Government PART 2 - Government and Christianity

Thinking this morning about government and Christianity.

If you've got a Bible, please turn to One Timothy chapter two.

One Timothy chapter two.

I'll read verses one to two.

First of all, then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings, and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

So let's pray.

Almighty God, Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are King and God.

We want to obey this scripture and pray for those who you have put over us.

We ask that increasingly they would bow the knee and submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

We pray that through them Christian people and the Church would be free to pursue peaceful and godly lives as we go about the business of being church.

And we pray for ourselves now as we open your word and we ask that you would teach us, teach us about the claims of Christ in all of life and especially in this area of civil government.

Your word tells us that powers come from you and therefore they matter to you.

So be our teacher this morning.

Show us what faithful participation in government and the life of the nation might mean for Christian people too.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Our current Sunday School series, we're thinking about what Scripture says about politics, government, and nation.

How does God think that it should work?

How does the Lord think Christians should participate in the national life and the government of our nation?

Lots of what I'm teaching in this series is drawn from two sources from some work done by my colleague David Thomas down at Christchurch Romford and also this really excellent little book by James Baird called King of Kings.

Last week, if you were with us, remember, we thought about mainly where is it that government comes from?

Where does government come from?

And the answer is it is instituted by God.

We live in a democratic state.

You might be tempted to think that the fact of government comes from the people who elect the government.

It's actually not right.

Government comes from God.

And we thought about some implications of that.

All rulers owe allegiance to the one true God.

Kings must fear the Lord and kiss the Son.

Psalm 2.

Another implication: we are submitted to submit to the authorities who are over us because those authorities exist because of the Lord.

Except we do not obey when our higher obedience to the highest authority, the triune God, means that we must disobey human authorities who are over us.

But the big point, authority comes from God.

Helpful summary there from the 23rd chapter of the Westminster Confession.

Look at that first sentence.

God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, has ordained civil authorities to be under him over the people.

And that's really what we thought about last week.

And our question for this week is what is the state for?

We've seen where it's from, but what is the state for?

What is government for?

What is its purpose?

And that's summed up in that second part of 23.1.

It is there for God's own glory and the public good.

And that's what we're going to be digging into this morning.

And for this purpose, it goes on.

He's armed them with the power of the sword for the defence and encouragement of those who are good and for the punishment of those who do evil.

So, first bit as we unpack what it means that state and government exists for the public good.

So, firstly, simply, government exists to promote the public good.

Now, what does that mean?

When we talk about promoting something, we mean to actively encourage, support, advance it.

We are saying what it is that the government should do.

We're not saying anything yet about how that should be done.

There might be all kinds of ways in which civil authority promotes what is good.

And just a little trailer, I'm going to be saying from the Bible, civil authority ought to promote the Christian faith.

Now they might do it through laws, through social customs, national holidays, speeches, monuments, buildings.

But however it is that the public good is promoted, it must always be done with love and strength and prudence.

And we'll think about those things in weeks to come as well.

And when we talk about the public good, what do we mean?

We mean that which leads to human flourishing and happiness among a society of people as they live together in community.

We are social creatures.

God puts us together in families and groups of families and gives them national boundaries and a common life.

And government is there to promote the flourishing of that common life.

Now, one implication: government is not there to rule for its own good.

Government should not be self-serving, self-seeking.

You think of cronyism at its worst.

It should not be like that.

It is for the sake of all.

And we see that in scriptures like 1 Timothy chapter 2, verse 1, government exists that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

1 Timothy 2:1

So the the end point of government ought to be Christian people and the church doing that.

Or another word, Romans 13, 4, the king, the emperor, the government, the prime minister, the president.

He is God's servant for your good.

Obvious question when you stop and think about it, but what is good?

What is good?

What is the public good?

Where do we get our definition of good from?

Do we go to the Oxford English Dictionary?

Do we go into the world and conduct a poll?

I don't know, we get a polling agency to poll 100,000 people.

What is good?

And then say to the government, do that thing.

Or take the area of justice and righteousness.

Who decides what is just and what is unjust?

What is the justice that a government ought to enact?

So, second big heading.

Turn over to the second side.

The public good is founded on religion.

Take John Calvin here.

He says that public welfare means beginning at religion.

So when you when you try and sit down and work out what is the common good, where do you begin?

You must begin at religion.

And historically, this has been the view of all nations.

So again, a time machine, and we go back to the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans, they considered piety towards the gods as absolutely necessary for the flourishing of a nation and a community.

They would have agreed with Paul in 1 Timothy 2, verse 2, that you should seek prayer for kings in order that we may lead a godly life.

1 Timothy 2:2

They knew it was for the public good.

Their disagreement, obviously, with Christians, was over which gods provide the shape of godliness and devotion.

To whom should you direct worship?

What about our government and state?

Our government, our state, it is religious.

It is profoundly religious.

All government, all states, all authorities, whatever they may say, are undeniably and unavoidably religious.

Some of us are old enough to remember the Prime Minister's spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, thirty-five years ago probably, famously saying, We don't do God.

It is impossible not to do God.

There is no possibility possibility of religious neutrality.

Every single person on this planet worships someone or something.

And that is true of people who are charged with leading and governing as they then come together and exercise power.

Every government is religious, it promotes a deity.

So, question what are the gods promoted by our government and our state?

Arguably it is the god of secular atheism, in which the chief sub god is ourselves.

And I think that makes sense.

Our laws reflect our religion.

Our laws reflect our God.

Hence, we're told by many that assisted suicide is our right because we are entirely in control of our lives and our destinies.

That is a religious statement, commitment, and law.

But which religion ought the state to promote?

That's what is the case in the place and the time in which we live, but what religion ought the state to promote?

Third heading, and this is what I want to spend most time on this morning.

All governments must promote Christianity as the true religion.

Now, brief word of explanation before we look at some Bible evidence.

Christianity, we're talking about the Church of Christ.

We're not talking here about any sort of specific denomination.

Might want to ask questions about that.

And what about that word must?

This might come as a surprise to some of us.

When we say the word must, I mean this.

We're not saying this is a nice to have, or ideally, in the best scenario, this ought to be the case.

We're saying that any civil authority, whether they believe it or not, has a duty before God to promote Christianity.

And they're to do so regardless of consequence.

Just like every individual who exists is obliged to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and will be held accountable.

Though, let me say, we're not saying anything yet about how the civil magistrate ought to go about doing this, and that might depend greatly upon the circumstances, place, and time in which they are called to serve.

Now, what about Bible evidence for this?

In your Bibles, please, would you turn back to Romans chapter 1?

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Paul describes here what happens when people worship false gods.

So let me just read a couple of verses.

Pick it up at verse 18.

4.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

So all people, till they become Christians, are truth suppressors.

The truth of God is there in the world that God has made, but our sinful urge is to suppress that truth, to shove it away, to pretend that it is not true.

Now, what are the consequences of living like that?

Well, this chapter tells us that part of God's judgment is to give us up to the consequences of that kind of heart attitude.

False worship, okay, I'm going to give you up to the consequences of it.

And those consequences are not just individual, but social.

Look down at verse 29.

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.

They were full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

That is a description in so many ways of a society gone wrong.

And we recognize that.

We see that kind of exponentially lived out, not just individual lives, not even just in families, but in the common life.

You suppress the truth about God, and this is where groups of people, nations, end up.

The worship of false gods inevitably leads to behavior which is both wicked and destructive.

Now, positively, everything that is good is built on Christian foundations.

So if you if you destroy the foundations, you will end up in a mess.

But positively, everything good is built on Christian foundations.

Proverbs 14, 34, righteousness exalts a nation.

So if you want a nation to be blessed, well, pursue righteousness.

Glenn Scrivenes has this excellent sentence in his book, The Air That We Breathe.

All that is wonderful about society sits on the foundation of Christianity.

Just think about what the Bible teaches us and its implications.

So the Bible teaches that all people are made in God's image and that God is a loving God.

Therefore, we care for the poor, the needy, the sick, the vulnerable.

We believe that God is the creator and there is an orderly universe.

So we do science and we explore the stars.

We believe that God is a builder, and so we do engineering and construction.

We believe God is the great artist, and so we make poetry and art and music and literature.

There are wonderful things in societies that are not based on Christianity, but those things are there because of God's common grace, his uncovenanted kindness to unrepentant and unbelieving people, and because he allows fragments of true religion to remain.

So there is though only one true and living God, the triune God, and all reality comes from him, all morality comes from him, all goodness comes from him.

The things that we value in the world come from a Christian foundation.

If you wanted to dig into that, that book of Glenn Scriveners would be an excellent read and a really good book to give away.

A different kind of book.

Tom Holland, secular historian, not a Christian, feels like he's very close, but he's not a Christian.

He wrote this wonderful, massive book called Dominion.

Just showing how everything that we value in the modern world that is truly good flows from an explicitly Christian foundation.

Really good read.

Not a Christian, to read you with your radar up.

Fewer and fewer people in the West, countries like ours, profess Christ as Lord.

And that is why we are seeing society regress.

And if you've ever been down a modern art gallery, you just look at what art now looks like and you want to see regression.

Well, there we go.

It's like we've climbed the ladder of Christianity and we're now trying to kick that ladder out.

And there is going to be and is being a mighty fall.

That's one bit of evidence.

False religion destroys true religion, that is, Christian foundations, exalt and build a nation.

Some other kinds of evidence.

Israel's kings.

So back in the Old Testament, in the Old Testament, kings were evaluated on whether or not they promoted the true religion among their people.

And this comes up in so many places.

Samuel, King's Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel.

Perhaps the key passage that expresses the standard comes from David's words at the very end of his life.

1 Samuel 23, 3 and 4.

When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light.

So true rule, godly rule.

It is like the sun shining in the dawn as it comes up and brings life and health.

That verse is really helpful.

It shows us that there is a necessity for justice.

That really means promoting commandments numbers five to ten.

Think of the Ten Commandments, the second table of the law, love of neighbor, justice.

But it also means ruling in the fear of God.

That is following and promoting true godliness and piety.

And that's really talking about commandments one to four, the first table of the Ten Commandments, the loved God bits.

No other gods worship him as he tells you to.

And as you go through the Old Testament story, we see positive examples.

Someone like Hezekiah.

He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him, for he held fast to the Lord.

That is what kings should do.

There are obviously loads of negative examples as well.

Solomon, he started off brilliantly, he built the temple, he sought wisdom from God, and then he collapsed, declined into false worship and to immorality.

And there is the verdict on Solomon, and it is tragic.

Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord as David his father had done, and he led his people with him.

So where kings go, a people follow.

Others went even further, like Manasseh in Judah, or the kings of Israel.

Here's what two Kings seventeen said of the kings of Israel.

They served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, You shall not do this.

They despised his statutes.

They abandoned all the commandments of the Lord their God, and they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings.

It is really chilling and terrible.

So these men who should have led a nation in love of God and love of the name of neighbor despised the law of the Lord.

They came to hate the one true God and led people in the most appalling hatred of one another, even to the point of offering their children in the fire to the God Moloch.

To which the Lord responded in a holy fury.

What about Gentile kings?

It was not just Israel's kings who were commanded to fear the Lord.

We looked last week at Psalm 2.

Psalm 2 addresses the kings of the earth, all people with power everywhere and everywhere.

What should you do?

You should serve the Lord with fear.

You should kiss the sun.

That is, come and bow before and submit to and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, ascended.

He's king of kings.

And sometimes pagan kings did this.

What about the king of Nineveh in Jonah?

Or Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar did not get everything right, but he did enshrine the law of the Lord in the law of Babylon.

Or Darius, he commanded the people to fear the Lord.

He taught the people truth about God.

Or Cyrus the Great.

He promoted the true religion.

He said to the exiled Jews, Go back and build the temple, let me help you.

And when we come to the New Testament, and this this might be where something we need we need to really think carefully here, and this might be a surprise for some of us.

When we come to the New Testament, we do not see something massively different.

And those Old Testament passages are super important because they help explain what the New Testament is thinking and meaning when it talks about civil government.

So Paul in Romans 13, really importantly, he says of the state, of the governor, that he is the servant of God.

So what does it mean to be a servant, to serve God?

It means something.

It's got content, and very significantly that content is given us actually by the Old Testament.

So we've been told in many ways, in many chapters, for centuries beforehand, what it means for a king to serve the Lord in fear, to kiss the son.

So Paul reaffirms the Old Testament's teaching.

Jesus implies something similar, Matthew 22, when he says, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's unto God the things that are God's.

Caesar himself was a man.

Now Caesar did not believe that.

Caesar thought he was a God.

Caesar himself was a man, he bore the image of God.

He is a creature of the triune God.

So even the great Caesar must render unto God that which God requires of him.

And he does so as Caesar.

And the alternative, says the New Testament, or the alternative is shown for us in graphic form in Revelation 13.

The king, the president, the prime minister, the counsellor, who does not serve the Lord in fear, he becomes like the beast, the first beast we meet in Revelation 13, a servant of Satan, who is imbued with worldly power and authority.

Breathtaking power and authority.

People tremble in awe before him and think this is amazing.

Can we share in it?

That this is a power which blasphemes against God and wars against the people of the Lamb, wars against the church.

Yet Jesus, he is the King of Kings.

Just dwell on that phrase, he's king of kings, he's Lord of Lords, and therefore kings and lords owe all things to him.

They must do the bidding of their king.

Now, this is what the Reformed Church down the ages has always believed.

I just want to give you a few quotes just to try and describe and illustrate this.

All have confessed that no government can be happily established unless piety is the first concern.

John Calvin.

Well, here's John Owen, the Puritan.

Protestants teach unanimously that it's incumbent on kings to find out, receive, embrace, and promote the truth of the gospel and the worship of God appointed therein, confirming, protecting, and defending it by their regal power and authority.

And here's John Murray in his commentary on Romans, talking about Romans 13, 4.

The civil magistrate is the minister of God for that which is good.

And we may not tone down the import of the term good in this instance.

Paul provides us with a virtual definition of the good we derive from the civil authority, that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity.

The good the magistrate promotes is that which subserves the interest of piety.

And here is good old C.

H.

Spurgeon.

I often hear it said, do not bring religion into politics.

That is precisely where it ought to be brought and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick.

What though does it mean to promote Christianity?

We're going to kind of ground this even more specifically.

Heading four, it means promoting and protecting the church.

We looked before at 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 1 and 2.

1 Timothy 2:1

Kings ought to ensure that the church is able to get on with being the church in peace, leading godly lives.

Now godliness, think about it, godliness is an obligation for all people.

Everyone everywhere is commanded to repent and believe, to love God, to obey God.

And if you have power, if you have influence, well you have even more obligation to do that.

And to encourage others under your influence to do the same.

Now the state is not tasked by God with preaching the gospel, that's the church's job.

But the state has responsibility before God to ensure the church is safe and can carry out its role.

Now one way we see this is described in Isaiah 49.23, there on the handout.

Kings shall be your foster fathers.

Just like a father defends his children, so civil authorities ought to use whatever power they have to defend the church of the Lord Jesus.

Not to run the church or act on behalf of the church directly, not preaching the word, not doing sacraments, not appointing officers in the church.

That's not their job.

But trying to ensure that those God-appointed officers are safe and free to do those things.

It's a bit like the distinction between a church and a family, actually.

So dads should not give their children communion.

He's got a responsibility, though, if you're a dad, to teach them about communion and guide them in growing in the Christian faith such that in time they come to the Lord's table.

Might say overall that there is a duty on government to create an environment in which the gospel can flourish.

And that means, one implication of that, they should never promote false religion, though they may tolerate it.

Now we're going to think much more next week, God willing, about that subject.

Lastly, promoting Christianity means governing by the law of the Lord.

So what kind of justice, what kind of flourishing life, and the Bible tells us the law of the Lord, as summed up in the Ten Commandments, that is the shape of loving God and loving neighbour.

That is the good life.

That means that all laws ought to be traceable back to, ought to be applications of the law of God.

And historically in our nation, that has actually been the case.

Obviously, now being undone.

Now, one question.

Are we saying that all of the law in the Old Testament still applies?

Should we still be stoning certain people, for example?

Well, God's law is perfect, all of it.

But civil and ceremonial laws, some of those laws were given to a particular people, Israel, at a particular time before Christ came.

And such laws no longer bind us, though they do teach us.

Helpful explanation there again from the Westminster Confession.

To them also, talking about Israel in the Old Testament, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now further than the general equity thereof may require.

So general equity, fairness.

You can read a law about not building a parapet on your house, or building a parapet on the edge of your house, and such things.

Well, that does not directly apply to us, but we can learn a principle of general equity from it, for example.

Now, conclusion.

Some of us, I dare say, might have questions.

Is this right?

It seems so far from the mental world of government and the practice of government that most of us in this room will have grown up in, because most of us have grown up in a secular Western state.

We might have questions about that.

Others of us might have a different sort of question, which is simply, what is the point of even thinking about this?

The likelihood of the government we are under doing anything approaching this is surely zero, isn't it?

Well, God is sovereign.

So let me just give you an encouragement if you feel like that.

We do need to know what politics and government is for.

We do need to know what it should be like.

It should encourage our praying.

We ought to be praying big and bold prayers for our nation and our governors.

It ought to encourage us in deeper lamentation.

We really have fallen almost infinitely far short of what we as a nation ought and could be.

But also our repentance.

As Christian people, do we think or feel actually that Jesus is Lord of most things but not all things?

Do we actually think it's okay or even better to have a neutral state?

Because something's gone wrong if we feel like that.

We have to say collectively, as we as we represent the church of our land, you know, we in the church are responsible for allowing our nation to get into the powerless state it's in.

Knowing where we where we should be going will also encourage faithful action.

It will help us to evaluate our current situation, politics and government, and think about what uh use of power we ought to do.

If we've got power and influence, how should we be using it?

In teaching or campaigning or exhortation or whatever it might be.

Now, I'm going to pause there.

We've got about um uh eight or nine minutes for some questions.

So why don't we just go straight to questions and see if anyone would like to chip in with uh maybe questions of clarification?

Didn't understand that.

What did you mean by this to start with?

Anyone like to ask anything?

Yeah, national so national boundaries.

I'm not gonna uh say anything about that now.

Uh God willing, we will do a whole session on nation and boundaries.

Uh yes, so I'm I'm actually not gonna say more than that.

If that's alright, that's a bit annoying, I know.

Yeah, so question historically, when monarchs were the head of the church, is that wrong?

Well, actually, our king is still the head, technically the head of the church of England.

I meant when our country was more Christian.

Yeah.

Um take our take our situation in in the United Kingdom.

So the king is head of the Church of England.

And this goes back to Henry VIII.

Henry VIII did not reform the church, he simply replaced the Pope with himself.

That is wrong.

Who is the only head of the church?

Answer the Lord Jesus Christ.

However, when the King of England goes to Scotland, he is in a very different situation because the Church in Scotland is historically Presbyterian.

He is actually just a church member, actually.

And you know he worships in the Presbyterian Kirk at Crathy, whether or not he believes what is preached, and that is actually a right relationship.

He's a church member, but he can use his influence as king to promote the true religion and the Christian church.

So down here is an example of how it shouldn't be done.

The king is responsible ultimately and theoretically for the appointment of bishops in the Church of England.

Yeah, anyway, don't start me on that one.

It's just wrong.

Yeah, thank you.

That's a really good question.

Yeah, sense of corporate responsibility or even corporate guilt, how should we feel about national?

That's such a good question, about national decline.

Where do we fit in?

We don't want to feel guilty for things we are not guilty of, and we do want to repent of things we ought to repent of.

Disentangling that is not always straightforward.

We are not just individuals, we are part of societies, we are part of a church, we have a we have a we have a corporate identity.

It is possible to lament corporate sin.

So I may not have directly done this thing, but I am part of a body which over generations has not been or done or prayed or spoken as she should have done.

Has the church been weaker in evangelism or in preaching truth to power than she should have done?

And is there a sense in which we can can and should all lament that and even repent of it?

I I think that's right.

You look back to our fathers in the faith, there have been moments when the church has done that.

You know, times in like in the 17th century with the solemn league and covenant.

The church was saying collectively, you know, over the last hundred years, we have not done what we should, and we repent of that.

And you know, we pledge ourselves before God to you know prayer and action and so on.

So how you disentangle that at the level of one's feelings is quite hard actually.

But we are not just individuals, we are part of we are part of churches and the and actually the universal church of Christ.

There is truth in that, isn't there?

Evil prospers when good people do nothing.

That is and it's not the whole truth, but it is definitely part of it.

Yeah, is a is an ungodly government a sign always of judgment on a country?

Yes, I think it is.

So repentance has both a uh like a heart and a mind aspect, which is then expressed in action.

So you can't undo and you can't go back in a time machine.

We can I think we can confess.

There is a there is a right sense of corporate confession.

You know, we as a church, Lord, have we have we not been and said and lived and preached as we ought over the last hundred years?

I I think that's not a that's not an improper thing to say and pray.

There's a I mean there's a right focus on the right on the here and now.

You know, today is the day of salvation, today is the day to repent and believe and you know live forwards for the Lord in in repentant and believing lives.

Does it work?

Scripture would give us encouragement.

We we find prayers of national confession like in Daniel chapter 9.

Daniel 9 · chapter mention

Huge long prayer, which is essentially saying, Our fathers and we have sinned, have mercy on us.

And I think the Lord did answer graciously those prayers.

At the same time, there have been generations of faithful Christians who the Lord has made to live effectively in exile.

There's no kind of cast iron promise that if you confess and repent and pray, the Lord will take you instantly from Babylon to Jerusalem, as it were.

And it it might be that you know, for a very long season, the church has to live in a place and time of persecution.

Your Daniel in Babylon, for example, your entire adult life.

Your entire adult life.

Or Israel in exile.

And there were faithful people in the exile, even as the whole people was being judged and punished.

And so I think you just have to leave the outcome and the timing to the Lord.

He knows He knows is He gonna bring about a national revival and restoration?

That's his business.

It's what we long for, so we ought to pray for, and to such an extent as we have influence, you want to use our influence to that end.

But maybe it will be the Lord's will that we live in a worse time before it gets better.

We ought to pause there.

I'm gonna pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the truth of your word, and we want to understand it more and obey it individually, corporately.

Uh, we do both thank you for the foundations of our national life, and we see so much grace and goodness and truth and the legacy of it.

We lament and grieve how the foundations have been torn down and are being torn down, and we see the malign effects of that on individuals and families and communities, and particularly upon the weak.

Um, we pray for ourselves and do ask for grace to understand, uh, to feel and then to obey as we ought, individually, corporately, the different life situations, gifts, and abilities you give to us, but also the church as a whole.

We don't really understand all of uh the application of these things.

So we pray that you would continue to be our teacher.

We pray for mercy.

Uh we know that the lives, witness, and worship of your church uh is and will be right at the very heart of any revival or reformation that follows.

We pray for ourselves, we pray for this day, uh asking that the gospel would be set forth plainly, that the church would be built up, that folk who do not yet know the Lord Jesus would um meet him.

Uh so bless us to that end, and we do pray that in all of these things there might be good, uh public good, and most of all glory, for you deserve it.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.