against authority. Some of you perhaps have actually been fired from a job because you wouldn't participate in graft that was being carried out in that company. They lose their authority when they participate in things that are ungodly. And so there are times when governments command their subjects to do things that are contrary to the will of God.

And so there should be, but their charge is from God is to do good and not evil. And so Romans, Romans 13 does not, does not teach us unqualified subjection to the government. It does not teach us that. It teaches us what government should do and it teaches us what we should do. And When either one of us is out of order, then we should repent.

And that's the point that he's dealing with. 250 years ago, Jonathan Mayhew preached a sermon with a wonderful title. Oh, what a glorious title. A discourse concerning unlimited submission and nonresistance to higher powers. How's that for a title?

And he gives a number of examples that there are times when we must not submit. And he says this, All commands running counter to the declared will of the Supreme Legislator of heaven and earth, are null and void and therefore disobedience to them is a duty not a crime." I'll read it again. All commands running counter to the declared will of God of the supreme legislator of heaven and earth are null and void and Therefore disobedience to them is a duty not a crime There's a higher king in this world that we serve It's this higher king that caused the civil government to rise up against all the apostles except one. It's this same force that caused the civil government to execute the Lord Jesus Christ and the prophets. This passage does not teach unqualified obedience to the civil government by any means.

Every prophet, almost all the apostles, the Lord Jesus, and a number of others give us example that That's not what this means. We could speak of Daniel in Daniel chapter 6. He was told not to pray. And he defied the order of the civil government. And he threw open his windows and he prayed three times a day in as public a way as you possibly could do it.

Peter and the early church in Acts chapter 5 were told to quit preaching. They said, we will obey God, not man. King Jesus had higher authority over the civil government. The wise men disobeyed the clear command of Herod. We find these dear Hebrew midwives who were given actually a great reward and a future and a blessing and an anointing for the exclusive reason that they defied the order of Pharaoh to put to death the Hebrew baby boys.

So we know for sure that Romans 13 cannot in any stretch of the imagination be telling us to obey governing authorities unqualifiedly. No, not at all. There's a scope of the governor's authority and his responsibility is identified. Do you see this? He is a minister.

He is God's minister to you for good. That is the scope, at least one part of the scope, of the civil government. And, you know, think of all the good that has been done by our own civil government. We could list point after point of the different ways that our civil government has been a minister of good to us. And we should praise God for that whenever it happens.

But God moves these kings at will. And He commands them and they move. He removes them and they are gone. He is the servant of God here. Do you see that?

He is the servant of God. And then sixthly, summing up our responsibilities to various authorities. This is kind of bringing it all together in very practical ways, in kind of a general way, but yet dealing with some of the specific problems. Render to all their due. Now look at this carefully.

Notice the distinctive aspects of responsibility, because they're different. Taxes to whom taxes are due. This could give us an idea of the taxes to the federal government. Customs to whom customs are due. This could have to do with local authorities.

And then fear, to whom fear is due. This could have to do with a number of things. I think it applies to the authority of fathers and mothers. It applies to the authority of employers. You know, it applies to local authorities.

You might get busted for speeding if you break the local authorities laws. And then honor, to whom honor is due. And this is comprehensive, I believe, that speaks of all the different authorities. Honor toward your father and mother, honor toward those that are given to lead the local church, and honor to the civil government. Honor to whom honors do in all the different realms of authority.

Paying taxes is something that the Christian people have always been conflicted about. I was especially conflicted. I was especially bitten by it just a couple of weeks ago when our two pastoral interns here in this church, David Brown and Taylor Santles, were listening to a lecture. And the lecture handed out, I believe it was a 1905 tax filing form, one sheet of paper. And I believe if you made over $55, 000 in 1905, you paid 1% of your taxes.

And if it was over 100, 000, it was 2%. It was 250, it was 3%. I think the worst tax rate, the most despicable tax rate on the page was 6%. Bring back the old days. But we don't like to pay our taxes And that's why the Jewish leaders came to Jesus and said, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

Oh, they thought they had it. And he said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And now 20 years later, the same question is being asked in Rome after the Lord Jesus answered that question. And he's dealing with taxes again. Taxes, taxes, taxes.

Death and taxes, the two biggest problems. And here the Romans were struggling with all the same things that we struggle with, with many of the same questions. Things haven't changed that much. The rulers and the authorities flip and flop. They're good governments and bad governments and medium governments.

And sometimes they absolutely Turn terrible and they are a terror to the good in the realm, but God has covered all that and he's told us what to do King Jesus is our King and he is he is our ruler He desires a happy people Populating his realms on the earth who give honor to whom honor is due, who do good in the realm. That's their legacy. They die, they're buried in the ground, and they have done good in the realm. And they have honored men but they have not feared men and they have served King Jesus. Just this week we were reading a testimony of an incident that happened at the grave of John Knox.

John Knox had died and there at the grave a man saying the last words really as a eulogy said this, here lies a man. Here lies the body of a man who in his whole life never feared the face of man. And I believe that does bring together some of the principles that are here. We have this great King, Jesus Christ, whom we serve above all other kings. And we have all these other authorities.

We do not fear them, but we do honor them and we do love them. And we are reflections of the Lord Jesus Christ, who even in the midst of being abused said, Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. This is the spirit of this text of scripture, to do good in the realm and to honor all men. Let's pray. Oh Lord, your wisdom is so far beyond us.

It takes us into areas that we could never go on our own, and it converts us and helps us. Lord, we pray that you would help us to apply the gospel here in this realm that you place us under with all the many authorities that are over us, and how thankful we are that over all of these authorities the High Potentate, the King of Kings, is our sweet Savior. In Jesus' name, Amen. Okay.