Silencing the Critics, Part 2

He describes them here as ignorant. You muzzle the ignorance of foolish men. That doesn't mean the critics are uneducated. That's not what ignorance here means.

He's not referring to their SAT scores. He's referring to willful, hostile rejection and repression of the truth, which is what makes his counsel all the more remarkable. Here, how do you silence the vicious slander of people who are repressing the truth?

You do not do it implied here by barking louder. Even Christians, or anyone really, advocates for laws that protect life or marriage. The criticism is often that you can't legislate morality. The flaw with that thinking is that every law is moral. Every law declares something to be good or bad. So as Christians, should we be advocating and pushing a political agenda to get laws passed?

If so, how far should we go in that pursuit? And is there something even more important that we should be doing? Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey explores this in more detail.

He'll review and conclude a lesson he began last time called silencing the critics. So here's how the church shows herself to be unique and different. We have a posture of respect for the office. We work quietly with such excellent behavior and good work so long as the scriptures are not violated, by the way.

I don't know if I need to say that, but I'll say it. We're known for our submissive posture, in fact it's a military term that refers to lining up in rank and file. A soldier might not like his orders. A soldier might disagree with his orders.

A soldier might lose his life because of the orders but he will obey his commanding officer. The Christian happens to have this higher perspective. He knows ultimately that God is in control, that God's purposes are being fulfilled and we're simply called to demonstrate good works by continuing to do our best and literally helping and influencing our world that does tend to lose its grip on sanity with our Christian conscience and conviction and wisdom and grace.

Now in case you're wondering if there are any loopholes in this command to submit, Peter's going to kind of close them all down. Notice verse 13, he stops at the very top of the food chain, whether to a king as the one in authority. So he's just starting out at the top of the heap, okay? If you're in an African village, you would render that in your culture, you would understand it to mean chief. If you're in a communist country, you would understand that to be the chairman.

If you're in a democratic culture, you would understand that to be president or prime minister. Here for Peter's generation, this would mean the emperor. Then Peter adds in verse 14, not just to the king but to governors as sent or appointed by him. In other words, the official representing the emperor was also one to whom we submit. This would not make it any easier, certainly, especially during the days of Peter because corruption didn't start and stop with the emperor.

It infiltrated the entire empire. Keep in mind that one of the duties of the Christian was to voice disapproval kindly, respectfully. It doesn't mean that just because they were to submit to that authority that it would violate their own conscience. In fact, it's interesting to me, if you just sort of ransacked the New Testament, you have John the Baptist who spoke openly against Herod's immoral adulterous relationship with his sister-in-law. And by the way, how was that resolved? John literally lost his head, right?

That's why. Pontius Pilate, also a governor, it was to Pilate that Jesus Christ, by the way, delivered that higher perspective that Peter and Paul reinforced that I'm preaching today. Pilate said to Jesus, do you not realize that I have the authority to either release you or crucify you? And Jesus calmly, graciously responded with the truth, you have no authority over me unless it has been given to you from above.

There's that higher perspective that takes you above politics and parliaments. Felix, another governor, very corrupt during the days of the apostles. In fact, Paul is under house arrest and he can't get out, frankly, because he won't pay the bribe that Felix will demand.

Felix was, his whole office was run by bribes. And we're told, just a little inclination of what might happen, but we're told this little sliver that Paul had a personal conversation with Felix. Now we're not given any of the details, although I'd really love a chapter on their conversation. But what the text does say is that Paul talked to him, quote, about righteousness and the coming judgment.

I can only imagine what that involved. And what we do know, however, is that after that conversation, the Bible says, Felix was alarmed and sent Paul away. He was telling the truth, conviction and warning and the gospel was delivered in these cases, but the overarching principle was that of respect for their office and that remained.

So the command is clear, although depending on where you're living in the world and when, it might be more distressing and difficult than we can imagine today. For us, we happen to be living in a country filled with unparalleled freedom and blessing. Submitting to authority then for us means that we're going to refuse to cut corners or wink at laws that we don't really like or run down leaders or refuse to submit to ordinances or pay that parking ticket or follow some safety code unless we get caught. I think it's rather unfortunate that the institution in our American culture that is so far behind in following the American Disabilities Act is the church, as if we don't care. I guess if they come in, we'll straighten up. I'll give you another illustration since we're coming up on tax season.

I know that's on your mind, your heart, your prayer list and all that, praying about whether or not you're supposed to pay it. In their book, co-authors Levitt and Dubner explained how one little change in the U.S. tax code ended up exposing unbelievable deception. I'm almost certain, but I'd hate to think that Christians were swept into this as well as non-Christians.

The numbers indicate staggering enough that Christians were doing the same. In the 1980s, according to what they wrote, one IRS research officer in Washington had the feeling that taxpayers were incorrectly claiming dependents as extra exemptions. I don't know why he had that feeling, but he had that feeling. Sometimes it was a genuine mistake, but sometimes he complained the claims were comically fraudulent with one example of a dependent whose name was listed as Fluffy. Obviously a pet, not a child. At least one would hope it was a pet, not a child.

Fluffy. So he decided the best way to clean up the mess was to require taxpayers to list their children's social security number. And no one agreed. No one agreed. It's kind of like the idea of showing your driver's license before you vote.

I mean, just nobody will agree with that. So it sort of died, never made it out of the agency. A few years later, as Congress was clamoring for a little more tax revenue, his idea was remembered and brought up and immediately rushed forward and put into tax law for the year 1986. And when the returns came in that year, seven million dependents had suddenly vanished from the tax rolls.

Pets and phantom children had disappeared. And that year, that one idea generated three billion additional tax dollars. And I can only hope that it didn't represent any believer. Now if you're wondering what the role of government is, the Bible actually isn't silent. It does include collecting taxes, unfortunately, so I joked when I said you're praying about it.

You don't need to. Paul wrote in Romans chapter 13 verse 7, render tax to whom taxes do. And your taxes are due in a few weeks. In fact, on one occasion, if I could just push Paul's a little longer, Jesus, remember he was asked, if you know the Lord, you may have read this text where he was asked if he was going to pay his taxes.

And he said yes. And then he told Peter to go get a fishing pole and door and net and go catch a fish. And when you catch that fish, Peter, open its mouth and inside its mouth, you'll find a coin that is worth enough to pay your taxes and mine. And so Peter went and he got the fish, opened his mouth, there was the coin and he paid his taxes. Now to me, that's the way to pay your taxes.

Go fishing. April 14th and pray God will perform the miracle. Well, he ain't going to perform the miracle. But he does require us to perform the principle and that is pay your taxes. But is that all the government is supposed to do? Collect and spend taxes. Well, Peter actually gives a pretty interesting summary of the job description of a good government.

Look at the same text. Look at verse 14. Or to governors as sent by him, the king. Now notice, for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right.

Now just imagine for a moment, I don't want to lose you, those implications. To punish evil and praise righteousness. That sounds like moral legislation to me.

How about you? By the way, the idea that morality cannot be legislated is a myth. Whether it's laws that punish murder or pedophilia or theft, they're making moral judgments. That's evil.

That's wrong. Even to the point of requiring you buckle your seatbelt or drunk driving restrictions, all of it designed to protect life because why? Life in our moral value system has value. Which by the way, again emphasizes the opportunity, the Christian who is entering that particular world of influence with your moral foundation derived from the clear teaching of scripture.

You then, at that post, you help your world define what is evil and what is right. What should be punished and what should be praised. To punish, interesting word. God's designed for those in authority. Peter uses a word for punish, by the way, that effectively shatters the ideology. That God is only interested in reforming the criminal or protecting society from the criminal and those are wonderful things. But Peter actually uses a word that includes retribution.

Here's the definition of the word in the Greek language. The inflicting of just punishment on the one who has harmed another. So the governing authority is actually commissioned by God to determine what is evil and hand out punishments and penalties for those who violate those just laws.

And that is in all. There's another word, government is also given the responsibility to praise those who do what is right. The word he uses for praise can be translated commending or recognizing, acknowledging. Just as there are penalties for doing evil, there are rewards for doing right. In Great Britain to this day, outstanding citizens are given knighthood, a special commendation. They also do annual rewards where the queen will give an award to those involved in their jobs and they've just done them long enough and well enough that they surface for commendation. I remember watching one documentary a few years ago where Queen Elizabeth was rewarding a number of people during the special ceremony and it was very touching to watch one particular man who was a sheep herder.

What he did his entire life, calloused hands, wrinkled sun, brown face. He weathered this incredible difficult occupation with all of his hazards and it sort of documented his tearful anticipation and then that moment when he stood and bowed before his queen and she gave him an award for tending his herd, his flock well. It's actually one of God's intentions for a good government. What a great thing that is.

In the United States we have achievement rewards or awards, we give honorary doctorates, the community at large awards this prestigious Nobel Prize, a number of sciences for those who have excelled in their fields. Has it ever occurred to you, in fact as I study this text it just hit me, has it ever occurred to you that the government is responsible not only for the security and safety of its citizens but in fostering their moral well-being, punishing evil, praising righteousness. It's a staggering thought which means that all of you who are in positions of authority, you're the boss, you're the school teacher, you're the parent, you're the judge, you're the senator. When you accept your vocation as a God-ordained appointment and you bring to that occupation your character and conviction and your Christian conscience, you are fulfilling God's role for you in that field and let me tell you something, our city, our community, our nation, our culture is blessed when a lot of people like you do that. Right?

You know you're getting an honest deal when you deal with that guy. Culture is operational in so much more of a wonderful way when Christians do what Christians can do. But imagine what it was like in Peter's day. He's writing people that aren't living in a land of unparalleled freedom. Persecution is growing. Two-thirds of the Christian community today on the planet live in repressive cultures. Why bother with submission of that kind of authority especially and we're seeing this in our own culture when evil is being rewarded and commended and that which is righteous is being punished. Why bother? Why not wash your hands of it all? Well Peter assumed you'd ask that question and he wanted me before I let you loose to go eat lunch to answer it.

Two ways. I want you to notice first of all in verse 15, here's the first incentive for submitting. Notice, for such is the will of whom? The will of God, not government. For such is the will of God. In other words, you are obeying the Lord's direction and you're recognizing that ultimately God placed kings and governors in power for his purposes. And by the way, most often God doesn't explain himself.

He just does it. God might be ignored by government but this verse also implies that God will have the last word. In the meantime, he has given you and me his word on the matter. Submitting is the will of God. Number two, you're not only obeying the Lord's direction, you are silencing the Lord's opposition. Notice, for such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. He refers to those who are spreading slander about the Christians. We know from history the Christians were being slandered as being treasonous and seditious and planning to overthrow the government. By the way, again, how do you silence that?

Don't try to overthrow the government. At the same time, you're not going to burn incense to the emperor. You know he's not deity. You know he didn't descend from the gods. He's not from the sun.

He's been out in it too long to think that way but he's not from the sun. He's not divinity. So you're not going to do that but you're going to show respect wherever you can and to the extent that you can because he has been ordained by God.

And no matter what he's doing, God's purposes are being fulfilled. And then by doing that, you are so remarkably different from the world that is always yelping and they yelp at their own. They bite at their own.

They destroy their own. You silence them. Peter actually uses the word muzzle. You muzzle them. Probably tongue and cheek is implying what the word implies. You're muzzling a dog that is constantly yelping and snapping and biting so you muzzle them. Peter is saying you want to muzzle the snapping and the yelping and the biting dogs around you.

Here's how you do it with your attitude of respect. Further, he describes them here as ignorant. You muzzle the ignorance of foolish men. That doesn't mean the critics are uneducated. That's not what ignorance here means.

He's not referring to their SAT scores. He's referring to willful, hostile rejection and repression of the truth. It's willful. It's hostile. They're yapping and snapping and biting, which is what makes his counsel all the more remarkable. Here, how do you silence the vicious, hostile, biting slander of people who are repressing the truth? You do not do it implied here by barking louder, by biting harder.

Get this. You understand they intuitively know the truth and the rumbling in their gut that causes them to be angry against that which represents the truth makes them snap and yelp and bite all the more viciously and what they'd love to do is bring you, Christian, down to their level of demonstration. Peter is telling us here that if there's going to be any silencing, he implies it may or may not, of our critics, it isn't because you're going to be stronger and louder and bigger and better connected now simply by humility and respectful well-doing and excellent behavior and good deeds and this unique attitude toward those in authority which none of your unbelieving friends have toward their authorities. Have you noticed?

They eat their own and you're different. Even though they know you disagree, there is respect and submission to just law and your life is marked by peace and winsomeness and grace. I'm going to end with this so you can pack your things away. I'm not going to give you the name of the county because these sermons get around but it's actually in another country. This comes from a newsletter by a ministry that I'll not name. This is occurring right now. It's not going to be in your news reports but it's occurring in the land of China.

It's a remarkable thing that's happening that will never be acknowledged, it would never be admitted to, but it's taking place. Government officials in one particular province have become so desperate with sky high rates of crime and drug addiction and sickness that finally in desperation in the mid 1990s, it's still going on today, under the radar, they turn for help to people that they noticed in this province were model citizens and who do you think they happen to be? Christians. One official who wouldn't allow his name to be interviewed said, we had to admit that these people in this particular province were just a dead loss because of their addiction to opium. Their addiction made them weak and sick then they would go to one of their priests who required animal sacrifices of such extravagance that they became poor because they were now even more destitute, they would steal from one another and commit crimes against each other and law and order deteriorated.

It was a vicious cycle and no amount of our government propaganda could break their pattern of living. And then he said this, we noticed that in some villages in this county, there were people who were peace loving and there didn't seem to be a drug problem or stealing and their households seemed to have plenty of chickens and pigs to eat. So we, he said, commissioned a survey to find out why and to our embarrassment, we discovered the key factor was these villages had a majority of Christians.

And so we launched a daring experiment 19 years ago. We picked out the worst village in the county. It had 240 people in the village, 107 of them addicted to opium. Christians from the neighboring village agreed to be bussed in and the government covered the expenses, you gotta love that one, and the villagers were herded together by the police and Christians brought forward to give their testimonies of faith in Christ. They were bussed in several times, relationships began. A year later, there were 17 new Christians in this village and these 17 Christians soon became established financially because they stopped spending their money on opium.

Eight of the 17 soon saved enough money to purchase sewing machines and start small businesses. By early 2002, just in this one village, 83 of them had become Christians and their village began to change. This government official then concluded by saying, and I quote, we have begun extending this strategy to other villages. Buss in the Christians.

You gotta love that. And what are these officials now accusing these Christians of doing? Nothing. They've been muzzled because of these peaceful law-abiding citizens and the gospel, which became intriguing. And then the gospel was believed and it replaced opium with chickens. It replaced law-breaking citizens with law-abiding citizens. And that change in one life and 17 lives and families changed a village, began to change a county. Imagine what's going on right now. It may very well change their country. So where do we start?

I mean, it doesn't sound all that dramatic, does it? In fact, it doesn't sound like it's going to do all that much. Yet this is the mind of God. For the Lord's sake, frankly be good citizens, respect the law and those in authority. This is the will of God. And by doing what is right, you just might silence the critics. After listening to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey, this was the first lesson in a six-part series called Above Politics and Parliaments. This lesson is entitled Silencing the Critics.

During the month of March, we have a free resource that we're making available. This world is moving toward God's intended purposes. Stephen has a book called The Coming Tribulation. In it, he explores the future period of time known as the Great Tribulation.

It's a topic that has confused and divided Christians for many years. This is a great resource to help you understand what the Bible says about the coming tribulation. This is a free digital download that's available from our website. Go to wisdomonline.org for information. We have a print version of this booklet as well, but the ebook is free today and is available at wisdomonline.org. Thanks for listening. Join us next time for more Wisdom for the Heart.