143 - Patterns of Disobedience [B]

Patterns of Disobedience
Romans 13:3-7

We're continuing to study the issue of authority in Romans 13 where Paul says all authorities are from God and that we are to obey all authority. Looking at other Scriptures, we understand that to disobey authority is to disobey God because all of the authorities come from God. Unfortunately I think there are some people who take those statements in an absolute sort of way that is not intended. The Bible does not say to obey the authority when they're wrong. And wrong is defined against a standard. That standard, of course, is the Word of God. So we've been looking the last time and will be looking this time at examples where believers disobeyed an authority over them because the law or mandate that was being set forth was contrary to the Word of God.

We've seen several principles and will see more in the last two examples we're going to look at this evening. In each of these cases the command or the mandate or the order or the law was specifically in contradiction to a revealed mandate from God. It wasn't just that we might think that wasn't the right principles. We'll see when we get to the end of this section in Romans 13:6-7 there are some people who think that the tax system in the United States is extremely unfair. They may or may not be right. There are people who think the property tax system is extremely unfair and is not consistent with a Biblical pattern. That's a good example to use because I think there's something to the argument that property tax is really a tax that is not wise and is destructive of the accumulation of wealth. In the Old Testament, in the Mosaic Law, which we're not under but is a pattern for us of wise government, there's no property tax. There are tithes which are basically the taxes which were based on a percentage and that were applied equally to every person whether you were wealthy or whether you were poor. You still paid 10% every year for one tithe, 10% for the other tithe. Every third year there was another 10%. It was a flat rate tax. There was no property tax.

Therefore, there would be no threat of a loss of property to a family. Property was wealth and it could be accumulated and passed on within the family and the clan from one generation to another. So we'll take that as an example because there's a Biblical pattern there that is violated today. So does that give me the right to say, "I'm not going to pay my property taxes because that doesn't fit the Biblical pattern"? No, it doesn't. Now if the government comes along and mandates me to do something that God tells me not to do or tells me not to do something God has told me to do, then I have the right to disobey that. That's the difference between disobeying a direct command and this idea that it doesn't fit a Biblical pattern or a Biblical principle. All the examples we have in Scripture are addressed to specific situations and issues.

We looked last time at Exodus 1:6 and then Exodus 1:15-22 in the case of the disobedient midwives. We looked at Exodus 2:1-6 along with Hebrews 11:23 for the case of the disobedient parents. Now both of those were involved with the Exodus generation. In the first case you had the midwives that were told by Pharaoh to let him know whenever a male baby was born so he could kill the baby. Now they already arrived too late for them to do anything. He had asked them to just say they were born dead or to make some excuse. In the case of the disobedient parents this was Moses' parents. Moses was born under threat of death from the Pharaoh so they hid the child, thus violating the law of Pharaoh. But God was in control and provided for protection for Moses.

Then we went to Daniel. In Daniel we looked at the case of the wise students in the first chapter which is the story of the Jewish young men who were probably around 14 or 15 years of age who had been taken back to Babylon as captives to be retrained and they were all given the same diet. This was not a kosher diet and so Daniel and his three friends, Azariah, Hananiah, and Mishael, who had all been given Babylonian names that reflected the Babylonian deities. Remember, I pointed out that they didn't make an issue out of that. That's like trying to make an issue out of a principle as opposed to a command. They didn't fight on that hill. They waited and focused on an issue where they were being required to eat food that God had told them not to eat.

Daniel went privately to the administrator who was over the program, the chief eunuch, and appealed to him and gave him a wise test to evaluate their diet in contrast to the diet of the other students and they came out a winner. So that gives us a good example. Daniel is written as a book of wisdom for how believers are to live in a pagan environment. That's important for us and will be more and more so as the world around us becomes more and more hostile to Biblical Christianity. We need to learn how to live in the world around us without constantly butting heads but operating on wisdom.

Sometimes there are going to be direct head-on confrontations as we saw in Daniel 3 where Nebuchadnezzar erected a huge gold statue that they were to bow down and worship. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego refused to bow down and worship. The penalty was that they would be thrown into a fiery furnace. In their confrontation with Nebuchadnezzar they were very polite and respectfully declined to obey the order. They said, "God will save us but if He doesn't that's okay, He's still God." So they trusted in God and God delivered them uniquely to make a point to Nebuchadnezzar.

We ended there last time and we'll look at a third example in Daniel which is in Daniel 6. This is the episode related to Daniel and the lions' den. Now as we look at this, there are four basic points we need to remember here. First of all, as I've already said, Christians are to subject themselves to government authority. So Daniel is to submit himself to the authority of the law of the Medes and the Persians. Second this government authority, whether it's saved or unsaved and in this case we have an unsaved authority, Daniel has to submit himself to that. Now that has implications for us and for many Christians who live outside the United States. We have a tendency to just focus so narrowly on our own circumstances in our own culture, but if you're a Christian living in a Moslem country then you've got a whole other issue to deal with. If you're a Christian living in Russia, living in Ukraine, living in purely secularized countries with no strong history of Biblical traditions behind them, then that too is a different circumstance and a different situation. And so we have to recognize that even though authorities that are placed over us, such as if you're in Russia that means Putin, in you're in Saudi Arabia or Iran then that has to do with either the House of Saud or the Ayatollahs who are running Iran. They are the authorities that are appointed by God. Wrestle with that a little bit. All authorities are appointed by God. It means Nero and whomever you think was a wonderful Christian ruler.

So the third thing we will see in this is that when you resist government authority you do it because it relates specifically to a command of God. Then finally we see that the person who is the governing authority is going to be given a testimony. Whether they accept it or not is another story. In this case he's positive to it but that's not always the case.

Now the situation we find in Daniel 6 is that the governing power has now shifted. It was the Chaldean Empire in the first four chapters. In the middle of chapter 5 it shifts to the Medes and the Persians. The Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire and that's the story of chapter 5 and then the ruler over Babylon in Daniel 6 is Darius. "And it pleased Darius to set over the Kingdom 120 satraps to be over the whole kingdom." This is his administration. He didn't have states. He set up these satraps in regional areas of administration and each one had a ruler or an administrator over that area. And over those 120 satraps there were three governors who oversaw the administration of those 120 satraps. So each governor would basically oversee 40 of them. Daniel was one of those three governors.

Daniel now is not the young Daniel that we read about in the first three chapters but now Daniel is probably close to 81 years of age. If he was 14 or 15 when he was first taken to Babylon that was in 605 BC. This is now 540 BC. So about 65 years have gone by and if you add 15 to that then you've got 80 or 81 years of age, depending upon whether this is 540 or 539 BC and he is not young anymore. He had gone into retirement but he's been called out toward the end when they had the big feast with Belshazzar and the handwriting on the wall. Someone remembered that Daniel could interpret dreams. He was no longer part of the administration at that point but they called him back. He had been retired for some time. He probably spent that time in ministry in the Jewish community reading, studying, and continuing with his spiritual life and his spiritual growth.

Word got to Darius about Daniel's background and Darius wisely elevated him to a position of authority in the Persian Empire. Now anyone who is a success at anything is going to come under a lot of scrutiny from their peers. If you're working in any form of bureaucracy, whether it's in the military or any other form of bureaucracy such a school district or whatever it may be, if you are a standout, there are probably going to have people who become jealous of you. This is especially true in areas of bureaucracy in our government. You take for example what's going on with this scandal in the Veteran's Administration. One of the problems with the federal bureaucracy is the need to "go along and get along". If you do that, everyone has a secure job and nothing is being threatened, but if you exercise initiative and if you do things differently and you operate according to a different standard, then you're going to be a threat to everyone else. They're just operating at minimal expectation. If you rise above those minimal expectations, you're going to make yourself a target and they will try to do something out of jealousy and envy to take you out because you're a threat to them.

That's the kind of thing that happened with Daniel. In Daniel 6:3 we read, "Then this Daniel began distinguishing himself among the commissioners and satraps because he possessed an extraordinary spirit, and the king planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom." Now this just irritated and angered all of those petty little minds that were part of the bureaucracy. So they were trying to come up with a plan to take Daniel out. In Daniel 6:5 we see the thinking of these men, "Then these men said, 'We will not find any ground of accusation against this Daniel unless we find {it} against him with regard to the law of his God.' " So he's got a strong public testimony. They knew who he was and they knew what his habits were, so they decided that his weak spot was going to be something related to his worship of God and they would have to come up with a law that would make what Daniel was doing illegal, knowing that Daniel wouldn't change and Daniel wouldn't compromise.

So they came up with the idea of having the king sign a law or a decree that no one in the kingdom could present a request or a petition before any god or any man for a period of thirty days except to the king. The penalty would be that they would be cast into a den of lions. I'm sure that this is a summary version of what was going on. It probably took them time to come up with this kind of a trap and also they would have to put it the right way and pick the right time in order to catch Darius off guard. Anyone who is a good leader would immediately realize that this would be a problem. If you have such a large empire and such a huge administration and every petition, every request has to come to you, and you alone, that's going to create an extremely narrow bottleneck, extremely tight bottleneck. So you'd have to pick a time when it would be expected that not a whole lot would be going on. Sort of like in the old days before they invented air conditioning, once it started getting hot and humid in D.C. not a lot was going on. In fact, the argument has been made by someone that the greatest threat to American liberty was the invention of the air conditioner because once Congress was air-conditioned, they could stay longer and come up with more laws and take away more freedom.

So they came up with a time and way in which they could present this to Darius so that he would go along with it. It was only for thirty days. So in Daniel 6:8 we read, "Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it may not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked." Once the ruler signed something into law even the ruler couldn't change it. It was irreversible. There was no appeal. There was no way to turn it back. There was no way to reverse himself. It was permanent and binding to everyone, including the king.

Now this had probably gone on for some time because we see in verse 10 Daniel seems to know what is going on. Daniel 6:10 begins, "Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed…" So he was aware of this decree. He was aware of the conspiracy. It almost seems as if he was biding his time. He knew this was going to happen. He knew it was a foregone conclusion and once he knew that, he waited until it was signed.

And then he went home and we're told that "He entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem), and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously." Now that last phrase is important to note. He's not going in there to rub Darius's nose in the law. He's not making up a situation to create a violation of the law. He's not operating out of anger saying, "I'm totally against this law. I'm going to go out and break the law in order to make a court case about it so we can get this handled."

Different culture. Different situation. We can handle it a different way in the U.S. where someone breaks the law and takes it to court and get it tested. That's how we can do things. That's not how they could do things because even the king couldn't change the law. So he recognized he's going to do exactly what he's always done since he was a young man.

This is an important principle to train children. If you're a parent or a grandparent, this is a great lesson. You need to train your children in prayer from the earliest age. Make this a habit along with many other things that they need to make a part of their life, such as giving them responsibilities for cleaning up their room, and various other chores around the house, develop maturity. As soon as they begin to read, have them read Bible stories. You read them to them and then let them read them. Pick a time every single day so you build a pattern and habit into their life from the earliest possible age. Same thing with prayer. Every single day, make a time of prayer where there's an appointment with God that they're going to keep every single day.

That's what we see with Daniel. Now I'm not going to say it should be three times a day but it should be at least one time a day when you have a set appointment with God when you are going to take time to pray. Now Daniel we know from other passages is familiar with other Old Testament writings, even contemporary writings, such as Jeremiah. In the beginning of Daniel 9 we know he has been reading in the prophet Jeremiah's book. In Jeremiah 29:11 there is a promise from God that says, " 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.' " That is a great promise. It is a promise made to Israel in light of the plan God has for them but it reflects a universal principle. It has an implication for us. That God is a God who orders history and orders our life and we know that He has a plan for us as well. So there's an implication there for us.

For Daniel there's a clear application, because as a Jew, God had a specific plan for him and for his country. In Jeremiah 29:12-13, God says, "Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find {Me} when you search for Me with all your heart." So God is calling upon His people to pray and be dependent upon Him. Daniel understood how important this was as part of his relationship with God. From the time he was young he had made it a point to pray to God. So he's not just choosing this as an opportunity to disobey this law.

Daniel would be aware of a statement in 1 Kings 8:29-30 which states, "Yet have regard to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplication, O LORD my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which Your servant prays before You today; that Your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, toward the place of which You have said, 'My name shall be there,' to listen to the prayer which Your servant shall pray toward this place." This house in this context refers to the Temple and that God is indicating that the people would pray toward the Temple in Jerusalem which is the place of the dwelling of God in the Old Testament. So God established His presence in the Temple and they would pray in that direction.

Another important prayer statement is from David. This time in Psalm 55:17, "Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, And He will hear my voice." See, I bet most of you don't ever complain to God in your prayers. When you read through the Psalms David is constantly complaining to God in His prayers. Then, as he goes through the problem in complaint, he's thinking about God's provisions and His promises and by the time he gets to the end of that lament psalm, David's mental attitude has been straightened out and he's focused on the eternal provision of God. But how often is he praying? Evening, morning, and noon. So this is a pattern that we see in Scripture so this was the pattern that Daniel had adopted. He understood that and he's praying three times a day and he has for most of his life.

But he also is aware that this is probably a trap. He's not going to hide. He could easily have gone home and said, "Well, I know that if I do what I normally do, I can still pray. It's really not going to make any difference to God. I'm still going to pray three times a day. I'll just close the curtains and pull the blinds and that way no one is going to know what I'm doing in here." But Daniel is not going to change a single thing. He's going to continue to do what he's always done and even though he knows that his enemies are sitting outside the window, paying attention to exactly what is going on, he still prays.

As soon as they spot him praying they immediately ran back to the king and they reminded him of what he'd done and told him he had made this law and it couldn't be altered. These men just set the king up, the way they're handling him. They had him going as he remembered the law and emphasized that it couldn't be changed and then they sprung the trap. In Daniel 6:13 we read, "Then they answered and spoke before the king, 'Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the injunction which you signed, but keeps making his petition three times a day.' " Notice how long they've been pointing out that he was one of the captives from Judah. It's been 65 years or more. It shows how hostile they are to the Jews, an incipient anti-Semitism.

When the king heard this he was just mortified. He probably realized at that point how he had been set up and how Daniel had been set up and he was extremely distressed because he cared a lot for Daniel. He relied upon him. He realized he had more integrity probably than all the other administrators in the kingdom combined and so he tried to figure out some way to deliver Daniel. But they kept reminding him that he couldn't violate the law, so he ordered Daniel's arrest and had Daniel brought to him in preparation for executing the penalty of having him sent to the lions' den.

Then the king made it clear to Daniel and showed he understood Daniel's testimony. Whether Darius was a believer or not we'll never know but he says, in Daniel 6:16, "Your God whom you constantly serve will Himself deliver you." So he had some sense that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Daniel was the true God. So they go through the whole episode where they put Daniel inside the lions' den. What has happened so far is that we see the same pattern fits here that we've seen already. There's an unjust law from the king that is mandating a believer. The believer doesn't make a public issue out of it.

I would say that in our environment it's different because we don't live under the kind of totalitarian state that they lived under. We live in a world where we have a right to publicly assemble, to challenge the laws in the courtroom, and to make a challenge of the administrators of the law. This is much like what happened last week with regard to this city ordinance in Houston. This is in contrast to some of the riots or some of the things that have gotten out of control that you've seen with other issues in "civil disobedience". There was an assembly of believers down at City Hall last week. There was another gathering at Grace Community Church on Sunday night of over 2,500 people from different churches and pastors for the purpose of being educated on this city ordinance. The press was out there. This was just showing a public unity that they were standing against the foolishness of this city ordinance. It's making an impact upon the people on city council. They've never seen this many people get together and communicate this much over anything they've done. Which is sad. They're really hearing from the citizens of Houston about this particular ordinance.

We can speak up because that's our form of government. If you tried to speak up in an Egyptian environment or in a Persian environment, you were just going to be summarily executed. So it all depends on the governing situation you might have. But always follow the principles of following the law and showing respect for those who are in authority, which is exactly what Daniel has done. Daniel has refused to obey the law but he doesn't make an exceptional show about it. He goes home and continues to do that which was right, trusting in the Lord to handle the situation, which is exactly what happened.

This is one of many people's favorite stories from the Old Testament that Daniel was put into the lions' den. The king spends his night in torment. He can't eat. He can't sleep. His regular entertainment, whether he would bring in a group of musicians or one of the wives from his harem, whatever it was, he sends everybody away, and stays by himself. He can't sleep. He tosses and turns and cannot wait until dawn so he can come down and see if Daniel is still there.

Then in Daniel 6:20 we read, "The king cried out with a lamenting voice…" He knows Daniel is going to be dead but there's something that gives him a little bit of hope. His voice is just shaky as he cries out, "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve, been able to deliver you from the lions?" Then in Daniel 6:21-22, Daniel said to the king, "O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths and they have not harmed me, inasmuch as I was found innocent before Him." That's the only court of appeal that ultimately matters for eternity.

So the king exulted and in his place he sent those who had arrested him. He even had their whole families, including their children and their wives thrown into the lions' den where they were devoured by the lions. So he then issued a decree praising God, the living God, who is steadfast forever. His kingdom is the One that shall not be destroyed and His dominion shall endure to the end. He delivers and rescues and works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth and He has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. And it very well could be that because of that statement that at this point Darius became a believer. It's not clear but I would lean toward thinking he did.

Now what we've seen is the same pattern. Let's turn to Acts where we'll look at a situation we studied very recently in Acts 5 which is the case of prohibited preaching. Acts 4 is where a very clear statement is made by Peter in relation to the obedience to authority. Now this is the same Peter who is going to write what we're going to read in 1 Peter. In Acts Peter and John have been arrested by the Sanhedrin and they're tried by the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:18 "And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus." It's interesting that it adds that phrase "to teach in the name of Jesus" because in the Great Commission part of what Jesus specifically commanded the disciples to do is to teach all men. So now they're commanded not to teach in the name of Jesus. In Acts 4:19 we see their answer, "But Peter and John answered and said to them, 'Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge.' " In Acts 5:28-29 they're challenged again when they're arrested again. This time the Sanhedrin reminds them they commanded them not to preach in this name. Peter responded by saying, "We ought to obey God, rather than men." So in these two episodes that are connected, Peter states it very succinctly that we ought to obey God rather than men. Then he gave them the gospel in Acts 5:30-32, "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and {so is} the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him." So he disobeys them right in front of them right there in the courtroom.

We see again a command from people in authority that tells Peter and John to do exactly the opposite of what Jesus told them to do. It's not a matter of principle. It's a matter of a specific mandate from God. So they resist that. That is the pattern for resistance.

Now one other thing I want to address before we wrap this up has to do with something that's called The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate. Now the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate is something that is derived from Scripture. I think we sort of see some examples of it in what we have been studying. It's an expansion of it somewhat. We have to go back to its historical background. It's a document that was written by a group of Lutheran pastors following the Protestant Reformation. So we have to understand a little bit about that particular background.

This was called the Magdeburg Confession and this was written in about 1548. Now the Protestant Reformation began in 1517 by Martin Luther who was a Roman Catholic Augustinian monk. He had no idea that what he was doing was going to split the Roman Catholic Church in two. Up to that point there was only one church. There had been various sects that popped up here and there but basically there was only one church. The Roman Catholic Church had deteriorated into a tremendous amount of apostasy and perversion at this point. And Martin Luther wanted to reform it.

There had been several periods of reformation from within the Roman Catholic Church over the years. That's pretty much the pattern he was following. He had no idea of what he was beginning. He was from a town in what is now eastern Germany called Wittenberg, Germany. On October 31, the eve before a holiday, the Eve of All Saints, he nailed 99 debating points on the door of the church at Wittenberg. The door of the church was a place like a community bulletin board. If you had a horse for sale or an ox for sale or you wanted to buy something, that's where you would put a notice. So he tacks this up that this is something that needs to be debated because these are serious flaws within the Roman Catholic Church.

This is what led to the split in the Roman Catholic Church among those who were called Protestants. That came because they were protesting the theology and the practices of the church. One of the fundamental issues that Luther wanted to debate was the issue of how a man became righteous before God. Was it through the work of the Sacraments or was it through faith alone in Christ alone? That's what began the break.

Now this caused a huge wave of separation to occur among the different states in what is now modern Germany. There was no unified Germany at that time. It caused a tremendous fissure to occur in Germany and Germany was under the authority of the Holy Roman Empire which was not holy, not roman, and it really wasn't an empire but that's what it was called. The Holy Roman Emperor at this time is Charles V which in 1521 on May 25 called the Edict of Worms and in that he stated "For this reason we forbid anyone from this time forward to dare either by words or by deeds to receive, defend, sustain, or favor the said Martin Luther. On the contrary we want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic as he deserves and to be brought personally before us or to be securely guarded until those who have captured him inform us. Thereupon we will order a proceeding against the said Luther. Those who help in his capture will be rewarded generously for their good work."

Well Luther was basically kidnapped and protected by Prince Frederick III of Saxony who had come to Protestant convictions. So what we see here is the beginning of this Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate. Prince Frederick is supposedly under the authority of Charles V. Charles V had issued an edict or law to arrest Luther for preaching the gospel but Frederick comes along and says that if that happens Luther will be killed. He said, "That's wrong so I'm going to hide him." That's what happened. So Luther was put into hiding and that's what protected him.

The Law of the Lesser Magistrate is the idea that when a higher authority enacts an unjust law which fits the Biblical pattern of an unjust law telling citizens to do something that was unjust and would be a violation of God's Word, then to arrest someone for their proclamation of the gospel then a lower authority has the right and the responsibility to act and to interpose himself between the higher authority and the citizen to protect the citizen from the unjust law and penalties of it. So Frederick III's act saved Luther's life.

Now Charles was never able to enforce the Edict of Worms. The purpose of the Edict of Worms was to completely outlaw Protestant belief. He was involved in wars with France and others at the time so by 1530, some eight years later, he convened a Diet, which is a meeting with all the heads of states in the empire. They met in Augsburg to handle the business of the Empire, sort of like Congress. By 1530 there was a major threat facing Europe, much like today. The Muslims were at the gates of Vienna. So Charles was more concerned about unifying all the Christians in Europe so they wouldn't be fighting with each other and could face a common enemy. He was willing to sort of call for a little bit of truce in a war against the protestants. So things calmed down.

Luther at this time wrote a treatise or book that went out to the German people called "The Warning to my Dear German People" published in 1531. It was broken into three parts which was later the same outline as the later Magdeburg Confession and then also in 1531 there was a group of princes, Prince Phillip of Hesse and Prince John Frederick of Saxony who were the two most powerful Protestant rulers at the time who organized themselves in a religious alliance called the Schmalkald League and the member of this league pledged themselves to defend each other in case Charles V attacked their territories. So they're making a stand for religious liberty and belief in the gospel because Charles V wants to stamp out the gospel of justification by faith alone.

So this fits the same pattern in Scripture where you have a king who is seeking to prevent believers from doing what God has told them to do. They're not engaged in offensive action against the king but if he's going to attack them they're going to band together to protect each other. Well, this went on for another fifteen years or so before Luther died. Luther dies in 1546 and it's not long before Charles V seizes the opportunity. He's thinking that now with Luther gone he can destroy the Protestant movement.

So he entered into an agreement with Pope Paul III to stop the Reformation and in 1548 Charles imposed a law called the Augsburg Interim which demanded a lot. Listen to this law, the edict coming down from the Emperor. He said that Lutherans were to restore the number of sacraments from two, the same two we believe in, baptism and the Lord's Table, back to seven which is what the Roman Catholic Church has. The churches were to restore many of the Roman Catholic rituals and ceremonies and practices, including the belief in transubstantiation, which is that the elements of the Lord's Table actually transubstantiated into the blood and the body of Christ.

Third, the decree called for the rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith alone and fourth it required everyone to acknowledge the Pope as the head of the Church. Fifth, it stated the churches must respect the authority of the Roman bishops. So this is a direct confrontation against the Scripture and a contradiction to the Scriptures. So then with this now as law, the Pope came along and issued an edict authorizing Charles V to raise an army in order to attack those who would not conform to the edict and to destroy them and to force them into submission.

The only city in Germany to resist the Augsburg Interim was the city of Magdeburg. Every other city in Germany just caved in. They said, "Okay, the king's in authority. That means we do whatever the king says to do." The magistrates and the pastors in Magdeburg said, "Wait a minute. This is an unjust law. We need to stand and protect our people." So they stood on the basis of Scripture. They refused to obey the edict from Charles. They fortified the city and in 1550 Charles brought his army to attack them. The people burned everything outside the walls of the city, closed the gates, and were under siege for a year.

During that time the pastors of Magdeburg wrote a defense of their position, which is called The Magdeburg Confession. It was a defense of their actions. They also wrote and published 228 tracts and pamphlets. See they didn't get distracted by Facebook and e-mail and television and all that other stuff. So they published 228 tracts and pamphlets that were printed and distributed throughout Germany. These taught the gospel as well as gave a rationale in defense of what they were doing.

At the end of the year, Charles V had lost 4,000 soldiers, killed, and 468 Magdeburgers had died, almost 10 to one. The siege ended on November 4, 1551 with favorable terms granted to the Magdeburgers by the Emperor. He just gave up. As a result of their resistance, the other territories in Germany got a backbone. They gathered together and they began to resist Charles. They refused to obey the edict and eventually they were able to push Charles' army out of Germany. So it seems to fit the pattern for disobeying authority.

The Magdeburg Confession was basically unknown until a couple of years ago at which time it was translated into English. Then another book was published about two or three years ago dealing with an explanation of the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate. There is a problem in the Reformation age. They didn't handle Scripture always in the way we would handle Scripture. It's a mixed bag, but they have a fairly good point and I think what they did fit the pattern in Scripture. In this book about the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate there's only one chapter that deals with the Scriptural justification for it. All of the other examples that are given are examples that are given historically.

It may be recognition of an establishment principle. I'll accept that, but the examples we have in the book come out of the writings of John Knox. John Knox was the leader of the Reformation in Scotland. He lived at approximately the same time as what was taking place in Magdeburg. He had a copy of the Magdeburg Confession and he has a Biblical justification. The only place I found this really works is that he quotes from Jeremiah 26:10-16 and he also refers to Jeremiah 36:9-31 and in both cases you have Jeremiah under attack from the King Joachim who is an apostate king of the southern Kingdom. Jeremiah is speaking God's Word to Joachim and he is seeking to take the life of Jeremiah. The princes of Judah protect Jeremiah. That fits the pattern, so that's the only Biblical example. But there's no sort of Biblical injunction or Biblical mandate or anything more than that.

But you see something similar to that in the Bible. If I am in a position of authority to protect someone else and a higher authority comes along mandating something wrong for them to do, then as a leader and as a person responsible, I need to stand in the gap and protect him. Again, the examples that we see, the example at Magdeburg, the example that we see in Jeremiah are examples where we have a king who is trying to implement a command or a law or an ordinance that directly assaults the command of Scripture. That gives you the right of justification to step in and to disobey that law for that purpose.

Now going back to Romans 13, we looked at these other passages dealing with the whole issue of subordination from Romans 13:1 where it says we're to submit to the governing authorities because there's no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Now Paul is writing when Nero is emperor. It's the first part of Nero's reign when he's not as crazy, not as bad as he was at the end. But guess what? Peter writes in 1 Peter during the second half of Nero's reign and Peter says basically the same thing. "Therefore submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake."

Now this is the same Peter that disobeys the Sanhedrin in Acts 5 saying we should obey God rather than man. What Peter is saying here in 1 Peter 2 is not a contradiction. He is saying we are to obey the government. Whenever you're under authority you're to obey that authority unless that authority is in violation of the highest authority, which is God. He uses the same verb here that Paul uses in Romans 13:1. It's the same verb that's used in every other submission passage whether it's talking about children to parents or wives to husbands or slaves to masters.

Peter goes on to say in 1 Peter 2:14-15, "Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right for such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men by doing good, even if we suffer for doing good." That's going to be part of what Peter says because he recognizes that by doing good we will suffer. But he says it's better to suffer for doing good than for doing bad. If you suffer when you've done wrong, you expect to suffer. But when you suffer for doing what's right, that honors God. It's part of our testimony.

Then he goes on to say in 1 Peter 2:18 to slaves to be good to their masters and not only to the good ones but to the one who is a mean, harsh, irascible so-and-so that you don't want to do anything for. Now your boss may be harsh, but he's not telling you to do anything that violates Scripture. He may be hard to get along with. He may be mean and ugly and nasty and vile and loathsome, but he's not telling you to do something that violates the Word of God. So unless he's telling you to do something that violates the Word of God, you're to honor that authority with all fear.

This applies to every area of authority, whether we're talking about government, the family, whatever the environment for authority is, it's not about the personality of the person in authority. They can be stupid. They can be foolish. They can be making mistakes, but guess what? They're the one in authority. They're the one God has established. 1 Peter 3:1 says, "In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any {of them} are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior." This means it's just like all authority. Even if your husband is not a believer and he's crude, he's rude and he's socially unacceptable. He makes stupid decisions, but they're not violating the Scripture.

Now there are exceptions to this. If the guy's abusive. If he's physically threatening, it's time to get out. If he's threatening the children, it's time to get out. That may not allow for remarriage. We'll get into divorce and remarriage later in Matthew. I think there are legitimate grounds for separation. In our culture that basically means divorce in order to protect assets. That doesn't mean that the right to separate or divorce always allows the right to remarriage. In most cases, unless it's immorality or desertion it doesn't allow for the right to remarry. But God does not expect anyone to put themselves in harm's way unless it's for the sake of the gospel. So there are times when it's necessary for self-defense, which is a Biblical principle. Leave and bring the children out. In some cases it may be the wife's who's the one being abusive and then the husband needs to get out for self-defense.

Now just to wrap up this first part of Romans 13:6-7 in the last minute or so, Paul concludes by saying, "For because of this you also pay taxes, for {rulers} are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 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." The word for taxes in verse 6 and 7 is the word PHOROS. It means a tribute from a vassal nation to an overlord nation. From a nation that's been conquered and brought into the empire. That's what that word means. The Jews did not like to hear that they had to pay tribute to Rome, but Paul says that's legitimate. Customs is the word TELOS which means a tax in the sense we think of a tax, a civil tax, in order to take care of the administration of the country. If they're in a position of authority, even if you don't like them, even if you disagree with them, even if they're from the party you don't like, even if they have ideas you think threaten democracy, we are to respect the office, even if the person in the office is not that respectable. We're to show them respect because they hold the office.

All of this always goes back to the original sin. The original sin of Lucifer in eternity past was when he disobeyed the authority of God. That's why the Scriptures make such an issue out of respect for authority all the way through the Scriptures in every area. That's the original sin. Someone who is in a lesser position thinks that he can judge the person whom God has placed over him. So next time we'll come back as we get into Romans 13:8 and we'll continue with that.