in 1 Timothy this morning. We'll also be looking at Romans 9-3 in a wee bit. Here in 1 Timothy, Paul's writing to young Timothy, his disciple. He says in verse 3, honor widows who really are genuinely widows. But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents, for this is good and acceptable before God. And then skipping down to verse eight. But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. Thank you, Father, for your word. Help us to understand it correctly. Help us not to practice eisegesis by reading our own thoughts that are not yours into the text. Help us to practice exegesis, reading out of the text that which is in the text. Help us to take the Holy Scriptures for the context and to understand your Word of Right. Grant the Spirit of wisdom and understanding upon He who speaks forth Thy Word and upon those who hear. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Next week, of course, is July the 4th, and we'll be doing something consistent with that theme, and this week is kind of a tee-up for that. We're talking about this idea of nations and nationalism in general this morning so that we can consider more narrowly next week our own character as a nation, our own independence of what God's thought is about what it is to be established upon righteousness. In this text, in Timothy, St. Paul insists that we have a unique responsibility, first and foremost, to our, what we call today, nuclear families. And beyond that, to what we would call our extended families. This is right in the text where Paul says, if anyone does not provide for their relatives, and especially their own household. So what he's doing there is he's drawing a big circle, and he's saying relatives, and then he's drawing a tighter circle, and he's saying your own immediate household. And in the larger context, we know that this is talking about children and grandchildren providing for particularly widows, but it would not be restricted to just widows, anybody in the family who has need. We are responsible then clearly for those who are nearest to us in the God-ordained concentric circles of responsibility and affection that God has spoken into existence and placed us in. St. Paul starts with the command that children and grandchildren have unique responsibility to their parents above all others. What Paul has to say in verses three and four could legitimately be condensed to say charity begins where? At home. We see that. He puts it upon the children and grandchildren to show piety at home and to repay their parents. And so if there is a need, Paul is explicitly saying those who are in the immediate blood family have a responsibility. He'll go on to suggest and to teach that if there is nobody to provide for them and their family, that who has that responsibility then? The church. And that's why he had a role of widows, who he calls who are genuinely widows. But charity begins at home, just as parents have a unique responsibility for their children when raising them, so children have a unique responsibility to their parents in their dotage. One of the sins of the social security program that we currently have, and there are many, is that it relieves the privilege of children from financially helping their parents in their old age. In this way, in this we begin to see another place where the state has stepped in to seize the unique responsibility of family and church and so diminish the authority and jurisdiction of family and church. We talked about that just a wee bit last week. When the Holy Spirit, what the Holy Spirit has to say here in Timothy, of course, is really working out of the fifth word of the Ten Commandments, which is to honor our fathers and mothers. Further, this reminds us that honor for parents that God requires is an honor that extends beyond our own childhood. In other words, there is a sense sometimes that when we hit 18 or 21, whatever the magic age might be, that somehow the fifth commandment begins to diminish in terms of its applicability. But here we see that the requirement to honor our mothers and fathers extends when we're past whatever that magic age is, and it exists as long as they are alive and we are alive, and I would say even beyond their mortality. We are to honor our mothers and fathers. We are to understand our sires. I'm sorry, we are to honor our sires, even after they're long gone, just by being respectful of the way that we speak to them. I speak of them, rather. This was practiced once upon a time within my own lifetime when it was common, at least once a year, and we did it often, more than that as children, we would travel some distance and we would decorate the graves of our sires. This was a way of doing what? Of honoring them. We would speak well of them. That was a way of honoring them. We would remember them fondly. We would sit around at family reunions and tell stories about great-grandpa or great-grandma and everybody would laugh because they were spoken in honor. And so this idea that honor that God, that the apostle calls for, is something that's laid upon our shoulders for our whole lifetime. And not merely when we hit some kind of magic age and then we can quit thinking about what it means to honor our parents. As I've said before, those who will not honor their parents will find that their children do not honor them. That's the way that those things typically run. After Paul gives the responsibility of children and grandchildren, To provide for their aging parents, he goes on to give the negative side of the matter by expanding the responsibility to beyond parents, including extended family. In verse 8, he says that those who do not provide for their relatives, and especially their own household, are worse than an infidel. They're worse than an infidel because, and I have some quotes later if we get to them, the infidel had in their own context, in their own religions, they had this natural understanding that they were responsible to provide and to help along their parents. Even the infidel understood that. And Paul is saying here, if you can't even do that, you're worse than the pagan who has at least this natural understanding that that's what they're supposed to do. When Paul talks about for his own household, he may also be communicating the idea, and we don't think this way anymore, but in the ancient world, when you had a household, it may have included not only parents, but also who? Grandparents, extended family, but also possibly even servants. There's a responsibility, unique responsibility, that the head of the home, the trustee family, had had to the whole household. And so clearly, Paul is drawing, and again, I say this, concentric circles. The most immediate circle is the circle of our most immediate family. The next circle of responsibility, we might say, is to the extended family, and we're going to look at a couple other circles that are drawn in here to give us an understanding of our primary responsibilities in terms of our filial and familial relationships. Obviously, this is a serious matter, to use this kind of language, to say that you're worse than an infidel. That probably caused a lot of people's eyes to pop. Worse than an infidel? Again, the unique relationship that we have as a family over those outside that circle is articulated here. We learn that to disobey the precepts of the gospel is to deny or renounce the faith of the gospel. You may call yourself Christian, Paul is almost saying, or this is the way I hear it. You may call yourself Christian, but if you can't honor your family in the way that he's talking about here, then you can say you're Christian all you want, but it doesn't have any legs. It doesn't mean much. And so we can see the importance that the scriptures put on this particular idea. We learn that to disobey the precepts of the gospel then is to deny and renounce the faith of the gospel. From whence we infer that the faith of the gospel has the consequence of obedience to its precepts. When one disregards these precepts of the Christian faith, one is worse than an infidel. All this so far is said to communicate the unique relationship we have to our family. We see here that it's true that grace does not destroy nature, but rather grace perfects nature. Saint Paul is calling the Christians to not do less than the pagans did. That phrase, grace restores nature, or perfects nature, does not destroy nature, is just to say that nature, by God's ordained decree, has put us in our family, in our families, and when grace comes, it makes those families even more what they're supposed to be like, even more reflective of the character and nature of God. Too often now it's being articulated in many quarters, we have some quotes coming up, is that grace destroys nature. So that somehow when we become in Christ and we're put in Christ and converted, somehow our normal, natural, familial relations automatically end because I'm a Christian and not a family member. More about that anon. Here are some of what the pagans had to say on this score. Delgacus in Tacitus is quoted as saying, quote, nature dictates that to everyone his own children and relatives should be most dear. That's the pagans. Cicero, another pagan, says every man should take care of his own family. There are several other examples down this line. So we say we're not more holy when we somehow say that since we are Christians, these unique family responsibilities no longer apply to us. Jesus aimed at this when he forbade the invoking of Corban in order to ignore financial responsibilities and obligations to the parents. Do you remember that? He's talking to them, and these Pharisees had responsibilities to their parents in terms of the gift, and instead of giving and providing for their parents, they would say, Corban, which is to say, I'm gonna give it to the temple, or I'm gonna give it to God, and Jesus denounces them for the abandoning of their familial responsibilities. Jesus provides the best example of this. While hanging on the cross, he takes the responsibility so seriously to provide for his own household that one of the last things he did while hanging on a cross was to do what? Provide for his mother. Woman, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother. We Christians above all else, above all then, should have a special regard for our family, both the family that is near to us, what we call the nuclear family today, and the family that is more distant from us. We can say that because Paul himself says that, he says the same idea. And the responsibility, he says, is inclusive of those more distant, but more so towards those most immediate, especially his own parents. So that hits on the first concentric circle, But Paul elsewhere will expand those concentric circles. You understand what I'm getting at by concentric circles? The first circle is those who are most immediate, who we're most responsible to. The second circle are those that are a little less immediate, but we still have a responsibility to, and so on the circles go as you draw them wider and wider. Are you with me on that? Elsewhere, Paul expands this family concentric circles, showing that a special love while beginning with parents and then expanding to relatives also applies to his people, spoken of as a whole, to what we might today call his kinsmen or his nation. Some texts even use the word race in Romans 9.3, where Paul expands the concentric circles and says, I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off for Christ, for the sake of my kinsmen, my race according to the flesh. Here we see Paul going on beyond those first two tight circles to another circle, So he's talking about the responsibility and the relationship and the affection that he has for his people as a whole. That would have been the Israelite people. Love for a nation, and it's really the next concentric circle of God-ordained love. And the most inner circle is the immediate family. The next concentric circle is love of more distant relatives. And the next concentric circle is love for one's own people, one's own nation. And understand when you look at the original definition and meaning of the word nation, it literally means as descended from one ancestor. We've expanded that definition as the years have gone by, but at the heart, that's the original etymological meaning of that word nation. Within these concentric circles, then there's also included the family of God. Scripture teaches do good to all men, but especially to who? The household of faith, Galatians 6.10. Now this does not supersede or replace our responsibility to family, but it's super added so that our responsibilities to be an aid can never be exhausted. And if we're gonna take the same principle that Paul uses for family in terms of concentric circles, then our responsibilities in terms of the family of God lies most next to us in our own immediate congregation, right? That's the principle. That's the principle that Paul is using. And so our responsibilities to the family of God would lie amongst us here, and then would continue to expand outward again. In Romans 9.3, we note that Paul's not merely talking about his immediate family. Paul is speaking about the household of Israel. The love of Paul for his people is something extraordinary when one considers the meat grinder that his own people put Paul through. There was a conspiracy to murder him by his people. He was beaten by his people. There was always the raising of unrest and riots upon his rival in a city by his people. The opposition of Paul by his own people to Paul is the stuff that you and I would walk away from in a skinny minute. And yet here in Romans 9, Paul still proclaims his love for his own kinsmen according to the flesh. so that there's something that is natural about that, to have love for one's own people. Now, we should pause here, and we might say this again, but we should pause here to say, yes, it is entirely possible for familial idolatry to exist, right? It's entirely possible to so prioritize family that we make an idol of them. That's possible. But it's also possible to treat them with such disregard and disrespect that we no longer esteem them as the scripture teaches. And as I look at those two extremes, I see not a lot of familiality going on. I see a lot of the other extreme going on. So there it is in a nutshell. God has ordained that family love be honored in visions of concentric circles. Most immediately, we have a responsibility to what we today call our nuclear family. From there, we have a responsibility to our extended family. The next concentric circle of responsibility is to our nation, since the nation is but family writ large. Included in those circles is the family of God, with the same principle being an aid first to those who are in our own immediate fellowship and then outward from there. This simple biblical truth and you're probably wondering why we spent 10 or 15 whatever minutes it's been on establishing this, is anathema in many quarters in the modern church. This opposition to biblical truth of the family set forth by scripture had its origins long ago by the enemy of Christianity. Here we quote from a chap who was Karl Marx, before Karl Marx was Karl Marx, quote, With the origin of nations and peoples, the world ceased to be a great family, a single kingdom. The great tie of nature was torn. Nationalism took the place of love of mankind. Now it became a virtue to magnify one's fatherland at the expense of whoever was not enclosed within its limits. Now as a means to this narrow end, it was permitted to despise and outwit foreigners, indeed even to insult them. This virtue was called patriotism. So out of patriotism arose localism, the family spirit, and finally egoism. Diminished patriotism, the men will learn to know each other again as such. Their dependence on each other will be lost. The bond of union will be widened out. This was from a chap named Adam Weishaupt. What Weishaupt is saying, we need to get rid of all these concentric circles and just love everybody the same. just having an egalitarian affection that is the same for all men. Eventually this idea became the brotherhood of all men and the fatherhood of God over all men, heresies that have riven the church ever since the time of Weishaupt and before. Keep in mind that Weishaupt wrote what he wrote in that quote above as a man committed to the 18th century version of the New World Order. As such, Weishaupt was opposing the love of nation, opposing nationalism, opposing patriotism, opposing family and patriarchy. He viewed them as the sultry vestiges of Christianity, and they had to be done with. And the reason I quote this, though that is the quote above or some version of it, could be easily heard from many Reformed pulpits across this country on any given Lord's Day. In other words, I quote Weishaupt in order to have you hear the original voice so that when you hear the echoes in pulpits today, you would understand where that comes from. Because that kind of thinking has been baptized and put to the pulpit and owned by Christians across the nations. And I'm going to demonstrate it in a few seconds with some quotes. Note in that Weishaupt quote, the idea is that there's a problem with nationalism and that the problem is it breaks up the brotherhood of all men. And so doing, Weishaupt denies the biblical antithesis that insists on the irremediable chasm between the seat of the woman and the seat of the serpent. All men, all ministers to the claim against nationalism and champion some form of the brotherhood of all men are denying this antithesis. In other words, Weishaupt was saying we're all brothers and why can't we all get along? But that kind of thinking denies the reality that there's an antithesis between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman that can never allow me to call someone outside of Christ a brother the way that I can call someone in Christ a brother. Of course, Weishaupt is just lying. when he talks about how nationalism took the place of the love of all of mankind. That's like saying, because I love my wife, therefore I hate all other women. It's a non sequitur. Similarly, the idea that a love of a nation means I will abuse foreigners, as Weishaupt said, is like saying that love of my family means I'll abuse my neighbors who are not part of my family. It just doesn't follow. Suffice to say that if one loves all men equally, then one will love no one uniquely. Love loses its definition. If I love everyone the same, then love loses its meaning. Because love is a particular action on particular people. Notice that it's not merely nationalism and patriotism that Weishaupt invades against, but also he invades against the love of family and the love of the local. In each case, Weishaupt prefers the love of generic humanity over love for what God has placed nearest to us, family, locales, people groups. Weishaupt offers us Satanism unpacked and in your face. What we get today is Satanism in Jesus' garb. In many quarters, we're getting Weishaupt from our pulpits. And I could have brought a host of other quotes as well, from Marx, from Lenin, from others. Same kind of invective against love of family, love of kin, and love of the locale. The same kind of invective against patriotism, patriarchy, and fatherland is seen among our leadership and in pulpits all across the country. It's as if Satan is manning our pulpits, speaking in a Jesus costume. And here are some examples of what I'm getting at. This is from Russell Moore, who only recently retired as a bigwig in the Southern Baptist Convention. He wrote, white nationalism is a manifestation of an ancient evil that we as Christians, of all people, ought to recognize immediately. White nationalism emerges from what the Bible calls the way of the flesh. This is a form of idolatry that exalts one's own creaturely attributes, making a god out of, for instance, one's ancestral origins or one's total culture. Here's from James Jordan. Do we as Christians believe in nationalism? No, we don't. We believe in the international Catholic universal community of the Church, as if those two are automatically in a dichotomous relation. Peter Lightheart also said, we cannot be nationalists. These are all well-known leaders of different quarters in the Reformed Church. Mark Labberton, the president of Fuller Seminary said, when evangelicals embrace an American first nationalism, the gospel is co-opted and betrayed. Remember, nationalism, biblically understood, just means love of one's own people. And we've seen from scripture that that's the norm. And yet our leadership is stepping up before God and the world and shouting into the mic, anybody who has a biblical mindset on nationalism is evil. Bruce Ashford, the president of Southeastern Theological Seminary. Nationalism, on the other hand, is easier to define. David Kosice, for instance, offers a theological definition of nationalism as a political arrangement which the people deify the nation, viewing their nation as a savior that will protect them from all the evil of being ruled by those who are different from them. And so here they now define nationalism as being inherently evil. Now I have a few more, I'm gonna use these, but we pause here and we ask ourselves, what are the other options? If we're not gonna build a social order that's based upon our love for our people, then the only other options are multiculturalism, and we already see where that's going. I don't need to spend a lot of time there. The internationalism, which has always been code word for some kind of socialism or communism, or some kind of empire building. which I find nowhere in the scripture as being saluted as being a biblical option. Indeed, the only option that I find for social orders in the scripture is some kind of nationalism, and Christians understood that for hundreds if not thousands of years until of late. Until of late, we are all Marxists or Weishauptians now. Al Mohler, well-known. The president of Southern Seminary. American nationalism flies right in the face of the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the command of Christ given in the first Great Commission. Joe Carter. Sometimes affectionately called Joke Harder. I think nationalism, like populism, is an inherently leftist movement that leads to progressivism. Tim Keller. Christian nationalism puts stress on getting morality enshrined in the law of the Lamb, whereas Jesus calls for conversion and changed lives, as if having morality in our laws is something bad. The ethos of Christian nationalism is not any way to try to persuade, win, or evangelize their opponents, says Tim Keller again. Their attitude towards unbelievers is they're evil. What does their opinion matter? Sure they hate you, just hate them right back. Own the libs. Mike Horton teaches your seminary students on the West Coast. Islam, he says, is not an external threat in the United States to Christianity, but Christian nationalism is a Christian heresy. There's a greater threat from Christian nationalism than there is from Islam. What are these people eating in their breakfast foods? But they're everywhere. They are the leadership of the Reformed Church in America, the evangelical church. They are the ones that are setting the sails and catching the wind to go in this direction. And anybody who raises a voice contrary to this and preaches a sermon like this is anathema. They will not be allowed in the Reformed Church. They will not be allowed in evangelicalism. And yet all I'm touting here is what the church is taught for, what scripture teaches, and what the church is taught for for thousands and thousands of years. How did this simple truth that love for family and love for nation, which equals a social or nationalism, how did it become such an anathema in the minds of Christian thinkers? I don't know the answer to that. We want to be careful here, because we don't want to go as far and make the same mistakes on this subject these chaps have made. We'll make some proper distinctions. First of all, we're glad to admit, as I said earlier, there can be such a thing as familiality. And we should hate any smell of that wherever we might find it. And it has popped up through the centuries. First, we need to admit that it's entirely possible that people groups can make an idol of their nation. We've already established that. But we would agree with Reverend Hugh McNeill from the 19th century who was Episcopalian. He wrote, the inspired prophets were patriots. Were therefore national protesters against idolatry and every evil work. Therefore they were reformers. They were reformers and patriots. Our own reformers were patriots as well as Christians. So as we look at this, we have to understand that the kind of nationalism that we stomp for, that we advocate as a biblical nationalism, a Christian nationalism, and that stands in opposition to all non-Christian nationalisms. Second, we need to admit that much of the nationalism that exists in America is more than a little misdirected. This misdirected love of country is driven by a profound misunderstanding of a great deal of American history. There are boatloads of sins from our past that America should be repenting for. And any denial of that in favor of an attitude that says, my country, right or wrong, still my country, makes it difficult for those of us who want to champion a proper love of nation. Third, and this kind of weaves in with the second one, in order to find a biblical nationalism, we need to be honest about our history. Biblical nationalism that takes pride in wars of aggression, or the participation in wars that contributed to the destruction of old Christendom, they need to be repudiated. We need to love God and our people not to tell them the unvarnished truth about where our government and our name, and they're under our flag, brought wickedness upon other peoples and other lands. For example, and here I go to meddling, there's no biblical nationalism founded defending our participation in the two world wars of the 20th century. There's no biblical nationalism in defending our murdering countless civilians in our bombing, firebombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo. No biblical nationalism defending the murdering of millions of Eastern Europeans as a result of Tehran and Yalta. If we're going to embrace biblical nationalism, then we must embrace it as consistent with the tenets of biblical Christianity and repudiate it where it's not consistent with biblical Christianity. Fourth, as biblical nationalists, we need to desire to see not only the Christianization of our own people, but also the Christianization of all peoples in their respective nations. Love of God and love of people require me to seek the Christianization of people from every tribe and tongue and nation in their tribes and tongues and nations. However, as Charles Spurgeon spoke, you know Spurgeon, everybody knows Spurgeon, the Prince of Baptist preachers. He said our missionary efforts begin first among our own kith and kin. Here's what Spurgeon had to say, and this would outrage people today. Spurgeon wrote, piety must begin at home as well as charity. Conversion should begin with those who are nearest to us in ties of relationship. I stir you up, he says, not to be attempting missionary labors for India, not to be casting eyes of pity across to Africa, not to be occupied so much with tears for popish and heathen lands as for your own children, your own flesh and blood, your own neighbors, your own acquaintance, lift up your cry to heaven for them, and then afterwards you shall preach among nations. Andrew goes to Cappadocia, he says, in his afterlife, but he begins with his brother Peter. And you shall labor where you please in years to come, but first at your own household. First of all, those who are under your own shadow must receive your guardian care. Be wise in this thing. Use the ability you have, and use it among those who are near at hand. He's saying the same thing about concentric circles. And he's saying there's a priority that you have to have for your own kith and kin. When you say that today, you get put on lists. Not nice lists. Christians used to speak like this Christian theologian as opposed to all the other quotes that we looked at opposing this idea. This is from Bavink, a Dutch theologian. He says that human nature is a multiplex unfoldment. In the individual, human nature is unfolded into personality. In the human race, in the individuality, furthermore, there is an unfoldment of human nature along the lines of sex and blood relationship. Now, every one of these unfoldments brings into view a new phase of human nature. But here Bavink recognizes the unique ties of blood relationship. that our Christian faith doesn't erase that reality. That you can't run to the Galatians passage in chapter 3 and say, well, there's neither Greek nor Jew in Jesus Christ, therefore I'm to amorphous everything. That's not what the text means. We're winding down, I promise. Bavik is recognizing the reality and propriety of family. God has created us with natural attachments that are good and proper. Love of nation is really a next logical extension of love of family. Love of place is derivative of love of family. Families exist in particular places and locales, and the love that exists for that family exists and also, then also exists for the love of place and locale where that family has prospered. And there, if I wanted to, I could swing into a minor defense of agrarianism. It's this kind of love for one's own people that found one of the greatest theologians in the 20th century writing, Gerhardus Voss. Voss is one of my favorites. Voss wrote, nationalism within its proper limits has the divine sanction. It's not me saying it. This is another one of those cases where I'm bringing out Voss, I'm sitting him right here, and I'm hiding behind him, and if you're going to get at me, you have to go through Voss. Okay? Nationalism within proper limits has a divine sanction. imperialism that would in the interest of one people obliterate all lines of distinction is everywhere condemned as contrary to the divine will I could spend some time teasing out the implication of that but I'm going to assume for the sake of argument that you can figure out what the implications of that are is Later prophecy raises his voice against the attempt at world power. And that not only is it sometimes assumed because it threatens Israel, but for the far more principal reason that the whole idea is pagan and immoral. That is, he's talking about imperialism there. Now it's through, he goes on, it's through maintaining the national diversities as these express themselves in the difference of language are in turn upheld by this difference that God prevents the realization of the attempted scheme meld the world together. And this was a positive intent that concerned the natural life of humanity. Under the providence of God, each race or nation has a positive purpose to serve, fulfillment of which depends upon relative seclusion from others. How many of you have bought the Accord Tao book? There it is, page after page after page after page that is just saying what I'm saying this morning, what Voss has just said there. It was never God's intent to put us all into a blunder and hit the speed button. That's John Lennon's vision. It's not God's vision. And yet the modern church today has become largely Marxist, even if it's not epistemologically self-conscious in doing so, because it keeps on inveighing against and tearing down the possibility that there could be such a thing as biblical nationalism. So in closing, we have to ask, will we advocate and pursue a biblical nationalism with a love of concentric circles? Or will we follow too many of the current clergy who are woke and don't even know it in many cases, and who damn every form of nationalism as being from the devil. If we find the nations in Revelation flowing into the New Jerusalem, that's a pretty good hint that God loves nations. And so do I. But only as they are bowing the knee to Christ. Let's stand for a closing word of prayer. Father, deliver us from wokeness, please. Pray that you deliver us from any possibility of familyolatry, where we make idols of our families or idols of our nation. We've seen that, Father, in Mussolini's Italy earlier in the 20th century. We've seen it in Nazi Germany. So we have seen it throughout history, Father, and we ask earnestly that we would not fall into that. But at the same time, we pray that you deliver us from the other extreme, the sharpness of internationalism or multiculturalism that wants to see all colors bleeding into one. Grant us wisdom and insight in these matters and give us a boldness that doesn't back down, precisely because we're standing on God's Word. And help us, Father, to love our families well. Especially, Father, when there's difficulties associated with that. Give us the wisdom, Father, what love looks like where there's different faiths in one family. Help us to understand. Help us to have a love for the brother and father as part of, as they're part of the family of God and so have a unique relationship to them. For these things we ask in order to be right-minded before you. In Christ's name we pray, amen.