Well, we're back in Romans 13. For some reason, I had marked we ended at verse 1, but as I walked through these first seven verses in my notes, we talked about a lot of it, so we're going to go front to back. We want meandered through some of of it last week. So I'm going to just kind of go down one through seven pretty quickly. We will stop and hit a couple of things that we didn't talk about last week. But Let's look at verse one. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. We've been talking about this for a couple of weeks, really. Each person, each one of us is commanded to submit to the authorities that God has arranged for our life. And not just the government, but in particular, it's the government here as we talked last week, the end of chapter 12, talked about love, living a loving Christian life according to the love of God. The beginning of verse 8, at the end of this paragraph, it talks about love, so there's that bookend of love and love of God and love of others in this section that puts submitting to the government authorities in context of our love for Christ, our love for God. And so it's a loving part of our Christian life to be submitted to the authorities, not an absolute command when it says to submit ourselves to our authorities. We saw that we don't, submit to the authorities if they command us to sin, do things that God, that they command us or we're asked to do things by the government that would be sinful, we say no, we're gonna obey God rather than men. Or the other caveat to that is if the government prohibits us from obeying Christ, we're going to obey Christ. face whatever it is that we have to. And so our submission or our non-submission to the government authorities reflects really our attitude toward our submission to God. Kind of, it's, It shows whether or not ultimately and finally we will submit to God by submitting to our authorities. And then when our authorities again command us wrong, wrongly we'll stand up and submit ourselves to God instead of man. Then verse 2, therefore, so he says, submit yourself, be subject to your authorities. because there's no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. So just sort of the way I wrote it out here in my notes, although there are caveats, opposing or choosing where we choose to disobey the government, it's a serious thing, it's a serious matter not to be engaged in casually. to refuse to submit to the government, civil disobedience, whatever you wanna call it, it's not something we want to engage in casually without being very serious about our resistance because therefore whoever resists, it's a strong word Paul uses here, those who resist the authorities God has placed in our lives, And we've talked about the multiple kinds of authorities each one of us live under, whether we, God, of course, ultimately, the government is one. If a husband and wife, the authority in the home is the husband, the leaders in churches. I think we can, by principle, apply to school teachers and students. We can, so there's multiple authorities we all live with, and God has given us authorities in our life for our good our protection and to teach us. I remember I've told this story before when I was working at the plant. I was we had a general manager and then two of us had two different departments in this hundred people organization we were in. and general manager retired. And so there were the two of us here and it's kind of a unique place in a plant where we worked. It wasn't one of the operating units but so one of us was going to take over the general manager job and we thought and and and then my my cohort had to go off on a heart condition that just left me. Well, I'm in pretty good shape here. Well, next thing I knew, they sent a lady from the main office, an accountant lady from the main office down to be my boss. She didn't know. We made motor oil and hydraulic oil, and we put it in anything from one-quart cans to 20,000-gallon tank cars, you know. She didn't know the difference in a can and a tank car. She had no idea about the business, and she became my boss. I had to think about that for a while. Didn't know how to feel about that for a while. I learned more about the authority of God from her than anybody ever in any other job I worked. She taught me so much, and she didn't know a thing about the business. The Lord taught me a lot. And it was a great relationship. She was a great boss. But God puts people in our lives as our authorities to teach us about himself, about ourselves, and about submission. So, and I say that to say God gives you the right people at the right time, though you don't always think it's the right person. He is making us into the image of Christ. But anyway, this resistance to the authorities, you can resist the authorities and you'll be thought to be a hero. by some people. I'm gonna stand up and you'll be thought to be a hero. But this word that Paul uses, those who resist, therefore whoever resists the authorities, resists what God has appointed. And that word resist, pretty strong word. Setting oneself in battle array against an enemy. And so I just, that enemy is whoever resists, resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. You're resisting the ordinance of God. When we resist, and Paul is using that strong language, it really comes out of Psalm 2. Why do the nations rage in the people's plot of vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords, their cords, God and his anointed cords. And he who sits in the heaven laugh at those who will resist his authority. But just, and again, there's times when we must resist. Not just, we have to refuse to submit to our authorities when they ask us to sin or prevent us from obeying Christ, but we don't do it casually. We don't do it willy-nilly, because we're resisting an institution that God has established, put in place. So, verse three, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority, then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. Well, there's a couple of things there. The way Sproul says it, that's a proverbial point of wisdom. It's true in the main, but not absolutely true. We know that. There's bad government. There's bad husbands. Husbands are not perfect, and we do, sin in our authority and exercising our authority. The elders in the church are not infallible teachers. bosses, all of those things, this is not an absolute statement that it's always for our good, that it's always good, but it is always, God is always working it for our good, no matter how the authority behaves, right? But I always kind of chuckle when it says you want not to fear the authority, do what is good, and I always think about my reaction when I'm going down the highway and there's a cop hiding in the bushes. What do I do immediately? Yeah, kick off the cruise control. I look at the speedometer, those kinds of things. You just want to make sure. If you drive the speed limit, you don't have to worry. One thing where we live in Deer Park, if you're there very long at all, you learn what's the speed limit. Not that you're always looking at your speedometer, you just know how fast to drive where you are because they're all over the place. Anyway, so in general though, Paul knows that this point to where Well, verse four, he is God's servant for your good, in particular, the government. Paul knows that that doesn't always happen perfectly. It happens imperfectly at best. In fact, Paul, innocent, ends up being executed by the government that he was promoting for us to submit to, God's authorities. So all earthly authority is made up of imperfect people, even believers. But in general, those who receive the harshest treatment are criminals, in general. And that's the point, I think. The whole point of civil government is to restrain evil by force if necessary. And so we talked last week, we started last week, is it better to have bad government or no government? Bad authority or no authority? And we saw last summer the result of no government and no authority in a handful of cities. And already, a year later, we're already, some people are reversing the, the preference as to whether or not they have government or authority in their cities. So bad government is better than no government, or bad authority is better than no authority. Sproul says the essence of government is its power and authority to force conformity. And then the second half of verse four talks about capital punishment, I think. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he, the government, does not, or the servant, does not bear the sword in vain, for it is the servant of God, he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer, and so, You think about the first authoritative force that's shown after sin enters is the angel on the east side of the garden, right? What's he holding? He's holding a sword to prevent, to establish the authority that no one's gonna come into the garden. And that's for the good of the people. And then we go to Genesis 9 where Corey has taken us, and whoever sheds the blood of man by man, his blood shall be shed for God made man in his own image. So he bears the sword, not in vain, that Genesis 9 is part of the covenant of creation, if you will, so it's not a mosaic ordinance that goes away. It's part of the moral law of God from all of creation, rooted in man being in the image of God. So human life is so sacred, if you will, that if you rise up against your neighbor and kill your neighbor, Premeditated, you forfeit the right to your own life. And so capital punishment would be instituted or at least affirmed right here in verse four of Romans 13. Comments, you want to talk about that? You know, some people, I mean, I understand some people The response for some will be, vengeance is mine, says the Lord. I will repay. Go back to chapter 12, that's verse 19. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But notice, He is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. You see, vengeance is mine, says the Lord, but this minister of the government, this person in the government, is an avenging, he's an avenging servant of God. And so God accomplishes, we've been studying in the providence of God, whether it be at seven o'clock tonight in the invisible hand, or we were in our Bible Institute, God ordains whatever comes to pass, but he uses second causes. And in that sense, the government is to be an agent of God to execute wrath on an earthly plane. So the government is commissioned as this avenging servant to carry out God's judgment on earth. It's a legitimate enterprise. Capital punishment is a legitimate enterprise when executed or carried out justly by just authority. Again, authorities are not infallible. But God has instituted it here. And Back, chapter 12, verse 19, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. In the first place, we trust our case to the process of law, and then, since they're provisional and imperfect agents, we can trust that God will make all things right in the end. Jesus has been given all authority. When presidents, governors, whoever, senators, kings, when they die, they will stand before the Lord Jesus and whatever wrongs or whatever rights they will be held accountable for, for how they held their office, how they used the delegated authority of God. They're God's delegated servants. agents where they know it or not. God says they belong to him and he has put them there. He raises up kings, brings them down. Boundaries will go this far and no farther. All of those things. So in this age, the usual way God exercises his wrath is through the administration of governments. He instituted them. appointed the rulers as his agents, delegated authority to carry out justice in his name. No vigilante force is legitimate. We're not to take justice into our own hands. When we disobey earthly authorities, we're disobeying the one with ultimate authority who has commanded that we obey and be in submission. We okay so far? We all right there with that? Caveats, and yet we're to bend over backwards to be submissive if we can. And then he repeats this, he kind of summarizes verse five, therefore one must be in subjection. And he gives two reasons. I think we talked about this last week. Not only to stay out of trouble, I mean, I don't want to go to jail, so I do my best to obey the laws of the land. But also, he says, for conscience's sake, for the sake of conscience, I submit to the government. And with my conscience educated by the word of God, I know that there's a time when I may have to not submit, right, the two caveats we talked about earlier, but the bent of my conscience should be to do everything I can do to submit, to obey the authorities in my life, whatever they are. That ought to be the default, submission. And then if sinful issues come up, not just preferences, but my conscience ought to be educated. And if my conscience is educated according to Romans 13, my conscience should be sending me to submission. And so, anything? Not just because I don't, not just because I don't want the police on my case, or don't wanna have to go before a judge for breaking the law, but for conscience sake. So we need to make sure our consciences are educated according to the word of God. Okay, and then six and seven. For because of this, you pay taxes, you pay taxes. You pay the tax man because your conscience tells you that the government requires it. For this reason, or for because of this, you pay taxes. For the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing. pay to all what is owed to them, taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. So he moves from specifics of taxes to just the general obligation to respect and honor everyone. And so that's the first seven verses. Their submission is an expression of love toward God. He starts verse eight, owe no one anything except for love. He ended chapter 12 with love. So submission is an expression of our love toward God. Good citizenship, it's the expression of love as we yield ourselves to the authorities in our life, and in particular here in 13, it's to the governmental authorities. Anything? Yeah, there's a lot of levels of government. Pardon me. There's a lot of levels of authority. Yes. And I think, I won't speak for anybody but me, that I think the tendency that I have is to, the more levels of authority that there are, Sometimes I think I pick and choose. Homeowners Association. That's an authority, right? They've got certain caveats. They'll send letters. They'll tell you what you can do and can't do, what flags you can fly and can't fly. Yes. And I just think I need to remember, they count too. The same principles apply, right? Yeah, the toll authority. The thing about driving up where we drove, of course, you go through Pennsylvania, you go through Jersey, you go through New York, every one of them's got these tollways. We just got a deal today from New Jersey. You went through, we got your license plate, they found me. You didn't pay a $3 toll, we want $33 from you. Nobody was at the toll booth. What am I supposed to do on vacation? Nobody's at the toll booth. Well, I'm gonna send them three bucks. I'm gonna call them first, but I'm gonna send them three bucks, because I'm gonna get 10 or 12 of these. There were almost no toll booths attended, but they're all taking their, I was told by a Connecticut resident that they would fine me. And I don't mind. I want to pay their tolls. They had nice roads. But I don't want to pay them 30 bucks. Because I guess the New Jersey constable, huh? Sounds like you have the same problem I do. Yeah. So we'll appeal to the authority. We'll be like Daniel, you know. He'd always find things. He says, how about let's try this first. So we'll appeal to the authorities and see what happens. Anybody else? Okay, verse eight. Oh, no one, anything except love, except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. And Dennis brought this up last week. that so often people will take that first half of a verse and take it out of its context and say, we should never borrow any money ever. It's a sin to borrow money. And you really do have to take it out of its context and look at nothing else in scripture. The Bible has a number, quite a few, talks quite a bit about taking on debt and protecting those who are in debt. There's, yes, it's part of the mosaic law, but I think the principle applies in that there's provisions, strong provisions against exploiting, exploitative high rates of interest, for instance. One of the commentators said, if we were operating under the law of Israel, credit card companies would be usurious and under the judgment of God, because their unreasonable interests, they just exploit people, take advantage of their weaknesses. So there are principles in scripture to lending and rates of interest and provisions for those who are poor and become indebted and they have to give their cloak. The creditor takes the cloak during the day but needs to give it back at night if they need it to be warm. So there's those kinds of provisions. The Bible doesn't condemn debt. It gives warnings throughout Proverbs for one, you know. But we do have one debt that we can never pay off. Owe no one anything except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. We can never settle that debt. Let no debt remain outstanding except continuing the debt of love we owe to one another. There's no sin in borrowing. There is sin in borrowing and not paying back. We're required to fulfill our obligations. Christians of all others, Christians, we should make sure, do everything we can do to pay our debts on time. It's a matter of principle, a matter of conscience. We should be zealous to maintain good works of paying our debts. You know, for us as Christians, bankruptcy should not be an option. I know it's a provision of the government, and things happen, and people get in trouble. And so again, the government has provisions, and so you deal with the provisions that are made back these days, in the Bible days. What happens if you get out in debt and you can't pay it back? Hmm? Yeah, you become a slave and you work your dead off. If you read different commentators, some will say half of the world was in slavery in those days, not because they were of a particular race or ethnic background or anything of that. They were in debt, and they had no means of paying it back. So they went to work as slaves, or they became slaves to work off their debt. If you owe, pay back what you owe. And on time, if you can. Again, fulfill the contracts that you enter. It's basic integrity. It's being blameless before God and men. But it's not a sin to borrow, at least that I can find in scripture. And again, this has wrapped up all this Pay your debts is wrapped up in our love for others, wrapped up in the principle of treating others as we want to be treated. 12.9, love must be sincere. It's a righteous requirement of the law from Romans 8. Jesus perfectly fulfilled it. And love for all. Really, these two commandments, we can pay our debt to the bank, to the store, to the credit card company, but we never discharge our debt of our love for our neighbor until we enter heaven. Think about love God and love your neighbor as yourself, right? greatest commandments. Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And then he comes to verse 9, 4, here's the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet, and any other commandment are summed up in this word, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So this is how love is a summary of the law of God, if you will. Love is, you love God and then you love your neighbor. And here, Paul is giving some applications to this. How it is that we live out our love. We owe no one except to love one another. For this, you shall not commit adultery. and he has his list there, five of the six of the 10 commandments that are horizontal toward one another. Leaves out the honoring your parents, but he says, and if there's any other commandment, it is in this word summed up, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You know, the first four commands, where are the first four commandments? Okay, what are they? Okay, no other gods before? No idols. Okay. Okay. Those are? Vertical, right? And then there's the horizontal. This is five of six of the horizontals. And they're summed up in love your neighbor as yourself. No adultery, no lying, no stealing. Honoring your parents. No covetousness, no murder. So love doesn't replace the commandments. The new covenant doesn't replace the 10 commandments. At least nine of them are repeated in the New Testament. They're the moral law of God. They reveal the character of God. So they're for all of us. Okay, anything else? Love is fulfillment of the law. Verse 10, love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore love is fulfilling the law. What time is it? Let me see if I... No, we'll go on from there. Any questions about verse 10? We may come back to that. Augustine said this, love God and do what you want. Is that legitimate? Yeah, if you love God, it'll be okay. You'll want to please him and therefore your life will be lived according to love for others, right? Okay, yes. I mean, in principle, that's what we're to do. Love God and do what we want, if we understand the love of God. We haven't done it perfectly. We do what we want. I mean, I remember, I don't know, do you know about situation ethics? Don't talk about that anymore, you know why? Because we're engulfed in it, they don't have to. Situation ethics, Joseph Fletcher, you know, the situation dictates. You do, in any situation that you are in, what love seems to dictate. And he used Augustine. Love God and do what you want. He said, see, Augustine agrees with me. The problem is, do what seems to be the loving thing to do. No, we love God and then we do what God tells us to do, not what seems to be the loving thing to do. So. Anyway, so love is a fulfillment of the law. Fletcher, in this situation, ethics, this is really just full-blown postmodernism. It was the seeds of full-blown postmodernism, living in relativism. So you take every situation. and you determine that we're gonna live by love, that's the one law. I mean, it's pretty much what Jesus said, right? We love God and then we love each other. So what's the loving thing to do when you get into this situation? What seems to be the loving thing to do? It would be what he says instead of directing you and he would say, follow the Bible. Follow God, but you do what seems to be. So everyone does what's right in their own eyes. It's like that bracelet that says, what would Jesus do? Yeah. So it's just relativism in a dress of love, in a suit with hearts all over it. It's where we are, isn't it? I mean everything situational and circumstantial as to what's right and what's wrong and we don't even the culture doesn't even question it. When Fletcher's book came out and they brought it into the schools there was a there was a right. An upturn an uprising against it. No more. Yes ma'am. It's more of a permissive life that lets you do whatever you want. And it's not based on proof. And it's not based on the word of God. It really isn't. We're based more on emotion. Yeah. For you country and Western fans, if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right. Love and do what you want, right? If, you know, if I love somebody, what seems to be the loving thing to do is to be with that person. It doesn't matter if I have a wife. It doesn't matter if I have a husband. It just, it seems to be, it just, it's what I want to do. You're right. Yes. I do want to say something about that. I had a friend of mine send me a text message and it was in a song, and the guy, the songwriter, what the stars that the Lord made on the fourth day and mixed it with making man on the sixth day and the day and the line said the day he made you and the stars and he blended it together I think for us our position as a Christian would be to call that out in love proclaim the truth At least he's saying God created the stars, right? I mean, you know, it's not, anyway. Yeah, you're right. It's- The song was geared, now that friend that sent me that is a Roman Catholic. So I was really happy to get a chance to bring forth the word of God to her. And I go, you know, if there's two days, and do you think it's right, I just questioned her, do you think it's right to write a song like that, you know, totally plowing down the word of God, Yeah Yeah Okay, all right now besides Paul says in 11 Besides this You know the time that the hour has come for you to wake up from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone. This is interesting, is it not? As he's talking about, we go back to the chapter 12 and 13 are sort of a section of Paul's application. And in 12, you remember, We're not, 12.2, we're not to be conformed to this age. It's world in our, I think in the ESV, but it's the age. So that's the age in which we live. Paul is now directing our thoughts to the age that's to come. And in this process between we're living in this age and looking forward to the age to come, he says, besides this, you know the time that the hours come for you to wake up from sleep. Salvation is near to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone. It's not the night is coming, the night is far gone. We're already past midnight. in this transition towards the age to come. We need to be alert. We need to be, as Paul, watchful. It's time to wake up. However old you are, as old as I am, and Jim is, we're closer to time that we need to wake up, right Jim? We need to wake up. But even little Luke right here needs to wake up. Not because he's asleep, but to be alert that the night is far spent. And I don't know when you were saved, but when you were saved, your salvation is nearer than it was. from when you were first saved. I mean, you know, this salvation word that talks about we were saved some day, and right now we're being saved, and one day we're gonna be saved, and he says, your salvation is near, or our salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone, the day is at hand. The day is near. That's how we're to always live, right? Whatever your theology is, if you think things have to happen before Jesus can come back, well, it could happen in a minute and then he could come back, or if you think it's imminent, it could happen any minute. We don't know when the day's gonna be, but it is near. So then, let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. We'll stop. Yeah, we better stop there because that's what Paul says in Ephesians 4. That's what Paul says in Colossians. It's the put off and the put on. It's, okay, the night's far spent. The day is near, near. So you need to think about that. You need to be alert. You need to be watchful and you need to get rid of some stuff in your life. and not just get rid of stuff in your life, you need to add, put on some things or put in your life some things. And we'll just go through those before we go into chapter 14 next week. Okay, anything you wanna say? Anything you wanna ask? Anything at all? So we're good? Yes. I know you do. Write Derek a note of encouragement that you're not looking down on him and you're not judging him and every family has its own battles to fight and to enjoy and its members to enjoy, right? Yes. I'm sorry. We didn't need to make that an issue. Nothing else. Dennis, pray for us, please. Father, we do come before you now in the name of our Lord Jesus, and we thank you for this time. Father, we ask that each of us would bear these principles in mind. They're hard sometimes. I'm a stubborn, resistant individual, and I need to conform to the Word of God. And so, Father, I pray that you'll bring this lesson to my mind, and to all of our minds, and that it'll actually impact the way we live. Help us in this matter, Father. Help us to continue to learn more. We ask it in Jesus' name.