Christian Citizens (Part C)

You've not been the light to the Gentiles. You've been a bunch of apostates, and now punishment's here.

And that's where he drew much of the persecution against him. So the Jews get taken away to Babylon, and there were those Jews in Babylon that were saying, yeah, well, God's going to get us out of here. Yahweh's not going to stand for this. Yahweh's going to do this. Yahweh's going to do that. You know those kind of Christians always telling you what God's going to do, and it never comes true, and they do it again the next time? How many false prophecies does it take to be a false prophet?

So be careful of that. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Romans.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now here's Pastor Rick in the Book of Romans chapter 13 with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Our Lord, Stephen, James, Paul, what do they all have in common?

Well, they have a lot of things in common. Of course, their faith, but they were violently treated by government officials without retaliation. They trusted God. What would you do if you lived in North Korea, in Yemen, in North Sudan, and then just a bunch of other places? As a Christian, what would you do? You know a Christian that says, well, what kind of outreach programs do you have? Well, the way you're saying it to me now, I've got an outreach program right now that gets you to be a little bit nicer. Anyway, foreign missions, there are those that, well, you should be out there preaching the Gospel to everybody. Well, you're free.

Why don't you go to Riyadh Sabriar Radio and stand in Chop Chop Square and go start preaching the Gospel? If you think it's that simple, it's not that simple. It's quite complicated. And when Jesus makes a statement, it's always an understatement. When he says, be wise as serpents, the understatement part is what he's leaving out. And what he's leaving out is you're going to have to be wise because stupid things are going to try to hurt you. Be harmless as a dove.

And I'm going to give you an example, and I'll give you an address where I left that example for you. It's Calvary, Golgotha, the place of the skull. I got to come to grips with these things. If we don't, we end up being disobedient. We end up contradicting our scripture because we don't like something that much. We feel justified in doing this. When they pledged to assassin the Apostle Paul, he appealed for protection from those with swords, spears, and cavalry. And he got it. They wanted to kill him. He found out about it. He said, I appeal to see.

The nephew told him the story and told it to the centurion, and they got Paul out of there. So there are ways that may surface or emerge for us that we can physically protect ourselves, but sometimes there are not. Some in government want to take my patriotism away from me by outlawing it or outlawing Christianity. What if it comes to these things full-blown?

Well, we know they fear losing their power. What we should fear is losing our testimony. Satan would have Christians do nothing and be slaughtered.

Satan would have Christians do something and be slaughtered. Either way, he's looking to set us up. So be ready to cross bridges that you've not come to before.

Be ready in advance. The Huguenots, they fled France for England. The Puritans, they fled England for the United States. Jesus said, when they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For surely I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man has come. And what happens when Christians flee from one city to another city? Well, they take the gospel with them to that city.

What happens if you are unjustly arrested and in prison? Well, you get a chance to preach Christ in jail. Churches, pastors, parishioners must uphold scripture to keep it from going too far. Why aren't more Christians supportive of Bible-teaching churches instead of non-Bible-teaching churches?

Well, we know why. And not much you can do about it, but keep obedient to where God has placed you. Like a lily planted among the thorns. What a great lesson from the Song of Solomon. And those who resist bring judgment on themselves. Government usually has sufficient power to enforce their will.

Red China, Myanmar, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, there's plenty of places we see this today. Verse three, well the rulers are not a terror to good works, but evil. Do you want to be unafraid of authority?

Do what is good. And you will have praise from the same. I bet while I'm speaking about these things, there's got to be somebody that's saying, no, it's wrong. We can fight, we can use violence, you know, what of that? And well, there were those saying we don't have to pay taxes, when clearly you had to pay taxes in scripture. When Paul wrote what we call verse three here in Romans 13, Nero, again, post demon possession, days, and government was bearable. Things were, there were pockets of persecution, of course.

He experienced them. He was a persecutor himself. Every sermon should be an assault on hell. And those who listen to that sermon have an opportunity to join the assault.

You get to be part of the invasion force, or not. And when enough people get saved, the conscience of society is awakened, it improves, and there are social reforms. But that oftentimes has blood on it. Wickedness gets hold of people, makes them wicked, and they become dirty fighters. Do you want to be unafraid, verse three, of authority? Do what is good.

And you will have praise from the same. Well, most organized societies are looking for their citizens to behave. If you are driving down the road and a deputy or trooper pulls them back of you and gives you the blues, you know, the blue lights, pull over. Cooperate. Make it easy for him. Roll down, maybe, you know, your driver's window and the passenger's window behind you so he can see into the car.

Make it easy for him. As far as speaking evil of dignitaries, Jude warned about those who reject authority speak evil of dignitaries. Yeah, telling the facts about a dignitary is not speaking evil of them. That's fact.

If they have voted into legislation, a law that is wicked, you can say that. Where we should not go is to say, and he's a fathead, too. See, that's when you start, you know, just trying to stay away from that is so easy to do. They provoke us to put us in the flesh and carnality surfaces and we get sidetracked on what we're supposed to be doing, and it feels so good to strike out.

Vengeance is fine when it feels good. We know better. Verse 4, for he is God's minister to you for good. Now, he's speaking in ideal circumstances.

This is not going to work in a lot of places. But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Well, God wants to help society be civil, but that there are rogue societies is not God's doing. What happens if you trample laws, if everybody just tramples laws?

I'm going to obey the ones I like. Well, anarchy, riot, we have a banana republic, the ability to preach the gospel will go away. They'll burn your church down because anarchy will be the alternative if laws are not enforced, good laws. So he says, but if you do evil, be afraid. Well, don't pay your taxes, see what happens to you, for he does not bear the sword in vain. Well, this talks about not only law enforcement, but capital punishment. The sword is a weapon of death. So, he says here in verse 4, for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.

Clear enough. The law, penalties against murder, go back to the days of Noah, and of course they continue to this day. Paul upholds it.

So did Peter. Verse 5, therefore, well I should give you an address for those two. Acts chapter 25, 11 and 1 Peter 4, 15. And these men are talking about the subject of righteousness and being killed without objection to capital punishment. Verse 5, therefore you must be subject not only because of wrath, but also for conscience sake. You must be subject to the point, of course, that I already mentioned. And I'll go over a list of, what do you call it, civil disobedience examples from scripture. When I mentioned that we are not to be entangled in the affairs of this world, that Greek word is entwined. You want to be a citizen and you want to be involved in politics as a Christian, fine, no problem. Just do not be entangled by those things.

Don't get tunnel vision. Your only conversation is politics and Jesus is somewhere in there. Remember who we are. John, his testimony in the Isle of Patmos is, yeah, they jailed me for Christ. I'm a political prisoner, happens to be a religious prisoner. Which is when Richard Wambrandt and Watchman Nee were in their prisons. There were other prisoners who were not Christians. They were political prisons and they suffered right alongside them. Except their cause was worthless on an eternity scale.

Not Wambrandt and Nee. Their purposes were eternal. We have to keep things in perspective or else we become, we'll just be wrong. Who wants to be wrong? I don't want to be wrong about anything.

I don't want to order the wrong type of dish when I go to a restaurant. I like being right. And I also like pointing out other people being wrong, but that's another subject. He says not only because of wrath, not only because of the consequences, but also for conscience sake. In other words, we know what we're supposed to be doing. If we're not doing that, our conscience will bother us. God will say, you know you're wrong, I wrote about this in scripture.

And then we come with our yeah buts. Conscience is the center of our awareness of what's right and wrong. And the kingdom of heaven must rule over that conscience.

Not enough to have conscience, conscience must be taught. Unbelievers have conscience on things and sometimes they're wrong. Romans 12 too. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable perfect will of God. Christ is our example. Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

Peter had to learn that after he hacked off Malchus' ear. So under the threat of death and all the evil that they can throw at us, targeting our children, taking illegal steps, what do we do? Well, here's some examples from the Old Testament first on civil disobedience. I mentioned already the Jewish midwives, they stood up, we're not killing these kids.

And then there was Aram and Jacob, the parents of Moses, they hid him as long as they could. How would you like to be in that situation? You say, oh that doesn't happen today.

Yes it does. Communist China had a one child initiative and when you hear that word initiative, I don't know about you but the hair on the back of my neck stands up because I know who likes to use that word as they're trying to dirty up society. 1979 to 2015, one child you were allowed, you'd be hit with heavy penalties if not worse in Communist China.

So don't think that there's something new under the sun. Daniel 6, 10 have already referenced countries. How would you like to be a Christian in Afghanistan right now under the Taliban?

How about living as a Christian in Justin's Thoreau's Canada, being a pastor there where they're trying to make hate speech a crime of just preaching the Bible. The three nice Jewish boys cast them to the furnace. Mordecai, which included self-defense. Mordecai eventually had to get the king to allow them through Esther to defend themselves. Peter, now New Testament and it's not an exhaustive list.

Peter, he broke out of jail twice. That's not submitting to government authorities. They don't have absolute right and this is the Peter that was corrected about the Lord about using violence for the gospel. We do not have to protect our king. We depend on our king protecting us and a little sword, I don't care if it could be a thousand foot sword like an AR or something, it's not going to protect Christ. He protects us.

If you have to protect your God, you've got the wrong God. Acts 5, we ought to obey God rather than men. Paul, well the governor was trying to kill him in Damascus and they lowered him out of the window in a basket.

Now I come to the polycarp item I wanted to get back to. A Roman magistrate offered to spare his life from a burning at the stake. This is 155 AD. And he said to Polycarp, oh man listen, I'm not into this either. Can't you just put a little bit of incense on Caesar's altar and the persecution on you will stop and you can go free. And it said that Polycarp, who is 86 years old at this time, he said I have served Christ and never did he injure me. How then can I blaspheme my king and my savior? If I were to put incense on your altar, I would be saying there are other gods. They're worthy of worship.

There are no other gods. And he went to his grave because of that. Then there are the defiant ones in Revelation said, we're not taking that mark. What happened to them? They were beheaded. What happened to their children?

Does it matter? Well, there came a time when the Jews were to submit to their conquerors. And the prophet Jeremiah, you know, they called him a traitor because Jeremiah said the nation's going to fall.

It's going to fall because you've been evil. You've been shallow with your faith. You've not been the light to the Gentiles. You've been a bunch of apostates and now punishment's here.

And that's where he drew all of the, much of the persecution against him. So the Jews get taken away to Babylon and there are those Jews in Babylon. They're saying, yeah, well, God's going to get us out of here. Yahweh's not going to stand for this. Yahweh's going to do this. Yahweh's going to do that. You know those kind of Christians always telling you what God's going to do and it never comes true and they do it again the next time.

How many false prophecies does it take to be a false prophet? So be careful of that. Well, Jeremiah writes to those Jews in captivity, stop it. You're staying there. Jeremiah 29, 11, you know, Christians like to read this and that's fine.

I like it too, but just remember the context. For I know the thoughts, God's speaking to the prophet, that I think toward you, says Yahweh, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. And he goes on to say, build yourself gardens, get good jobs, become good citizens in Babylon because you're staying there. Our resistance is to be spiritual and that will show up physically.

Therefore, Peter wrote to the persecuted Christian, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to him in doing good as to a faithful creator. You know how hard that is when, I mean, I get a flat tire, oh God, why could you let this happen? I just fall apart so quickly. And then I'm shamed afterwards how, man, I know I could do better, Lord.

Maybe it's your fault for not helping me because it's always good to have someone else to blame. I don't say that, but I wish those were terms I could offer. Verse 6, for because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing.

And so he goes back to say, you know, a government is responsible for national security and also national sovereignty, to be able to control their destiny, to pay bills, to get things done. I'm told that in the 60s, the Russians, the Soviets, not the Russians, there is a difference, the Soviets considered Rand McNally roadmaps to be Western propaganda. And the reason why is that there couldn't be that many paved roads anywhere.

And so it's got to be a lie. But there are paved roads everywhere. Who pays for that?

Yeah, your property taxes contribute to that. What about the corruption? Listen, in Nero's day, he taxed urine, not, hey, you're in now.

I mean the letter that comes after O. Because they're using it, the tanners were using it because of its ammonia content, you know, the launderers were using it to make those togas, the white outfits the Romans would wear. It was like, man, this stuff really gets it clean.

You got a white shirt, that ring around the collar, this stuff will get it out. And Nero got a hold of that. He said, what? We're taxing this stuff. So if you went down to the tanners and said, I want to sell you a pot of, not gold, but in color, you say, okay, I'll give you five dollars.

Tax it. Money changed hands. So, you know, what were you to do as a Christian in those days, right?

Under those things, you've just laughed yourself to sleep. Anyway, for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. So civil order, verse seven now, I didn't think we'd make it, render therefore to all their due. Taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, to whom customs feared, to whom fear, honor, to whom honor. Paul is trying to stabilize the Christians in the churches. He understands that a few political Christians could talk their way into getting other Christians to listen to them versus the clear teaching of scripture, particularly on this point of taxes. Jesus paid both taxes to Caesar and taxes to the temple.

Matthew 22 21, Matthew 17 24 forward, if you want to check it out. Now, I'm sorry, I don't like that phrase, check it out, from me. If you use it, that's fine. I expect that from you.

Kidding, kidding. We all have our little things like, you got yours too, but I get to have mine broadcasted on Facebook. All right, a tribute here, a yearly tax levied on people or property, real estate and people, like our income tax and property taxes. Customs here is an indirect tax on goods, like our sales tax, for example. So there are taxes then. The tax collectors of Jesus' day were notorious for abusing the system. They had a quota to get from the citizens and they would ramp it up because anything over that quota was theirs. And they abused the system, they were hated amongst the people, and of course, Jesus didn't say, well listen, we need to have an uprising here. This is just not fair.

He did not become entangled in these things. So again, it's okay to be in politics as a Christian to appoint, and everything else too. What if you are a professional athlete? You're very competitive. Are you in the flesh? You have to check yourself. You don't have a right.

If you can't control it, maybe you should do something else. Fear to whom fear? Just respect. Again, if you're pulled over by a deputy, be respectful.

If you disagree, if you think a right is being violated, that's not the place to argue. You're going to lose every time. I get satisfaction of watching people on YouTube being tasered. I love it so much. I can't wait to go home and watch this guy. Watch how he stiffens up. Watch all of a sudden he's saying to the deputy, yes sir.

I'm going to get one. We tried to have him installed in the pews for those of you who nod. It just didn't work out. Anyway, honor to whom honor. Again, be careful with the spirit of contention towards authority. The Bible is big on authority. Women have your, you know, when Paul gets into, you know, the angels while watching, they understand authority. And he's reminding all Christians, we're all under authority of some form.

What are you going to do with it? Well, I can only find out when I looked at the scripture. When Paul bad-mouthed the high priest of Israel, he says, I didn't know you were the high priest of Israel. I don't think he was being sarcastic. I wish he were.

I think he was just saying his eyesight was bad. Who knew? You know, because the scripture says you should not bad mouth the leader of your people. And that's where this comes from in our heritage, from our Old Testament. Now honor to whom honor is due.

Joseph of Arimathea, for example, and almost done, Mark tells us he took courage and he went to Pilate to ask for the body of Christ. And he did it respectfully. And he was granted, he achieved his objective because he, now what if he went and demanded it? You have no right to that. He's a Jewish man and you have no right. Well, he probably wouldn't have gotten far.

He might not even live. We need courage. And courage because he would deal with Jewish backlash and Roman outlash. The body of Christ was hated by the religious authorities, most of them when they crucified him.

And the body of Christ was used by the secular government authority. So I close with 1 Peter 2.17, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor our king. Can you improve upon that? That's how we face hardship. Next up, chapter 13, going forward, he's going to start talking about love. So I quote 1 Corinthians 12.31, and yet I show you a more excellent way.

That's why love is going to be on the heels of everything he's just said in these seven verses. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again, or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans, here on Cross-Reference Radio.