Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith, excuse me, and today I want to challenge you to think through whether Romans chapter 13 is the only Bible text that speaks of the church's relationship to the state and the individual Christian's relationship with the state because it is that which is triumphed by most evangelicals as that which speaks exclusively to our relationship with the state. And Romans 13, if you're not familiar with that passage, speaks of subjection to the ruling authorities.

Verse 1 says, for example, 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. And the impression can be that indeed we are to submit to whatever such a state says, right? The fountainhead of all false biblical interpretation, says Oscar Kuhlman in my favorite book on this topic, my new favorite anyway, which is The State in the New Testament, published in 1956. And there, in part, Dr. Kuhlman says, the fountainhead of all false biblical interpretation and of all heresy is invariably the isolation and the absolutizing of one single passage.

This applies most especially in the interpretation of Romans 13, unquote. Oh, boy, this has been bugging me for years. And I finally found one very talented scholar who agrees with me on this, as do others, but Dr. Kuhlman does just a fantastic job of laying this out in his book, The State in the New Testament. And one of my favorite observations on his part is that there's not only Romans 13 in the Bible, but there is also another 13, and that is Revelation chapter 13, two 13s, which speak to the same topic, but from different points of view.

Now, last week, we saw that even when taken in its entirety, Romans 13, that says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, that does not occur in a vacuum. And we covered that last week, that even under these circumstances, Romans 13 is heavily qualified. For example, by Paul's experience of Roman justice, all through the book of Acts, we see that Roman justice cleaves very closely to biblical justice. Roman jurisprudence in the colonies, and we're talking here about Asia Minor and the Greek provinces, all through those provinces, Roman justice was administered evenly and biblically in accordance with natural law.

And natural law we see in the writings of Cicero. And as we compare those writings with scripture, we see that though not perfectly, of course, and though not dovetailing cleanly at all times with biblical notions of law, nevertheless, the idea of biblical jurisprudence dovetailed very closely with biblical jurisprudence. And that is why Paul could say that every person be subject to the governing authorities. And we also saw that the entire context of Romans 13 occurs in the context of the law, Old Testament law.

And if indeed a governing authority, if a magistrate then steps outside of the biblical notion of law, he is no longer to be obeyed, but rather resisted. That is indeed part of what the Bible tells us too, is that we need to resist those who break the law. Proverbs 28, 4 says, they that forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with them. And that is what we are commanded to do, to contend with lawbreakers. And that includes ruling magistrates.

And the other 13 at the polar opposite end of this understanding, of course, is Revelation chapter 13. And the point I want to make with you today is that indeed understanding Revelation 13 in its context will go a long way towards responding to the state and its authority over our lives. Okay, last week we looked at Romans 13. Today, let's look at Revelation 13. And of course, that chapter is about the beast, isn't it?

The beast from the sea and the beast from the land, where John says, I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had 10 horns and seven heads and with 10 crowns on his horns and on each head, a blasphemous name. And if you have been listening to our broadcasts on the book of Revelation, I've been preaching through Revelation, you understand indeed that without question, despite the Revelation red heifer rapture ranters, Revelation chapter 13 speaks of Nero as the beast.

Very clearly, the number being 666 of his name and that despite all challengers, that still stands as the name that can be translated via Gematria into Nero Caesar's name, numbering 666. And then the beast from the land, where John says, then I saw another beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. And we saw indeed that this was none other than the emperor cult that developed in Rome, which commanded the worshiping of the beast, i.e. Nero.

And if you didn't, if you did not send your token coins and a pinch of incense on the altar of the emperor and confess Caesar is Lord rather than Christ is Lord, well, then you couldn't buy or sell. You did not get your certificate to buy or sell your receipt, so to speak. So that understanding is utterly necessary to understand Revelation 13 and why it also speaks to our relationship to the state because Revelation 13 councils' resistance, councils' resistance to the state.

There's a beautiful symmetry between Romans 13 and Revelation 13, which makes for an apt contrast between submission to properly constituted government and resistance to improperly constituted government. And thus, we have our title two 13s. There are indeed two 13s. There's Revelation 13 and there's Romans 13. Well, how does Revelation do what you say then, Mr. Smarty Pants Preacher, you might say, in saying that we should resist improperly constituted government?

Well, John doesn't use the direct language of the apostle Paul in Romans 13, which makes a comparison and a contrast a little less obvious, but nevertheless, it's there because we might expect the apostle John in Revelation to say something like, let every person resist the governing authorities, for rulers have been a terror to good conduct while approving bad conduct, right? For he bears the sword against you, right? That might be the language you might expect, but no. And that's because Romans and Revelation are two distinct genres of literature. Romans is an epistle, that is, a letter, while Revelation is of the genre of apocalypse.

Now, each genre that is a letter has its own distinct rules for understanding what is being written, as apocalypse has its own distinct rules for understanding what is being written. And if you've been with us through our series on the book of Revelation, you understand that there are 10 primary rules for interpreting apocalyptic. And rule number three reads like this. Apocalyptic uses vivid, imaginative, and sometimes bizarre metaphors to portray contemporary, that is, near or soon to be fulfilled, historical realities, not far off future events. Oh, dear listener, not far off future events.

But apocalyptic uses these vivid, sometimes bizarre metaphors to portray near historical realities, not something far off in the future. That's just of the nature of apocalyptic. And Revelation 13, and all of Revelation, for that matter, does precisely this. Beast from the sea and the land, signs from heaven, the mark of the beast on the forehead and the hand, and the cryptic number 666. These are, indeed, vivid, imaginative, yea, bizarre metaphors, but they do portray contemporary, that is, near to John's time, not ours, near contemporary historical realities.

Oh, the Revelation red heifer rapture renters who have cast the book of Revelation into the far-flung future get this so wrong. Now, I spent four weeks preaching through Revelation 13. I can't do this here, of course, obviously. And my bottom line, and I agree with Dr. Kuhlman here, is that Revelation 13 speaks of the debauched, corrupt Roman emperor Nero. And I would just counsel you, if you wish to pursue this notion a little bit further, go ahead and listen to those four messages on Revelation 13.

And I think, I hope you'll be persuaded that, indeed, John was dealing with this phenomenon in the time of the Roman Empire. Revelation 13 speaks of the debauched, corrupt Roman emperor Nero, whose name figures out to 666 in Gematria, and Nero fancied himself as a divine being, and Nero required his subjects to acknowledge him as such. He appropriated titles that are reserved for God alone. Theos, meaning divine, soter, meaning savior, and kurios, meaning lord.

In fact, the cult of the emperor that stretched around the known world at that time, enforced this worship by requiring that all subjects offer a pinch of incense on an altar to Caesar, and then confess with their mouth, Caesar is Lord, rather than, as Paul says, confessing with our mouths that Christ is Lord. And if you didn't do this, you had no receipt, that is the mark of the beast, and you could not buy or sell in the markets of the empire. That's the nature of the second beast. And to all of this, our Lord, through John, commands resistance against those governing authorities. It is not a possible option or a potential alternative.

It is commanded. For John says, our Lord says, through John, the one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne. This is the language of revelation. Not bovine resistance, you bovine Baptists. Yes.

And you, you obsequious evangelicals, and in my own denomination, you pusillanimous Presbyterians, we are to resist, we are to conquer, we are to fight, we are not to roll over and submit. That's all too easy. No, the Bible is not a written excuse from mommy to skip government class and not to be challenged by it. No, the one who conquers, our Lord says, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, not one who submits. As I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne.

Nine times in Revelation, we, the saints, are said to conquer in resisting and overcoming the governing authorities of the empire. How is this accomplished, dear listener? How are we to conquer then? Oh, by electing conservative Christians? No.

By organizing malicious? No, the Bible doesn't say that. How about by sending in the Marines? Aha, now we've struck upon it, right? No.

Revelation tells us how we conquer. One of the means by which we conquer says so explicitly in chapter 12, verse 11, they have conquered him. That is, we the saints have conquered him. That is the beast. They have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.

For they love not their lives, even unto death. Three things mentioned here, the blood of the lamb. That is the power of Christ working in us, working in souls that have been cleansed by the blood of Christ. Those that have been born again, those that have been brought into the fold of the church. We conquer the beast by the blood of the lamb.

And we also conquer the beast by the word of our testimony. That is, by the power of God's word speaking through us in the life of the church. Every believer has the power of the speech of Christ as we testify to him through the word of God. Yes, the testimony of the saints. And then finally, the blood of the martyrs.

For they love not their lives, even unto death. Marturas, as we have seen all through the book of Revelation, the word marturas simply means witness. But you hear the root, the English root there, martyr, do you not, in the word marturas? Because over the centuries, the witnesses to Christ paid more often than not with their lives. And so that word witness soon became identified very closely with the shedding of blood, with the giving of life, and less martyr.

Yes, this is the heritage of that precious word, marturas, in the life of the church, in the life of the saints. Because as they did indeed share their word of their testimony, they often found, more often than not, that they sacrificed their lives unto Christ. So this is indeed that by which we conquer. Chairman Mao has said political power comes out of the barrel of a gun. The Bible says that spiritual power comes out of the blood of the cross.

This is our victory. This is our weapon, dear listener. It's not. And it's counterintuitive, too. To the worldling, it's counterintuitive, isn't it?

But by no means are they right. By no means are they savvy to the way of God's workings. This is how God has chosen to work through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, through weapons that the world rejects, through weapons at which the world scoffs, but which are highly prized by our Lord Jesus Christ. Revelation also indicates that we also conquer in the same vein, in the same means and way that Joshua did as he conquered Canaan in the Old Testament. Yes, Jesus' name just happens to be, in Hebrew, Yeshua, Joshua.

Is that a coincidence? I think not, because he is indeed the new Joshua. He is the antitype to which the type, Joshua, in the Old Testament pointed. He was the type, Joshua of the Old Testament. And Joshua and Israel, you may remember, conquered the promised land.

That is Canaan. Joshua and Israel conquered Canaan in the Old Testament as the heritage, as the inheritance of the people of Israel. And as well, now we conquer Christ's inheritance. That's the notion of the seven-sealed scroll. One scholar says that any first-century Christian would have recognized immediately what a seven-sealed scroll was.

That is, it was a will and testament in which was written the inheritance of the person deceased, bequeathed then to his son. And the only one worthy of opening that seven-sealed scroll was found to be Christ. That is, the one who had died the death of the testator. Hebrews tells us that a will does not become effective until the death of the testator. And it was Christ's death that earned him the right to open the seven-sealed scroll, excuse me, and thus to inherit all of creation now, not just Canaan, but all of creation.

And we are co-inheritors, co-heirs with Christ. We are his, as Paul says, and heirs. And if heirs, then co-heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we conquer with him, but we don't conquer by means of politics, elective politics, or by organizing militias, or by sending in the Marines. No, that would be intuitive ways of conquering.

Our ways of conquering are counterintuitive. We conquer by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. And we also have other weapons of our warfare. They're spiritual. They're not carnal, but they're spiritual to the pulling down of strongholds, as Paul says.

And the other weapons of our warfare are things like prayer and sacraments in the life of the church and worship too. Every time you worship, dear listener, you take further dominion. You conquer just a little bit more because of your worship. This is one of those counterintuitive tools. This is why Satan so hates our worship as well, because every time we do worship on Sunday, we conquer a little bit more.

We take a little more dominion than we would have if we didn't every time we gather together. Indeed, the means of our warfare are these kinds of spiritual things. And consequently, oh, you are mighty warriors too. I love the Green Berets. I do love our Navy SEALs.

They are expert, skilled warriors. Are they not? Their skills are honed to a sharpness and to a readiness that almost no one outs can match, which is why they're elite warriors. Well, I submit to you that in the spiritual realm, you are such warriors as well, even more so than our Green Berets, more so than our Navy SEALs. That little child that you hold in your lap or that's sitting next to you in the pew on Sunday is waging war.

They are taking dominion. Your child is taking dominion more so than any worldling out in the world could take dominion within his own physical carnal sphere. The spiritual sphere is where we wage war and where we take dominion too. All over the world, the church has conquered and will continue to conquer on until Christ comes. And we will continue to take dominion.

I think of our own little area where we worship, where our sanctuary is in Idaho Falls at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Come and join us in that little sphere, in that little sanctuary. Why, 100 years ago, 200 years ago, the name of Christ had not been named in this area, in that very spot. No, it was a wild and howling wilderness, wasn't it? But now, here in the year 2020, there is a church with worshipers, with Christians.

Christ has taken dominion of that spot there at 101 4th Street. And Christ has taken dominion of it. And he has taken dominion of all of Idaho for that matter. And he's continuing to take further and further dominion of it. And he will continue to do so throughout all of creation until it is all his.

Oh, this is our heritage. This is the heritage of Christ, the will and testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since the cross, oh, Christ has been taking dominion of his inheritance increasingly, even as the first Joshua took dominion of Canaan too. Yes, that conquest then is the type of what Christ is doing through us today, dear listener. And so, in this very way, revelation becomes a redemptive pattern for history.

Revelation is not a dead letter. It's not just a nice academic exercise that we can look back and say, well, look what happened during the first century under the rule of Emperor Nero in the years AD 58 to AD 68. And what transpired during that period? No, it's not just an academic exercise that scholars go through wondering what happened way back when, but rather the things we see in the book of Revelation become redemptive patterns throughout history. And so, we need to change our perspective too on the outlook on government because government is being transformed.

Government itself is being conquered. The church must and needs take dominion of government as well as the life of the church. The gospel transforms not merely the personal individual lives of every believer, but it also, the gospel was designed to and is meant to transform all that it touches. Since all of creation belongs to Christ and he's taking dominion of it, then we must fully expect the gospel to touch and transform culture and society and politics and government too for that matter.

And as we look into history, just pick up a history book, even a secular history book that doesn't highlight these features and you'll see how the church has transformed the West. Much of the book of Revelation talks of the fall and the collapse and the conquering of the Roman Empire. What happened in the ashes? What was built upon the ruined foundations of the Roman Empire? Oh, the church was the only institution with any integrity at the time.

And the church began to build what we now call Christendom, that is Western Christendom, and all of the institutions, including science. I can make an argument with you, we don't have the time today, but I can make an argument with you that all of science was transformed as well because of the Christian context. And I have traced in other places too, the heritage that we have in government too, in the life of the Constitution. It indeed is the capstone, the highlight of the Christian West because indeed government learned its true principles of justice from the Bible.

For example, the Old Testament tells us justice and only justice shall you pursue. You shall not play favorites. You shall not favor the rich. You shall not favor the poor, but you shall pursue justice and only justice. All of these kinds of principles have been derived from the scriptures, and they are what is precious about Western government and civilization too, which Black Lives Matter and Antifa and the far left and progressives only wish to destroy.

You do this and you will usher in a thousand years of darkness, dear listener. There are two thirteens. There are times when we must indeed submit to legitimately authorized government, government that follows the biblical pattern of law and justice, but there are also times when we must resist and rebel and even destroy and even destroy and take down illegitimate government. That is the lesson of Revelation chapter 13. And wisdom comes in discerning which times we are in.

There is indeed, as Ecclesiastes chapter 3 tells us, there is a time to build up and there is a time to tear down. There is a time to love and there is a time to hate. There is a time for peace and there is a time for war. And we, in our wisdom, must decide which is which and which 13 is the apt 13 to apply. Oh, dear listener, I would submit most willingly to our founding fathers, Romans 13, that was a legitimately constituted government, or Oliver Cromwell and indeed the new model army by which he ushered in the English Republic.

I would have submitted to him and his government any day, or even Charlemagne. Charlemagne was a good king who indeed tried to apply biblical principles to government. There are periods in history where indeed submission to properly constituted authorities I would do willingly and gladly. But there are also times when we must resist, when we must rebel, when we must fight. And this is the nature of Revelation chapter 13.

Revelation chapter 13. Our founding fathers, for example, fought under the understanding, under the banner, if you will, of Revelation chapter 13, where they were resisting improperly constituted authorities on the shores of the colonies, and they were right in doing so. Oh, dear listener, we must begin then to decide which of these 13s are operational for us today. And I leave that to you, and perhaps to further reflection and further messages to come. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

We worship on Sundays. We invite you to come. No restrictions now. We indeed are worshiping on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. Check us out.

And you can also then check out our website, newgenevaopc.org, and call us for further information at area code 208-523-0196. Area code 208-523-0196.