Every so often, whispers start about a sermon that everyone should listen to. Rarely do such sermons live up to the hype. In this case, that is not true. Returning to the pulpit for the first time since a cardiac episode that almost cost him his life, Pastor Mark Dever preached at Capitol Hill Baptist Church and asked the qeustion "Are We Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of a Sin?"
Dever's sermon is a masterwork in Baptist theology and history, and a meaningful example of how to engage weighty cultural moments with biblical truth. Below you can read a full transcript of the sermon, as well as listen to it on the embedded player.
The sermon below has been formatted, with headings added by an editor, for ease of reading.
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Two quotations.
First, Romans chapter 13:1-7.
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval. For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.
For because of this, you also pay taxes for the authorities or ministers of God attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to him. Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
A second quotation.
This one from July 5th, 1852 at a rally in Rochester, New York from an address called The Internal Slave Trade by a man who would afterwards live just a block away from here and who was living there when we were building our first building here, Frederick Douglass.
But a still more inhuman disgraceful and scandalous state of things remains to be presented by an act of the American Congress not yet two years old. Slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason and Dixon's line has been obliterated. New York has become as Virginia and the power to hold, hunt and sell men, women and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is coextensive with the Star Spangled Banner and American Christianity. Where these go may also go the merciless slave hunter.
I take it from those two quotations alone, the following is true: National law is inferior to natural law. National law is inferior to natural law. That's my entire argument summed up. So if you want to tune out to the rest of this message, that's what you want to think about. That's what I am contending is the case from the Bible itself. Clarity on this matter seems to be a particular inheritance intellectually of the West.
Rex Lex or Lex Rex?
Let me illustrate that by two events, a striking contrast really around the beginning of the fifth century. The fifth century provides this striking contrast. In the East, Empress Eudoxia in Constantinople was living a famously immoral life and the well-known preacher at the Church of Holy Wisdom in the middle of the city, John Chrystostom, was condemning her and her immorality by name. The empress would not tolerate it had Chrystostom exiled where he within a few years died.
Contrast that meanwhile, a couple of decades before this, over in Thessalonica, Greece in June of 390 AD, Butheric (editor: spelling?), a Roman general station there was lynched in an urban riot by an angry mob in the circus after having a famous charioteer arrested and for refusing the people's demand for his relief. So in response, the emperor in the West, Theodosius, authorized his Gothic soldiers to punish the people of the city resulting in the killing of perhaps thousands of citizens. Historians speculate when they assembled next time in the city's hippodrome. The Roman general was known to have done this with the encouragement and approval of the Emperor Theodosius. Well, it was after this one day that Theodosius went to church in Milan where the pastor of the church was Ambrose. And he went to take communion, but when he approached the church itself, Ambrose, knowing he was coming, met him outside the church, forbade his interest to the church and explained it was because of his slaughter of the Thessalonicans, the Thessalonians, that he would not be allowed into the church or to take communion until he repented.
The Emperor Theodosius was stunned by this response, but he listened to Ambrose's explanation and Theodosius decided to withdraw and soon publicly to repent with the very steps that Ambrose laid out. And so to return to church as his pastor had directed him with public marks of repentance for his sin.
In these two instances, you see a characteristic difference that developed between the East and the West in the way political authority responded to religious authority. While history could supply many stories of question and contest between the two through the writings and reflections of everyone from Thomas Aquinas to John Calvin, there came to be an understanding that rather than Rex Lex, the law, the king is the law, the kind of royal absolutism— instead, Lex Rex, the law is king. That's the absolutism of monarchy then receded before the idea of natural law. If a ruler stopped performing the functions that he was to perform for the good of those he ruled over, he was understood as abdicating his role and effectively inviting someone else to take it up.
Among the peoples who spoke our language, English, this limitation on the national leader has had many iterations. Perhaps most famously in June of 1215, Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury crafted the Magna Carta, which confirmed a charter of liberties that included protection of church property of barons from illegal imprisonment of access to swift and impartial justice and payments to the crown having to have the approval of a council of 25. And that charter became typical of later agreements that English monarchs would make with the nobility in exchange for their support in ruling the nation. In the century before the American Revolution, the English King Charles I had raised his standard at Nottingham in the middle of the country raising a personal army, which he and his generals then led against the National Army led by Oliver Cromwell, centered on the parliament in London. The English Civil Wars went on and off locally brutal at points leaving tens of thousands dead.
Most notably the captured King Charles I, who was beheaded in January of 1649 for repeatedly breaking the law and imperiling the safety of the nation. In 1688 and 1689, the parliament had asked his nephew James II to step down from the throne and to be replaced by his daughter Mary and her husband William Prince of Orange, head of the Dutch Republic, in order to assure a Protestant dynasty of monarchs. As a part of this revolution, the parliament and the incoming monarchs accepted the English Bill of Rights. According to Wikipedia's summary of it, I spare no expense in my research.
It was largely based on the ideas of political theorist John Locke. The bill sets out a constitutional requirement for the crown to seek the consent of the people as represented in parliament as well as setting limits on the powers of the monarch. It established the rights of parliament, including regular parliaments, free elections, parliamentary privilege. It also listed individual rights, including the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the right not to pay taxes levied without the approval of parliament. All of this from a people who read and believed that God had revealed himself through the words of the Bible, including these very first verses of Romans 13 that we began with. Look at those words again.
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed.
And those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his aproval 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. For because of this, you also pay taxes for the authorities or ministers of God attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to him. Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
Lex Rex, Romans 13, and the American Colonies
In the 1760s and the 1770s in the American colonies, increasing numbers of Americans were wondering to whom they owed such honor. The British monarchy had repeatedly showed itself unresponsive, apparently unconcerned about real grievances and pressing needs of the hundreds of thousands of British subjects who lived on this side of the Atlantic. As enormities mounted, including placing thousands of British troops in Boston and quartering them in people's homes against their wills and replacing elected legislatures and governors with men, often military men named by the king from England, American leaders began to wonder if the needs of the people demanded a government more responsive to them because decisions needed to be made. Borders needed to be defined and protected or not clearly. Rights should be taught and practiced or not. Trade and taxes should be encouraged and collected or not. Clarity, not arbitrariness was needed. Neglect was wasteful and discouraging of industry and honest work and simply encouraged lawlessness.
Something had to be done. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bans which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impelled them to the separation. On April the 19th, 1775, British troops had been fired on by local militiamen in two small towns outside of Boston, Lexington and Concord. In response to that armed defense of themselves, delegates from the various of the colonies met in Philadelphia starting in May of 1775 to form the second Continental Congress. They'd had the first one, the previous autumn for about six weeks, employing what was an accepted form of publicly presenting complaints to the government to ask for government action.
The American Congress voted on July the 2nd, 1776 to dissolve their political relations with the British government and then two days later voted to accept the specific wording of the brief Declaration of Independence which it offered to the world. In it, the delegates gave 18 examples of the neglect of maintaining the necessary rights of the people of the colonies. George's British subjects needed his attention and his refusal to give it was a kind of abdication which necessitated their taking up the governing responsibilities that he had wrongly neglected. They had 200 copies printed of this declaration, sent it to the various colonies. Here's the example, one way that the Massachusetts legislature decided to promote knowledge of this declaration. "Ordered that the Declaration of Independence be printed and a copy sent to the ministers of each parish of every denomination within this state and that they severally be required to read the same to their respective congregations as soon as divine services ended in the afternoon."
That's what it says.
"In the afternoon on the first Lord's day after they shall have received it and after such publication thereof to deliver said declaration to the clerks of their several towns or districts who are hereby required to record the same in their respective town or district books there to remain as a perpetual memorial thereof."
Friends, this would have been done in the congregational churches established by law in Massachusetts, but also in the other churches like the Baptist churches in Massachusetts. In fact, the Baptists were particularly known as friends of the American cause. President Washington said in the first weeks of his administration writing to the Baptists in Virginia, calling them uniformly, almost unanimously the firm friends of civil liberty and the persevering promoters of our glorious revolution.
The Divided Views of American Revolution
Opinions of the justice of the revolution were divided on both sides of the Atlantic. Some members of parliament supported the American colonist's right for revolution. Benjamin Franklin's own son William was governor of New Jersey. He was loyal to the British monarch. Edmund Morgan, a well-known Welsh Baptist pastor in Philadelphia, was a loyalist, rare among Baptists. James Madison, not the president, but a cousin who was a namesake, one of the first Episcopal bishops in the American Anglican Church was a supporter of the American Revolution. Unusual among the Anglican clergy. All that to say that thoughtful Christians have long disagreed over this specific question. For example, John MacArthur though that this rebellion was disobeying Romans 13. Al Mohler, on the other hand, disagrees and thinks the revolution was morally and biblically justified. Well, I'm with Al on this one.
Do the historical digging around the 18 causes that are listed in the Declaration of Independence. And I think the less you know about history, the more the revolution will seem not justified morally. I think the more you learn about any of those 18 causes, you'll be pushed to realize what should the people have done? And you'll understand why they had the declaration that they did. They had pressing needs and questions which only some kind of organized response would address. And the British Crown repeatedly addressed and even publicly pled with, quite literally ignored their petitions for an example of this just a year before, two years before. Look at Thomas Jefferson's summary view of the rights of British America, which the crown entirely disregarded though. It was addressed to the crown. Not disagreed with, not confuted, but ignored and acted like it didn't exist. This left the responsible men in the communities, the colonies far from London wondering what was their responsibility before God, for the families, for their towns, their cities, their companies, their counties.
Even as they had organized themselves into these continental congresses, including them calling for General Washington's army, which had gotten the British to pull out of Boston, so dealing with one of their ongoing grievances. So they met now to address continuing grievances. And it was this Second Continental Congress that so famously declared American independence from Great Britain. And they did so as an example of obeying natural law above national law, obeying natural law that which conscientiously seems right to national law. As Ben Franklin's personal motto had suggested "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." This step of obedience was taken 250 years ago this weekend. This is what we commemorate and celebrate today. This backdrop to American self-government has been used for our collective good to its and required us to justify our existence more than some older nations need to. Oh, what would it mean if you were to ask why there is an England, a France, a Germany, a Turkey, a Thailand, a Japan?
Why America? What Romans 13 Can Tell Us About Government
It's kind of a silly question. It's the land there where those people live who've always spoken that language. But ours has been a more recent and a more staged, varied origin. So we have a basis for self-criticism as our civil war supremely demonstrates and our amending our own constitution has repeatedly shown. All of our current laws stand at the bar of what the American people take to be the truth and must answer sufficiently to those demands or be undermined and changed. As Christians, we're thankful for that and we don't assume that always means change for the better. We're aware change can be for the worst. The Fugitive Slave Act that Frederick Douglas mentioned in that initial quotation I read that mandated the return of slaves to their recognized owners was not only passed by our Congress down the street, but affirmed by our Supreme Court.
Friends, no branch of this fallen government, federal government has shown itself to be an un-ering guide to the truth and goodness. But there was a war to get at that era. And as the founders would regularly say, they would appeal to heaven. They would appeal to providence. Let's look at the outcome of events. That's the recourse which we have. Providence should itself determine. If then there are times that to obey the state may actually be wrong, what can you and I learn about government from our passage today? Let me show you five brief lessons, five brief lessons. Wait, Mark, you mean that was the introduction? Yes. Yes, I do mean that.
1. Goverment is of God.
Number one, government is of God. Any political philosophy which is anti-government at its very root is attacking that which God has ordained and is therefore setting itself against God himself. Recognize God's goodness to us in giving us governments in a fallen world. You see this really from the earliest days of creation in the book of Genesis. In Genesis 2:15 we read the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And then after the flood in Genesis seven and eight, God made a covenant with Noah that Homer read for us earlier in Genesis nine in which he stated, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed for God made man in his own image. That means one of the implications of people being as valuable as they are made in God's image means that the human life is so valuable that if someone were to wrongly privately take the life of another person, then murder someone as the Sixth Commandment would later put it.
Then persons would be authorized to so take that life officially. And that official authorization to take life publicly, not for private purposes, becomes the germ of government. Thus, Paul uses the shorthand expression here in our passage in Romans 13: four of bearing the sword. That's what he means by that phrase.That is having the public right and responsibility to use even violent force. Friends, it's the elders at the gate. It's the judge, it's the prince, the king. The order which will one day evaluate the rightness of all this is previewed by government, especially by good government because government is of God.
And this fact brings by implication another important fact to note.
2. Governing is good work.
Number two, governing is good work. Let me just say to a congregation full of people who are constantly lambasted in the public media, whether you are an official employee of the federal government or the district government or you work in some trade association as a lobbyist and all you many and assorted lawyers of every kind and variety, though you are regularly the butt of jokes in our country, you are to be thanked for doing good and honorable work. Whether you are at the level of the district or federal or the state government, some other kind of voluntary association that combines the interests of citizens across the nation advocating for them. You are doing what Romans 13 here says is good work. Governing well reflects God's own character. Friends, we know this even in the smallest levels, husbands, you should know this.
Parents, you've experienced this already today.
My fellow elders in this church, your work is worthwhile regardless of how you may sometimes be treated. Paul isn't writing the letter to the Romans primarily to government officials, but it is clearly implied here that government is ordained by God to reward the virtuous and punish the wicked. So I hope those of you who are here in positions of authority in the government will meditate on this. Friend, we don't just call you public servants. You are public servants. Your calling is not merely for your own good or to have a job with good benefits and stability, but rather your job is actually to do good to the public that you serve. You serve those you rule. You must be given power in order to do that. It's necessary, but you must be careful not to misuse that power for private ends. In that sense, power is both necessary and dangerous.
And it's meant to be a blessing to those you govern. Christians, where would you go in the Bible to show that authority is meant to be a blessing to those you govern?
I want to text the scripture. Somebody? Psalm 72. Psalm 72 is an excellent one. Somebody else? 2 Samuel 23. Who said that? 2 Samuel 23. Let's turn there. Thank you, Josh. 2 Samuel 23. I think Psalm 72 may be better none. But 2 Samuel 23 is worth you paying attention to if you've never noticed it, if you're in government. Samuel is writing in a society which value the final words of people, assuming there might be unusual wisdom as someone nearest death, perhaps their perspective gets clearer. Well, so here they report the final words of not just anyone, but of David, the greatest of all the kings. So here wisdom is to be gotten. Look at 2 Samuel 23:1. Now these are the last words of David. And then you have this thick verbal frame repeated four times for emphasis. The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who is raised on high.
The anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. So this is about as thick of verbal frame as you could put on these words to show their significance and importance. Okay, so what are those words? Well, here they begin. Verse two, David says, "The spirit of the Lord speaks by me. His word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me, " Okay, so then David puts his own thick frame on these final words because David is saying, not only are these words significant, but they're not merely my words. This I'm giving you is the word of God. God has said this and it's repeated four times for emphasis. Okay, David, what did God say? Middle, verse three. When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth.
Friends, good authority. Authority well used and exercised blesses those underneath it.
Good authority is exercised not fundamentally for the good of the one exercising authority, though he can certainly be blessed in doing it, but it is for the blessing of those underneath that authority. And we all know the truth of this. Everybody wants to be on the team with a good coach. Everybody wants to go to the class with a good teacher. Work at the place with a good boss. Go over to the parents' house that everybody likes going over to after school. There is a common experience we have of authority being used well blessing those underneath it. That's exactly what David is saying here, that the Lord is saying really through David. You see how this has been worked out in your own life. Is there responsibility here in the district or in your neighborhood at work or in your business or in your family that you could take?
Are there ways that you could better influence what God has entrusted to you in these days? Business owners. You doing your work well means there are jobs that people can afford to pay for their families off of. You bless us by your productivity. Government employees, wherever you are in the executive judicial or legislative branches, governing is honorable labor. It brings order, regularity, predictability, fairness to life. Give yourself to doing it well because governing is good work regardless of what the comedians say.
3. The purpose of governing is to promote good and restrain evil.
Number three: governing is, as Paul presents it here specifically to promote good and to restrain evil. To promote good and to restrain evil. So politicians, policemen, bureaucrats, lawyers, elected officials remember that. Parents, husbands, teachers, employers, managers remember that. Every government to some extent does good in that it upholds law and order against anarchy and chaos. John Calvin wrote that rulers never abuse their power by harassing the good and the innocent without retaining in their despotic rule some semblance of just government.
No tyranny therefore can exist, which does not in some respect assist in protecting human society. What Calvin is saying is that essentially sin, even under Mussolini, trains ran on time. I assume that there were honest judges and legitimate arrests for robbery even under the Christian persecuting Roman Emperor Nero.
To be just is to give to each their due, to bring good to those who do good and terror to those who do evil. This is the standard for judging. Even the judges, our governors. We're used to this in evaluating other exercises of authority. Thank you. So just consider one example, one of the most common among us in our experience. Let's consider the example of husbands. Husbands must use their authority for good. The Bible repeatedly tells us this, wherever the Bible speaks of the husband's authority, did you notice this always accompanies it? 1 Peter 3, "Husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the women as the weaker vessel since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered." Or Colossians 3, "Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
Ephesians 5, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body." So if you think back in the last few weeks of your own life, can you see ways in which you have held authority? Ways in which you've used it?
What bad have you restrained? What good have you encouraged or enabled? Pray that God make you sensitive to such opportunities in the days and weeks ahead of you. Kids, do you have any questions about the way your parents are using authority? Ask them about it. They're still learning even as they work through it. You can learn from them. They want you to learn these things from them. Good governing in the home or the state promotes good and restrains evil.
4. Obedience is normal.
Number four, obedience is normal. Obedience is normal. There are some situations in which civil disobedience or individual refusals to obey may be necessary, but normally obedience is the path to following Christ. Remember Christ's own example in laying down his life for us. He told Pilate to his face the very day he was sentenced to be crucified, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews, but now my kingdom is from another place." And then a little later when Pilate was exasperated with Jesus' refusal to answer his question, Pilate said, "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?" Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if we're not given to you from above."
In the first five verses of Romans 13, Paul instructs Christians to obey the government and he addresses the question of why. Perhaps he knows that these earliest Christians are so taken with the newness of being in Christ and the freedom they have in him that they're wondering if this dissolves all their old allegiances and obligations. And one of these is their obligation to the government. So Paul anticipates these questions about why they should submit and he gives basically two answers, motivations external and internal. Verse five is a summary of these first few verses. Look at Romans 13:5. Paul says here to submit to the government because of external possible punishment and because of internal conscience, knowing that the rulers are established by God. He reminds the Christians here of these two reasons that he spelled out briefly.
Verse 5: "Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath." There's reason one, punishment, but also for the sake of conscience. That you know it's right. The punishment he's talked about in verses three and four, the conscience in verses one and two, and that we're to recognize in our very conscience our sense of moral right and wrong, that those over us bear legitimate authority by the will of God. And so here in verse five, he's acknowledging that we have our own conscience about some matters which may sometimes differ from others around us.
So my employer should be able to think about me with some satisfaction that I'm doing my job. Kids, are your parents pretty confident that when they ask you to do something, you'll do it? You should ask them that at home. They should be. You want them to be. How is following Christ and your resolve to follow him making you different than some of your friends around you? Whatever differences you may find with others, remember that obedience is normal for the Christian.
5. Opposition to the government is not disallowed.
And then number five, as I've gone to some lengths to show at the beginning, opposition to the government is not by these verses, categorically disallowed. I know that sounds like a Washington statement, but it's there for a reason and I mean it and I'm going to say it again. Opposition to the government is not by these verses categorically disallowed.
Paul is not writing political philosophy for the state. He is rather writing as an individual Christian under Roman rule to other individual Christians under Roman rule. You look at these instructions, friends, in context. It would be a categorical error to take these instructions to individuals as if they've been written to nations or groups. Scripture teaches God sovereignty in establishing rulers. 1 Peter 2 says something very similar to Romans 13: "submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men, whether to the king as the Supreme Authority or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right."
Friends, we read in the Old Testament that the Lord God reigns Psalm 72. The Lord reigns. He spoke through Isaiah, the prophet. He reminded the people of his sovereignty over this world's rulers. The Lord quote, brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
No sooner are they planted no sooner? Are they sown no sooner? Do they take root in the ground? Then he blows on them and they wither and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. As Daniel said of the Lord, he changes times and seasons. He sets up kings and deposes them. That's Daniel 2:21. The most high is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets them over the lowliest of men. Daniel 4:17. We know from scripture that God has raised up tyrants like Pharaoh and merciless kings like Nebuchadnezzar who captured and destroyed Jerusalem and took the Jews into exile in Babylon. Friends, do not misunderstand what the Bible is teaching us here in Romans 13. We should certainly never disobey God regardless of what the government tells us to do. It's a dangerous territory to be in whenever we find the earthly authorities in our state or our home or our work calling us in a different direction than God's authority.
But in a fallen world, we do find ourselves there sometimes and we have to make judgements.
Husbands, our authority is to be life-giving, not scary, not arbitrary or self-serving or abusive. When a husband chose himself to be wrong in his use of authority, that doesn't de - legitimize the institution of marriage or its normal shape. It may delegitimize that particular husband either in those particular actions or in that complete relationship. More generally, it may show his inability to be responsible in that role. Wives, you know what fruit your husband's authority is having in your own life. You see how it blesses you and your children or not? Moms and dads, are you getting the help you need for your age kids and figuring out what is wise? How can you use your authority? It's one of the main ways you can use a community like this local church, finding people who are in a similar stage of life or a little beyond where you are and getting wisdom from them and knowing how to use this authority so up close and powerfully in people's lives.
But in those terrible times when other lesser authorities in our lives conflict with God's authority, our duty is clear. We are to obey God first. So in Acts chapter four, when the Sanhedrin ordered Peter and John not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus, Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves where there is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we've seen and heard." And then again in the next chapter, when the same authority, the Sanhedrin is now further exasperated and reminds them that they had been given strict orders not to teach in Jesus' name. Peter and the other apostles replied, "We must obey God rather than men." Remember Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo literally stood up to the king very publicly refusing his command to bow down and worship the image of gold.
Daniel himself refused to obey Darius's command to stop praying to the Lord. What we see in each of these examples is that obedience to God may sometimes involve disobedience to the state. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. Notice though in none of these examples was the disobedience to the state meant to undermine the ruler's authority. It was more an acted out statement that in these particular orders, the state had exceeded its own competence. It had ordered what it should never have ordered. Our own church's statement of faith that we read earlier in our service together expresses this understanding of the Bible's teaching on civil government very well in Article 16. We believe that civil government is a divine appointment for the interest and good order of human society and that magistrates are to be prayed for consciously honored and obeyed except only in things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ who's the only Lord of the conscience and the prince of the kings of the earth.
In our own nation today, we can have political opposition. Such partisan debates are part of our government in a multi-party state like ours. There can be nonviolent action for good reform of laws. We can take the government of the district to law. We can sue them if we think they're not acting in accordance with our own laws. We have good examples in history of everybody from Martin Luther King Jr. To Mahatma Gandhi of using nonviolent civil action to bring change. It's because we respect and honor those in authority that we pray for them as we do each Sunday here. So we as a church try to obey even the sometimes complicated laws of the district in which we are. And it is because we respect and honor the government itself and not any one political party that we work here to be nonpartisan. As a church, we should labor to be an island of respect and honor for those in government rather than cynicism towards them.
Whether the president in the White House is Donald Trump or Joe Biden, we see in the government a sign of God's good provision for us. We should work to build a culture in this diverse and international church of a genuine love for the United States of America and its marvelous freedoms and a love and concern for all the other countries of God's world. There is no conflict between a healthy patriotism on the one hand and on the other realizing that as Christians, we are not finally of this world and its nations. The Christian has a civic responsibility to normally submit to the governing authorities, but there are exceptional times as in our nation's founding decided 250 years ago this very weekend.
A Final Matter: Authority is Ultimately God's Alone
One final matter I should mention this morning. This is not what I though was going to be the next sermon I preached to the last time I preached to you. The last time I preached to you in May, I thought I was going to be picking up Acts chapter 12, which Kevin has done so confidently in my absence and which I intend to pick up again myself in August. Lord willing. It's such a good chapter. But friend, for those of you who don't know, the Lord intervened and on Memorial Day I collapsed very suddenly. And it seemed that my ministry here was ended.
My ministry to you, my ability to influence you for the good was completed. But look who's here. Amen. Apparently it's not. Thank the Lord. But friend, what that illustrates to me so clearly is that the most important questions of legitimate authority and response is not the authority and response of mine and yours to the government, but it's not about us nationally, but it's about us personally. It's not about us historically, but it's about us today. It's not about us as a people, but about each one of us as individuals. How do you stand toward the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you recognizing him as your Lord and Savior? The best ministry I could have in your life is to introduce you to him as the Lord of Lords and the personal savior of all who will trust in him. Friend, if you do not know Christ as your Lord, find what that means.Find who he is.
Keep coming here. Talk to me or other pastors at the door. We would love to introduce you to the best of all authorities. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for caring for each one of us through those who've placed an authority over us. Lord, thank you for our parents. Thank you for our teachers. Thank you for our government officials. Oh Lord, guide them in their use of authority according to your will and help each one of us to obey them. Bless those believers today who live under corrupt governments. Guide their consciences to respond in ways pleasing to you. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.
Mark Dever
Mark serves as the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. A Duke graduate, Dr. Dever holds a M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a Th.M. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Ecclesiastical History from Cambridge University. He is the President Emeritus of 9Marks and has taught at a number of seminaries. Dr. Dever has authored several books and articles, most recently, Discipling, The Compelling Community and The Church: The Gospel Made Visible. Earlier books include What is a Healthy Church?, The Gospel and Personal Evangelism, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, The Deliberate Church, Promises Kept: The Message of the New Testament, and Promises Made: The Message of the Old Testament.