Gracious God, we come into your house this morning to offer you praise for the reason that we celebrate the Lord's Day, that you rose your son from the dead on the third day for our justification, for our eternal life. God, we come here and ask that you would please help our hearts, tune our hearts to sing your praise. Teach us through your word, reproof us, correct us where necessary, lead us in your truth, give us clarity, help us to better understand your word. May you more greatly magnify yourself in the teaching and preaching of your word. And Lord, as we come to this particular chapter of the confession, We ask for special help and wisdom and clarity that is so needed in our church, in our society in this day. We pray that you would give us greater clarity on these matters and that you would help that my words would be helpful. And wherever it is not, we pray that you would bring necessary correction and clarification. so that we would understand what you say in your word and that all other words would fall. We pray this in the mighty name of your son Jesus, amen. Well, this morning we come to the least controversial issue in the confession, that of the government or the civil magistrate. And of course I'm being very sarcastic when I say least controversial because This is one of the things that many dear brothers and sisters in the faith disagree with each other about. But really over this last year, this is one issue that perhaps we as American Christians have been forced to think about in ways that we haven't before. We've had to think and grapple in scripture and wrestle with questions such as what type of authority does the government have? What is the biblical purpose of government? What should the relationship between Christians and the civil authorities look like? What is a Christian who serves as a civil magistrate obligated to do? What does it mean for us to subject ourselves to the civil authorities? And these are all important questions and we, being a confessional church, can praise God that we don't have to come up with answers to these questions by ourselves. because we've had brothers who went before us over 300 years ago who thought about these things and who presented them to us here in chapter 24 of the Confession. Just so you can follow along with me, in the back of the Trinity Hymnal there is the Confession of Faith. So if you haven't already, I would encourage you to go ahead and open up to chapter 24 of the Civil Magistrate. just so you can see the source of everything that I'm teaching this morning. Now for the sake of simplicity, what I would like to do is really just work through chapter 24 loosely in five points. The first one being that the authority of the civil magistrate is derivative. Then I want to look at how the authority of the civil magistrate is also limited. How the authority of the civil magistrate is good. How we are, how we honor to the civil magistrate. And then lastly, how we owe prayer to God on behalf of the civil magistrates. So those are kind of the five points in which I want to work through this teaching. And so with that being said, can I actually have a volunteer go ahead and read paragraph one for us? Thank you, Blake. Okay, perfect. Thank you, Blake. So really, the first and most important thing that I want us to see in paragraph one of chapter 24 is that the authority of the civil magistrate is derivative. In other words, it is not an authority that exists on its own. The civil authorities, the government does not have authority that they have just taken up and decided that they have. This is an authority that, according to God's word, has been given to them from above. from God. So God has actually invested the civil sphere, the civil authorities, with a certain kind of authority. And so that's what it means when I say that the civil magistrate is derivative. Also, I'll say from the outset that a lot of these things that I'm going to be saying are reflected in some of the things that Pastor Sam has taught us over the last year or so. One year ago, he taught a three-part sermon series dealing with this particular subject, and so a lot of this is not any things that I am discovering by myself from studying the Word. A lot of these are coming from the time that we've already studied together, and also coming partly from the modern exposition that Pastor Sam wrote. So, with that being said, that's probably where I heard the term derivative. concerning the authority of the civil government. So the civil magistrate's authority is derived from God, and maybe you're thinking, okay, that sounds nice to say, but how do we know that from scripture? Well, consider, other than the primary text that they're appealing to, which we will look at in just a moment, which is Romans 13, Consider what Jesus said to Pilate when Pilate questioned him, do you not know that I have authority over you to put you to death even? And what is Jesus' response to him in John 19, 10 and 11? He says, you would have no authority over me at all were it not given to you from above. So we see that very clearly in John 19. Another passage that we actually see this well reflected is in 1 Samuel chapter 24, verses 1 through 7, where you have Daniel, who is on the run, I'm sorry, not Daniel, David, where you have David on the run from King Saul. And King Saul comes into the cave where David and his people are hiding. And David ends up cutting a corner of his robe. And the text tells us that David even was later convicted that even so much as cut a corner of the robe of what he called God's anointed. His men were saying to him, This is God answering prayer. God has delivered Saul into your hands. This is your opportunity to kill him, this unjust tyrant. This is your opportunity to kill him. But what does David say? He says, no, God forbid that I should reach my hand out against his anointed. So David recognized that King Saul, unjust as he was at the time, had authority that was given to him by God. And that even though God had already promised that David was gonna have authority of king in the future, it was not yet given to him. And so he would not, again, the scripture says that he was convicted that he even reached out his hand to cut the corner of the robe of God's anointed. So that teaches us a lot, just in these couple of examples, about what the scripture says concerning the authority that the civil government has, which is derivative, that is given from God. And then of course, lastly, we see in Romans chapter 13, as a matter of fact, go ahead and open up to Romans 13 if you have a copy of God's word with you, because we're gonna come back to this on a few other occasions in the next little bit. I'll go ahead and start reading the few verses that the writers of the Confession have cited here for the first paragraph. It's verses one through four of Romans 13, and Paul says, 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. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 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. 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." Time after time, just in those four verses, we see that it is all about God's authority which has been invested in this, who he calls his servant. So the civil magistrate, the civil rulers, Much as some might like to think of them as being the offspring of Satan and put here by the devil, they are invested with God's authority. God is the one who has given us government. He is the one who has appointed these rulers over us. Again, there are several times in verses one through four where it says, from God, for God, instituted by God, what God has appointed, God's servant. So, we clearly see that it is a derivative authority. And of course, we have other scriptures that teach us that everything in general, or everything as a whole, is created for God. So the government is created for God, just like all of us are created for Him. And it follows from this principle, that all things were created for God, and that the civil magistrates have been given authority from God, that this authority is given for specific reasons, for specific purposes. In other words, God doesn't just simply give the authority to the civil magistrate to be able to use whatever way they want. There are specific things that he has given it for that are in mind here. But before I go on to that, which would be point number two, looking at the limitations of the civil magistrate, I just want to say that, especially in light of everything that's been happening in the last year or so, many of us, especially who are Christians in this nation, myself included, have been a little bit anxious or worried or perhaps fearful concerning our future. Because it does indeed seem like things are kind of taking a downhill turn. Okay, and there is some cause for trepidation, so to speak. And yet, if the authority of the government is derivative, that also provides us with an application to make towards our hearts, which is, what are you trusting in? Who are you trusting in? The same God who gave them their authority can take it away in a moment. Think of King Nebuchadnezzar, one of the most proud and boastful wicked kings. And the last thing we hear of King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter four is him blessing God after he humbled him and took his power away from him and then restored it to him later. And then of course we're reminded by Proverbs 21 one that the king's heart is like a stream in the hands of the Lord. He turns it whichever way he will. Put not your trust in princes, put not your trust in chariots or horses, but in the Lord your God. So we are reminded by the scriptures, in spite of how scary things might look around us, to trust in God. for what is today might not be tomorrow. And then there are some further applications that will be made based on that later. But now let's look at how the authority of the civil magistrate is limited. Again, since it exists for God, since it's given the authority from God, it is also limited by God. And here is where we come across what is called or what has been called the doctrine of the spheres of authority. That is, that God has given different kinds of authority in different spheres. You have the state or the civil government, you have the family, and you have the church. And each one of them are given a particular type of authority for particular reasons, and their authority is limited to their sphere. And as Pastor Sam has mentioned before, each one of these is given a certain tool to accomplish the certain purposes for which they have the authority. So, for the family, what tool are we given to accomplish the purposes of raising up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord? It's the rod, the rod of discipline. That is the tool that we're given. It's not a tool that's given to the church. It's not a tool that's given to the government. It's a tool that's given to us as parents. Likewise, the tool that is given to the church as a whole would be church membership and excommunication. Those are things, those are matters that the government doesn't, have authority over. They don't have authority to tell us who we receive into church membership or who we should kick out. They don't have the authority to say who is part of Christ's church and who is not, okay? And so it's important to note here that this is one area in the 1689 confession that they have actually omitted something that was in the original Westminster confession. As a matter of fact, I think I put that here in my outline. Yeah. So in the original reading of the Westminster Confession, it's not in there anymore because it was revised, I believe, in 1788. But it says, the civil magistrate has authority and it is his duty to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church. that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better affecting whereof, he has power to call synods, to be present at them and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God." I think we can be very thankful that our Baptist forefathers took that out or did not keep that in our confession, and I think that we can be very relieved that this is not what God's Word says. It is not the government's business to get involved with what is truth according to the word of God. Yes, Blake. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Very good point. This is a distinctively Baptist principle and doctrine. So, again, we have a move away from what was included in the Westminster to specifically the wording of the confession says, what is the purpose that the civil magistrates have authority? It says, well, firstly, for his own glory and for the public good, but it says, to this end, he has armed them with the power of the sword for defense and encouragement of them that do good and for the punishment of evildoers. And so what has been given to the civil magistrate according to the confession and I believe according to the word of God says that the civil magistrate is to restrain or punish evil and to promote or reward that which is good. That's the kind of twofold purpose and function of the civil magistrate. That is what has been given to them, and for that reason, they have been given the sword. The sword that has not been given to the family, and a sword that has not been given to the church. It is given to the civil magistrate to punish evil and to reward or promote good. And we see this, of course, reflected in Romans 13, and that is why they have cited that. In verses 3 and 4, specifically of Romans 13, we see that the civil magistrate is God's servant for our good. And actually, I'm getting ahead of myself. That's part of the next point. Any other thoughts or questions or anything before we continue on? So far we've looked at how the authority of the civil magistrate is derivative, coming from God, and we've also seen that it is also limited, necessarily, by God. Yes, Mickey. The First Amendment to the Constitution limits the civil authorities as well, since they shall have no authority over the church. My question would be, in a constitutional republic, you have the civil magistrate. What if he's going against the Constitution? Yeah, that is a good question and a good point in which, again, I'll refer you back to the messages that Pastor Sam preached last year concerning the subject, and you can certainly draw some principles from that. But as a matter of fact, we'll get a little bit more into that area later in our study together. as I say, sometimes in class, at school. That's a question for another time. We'll get to that later. Yes, Tom. things that the independents were working through as well, specifically John Owen, Jeremiah Burroughs, and so on. And they were concerned about some of the things that were going on even in Massachusetts of our Baptist persecutions. So we weren't unique on working on this. It had been a burden of Owen going all the way back to preaching this before the parliament, the role Yeah, so there is actually a resource, and I meant to have a handout to give to you guys, and I apologize that I did not end up getting that done, but there is actually a resource online where it has a comparison of the 1646 Westminster alongside the Savoy and the 1689, so you can actually see them side by side, and you can see where certain things are omitted, where certain things are later revised, things of that nature. Yes, Pastor Sam. because the state churches that existed in Massachusetts and other places in New England, in the colonies, were congregational state churches. These men had emigrated, they were independents or congregationalists, but they still believed in a state church. And so there were still state churches in New England. Their brothers, the congregational independent Puritans in England, moved on. And by the time of the Savoy, we're teaching against state churches. So you had state church congregationalists in America and anti-state church congregationalists in England. It's a very interesting quirk of church history. Yes, Tim? Right. I'll tell you what, that is also another thing that will become a little bit clearer later because they kind of touch a little bit more on specific practical matters in paragraph three. So we'll get a little bit closer to that then. So with that being said, we have looked that there are clearly limitations enforced upon or given to civil magistrate by God. But then the next thing that I wanted to look at is that contrary to what sometimes our experience or our thoughts are, the authority of the civil magistrate is presented here as a good thing. Remember that God would not have given them authority to begin with were it not a good and necessary thing, a thing that God saw to be good and necessary. And we see here that it is, provided in terms of for God's own glory and the public good. And remember back in Genesis chapter nine after the flood, that's where we first see because man is created in the image of God, whosoever sheds man's blood by his own His own blood shall be shed. And so we see already there this reflection of there is an authority that is going to be given to take the lives of those who are unnecessarily taking lives. And so it is a good thing for the protection of life that is made in image of God that government exists. And in fact, one of the primary points and purposes of the authority that they are given. And paragraph, I'll go ahead and read paragraph two related to that. It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate when called thereunto, and the management whereof as they ought especially to maintain justice and peace according to the wholesome laws of each kingdom and commonwealth. So for that end, they may lawfully now, under the New Testament, wage war upon just and necessary occasions." Here, still under the point of the authority of the civil magistrate being good, In the context of the confession being written, there were Anabaptists, at least certain groups of Anabaptists, who were essentially claiming that it would not be lawful, in fact it may be sinful or would be sinful, for a Christian to become a civil magistrate. And so the writers of the confession are here pushing back against that view and rejecting that view. saying that the civil government is actually a good thing and it would be a lawful thing, a good thing for a Christian to be a civil magistrate. We may not spend as much time on this particular paragraph because I doubt that anyone has as much qualms with that nowadays as perhaps there were back then. But again, it's important to note that since the authority of the magistrate is seen as a good thing, seen as a common grace gift for everyone, it is also therefore good for a Christian to hold office. It seems like the main concern of this particular group or groups of Anabaptists is that if a Christian became a civil magistrate, that that would necessarily entail him breaking the Sixth Commandment, you shall not murder. And so they had a hard time reconciling how can you be a civil magistrate who wields the sword without breaking the Sixth Commandment? And of course, again, there are places in scripture that we might appeal to to say that, well, again, God has given the power of the sword to the civil government, and that is a good thing. And so therefore, it is a good thing if a Christian is a civil magistrate to put, for instance, criminals to death for murdering someone else. That is a good thing. And there's a distinction And again, this is why it's so important to keep those categories in our minds as far as the spheres of authorities. It is a good thing for the civil authority to put a murderer to death. It is not a good thing for individual vigilantes to take justice into their own hands and murder someone. Even in the context of the Mosaic law, It was not each and every individual Israelite who was entrusted with the responsibility to take justice into their hands and to eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth it. That was given to the judges. That was not given to individuals to take justice into their own hands. And so, I think as I remember Pastor Sam saying before, if I murder someone, that is not just, it makes me a murderer. If the civil magistrate puts someone to death for their crime, that is acceptable, that is within their sphere of authority, that is good, and that is ultimately glorifying God by punishing evil, and thereby also in a sense promoting what is good. With that being said, any, yes, question. or Sam's messages, because I have never heard this subject thoroughly dealt with in the church. It is the Constitution of the United States. The praise in the management were of they ought especially to maintain justice and peace according to the wholesome laws of each kingdom and commonwealth. And as the church continues, I believe, to reform, I think the United States, for the first time in history, the supreme civil authority is the Constitution of the United States. It's a document, not a man. And I've never heard that dealt with. Yeah, yeah. It certainly is a unique, well, yeah, let me not say any more about that right now, but that is what makes this a little bit harder for even myself to properly understand. But yes, you are right, because each civil magistrate in our land, of course, they swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. So yeah, in a sense, they are, in theory, submitting their selves, subjecting themselves to something above themselves, being the Constitution. Now, there was also something else that I wanted to note on this. If a believer, is to assume the office of a civil magistrate, it is said here that he ought to especially be concerned with maintaining peace and justice. And so, should a believer have the opportunity to be a civil magistrate, it is incumbent upon them, especially thinking of their own Christian witness, to be especially concerned with maintaining peace and justice. And so it should be our Christian civil magistrates who are setting an example as far as what does it like to be God's servant for the punishing of evil and the promoting of good. that they are not supposed to use their authority to lord it over people, but rather to think of themselves as servants for the common good and for the glory of God. And so there is a holy fear and humility that I think the confession says here that the believer ought to have in being diligent to maintain justice and peace. They are not to be those who are motivated by personal gain or selfish ambition. These are those who are to see their authority as given to them by God for the common good of others and for God's glory. And so it is a heavy and a good responsibility. And of course, the proof texts that are cited for this are 2 Samuel 23, 3, which says, the God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me, when one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. Then Psalm 82, three through four says, give justice to the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. And then I actually meant to note this earlier. In Luke 3, 14, when the soldiers who are coming under conviction of John the Baptist's message, they ask him, What we, what shall we do? And he said to them, do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages. So he doesn't tell them to not be civil magistrates anymore because now they're converted. He tells them essentially throw off the worldly practices that have been part of your pursuit in the civil magistrate thus far. So throw off these unlawful practices and instead be concerned with what is lawful. He doesn't tell them to get out of the office. And so it is, I think, important for us to remember that this. Revolution. And so Paul is not as many in our culture have been led to think Paul is not concerned so much with what we might call in-everything obedience. He is concerned more with what we should not do, which is we should not violently resist the authorities that have been placed here by God. But he is also saying at the same time that we should subject ourselves to the authorities, meaning that we put ourselves under the civil authorities with regards to what it is that has been given to them in their sphere of authority. 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. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this, you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what's owed to them. Taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, and then honor to whom honor is owed. And so what is being entailed here again, is that we are putting ourselves, respectfully putting ourselves under the authority of those who have been placed over us. And this should entail that we have more of a free and willing spirit about obedience. In other words, the first instinct in our heart when commanded something by the civil magistrate should not be, make me, or should not be, it should be, we should be much quicker to be willing to obey, to willing to obey, rather. And yet, at the same time, we recognize that there are some things that we, there are some cases if the civil magistrate is exceeding its bounds of authority, that if it is claiming authority that has not been given to it by God, There are certain cases in which we may exercise, as Pastor Sam has called it before, a holy pragmatism. In other words, we may obey, or we may not obey, depending on the certain circumstances. There are so many things that could be said there. But yes, this is an area in which we are to be seeking the Lord and asking him for wisdom if there are certain circumstances in which the government is claiming to have authority that has not been given to it by God. And so, So if, just to use the more obvious examples, if the state tries to exceed its jurisdiction, so to speak, by telling us we may not invite certain people into church membership, well, that is not something that we are obligated to obey, because that is not their authority. That is not something that has been given to them to decide. Likewise, they might not tell us that because they don't like what so-and-so posts on his or her Facebook that we have to excommunicate them. That is not something that has been given to the civil magistrate to decide. The church has been given the authority to do that. Let me go ahead and open this up to any of the, well, yes, Blake, what were you gonna say? Sorry, were you gonna open it up to the pastors? give any clarification if I have presented something not helpfully or not clearly. You've been doing a great job, Paul. You haven't stepped into anything that I've seen. OK. Well, with that being said, I don't want to miss I believe is a much-needed application, and we'll see if there's any time left after that, I'm not sure. But I think our temptation is sometimes to not pay attention to what appears at the very end of paragraph three here, which is that we owe prayer to God on behalf of our civil magistrates. In 1 Timothy 2, verses one through two, he says, first of all then, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. So, there are a few ways that, we're told why this matters, but there are a few certain ways that we ought to be praying for our civil magistrates. Number one, we ought to be praying if they are not converted, that the Lord would save them. And again, I'm needing to repent of this, so note this, I'm stepping on my own toes as well. How often do we curse God's anointed instead of praying for them? How often do we curse with our mouths the authorities that have been placed here by God versus how much time do we actually spend bathing them in prayer? That's an area that we need, we ought to know their names, and again, I'm trying to put that into practice, but we ought to know the names of our civil magistrates, not just the big ones over all of the land, but even just specifically in our own towns and our own cities. We ought to know what their names are so that we can be praying for them. praying that they would come to saving knowledge if they don't know the Lord, praying also that God would prosper their rules, that he would bless their ruling and governing, such that, as it seems to imply in 1 Timothy 2, that we would be free, that we would be protected, and that we would be able to lead a peaceful and quiet life, that we would have the freedom to offer to God all the worship that he requires of us legally. So we should pray for that salvation, pray that God would prosper their rules so that they would be able to protect us. And then I think there may even be another implication here. This is not, obviously, dogma, and we don't want to speak from experience, but have you ever noticed that it is hard to stay very angry with individuals whom you are consistently praying for. Maybe not in all circumstances, but I think that there is a perhaps a sanctifying implication of the prayer that we ought to be offering to God on behalf of our civil magistrates. Perhaps that by continuing to pray to God on their behalf. Perhaps the Lord is using that to progressively weed out the Adamic resistance to authority that still dwells in us. Maybe through that prayer that we are offering on their behalf, the Lord is giving us more grace and continuing to sanctify us in that. in that regard. And so, with that being said, let me conclude this real quick and then open it up for any last-minute questions. Overall, we have seen that God has given the civil magistrates their authority to punish evil and to promote good. It's a derivative authority and it is limited We saw that it's not a sinful thing for a believer to be a civil magistrate, and that if a believer is a civil magistrate, he is obligated all the more to rule excellently with regards to maintaining peace and justice. And then we saw that God is the one who has placed authorities, civil authorities, over us, and so since he has done so, we owe them the honor of subjecting current illustration. No one hopes more fervently or prays more fervently for the constitutional overthrow of the present regime. At the same time, the euphemisms for violence against our president and have been recited in churches is so hard for us is that we're American Christians, as you said. And temporally, that means we're Americans first, most of us, right? And then we become Christians later. And even then, most of us weren't discipled when we were young. And so we don't always see the way that we should interact with our government. Pastor Sam has a book coming out soon that's a publication of his master's thesis where he looks at John Calvin's views on this and argues that the later reformers misunderstood Calvin, and that Calvin following Paul in Romans 13 severely limits where a righteous overthrow might happen. And so, you know, all this defy tyrants and stuff, you know, we need to be careful with that. Because it's inept at best and wicked at worst, as our government is, Joe Biden is not Nero, and thank God. Because if the ancient Christians had to submit to Nero where they were supposed to, we need to submit to Biden. And I understand the constitutional question, but as I think it through, we the people, our forefathers and us today, have invested authority in the Constitution as our governing document over everything. And that's a great form of government in a lot of ways when it's followed. But then that begs the question, Does that mean that God has changed his pattern and invested the authority in the Constitution rather than in a person? And I don't see where that's the case. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Yeah, that's one very area that I've been continuing to wrestle through right now. Great God, we come to you and we confess still ignorance on some things. Lord, we require more wisdom, we require more grace, more understanding, more humility. There are questions that we have that are not yet answered. us and even regards even with regards to us as American Christians with the question of the Constitution give us wisdom as to how we are to understand our subjection we need you and Lord we do as unlikely as this seems to us, it is not impossible for you to stir revival as you have before. And so we pray, oh God, pour out your spirit on this nation, bring widespread repentance amongst especially our civil authorities. We know that you are able and we repent, Lord, for our attitude sometimes of not praying about these things and for not So Lord, continue to lead us and guide us in this area. Again, if there's anything unwise I've said of God, may it fall to the floor and may your word alone stand. And may you prepare our hearts now as we prepare to worship you in service