I was thinking on that last stanza, as it sort of closed on the note of heaven and beholding his face, I was thinking how much I want to be able to one day have a series on the subject of heaven and to open up everything I can find in the scriptures that deal with the subject of heaven itself. as a means of encouragement, especially since yesterday. I'm thinking about these things more since I just turned 69 yesterday. And so you start thinking about those realities, those spiritual realities more and more, that there are certain realities that are yet to be fully known and experienced And heaven is one of those realities. We don't know, and we're not supposed to know yet. I'm reminded of the text where the Apostle Paul says, I has not seen, neither ear has heard the things which God has prepared for those who love him. Your first five seconds in heaven, The opposite reality is not heaven, but eternal condemnation found in the place of hell or the lake of fire. I can't imagine what that will be like for those outside of Christ. Thinking about that is the reality that motivates me to speak to others And it should be the motivation that each of us have. And to that end, I want to remind you that on that back table back there, we've published a new brochure for the church. There's a stack of them there. Take two or three of them with you and hand them out to somebody that needs to plug into a church. And see if you, can ask God to give you the gumption to talk about Christ to those who need to hear about him. So as I say all this to suggest, as we move into our text, does truth matter? I ask the question, does truth matter? And we would say here, well, of course, truth matters. It matters. We recognize that we live in what's been called a post-truth world, when most people in the world today find some necessity to hide behind some kind of lie or two or three to live their life. I mean, if somehow all lies could be gone, our world would not know how to operate without some depth of lies. Businesses, government, all depend on some kind of number of lies to tell people in order just to operate. I mean, we operate under the lie that our government, we can continue to spend endlessly amounts of money and not have any kind of repercussions from that still down the road. I mean, you can't operate that way as a family. I mean, that's a lie to think, I can just spend. I have a credit card, and I can just spend, spend, spend. And there's no consequences. You can't operate that way. But we live in a world that rejects truth all the time. And when you reject the truth, you actually become not only irrational, but I would say it leads to insanity. If you just constantly reject the truth, the laws of nature, I'm talking about the laws of nature, the laws of science, the physical laws, you say, well, nobody rejects those things. And to a certain degree, that's true. Engineers, who do their engineer stuff, operate on truth. Pilots, when they fly airplanes, operate on truth. Astronauts, when they look into the heavens, they operate on the basis of some fixed laws of the atmosphere and of the stars. They can predict when Halley's Comet is coming next, because they're operating with some kind of, there are fixed, unchangeable laws that enable them to make those kinds of predictions. a pharmacist, a doctor, a chemist, a banker. You don't want a banker who doesn't operate on the truth. When I deposit $100 in the bank, I don't want him recording 50. I want him to record 100. Because truth matters to me. And if he's gonna record 50 when I turn in 100, I'm finding a different banker. See, there are consequences to violating laws. People who say, well, I could do whatever I want. Now, they don't do that so much with these fixed laws. But I'll tell you what. So you have these fixed laws, laws of physics, laws of science. But there are moral and spiritual laws that somehow we think are not as important as the fixed physical laws of nature. There are spiritual and moral laws that we've already suggested, laws like of sin and heaven and hell and all these spiritual laws. And we think that we can violate those spiritual laws without any consequence. I could do whatever I want before God. He's not going to judge me. He's not going to do it. And that's why you have people like in the Bible, like Pontius Pilate, who we're going to see in a few weeks, who is going to be bringing Jesus before a tribunal. And he asked Jesus, what is truth? What is truth? We have people today who think, well, girls can become boys, and boys can become girls, and you can change their genitals, and it's not a big deal. Well, you do that kind of thing, and you're gonna find that it's gonna mess people up. It's gonna mess them up. Plato, the old Greek philosopher, he said this. I thought this was interesting. He says, no one is more hated than the one who speaks the truth. So an unsaved Greek philosopher said that. No one is more hated than the one who speaks the truth. And I heard John MacArthur say once, he said, I live in order to offend people. And I knew what he meant. Because people are going to be offended by the truth because they hate the truth. And if you have someone who's speaking from the scriptures weekly, and even throughout the week, you're speaking scriptures, you're going to become a hated person. And you're going to offend people. And MacArthur knew that and he experienced that. And as we come to our text today, we find that once again, Jesus is offensive because he spoke the truth despite all the miracles that he did and all the signs and all the wonders and all the words, despite the fact that he was virgin born. Virgin conceived, rather, more accurately. He was born like any other person, but he was conceived in the womb of Mary without the aid of a man, and he lived a sinless life. He had power over demons, disease, death, and nature itself. Despite all of these facts about Jesus, Jesus was a hated man. The religious leaders, however, never denied his power. They never denied his miracles. They never denied those things, but they said that he did these things by the power of Satan. So now we come to our text, and as I've said before, we are in the final, final week of Jesus's earthly life. On Monday of that final week was the so-called triumphal entry. We know it as, we think of it as Palm Sunday, but actually it was Palm Monday, if my chronology and the chronology of other scholars is correct. It was on a Monday that he came into Jerusalem on the back of a colt. And it was on Tuesday and Wednesday that, well, so on Tuesday he went into the temple and cleansed the temple for the second time. He did it at the beginning of his ministry. He does it at the end of his ministry. He cleansed the temple. He just, all the guys, all the people who were in there bartering and ripping people off with their sacrifices and money exchanges and all that stuff, that upset Christ. And he goes in for the second time and he cleanses the temple. On Wednesday and Thursday of that week, we see him teaching, and we've seen that he's been teaching here in chapter 19 of Luke and chapter 20. So on Monday, they say, Hosanna to the Messiah. By Friday, many of those same people are gonna say, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. What a change. I mean, You have to hand it to the religious leaders in Jesus' day to cause such a massive 180 degree turn and to turn the crowds against Jesus in such a short period of time. You must admit that it was demonic to be able to do something that quickly. It had to be demonically inspired to do something like that. Well, we come to our text, and I'm gonna read it to you. I've entitled this text, To Pay or Not to Pay? That is the question, okay? Look at verses, chapter 20, and we're gonna start at verse, oh, I gotta get, not chapter 19, I'm in the wrong chapter here. Yeah, beginning with chapter 20, verse 20. Here is our text for today. And they watched him. Let's see here. And they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, in order that they might catch him in some statement, so as to deliver him up to the rule and the authority of the governor. And they questioned him, saying, Teacher, we know that you speak and teach correctly, and you are not partial to any. But teach the way of God in truth. You can just hear their condescending tone as they're asking Jesus this question. We know that you're like this. Is it lawful, verse 22, for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? But he detected their trickery and said to them, show me a denarius. Whose head and inscription does it have? And they said, well, Caesar's. And he said to them, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they were unable to catch him in his saying in the presence of the people, and marveling at his answer, they became silent. Our text today basically is telling us that we need to recognize the authority of God and the authority of Jesus, who is God, to recognize the authority of Jesus and to give him what is due. To give him what is due. It also tells us and acknowledges that we have an obligation to government as well. We're going to touch on that here in a second. So it tells us that we have an obligation First of all, to God, but secondly, we have an obligation to government. To a degree, scripture says that, all right? And we're gonna see that in your bulletin here, this breaks down to what I've divided up into three different points. Point number one is what I call the trap. The attempt to dismiss authority. There's an attempt here to deceive and to dismiss the Savior. The religious leaders at this late hour knew they had to get Jesus somehow, some way, find some nugget on which they could have him arrested and tried. And they determined to use the supposedly innocent and sincere inquisitors that come to him now with a very casual question. I mean, the text tells us, so they watched him and sent spies who pretended, the text says that, they pretended to be righteous. Their hearts were already seared against Christ, but they were trying to trick Jesus. The entire motivation, the text tells us, was to catch him in some statement so that they could deliver him to the rule and authority of the governor. Their deception clearly casts them as those who were, again, who were satanically motivated to bring down Christ. Even the apostle Paul later in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 15, as it says here, Paul says, therefore it is not surprising if his servants, this is speaking of Satan's servants, also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness whose end will be according to their deeds. The Bible says that Satan can even come as an angel of light. He can deceive. People can think they're seeing someone who's sent from God, when in reality, it is Satan in a disguise. It's amazing. We are told, if you read Matthew's account of this same incident, Matthew says they enlisted some unlikely helpers, the Pharisees did, the religious leaders, they enlisted a group of people called the Herodians to help out with this attempt to bring down Jesus. Now, the Herodians were totally the opposite of the Pharisees. The Herodians were those people who sided with Herod, who sided with Rome. These were Jews who actually sided with Herod and the Roman rule. They're called Herodians. And so, of course, the Herodians would not want to do anything that would besmirch or bring down the rule of Rome or Herod. So the religious leaders, the Pharisees, brought in their very own enemies to help them bring down Jesus. It's kind of comical. You're bringing in somebody that you can't stand in order to help you bring down somebody else. That's how deceitful it gets in the arena of truth, especially when it touches politics. It becomes very, very messy. And so here are these very pro-Roman Herodians who are going to ask Jesus a question about the Roman tax. And the text tells us that they questioned him, or the word actually means to ask him or literally to interrogate him, but they're doing it with great flattery and very complimentary speech. They are complimenting Jesus. We know that you speak and teach correctly. They're boistering him. They're buttering him up. You are not partial to any. But teach the way of God in truth. I mean, this is a big butter-up. I don't know about you, but if someone comes to me, sometimes in the 40 years of my ministry, people will come up and they'll try to butter you up, and I'm always suspicious. The moment you try to do that, I'm like, what's the angle here? It's like, you're over the top here. This is too much. And so if you come to me, I'm going to be very suspicious of any attempt to butter me up. What is this leading to? I mean, even sometimes your spouse will do that to you. Husbands might do it to their wives, or wives to their husbands. You approach your spouse with some kind of, you want to do something, you might approach them in a very, you want to butter them up so that you could get to some kind of ends. There's something that you're angling for. And so that happens there, too. It's more fun in a marriage, though, because spouses can generally read each other pretty quickly. It's hard to do that once you've been married for as long as I have, 45 years. It's not going to fly anyway. Just get to the point. What is it that you want? So they're buttering him up in verse 21. And the enticement to defy authorities, verse 22, look at it. I mean, this is a trick question. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not? I mean, taxes have always been controversial. I mean, every March or April, See, I don't pay my taxes until, I don't have taxes taken out until I have to pay them in April. So that's how I do my own taxes. And so I had to figure it all out in March and April, before April 15th. I turn in all my numbers to my tax people and then they do all the other stuff. But I have to compile all these numbers and all, and so that I can turn, so I can pay my check, whatever I owe, to the government. They're going to be looking for it. And again, I believe it's legal to avoid taxes, but not to evade taxes. I think all of us would concur with that. So we all believe in tax avoidance. It's not legal to evade taxes, however. And so, as a pastor, I can take certain deductions, and this is not even germane to the text, but I'm telling you anyway, I can take certain deductions and I can try to avoid taxes. And I try to do all that. Now, so taxes are always something that's been kind of hard on people, but the Bible makes it clear, as we're gonna see here, that paying taxes is not out of the question. For instance, the Apostle Paul says, over in Romans chapter 13, he says, for because of this, you also pay taxes. Because, you know, we have a government. I'll go back and look at this text a little more. For rulers are servants of God. That's right. Rulers are servants of God. Sometimes that's a hard pill to swallow, but God has ordained government. That is true. Now, I'm not going to go into the fact that Romans 13 was a text that has been abused by leaders and especially dictators. For instance, Adolf Hitler took a passage like Romans 13 back in 1938 and 39, and he forced it down the Germans' people's throat, saying, you have to obey me because even your Bible tells you you must obey me. And he would quote Romans 13. And so there's issues to that. I'm not going to address those today, maybe some other time, but we know that on the basic general level, God has ordained government as his servants, it's called the servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Verse seven, so Paul says, render, as we're gonna see what Jesus says here in a moment, render to all what is due them, tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, Honor to whom honor. It's right to pay taxes. The Bible gives no support to a government, however, in my estimation. I find no support for government to take taxes and redistribute them from the rich to support the poor. in terms of some massive program, but the Bible teaches that the purpose of civil government is about security for its people, allowing people to live and to prosper and to have a normal, quiet, and peaceable life. The purpose of government is to ensure that people can just live a normal life by bringing a certain amount of security and stability. Such redistribution of income is not something that you find in the Bible. But what you do find, government is to be enforcers of what is right and just, not impartial, but carrying out an agenda that brings about security and stability to its people. But in Jesus' day, and by the way, I'm not trying to refrain I'm not going to talk about the, there are virtues to low taxes. And again, this is not germane, but we could go into that sometime. There are virtues to lowering, lower taxes, that lower taxes actually brings a country more money. And it's better off letting people have more of their money so that they can do what they want with it. And government actually prospers from that. But in Jesus' day, going back to this, He's going to talk about a certain tax, and this tax that's being addressed is called the poll tax. It was an annual head tax, and Jews had to pay this tax for the privilege of living in the Roman Empire, because they benefited from Roman protection. Okay, fair enough. We have to support the Romans. They are bringing a degree of stability and security. So we want to support them. However, this tax did precipitate a rebellion back in a few years after Jesus died, or excuse me, a few years after he was born in AD 86. The year 6 resulted in Herod Archiales to be removed and replaced by a Roman governor. So there was a point when the Herods were removed in Judea, and that's when there was a series of Roman governors, and that's which Pilate was actually the fifth Roman governor of Judea. But here is this poll tax, and it will become also a controversial thing that leads up to 70 A.D. when Jerusalem is destroyed by the Romans. So here is this question here. I'll go back to the text. Again, the Herodians who are there because of what Matthew tells us, they've been interested to hear what Jesus has to say about this tax, because if Jesus speaks out against this tax, they're going to advocate that Jesus be arrested for sedition and tried as one who's bringing sedition to the country. The Pharisees were anti-tax, and they desired to have the pagan oppressors, the Romans, cast out. So you have the Herodians on one side, the Pharisees on the other, and here is this question. And again, the bias is seen a bit in how they ask the question, because it says there in verse 22, some versions say, is it lawful for us to give taxes to Caesar? They use the word give. The Greek word is didomai, which suggests that you just simply give the money to them, and it's suggesting that perhaps this is not something that you wanna do. So they ask the question in a way that kind of slants it, that no, we shouldn't do this. The answer that they're angling for is that a godly person is not going to pay this poll tax to the Romans. that the godly would have nothing to do with it, since they all believed that when Messiah came, they believed that when Messiah would come, he would throw out the oppressors. Certainly Jesus, if he's the Messiah, he's going to want to throw out the Romans, so he's not going to be for this tax, is he? So that is the first point here, the trap. They're trying to dismiss authority. They're trying to put Jesus on the horns of a dilemma, to tax or not to tax. What do you say, Jesus? That takes us to the second point, which is actually verses 23 and 24, what I call the tutorial, or it's the teaching, demonstrating authority. This is what Jesus is gonna answer. He's gonna demonstrate his authority. He's very alert to what they are trying to do. Look at verse 23. But he detected, Luke says, he detected their trickery. The New Americans, I like that word. He detected their trickery. Matthew goes on to call it, he detected their wickedness. He doesn't call it trickery. He kind of calls it, Matthew calls it wickedness. It's sort of the wickedness that leads to the trickery. It was wickedness, though. Matthew is correct. Luke is correct. It was wicked trickery. And we know that Jesus, he knew that immediately. Why does he know that? Well, because way back in John chapter 2, verse 25, we learn that because Jesus did not need to testify concerning man, for he himself knew what was in man. Jesus knows my heart. He knows your heart. He knows the heart of all eight billion people who are on the planet today. I guess it's eight billion. I'm not sure what the number is now. He knows every individual heart. In fact, Hebrews chapter four, verse 13 says, there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. You can't cover up your heart from Almighty God. You can't say there's a private little place in my heart that God doesn't know about. That's that's foolishness. That's baloney. Psalm 33, verses 13 through 15, says, The Lord looks from heaven. He sees all the sons of men from his dwelling place. He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. He who fashions the hearts of them all, he who understands all their works, he knows, he knows. And so the lack of... their lack of not understanding this truth leads them to think that they can hide these truths from Him. He knows the hearts of all men, and He's going to hold them accountable. So look at verse 24. What does Jesus say in verse 24? He says, show me a denarius. Show me a denarius. Whose head and inscription does it have? Now, they're going to hope that The Pharisees viewed any inscription of Caesar, like on that coin, they viewed it as sacrilegious. That's why they didn't even like these coins, because these coins had an image, and they believed that you were not to have any kind of image to any kind of graven image, which are forbidden, they believed, in the Decalogue. They took that to mean not even an image of Caesar on a coin. And so again, whose likeness, Jesus asked the question, whose likeness does this have? It's Caesar. Everybody knew that. And their expectation is, and they readily say Caesar here in the text, but they expected him to denounce Caesar as a false god, as a blasphemer, and they expected him to do that. Some of them did anyway. However, Jesus takes a turn in direction that they did not see coming. He moves from this question to the third point that we want to note this morning. And by the way, Back over in Matthew's account, it's interesting, Matthew 22, 19, it says, Jesus says, show me the coin used for the poll tax. I mean, that's where Matthew addresses this as the poll tax. You don't see that in Luke's account. So it's a specific coin, a denarius, that was paid yearly by the Jews to Rome, specifically for the security and protection that Rome offered. You pay this poll tax once a year. It was a day's wages. The average man earned a denarius every day. So it's like paying the equivalent of a day's wage in order to pay this tax to Rome. Now, there were other taxes as well. If this was the only tax they paid, that wouldn't seem too bad. But there were lots of other taxes that they paid as well. So they bring him as a denarii. So we've seen now the trap, the attempt to dismiss authority, the tutorial Jesus is pulling out and having them show him a denarius coin. But now we're going to see the tenet, the principle of authority is going to be defined. There's a teaching here. a teaching. What is the basic teaching here of the Lord Jesus Christ? We're going to see in verse 25 that there is accountability to God. There is accountability to God. He says there in verse 25, and Julie found this slide for me, and I decided to use it here. He said to them, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. Now you see two things there. You see rendering to Caesar the things that are his, and to God the things that are his. We know from the Old Testament, by the way, let me go back to Romans 13 first. Every person, then, is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. That's a basic rule, a basic guideline. We are to be in subjection to the governmental authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. So we have to understand the principle that government is, in fact, ordained by God. He has given government the right to rule. We want to have a government. We can't live without a government. We need to have some kind of structure which brings security and stability to our society. Every nation needs a government. God ordains that. Therefore, it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but because of conscience sake. In other words, government bears the sword. We can make government mad at us if we don't do what they say. Now, again, I know this gets into some conflict. I'm not here to address that conflict today. I'm just simply to address this text. We do have an obligation to government. For because of this, you also pay taxes, as I've already suggested. So we are to give back to government what is due to the government, give back to God the things that are God, And they, however, if you look at the text, as Jesus makes this very wise He doesn't give anybody the victory here. He doesn't give it to the Herodians, because Jesus is saying, we have to pay our taxes, the Herodians are gonna be happy. And the Pharisees now say, Jesus says you have to render to God the things that are God's, so that appeases the religious leaders. The Pharisees, Jesus walks the tightrope. He walks the rope right down the middle. He doesn't offend, he doesn't fall into the trap here. He doesn't fall into the trap. But it is interesting. Yeah, rendered all who is due, taxed to whom is taxed. We already saw that. Here, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. This is what we had to render to God way back in the book of Deuteronomy. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. But it's interesting, just two days later, when Jesus is on trial, Just not even two days later, Luke 23, verse 2, when Jesus is standing before Pilate, they began to accuse him. And look what they accused Jesus of. We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar. Did Jesus say that? No, it's a bold-faced lie. and saying that he himself is Christ, a king. They took the opportunity to lie, an outright, bold-faced lie. Talk about the stubbornness of the heart. Now, I'm gonna bring this to a close and make the point that as Christians, we live in two worlds. We live in the, but Augustine, Augustine, some people say Augustine, others say Augustine. He was an early church father back in the third and fourth century. Augustine said, we live under the city of man and we live under the city of God. We live under both. We live in two worlds. We are citizens of a temporal world where there's a human temporal government and at the same time we are part of the kingdom of God and under the rule of God himself in Christ. And the church operates separate from civil government. Normally, the church is not to rebel against civil government, but when government, and I'll just add this, this is not part of this particular text, but I will say if government messes with the church, the church has the right to disobey. Like, for instance, in the COVID snafu here, what, a couple years ago, whatever it's been now, Churches were ordered to close. Well, I think you're gonna see, if something like that happens again, you're not gonna find churches closing so easily anymore, when they're ordered, because government now starts to get into the affairs of the church, they have to keep their hands off the church. But as a general rule, we are submissive to government. As a general rule, we want to obey our government, as a general rule. But when things start getting convoluted and one authority begins to interfere with another authority, then sparks are going to fly. Sparks are going to fly. We live in two worlds, and those two worlds are to remain, to a certain degree, under different authorities. Jesus says, give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and thank God that you have a government, submit to that government, but then render to God the things that are God. God is owed worship. He is owed praise. He is owed glory and obedience and love. He deserves my life. He deserves my all. The coin we render to Caesar. His inscription is on it. Pay to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. And this is something that every believer is to follow. I don't have a slide up here for this, but think now of a wagon wheel. Think of a wagon wheel, and it's got spokes on it, it's got a hub in the center. You remember, you've watched those Westerns before. Think of the hub as Colossians 118, which says that in all things Christ has the pre-units. That's the hub. Each spoke is a different responsibility that you and I have. For instance, I have a responsibility to my family. I have a responsibility to my employer. I have a responsibility to my local church. Each one of those is a different responsibility. I have a responsibility to government. And there are other responsibilities, other spokes. Christ is at the center. And in all that I do, whether it's in my dealings with the government, my dealings with my family, my dealings with the church, my dealings with my extended family, whatever my other responsibilities are, in all things, Christ has the preeminence. Think of your life like that wagon wheel. So you have these different responsibilities. And responsibilities are a little bit different than priority. We've heard of priorities and responsibilities. I have all these responsibilities, but at any given moment, I may have to prioritize one over the other. I remember when my wife was pregnant with our firstborn, actually we lost our first one, but Justin came along, and on a Sunday morning, her water broke. Early in the morning, about five in the morning. Something like that. I was supposed to speak at a church in the area, but Phyllis' water broke. My responsibility was to be at that church to be the guest speaker, but I had to call the pastor and tell him my priorities have changed. My wife's water broke. I'll be at the hospital. I can't come to church this morning. And he understood. But what I'm saying is we have all these responsibilities, and we have to prioritize them as we need to. People like to say, well, I put God first, and then family second, and my job third, or whatever it is. Actually, God is first in everything, and you have all these responsibilities. In all things, he has the pre-emits, whether I'm related to government, my employer, my family, or whoever. I know this is a side thing, but I want you to think of your life like that wagon wheel. In all things, Christ has the preeminence, and you have these different responsibilities, and you prioritize them as you need to at any given moment. Come March, I have to prioritize an event called paying my taxes. And I have to make that a priority for that time period and get my taxes paid. So I do that. At certain times of the day, Phyllis and I get together. We pray. That's a priority. It's a responsibility and a priority. I prioritize it for a certain time of the day. or my Bible reading or my Bible study. So I have responsibilities of which I prioritize at different times of the day or month or year, depending upon what the need is. So we come back to the text. What did we learn from this text? Here are several conclusions I want to leave you with this morning. Conclusion number one, God sees through all of our hypocrisy and pretense. He sees our hearts. We are who we are before him. We are who we are before him, not what we want to portray ourselves to him. We can't fake God out. I can't try to portray myself in a certain way thinking I have tricked God. No, we are who we are. God sees through all of our hypocrisy and pretense. We learn that. We also learn that flattering worship with the ulterior motives of avoiding submission to God is disgusting to Him. That's what we see here with some of these people who come to Jesus. They're flattering Him and trying to, they're faking submission to God. God is disgusted with that. We also see God's expectation is for believers to submit to government authorities in the execution of their God-given duties. We are to submit to governing authorities. Let's make no bones about that. There is a place for submission to government. And we get into the controversy of, well, when do we submit? When do we not submit? We also know the case of Peter. Peter says, we ought to obey God rather than men. There are times we can't do what government tells us to do. You see that in the book of Daniel, where Where in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were told to bow down to the great image of Nebuchadnezzar, and if they didn't do that, whoever didn't do that would be thrown into the fire. Well, those three godly men would not do it. They would not obey the government authority that day, Nebuchadnezzar. And they were thrown into the fire. And God, in that case, protected them. But he could have very well allowed them to be burnt up. Either way, God is glorified. So we ought to obey government. But if government tells us to do something which is against scripture, then we ought to obey God rather than man. Lastly, the key point of this passage, we render to God what he is due in every area of life. In this area, it's in the area of paying our taxes. It's disgusting of an issue that is to me, and it's hard for me to talk about that because I grumble at taxes as much as anyone. But I know I glorify God when I pay my taxes. I glorify God when I and I need to learn to do it in a more humble and a more consistently humble way. I'm still learning that. Let's bow for a word of prayer. Father, again, we are delighted to look into what the Lord Jesus teaches from this rich and powerful text. May it be applied in every area of life. Understand that you are the God who is to be preeminent in all things. Lord, we don't want to stand with those stubborn rejecters, those religious leaders and those Herodians. We want to come to Christ and honor Christ, even in paying Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Lord, work your work in our hearts. May You be glorified. Be gracious to us, Lord, in our weak areas. Help us, Lord, to submit to you in the areas of life that need to be resubmitted to you. Father, we just ask that you would make us more like Christ. We thank you, Lord, that you are working to make us more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul says in his writings in Romans chapter 8. Thank you again for your grace to us, which enables us to do much more than we think or even ask. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.