In Trent Moody's sermon, 'The Extents and Limits of Civil Authority', the discussion revolves around understanding the biblical perspective on civil authority, primarily through the lens of 1 Peter 2:13-17. Moody emphasizes the need for Christians to submit to governing authorities for the Lord's sake, while also recognizing the limits of such submission. He highlights the importance of understanding jurisdiction, categorizing it into four areas: self-government, family government, church government, and civil government, with God's government overarching all. The sermon stresses that while Christians should obey civil authorities, they should not do so when it contradicts God's commands. Moody draws parallels with Hebrews 11, where heroes of faith resisted ungodly authorities, and discusses the need for discernment when dealing with government overreach. He cites instances from the Bible, such as the actions of Moses' parents and the apostles, to illustrate when civil disobedience is warranted. The sermon advocates for a balanced approach, urging believers to not use their liberty as an excuse for vice but to live as bond-servants of God. Moody also addresses the role of wisdom in navigating authority issues, encouraging a reformation in understanding jurisdictional limits while maintaining a godly testimony in society.

1 Peter chapter 2 and beginning with verse 13 through 17. 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, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bond-servants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God.

Honor the King. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, Lord we come to this passage that you have placed before us this day for this time and Lord we we beg you for great wisdom as we look into these verses and we desire Lord to understand what you would have us to do as your people Lord we are your people You are our God and we desire to live for your glory. Lord, so that the whole world would know that you are the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Lord, that your name would be glorified on the day of visitation.

So God, would you grant us great wisdom and discernment and understanding into these passages? Lord, we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Paul writes in the book of 2 Timothy in chapter 3 verse 16.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. And that is my desire this morning is that by looking into God's word as we come to this passage of scripture that teaches us as God's people how we are to live in a sinful world under authorities that are oftentimes ruled by tyrants and oftentimes teach us to do things or command us to do things that God forbids or commands us not to do things that God commands us to do as we've seen in the last couple of years this has ramped up in our country although it is nothing new to other believers around this world. So pray for me through this that we would rightly divide the word of truth this morning. That you would be edified, that God would be glorified, and that we would know how to live. The title of this message this morning is the extent and limits of civil authority.

And in this passage of scripture you'll notice in verse 13 he begins with the word therefore and you've heard me say it once, you've heard me say it a thousand times, well maybe not a thousand times but you've heard me say it a lot. When you see the word therefore we need to ask the question what is it there for? And so let's back up just for a moment and look at the context of what I preached last Sunday afternoon. In verse 11 Peter says beloved I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lust which war against the soul having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles that when they speak against you as evildoers they may by your good works which they observe glorify God in the day of visitation. Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." So this morning as we open the Word of God I want us to keep in mind the context of this passage and I believe it's vitally important that we understand the importance of the context in all passages of Scripture.

So I also want to back up even to the verse 1 of chapter 1 and read that for just a bit of context and you should have this memorized. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So he is writing to a group of believers in a certain context of history and in a certain context of where they are living and the circumstances that they are dealing with under a tyrannical government that has caused them in part to flee from this tyranny. That's who he's writing to and that's whom we need to keep in mind. So this morning, as we look at this passage and we consider the application for us, it's not exactly apples to apples of the contextual application of where we are to where they were, But there is much for us to learn this morning from this passage of Scripture because we see these things encroaching upon us and we need to understand how God wants us to live when we are being ruled by sinful men and by sinful governments and civil authorities.

So as we think about this, Peter is wanting this group of persecuted believers to know, one, the extent of civil authority and I'm wanting to talk to us also about the limits of civil authority because when we read this passage of Scripture and we read passages like Romans 13 we often we boil those passages down and we keep them totally separate from all of God's Word. When we look at God's Word, the interpretation of God's Word is understood best when we look at all of God's Word, not just a passage of Scripture taken all by itself. We can get into trouble. That's where heresies form, is when you take one passage and you build your whole doctrine upon this one passage. So I hope to broaden this out for us to look at all of Scripture, what does God say about how we are to relate to the civil government.

And specifically I want us to look at jurisdictions this morning because I believe that is key and paramount to our understanding of this passage of scripture. There's much to unpack here in these verses and I hope I can accurately describe what Peter is saying about submission to authority because that is the question of our day. Where we find ourselves in the last two years, how do we submit to the things that we're hearing? And to what extent do we submit to the things that we're hearing? And is there a limit to submission to what we're hearing?

And I believe if you've been here since the beginning of 2020, you would know where we are as a church, but I want us to hopefully clarify even more so of where we are and how we should live. So I believe that for years, as people read this passage in Romans 13, and they consider this, they look at their responsibility before civil authority, and basically they believe that the Bible tells all Christians to do whatever the state tells us to do unless it directly violates a command of God's word, whether in omission or commission. In other words, if the government commands us to do what God forbids, we don't do it. If the government forbids us to do what God commands, we don't do it. We do what God commands.

And that is true. Absolutely true. But we are going to have to do some thinking that will broaden our understanding of what all that Scripture teaches us through precept principle and the practice that we have seen throughout the scriptures of what God has done in the lives of His people throughout scripture. Because if we look at this passage and we then compare that to Hebrews chapter 11 of the really the heroes of faith, we're going to see this contradiction here of the normal understanding of you should just do whatever the government tells you and then you look at these men and women of faith who disobeyed civil authority and God says these are people who acted on faith. So how do we reconcile these things?

I'd like to recommend an excellent book, a short read really, but very very succinct and really helpful that I've been reading on. Philip Kaiser's book, Divine Right of Resistance, biblical options for opposing tyranny, very helpful, highly recommend this and I'll be glad to give that to you later if you want to know about it. So many of my thoughts this morning have been clarified and been very helpful to me through this study through reading this book and studying this passage together and really helping me to lay out an understanding of biblical jurisdiction Because that's really what this is about. God is sovereign over all things. He has set up jurisdictions.

He has set up jurisdictions and there's basically four we're going to talk about this more. You have four basic jurisdictions on this earth. You have self-government. You have family government. You have church government and you have civil government.

But then you have one that is overall and that's God's government over all things. He has authority over every one of these other jurisdictions. There is no limit to his authority. There is limit to the other four and that's what we must understand. So there are these four areas of jurisdictions as I mentioned self-government, family government, church government, and civil government.

And of course as I said God rules over all of these things with an absolute authority that is not to be questioned but to be obeyed. So as we turn to our passage I want us to look at this and we are immediately confronted with a command that Peter gives to his people and it says this, therefore, because of what he just said that I read earlier, therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. If we took that at face value and stopped there, we would say, hey, we need to do exactly what the government tells us to do. And if we did that, I believe that we would sin against God and against one another. The word submit comes from two words, one being under and the other being to order.

So to order under, it is to place in an orderly fashion under something. Originally it showed one's relation to superiors, whether that been compulsory or voluntary subordination. And as Christians, we are called to submit to authority, to righteous civil authority. We must not reject righteous civil authority. We should pray for righteous civil authority.

We should vote for righteous civil authority. We should submit and obey to that righteous civil authority and we should be the best citizens that we can possibly be. This is what Peter said previously, by your good works which they observe, glorify God on the day of visitation. That is our whole goal here. It's not so that people can say, wow, what great people you are, but so that ultimately on the day of visitation, when they look at the King of Kings who has authority over all, They will glorify him because he worked into the hearts and lives of his people in such a way that they were godly people and that they were a blessing to society and not a curse.

So as we consider these things, We need to understand that our desire is to put the silence, the ignorance of foolish men by godly living. Having our conduct honorable among the Gentiles that when they speak against us as evildoers they may by our good works which they observe glorify God in the day of visitation. We should never as he says a little bit later here use our liberty as the children of God as a cloak for vice but we should live as bond servants of God. So Christians should always live in obedience to the Word of God which tells us that we have a responsibility to live in submission to civil authority. God created this authority.

God is against anarchy. God is a God of order. And we should be people who are willing to submit to godly civil authorities. However, as I said before, civil authority is only one of the four jurisdictions and may God give us wisdom to discern how and when and to what limits we are to submit to that. I would also say that there are areas that we may choose not to demand our rights as American citizens or as Christians in this country if wisdom so dictates.

So I want to give you a balanced approach to these things. There are areas when we even see the Apostle Paul demanding a right that he had as a Roman citizen. He appealed to Caesar. He appealed to his Roman citizenship. When he was commanded to come out of the jail after he had been abused, he said, I will not leave this jail.

You tell them to come get me out. So there are times when we can demand our rights as American citizens and be good Christians and there are times that we can lay aside those rights of our choosing and not demand those rights. However, we need to be very wise when we do this. We must think of the consequences down the road. For instance, closing our churches for a supposed pandemic now may and most likely will bring about greater tyranny in the future for the church that could have been avoided if the church stood strong at the first sign of government overreach into the church's jurisdiction.

Think of what the early decisions to make public education mandatory has done in the last 100 years. Just this week in the news we see that the civil authority is using its power from the US Attorney General to instruct the FBI to investigate parents who challenge school board policy and decisions. Where did that begin? It began with a decision to give the civil authority who has no authority into the education of our children, giving them that authority and now we have this. And they are leading it up to wanting to make that an issue of domestic terrorism if you stand against the school board.

The civil government never releases power that they once get, but they only grab for more. So the extent of this command to submit to every ordinance of man, So what does this mean? When questioned about paying taxes, Jesus responded to Peter with great wisdom regarding jurisdiction that goes beyond the topic of paying taxes. Excuse me, not to Peter, but he responded to who he was speaking to about this topic of paying taxes and he said this and I believe it's very instructive for our understanding of this passage today. He says this, render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things which be God's." Herb Titus in his book, God, Man, and Law, the Biblical Principles, he writes this, these words of Jesus Christ while addressing to a question regarding paying one's taxes answers two of the most significant political and legal questions of the ages.

The first question is, what authority may rightfully be exercised by a civil government? Jesus emphatically denied that any human civil government could legitimately exercise total power over its citizens. Not all things belong to Caesar. This principle that limited authority resides in those who exercise power on behalf of the state had already been indicated through Moses in the book of Deuteronomy. I'm not going to read this passage just for time's sake because I have a lot of material this morning, but you can find that in Deuteronomy 17 verses 14 through 20 where Moses lays this out and he limits what the king can do.

Things that he should not do, cannot do and also things he should do. Titus continues, these jurisdictional limits to civil authority were invoked by the early church when its leaders refused to obey the Jewish council's orders to stop teaching in the name of Jesus. The council, while acting within the authority granted it by the Roman Empire had exceeded Caesar's lawful authority as defined by God. And as Peter and the other Apostles said, we ought to obey God rather than men. And Paul in Romans 13 lays down this general principle of limited authority when he writes this, for he a ruler is the minister or servant of God to thee for good.

He is a minister or servant of God. It's the same word as a deacon. He's a deacon of God for good. In doing so, he merely restates a truth that had been taught by the master Jesus Christ. The second question he says is this, who determines a civil government's lawful authority?

Who determines that? Is it the will of the people, every man doing what is right in their own eyes? You look to the higher authority. Jesus' statement as God's son affirms that God himself has the exclusive authority to decide what power may rightfully be exercised by human civil government and Jesus as the word of God and creator of all things by definition has that incontestable right. So therefore, according to what he says, which I agree, it is God alone who sets the limits and scope of the civil government.

Samuel Rutherford wrote this, that power of government in general must be from God because Romans 13 1 says, 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." Now there's a very interesting issue that I would like to bring forth in Romans 13, even though I'm not preaching in Romans 13. I believe it is very important for our understanding. It is this in this last phrase in Romans 13 verse 1 and it says and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. This last phrase has almost exclusively been understood by people in our day, the church specifically in our day and everyone else it seems to be. However, there is more than one definition of the word, appoint.

When something is appointed by God, one definition is this, that is most likely held today, to bring about, the definition is this, to bring about an order of things by arranging or to put into place. So in other words, God puts in place that authority. Okay? There is a second definition in the Greek lexicon that states this, to give instructions as to what must be done, order, fix, determine, appoint. The most modern day understanding of this phrase goes with the former definition and would lead us to believe that God appoints or puts in place all authority.

This is true in one sense. God is sovereign over all things. He raises up kings and he throws kings down. However, God himself does not acknowledge all civil authority as being legitimate. Hosea chapter 8 verse 4 says, they set up kings but not by me.

They made princes but I did not acknowledge them. However, the second definition I believe better conforms with what the scripture teaches in total regarding authority. If the first definition is correct, then many of our spiritual Hebrews, as I said earlier, in Hebrews 11, sinned against God by disobeying the civil authority that they were commanded to obey no matter what. However, if the second definition is correct, and I believe that it is, it would state this, And the authorities that exist are to give instruction as to what must be done by God. They are appointed by God what to instruct.

And that's why the king, when there was a king in Israel, he was commanded the first thing, write out the word of God, the law of God, and he was to read his copy of it. He was to know the law of God. That was one of his qualifications, if you will. He was to rule by the Word of God. Do all kings and all presidents and all people do this?

No, they don't. And so therein lies the rub. As one commentator noted, no institution can claim jurisdiction where none is granted to them by the Word of God. An example of this is found in 2nd Chronicles 26, 15 through 18. You know this passage well.

So his, Uzziah's fame, spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped till he became strong. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction. For he transgressed against the Lord his God by entering the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. So Azariah the priest went in after the king and with him were 80 priests of the Lord valiant men." Emphasis mine. And they withstood king Uzziah and said to him, it is not for you Uzziah to burn incense to the Lord, but for the priest, the sons of Aaron who were consecrated to burn incense.

Get out of the sanctuary for you have trespassed. You shall have no honor from the Lord God." That is biblical resistance to an overreaching tyrannical government who is reaching into jurisdictions that do not belong to him. When this church made the decision, the rightful decision to continue meeting in 2020, we said, you cannot come in here. This is God's house. You will not be permitted.

Now with that we know that there could be consequences. We can deal with sinful tyrants who will bring about judgment in their way to bring about great discomfort, taking of property, taking of churches, taking of your personal property, perhaps putting us in jail. They may do those things but not with God's authority they won't. It is extremely important that we understand that God has not given absolute and unlimited authority to any institution on earth. He has alone absolute and unlimited authority and to him alone are all institutions fully to submit.

There are limits to a husband's authority. There are limits to a parent's authority. There are limits to a church's authority and thus the elders authority. And there are most certainly limits to government's authority and to every other institution that you can think of. To God alone is all authority.

So does anyone deny that when Paul tells wives in Titus 2.5 to be obedient to their own husbands that there is a limit to that obedience? Absolutely. Does anyone deny that when the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 13 17 obey those who rule over you speaking of the elders of the church that there is a limit to that obedience? Does anyone deny that there is a limit to a parent's authority that is laid out in Ephesians 6, 1 and 2? Why then do we have such trouble understanding that there are limits to the civil authorities of the government?

I guess because they can throw you in jail, they can take everything you have, and they can put you to death. There is a fear factor, But we are to fear God more than man. That is what the apostles did. And many of them received death. Many of them received the plundering of their goods as mentioned in Hebrews chapter 10.

When they come to minister to those who had been in prison they joyfully received the plundering of their goods because they were ministering to the body of Christ. Could it be that we may be disobeying God when we obey a sinful civil government? Yes. We need in our day a reformation. A reformation in the understanding of jurisdictions.

The jurisdiction of ourself, the jurisdiction of the family, the church, and the state. There is a limit to the authority of all of these jurisdictions and contrary to the state's belief there is a limit to their authority. Isn't it interesting that the authority of parents and husband and church has fallen to the wayside and seen as almost nothing but when it comes to the jurisdiction and the authority of the government it has expanded past its jurisdiction and everyone says you should follow it. You want to commit the unpardonable sin in the eyes of the world? Tell them that wives are to submit to their husbands and respect them.

They will cancel you. And yet if we even question the state's authority regarding churches worshiping God together without mask and social distancing. We are putting the whole world in danger. I say go to the Word of God. I say look into the Word of God and read what Jesus says.

All authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth and make disciples of all nations teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even to the end of the age. I believe that he meant all authority is his. Not only the authority that we read about in the teachings that he taught us in the New Testament, but in all of scripture. This includes what types of rulers we set over ourselves. Moreover, he says in Exodus 18, you shall select from all the people able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.

Would there be anyone left in our government today if that was followed? There would be an empty Congress, an empty White House, and there would be an empty Supreme Court. But God does not always put over us righteous rulers and I'm going to answer why later. So the limits of the command to submit is understood that we have a responsibility and a duty not to submit in certain areas but we also have a duty to submit in certain areas. This is not only in areas where the state commands us to disobey God by either doing or not doing, these are pretty easy to discern, but this goes beyond that, more clear area and points to principles and precepts and understanding God ordained jurisdictions.

Again, this idea of jurisdictions is clear in the scriptures, but what is not clear is where those things overlap and where those things end. Because all tyrants want to reach over into your jurisdiction or to another jurisdiction. We see that even in our government, in the three branches of government that we have, each of those are reaching over and encroaching upon the others. It's not their jurisdiction. When the state tells you you have to do such and such with your children, that's not your jurisdiction.

When they reach into the church and say, no, you've got to sit six feet apart, you need to wear a mask and don't sing, by the way. That's not their jurisdiction. You have stepped into the jurisdiction of the church, which is ruled by God, who says and commands you to sing to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to the Lord. That is God's jurisdiction. So several scriptural examples of disobedience to authority I want to lay out for you.

Many of these were taken from the book that I mentioned earlier, Divine Right of Resistance. I've set them out a little differently than he did but I just want to throw some things out there write them down look them up later and I think you'll you'll be amazed at how much the scripture talks about godly people who resist ungodly governments specifically from a family or individual perspective, when life is at stake, when death, health, and prison, and even inheritance is involved. Think about Moses' parents regarding the life of Moses. Think about the Hebrew midwives. Think about Naboth's resistance to Ahab over his family farm.

Think about Rahab. Think about David refusing to return to Saul when Saul said, come to me my son. Joseph and Mary fleeing to Egypt in response to Herod's Edict. Gideon's hiding his food from the Midianites. Jesus commanding his disciples to buy a sword and many historians write this that it was illegal for citizens to own a sword at this time.

Did Jesus disobey God? No, he is God. Paul escaping the authorities being let down in a basket when they were seeking for him. Paul and Silas refusing to leave the jail by order of the magistrates. The angel broke Peter out of prison and escaped.

Paul and Silas sneak out of Thessalonica at night to escape the rulers of the city looking for them. There's a lot more if you look for them and we need to read our Bibles more carefully. Next is from the church, specifically what I mentioned before regarding the priest resisting King Uzziah and physically stopping that king from meddling in the affairs of the church. Peter and the Apostles disobeying the authorities command to stop preaching the gospel. The book of Revelation which we've been going through is full of examples of the church defying that civil government which was ruled by Satan.

So anytime we see tyranny and we see an overreaching we know that we are not battling with flesh and blood we are battling with principalities and powers and the rulers of darkness. When we see these we know that they are being moved by the devil and his demons and so when we resist that tyranny we are resisting the devil in his ways and we are standing for God. So let me slow down just a minute at this point and give us some balance. This does not mean that we have to always refuse or resist authority. There are wisdom choices that we can make that we need to think through situationally.

I'm not talking about situational ethics per se. Situational decisions are not always pragmatic. If I look to a child or I look to you out here and I say, if you don't work, you don't eat, I can look and see little tiny babies here. Does that apply to them? Or if we have someone in a wheelchair or someone who's very much older and cannot do these physical things, does that apply to them?

So there's, you see there's situations that we have to understand and discern. For instance, one example is this, the Proverbs, I think it's in chapter 14, this is just off my head, so don't quote me verbatim here, but he talks about the man who rises early and blesses his neighbor with a loud voice. It is a curse to him. But he's blessing him. That's a proverb for me by the way.

I have to be so careful with that. Rise up early and say, woo, amen, wake up family. That's not a blessing. Believe me, I've been told that's not a blessing. We have to be careful and have understanding of situations when we use our wisdom.

So, not all of these situational decisions are pragmatic. Sometimes it's just plain wisdom. Sometimes we find Jesus in the Gospels doing these things. One instance is in Matthew 17, 24-27. Jesus clearly states that he did not have to pay tax, but yet he had Peter go fishing.

Find a coin in the fish's mouth and pay the tax for Peter and himself for this reason that they would not offend the authority. There are wisdom choices that need to be made and I guess you could say that there are certain mountains to die on and certain mountains not worth dying on. However, you better do the thinking before you're at that mountain. Determine which one you're going to die on. Don't wait until you're at the foot of the mountain.

So does 1st Peter 2 13 through 17 mean that we are to submit to every ordinance of man in this sense? And I'm asking this somewhat as a question because this is something that I've been molding through my mind. Every ordinance that is under the jurisdiction of man, there are many jurisdictions that man has no authority to meddle with, but not any ordinance that is outside the jurisdiction of man, rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar and to God the things that are God's. You need to know what belongs to God. And if you don't know the answer, everything.

But God in his everything authority does tell us that we are to pay taxes to whom taxes are due, that we are to pay honor to whom honor is due, we are to fear to whom fear is due and we will see that in verse 17. The civil government does have authority again but it is limited. Again Romans 13 4b says for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. However again quoting Herb Titus he says this thus a man could be convicted of an act of murder or an act of theft under the common law but he could not be convicted of being a murderer or a or being a thief. Now this may sound unusual.

The common law courts had jurisdiction over what men did not over what men were in their hearts. You see the heart issues belong to the jurisdiction of the kingdom of God and thus God deals with those issues. So that is where we see our government trying to encroach upon God's jurisdiction of bringing judgment upon people for what they think and for what they may say. Another point that I believe that American Christians often fail to consider is that for believers in different countries, this can look different. For instance, if you go to be a missionary in another country that already has a law against firearms, and you go there thinking that you need to take your firearm and resist the government, you are foolish.

You're not thinking clearly. If you willingly put yourself under a certain government, type of government that has certain rules, then you need to submit and it may look different than those who are in America. We have a different foundation, we have a different king. In America we are not under a human king. I believe that our founders very wisely set up the Constitution of the United States as the King of America because the President, the representatives, and the House and Senate and the Supreme Court all swear obedience and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.

These people are not kings, they are servants and they are to serve the constitution. Therefore, when they command us to violate that, we may be disobeying God to obey their command when it is contrary to the constitution. So be careful how you want to submit to their command. Because of the length of all that I have here I'm really trying to discern what all to share. Point number two, the purpose of submission.

For this is the will of God that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. You see it's important to note that we all do or what, excuse me, it is important to note that all we do should be with an eye to this, the will of God. We see this in verse 13, He says, for the Lord's sake. We see this in verse 15, for this is the will of God and in verse 17, fear God. It's interesting as was pointed out in men's meeting, it's like there's bookends of for the Lord's sake and the fear of God and right in the middle for this is the will of God.

That should be our answer before it happens, while it happens, and at the end of it happening. Always having an eye to the will of God. So the question is what is good because that's what we're commanded to do. Peter says that by doing good we put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Well first of all, foolish men are thus defined in scripture as those who say there is no God, or at least those who live as if there is no God.

This makes them very ignorant. This makes the ignorance that they have look at what we do as good and call it evil. As Isaiah says, the wicked called the good evil and the evil good. They put light for darkness and darkness for light. Could it be more clear that we see that in our day?

Isn't it amazing how clearly believers can see these things and the world in their blindness. They've been blind by the God, the little G of this world, the devil, and he is ruling them and they are blind and they see not. They grope in the darkness saying, we see. They think that the laws of the majority of sinful men are wisdom itself, and they reject the wisdom of God. They think that the decision of nine judges in black robes are better than the wisdom of God written in his word that has been there for thousands of years and stood the test of time.

We know that when we obey God that foolish men will not always be silent as Peter says to put the silence, the ignorance of foolish men. In fact, they will often parade our obedience to God as being evil. Case in point, our lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, if you haven't heard several months ago while speaking at a church called Transgenderism and Homosexuality Filth. And then he said if you don't like it that I called it filth come see me and I will explain it to you. We need to stand behind that man.

Thank God for that man. He would be a man of interposition. So we need to think about that as well, which is a whole other topic that I'm not even hinting at hardly. So part of what this man said is true. And he's obeying God because he is exposing the unfruitful works of darkness as spelled out in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 11 and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather expose them.

That's what he's doing. Praise God that he's doing it. He's not backing down from it yet. I pray that he won't. We should encourage him.

Now be assured the foolish men are not silent about what he said. They're calling for his resignation. They're calling him all sorts of things about how hateful he is. It is not hateful to share the truth with someone. Turn to Leviticus 1917 and I'll show you that very quickly.

I didn't have it in my notes so I've got to turn to it to read it. Leviticus 1917. And he says this, you shall not hate your brother in your heart, you shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. That means that if you know your brother is sinning, are you your brother's keeper? We are.

And if we know our brother is sinning, we have the right and the responsibility and the duty to rebuke him. Don't hate him in his heart. Why would it be considered hate? Because if we don't rebuke sin, It is as hatred because we're willing for him to continue down that road of sin and to bring judgment upon himself and upon his family. That is hatred.

We should desire that all men come to the knowledge of the truth, that all men be saved. We should be preaching the gospel to all creatures. We need to be preaching the gospel to the civil authorities. They need to hear the gospel. They need to be told as John the Baptist did to King Herod what you're doing is sin and you should stop.

You're disqualified from being a ruler because you are dishonoring the position that I'm called to honor and we do it with respect. Not arrogantly, not foolishly, but humbly considering ourselves lest we also fall into sin. So having, as Peter says, having our conduct honorable among the Gentiles that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they observe glorify God in the day of visitation and they will be silent so here's two this is two ways that I'm talking about they may be silent the second is this they will be silent regarding believers being unruly citizens in regard to godly laws. Don't give the world an excuse to say, see, you're a bunch of hypocrites. They will be silent when we live godly lives.

They won't be silent when we stand up for truth and righteousness and call sin sin. That doesn't shut their mouth. That emboldens them. But their mouth should be stopped when it comes to us sinning against God. We should give them no excuses.

We should give them nothing to speak about when it comes to that. We need to live pure and holy lives before the Lord. For This, Peter says, is commendable. If because of conscience towards God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully, for what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, If you take it patiently, this is commendable before God for you for to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that you should follow his steps.

Their silence may be delayed silence or it may be silence regarding our disobeying God's laws. A few other things noted here by Greg Herrick, he says this, a few other things must be said about submission to governmental authorities. Paul is not putting his carte blanc on all government actions per se but is instead upholding the principle of Romans 13 one of government and order as an end towards responsible peaceful living in a fallen world. When a government fulfills its function of maintaining peace and generally protects the welfare of its people, both against those from within and without who would threaten these things, then it is carrying out the end to which it was appointed. It must be obeyed even if some things are tough, i.e.

Paying higher taxes. But when it crosses these boundaries and becomes an instrument for evil, violating the explicit will of God as outlined in Scripture, then it must not be followed or obeyed at that point. When the explicit will of God conflicts with certain authorities, Peter said we must obey God and not men. Paul accused the government authorities of carrying out sentence without proper jurisdiction and he demanded certain actions be taken to remedy the situation when he demanded his right as a Roman citizen. If the spread of the gospel is unwelcome by one's own state then Christians must suffer the consequences or leave that state but nevertheless continue to obey God.

So the dangers of believers that believers need to consider, verse 16. There is a danger here in our freedom as the children of God and he says this in verse 16, as free yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice but as bond servants of God. We must be very careful that we as the children of God who are free, We are citizens of a higher plane. We are citizens of the kingdom of God. Don't use your liberty as a cloak for vice.

See the difficulty was and what I believe that Peter was getting to was that these people understood that they were Christians they were God's people they were pilgrims and strangers and as such did they have to submit to the authorities that they were living under and Peter was saying yes you do because they were not to live as if they were anarchists and throwing off all restraint. God allows even sinful governments to restrain evil by his common grace. So there are limits to this and we must be careful of the dangers associated with it as the children of God. Don't you dare live as a rebel and an anarchist and say because you are a Christian you can do that. God forbid.

We are to be people under authority. If you're a father and you do not bring yourself under the authority of the local church, you are a hypocrite before your children and your wife. You need to be a man under authority. You need to be a man who says authority is God given and it is good because it teaches me how to live obedient life. And we need to be obedient unto the civil, righteous civil authority because that is what God has called us to do.

That is the will of God. So don't give reason for those to blaspheme the name of God because of your rebellion. And in summation of this command, verse 17, he says this, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, and honor the King. In closing, we see Peter's summation of this. The principle is this, honor all people.

Why? Because they're created in the image of God. Every person you see, you look at them as an image bearer. Be careful. Do not speak evil of others.

Now, can you rebuke their sin? Yes. But be careful how you do that. All people should be honored. This could mean that in a spirit of gentleness, we confront them in their sin, as I read in Leviticus 19, 17.

Next, he says, love the brotherhood. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have loved one for another." And then he says this, fear God. In all things we are to obey God. We are to fear God as opposed to fearing man and governments. Matthew 10 28 says, and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

And then lastly he says honor the king. We are to honor the authority that God has given to our leaders. This does not always mean obey. He said honor, but we are always to honor the office. Honor sometimes will be in the form of godly rebuke, like I mentioned John the Baptist, honoring King Herod by rebuking his sin.

Keep in mind, and this is my closing thought and really point of application for you, When you find yourself living under an ungodly and tyrannical civil government, the first thing you should do is repent. Because God often uses sinful tyrants to chastise his people. It's so easy to point to all the sinners out there and we fail to look at all the sin in here. Repent. There's a reason tyranny is growing.

The church is silent. We've had the most freedom of any nation ever to exist on this planet in all of history. And very, very few people share the gospel. So I believe that part of what we're seeing is the judgment of God, not just upon the wicked, but upon the church. I think we saw that very clearly when all the churches were willing to close and some still are.

That is judgment. So keep in mind that the first thing we should do when we find ourselves under tyranny is repent of our sins. Ask God to show us, Lord, what is it that you would have me to learn from this? God, where are the areas that I have sinned against you, that I have not stood for righteousness, maybe I'm sinning in a whole host of ways, Maybe I'm sinning in my authority to my wife, maybe I'm sinning in lack of authority by not being in a local church. There could be a whole host of areas that you personally are sinning and then that sin we bring together in a corporate setting in our church and in our nation and God brings a tyranny.

If you are not going to be governed by God, as one man said, by God you will be governed. And the fact is we don't have the government we deserve. Be thankful. Be thankful. Because if we got the government we deserved, it would be much, much worse.

Think of the millions, tens of millions of children that we have slaughtered as a nation and their blood, I am sure, cries out. Then we need to be faithful to evangelize. We need to be faithful to rebuke sinful authority, but first get the huge beam out of your own eye. We need to be ready to disobey sinful commands. We need to read that book I told you about.

It's a good one. And in it, he gives good counsel and helpful insight in how we are to respond to tyranny. So brothers and sisters, I know this has been long, but I pray that it has been profitable for our souls and how that we should live before God. It's not something that we just flippantly go through, but we need to be people of the book. And I have hardly scratched the surface of this topic.

Study the Word of God to show yourself the proved, a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, oh God, I pray that every word that is spoken, that was spoken, will benefit your people. Lord, anything that I said in my flesh, I pray that you would strike it, Lord, from their memory. Lord, I pray that you would be honored in what has been said.

Help us Lord. Give us great wisdom for the times that we are living. Help us to discern these times very well. Help us to understand what you would have us to do and how you would have us to live for the glory on the day of visitation that you would receive all glory and honor before every person as every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father. Amen.