Well, it's awesome to be here and be able to open up the Word of God and just be here in this place. I'm one of four pastors, Pastor Wade, pastor here at Apology of Utah, Pastor Jeff, Pastor Luke and myself, and Pastor James is a pastor in Apology of Mesa. They send their greetings and just we're here because we love you. And so you'll see a lot more of us, maybe three or four months will go by and you'll see another elder come in just to lend our support. I don't know if you've ever planted a church before, but I have, and it's super tough. It's like one of the hardest things you can do in life is plant a church, and you really don't know, understand too well until you planted a church. And so what we wanna do as we come out as elders in our visits with our families is pour into the church, of course, come alongside Pastor Wade, give him a little bit of a break, because when you plant a church, you wear a bunch of hats, because there's so much you have to do from the start. And we're so pleased, though, we wanna extend are welcome and our love towards the church and just tell you how pleased we are with Pastor Wade and how he's caring for the church as well as the deacons and all of you because it's not just the leaders who are making this happen, it takes a village, it takes a community of people. to Planet Church, and so we're, it's just awesome to see the ministry that's coming out of Apology of Utah. I was talking to Pastor Wade a couple days ago, and a healthy church is a balanced church. And that's when we give, as best as we can, we give equal attention and effort to the inward work of caring for the people, because that's what shepherds do, you gotta care for the sheep, and then the outward commission to be salt and light to the culture. And so I think in any church, we kind of teeter on that. Sometimes we put a little bit more into the inward or we're putting even a little bit more into the external focus of evangelizing and going about fulfilling the Great Commission. But it's just awesome to see all that God is achieving in this church and the balance and the maturity that it has from such a young church being only a year old. So yeah, we're excited. It's just it's just amazing to see what God will continue to do Well, I got a lot to say I probably over prepared in this and I want to keep you here all night But i'm going to pray and i'm just going to get get right into it father. I thank you again for this opportunity to Open your word, which is a sacred and serious thing And so I pray lord All the words that I have to contribute to this would fall to the ground in the minds and the hearts of your people It would be your word taught that would Encourage them, challenge them, build them up in their faith. Of course, sanctify them, placing hope in them. I pray, oh God, that you would use this to stir up in our hearts those things that we should be attending to as your men, as your women. Lord, we want the word always to confront us in our apathy and our indifference because we're so prone to that. We want the word to really shape us to be effectual agents, you're effectual people. On this planet while you've given us time. So we thank you for this time. It's in the the name of jesus We pray amen. Has anybody heard the doctrine of the lesser magistrates if you have raise your hand, of course, zach We know that you have Anybody else a little bit? Hey, you may not have and so i'm going to do my uh my job up here and presenting more of an introduction. There's a lot to it, but it's very easy to understand. It's very easy to apply. But again, there's a lot to this doctrine, so it'll be maybe a surface-level approach. We'll look at it from 30,000 feet rather than just in detail. I'm speaking about it because it's kind of where I am. I'm the pastor of local outreach at Apologia in Mesa, Arizona. And really my heart at this point, and of course heading into 2023, is to do my best to work to save the pre-born. and to fight against the tyranny that's suffocating us all. And the doctrine of the lesser magistrate is a tool to do that, to save babies and to resist the tyrants that really have been unleashed upon our land. The application of the doctrine of lesser magistrates Really, as we would employ it, it's the hope. It really presents hope for a brighter future for our kids and our grandkids. Why do I say that? Well, in Proverbs 29 too, it says, when the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan. And we're kind of been subjugated under some pretty horrible leadership in our nation. at every level of government. And there's a groaning there, right? As the government plunders us and lies and steals and cheats, there is a deep groaning within the nation. But Proverbs 14, 34 says, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. So the application of this doctrine, what it really does, if we can get ahold of this, It furthers righteousness in the nation that's going to bring about the future that we want for ourselves and for our kids. We can complain really well as Christians and as humans in general, but is there solutions in the Word of God that we can focus on rather than being complaint-minded How about we be solution-minded, looking into the Word of God, seeing what it says. And the Bible says, give honor where honor is due. And I am really indebted to a pastor. He's a pastor of Mercy Seek Christian Church over in Milwaukee. His name is Pastor Matt Truella. He kind of brought this doctrine out of obscurity into a place of prominence, kind of dusting the cobwebs off this doctrine. He wrote a book called The Doctrine of Lesser Magistrates. It came out in 2013. It's sold over a hundred thousand copies of course He didn't systematize this doctrine was systematized in Magdeburg Germany in the 16th century That's they systematized it and what's known as a Magdeburg confession. I'll let you look into that. There's a lot. I'll talk a little bit about more about that. But before getting into this doctrine, you kind of have to ask yourself, why? Why should we be learning and applying it? So on Wednesday night, I spoke at the Bible study, and I spoke about why abortion should matter to the church. And it was kind of a response for a lot of people who send us messages, because sometimes people think of Apology as being the abortion church. So many people say, I'm not going to go to your church because you're the abortion church. And you can. You can have hobby horses as churches, right? We just kind of grind the same axe over and over. And that's not a good thing, because balance is key. And the scriptures call us to preach the whole counsel of God. So I kind of went into the reasons why abortion is a pretty big deal when it comes to what we're dealing with and why it should matter to the church. And I left off on the fifth reason. The fifth reason is because the shedding of innocent blood, it brings about the righteous judgment of God upon a nation. That's why it should matter to us, because when these little baby boys and little baby girls, when we shed their innocent blood, not only babies, of course, anybody who's innocent and has their blood shed, it brings about God's righteous judgment. And believe it or not, according to God's word, we're in the midst as a nation. It's getting a little bit, not a Christmas sermon for you today. a little heavier, but we're in the midst of being dispossessed, not unlike many nations that have come before us and have acted the way that we have acted, done the things that we have done through policies, laws, court opinions. We are a nation experiencing God carrying out his judgment upon us. We could wish it wasn't that way or maybe disagree with that, but if we do, we're kind of living in La La Fantasyland. We absolutely are. As we look at our situation, according to God's Word and what history has already shown us. When you think of God's judgment, we think of like a nuclear bomb or something going off or just a big old, you know, big old meteor plopping itself down upon us. According to scripture we have we've gone through and we are presently going through God specified process of national judgment approved This is really in Romans chapter 1 pastor MacArthur does a really good job of this kind of outlining God's system of judgment but starting in Romans 118 it says for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and righteousness of men who by their righteousness suppressed the truth and So why does God judge a nation according to that verse? Well, number one, they do not acknowledge Him. That's when we get in a really bad way. They do not honor Him. They show no due honor to the God who created us. And three, because of rampant unrighteousness and godliness that occurs when we suppress the truth. When we suppress the truth, and we're all cool with that, and it's culturally acceptable, then ungodliness flows out of that, and then you're kind of on a deep dive as a nation. So examples of suppressing the truth, that's not a baby, it's just a clump of cells. See the suppression of truth there, it's a dehumanization of what we know to be true. The baby's a baby. Abortion is a reproductive right. If two people consent and love one another and are not hurting anybody else, then leave them alone and just mind your own business. Homosexuals are just born that way. Leave them alone and let them do as they wish. You see these examples of how we suppress the truth. And the suppression of truth leads to the ungodliness, which leads to the judgment. It's so important. The suppression of truth leads to ungodliness, which leads to the judgment. We saw this, I believe, in the Civil War 150 years ago during the slave trade, what they say about blacks. Well, they're less than human. They don't possess the ability to feel any pain. So see the suppression of truth there. And then what happened from that, of course, the Blacks were... horribly murdered, tortured, oppressed, based upon a holding down of what God defines as truth. And this is what Abraham Lincoln believed when it came to why the Civil War occurred. He quoted Psalm 99 during his second inaugural address about the Civil War. He said this, he said, fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God will that it continue until every drop of blood drawn with a lash shall be paid by another drawn with a sword. As it was said 3,000 years ago, so still must it be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. He saw the civil war as a judgment from God for the shedding of all of that innocent blood as, of course, our black brothers and sisters were so horribly oppressed. So continue on in Romans chapter one. It explains how a nation brings a judgment of God upon itself as it does these type of things and just commits these type of treasons, transgressions against God. Romans 1 19 says, for what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For all they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." And then such an important word as you go about studying the scriptures, I know you know this, therefore, therefore. God gave them up to the less of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. So we see step one is a sexual revolution. So as you suppress truth and then you dig into a sin and you dive deep into sin, you'll see a sexual revolution. That started for us in the 60s. So the sexual revolution in the 1960s grew from a conviction that the erotic should be celebrated as a normal part of life and not repressed by family, industrialized sexual morality. religion and the state. The development of the birth control pill in 1960 gave women access to easy and reliable contraception. That's the first step in judgment. So if you track The downfall of nations and empires, the descent into destruction begins with fornication. So it's sexual immorality. It becomes acceptable and supported. We no longer want what God's word has to say. We want to have sex with whoever we want, whenever we want. That's just how depraved we truly are. Then it leads to people stop, they stop having children. Abortion, birth control, of course. And then there's the culturally acceptable redefining of God's design for the family. When you redefine the biblical definition of the family unit, and this is not something we Christians just like to grind, right, for the sake of bringing up all the time, but when you redefine the biblical definition of the family unit, you are on a sure path to destruction as a nation. The enemy came in in the garden, and the first thing that he did was try to destroy the family unit. It goes on to say, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another. men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their errors. So the second step in this process is the first step, sexual revolution. The second step, a homosexual revolution, which for us started in the 80s and continues until now. Verse 28, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, they gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. So there's the third step. It's giving over to a debased mind. Sexual revolution, homosexual revolution, and then flows in these mentalities of depravity or depraved mentalities. It's giving the nation over to these type of things. So some examples are murdering babies is a good thing and will benefit your life. Of course, again, it's an attack on the family institution. Women actually go into these clinics thinking that paying someone to murder their child is gonna be advantageous for them in the future, that's the biggest deception. The homosexual lifestyle is good, it's wholesome, it should be embraced, championed, promoted, and now we're to a place where it's forced upon us for us to comply or be canceled, right? communism, socialism is good for a nation. It embodies how the federal government should run things, even though when you put it into play, you end up mass murdering your populace. They don't seem to overlook that. It was so sad because we go out to an event once a month. It's called First Fridays in Phoenix. where we preach the gospel, and there was young men with a table trying to espouse or promote the good things about communism. How wicked is that? Just spitting on the graves of our soldiers who bled and died to liberate countries from that demonic ideology. The state is God. This is another depraved mentality. The state is God. Whatever the federal government mandates, we should obey. I spend a lot of time out in front of abortion clinics thinking a lot for hours. How in the world is this happening? Have you ever thought that to yourself? How could they actually be killing babies? It's a dream. It's weird. Something that shouldn't happen and I know it's it's something only the church can kind of grasp because in our salvation God He gives a spiritual sight because sin blinds us to that But the reason why it's so accepted, it's because it's a problem in the thinker. It's a problem up here in the brain. It has to do with a mentality. Then after God, you go through the system, sexual revolution, homosexual revolution, given over to the brave mentalities, Then God abandons a nation, and then that nation goes bye-bye. And that's what you've seen all throughout history. One of Jesus' missions on earth was to exact really the wrath of abandonment upon the house of Israel. That's what Jesus says here in Matthew 15, 12 through 14. He says, and he called the people to him and said to him, hear and understand, it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? He answered, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a pit. And I don't know if you pick it up there in relation, of course, in context of Matthew, but when Jesus says, let them alone, those are some incredibly scary words for anybody to hear. What is it? I'm done with you. I'm done with you. Now in comes judgment. And then what had happened, of course, in 70 AD, Titus rolls into Jerusalem, burns the temple, burns all sorts of, you know, he pretty much destroys Jerusalem. And Josephus says over one million people die in that siege. So it's a horrible thing when God's righteous hand of judgment rolls across a nation. It is a absolutely horrendous thing. Our nation is in a very bad way at the moment. Examples of this is God's law says you shall not murder, but what does our government say? It's okay to murder your babies. And I don't know if you've known this, but murder in the last couple of years has increased 20 to 30% in the nation. God's law says marriage should be between one man and one woman, what the government says now. Same-sex marriage should be legalized and no longer penalized under the law. God's law commands us not to steal, and our federal government plunders us. under the weight of insane tax burdens. So it's as if our government is looking at the law of God and codifying that which is antithetical to it. And this is important. Our nation is in such a bad state because the government furthers what God's law forbids. That's why we're here. It furthers or supports that which God's law forbids. Have you ever had a talk with an atheist, an evangelistic conversation? and they went on and on about the reasons why they don't believe in God. And I let them go for a while, and what I ask them pretty quickly is, how's that going for you living this type of life, right? Jesus even said this, wisdom will be vindicated by their children. You see, we can say God doesn't exist, we can choose not to acknowledge Him, we can We can live that type of philosophical life, but it brings about God's wrath regardless of our beliefs or not. God is faithful to his promises. He's faithful to carry out his promises to bless, and he's faithful to carry out his promises to us to judge. And one of the judgments is being under a tyrannical government. Psalm 106.35-41 says, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons. They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they became unclean by their acts and played the whore in their deeds. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people and he abhorred his heritage, verse 41, and he gave them into the hand of the nations so that those who hated them ruled over them. And why was that? It was because they were shedding innocent blood. It's been going on for, of course, thousands of years. So what do we do in light of the tyrants now tyrannizing and oppressing us? Because they are. It's here. Well, I think, number one, we can wish it wasn't happening and kind of go about our lives focused on our family, working, storing up stuff and wealth. I'm not hating on all that. Of course, God's given us the power to create wealth. We have to do that. We have to provide for our families. But sometimes people hear this and they just say, you know what, that's super negative. Let's just eat, drink, and be merry and just kind of move forward. And I think most people fit within that category. That is known as, somebody said, the mushy middle, and that's the majority of the populace will not resist oppressive tyrants. They just won't do it. They will exclusively focus on their own lives and really have no concern with their neighbor or their future, even though they say they may. They just won't be involved whatsoever. It's only me, myself, and I, maybe us four, no more, my family, and that's it. When our nation was fighting, of course, for their independence, only 10 to 15% of the nation agreed that resistance and war was necessary. Only 10 to 15% of the nation. But it gives us hope because even as you see historical examples like the war for independence and Gideon's army, God uses the faithful few to accomplish incredible things. Number two, we can deny that it's happening. That's like the same thing as a guy's, you go knock on a guy's door, you say, you know what, your house is on fire. He's like, nah, we're good. We're good. No, your table's on fire in there right behind you. I'm good. That's it. Everything's just fine. Or we can just obey the tyrants, what they want and hope that everything will just kind of go back to normal. It's like, just obey him. You know, don't stir things up. They're not asking for too much. Just fall in line, and hopefully things will be better. But that's not gone too well, if you look at things historically for nations that tend to do that. You give your bully the lunch money that he wants from you, he's just gonna ask for it tomorrow, and he's gonna ask for more, right? First, the Jews, they couldn't sit on park benches. That's what they told them, you can't sit on the park bench. And then they couldn't go to the movies. They couldn't go to the movies. And they said, well, it's just a movie. It's just a park bench. And then they were loaded onto boxcars and sent to concentration camps. So we have to understand, tyranny in any nation, it's built brick by brick. It's built level by level. They weren't immediately loading the Jews up into boxcars, sending them off to concentration camps. It starts little by little. And when we give in, that's when they gain ground. It was the mass, right? I had to wear a mask. Two years later, man, they made us dress up like clowns. and how expensive that was. And now we have to go and we have to dress up in full donkey costumes. You see what I mean? If we give in, it just shows, again, our foolishness, giving in to tyrants that rule over us. You cannot appease a tyrant. You have to defeat them. Bullies must be confronted in their tyranny, not acquiesced to or submitted to out of fear or self-preservation. If we don't confront bullies, you don't confront tyrants, what do they do? They just continue to victimize you and everybody around you, your future posterity, your kids and your neighbors. Now is the time, of course, we got to stand against tyrants. So, as God's people, what should we do? What should our response be to tyranny? And I think firstly, the gospel really is God's saving mechanism. Romans 1.16 says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jews first and also to the Greeks. So when we're talking about the saving of a nation, like turning this ship around and really being effective as God's people, the gospel comes first above all things. Because the gospel is what saves, saves hearts, changes hearts and minds. The gospel is the sword we wield in this battle and it must be communicated on a greater scale to see its redemptive work accomplished on a greater scale. So if we as God's people, we have to prioritize, that has to be our central priority is to be about disseminating the gospel as Jesus called us and told us to do. That is priority number one. That's what is going to change things. But armed with the gospel and kind of getting in again now into this introduction of this Armed with the gospel which includes the law of God. We also apply the doctrine of the lesser magistrate So what is the doctrine of lesser magistrate? The lesser magistrate doctrine declares that when the superior or higher civil authority makes unjust or moral laws or decrees the lesser or lower ranking civil authority has both a right and a duty to refuse obedience to the superior authority. If necessary, the lesser authorities even have the right and obligation to actively resist that superior authority. For example, if Congress, the President, or the U.S. Supreme Court, higher or superior magistrates, makes unjust or immoral laws or decrees, A state legislator or governor should stand in defiance of their unjust law or decree and refuse to obey or implement it." So it's really, it's a doctrine of defiance is what I'm talking about. The lesser magistrate simply defies any law, policy, or court opinion that is unjust, immoral, that if implemented would do harm to those he serves within his jurisdiction of authority. So it's not hard, right? It's saying, hey, look, you're sending these laws down the pipeline. You better believe we are not going to obey them in our state. Because if we do it will just further your tyrannical hold on the government and our neighbors will suffer for it So the lesser magistrate doctrine it works in conjunction with the doctrine of interposition Interposition is happens when a person places themselves in between an oppressor and their intended victim the interposer loves their neighbors more than themselves, right and So it's somebody like, you know, I'll go into the example, but of course, the government sends down some type of law, and one of the lesser civil magistrates rise up and says, we are not, we're not going to obey them. And I'm going to sacrificially place myself between this oppressive, tyrannical government and those they wish to harm. Wiki gets it right when it talks about the theory of interposition. It says, a state assumes the right to interpose itself between the federal government and the people of the state by taking action to prevent the federal government from enforcing laws that the state considers unconstitutional. Not only unconstitutional, but any law that would defy the higher law, which of course for 1,500 years in Western thought was God's law. It's not too hard to understand. So hopefully, in this introduction, I'm really gonna be as clear as I can and just define a couple terms as we look into this. A magistrate, this is not a word a lot of us use, but a magistrate's a civil officer charged with the administration of the law, very simple. So it's a governor, state legislator, major, or sorry, mayors down to policemen, right? So the magistrate is determined to be lesser or greater according to the jurisdiction of authority that they possess. So a policeman is a lesser magistrate when it comes to a mayor, just based upon his jurisdiction. that he has authority over. A governor is a lesser magistrate when it comes to a supreme court justice. But every magistrate has delegated authority which has functions and limits, and limits of course to their authority and their power. So magistrates are civil delegated officials They shouldn't exercise authority outside of their jurisdictional limits, and they shouldn't shrink back from exercising their lawful authority to hold back the higher magistrate when they want to transcend the limits of their authority. Our founding fathers established a system of government due to their experience of suffering under an oppressive government that was based on centralized power, right? So the more centralized power is in a government without the ability to hold the government accountable, the more tyranny and oppression will gain a foothold. The founders had a good understanding of this based upon their contextual environment, right? The suffering that they had incurred. But then they understood the sinfulness of man as well. They had a really good anthropology, biblical anthropology, that we in our sin are so radically corrupted that we would rather rule over our neighbors than serve them. So our government structure was based on branches of government. We know this judicial, executive, legislative, each with jurisdictional authority and checks and balances. So one particular branch of our government wouldn't tyrannically rule over the other branches, but that's not what we're seeing now, right? We're seeing an executive branch that just wants to play the emperor, right? When the other branches should do their duty and put him and them in check. So resistance to tyranny And a lot of people kind of cringe at this, and I'm gonna get into the objection, kind of one of the main objections to the doctrine. They say, what are you talking about, not obeying the law? You're talking about resisting authority. Aren't we supposed to be submissive? I can understand those thoughts go through people's minds as they listen to this. But resistance to tyranny and lawfully preventing tyranny from happening, it's the very foundation of our government. So when people say, you know what, and that's what they say, SCOTUS is ruled, so what we must do is obey, it's a complete ignorance of their role. So for a silver magistrate, we've done it a lot. We've gone to the magistrates for years saying, you know what, you gotta do your duty when it comes to the pre-born. We've got to enact laws. And they say, well, SCOTUS is ruled. All we got to do is obey. It's such a blatant ignorance of their duties and their function is absolutely as un-American as you could possibly get. What should have happened in January 22, just as an example. So the Supreme Court, January 22nd, 1973, offered their opinion. Of course, it's not a law about Roe versus Wade, in which the court ruled the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have the abortion. If the doctrine really was applied, Every governor of every state should have just said, we don't know what concoction you guys are smoking in Capitol Hill, but there's no possible way that we will ever allow any of our babies and baby boys and baby girls to be killed. You can send that ruling and that opinion, which it was, send it right back to hell from where it came. That's what the governors should have done if they were being the lesser magistrates that God has commanded them to be. When I can enforce your opinion, babies will not be murdered in our state, abortion will remain illegal in our state, and we will enforce our laws on it. It's really that simple. So, first question, is this biblical? And that's the most important question. A lot of guys go into the historical kind of examples, but is this what the Bible shows us and teaches us? And I think it does. In Exodus chapter 1, 15 through 17, it gives the example of the Hebrew midwives. It says, then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shipprah and the other, Puah, When you serve as a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live. But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live." So here we have these righteous Hebrew midwives directly defying a wicked Order from a wicked king. Can you imagine the state of a nation to where the king said kill all the baby boys? Two and under that's absolutely wicked and insane. They said of course these hebrew midwives said we ain't we ain't doing that That's the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. It's righteous defiance to wickedness handed down by the government but you know my question and when i've studied this and I continue to study this is Is the guys like how in the world? Could a soldier pick up a little baby? And kill that baby. That's really we don't we tend to focus on the hebrew midwives and their courage But I think we should always we should we should as well look at the soldiers in their in their cowardice Like how wicked how could you do that as a human being? Oh, you want me to kill a little kid? Okay, i'll pick them up and and be done with them. But I think it's critical in our understanding what's going on in our nation and what our magistrates really need to do. When the men in a nation, when the men of a nation cowardly obey their higher authorities, even in the face of absolutely tyrannical rulings, and we're seeing that now, that's when tyranny really begins to reign and really begins to just, you know, get into another gear. That's when the innocents become horribly oppressed is when the men of the nation just say, oh, what? That's what the government says, that's what the president says, that's what whomever says. I'm just gonna do it blithely in an absolute obedience. Tyranny thrives when men cower and blindly obey their wicked rulers. You know, if you think about it, since Roe v. Wade, January 22nd, there has not been one mayor, there has not been one governor, There's not been one state legislator that said, you know what? We shouldn't be doing this. It's not going to happen. Not one governor since that. And it's been, I don't know, 50, close to 50 years now, 50 years next year, right? Yeah. 50th anniversary of slaughtering kids in this nation and not one. The only Lester magistrate that's done it was a guy named Shet Gallagher. And he was a policeman. It was in 1989. And I don't know if you guys, can remember that, but there was a huge movement called Operation Rescue, and it was Christians going to abortion clinics and peaceably putting their bodies, really demonstrating or exercising interposition where they would put their bodies, they would kind of sit in front of abortion doors. Of course, we don't do that anymore, and we don't think it's The way forward with keeping um, you know the soldiers in the battle. I won't get into that But what chet gallagher he was called to arrest these christians who were trying to stop the babies from dying And he sat down with the christians. He lost his job You're in a bad place in a nation when the government is penalizing those who would rescue the citizens and absolutely champion those who are killing them. So that's one example, Hebrew midwives. Then you have Saul's example here in 1 Samuel 14, 24, it says, and the men of Israel had been hard pressed that day. So Saul had laid an oath on the people saying, Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening, and I am avenged on my enemies. So none of the people had tasted food. Of course, they're in the midst of war. Saul's saying, hey, don't eat any type of food. If you do, you're gonna die. Jonathan, his own son, he doesn't receive his father's absolutely idiotic vow there. He goes and eats some honey. It, of course, energizes him, and he leads a great victory against the Philistines. So Saul hears the news about Jonathan eating the honey, That he had commanded the guys not to do and 1st Samuel 14 44 through 45 and Saul says this God do so to me and more also you shall surely die Jonathan so he wants to kill his own son Just because he obeyed a direct order even though in that disobedience eating the honey it led to the salvation of Israel This is important. There's 45 when the people said to Saul said to Saul, shall Jonathan die? Who has worked this great salvation in Israel? Far from it. As the Lord lives, there shall not one hair of his head fall to the ground, for he has worked with God this day. So the people ransomed Jonathan so that he did not die. And of course, that was a very, very risky thing to do. But they were like, hey, man, not one hair of his head is going to be touched. Don't you do it. They rose up in defiance of the king. And in so doing, they saved him. And that's what courageous men do, right? That's what they do. We can have a very, as men, a self-preserving focus about our lives. I'm just going to do anything and everything to preserve me and myself. It's all about safety or we could say, you know what the right thing to do Especially in where our nation is right now. The right thing to do is to defy And say no. No, we're not doing that. Let the chips fall where they may this is wrong There's there's tons more examples in the in the New Testament and the Old Testament John Knox wrote about the doctrine of the lesser magistrates, his appellation of the Scottish nobles in 1558, and he cited 70 passages of scripture. Of course, we're not gonna get into all of those, but I just wanted to show you not only biblical examples of this doctrine being put in motion, but also historical examples. So in 39 AD, there's a guy named Publius, hopefully I'm pronouncing his name right, Petronius, and he was the Roman governor of Syria and Palestine. And he received an order from Caligula, and he was the emperor of Rome at the time. And Caligula, along with many Roman emperors, was just another wicked sicko, and he was convinced that he was God. And so what he had ordered Publius to do is to erect a statue or an image of himself in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. And so initially, Publius is like, okay, no problem. And so he had that image built in Sidon, and then he prepared his troops to go in and put it into place, but he had wintered in a city I'm not gonna even try to pronounce here. So, of course, erecting a statue in the temple, it would just be an absolute severe blasphemy and affront towards the Jews. And so what did the Jews do? They sent numerous delegations to the governor during this time to protest the emperor's law. They were saying, you don't don't do this. This is an absolutely wicked thing. And they didn't just send them one little message and be done with it. it was delegation after delegation where it was thousands of people coming before this governor. And initially again he was going to do it but because he was so deeply moved by the Jews he decided not to do it. But the Jews were like laying themselves down before Publius and just saying, hey just kill us now. kill us, this is so important to us, you not putting a statue of the emperor inside of the temple, that you just go ahead and kill us now. So he was moved by their reason, he was moved by, of course, their resistance and their defiance and their pressure that was put upon him. And so, Petronius, he writes to Caligula, and he says, I'm not going to do it, not gonna do it. And that, of course, was a death sentence. He knew that. So when the lesser magistrate decided to act in their position, when they do this, it's extremely costly for them. I'm going to get into the application of it just really briefly for the sake of time, but we have to understand as we are going to our lesser magistrates and we are educating them in the doctrines and God's law and what God has to say on the matter, we have to understand that it's incredibly costly for them. So Caligula hears about Petronius' defiance, and he writes him a letter. And he says, you know what? Kill yourself. You need to commit suicide. But shortly thereafter, Caligula, along with, I think his wife, was assassinated by his own Praetorian guards. Praetorian guards. But fortunately for Petronius, the ship carrying the letter commanding him to commit suicide arrived after the ship bringing the news that Caligula had been assassinated. Lots, I mean, there are so many. I know Mr. Lautenschlager back there has many more examples. He can come up here and teach us. But of course, in 1215, the lesser magistrates forced the king tyrant John to sign the Magna Carta, which stood in defiance of tyranny oppression. That was the lesser magistrates working. Magdeburg, lesser magistrates in Magdeburg journey in the 16th century stood their ground against Charles V as he sought to re-Romanize the Protestant cities after Martin Luther's impact by way of the Reformation. So in Magdeburg what had happened was of course 1517, Martin Luther taxes 95 theses to the door at Wittenberg and then through that was a reformation and many of the German cities had become, how can you say it, de-Romanized. So Charles V said, no, no, no, no, we're going to re-Romanize them all. Every single one of them complied except for Magdeburg. It's an incredible Incredible story. There's a really good book called the Magdeburg Confession, but they said we're not doing it And so they with they stood against Charles and all the soldiers, I think 430 or so Magdeburg men died and thousands of Charles's men had died, but he had he had Him, you know over so many years of them resisting him he'd given him they did the right thing they stood against it. So I And I'm going to go quickly here just for the sake of time. But the main objection to this, and I know you're probably thinking about it, is Romans 13. doesn't Romans 13 teach total obedience to the government regardless of what they do or what they say? It's our job as Christians just to obey, right? Because what we're saying is that we should be as Christians motivating our magistrates to tell the federal government, no, it's a defiance doctrine. It's a righteous defiance doctrine, we are saying that. And what we need to do as Christians, we need to get into positions of political power so we can be the ones saying no. Right Romans 13 1 through 5 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 Which you have no fear Would you sorry would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? I? 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. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience." So how do we grip onto that? Well, Scripture has to interpret Scripture, right? When we understand any doctrine all throughout the Bible, we have to see what the whole Bible says about any given doctrine. So if total obedience to the state is commanded by God, it would contradict, of course, other portions of Scripture, some of the portions of Scripture I already shared with you, and it'd be just a flat-out wicked command, just to tell us, no, regardless of what the federal government does or says, you guys just obey. Acts 5, 27 through 29 says, And when they had brought them they sent them before the council and the high priest questioned them Saying we strictly charged you not to teach in his name Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us But Peter and the Apostle answered we must obey God rather than men. So is Peter acting in sin by absolutely defying and disobeying what they had told him to do. They said, you better stop preaching in his name. They said, no, no, no, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna be able to obey God rather than men. So what we see here is Romans 13 is obviously prescriptive as it teaches us obedience to the state. What does that mean? If the state is being a terror to the bad and rewarder of the good, then obedience is mandated. So if the state is operating in such a way in subjection to God's law and word, they're being a terror to the bad, and a rewarder of the good, then of course we do it. But if the state is being a terror to the good and a rewarder of the bad, then disobedience is absolutely needed. So you look at Romans 13 and just think of the word prescriptive. This is prescriptive. We are to obey if the federal government operates in this way. This makes total sense when we think about the other forms of government. How many forms of government do we find in God's word? Four forms of government. There's self-government, family government, civil government, church government. So here's a good example. So say Pastor Wade and I are back in the room, we're counting the offering after or during the service. And Deacon Wade, he walks by and he looks through the door and he sees me and I take just a big old bundle of cash and I stick it right in my pocket. And then I noticed that Wade is like looking at me and I say, hey, come on in here. I say, hey, don't you tell anybody what I just did. So here I am. An elder is a higher authority and a higher office in the church, right? Shouldn't Wade just obey me? Hopefully no, hopefully we're saying no here. No, he should say, just sound the alarm. He should walk into church and say, I just saw Zach stuff some money into his pants. He should be removed from authority. You see how it makes total sense when we apply it to the other governmental systems that we see in God's word. What about family government? What if I, as a father, ordered one of my kids to be prostitutes, to raise money because inflation is getting so high? I'm the higher authority. I'm the dad, they are the lesser, right? Shouldn't they obey? Of course not, that'd be absolutely wicked. So Romans 13, it does not contradict the doctrine of the lesser magistrate. So how do we implement this doctrine? This doctrine that's so absolutely needed in this day, this practice and this teaching that we see not only in the scriptures, but in the history of our nation. We would not be here as a nation if men did not defy the government, right? We would not be here. What do we do? We talk to our district representatives. We talk to our state legislators, our mayors. It's something that we have to just put the pedal to the metal to. It's something that we have to do much more than we have done before because of where our nation is going. It's educating them in this doctrine, the law of God coming in. and loving them and being respectful to them and honoring them, but also saying, hey, man, this is what God's word says about your position, your role, your limits, your functions, but this is also what the constitution says about your position. If we would do this, it would work. Again, it's not as hard as you think it is. It's just standing before them and saying, this is what the word says, and this is what you were to do. if we were to have this type of nation that we all want for our kids, and we're holding back also the righteous hand of God's judgment here, but it works. So last year in May, there's a governor, I think he's still the governor of Illinois. His name is J.B. Pritzker. And so this just happened, I think, May of 2021. He declared, very, very smart move here, He declared that no businessman could open their business unless he allowed it to happen. So that was from the top from the governor, you can't open your business, of course, because of COVID. And he said, if you do it, then you're going to be charged with a misdemeanor. So it's not only it was not only a monetary penalty, it was now was a crime to do it. So this little Illinois county declared named Madison, Illinois, and they said, you know what? Our businessmen are free to open up their businesses, and we're going to do everything within our lawful authority and power to defend them. And so what did the Governor Pritzker do in good tyrannical fashion? He said you know what we're just gonna remove all of your federal funding all of all the money It's gone, and that's what really governors and states are more concerned about by and large across the board Is there more worried and concerned about the money's coming into the state other than protecting their own? citizens within that state So Pritzker fires back says you know what I'm taking your money from you and So the Illinois State Police decided to exercise the doctrine of lesser magistrate. They said, you know what? If you do that, we are not going to enforce that law. We will not arrest any businessman or anybody related to any of this if it were to come down the pipe. And so what did Pritzker do? He was backed off. He absolutely backed off of that. And that was just one tiny little county decided to rise up and get the domino effect going, which happens within counties, which happens within the nation. As you see a governor stand up and defy the federal government, which we hope would happen, you see him do that. Courageous men stiffen the spine of other men. Courageous men follow courage. And that's what we'd see. The lesser magistrate in little Madison, Illinois opposed the higher magistrate, and it kept the citizens from being tyrannized and oppressed. So finally, when it all boils down to it, I think we have to answer a couple questions. Are you and I, our magistrates, are we going to be self-serving? Are we going to be cowardly men and cowardice? That's it. You call me a coward that gets me that gets me going right and call me any name in the book That's fine. Well, you call a man a coward and I have to now I have to give you my attention Now we do it all the time at the abortion clinic because the Bible says that the coward will have their place in the lake of fire, they're at the head of the list. And the man who would pay somebody to kill his own baby is the embodiment or the definition of a coward, right? We say it all the time, we say, well, we're not attacking you, but you wanna hear coward from me before you hear it on the day of your judgment when God says coward, right? A coward is a guy, he's antithetical to God. what a true man is. It's not just a guy who would shrink back in a crazy situation, but really the coward is absolutely self-serving a man. He's self-preserving. He uses everybody around him for his own benefit, even his wife and his children. He's not sacrificial. It's all about me. That's the coward. It's all I want to do is make sure I'm okay. I'm priority number one. My neighbors, they could pretty much just go to hell. It's all about me. And we have to look at ourselves and say, kind of look at the output of our lives as men. Am I playing the coward, even though I may sit in a seat in church, even though I may tithe or hold to Christian doctrine? Really, what are the fruits of my life? Are they marked by courage or just being the man that God has called me to be? Selfless, self-sacrificial, self-denying. That's what Jesus said. That's kind of Christianity 101, right? You pick up your cross. And he says, do it every day. It's the sacrificial life of Philippians chapter two says, looking to the interests of others before myself. Thinking about the future of not only my children and my grandchildren and their kids, but all of you and your kids. That's a huge thing. And there comes a time in the life of a man, in the mind of a man, when you kind of determine which train tracks you're on. And that happened to me too. And then you determine if those train tracks, is this really the honorable life? It could be a really comfortable life, right? And we can use scripture to justify it all day long, but you have to get real with yourself and say, is the direction of my life, is it really for me? Am I living this sacrificial life? Am I laying down my life for my family and my neighbors? Or is this just all about me? All about the storing up of wealth so I could be comfortable for the rest of my life? We have to ask ourselves that. If we choose that path of self-service and self-preservation and cowardice, disobedience to God's word, then we should know that the tyranny that we see happening in our nation, going unchecked, it will just continue. And tyrants just don't, they don't take their foot off the pedal. They just oppress more and more and more. And of course we know the enemy is behind that all. But if we check out as God's men and don't play our role in this, then we're not loving, we're not loving our neighbors, we're not really loving our family. Or are we gonna be self-sacrificing men who stand against tyrants, who implement the truths that God has given us? One, I tried to share the best that they can in this introduction in God's word. Are we going to resist them? Are we gonna spend time and energy in doing that? If we're lesser magistrates, yes, looking into this deeply, but also going to our state legislators. And I'm saying, this needs to have happened yesterday, right? Today, who are the men that rule over me? Who are these delegated men that I need to know and to love and build relationships with and pour God's law and pour the doctrine of lesser magistrate into their minds and hearts to get them going? It's happening in the nation. It's being pulled out of The dungeon of application, of course, Matt Trewell, as well as many others have done that. Exciting things are happening, but this is the answer to the tearing situation we're in. If we don't do this, it's only gonna get worse. Okay, let me pray and I'm gonna turn it over to Pastor Wade. Father, thank you so much again for It's a privilege to bring your word. And I know it may have not been what many in here thought that they were going to hear today. It's just so important, Lord. And it comes outside. It comes directly, of course, from the inside of your word. And so we want to be men. We want to be men of courage. We want to love not just with words, but with our actions. I love my kids. I love them. I love the people in this room. I love their kids. Lord, I'm so deeply concerned. with the way that things are going, and we cannot just sit on our hands as these things transpire in our nation. It will only get worse, Lord. But You have shown Yourself to be merciful and gracious as You've given us these truths within Your Word to apply, and now is the time to apply it. Give us fortitude. Give us courage. Help us even this week. Determine within our own hearts, like I said, what course are we walking, Lord? Are we serving You? Or are we serving self? Let us serve You, Lord. Let us be the men that You've called us to be in this hour. Let this movement grow with strength all throughout this nation. And let us see righteousness prevail in this nation as You would pour out Your blessing, Lord. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.