WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.600 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:40.480 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:44.560 Mahler. And I'm still Woe. 00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:49.280 On today's Stone Choir, we are going to be discussing godly government. 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:53.680 We're going to go over the scriptural history of a couple different 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:54.320 types of government 00:00:55.360 --> 00:01:01.040 and highlight some of the examples of the moral principles by which 00:01:01.040 --> 00:01:03.600 we should judge any government. 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:08.400 One of the pressing issues of the modern political context is the 00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:11.120 legitimacy of any particular government. 00:01:11.120 --> 00:01:15.680 And while we're not gonna get into American politics or anything specifically, 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:19.280 this is a very much a live issue and especially on the 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:23.520 internet, especially in the dissident right, a lot of people have a 00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:28.720 lot of stark opinions about different forms of government being better for 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:30.240 solving our problems. 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:33.520 And so this is not this is not in any way intended 00:01:33.520 --> 00:01:35.440 to foment revolution or anything. 00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:39.600 We're simply highlighting that if you have a pet type of government, 00:01:39.600 --> 00:01:44.400 whether you're NRX, you want monarchy, maybe you're a full-blown libertarian, a 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:51.280 minarchist. Uh whatever flavor of government you find to be most appealing, 00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:55.280 part of that appeal is inherently going to be based on an 00:01:55.440 --> 00:01:59.200 appeal to the moral legitimacy of that government. 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:03.120 And obviously moral legitimacy can only possibly come from God. 00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:08.160 we all inherently know that it's crucial for whatever the government or 00:02:08.160 --> 00:02:12.480 whatever the state is to have moral legitimacy. 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:17.600 In other words, there's always going to be someone ruling you. 00:02:17.600 --> 00:02:21.120 You want to be happy about that to some degree. 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:25.040 Now, happy can vary widely, you know, if if you are blessed 00:02:25.040 --> 00:02:29.120 in a time of peace and prosperity with a godly faithful ruler 00:02:29.280 --> 00:02:34.000 of whatever stripe, you're gonna be pretty happy because your kids are 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.360 gonna be okay, your family's gonna be okay, your property's gonna be 00:02:37.360 --> 00:02:40.160 okay. Like just basically good times, peace. 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:42.480 You know, the the times that don't really show up in history 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:45.760 because there aren't wars or death or famine or any of the 00:02:45.760 --> 00:02:50.240 horrors That really are how we define the arc of human history, 00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:52.160 because that's the stuff to talk about. 00:02:52.160 --> 00:02:57.520 The peaceful, quiet times, nobody's writing because everyone's just outside enjoying a 00:02:57.520 --> 00:03:00.560 blessed life, you know, had the sort of life that God wants 00:03:01.040 --> 00:03:02.560 for all of us. 00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:02.880 So 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:11.280 there's inherently in an innate notion that whoever's in charge can't just 00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:13.440 have legitimacy by force. 00:03:13.440 --> 00:03:15.120 And that's one of the definitions. 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:18.720 As we go throughout this, we'll be at various times referencing some 00:03:18.720 --> 00:03:20.160 of the different views. 00:03:20.160 --> 00:03:24.320 I spent a long time being a hardcore libertarian, decades. 00:03:24.320 --> 00:03:25.920 I have all the books, you know, spent. 00:03:25.920 --> 00:03:30.400 I gave tens of thousands of dollars to the Mises Institute. 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:35.440 I want to specifically address a few of those notions, the framing 00:03:35.440 --> 00:03:39.680 that that uh libertarians use specifically because A, I know that there 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:42.640 are a lot of folks in the audience, especially new folks who 00:03:42.640 --> 00:03:46.160 probably are either still in the libertarian space or or have come 00:03:46.160 --> 00:03:48.400 from it in the recent past. 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:51.200 This episode, part of the reason we're just doing one kind of 00:03:51.200 --> 00:03:58.080 framing doctrinally how to judge a given government, an arbitrary government, is 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:02.320 that future episodes coming up pretty soon will be on specifically the 00:04:02.320 --> 00:04:06.080 enlightenment and you know the American government and the other forms of 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:10.480 modern democracy in Christendom, what used to be Christendom. 00:04:10.480 --> 00:04:13.920 Uh we will do an episode entirely on libertarianism. 00:04:13.920 --> 00:04:17.120 We'll do an episode on probably communism, probably one on fascism. 00:04:17.440 --> 00:04:20.080 Uh this is kind of the kickoff for that arc. 00:04:20.080 --> 00:04:23.040 Uh we kind of painted ourselves into a corner by doing this 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:26.400 show weekly because uh it takes a lot of time and a 00:04:26.400 --> 00:04:29.680 lot of prep, especially for a lot of the ideas for episodes 00:04:29.680 --> 00:04:31.200 that we have coming up. 00:04:31.200 --> 00:04:31.440 So 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:34.880 we're we're committing to doing those episodes. 00:04:34.880 --> 00:04:36.960 I can't promise that they will be next week and the following 00:04:36.960 --> 00:04:40.320 week. We may not necessarily do them serially just based on time 00:04:40.320 --> 00:04:41.680 and availability. 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:46.960 But we want to lay the groundwork today for whatever government type 00:04:46.960 --> 00:04:52.320 you are evaluating, whether it's the current year American administration, or it's 00:04:52.320 --> 00:04:57.440 some hypothetical future, or it's a view of some Halcyon day in 00:04:57.440 --> 00:05:00.960 the past where it's your particular year in a given century where 00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:03.920 you're like, yeah, that's exactly when we had government figured out and 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.160 we need that again. 00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:09.600 Scripture has a lot to say about how to evaluate those things. 00:05:09.600 --> 00:05:11.360 Yeah, and so we're going to go through some of the things 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:14.320 that scripture says and some of the things that it doesn't, including 00:05:14.320 --> 00:05:17.760 a number of things that most people just completely gloss over that 00:05:17.760 --> 00:05:20.800 are actually very relevant to us today. 00:05:20.880 --> 00:05:25.040 So once we've laid this framework, this groundwork, it'll be easier in 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:29.120 the future episodes to say, here's how you know the American government, 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:31.760 as it was conceived, you know, 250 years ago and as it's 00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:35.360 playing out today, how does that interact with the godly form? 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:40.240 But upfront, we want to state that there's not necessarily a single 00:05:40.480 --> 00:05:42.720 perfect ideal godly form. 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:46.640 There are things that are revealed in scripture that are necessary elements, 00:05:46.640 --> 00:05:50.480 and the absence of which necessarily indicates you're not dealing with a 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:55.440 godly government, but there's not necessarily just a single way to do 00:05:55.440 --> 00:05:56.880 this. We don't think that. 00:05:56.880 --> 00:06:00.480 We think that there are pragmatic arguments why in a given environment, 00:06:00.480 --> 00:06:04.560 you know, for a particular race of people, for a particular circumstance, 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:06.880 there will be perhaps only one 00:06:07.840 --> 00:06:11.520 ideal solution, one that's going to solve the most problems. 00:06:11.520 --> 00:06:14.560 You know, we're still living in a fallen world, we're dealing with 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:16.000 fallen human beings. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:18.480 Whoever's in charge is going to be a sinner. 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:22.880 And so the system of government that we have needs to account 00:06:22.880 --> 00:06:24.240 for that somehow. 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:27.760 And we as the ruled also need to account for that. 00:06:27.760 --> 00:06:31.520 We need to understand what that means when you're ruled by someone 00:06:31.520 --> 00:06:34.400 who's fallible, who's going to make mistakes. 00:06:34.400 --> 00:06:37.440 But to begin, we're going to go back to Genesis 1 and 00:06:37.440 --> 00:06:42.640 Genesis 9, which is really the birth of any notion of government. 00:06:42.880 --> 00:06:48.320 This is something that Luther writes about indirectly in the large catechism 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:53.120 when he discusses the third commandment about honoring your father and mother, 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:59.760 because the traditional Christian view is that the family, namely the father, 00:06:59.760 --> 00:07:03.440 over his wife and over his children, is actually the root of 00:07:03.440 --> 00:07:08.160 government, and that the things downstream that occur within any given government 00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:14.160 or state are necessarily mirrors of a father's rule of his household. 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:17.360 And so the very first example we have is Adam in the 00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:22.400 garden. And then the second example that we have mirrored almost exactly 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:27.840 millennium later is Noah, because everyone was killed God killed all the 00:07:27.840 --> 00:07:30.400 men that he had created except for four men and four women 00:07:30.640 --> 00:07:32.800 because he regretted making man. 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:36.160 So he started again and he repeated the same commands that he 00:07:36.160 --> 00:07:39.360 gave to Adam to Noah, and he expanded a little bit. 00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:42.880 So we'll begin in Genesis 128. 00:07:42.880 --> 00:07:46.160 And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:49.280 multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the 00:07:49.280 --> 00:07:52.000 fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.480 over every living thing that moves on the earth. 00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:57.280 And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed 00:07:57.840 --> 00:08:00.080 that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with 00:08:00.080 --> 00:08:01.200 seed in its fruit. 00:08:01.200 --> 00:08:02.800 You shall have them for food. 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:05.040 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:08.080 the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that 00:08:08.080 --> 00:08:11.520 has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for 00:08:11.520 --> 00:08:12.800 food, and it was so. 00:08:12.800 --> 00:08:15.280 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was 00:08:15.280 --> 00:08:17.920 very good, and there was evening, and there was morning the sixth 00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:18.800 day. 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:19.280 So 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:22.240 one of the things that we should note here at the outset 00:08:22.640 --> 00:08:28.880 is that early on in creation, in God's design, you don't have 00:08:29.200 --> 00:08:34.880 the divisions in certain roles that we see today and just later 00:08:34.880 --> 00:08:37.920 on in creation post fall. 00:08:38.320 --> 00:08:45.520 Adam in the garden is prophet, priest, and king. 00:08:45.520 --> 00:08:50.080 These are three roles that coincide with a number of men in 00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:55.040 Scripture, Adam being the first, of course, then Noah, and later on 00:08:55.200 --> 00:08:58.160 David Solomon. 00:08:58.160 --> 00:09:01.600 But today these roles have become separated. 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:06.800 We're not advocating for having a king who is also your high 00:09:06.800 --> 00:09:10.240 priest. That is no longer how things work. 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:15.200 We are far separated from the ideal that God had in the 00:09:15.200 --> 00:09:18.240 garden, what God wanted for creation. 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:23.440 Now of course that is restored in the new creation, because ultimately 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:29.280 we have Christ as our high prophet, priest, and king. 00:09:29.280 --> 00:09:34.880 But today we do have a separation between those, and I think 00:09:34.880 --> 00:09:39.200 it's safe to say that we affirm that separation not saying in 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:43.360 the sense of the wall of separation that has come to be 00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:48.480 the interpretation in unfortunately, not just the secular world, but also the 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:51.200 religious world, we have many Christians who think that there's supposed to 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:54.160 be this separation between the two, and that's just not what we 00:09:54.160 --> 00:09:56.560 see in Scripture. 00:09:56.560 --> 00:10:03.760 And of course we can't have that because ultimately both kingdoms, the 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:07.600 right hand kingdom, the church, the left hand kingdom, the state, are 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:13.840 founded morally ultimately on God's word, on God's authorization 00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:19.520 of those estates, of those kingdoms. 00:10:19.520 --> 00:10:23.280 And those are the lines that we're exploring here in Scripture, those 00:10:23.280 --> 00:10:27.440 are the lines that cannot be transgressed, and so a proper government 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:32.720 will adhere to those lines, the places in Scripture, where God has 00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:38.080 said The leader must do this, the leader must not do this, 00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:43.120 or society must not do this, or must do this, because when 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:49.120 the people are ordered to do something, oftentimes the people act on 00:10:49.120 --> 00:10:52.400 those things through a leader. 00:10:52.400 --> 00:10:57.920 And so for instance, we come very early on in Scripture to 00:10:57.920 --> 00:11:00.240 Genesis nine six. 00:11:00.320 --> 00:11:04.880 Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be 00:11:04.880 --> 00:11:10.320 shed, for God made man in his own image. 00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:13.200 This is not something that is optional. 00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:17.200 This is the death penalty, this is capital punishment, and it is 00:11:17.200 --> 00:11:24.720 required. God requires that a godly government execute murderers. 00:11:24.640 --> 00:11:28.400 It's not an option you don't get to simply say, oh no, 00:11:28.400 --> 00:11:30.880 we're going to have mercy because of X, Y, and Z. 00:11:30.880 --> 00:11:35.280 No. The requirement from God is explicit here, and this is moral 00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:38.320 law. This is unchanging, it flows from God's nature. 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:41.040 This is not something that is done away with in the New 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:42.560 Testament or 00:11:44.160 --> 00:11:47.760 any of the various arguments you've heard. 00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:55.120 This is God's eternal will, and a godly government will obey this. 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:55.360 I 00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:58.880 think the crucial fact to keep in mind in Genesis nine is 00:11:58.880 --> 00:12:03.280 that when God said that, he was addressing Noah and his sons. 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:07.200 He was literally addressing the only men on the planet. 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:08.560 There were four men. 00:12:08.560 --> 00:12:11.280 Noah was their patriarch, and Noah was the head. 00:12:11.280 --> 00:12:15.040 God said, Anyone who kills, you kill them. 00:12:15.040 --> 00:12:20.000 That was a universal dictum to all mankind. 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.680 And as Corey said that that stands to this day. 00:12:23.680 --> 00:12:25.920 This is not given to Israel. 00:12:25.920 --> 00:12:27.120 We're talking about Noah. 00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:30.480 We're not talking about after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:33.680 This is not a law for the Jews. 00:12:33.680 --> 00:12:36.880 This is a law for mankind. 00:12:36.880 --> 00:12:38.960 And it's crucial because 00:12:40.560 --> 00:12:45.440 this is one of the foundational tenets of government. 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:49.840 In the the libertarian conception of government, I think one of the 00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:55.040 useful definitions in part, it's not entirely complete, but one of the 00:12:55.040 --> 00:12:58.480 crucial aspects of the state is that it will have a monopoly 00:12:58.880 --> 00:13:01.520 on violence in a given geography. 00:13:01.520 --> 00:13:04.560 That's essentially the libertarian definition of the state. 00:13:04.560 --> 00:13:08.800 Wherever you have a zip code or a continent, whoever is 00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:15.200 the man who claims sole authority to commit violence is the state, 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:16.960 is the government. 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:22.800 What this is saying is that there is licit violence by 00:13:23.680 --> 00:13:25.040 some authority. 00:13:25.040 --> 00:13:27.520 It needs to be a God-ordained authority. 00:13:27.520 --> 00:13:30.880 This isn't saying it's a free-for-all. 00:13:30.880 --> 00:13:33.920 It's saying that there will be justice, there will be God's justice, 00:13:33.920 --> 00:13:36.720 and it does require the shedding of blood. 00:13:36.720 --> 00:13:40.240 So this also incidentally, and we'll like I I said we'll be 00:13:40.240 --> 00:13:42.240 doing an entire episode on libertarianism. 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:44.000 We're not going to tear into it today. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:46.480 To give you guys who are who are listening who are libertarians, 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:50.640 we are going to deal with it in a negative fashion, but 00:13:50.960 --> 00:13:55.920 the the point to make today is that the notion the libertarians 00:13:55.920 --> 00:13:58.720 have of aggression as being 00:14:00.160 --> 00:14:01.440 wicked per se. 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:03.040 I think that's a general view. 00:14:03.280 --> 00:14:06.640 Well, aggression is always illicit. 00:14:06.640 --> 00:14:09.840 The question is: when is violence not aggression? 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:13.200 So that's the part of the non-aggression principle in libertarianism. 00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:16.320 As long as the other guy aggresses first, then you are not 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:21.040 being aggressive, you are responding if you respond in kind with violence 00:14:21.280 --> 00:14:24.400 by the property of a stoppel that's permissible. 00:14:24.400 --> 00:14:24.960 And so 00:14:26.160 --> 00:14:29.760 that is a camp encapsulated in part in this, but not in 00:14:29.760 --> 00:14:35.280 the sense the libertarians' view, because God is saying, I demand retribution, 00:14:35.280 --> 00:14:38.720 I demand justice when a man is killed. 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:43.360 There's inherent violence in whoever has authority. 00:14:43.360 --> 00:14:47.840 Even if the violence isn't acted upon, there's inherent violence in a 00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:51.760 father. If you're a father and a husband who is incapable of 00:14:51.760 --> 00:14:54.480 violence, you're a bad father. 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:56.080 You're a bad husband. 00:14:56.080 --> 00:15:00.160 Period. Now, the fact that you might not be good at violence 00:15:00.160 --> 00:15:02.400 is not the same as being incapable of it. 00:15:02.400 --> 00:15:05.920 But if someone is a pacifist who says I would I would 00:15:05.920 --> 00:15:08.000 never lift a finger to defend my family. 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:09.440 You're an evil man. 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:10.880 You need to repent of that. 00:15:10.880 --> 00:15:14.000 You need to change your ways because God has put you in 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:17.280 the place to protect your family, to protect your wife and your 00:15:17.280 --> 00:15:19.440 children. There's no one else to protect them. 00:15:19.760 --> 00:15:25.120 And this is part of the veneer of modern society that because 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:30.560 the state has a monopoly on violence in a given geography, it's 00:15:30.560 --> 00:15:33.280 not my job to do anything. 00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:36.480 Now, there are rules of engagement in any society. 00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:39.200 You know, this was revealed in the Levitical laws. 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:41.600 It's revealed in the code of Ramurabi. 00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:43.520 We see in our laws today. 00:15:43.520 --> 00:15:48.080 Just because someone harms you doesn't automatically give you a buy to 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:49.360 go hurt them. 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:54.240 However, in the moment, if someone breaks into your home, call cops 00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:57.680 if you can, try to avoid violence if it's possible, but in 00:15:58.080 --> 00:16:04.000 the case where a criminal, an aggressor, forces a protector of his 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:08.640 home to be violent, the law acknowledges, as God does, that that 00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:10.240 is permissible. 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:15.440 So wherever the hierarchy is, whether it's within the home or it's 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:20.160 a clan leader or it's a monarch over a nation, there's always 00:16:20.160 --> 00:16:27.040 someone who's responsible for delivering justice, and that sometimes means violence. 00:16:27.040 --> 00:16:29.760 Violence is not inherently sinful. 00:16:29.760 --> 00:16:32.560 This is we see this throughout the Old Testament. 00:16:32.560 --> 00:16:35.040 God frequently commands violence. 00:16:35.040 --> 00:16:39.280 Now, this is something that we always have to be careful about 00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:40.960 because we're sinful. 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.520 And some people, if they think, oh, violence is okay. 00:16:43.520 --> 00:16:44.960 All right, well, sounds good to me. 00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:47.280 I I got some people I like to be violent towards. 00:16:47.280 --> 00:16:48.640 It's never license. 00:16:48.640 --> 00:16:51.120 It's not a license to do the thing that you want to 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:56.160 do. Someone who is engaging in violence in a godly manner generally 00:16:56.240 --> 00:16:58.960 tends to either regret it to some degree or to be just 00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:00.720 ambivalent. It's his duty. 00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:04.240 It's not something he looks forward to, but And so far as 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:09.040 a man may delight in violence against evildoers, it's because he's doing 00:17:09.040 --> 00:17:10.400 something godly. 00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:13.760 If it's just I want to crack people's heads in, and if 00:17:13.760 --> 00:17:16.320 I get a badge and that makes it okay, so much the 00:17:16.320 --> 00:17:20.240 better. Yeah, it's he he's treading a moral line there, but 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:25.200 it's important to always remember that there are there's a time and 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:26.480 a place for violence. 00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:31.840 Obviously, we're not advocating violence, we're saying that when it is permissible, 00:17:31.840 --> 00:17:35.840 the state will usually be involved, but the state, as we said 00:17:35.840 --> 00:17:40.640 earlier on, according to a Christian conception, is fundamentally downstream from the 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:43.360 father's authority over his household. 00:17:43.360 --> 00:17:46.640 As a father's duty to protect his wife and his children and 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:48.320 his neighborhood, incidentally. 00:17:48.320 --> 00:17:49.920 You have a duty to neighbor. 00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:53.200 You know, the duty to neighbor, according to the Good Samaritan, is 00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:57.040 not simply to care for someone who needs to be bandaged and 00:17:57.040 --> 00:18:00.480 healed. You may need to go protect your neighbor if someone else 00:18:00.480 --> 00:18:01.840 is seeking to harm them. 00:18:01.840 --> 00:18:05.280 And this scales up at the neighborhood level, it scales up at 00:18:05.280 --> 00:18:07.360 the state level and at the national level. 00:18:07.360 --> 00:18:11.440 So these levels are part of the scope of government, but the 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:16.080 principles that we're they're highlighting here scripturally always hold. 00:18:16.320 --> 00:18:21.600 the principle always holds and then the scale determines whether the principal 00:18:21.600 --> 00:18:26.240 is illicit for one actor according to his office or not. 00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:30.960 I don't, as a private individual, have license or permission from God 00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:34.240 or from the state to enact violence against someone who has nothing 00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:35.120 to do with me. 00:18:35.120 --> 00:18:39.600 That's there's no there's never any permissible case where that could happen. 00:18:39.600 --> 00:18:43.440 There are narrow cases where perhaps violence, accord under the law, is 00:18:43.440 --> 00:18:45.280 permitted to an individual. 00:18:45.280 --> 00:18:45.920 And so 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:52.080 Distinguishing between different forms of government and the legitimacy of government and 00:18:52.080 --> 00:18:57.120 actions at various levels is always predicate on what's the underlying principle. 00:18:57.120 --> 00:19:00.560 In this case, one of the principles is that taking of life 00:19:00.560 --> 00:19:04.160 and violence are sometimes permissible. 00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:08.480 So if someone is an over pacifist, if they say violence is 00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:11.920 never permissible, the state can never do any violence, that person is 00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:12.720 godless. That person 00:19:13.760 --> 00:19:15.600 is fundamentally an anarchist. 00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:19.840 they're doing something wicked because evil men are not gonna stop. 00:19:19.840 --> 00:19:23.280 You know, the reason one of the reasons for the execution of 00:19:23.280 --> 00:19:27.760 violence within a lawful state is that after Absent that, evil men 00:19:27.760 --> 00:19:28.880 will run wild. 00:19:28.880 --> 00:19:32.240 We see that all over the country today, where you know, places 00:19:32.240 --> 00:19:35.040 like San Francisco and and so many of the big cities now 00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:39.760 are being completely overrun by criminals because no one will physically stop 00:19:39.760 --> 00:19:42.320 them. And that's a that's a powder keg. 00:19:42.320 --> 00:19:44.720 Because at some point individuals are going to say if the cops 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:46.400 aren't gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. 00:19:46.560 --> 00:19:50.240 If I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna I'm gonna satisfy whatever evil 00:19:50.240 --> 00:19:53.360 pen up rage I have at this injustice, and things are gonna 00:19:53.360 --> 00:19:54.400 get really ugly. 00:19:54.400 --> 00:19:58.400 So it's necessary for the state when it has that monopoly to 00:19:58.400 --> 00:19:59.360 exercise it. 00:19:59.360 --> 00:20:02.720 It's necessary for the state to execute murderers. 00:20:02.720 --> 00:20:07.280 If the state fails to do that, that absence of justice creates 00:20:07.280 --> 00:20:09.920 the opportunity for evil. 00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:16.480 And we have as individuals to make sure that we're fostering environments 00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:20.480 where sound godly states emerge so that there isn't an occasion for 00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:24.560 evil. So that when evil emerges through an individual, they're dealt with 00:20:24.560 --> 00:20:27.360 in a godly fashion, then it's over, and everyone can go back 00:20:27.360 --> 00:20:29.200 to behaving himself 00:20:29.360 --> 00:20:35.040 As a general rule, God does not give the power or authority 00:20:35.040 --> 00:20:39.040 to do a thing unless he intends for you to do the 00:20:39.040 --> 00:20:46.080 thing. In the case of government, government is given the sword, and 00:20:46.080 --> 00:20:49.680 we're told that the prince is not to wield the sword in 00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:54.960 vain that is a definition of a prince, that is not just 00:20:55.360 --> 00:20:59.520 an off handed remark about princes, that is giving a definition of 00:20:59.520 --> 00:21:00.960 the prince. 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:04.320 A prince will not wield the sword in vain. 00:21:04.320 --> 00:21:07.760 He will use that authority granted him by God, and if he 00:21:07.760 --> 00:21:12.560 does not use it, then he is no prince. 00:21:12.560 --> 00:21:15.520 And a few of the things you say brought to mind, of 00:21:15.520 --> 00:21:19.840 course, the quote by Ernst Junger, and I'll just read the quote, 00:21:19.840 --> 00:21:24.960 because I it's a great encapsulation of several of these points. 00:21:24.960 --> 00:21:29.920 Long periods of peace and quiet favor certain optical illusions. 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:34.080 Among them is the assumption that the invulnerability of the home is 00:21:34.080 --> 00:21:35.200 founded upon the contradiction 00:21:36.080 --> 00:21:38.160 and safeguarded by it. 00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:43.120 In reality, it rests upon the father of the family who, accompanied 00:21:43.120 --> 00:21:46.560 by his sons, appears with the axe on the threshold of his 00:21:46.560 --> 00:21:48.800 dwelling. 00:21:49.840 --> 00:21:54.000 And there's some fundamentally important points in there that I'd like to 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:56.640 draw out. 00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:02.240 First, yes, the government has a duty to ensure there is order 00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:06.560 and peace within the borders it controls. 00:22:06.560 --> 00:22:13.040 And so a government that lets anarchists cause well anarchy and other 00:22:13.040 --> 00:22:18.560 problems that allows crime to run rampant, that does not punish evildoers, 00:22:18.560 --> 00:22:23.120 that punishes the good instead is not a legitimate government, because it 00:22:23.120 --> 00:22:27.760 does not fit the definition of a legitimate government as given us 00:22:27.760 --> 00:22:29.440 by God. 00:22:29.440 --> 00:22:35.200 There's also the point, to emphasize what Woe already said, that ultimately 00:22:35.200 --> 00:22:39.440 speaking it falls to the father of a family to protect his 00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:43.440 family, to protect his household. 00:22:43.440 --> 00:22:47.920 And that is against all the various dangers of the world, and 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:51.840 so you have, if you are a father, a duty to instruct 00:22:51.840 --> 00:22:55.200 your children, to warn them about the evils of the world, a 00:22:55.200 --> 00:22:58.160 duty to instruct your children in the faith, to bring them up 00:22:58.160 --> 00:23:00.000 the right way. 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.400 And you do also have, yes, a duty to defend them physically, 00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:08.400 if necessary, if called upon to do so it is your duty 00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:11.760 to give your life in defence of your family. 00:23:11.760 --> 00:23:14.640 That is one of the duties that falls to men. 00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:17.440 And yes there's also a version of that duty that you will 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:21.920 have if you are a brother or an uncle or what have 00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:25.040 you, some other male relative. 00:23:25.360 --> 00:23:31.760 But to focus on that idea of patriarchy, I'd like to outline 00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:36.640 some different levels of patriarchy as it were, to give a sort 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:42.000 of conceptual framework for what we're talking about here with government. 00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:47.120 And so first I would say there are two different categories of 00:23:47.120 --> 00:23:50.720 government. We won't go over the totality of this right now. 00:23:50.720 --> 00:23:54.240 We're going to stick to the patriarchy part, but the two categories 00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:59.520 overarching are autocracy and mob rule. 00:23:59.600 --> 00:24:06.880 Now patriarchy is autocratic because God gives an absolute 00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:12.400 authority to the housefather, to the father of a family, to the 00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:14.640 head of the household. 00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:20.080 Now of course that is circumscribed by Scripture, by what God says 00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:22.960 he may and may not do, but autocracy 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:26.800 does not mean absolute power. 00:24:26.800 --> 00:24:29.920 Autocracy means that it is 00:24:31.840 --> 00:24:36.240 a power that subsists in itself to a degree, really. 00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:40.880 And the contrast here is between autocracy and totalitarianism. 00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:45.920 Totalitarianism is a power that says I may do as I please, 00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:47.520 with no strictures. 00:24:47.520 --> 00:24:49.600 That's communism. 00:24:49.600 --> 00:24:51.360 That is not a Christian system. 00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:54.240 Autocracy is different. 00:24:54.240 --> 00:24:59.760 Autocracy is an absolute power vested in the head of whatever it 00:24:59.760 --> 00:25:03.680 happens to be, in this case a family, so the father, in 00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:08.480 order to do his duty as given him by God. 00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:10.640 And so the first level of course is the family. 00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:15.200 That's the natural first unit of all society. 00:25:15.200 --> 00:25:18.400 Everything else flows from the family. 00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:22.080 Because without the family you don't have anything else. 00:25:22.080 --> 00:25:27.040 And because the family is what God created first with regard to 00:25:27.040 --> 00:25:30.400 mankind. Because that's what God created. 00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:34.080 In the garden, when he created Eve and gave her to Adam, 00:25:34.080 --> 00:25:37.840 He was creating the first human family. 00:25:37.840 --> 00:25:43.680 And so the first patriarchy, the core of everything, is the family. 00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:47.120 Then from there you extend out to the clan. 00:25:47.120 --> 00:25:51.760 The clan is just a number of families that are related, and 00:25:51.760 --> 00:25:57.040 so you will probably have One man, the great grandfather, whatever he 00:25:57.040 --> 00:26:02.400 happens to be, the oldest male in the clan, has headship. 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:05.760 Then from there you expand out to the tribe, which is merely 00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:13.040 more families, a larger grouping, multiple clans, perhaps, and then after that 00:26:13.120 --> 00:26:15.840 you have the nation. 00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:20.560 And the nation is merely a very extended family, depending on the 00:26:20.560 --> 00:26:23.280 size of the nation, some are smaller, and so it's not that 00:26:23.280 --> 00:26:25.600 extended, but some are very large. 00:26:25.600 --> 00:26:29.600 And so, for instance, the American Nation. 00:26:29.600 --> 00:26:34.640 The American Nation is a largely Anglo Saxon people. 00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:38.560 Yes, there's also some Celtic and other things in there as well, 00:26:38.560 --> 00:26:42.720 but it is a European descended nation. 00:26:42.720 --> 00:26:47.040 And at that level, when you have a proper patriarch, when you 00:26:47.040 --> 00:26:50.480 have a proper leader, we call him a king. 00:26:50.480 --> 00:26:52.960 That's all monarchy is. 00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:57.200 Monarchy is patriarchy at a national level. 00:26:57.200 --> 00:27:02.960 And so that gives a conceptual framework for what we're discussing in 00:27:02.960 --> 00:27:06.960 this episode, at least part of that framework, the part that specifically 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:08.720 deals with patriarchy. 00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:09.440 Yeah, 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:13.280 I think the perfect example shortly after Genesis 9 of that sort 00:27:13.280 --> 00:27:15.840 of patriarch is in Genesis fourteen. 00:27:15.840 --> 00:27:19.120 Shortly after Abram is called by God. 00:27:19.120 --> 00:27:21.840 It's recorded in in Genesis fourteen. 00:27:21.840 --> 00:27:25.680 When Abram heard that his kinsmen had been taken captive, he led 00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:29.280 forth his trained men born in his house, three hundred eighteen of 00:27:29.280 --> 00:27:32.400 them, and went and pursued as far as Dan, and he divided 00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:35.840 his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated 00:27:35.840 --> 00:27:39.280 them and pursued them to Hobah, the north of Damascus. 00:27:39.280 --> 00:27:42.080 Then he brought back all the possessions, and also brought back his 00:27:42.080 --> 00:27:46.000 kinsmen Lot, with his possessions and the women and the people. 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:49.680 So Abram, before he had any children of his own, in his 00:27:49.680 --> 00:27:52.880 household, his his in his house. 00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:55.040 He had a standing army. 00:27:55.040 --> 00:27:59.680 He had three hundred and eighteen trained men suitable for combat, and 00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:00.720 he prevailed. 00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:02.560 And how did he what did he do? 00:28:02.560 --> 00:28:04.320 He went and rescued Lot. 00:28:04.320 --> 00:28:10.800 He rescued his relative and his relative's family and their possessions. 00:28:10.800 --> 00:28:14.080 He was a king, as Corey just said. 00:28:14.080 --> 00:28:17.360 He was a patriarch, a small one at that time, you know, 00:28:17.360 --> 00:28:20.400 kingship, by whatever name, you don't have to call him a king, 00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:24.960 and he certainly wasn't called a king, but functionally, that's what's going 00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:25.840 on there. 00:28:25.840 --> 00:28:29.520 Because again, to arcane back to some of the libertarian val uh 00:28:29.600 --> 00:28:35.120 concepts that can be valuable, there's the notion within libertarianism of there 00:28:35.120 --> 00:28:36.480 are two different kinds of anarchy. 00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:39.760 There's the kind of anarchy that that Corey just described briefly where 00:28:39.840 --> 00:28:44.000 you basically have lawlessness within a place. 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:49.280 The libertarian conception where it's not necessarily seen as evil per se, 00:28:49.280 --> 00:28:51.520 I'm not saying I agree with this, I'm just giving a sense 00:28:51.520 --> 00:28:53.200 of scope, is that 00:28:54.400 --> 00:28:59.280 to Two entities may exist in anarchy with regard to each other 00:28:59.280 --> 00:29:01.040 if there's no one above them. 00:29:01.040 --> 00:29:05.600 So Abram existed in a state of anarchy relative to his neighbors 00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:07.280 because he didn't report to anyone. 00:29:07.280 --> 00:29:08.640 There was no king over him. 00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:12.160 He answered to God, as his neighbors did, whether they were godly 00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:12.800 or not. 00:29:12.800 --> 00:29:15.440 You know, and that's a separate question do we answer in this 00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:16.560 life or the next? 00:29:16.560 --> 00:29:19.920 God was speaking directly to Abram, but even if he hadn't been, 00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:23.040 even if Abram were not a believer, he would still be entirely 00:29:23.040 --> 00:29:27.440 permitted to have a standing Arby and to go rescue his relatives 00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:30.560 from neighbors who harmed them. 00:29:30.560 --> 00:29:34.320 So that that notion of anarchy where one one man and another 00:29:34.320 --> 00:29:37.600 man don't have anyone above them is 00:29:38.880 --> 00:29:43.120 one of the aspects that we have to deal with as human 00:29:43.120 --> 00:29:46.960 groups. Is there someone is there someone who's a tiebreaker? 00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:51.200 You know, in the twentieth century this was the reason that evil 00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:54.720 men created the Leave League of Nations and then created the United 00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:57.360 Nations to say ah yes there will be an end of war 00:29:57.520 --> 00:30:00.560 and we will have this deliberative body, and it's going to decide 00:30:00.560 --> 00:30:03.840 winners and losers, and anyone who steps out of line with the 00:30:03.840 --> 00:30:09.120 international norms is to be punished globally by all of us collectively 00:30:09.120 --> 00:30:11.840 voting as nations. 00:30:11.840 --> 00:30:15.680 If everyone were Christian, maybe some form of that could work, but 00:30:15.680 --> 00:30:17.840 when you have a bunch of pagans or even one pagan in 00:30:17.840 --> 00:30:24.240 the mix, when you're voting on how to deal with misbehaving neighbors, 00:30:24.240 --> 00:30:26.480 things are necessarily going to go wrong. 00:30:26.480 --> 00:30:31.600 So So it's just worth noting that God never condemns this. 00:30:31.600 --> 00:30:33.200 Abram has a standing army. 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:36.400 He is king unto himself, and it's never condemned. 00:30:36.400 --> 00:30:37.920 That is not an argument from silence. 00:30:37.920 --> 00:30:39.200 It was it was licit. 00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:43.120 This is an example of a godly man, a godly patriarch doing 00:30:43.120 --> 00:30:44.560 that which is his duty. 00:30:44.560 --> 00:30:46.880 And in this case, his duty was to get a bunch of 00:30:46.880 --> 00:30:51.280 armed guys together and go kill the people who harmed his relatives. 00:30:51.440 --> 00:30:53.120 Literally godly. 00:30:53.120 --> 00:30:58.320 There's no place for that in the current political structures, again, because 00:30:58.320 --> 00:31:05.120 of the geographic monopoly of violence, but in the situation where such 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:11.920 structures devolve where where governments crumble, these duties remain. 00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:16.720 So whether Abram petitions the court to say, This guy hurt my 00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:19.600 neighbor, we need to do something about it, or if there's no 00:31:19.600 --> 00:31:22.480 court to appeal to, or perhaps in the case where the court 00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:26.000 won't do anything, he may still have a moral duty, in fact 00:31:26.080 --> 00:31:28.480 does have a moral duty to do exactly what he did in 00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:29.520 Genesis fourteen. 00:31:29.520 --> 00:31:34.240 So this is one of those small examples of this is godly 00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:36.800 government. This is this is governance. 00:31:36.800 --> 00:31:41.520 There was no government in the sense of voting or you know 00:31:41.840 --> 00:31:44.000 rallies or consent. 00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:48.240 It was the patriarch, blessed by God, and those under him, as 00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:51.040 we discussed in the episode we did a while ago on slavery. 00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:53.760 If you were Abram's slave, you were blessed. 00:31:53.760 --> 00:31:55.520 You know, the we're talking about his household. 00:31:55.520 --> 00:31:57.200 Again, he had he had no kids yet. 00:31:57.200 --> 00:32:01.200 His household, the the these were relatives and these were slaves, these 00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:03.760 were men under him whom he owned. 00:32:03.760 --> 00:32:07.200 They were blessed to be owned by Abram because he was a 00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:08.480 godly man. 00:32:08.480 --> 00:32:12.800 And so as as their king, everything that he did should be 00:32:12.800 --> 00:32:14.160 to their benefit. 00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:17.200 That's the duty, and that's a fundamental part of this, is that 00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:21.440 there's duty up and down the chain when you have someone in 00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:25.760 any sort of autocratic position because the man that doesn't answer to 00:32:26.080 --> 00:32:30.080 you still answers to God, which is something that God makes clear 00:32:30.080 --> 00:32:34.160 in the New Testament when He's talking about slaves and masters, saying, 00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:38.320 Masters, you too have a master in heaven, so treat your slaves 00:32:38.320 --> 00:32:42.080 well, because you will answer to me, not in this life, but 00:32:42.080 --> 00:32:43.360 in the next. 00:32:43.360 --> 00:32:47.440 When it comes to the duties of a good government, a godly 00:32:47.440 --> 00:32:52.480 government, what do mention Genesis nine six, the requirement of 00:32:53.360 --> 00:32:58.320 not only having a death penalty, but actually enforcing the death penalty, 00:32:58.320 --> 00:33:01.200 which it's that latter one that tends to be a problem these 00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:02.960 days for certain countries. 00:33:04.800 --> 00:33:07.360 We also have Romans 13. 00:33:07.360 --> 00:33:10.880 We will get to that perhaps a little bit in this episode, 00:33:10.880 --> 00:33:16.400 but that probably fits better in a future episode for various reasons. 00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:20.960 But one of the core points to make with regard to the 00:33:20.960 --> 00:33:25.680 duties of a godly government is that the entirety of the second 00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:31.200 table of the Ten Commandments is about interacting with our neighbors in 00:33:31.840 --> 00:33:33.680 this life. 00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:38.000 And those are the duties, not only of individuals, but also of 00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:42.160 a godly prince, or king, or whatever title he happens to have 00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:48.560 Because each one of those commandments four through ten 00:33:49.920 --> 00:33:57.120 contains within it various duties for the individual and for the government. 00:33:57.600 --> 00:34:00.640 Because for many of these the government should have laws against these 00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:04.880 on the books, so these should be transposed, to use a technical 00:34:04.880 --> 00:34:08.000 term, from the moral law into the positive law. 00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:12.320 The moral law is the eternal law that flows from God's nature, 00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:15.520 it is unchanging. 00:34:15.520 --> 00:34:18.400 It is ultimately true. 00:34:18.400 --> 00:34:24.000 The positive law is the written law of a given political entity. 00:34:24.000 --> 00:34:26.560 And that's all of the various laws. 00:34:26.560 --> 00:34:28.480 It's not just the moral laws. 00:34:28.480 --> 00:34:31.520 So it's not just the laws against murder, it's also parking tickets 00:34:31.600 --> 00:34:32.480 and all of that. 00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:36.640 But in this case it's transposing the moral law into the positive 00:34:36.640 --> 00:34:41.200 law, but they're still moral laws just in the lowercase M sense, 00:34:41.200 --> 00:34:44.240 because they deal with morality. 00:34:44.240 --> 00:34:47.440 Whereas a parking ticket isn't really a moral issue. 00:34:47.840 --> 00:34:50.880 It's just a matter of whether or not you could find. 00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:56.480 But obviously we understand some of them are very clearly issues of 00:34:56.480 --> 00:35:00.320 morality that should be addressed by the government. 00:35:00.320 --> 00:35:03.280 Because the fifth commandment, thou shalt not murder. 00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:08.320 Well obviously the government, as we've discussed already, has to have laws 00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:12.800 against murder and has to prosecute and punish murderers. 00:35:12.800 --> 00:35:15.920 But the government should also ban adultery. 00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:19.920 We used to have those laws on the books, because we used 00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:25.280 to have, relatively speaking, Christian government, in many places in the West. 00:35:25.280 --> 00:35:29.280 Those laws, even where they exist now, are typically not enforced, the 00:35:29.600 --> 00:35:33.200 one possible exception might be the military where that is still a 00:35:33.200 --> 00:35:38.320 crime. Which is an interesting note, but that's just historical reasons it's 00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:40.080 played out that way. 00:35:40.960 --> 00:35:44.800 We also mentioned the problems in certain big cities. 00:35:44.800 --> 00:35:46.560 Well, that's the seventh commandment. 00:35:46.560 --> 00:35:48.400 Thou shalt not steal. 00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:53.280 The government has a duty to punish thieves. 00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:57.680 Because the government has a duty with regard to each one of 00:35:57.680 --> 00:36:00.320 these commandments, because these are moral law. 00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:05.040 These are the unchanging will because they flow from the unchanging nature 00:36:05.040 --> 00:36:06.400 of God. 00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:10.240 A government that does not enforce these, a government that does not 00:36:10.240 --> 00:36:13.840 uphold these, is not a legitimate government. 00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:15.200 That is the Christian position. 00:36:16.160 --> 00:36:19.600 And so if you have a government that's decided, well, we won't 00:36:19.600 --> 00:36:25.280 prosecute theft, in so far as that government no longer prosecutes theft, 00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:28.400 that government is to that degree illegitimate. 00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:31.680 Now, of course, that raises a lot of other questions, and we 00:36:31.680 --> 00:36:34.000 will be getting to some of those in a future episode because 00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:38.720 they're beyond the scope of this introductory episode. 00:36:38.720 --> 00:36:42.080 These are issues that Christians must consider. 00:36:42.080 --> 00:36:43.840 These are not irrelevant matters. 00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:46.640 This is not something you just oh well that's politics and I 00:36:46.640 --> 00:36:48.720 can ignore that and just focus on. 00:36:48.720 --> 00:36:53.600 No, you do not get to do that, particularly as a man. 00:36:53.600 --> 00:36:58.080 Because part of your duty is caring for your family, and part 00:36:58.080 --> 00:37:01.920 of the way you do that is understanding these issues and understanding 00:37:01.920 --> 00:37:04.320 what is going on in the world. 00:37:05.200 --> 00:37:09.520 Now we mentioned earlier a question, sort of a foundational question for 00:37:09.520 --> 00:37:13.040 this what is a good government? 00:37:13.040 --> 00:37:16.960 Well one of the things that a good government is, and I 00:37:16.960 --> 00:37:20.480 think this is a a good metric for assessing a government, is 00:37:20.480 --> 00:37:24.960 that a good government sort of fades into the background. 00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:28.080 Because if you have a good government, it's kind of like having 00:37:28.080 --> 00:37:30.400 a good foundation for your house. 00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:34.000 If you have a good solid foundation for your house, you never 00:37:34.000 --> 00:37:35.760 have to think about it. 00:37:35.760 --> 00:37:39.200 The only time you really have to think about your foundation is 00:37:39.200 --> 00:37:42.480 when there's a problem, and you have to really think about it 00:37:42.480 --> 00:37:44.960 when there's a serious problem. 00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:47.840 Governments are the same way to a certain degree. 00:37:47.840 --> 00:37:51.120 Yes, if you have a king and a royal family and all 00:37:51.120 --> 00:37:56.080 that, you'll have coronations and celebrations and those things. 00:37:56.080 --> 00:38:00.160 But by and large, a functional government is going to provide that 00:38:00.160 --> 00:38:06.480 foundation on which you can live your life, but otherwise not be 00:38:06.560 --> 00:38:09.360 something about which you have to concern yourself. 00:38:09.360 --> 00:38:13.280 If you find that you're having to concern yourself for constantly about 00:38:13.280 --> 00:38:17.760 the government, it's probably a fairly good indicator that the government is 00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:21.200 not behaving as a Christian government would behave. 00:38:21.680 --> 00:38:25.600 On the subject of Romans thirteen, we will link in the show 00:38:25.600 --> 00:38:30.400 notes a three-part series from the Godestines crowd. 00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:33.520 Uh Pastor David Ramirez did a great three part series. 00:38:33.520 --> 00:38:37.280 It's about three hours in total on Romans 13 about two years 00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:43.520 ago. So this was post-COVID, you know, lockdowns and masking and churches 00:38:43.520 --> 00:38:49.120 being closed forcibly, in some cases churches being closed voluntarily. 00:38:49.120 --> 00:38:54.400 He does a great job going through some of these questions. 00:38:54.400 --> 00:38:59.600 And he addresses what does a Romans thirteen government look like and 00:38:59.600 --> 00:39:02.400 what does Romans thirteen obedience look like. 00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:04.640 So we're as Corey said, we're not going to get into that 00:39:04.640 --> 00:39:06.800 today. We may touch on it some point in the future. 00:39:07.040 --> 00:39:09.280 The Goddess Dean's crowd did a great job. 00:39:09.280 --> 00:39:11.200 I I truly commend that. 00:39:11.200 --> 00:39:15.600 Especially lately I've seen quite a few questions on Twitter of people 00:39:15.600 --> 00:39:17.040 bringing up some of these subjects. 00:39:17.040 --> 00:39:18.800 You know, it's it's in the news now. 00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:22.560 You know, the they may be inventing another COVID scare. 00:39:22.560 --> 00:39:25.360 They may be trying to lock us in our homes again. 00:39:25.360 --> 00:39:30.000 And so we saw this happen a couple years ago, and most 00:39:30.160 --> 00:39:32.720 people went along to some degree, you know, early on, no one 00:39:32.720 --> 00:39:33.920 knew what was going on. 00:39:33.920 --> 00:39:35.680 Even if you thought you knew, you didn't know. 00:39:35.680 --> 00:39:36.640 You could speculate. 00:39:36.640 --> 00:39:38.960 If you turned out to be right, congratulations, you you had a 00:39:38.960 --> 00:39:40.000 great gut. 00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:42.560 If you went along with it and then you really later realized 00:39:42.560 --> 00:39:46.080 that was crap, that was we were lied to, we were abused. 00:39:46.080 --> 00:39:50.160 A lot more people today have decided I'm not doing that again. 00:39:50.160 --> 00:39:54.560 But as Christians, we still have to grapple with the entirely necessary 00:39:54.720 --> 00:40:00.000 moral question: how do we as Christians live in a society? 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:02.240 How do how do we live under a government? 00:40:02.320 --> 00:40:05.200 They may be acting evilly. 00:40:05.200 --> 00:40:06.960 What is the Christian response? 00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:09.120 what is the what is permissible? 00:40:09.120 --> 00:40:10.160 What is necessary? 00:40:10.160 --> 00:40:12.800 So Pastor Ramirez does a great judge going over that. 00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:13.920 We'll link those. 00:40:13.920 --> 00:40:14.960 Please go listen to them. 00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:16.960 I I can't recommend them highly enough. 00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:18.000 I need to go listen to them. 00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:21.200 I've recommended it too a few times in the last couple weeks, 00:40:21.200 --> 00:40:23.120 but it's very much a live issue. 00:40:23.120 --> 00:40:26.400 And Again, that's part of why we're tackling the subject of a 00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:30.400 legitimacy of government, because although we're not here to make any particular 00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:35.440 claims about the state of the United States, I think that if 00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:40.560 you think that the 2020 election was stolen, which I do, you 00:40:40.560 --> 00:40:43.280 can't possibly think that the same thing is not going to occur 00:40:43.280 --> 00:40:44.560 in 2024. 00:40:44.560 --> 00:40:48.400 And so as a pragmatic matter, we have to, as individuals and 00:40:48.400 --> 00:40:53.760 as Christians, work through what are the implications as things continue to 00:40:53.760 --> 00:40:55.520 devolve as they seem to me. 00:40:55.520 --> 00:40:59.280 If men are going to be lawless while claiming to be the 00:40:59.280 --> 00:41:02.160 law, where are those lines? 00:41:02.160 --> 00:41:03.600 We're not going to give you those lines. 00:41:03.600 --> 00:41:05.920 We're just going to talk about what does God say in Scripture 00:41:06.080 --> 00:41:08.000 about what it should look like. 00:41:08.000 --> 00:41:12.640 And each man, as Corey said, each father must examine Scripture and 00:41:12.640 --> 00:41:17.360 examine his conscience and determine what am I obligated to God to 00:41:17.360 --> 00:41:20.560 do, even in the face of what men say to do? 00:41:20.560 --> 00:41:23.600 This is a this is a question that goes back through the 00:41:23.600 --> 00:41:25.360 Old Testament and the New Testament. 00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:30.880 There are many cases where the rightful ruler commanded evil, and the 00:41:30.880 --> 00:41:33.600 believers were forbidden from doing the evil. 00:41:33.600 --> 00:41:36.320 And evil is not necessarily simply an act, it can be the 00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:38.000 omission of an act as well. 00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:40.720 It is evil not to go to church. 00:41:40.720 --> 00:41:42.000 If you're forbidden to go to church, 00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:44.880 that is evil. 00:41:44.880 --> 00:41:45.200 So 00:41:46.160 --> 00:41:50.160 there these are live issues, and we're not gonna we never want 00:41:50.160 --> 00:41:51.840 to be the guys who are trying to pretend to give a 00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:56.240 roadmap where a couple of random podcasters, but Christians should always be 00:41:56.240 --> 00:41:58.880 thinking about these things and we want to try to root these 00:41:58.880 --> 00:42:01.440 conversations in scripture because 00:42:02.320 --> 00:42:07.840 since these are political discussions, a lot of the questions very easily 00:42:07.840 --> 00:42:10.800 get derailed into the pragmatic. 00:42:10.800 --> 00:42:13.120 And again, as I said earlier, it goes back into, well, I 00:42:13.120 --> 00:42:15.760 want to be an RX or I want to be a minarchist 00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:17.920 or I wanna be you know a fascist. 00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:19.280 I want to be a communist. 00:42:19.280 --> 00:42:22.800 Whatever you think is going to be the best solution, if you're 00:42:22.800 --> 00:42:25.920 only talking about it pragmatically and talking about just kind of moving 00:42:25.920 --> 00:42:30.880 pieces around the board and you're ignoring ignoring the supernatural, the the 00:42:30.880 --> 00:42:33.840 fact that there is a divine element to this, you're going to 00:42:34.320 --> 00:42:36.160 fall into error. 00:42:36.160 --> 00:42:36.480 And 00:42:38.080 --> 00:42:42.480 I think as we wind through some of the final good examples 00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:46.640 in scripture of what godly governance looks like, it's important just to 00:42:46.640 --> 00:42:49.120 mention Moses and Joshua. 00:42:49.120 --> 00:42:52.000 These were men who were similar to Abram and to Noah and 00:42:52.160 --> 00:42:55.520 Adam. They were effectively autocrats. 00:42:55.520 --> 00:42:58.400 They were in charge of their people. 00:42:58.400 --> 00:43:01.120 They were in charge because God put them in charge and God 00:43:01.120 --> 00:43:03.520 spoke to them directly. 00:43:03.520 --> 00:43:07.200 And this is one of the crucial points that I hope we 00:43:07.200 --> 00:43:09.920 can get across in this episode to everyone is that 00:43:11.360 --> 00:43:14.960 The question comes up: well, they had theocracy in the Old Testament, 00:43:14.960 --> 00:43:18.080 but God doesn't talk to us anymore, so we can't have a 00:43:18.080 --> 00:43:20.880 theocracy, so we have to have something different. 00:43:20.880 --> 00:43:21.200 And 00:43:22.160 --> 00:43:26.160 I think that's a crucial error to make. 00:43:26.160 --> 00:43:30.080 I think it misconstrues what was actually going on in the Old 00:43:30.080 --> 00:43:32.960 Testament with regard to what goes on today. 00:43:32.960 --> 00:43:36.560 In the Old Testament, the patriarchs spoke directly to God. 00:43:36.560 --> 00:43:38.880 God has never spoken directly to me. 00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:42.160 I don't hear voices, I don't have dreams or visions. 00:43:42.160 --> 00:43:44.640 God speaks to me in scripture. 00:43:44.640 --> 00:43:48.640 He speaks to you in scripture and in faithful preaching from a 00:43:48.640 --> 00:43:52.800 someone who's illicit to be giving that sort of preaching. 00:43:52.800 --> 00:43:56.560 So God does speak today, but he speaks through his word, which 00:43:56.560 --> 00:43:58.640 is given to us in scripture. 00:43:58.640 --> 00:44:02.240 And I think the crucial distinction when we're looking back at the 00:44:02.240 --> 00:44:05.760 Old Testament Testament, where we had these prophets and patriarchs who spoke 00:44:05.760 --> 00:44:08.400 directly to God. 00:44:08.400 --> 00:44:12.000 I think that it's important to remember that that was necessary because 00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:15.440 they did not have the Holy Spirit, not as it was given 00:44:15.440 --> 00:44:17.040 at Pentecost. 00:44:17.200 --> 00:44:21.040 Since Pentecost, all believers are given the Holy Spirit. 00:44:21.040 --> 00:44:23.200 It comes to us by the Word, it comes to us by 00:44:23.200 --> 00:44:24.640 the by baptism. 00:44:24.640 --> 00:44:28.160 That's how God gives the Holy Spirit to believers to make them 00:44:28.160 --> 00:44:30.240 believers. 00:44:30.240 --> 00:44:30.480 As 00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:33.840 far as political roadmaps go, I'm certainly not going to give one 00:44:33.840 --> 00:44:37.280 here, but I won't say that I would never give one elsewhere. 00:44:37.280 --> 00:44:41.520 But that's not the point of this podcast, it's not the point, 00:44:41.520 --> 00:44:45.440 certainly, of this episode. 00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:49.680 I do think it is likely that we will get into Romans 00:44:49.680 --> 00:44:54.880 thirteen in some future episode, although I also recommend the podcast that 00:44:54.880 --> 00:44:58.160 will be in the show notes because it covers the topic quite 00:44:58.160 --> 00:45:01.280 well. But one of the reasons that I think that we will 00:45:01.600 --> 00:45:06.320 get into it is because from the Lutheran tradition we have a 00:45:06.320 --> 00:45:13.520 particular particularly strong case already laid out for us with regard to 00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:20.560 issues of a tyrannical sovereign, of a tyrannical government, of a prince 00:45:20.560 --> 00:45:24.480 who may no longer be a legitimate prince. 00:45:24.480 --> 00:45:26.960 And that is called the Magdeburg Confession. 00:45:26.960 --> 00:45:28.640 I'll put that in the show notes as well. 00:45:28.640 --> 00:45:30.400 I'm not going to bury the lead. 00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:33.040 If you want to read it before we get to the episode, 00:45:33.040 --> 00:45:37.040 by all means it's great to have the background. 00:45:37.040 --> 00:45:40.800 We won't go over the specifics here because that's for a future 00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:47.760 time. But on the topic of theocracy, I think the modern conception 00:45:48.320 --> 00:45:52.880 of theocracy is often deeply mistaken. 00:45:52.880 --> 00:45:59.120 Because when you mention theocracy, most modern minds are immediately going to 00:45:59.120 --> 00:45:59.760 turn to 00:46:00.640 --> 00:46:05.520 men in funny hats and long robes making pronouncements in the name 00:46:05.520 --> 00:46:10.880 of God and ruling as if they are basically an avatar of 00:46:10.880 --> 00:46:11.600 God. 00:46:12.640 --> 00:46:17.600 And that's just not what theocracy in Scripture was. 00:46:17.600 --> 00:46:20.560 It may have been in some other parts of the world. 00:46:20.560 --> 00:46:24.320 And it's certainly not what we mean if we call something theocratic 00:46:24.960 --> 00:46:28.720 and I would use that term more than theocracy, I would say 00:46:28.720 --> 00:46:35.120 theocratic, because I think theocratic is a proper way to describe to 00:46:36.960 --> 00:46:44.080 add to the description of another system because theocracy isn't properly 00:46:44.080 --> 00:46:46.640 a system of government. 00:46:46.640 --> 00:46:49.680 Now you can have a theocratic government, so you can have a 00:46:49.680 --> 00:46:54.560 theocratic patriarchy or a theocratic monarchy. 00:46:54.560 --> 00:46:57.600 But that's not a theocracy. 00:46:57.600 --> 00:47:01.040 And today you're probably not going to have that, and I would 00:47:01.040 --> 00:47:04.800 go so far as to say it's probably not something you want. 00:47:05.040 --> 00:47:09.200 Because again, this goes back to what I said earlier, there is 00:47:09.200 --> 00:47:16.240 a division, not a wall, not some sort of hard separation between 00:47:16.240 --> 00:47:18.480 church and state. 00:47:18.480 --> 00:47:20.240 But there is a division. 00:47:20.240 --> 00:47:26.080 They have different spheres, they're different estates, they have different duties. 00:47:26.080 --> 00:47:29.280 And so you don't want your pastor to be your prince, and 00:47:29.280 --> 00:47:31.920 you don't want your prince to be your pastor. 00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:37.440 Now you do want Do want your pastor to have proper politics 00:47:37.440 --> 00:47:40.240 in so far as that is necessary. 00:47:40.240 --> 00:47:44.640 You don't want your pastor to be a communist, and you certainly 00:47:44.640 --> 00:47:48.320 want your prince to have right theology. 00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:52.080 You want your prince to be a sound Christian Prince. 00:47:52.080 --> 00:47:54.960 And so there's overlap in that way. 00:47:55.520 --> 00:47:59.200 But it's no longer like it was in the Garden or with 00:47:59.200 --> 00:48:04.240 Noah or at certain times in the history of Israel, where you 00:48:04.240 --> 00:48:09.600 had one man occupying the office of prophet, priest, and king And 00:48:09.600 --> 00:48:13.040 king. not least of all because we don't have prophets in that 00:48:13.040 --> 00:48:14.240 sense anymore. 00:48:14.240 --> 00:48:18.720 Now of course in the broader sense, as simply meaning one who 00:48:18.720 --> 00:48:19.760 speaks God's Word. 00:48:19.760 --> 00:48:22.560 we have many prophets, because when a pastor stands up and speaks 00:48:22.640 --> 00:48:27.360 God's word, he is a prophet in that broader sense. 00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:28.800 Because that's all a prophet is. 00:48:28.800 --> 00:48:33.040 A prophet is one who relays God's word. 00:48:33.040 --> 00:48:39.040 Not in the specialized sense of the prophets who spoke directly with 00:48:39.040 --> 00:48:44.080 God or heard directly from God. 00:48:44.080 --> 00:48:48.160 But I think it's important to make a slight a little nuance 00:48:48.160 --> 00:48:52.720 there. God does speak to you directly through Scripture. 00:48:52.720 --> 00:48:55.600 He does not speak to you directly in the same way as 00:48:55.600 --> 00:48:57.680 he spoke to, say, Moses. 00:48:57.680 --> 00:49:00.320 He spoke with Moses face to face. 00:49:00.320 --> 00:49:03.760 That's not how Scripture works. 00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:08.000 If you pick up a book, in a very real way, the 00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:12.320 author is speaking to you directly. 00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:16.320 Now, for the average author, he probably didn't write it with you 00:49:16.320 --> 00:49:18.080 in mind. 00:49:18.080 --> 00:49:25.040 There's a slight difference here, obviously, God being infinite, omniscient. 00:49:25.040 --> 00:49:28.080 I won't go so far as to say that God wrote it 00:49:28.080 --> 00:49:33.200 specifically for and with you in mind, but at the same time, 00:49:33.200 --> 00:49:36.880 it is written for every Christian, and it is written to every 00:49:36.880 --> 00:49:41.680 Christian, and God being infinite has the capacity certainly to do that, 00:49:41.680 --> 00:49:44.560 whereas a human author most certainly does not. 00:49:44.560 --> 00:49:49.520 And so yes, Scripture is God speaking directly to you, but still 00:49:49.520 --> 00:49:52.000 in a very different way from how he spoke directly to 00:49:53.280 --> 00:49:58.160 Moses or Joshua or Solomon. 00:49:58.640 --> 00:49:58.800 Well 00:49:58.880 --> 00:50:01.920 I think that's the importance of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit 00:50:02.080 --> 00:50:06.960 is that when God speaks to believers through the word, the Holy 00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:11.040 Spirit within us receives the word given in scripture. 00:50:11.040 --> 00:50:14.160 So God is both the giver and the receiver of the Word. 00:50:14.160 --> 00:50:17.600 And that's what makes it fundamentally different from just reading some other 00:50:17.600 --> 00:50:22.160 book is that you don't have to into the author's intent or 00:50:22.160 --> 00:50:23.360 anything like that. 00:50:23.360 --> 00:50:25.760 God is working within you. 00:50:25.760 --> 00:50:28.640 You know, we are in a sense possessed by the Holy Spirit 00:50:28.800 --> 00:50:31.280 who dwells within us to receive those things. 00:50:31.360 --> 00:50:33.920 And so that is I think that is fundamentally different. 00:50:33.920 --> 00:50:36.720 But it doesn't it's not a license for someone to say, oh 00:50:36.800 --> 00:50:39.440 well I have a brand new interpretation of this because God revealed 00:50:39.440 --> 00:50:40.000 it to me. 00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:43.520 You know, no, that's not that's not what we're saying. 00:50:44.160 --> 00:50:47.840 But I the reason I highlighted Pentecost and the indwelling in the 00:50:47.840 --> 00:50:49.120 Holy Spirit is that 00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:55.520 God speaking to Abraham face to face is was a tremendous blessing, 00:50:55.520 --> 00:50:58.720 something that we will not will not receive until we die and 00:50:58.720 --> 00:51:01.840 we are in heaven and the new earth. 00:51:01.840 --> 00:51:04.960 However, God had to speak to them because they didn't have the 00:51:04.960 --> 00:51:07.040 Holy Spirit to receive his word. 00:51:07.040 --> 00:51:10.480 You know, it's over and over and over again in the Old 00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:14.400 Testament, and even in the New Testament, but mostly in the Old 00:51:14.400 --> 00:51:17.600 Testament, God would speak to His people, He would speak to Israel, 00:51:17.600 --> 00:51:22.160 He would speak to the elect, and they would listen for five 00:51:22.160 --> 00:51:25.360 minutes and they would wander off and do evil again. 00:51:25.360 --> 00:51:28.560 Now, I'm not blaming the absence of the Holy Spirit for that, 00:51:28.560 --> 00:51:31.600 but I think it's important to note that the way that they 00:51:31.600 --> 00:51:36.000 behaved and the way that they were hearing hearing God 00:51:37.040 --> 00:51:38.320 it was in some ways worse. 00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:40.080 I mean the behavior is obviously worse. 00:51:40.080 --> 00:51:43.040 I think that the way that they were hearing God's voice, I 00:51:43.040 --> 00:51:47.360 mean obviously the the patriarchs, the prophets who spoke to God were 00:51:47.440 --> 00:51:48.880 were definitely blessed by that. 00:51:48.880 --> 00:51:52.880 But as we were saying in prep, when it's then relayed to 00:51:52.880 --> 00:51:55.680 another man, the other man is just you know, even though in 00:51:55.680 --> 00:52:01.120 the case of Moses, Moses literally led the Israelites out of Egypt, 00:52:01.120 --> 00:52:03.440 the miracles happened before their eyes. 00:52:03.440 --> 00:52:06.880 They walked across the sea. 00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:09.200 All these things happened right in front of them. 00:52:09.200 --> 00:52:12.160 And as soon as the miracle occurs on the mountain where Moses 00:52:12.320 --> 00:52:15.280 goes up to speak face to face with God to receive the 00:52:15.280 --> 00:52:18.480 law, the people apostatize. 00:52:18.480 --> 00:52:25.200 The people revert into idolatry to worship Egyptian gods and say this 00:52:25.200 --> 00:52:27.280 is the God who brought us out of Egypt. 00:52:27.280 --> 00:52:28.000 It was just it was 00:52:29.120 --> 00:52:33.200 incomprehensible to us that level of apostasy. 00:52:33.200 --> 00:52:37.040 This is something that continued throughout the period of the Judges. 00:52:37.040 --> 00:52:41.120 In Judges 2, it's recorded, then the Lord raised up judges, and 00:52:41.120 --> 00:52:45.040 this was after Moses, this was after Joshua had died, the period 00:52:45.040 --> 00:52:46.560 of the judges began. 00:52:46.560 --> 00:52:49.200 The Lord raised up judges who saved them out of the hand 00:52:49.200 --> 00:52:51.920 of those who plundered them, yet they did not listen to their 00:52:51.920 --> 00:52:55.280 judges, for they hoard after other gods and bowed down to them. 00:52:55.280 --> 00:52:58.000 They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had 00:52:58.000 --> 00:53:01.200 walked, who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord, and they did 00:53:01.200 --> 00:53:02.400 not do so. 00:53:02.400 --> 00:53:05.600 Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with 00:53:05.600 --> 00:53:08.560 the judge, and he saved them from the hands of their enemies 00:53:08.560 --> 00:53:10.080 all the days of the judge. 00:53:10.080 --> 00:53:12.480 But the l for the Lord was moved to pity by their 00:53:12.480 --> 00:53:15.760 groaning, because of those who afflicted and oppressed them. 00:53:15.760 --> 00:53:19.200 But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt 00:53:19.200 --> 00:53:22.560 than their fathers, going after other gods, serving them and bowing down 00:53:22.560 --> 00:53:23.680 for before them. 00:53:23.680 --> 00:53:27.280 They did not drop any of their practices or their stubborn ways, 00:53:27.280 --> 00:53:30.480 so the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. 00:53:30.480 --> 00:53:32.480 So this was the pattern over and over. 00:53:32.480 --> 00:53:34.960 God was speaking directly to the judges as he spoke to Joshua 00:53:35.360 --> 00:53:40.880 and Moses and to Samuel and the other prophets in the future. 00:53:40.880 --> 00:53:43.440 And maybe they would listen, but for the most part, they didn't 00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:47.680 listen. So there was this oscillation where most of the old Testament 00:53:47.680 --> 00:53:51.840 period of the Israelites, most of the time they're disobeying and disregarding 00:53:51.840 --> 00:53:53.920 God, and then he's chastising him. 00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:57.840 He continued to send messengers to whom he spoke directly because the 00:53:57.840 --> 00:54:01.280 people continue not to listen to those messengers, even though they knew 00:54:01.280 --> 00:54:05.600 that the messengers had direct communication with God. 00:54:05.600 --> 00:54:07.440 And I think that 00:54:08.320 --> 00:54:11.680 God that did things perfectly then, He does things perfectly now. 00:54:11.680 --> 00:54:15.920 We no longer have priests as mediators between us and God, as 00:54:15.920 --> 00:54:19.680 one of the crucial distinctions between the Old and the New Testament. 00:54:19.680 --> 00:54:23.760 The sacrificial system has ended, the Holy Spirit is given to us, 00:54:23.760 --> 00:54:28.080 we are given the ability to understand scripture on our own. 00:54:28.080 --> 00:54:30.560 Now, that doesn't mean that you don't need someone to explain it 00:54:30.560 --> 00:54:31.200 to you. 00:54:31.200 --> 00:54:34.880 We all need faithful Christian men to explain scripture to us. 00:54:34.880 --> 00:54:36.720 Because as we've said many times in the past, 00:54:37.760 --> 00:54:42.640 these matters of faith are not simply matters of intellectual ascent. 00:54:42.720 --> 00:54:45.680 Scripture is not a guidebook and it's not a puzzle book that 00:54:45.680 --> 00:54:47.440 if you just think about it really hard and you move all 00:54:47.440 --> 00:54:50.240 the pieces around just right, you're gonna unlock the puzzle and see 00:54:50.240 --> 00:54:50.720 it all. 00:54:50.720 --> 00:54:52.400 It's not that kind of book. 00:54:52.400 --> 00:54:54.640 That's why the Holy Spirit is necessary. 00:54:54.640 --> 00:54:56.240 That's why teachers are necessary. 00:54:56.240 --> 00:55:00.480 It's particularly why faithful teachers are necessary, because a faithless teacher, a 00:55:00.480 --> 00:55:03.840 corrupt teacher, a wolf who seeks to lead us away from what 00:55:03.840 --> 00:55:07.600 God actually says will do the very sort of damage that the 00:55:07.600 --> 00:55:10.160 Israelites were suffering of their own accord. 00:55:10.160 --> 00:55:13.680 They had faithful prophets and they had faithless hearts. 00:55:13.680 --> 00:55:16.480 We today have hearts who seek to be faithful, and in many 00:55:16.880 --> 00:55:20.960 cases we have faithless prophets in the small piece sense who are 00:55:20.960 --> 00:55:26.000 leading a men astray at the very moment where they're seeking answers 00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:26.960 from God. 00:55:26.960 --> 00:55:30.640 And that's why these conversations are not just political, but they're also 00:55:30.640 --> 00:55:31.440 within the church. 00:55:31.440 --> 00:55:34.560 We need to get all of this stuff right simultaneously. 00:55:34.560 --> 00:55:36.960 As Corey said, that's not mixing church and state. 00:55:36.960 --> 00:55:39.760 It's not saying we want to have the church running the state 00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:40.960 as one entity. 00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:41.600 It's saying that 00:55:42.720 --> 00:55:45.920 we have to be faithful in whatever our vocation. 00:55:45.920 --> 00:55:47.680 The king has to be faithful to God. 00:55:47.680 --> 00:55:51.200 The teachers, the pastors have to be faithful to scripture. 00:55:51.200 --> 00:55:54.480 And we as hearers must be faithful to God above all of 00:55:54.480 --> 00:55:55.760 them. We have to be faithful to God 00:55:56.640 --> 00:55:59.200 even in the face of faithless pastors. 00:55:59.200 --> 00:56:02.800 We have to be faithful to God even in the faith even 00:56:02.800 --> 00:56:07.440 in the face of faithless leaders or rulers. 00:56:07.440 --> 00:56:08.800 It's ultimately on us. 00:56:08.800 --> 00:56:11.280 We are the ones who are judged by God for what we 00:56:11.280 --> 00:56:13.200 do or fail to do in this life. 00:56:13.200 --> 00:56:16.560 And scripture is given to us for our edification and for our 00:56:16.560 --> 00:56:20.000 guidance. So that when these questions come up, we don't have to 00:56:20.000 --> 00:56:22.480 wait for God to appear to us in a vision or a 00:56:22.480 --> 00:56:24.800 dream or to speak to us out loud. 00:56:24.800 --> 00:56:26.800 These answers are given in scripture. 00:56:26.800 --> 00:56:30.000 Again, not as a guidebook, not as a there's not a decodering 00:56:30.160 --> 00:56:33.120 in well here's you know chapter and verse to to have a 00:56:33.120 --> 00:56:36.800 proof text for everything, but when the examples are given, for example, 00:56:36.800 --> 00:56:43.920 the Genesis 9:6 example of properly executing murderers, that's the principle. 00:56:43.920 --> 00:56:48.400 So we don't need to second guess the principle later on when 00:56:48.560 --> 00:56:50.160 related questions come up. 00:56:50.160 --> 00:56:54.960 We can rely on solid foundations and extrapolate from that using God 00:56:55.280 --> 00:56:56.800 God given reason. 00:56:56.800 --> 00:57:00.160 God gives us reason to understand the things that He reveals to 00:57:00.160 --> 00:57:03.840 us. Not that everything is subject to reason, but much of it 00:57:03.840 --> 00:57:07.840 is not subject to reason, but it is apprehensible through reason. 00:57:07.840 --> 00:57:09.840 That's what God has given us. 00:57:09.840 --> 00:57:12.640 So part of the reason that we started so inquire and we're 00:57:12.560 --> 00:57:16.480 thankful for people listening is that we as individuals, as laymen, and 00:57:16.480 --> 00:57:19.520 for the pastors who are listening, who are trying to be faithful, 00:57:19.520 --> 00:57:22.560 we each have a duty to listen to God's voice in scripture 00:57:22.720 --> 00:57:24.960 and try to get this stuff right and to talk about it, 00:57:24.960 --> 00:57:26.880 to hammer these things out. 00:57:27.360 --> 00:57:31.360 To have all these conversations split into a million pieces where the 00:57:31.360 --> 00:57:35.120 guys with strictly political opinions don't have any input from the church 00:57:35.200 --> 00:57:37.520 and the guys in the church don't want to talk about politics 00:57:37.520 --> 00:57:40.400 at all, that is a recipe for disaster. 00:57:40.400 --> 00:57:42.960 You don't have to mingle the two to the point that you 00:57:42.960 --> 00:57:46.720 have just one, you have church and state as one, in order 00:57:46.720 --> 00:57:48.880 to have godliness in all things. 00:57:48.880 --> 00:57:53.120 That should be what everyone desires, whatever whatever his approach is, and 00:57:53.200 --> 00:57:55.520 we have a number of podcasters now who are listening, which is 00:57:55.520 --> 00:57:58.640 awesome, who don't have religious principally podcasts. 00:57:58.640 --> 00:57:59.600 That's great. 00:57:59.600 --> 00:58:03.520 I I am delighted to know that there is a Christian voice 00:58:03.520 --> 00:58:07.680 in their ears to help them navigate some of these problems that 00:58:07.680 --> 00:58:08.720 we're all facing. 00:58:08.720 --> 00:58:11.920 Because whether you're Christian or not, you're facing the same evil men. 00:58:11.920 --> 00:58:14.640 As we've said before, the evil in the world is one of 00:58:14.640 --> 00:58:16.880 the things that's driving men to the church. 00:58:16.880 --> 00:58:21.520 And so the church, the faithful Christians, ideally in the pulpits would 00:58:21.520 --> 00:58:24.400 be getting these questions right to the extent that they can speak 00:58:24.400 --> 00:58:28.000 to the man who's politically minded and say, yes, God doesn't want 00:58:28.000 --> 00:58:30.720 this evil in the world either, and we're not just going to 00:58:30.720 --> 00:58:31.920 give up on this life. 00:58:31.920 --> 00:58:34.000 I want you to have a wife and children. 00:58:34.000 --> 00:58:37.040 I don't want them to be chemically castrated. 00:58:37.040 --> 00:58:39.760 I don't want them to be taken by the state. 00:58:39.760 --> 00:58:44.240 They're things that are godly that are in the left hand kingdom. 00:58:44.240 --> 00:58:48.240 And if we can all talk about these together, we can come 00:58:48.240 --> 00:58:51.440 up with some ideas that are going to be consonant with scripture. 00:58:51.440 --> 00:58:54.080 And you know, part of the reason we're doing this episode on 00:58:54.080 --> 00:58:58.720 different types of governments is that it's going to be one, it's 00:58:58.720 --> 00:59:01.040 going to be some variation on one of these themes. 00:59:01.040 --> 00:59:05.120 And obviously it's ironic for us to be talking about deciding that 00:59:05.680 --> 00:59:08.400 ideally if if you listen to us and you believe the trajectory 00:59:08.400 --> 00:59:11.280 of these episodes, democracy is evil. 00:59:11.280 --> 00:59:13.120 Spoil the the future episodes there. 00:59:13.120 --> 00:59:14.080 Democracy is evil. 00:59:14.080 --> 00:59:15.360 It's an evil thing. 00:59:15.360 --> 00:59:17.920 That does not mean that input from men is evil. 00:59:17.920 --> 00:59:20.720 That's something else that we see, but there's often the case in 00:59:20.720 --> 00:59:26.320 both the old and the next where the elders, godly men, speak 00:59:26.480 --> 00:59:29.680 and reach a cord together to determine who is going to be 00:59:29.680 --> 00:59:31.840 a faithful leader from among them. 00:59:31.840 --> 00:59:33.840 That's not the consent of the government. 00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:35.920 That's not the consent of the governed. 00:59:35.920 --> 00:59:39.920 That is godly men seeking that which is godly and then frankly 00:59:40.080 --> 00:59:44.560 burdening someone with the yoke of duty to be a ruler, to 00:59:44.560 --> 00:59:47.760 be a leader, because that man who has no one over him 00:59:48.080 --> 00:59:49.360 has God over him. 00:59:49.360 --> 00:59:51.120 He has no one to answer to but God. 00:59:51.120 --> 00:59:54.560 And that is a terrifying position to for anyone to be in 00:59:54.800 --> 00:59:56.800 if they actually take it seriously. 00:59:56.800 --> 00:59:59.680 If the buck stops with you and you know that you only 00:59:59.680 --> 01:00:02.480 answer to God, you can't get anything wrong. 01:00:02.480 --> 01:00:07.200 And so those men above all else need scriptural warrant for what 01:00:07.200 --> 01:00:09.840 they do and scriptural bounds for how they do 01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:11.280 it. 01:00:11.360 --> 01:00:15.040 As a general if also extremely obvious rule 01:00:16.640 --> 01:00:21.520 a Christian or even just a reasonable man is going to want 01:00:21.520 --> 01:00:26.480 to be blessed by God instead of cursed by God. 01:00:26.480 --> 01:00:31.280 And scripture is very clear in a number of places, really throughout 01:00:31.280 --> 01:00:37.200 scripture, that you will suffer as an individual, as a people, if 01:00:37.200 --> 01:00:42.240 you have faithless rulers, but it goes the other way as well, 01:00:42.240 --> 01:00:42.480 a 01:00:43.680 --> 01:00:48.720 faithful ruler, if he has faithless people, will also suffer. 01:00:48.720 --> 01:00:55.360 And so we should desire to have both faithful people, who are 01:00:55.600 --> 01:00:58.960 attending church and doing their duty with regard to the right hand 01:00:59.040 --> 01:01:04.640 kingdom, and also faithful rulers. 01:01:04.640 --> 01:01:08.720 If we say that we don't care about one of these, so 01:01:08.800 --> 01:01:11.920 we say that, well, we're Christian and we're only concerned with the 01:01:11.920 --> 01:01:16.240 church and we don't care about the state, what you're really saying 01:01:16.240 --> 01:01:21.680 is I don't care about being blessed by God. 01:01:21.680 --> 01:01:24.720 That's spitting in God's face. 01:01:24.720 --> 01:01:26.080 That's sin. 01:01:26.080 --> 01:01:31.360 That is something that Christians are not permitted to do. 01:01:31.360 --> 01:01:37.440 You are required to desire the blessings of God, because that is 01:01:37.440 --> 01:01:38.720 what a Christian does. 01:01:38.720 --> 01:01:41.920 That is going to flow out of a living faith. 01:01:41.920 --> 01:01:44.720 And as I said, if you are simply a rational human being, 01:01:44.720 --> 01:01:47.600 you are going to desire to be blessed by God instead of 01:01:47.600 --> 01:01:50.400 cursed by Him, most certainly. 01:01:50.400 --> 01:01:55.360 But on top of this, if you ignore one or the other, 01:01:55.360 --> 01:01:58.560 and really I should say three, because there are the three estates: 01:01:58.560 --> 01:02:01.680 there's the family, the church, and the state, and it is important 01:02:01.680 --> 01:02:06.640 to maintain the family as distinct in any of these discussions because 01:02:06.640 --> 01:02:08.320 the family is distinct. 01:02:08.320 --> 01:02:13.440 There is a special honor, reverence. 01:02:13.440 --> 01:02:16.480 The family is supposed to be held in a certain kind of 01:02:16.480 --> 01:02:21.840 esteem, both by the church and by the state, and if either 01:02:21.840 --> 01:02:25.360 one is not doing that, it is illegitimate insofar as it is 01:02:25.360 --> 01:02:30.320 not doing that, and today we most certainly see that the state 01:02:30.320 --> 01:02:34.320 is not honoring the family and certainly not honoring the father as 01:02:34.320 --> 01:02:36.800 head of the family. 01:02:36.800 --> 01:02:41.840 But with regard to these three estates, it's important to recognize that 01:02:41.840 --> 01:02:44.720 they are all interdependent. 01:02:44.720 --> 01:02:49.200 You do not get to ignore one because you're focused on the 01:02:49.200 --> 01:02:54.400 other. Because the ones you ignore will be the ones that destroy 01:02:54.400 --> 01:02:57.760 the thing to which you are actually paying attention. 01:02:57.760 --> 01:03:02.080 If you focus only on your family, and in so doing, you 01:03:02.080 --> 01:03:03.840 lose the church and the state. 01:03:04.080 --> 01:03:07.280 You will lose your family too. 01:03:07.280 --> 01:03:11.760 If you focus only on the church and you lose the state, 01:03:11.760 --> 01:03:14.240 chances are you won't keep the church for very long. 01:03:14.240 --> 01:03:18.560 That has not gone well historically when atheists have taken over the 01:03:19.280 --> 01:03:24.400 state in Totot, think the USSR, things did not go well for 01:03:24.400 --> 01:03:25.600 the Church. 01:03:25.600 --> 01:03:34.800 The Church basically died in large parts of Eastern Europe, under communism. 01:03:34.800 --> 01:03:41.200 And of course, if you lose the church, well, you lose everything. 01:03:41.200 --> 01:03:48.000 But in addition to this, there are some commands in scripture 01:03:48.960 --> 01:03:53.120 that really go to part of the core of what we're discussing 01:03:53.120 --> 01:03:57.280 here. There's one from Proverbs that I want to highlight here, and 01:03:57.280 --> 01:03:59.440 that's from Proverbs twenty seven. 01:03:59.440 --> 01:04:03.520 Know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your 01:04:03.520 --> 01:04:11.760 herds. God isn't primarily concerned with animals here. 01:04:11.760 --> 01:04:15.040 Yes, you should be concerned about your animals if you have them 01:04:15.040 --> 01:04:15.440 as well. 01:04:15.440 --> 01:04:19.040 I do feed and water my chickens, I take care of them. 01:04:19.040 --> 01:04:21.520 I went out early and chased them around because they were hiding 01:04:21.840 --> 01:04:23.840 in the coop instead of going outside. 01:04:23.840 --> 01:04:27.440 These are important things to do if God has given you animals 01:04:27.440 --> 01:04:30.000 to take care of. 01:04:30.000 --> 01:04:35.360 But this is more about the people entrusted to your care. 01:04:35.360 --> 01:04:38.640 Your family is your flock, first and foremost. 01:04:38.640 --> 01:04:42.640 If you're a pastor, your church, your congregation is your flock. 01:04:42.640 --> 01:04:46.320 If you're a prince, the nation is your flock, and, as was 01:04:46.320 --> 01:04:47.280 mentioned, 01:04:48.160 --> 01:04:52.400 that's a terrifying position in which to find yourself, because you are 01:04:52.400 --> 01:04:56.960 the top of the pyramid as far as humanity is concerned. 01:04:56.960 --> 01:05:00.880 There are no men above you, and so you answer directly to 01:05:00.880 --> 01:05:04.800 God. Now of course every man will have to answer directly to 01:05:04.800 --> 01:05:09.440 God at the judgment for what he did or failed to do. 01:05:09.440 --> 01:05:13.840 But there are certain positions that are that have higher duties, and 01:05:13.840 --> 01:05:16.480 will be judged with greater strictness. 01:05:16.480 --> 01:05:20.480 Teachers and princes are in that category. 01:05:20.480 --> 01:05:24.000 And in the case of a prince, there's no one above him. 01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:27.760 In the case of most teachers there's at least someone who is 01:05:29.040 --> 01:05:32.560 on equal standing with you, you can talk to him and discuss 01:05:32.560 --> 01:05:37.360 things. The prince has no such thing, and so those who would 01:05:38.400 --> 01:05:43.920 and Envy the prince, the position he has, should maybe consider exactly 01:05:43.920 --> 01:05:47.120 what comes along with that because it's not just privilege, it's mostly 01:05:47.120 --> 01:05:53.280 duties. But on the topic of democracy to switch over to that 01:05:54.000 --> 01:05:56.560 since it was mentioned. 01:05:56.560 --> 01:05:58.240 No we're not burying the lead. 01:05:58.240 --> 01:06:00.960 Democracy is a wicked system. 01:06:00.960 --> 01:06:05.360 And that's the division from earlier that I mentioned the two categories. 01:06:05.360 --> 01:06:07.200 There's autocracy and there's mob rule. 01:06:07.360 --> 01:06:13.440 Under mob rule you have democracy, totalitarianism, and anarchy. 01:06:13.440 --> 01:06:16.160 These are the three evil systems. 01:06:16.160 --> 01:06:21.520 Under autocracy you have four options you have patriarchy, monarchy, which is 01:06:21.520 --> 01:06:26.880 really patriarchy, so really it's three options, oligarchy which is distinct enough 01:06:26.880 --> 01:06:31.360 to warrant separation, and then fascism. 01:06:31.360 --> 01:06:34.960 And so those are the options under autocracy, and now you sort 01:06:34.960 --> 01:06:39.440 of have the full outline of framework within which to think about 01:06:39.440 --> 01:06:45.120 these issues and to assess, because as we've said a number of 01:06:45.120 --> 01:06:49.920 times, these are issues on which men can disagree. 01:06:49.920 --> 01:06:51.120 You can debate these. 01:06:51.120 --> 01:06:56.160 You can say, well no, I think that this particular structure is 01:06:56.160 --> 01:06:58.400 better suited to us. 01:06:58.400 --> 01:07:02.160 And that's another point that was already made, but deserves to be 01:07:02.160 --> 01:07:08.400 emphasized. There are systems that can be good for a period. 01:07:08.800 --> 01:07:11.600 But will not work if you simply lift them out of that 01:07:11.600 --> 01:07:16.640 period and stick them in another, particularly if at the same time 01:07:16.640 --> 01:07:19.200 you cross national borders. 01:07:19.200 --> 01:07:22.800 Because what works really well for the Germans may not work as 01:07:22.800 --> 01:07:22.880 well 01:07:23.760 --> 01:07:29.040 for the Russians or may not work as well for Americans. 01:07:29.040 --> 01:07:31.760 Because nations are distinct. 01:07:31.760 --> 01:07:35.680 And so different nations are going to have different requirements, just as 01:07:35.680 --> 01:07:38.560 different times are going to have different requirements. 01:07:38.560 --> 01:07:41.840 Now I'm not saying that the duties 01:07:42.800 --> 01:07:47.680 of the state change, because they don't, but how the state 01:07:48.560 --> 01:07:54.080 enacts those duties, how the state pursues those duties, will necessarily have 01:07:54.080 --> 01:07:55.040 to change 01:07:55.920 --> 01:08:00.640 with regard to the climate in which the state is operating. 01:08:01.280 --> 01:08:07.280 Because fundamentally politics is a practical art. 01:08:07.280 --> 01:08:12.080 I'm not saying it's devoid of morality, that it's amoral, and it 01:08:12.080 --> 01:08:15.840 shouldn't be immoral, but it often is, unfortunately. 01:08:15.840 --> 01:08:19.440 No, it should be bounded by morality, but it also has to 01:08:19.440 --> 01:08:22.320 take into account practical considerations. 01:08:22.320 --> 01:08:29.280 That's one reason that I personally have no economic ideology. 01:08:29.280 --> 01:08:33.040 Because I see it as a tool, and I shouldn't have an 01:08:33.040 --> 01:08:35.120 ideology about hammers. 01:08:35.120 --> 01:08:38.400 And so I'm not going to have an ideology about markets, or 01:08:38.400 --> 01:08:43.280 an ideology about the economy, because it is something that the state 01:08:43.280 --> 01:08:46.960 uses to achieve proper ends. 01:08:46.960 --> 01:08:49.840 And one of the ends that is a proper end should be 01:08:49.840 --> 01:08:52.320 family formation, just to give an example. 01:08:52.640 --> 01:08:56.240 And so the state should pursue economic policies 01:08:57.360 --> 01:09:03.360 that create incentives, or at least make it easier, to pursue family 01:09:03.360 --> 01:09:08.960 formation. That's just the Christian position, because what is one of the 01:09:08.960 --> 01:09:13.200 earliest commands given by God and repeated by God in Scripture? 01:09:13.200 --> 01:09:15.360 Be fruitful and multiply. 01:09:15.360 --> 01:09:20.000 Well, the only way in which humans can be fruitful and multiply, 01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:24.960 that is sanctioned by God, is marriage, is family formation. 01:09:24.960 --> 01:09:29.520 And so a godly nation, a godly prince, is going to attempt 01:09:29.520 --> 01:09:34.080 to create conditions under which that can occur. 01:09:34.080 --> 01:09:38.320 A nation that is pursuing that, a government that is pursuing that, 01:09:38.320 --> 01:09:41.840 is godly in so far as it is doing that. 01:09:41.840 --> 01:09:47.520 A nation that is harming family formation, is ungodly, is wicked. 01:09:47.520 --> 01:09:53.920 And that is of course what we have today for many reasons. 01:09:53.920 --> 01:09:57.520 These are not issues that Christians get to ignore, again, to hammer 01:09:58.000 --> 01:09:59.520 on this point. 01:09:59.520 --> 01:10:01.520 You do not get to ignore these. 01:10:01.520 --> 01:10:05.760 Yes, I mentioned earlier, if you happen to be blessed with a 01:10:05.760 --> 01:10:10.480 godly government, and you're living in a time of peace and prosperity 01:10:10.560 --> 01:10:11.360 and stability, 01:10:12.400 --> 01:10:19.280 you have to spend very little cognitive bandwidth thinking about these issues. 01:10:19.280 --> 01:10:22.720 We are not living in one of those eras. 01:10:22.720 --> 01:10:23.760 We are living in a time 01:10:24.640 --> 01:10:28.240 where a great many things are in shambles and a great many 01:10:28.240 --> 01:10:30.640 others are on fire. 01:10:30.640 --> 01:10:34.000 And so we do not have the luxury of ignoring these. 01:10:34.000 --> 01:10:38.880 As Christian men, it is our duty to pay attention to these 01:10:38.880 --> 01:10:44.720 issues. Now, each man must pay attention to the issues to the 01:10:44.720 --> 01:10:48.640 extent that God has given them the ability to do so. 01:10:48.640 --> 01:10:52.800 If God has not given you the mind for politics, I'm not 01:10:52.800 --> 01:10:55.920 saying you have a duty to draft a ten-year plan. 01:10:55.920 --> 01:10:59.440 First off, a ten-year plan is probably insane because in politics you're 01:10:59.440 --> 01:11:02.480 never going to get that far out. 01:11:03.040 --> 01:11:07.280 But you do have a duty to have some understanding of the 01:11:07.280 --> 01:11:12.400 issues and to at least have staked out a position that is 01:11:12.400 --> 01:11:16.400 consonant with your beliefs, with Christianity. 01:11:16.400 --> 01:11:21.520 Don't just blindly believe that what party A or Party B tells 01:11:21.520 --> 01:11:22.880 you is right. 01:11:22.880 --> 01:11:27.600 Yes, you can trust men who have proven themselves trustworthy over a 01:11:27.600 --> 01:11:32.320 course of time by proving that they have good intentions and they 01:11:32.320 --> 01:11:35.120 are true to God's word. 01:11:35.120 --> 01:11:38.880 But ultimately it still falls on you to do what God gave 01:11:38.880 --> 01:11:43.680 you to do as a man, particularly if you are a father. 01:11:43.680 --> 01:11:46.800 Because then you have care, you have a duty of care with 01:11:46.800 --> 01:11:51.520 regard to your wife and your children, your household. 01:11:51.520 --> 01:11:54.480 And so what we are trying to do with this episode and 01:11:54.480 --> 01:11:56.880 future episodes in this series 01:11:58.880 --> 01:12:02.480 is give you some of the framework within which to think about 01:12:02.480 --> 01:12:09.360 these issues and some of the foundational information that The foundational knowledge, 01:12:09.360 --> 01:12:14.720 both in terms of the theory side to some degree with regard 01:12:14.720 --> 01:12:20.560 to the systems and what they entail, and also what Scripture says. 01:12:20.880 --> 01:12:24.720 What God's Word says about these issues. 01:12:24.720 --> 01:12:28.240 Because ultimately that is the Christian standard. 01:12:28.240 --> 01:12:31.200 It is what God says about the issues that matters. 01:12:31.200 --> 01:12:34.960 If God says we must do A, and a certain political system 01:12:35.360 --> 01:12:39.360 says you must not do a, that's a very easy question for 01:12:39.360 --> 01:12:42.720 a Christian whether or not you can support that political system. 01:12:43.520 --> 01:12:47.360 And so there's no such thing as an apolitical Christian. 01:12:47.360 --> 01:12:50.880 It's one of the major issues that Christians have had with the 01:12:50.880 --> 01:12:53.120 anabaptists historically. 01:12:53.120 --> 01:12:57.040 Many of them have tended toward the pacifist or the anarchist, and 01:12:57.040 --> 01:13:01.680 Christians cannot be either of those things, because God commands us not 01:13:01.680 --> 01:13:03.920 to be. 01:13:03.920 --> 01:13:07.920 And it is that fidelity to God's word that is the real 01:13:07.920 --> 01:13:10.160 hallmark of a Christian. 01:13:10.160 --> 01:13:15.120 Because yes, obviously we are not discounting the gospel, we're never doing 01:13:15.120 --> 01:13:17.840 that on this podcast. 01:13:17.840 --> 01:13:20.640 But we're dealing with the and then what? 01:13:20.640 --> 01:13:22.800 You're a Christian. 01:13:22.800 --> 01:13:28.560 You've been regenerated, you've been given faith by God, you believe, you're 01:13:28.560 --> 01:13:31.600 saved. You're justified. 01:13:31.600 --> 01:13:34.000 Okay. And now what? 01:13:34.000 --> 01:13:36.320 We're talking about the Christian life. 01:13:36.320 --> 01:13:38.880 What you do as a Christian. 01:13:38.880 --> 01:13:42.640 And so the law still remains, because the law is God's eternal 01:13:42.640 --> 01:13:47.360 will. And the law is curb, mirror, and guide. 01:13:47.360 --> 01:13:49.440 The mirror part is personal. 01:13:49.440 --> 01:13:52.880 That's you look at the law and you see yourself as a 01:13:52.880 --> 01:13:56.480 sinner. You see that you need a savior, you see that you 01:13:56.480 --> 01:14:00.080 need to repent, that you need to attempt, at least, to amend 01:14:00.080 --> 01:14:02.320 your ways. 01:14:02.320 --> 01:14:07.280 The curb and the guide the guide are both personal and public. 01:14:07.280 --> 01:14:12.720 Because the curb is to decrease the amount of wickedness in the 01:14:12.720 --> 01:14:16.880 world, insofar as is possible, and that can be done both with 01:14:16.880 --> 01:14:22.320 regard to the law being the law, acting on the wicked, insofar 01:14:22.320 --> 01:14:26.480 as the wicked are not completely seared and impenitent. 01:14:26.480 --> 01:14:30.880 But the prince can also use the positive law, modeled on the 01:14:30.880 --> 01:14:34.480 moral law, to curb evil in the world. 01:14:34.480 --> 01:14:39.920 And the same thing with the guide, because even the upstanding citizen, 01:14:39.920 --> 01:14:44.160 there's some power of incentive in knowing that you will be punished 01:14:44.160 --> 01:14:47.760 if you transgress the moral law, and so it is still acting 01:14:47.760 --> 01:14:48.720 as a guide. 01:14:48.720 --> 01:14:54.000 The prince is still coming alongside the upstanding citizen and helping him 01:14:54.000 --> 01:14:57.920 to remain a good citizen, a good Christian. 01:14:58.240 --> 01:15:02.480 And so there are duties, both for the private individual and for 01:15:02.480 --> 01:15:05.920 the state, that flow from God's law. 01:15:06.400 --> 01:15:10.880 On the subject of the transition between one form of government and 01:15:10.880 --> 01:15:15.120 another, I think it's worth touching on one of the last things 01:15:15.120 --> 01:15:19.520 in scripture where as I had mentioned, they were ruled by judges, 01:15:19.520 --> 01:15:22.640 they were ruled by men of God directly. 01:15:22.640 --> 01:15:25.440 And then at one point Israel said, We want a king like 01:15:25.440 --> 01:15:26.720 our pagan neighbors. 01:15:26.720 --> 01:15:28.320 And God said it's a bad idea. 01:15:28.320 --> 01:15:30.160 Samuel said that's a bad idea. 01:15:30.160 --> 01:15:31.440 They said, No, we want it anyway. 01:15:31.440 --> 01:15:34.000 And so God said, Okay, here's what's gonna happen. 01:15:34.000 --> 01:15:37.280 And so in just a minute we're gonna read that passage, but 01:15:37.280 --> 01:15:40.640 it's important because this is a passage that's used by those who 01:15:40.640 --> 01:15:44.720 are both pro monarchy and those who are anti monarchy to make 01:15:44.720 --> 01:15:45.600 their own points. 01:15:45.600 --> 01:15:48.000 And it can only mean one of those things. 01:15:48.000 --> 01:15:51.840 I want to highlight simply to be consistent with many past episodes 01:15:51.840 --> 01:15:56.000 of Stone Choir, when you look at the history of the church 01:15:56.000 --> 01:16:01.840 in the last two millennia, wherever there were Christian nations, they were 01:16:01.840 --> 01:16:07.520 monarchies, almost without exception, the until the Enlightenment, until we started murdering 01:16:07.520 --> 01:16:10.960 kings and saying no godsmo masters. 01:16:10.960 --> 01:16:11.280 So 01:16:12.160 --> 01:16:17.200 it's relevant to look at how Christians historically have always governed ourselves 01:16:17.360 --> 01:16:22.800 because that should frankly be the first immediate reference by which we 01:16:22.800 --> 01:16:25.120 judge how we are ruled today. 01:16:25.440 --> 01:16:27.920 Part of the reason we began here is uh in the subsequent 01:16:27.920 --> 01:16:31.920 episode when we deal specifically with the enlightenment, it's going to be 01:16:31.920 --> 01:16:37.440 to highlight in depth how it was an overt rejection of actual 01:16:37.440 --> 01:16:40.960 godly governance in the name of Of 01:16:42.400 --> 01:16:47.280 deity, in the name of things like liberty as its own deity. 01:16:47.600 --> 01:16:51.120 Liberty was a god, that there was an altar to liberty. 01:16:51.360 --> 01:16:53.200 we'll get to that in the enlightenment episodes. 01:16:53.200 --> 01:16:56.720 But these people were very religious, what they were not was Christian. 01:16:56.720 --> 01:17:02.080 They were overthrowing Christendom, they were slaughtering kings, and continued for a 01:17:02.080 --> 01:17:07.120 century whether by politics or by force to kill those kings. 01:17:07.120 --> 01:17:10.400 And it resulted in the world that we have today. 01:17:10.400 --> 01:17:12.720 And so we're living in time. 01:17:12.720 --> 01:17:15.280 We don't get to just be theoretical about this stuff. 01:17:15.280 --> 01:17:18.160 We're here now, stuck down in it. 01:17:18.160 --> 01:17:20.800 We have to try to figure out how did we get here 01:17:21.040 --> 01:17:24.800 and what is necessary to stop the evil and then to replace 01:17:24.800 --> 01:17:28.080 it with something that will be good for us pragmatically and will 01:17:28.160 --> 01:17:31.280 be in accord with God, which incidentally is always the same thing. 01:17:31.440 --> 01:17:34.480 When you obey God, when you love and fear God, you are 01:17:34.480 --> 01:17:35.840 blessed by God. 01:17:35.840 --> 01:17:40.000 It's only the nations that reject God that suffer chastisement. 01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:41.920 Scripture says that over and over again. 01:17:41.920 --> 01:17:46.320 If you are being invaded by foreigners and you're being cast down 01:17:46.320 --> 01:17:49.200 and devoured, God is judging you. 01:17:49.200 --> 01:17:52.320 Whether you're Christian or non-Christian, Christians are the only ones who are 01:17:52.320 --> 01:17:53.680 equipped to actually know it. 01:17:53.680 --> 01:17:55.920 Everyone else just thinks, oh, this is bad times. 01:17:55.920 --> 01:17:59.600 Christians know I have caused bad times by my faithlessness. 01:17:59.600 --> 01:18:02.640 I need to repent and get back on track. 01:18:02.640 --> 01:18:05.760 So we're going to look now at uh first Samuel eight, I 01:18:05.760 --> 01:18:09.840 think verses four through twenty two, just to cover that story of 01:18:09.840 --> 01:18:13.760 the Israelites demanding a king, and then ultimately God giving it to 01:18:13.760 --> 01:18:14.480 them. 01:18:14.480 --> 01:18:17.920 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel 01:18:17.920 --> 01:18:22.320 at Ramah, and said to him, Behold you are old, and your 01:18:22.320 --> 01:18:24.000 sons do not walk in your ways. 01:18:24.480 --> 01:18:27.280 Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the 01:18:27.280 --> 01:18:31.760 nations. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a 01:18:31.760 --> 01:18:33.200 king to judge us. 01:18:33.200 --> 01:18:37.360 And Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, 01:18:37.360 --> 01:18:40.400 Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to 01:18:40.400 --> 01:18:44.320 you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me 01:18:44.320 --> 01:18:46.240 from being king over them. 01:18:46.240 --> 01:18:49.120 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day 01:18:49.120 --> 01:18:53.440 I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, forsaking 01:18:53.440 --> 01:18:57.760 me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. 01:18:57.760 --> 01:19:02.880 Now then, obey their voice, only you shall solemnly warn them, and 01:19:02.880 --> 01:19:06.800 show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them. 01:19:07.200 --> 01:19:09.920 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people 01:19:09.920 --> 01:19:12.240 who were asking for a king from him. 01:19:12.240 --> 01:19:14.800 He said, These will be the ways of the king who will 01:19:15.360 --> 01:19:16.560 reign over you. 01:19:16.560 --> 01:19:20.160 He will take your sons, and appoint them to his chariots, and 01:19:20.160 --> 01:19:24.080 to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots, and he 01:19:24.080 --> 01:19:28.160 will appoint for himself commanders of thousands, and commanders of fifties, and 01:19:28.880 --> 01:19:32.720 some to plough his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to 01:19:32.720 --> 01:19:36.720 make his implements of war, and the equipment of his chariots, he 01:19:36.720 --> 01:19:40.480 will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers, he 01:19:40.480 --> 01:19:44.400 will take the best of your fields and vineyards, and olive orchards, 01:19:44.400 --> 01:19:46.400 and give them to his servants. 01:19:46.400 --> 01:19:49.920 He will take the tenth of your grain, and of your vineyards, 01:19:49.920 --> 01:19:53.040 and give it to his officers, and to his servants. 01:19:53.040 --> 01:19:56.640 He will take your male servants and female servants, and the best 01:19:56.640 --> 01:19:59.760 of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his 01:19:59.760 --> 01:20:03.600 work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall 01:20:03.600 --> 01:20:07.200 be his slaves, and in that day you will cry out because 01:20:07.200 --> 01:20:11.760 of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord 01:20:11.760 --> 01:20:15.200 will not answer you in that day. 01:20:15.200 --> 01:20:18.800 But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they 01:20:18.800 --> 01:20:22.800 said, No No, but there shall be a king over us, that 01:20:22.800 --> 01:20:26.400 we also may be like all the nations, and that our king 01:20:26.400 --> 01:20:30.240 may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles. 01:20:30.240 --> 01:20:33.200 And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he 01:20:33.200 --> 01:20:36.640 repeated them in the ears of the Lord, and the Lord said 01:20:36.640 --> 01:20:40.800 to Samuel, Obey their voice, and make them a king. 01:20:40.800 --> 01:20:44.320 Samuel then said to the men of Israel, Go every man to 01:20:44.320 --> 01:20:45.840 his city. 01:20:45.840 --> 01:20:46.080 I 01:20:46.080 --> 01:20:50.880 think it's important to note that in the subsequent chapter, God then 01:20:50.880 --> 01:20:53.600 selects Saul to be their king. 01:20:53.600 --> 01:20:56.160 He was a head taller than any of them, he was very 01:20:56.160 --> 01:20:59.920 handsome, he was naturally the men, the man that they would have 01:20:59.920 --> 01:21:03.920 chosen to be their king, and so God selected him and had 01:21:03.920 --> 01:21:07.200 Samuel anoint him as their king. 01:21:07.200 --> 01:21:11.280 One of the interesting things about anointing is we saw earlier this 01:21:11.280 --> 01:21:17.680 year when King Charles III was coronated as King of England. 01:21:17.680 --> 01:21:20.480 They went through the the whole rigor and roll and there was 01:21:20.480 --> 01:21:24.880 a great deal of pomp and circumstance and the ceremony was very 01:21:24.880 --> 01:21:26.160 was very ancient. 01:21:26.160 --> 01:21:28.320 And they highlighted some of the details as there. 01:21:28.320 --> 01:21:31.760 I I didn't I don't really particularly care, but I was actually 01:21:31.760 --> 01:21:35.760 familiar with some of that ceremony as a result of something I 01:21:35.760 --> 01:21:38.880 saw in a in a museum like 20 years ago. 01:21:38.880 --> 01:21:42.720 Uh if you ever have a chance at the University of Chicago, 01:21:42.720 --> 01:21:45.360 there's something called the Oriental Institute. 01:21:45.360 --> 01:21:51.520 It's a a great old museum from the the time before patriarchy 01:21:51.680 --> 01:21:56.720 and colonization were bad when Europeans were going around the world and 01:21:56.720 --> 01:22:00.960 collecting the very best examples of all of the world's cultures and 01:22:00.960 --> 01:22:04.000 gathering them in one place and examining them and them and bring 01:22:04.080 --> 01:22:06.160 them together and trying to understand history. 01:22:06.160 --> 01:22:10.720 Now U of C is a very pagan place, but there was 01:22:10.720 --> 01:22:14.000 one particular exhibit that I haven't been able to find a reference 01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:14.480 for it. 01:22:14.480 --> 01:22:17.200 One of the reasons I'm mentioning it now is I'm hoping against 01:22:17.200 --> 01:22:20.960 hope that someone who's listening will be able to find me a 01:22:20.960 --> 01:22:23.360 really good link that we can put in the show notes. 01:22:23.600 --> 01:22:26.240 if it shows up so I'll mention in a subsequent episode. 01:22:26.240 --> 01:22:28.560 But there was an exhibit that I don't think is there anymore 01:22:28.640 --> 01:22:31.040 and I couldn't find reference for it online. 01:22:31.040 --> 01:22:38.160 The exhibit was specific to coronation procedures and ceremonies in ancient 01:22:38.160 --> 01:22:39.040 Near East. 01:22:39.040 --> 01:22:42.400 It was going back four and five thousand years. 01:22:42.400 --> 01:22:45.920 And what I found incredibly fascinating, and it was something that was 01:22:46.320 --> 01:22:52.960 mirrored entirely in King Charles's coronation, was common to every king in 01:22:52.960 --> 01:22:53.760 this time. 01:22:53.760 --> 01:22:58.400 So when the Israelites were demanding of God and of Samuel, give 01:22:58.400 --> 01:23:02.080 us a king like the other nations, is God said this was 01:23:02.080 --> 01:23:03.120 one of the principal problems. 01:23:03.120 --> 01:23:06.000 It wasn't that a king per se was the problem, it was 01:23:06.000 --> 01:23:10.320 that they were a rejecting God's direct rule over them and B 01:23:10.480 --> 01:23:12.880 they were lusting after what their neighbors had. 01:23:12.880 --> 01:23:15.760 Their neighbors had kings and they just had judges. 01:23:15.760 --> 01:23:17.920 And kings are more impressive. 01:23:17.920 --> 01:23:19.120 They're more glorious. 01:23:19.120 --> 01:23:20.960 There's more pomp and circumstance. 01:23:20.960 --> 01:23:22.240 It's just cooler. 01:23:22.240 --> 01:23:24.800 Everybody loves the optics of kings to this day. 01:23:24.800 --> 01:23:28.160 Even if you hate monarchy, you still think it looks really cool. 01:23:28.160 --> 01:23:31.600 And if you were king, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. 01:23:31.600 --> 01:23:34.880 What was in this exhibit was that there were three elements for 01:23:34.880 --> 01:23:38.800 every coronation of kings for thousands of years. 01:23:38.800 --> 01:23:42.640 One was the anointing of oil with oil. 01:23:42.640 --> 01:23:48.880 This was something that was common again across numerous far-flung civilizations in 01:23:48.880 --> 01:23:50.960 this day and continuing to this day. 01:23:50.960 --> 01:23:53.360 This is something that occurred with King Charles. 01:23:53.360 --> 01:23:55.440 They put up a shield and then they did it for they've 01:23:55.520 --> 01:23:58.720 done it every for I think at least 800 years since they 01:23:58.720 --> 01:24:05.600 have records of them coronating English kings, they applied oil, they anointed 01:24:05.600 --> 01:24:06.240 with oil. 01:24:06.240 --> 01:24:09.840 This is something that was done by Samuel to Saul when he 01:24:09.840 --> 01:24:11.280 was anointed as king. 01:24:11.280 --> 01:24:16.400 The other two elements, however, are not present in scripture as being 01:24:16.400 --> 01:24:18.400 present for this godly king. 01:24:18.400 --> 01:24:20.720 The first was a crown. 01:24:20.720 --> 01:24:23.840 Now later on David did take a crown, but it was one 01:24:23.840 --> 01:24:25.920 that he plucked off of one of the other kings that he 01:24:26.080 --> 01:24:27.200 had vanquished. 01:24:27.200 --> 01:24:30.480 So he took somebody else's crown and put it on, but it 01:24:30.480 --> 01:24:33.680 was not a crown that was given to him by God. 01:24:33.680 --> 01:24:36.160 Pagan kings always had a crown. 01:24:36.160 --> 01:24:37.920 They were always anointed with oil. 01:24:37.920 --> 01:24:40.800 And the third element that was always given to a king at 01:24:40.800 --> 01:24:44.400 his coronation was a scepter, a rod in his hand. 01:24:44.400 --> 01:24:46.800 I can't remember which hand was important, but what I think one 01:24:46.800 --> 01:24:47.520 of them was important. 01:24:47.520 --> 01:24:50.240 I think it was consistent if I remember correctly. 01:24:50.240 --> 01:24:53.760 So the the crown, the scepter, and the anointing with isle were 01:24:53.920 --> 01:24:56.480 were present for numerous 01:24:57.440 --> 01:25:00.400 civilizations and cultures for thousands of years. 01:25:00.400 --> 01:25:03.360 And we saw it on TV in 2023. 01:25:03.360 --> 01:25:07.920 That wasn't just LARPing, that wasn't just some sort of tradition, that 01:25:07.920 --> 01:25:10.960 was an ancient pagan practice. 01:25:10.960 --> 01:25:15.760 That was the English doing what the Israelites demanded from God and 01:25:15.760 --> 01:25:16.800 from Samuel. 01:25:16.800 --> 01:25:18.880 We want a king like our pagan neighbors. 01:25:18.880 --> 01:25:19.760 What does it look like? 01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:23.440 It looks like a crown anointing with oil and scepter. 01:25:23.440 --> 01:25:23.760 And 01:25:24.720 --> 01:25:28.960 I'm not saying that that scepters and crowns are inherently pagan per 01:25:28.960 --> 01:25:33.600 se, because obviously when you look at the disp depictions in scripture, 01:25:33.600 --> 01:25:37.520 it's clear that God holds a scepter and God has a crown. 01:25:37.520 --> 01:25:40.320 And I think that's one of the reasons why it wasn't given 01:25:40.320 --> 01:25:41.280 to David. 01:25:41.760 --> 01:25:43.440 Corey, you can correct me if you think I'm wrong. 01:25:43.680 --> 01:25:45.760 Maybe if someone else has an opinion I'd like to hear about 01:25:45.760 --> 01:25:49.120 it. but I think it's conspicuous that of those three elements there 01:25:49.120 --> 01:25:53.440 were particular to the pagan kings, God only used one of them 01:25:53.440 --> 01:25:55.840 for his first king, for Saul. 01:25:55.840 --> 01:25:59.200 And that was the oil, the scepter, and the the oil, and 01:25:59.200 --> 01:26:02.960 then the scepter and the crown were something that in scripture is 01:26:02.960 --> 01:26:04.640 mostly reserved to God himself. 01:26:05.040 --> 01:26:08.320 I think there could be an argument that David may have had 01:26:08.320 --> 01:26:13.840 a scepter of office, even if it's not explicitly mentioned in Scripture, 01:26:13.840 --> 01:26:20.080 except insofar as it is mentioned in the blessing for Judah, in 01:26:20.080 --> 01:26:22.320 that the scepter will not depart. 01:26:22.320 --> 01:26:26.480 Now of course that is largely figurative, meaning that the kingship will 01:26:26.480 --> 01:26:31.680 not depart from Judah, ultimately fulfilled in Christ, although 01:26:32.640 --> 01:26:37.600 also typologically fulfilled in the various kings leading up to Christ in 01:26:37.600 --> 01:26:42.160 his line, certainly chief among them David and Solomon. 01:26:42.160 --> 01:26:45.920 But I think it's probably reasonable to assume that they had a 01:26:45.920 --> 01:26:49.680 scepter, some sort of mark of office that was just standard, they 01:26:49.680 --> 01:26:50.480 would have had something. 01:26:51.600 --> 01:26:56.240 But as for the the crown, I think we can certainly see 01:26:56.240 --> 01:26:58.480 symbolism there in that 01:26:59.360 --> 01:27:01.680 ultimately the crown belongs to Christ. 01:27:01.680 --> 01:27:06.080 That's why we have the kings throwing their crowns before Christ at 01:27:06.240 --> 01:27:08.960 in the end times. 01:27:08.960 --> 01:27:12.560 Because Christ is the King of Kings, which notably he is called 01:27:12.560 --> 01:27:13.920 the King of Kings. 01:27:14.160 --> 01:27:20.400 Not the king of presidents, per se, or something of that order. 01:27:20.400 --> 01:27:23.680 So I think it is fair to look into that and see 01:27:23.680 --> 01:27:28.400 a sort of symbolism there with regard to David as a type 01:27:29.680 --> 01:27:31.120 but not the antity. 01:27:31.120 --> 01:27:37.520 He's not the ultimate fulfillment of ironically the Davidic king, because that 01:27:37.520 --> 01:27:39.280 is of course Christ. 01:27:39.680 --> 01:27:42.400 Did you have any other comments on this passage as it relates 01:27:42.400 --> 01:27:45.040 to the pro and con monarchy arguments? 01:27:45.040 --> 01:27:45.200 Aaron 01:27:45.120 --> 01:27:45.520 Powell I 01:27:45.520 --> 01:27:49.280 guess I could address the the fact that some 01:27:50.240 --> 01:27:54.240 try to argue that this passage is anti-monarchy. 01:27:54.480 --> 01:27:55.840 I've heard this many times. 01:27:55.840 --> 01:28:01.680 I've personally argued with people on this point, debated this point. 01:28:01.680 --> 01:28:05.440 And the passage is very clear if you just read the text. 01:28:05.440 --> 01:28:07.520 The passage is not anti-monarchy. 01:28:07.520 --> 01:28:11.120 The passage is not saying you may not have a king. 01:28:11.120 --> 01:28:15.360 Having a king is wicked, desiring to have a king is wicked. 01:28:15.840 --> 01:28:19.120 the peoples around Israel aren't condemned for having kings. 01:28:19.120 --> 01:28:24.000 Israel isn't condemned for wanting or having a king. 01:28:24.000 --> 01:28:31.040 Israel here is condemned for being wicked in rejecting God as king. 01:28:31.040 --> 01:28:33.680 They had God as their king. 01:28:34.320 --> 01:28:34.640 God 01:28:36.080 --> 01:28:40.560 interacted with them through the judges, through prophets. 01:28:40.560 --> 01:28:45.120 They wanted a flesh and blood king they could see and point 01:28:45.120 --> 01:28:47.520 at who would go out and fight their battles. 01:28:47.520 --> 01:28:52.400 Despite the fact that God fought their battles for them, and they 01:28:52.400 --> 01:28:58.000 had judges to lead them when it was necessary, that wickedness was 01:28:58.000 --> 01:29:01.840 the rejection of God, not the desire for a king. 01:29:02.160 --> 01:29:07.440 Scripture does not condemn having a king anywhere. 01:29:07.440 --> 01:29:11.440 In fact, having a king is just the natural order of things 01:29:11.440 --> 01:29:13.120 in Scripture. 01:29:13.120 --> 01:29:17.280 As we mentioned before, Adam was a king. 01:29:17.280 --> 01:29:19.200 Noah was a king. 01:29:19.200 --> 01:29:21.760 Abraham was a king. 01:29:21.760 --> 01:29:24.880 No, not in the modern sense where 01:29:25.760 --> 01:29:29.360 you conjure up images of the palace of Versailles or some grand 01:29:30.160 --> 01:29:32.960 hall and the crown jewels and all of those things. 01:29:32.960 --> 01:29:37.040 But on a smaller scale, these men were kings. 01:29:37.040 --> 01:29:41.360 Most of the kings spoken of in Scripture, even the foreign kings 01:29:41.440 --> 01:29:47.360 when they are spoken of, ruled relatively small areas by our standards 01:29:47.360 --> 01:29:52.320 today, partly because the population of the world was smaller, and so 01:29:52.320 --> 01:29:56.320 they simply had fewer men over whom to rule, they didn't have 01:29:56.320 --> 01:30:00.560 seven billion people on the planet back then. 01:30:00.560 --> 01:30:03.040 But they were still kings, and they are not condemned 01:30:04.000 --> 01:30:05.840 for being kings. 01:30:05.840 --> 01:30:10.880 And so, again, to emphasize, the point in the passage is that 01:30:10.880 --> 01:30:16.320 they wickedly rejected God because they wanted to be just like every 01:30:16.320 --> 01:30:21.760 other nation, when God had specifically set them apart for a purpose. 01:30:21.760 --> 01:30:24.720 And so it's just a continuation of their wickedness. 01:30:24.720 --> 01:30:28.640 They are disobeying and rejecting God again. 01:30:28.960 --> 01:30:32.720 And I guess I'll add one more point about King David and 01:30:32.720 --> 01:30:35.680 his crown. 01:30:35.680 --> 01:30:36.640 We could also 01:30:37.520 --> 01:30:43.760 read into that a typology with regard to David seizing the crown 01:30:43.760 --> 01:30:50.400 of a wicked king and taking it for himself as his crown. 01:30:50.880 --> 01:30:54.640 that's also what Christ has done. 01:30:54.640 --> 01:30:59.200 Christ has plundered the wicked rulers of the world, and seized their 01:30:59.200 --> 01:31:03.440 crowns, and ultimately he will receive all of the crowns, because he 01:31:03.440 --> 01:31:07.040 is the King of Kings, and so he is the anti type. 01:31:07.360 --> 01:31:12.560 Of David being the type seizing the crown from the wicked and 01:31:14.800 --> 01:31:19.200 turning it into his own righteous crown, insofar as David was righteous, 01:31:19.200 --> 01:31:26.800 Christ, of course, being the antity for that as well. 01:31:27.360 --> 01:31:32.160 One of the other aspects of the kingship of nations that existed 01:31:32.160 --> 01:31:35.200 in this day, and as we've said we've mentioned this point in 01:31:35.200 --> 01:31:39.520 a past episode post Tower of Babel 01:31:40.800 --> 01:31:45.120 people scattered across the earth and at some point almost all of 01:31:45.120 --> 01:31:47.520 them ceased to be believers. 01:31:47.520 --> 01:31:51.520 But they ceased to be believers by degrees. 01:31:51.520 --> 01:31:56.320 So they they remembered bits and pieces of what God had commanded, 01:31:56.320 --> 01:31:58.480 but they forgot important details. 01:31:58.480 --> 01:32:03.520 And they eventually apostatized, but they didn't all simply devolve into something 01:32:03.520 --> 01:32:06.240 totally unrelated from godly order. 01:32:06.240 --> 01:32:12.480 And one of the very common things among pagan nations from Egypt 01:32:12.480 --> 01:32:17.680 to today, whether you're talking about pharaohs in Egypt or the Emperor 01:32:17.680 --> 01:32:23.040 of Japan in the 20th century, they were revered as gods. 01:32:23.040 --> 01:32:26.080 The Emperor of Japan, Emperor Hirohito, 01:32:26.080 --> 01:32:26.160 you 01:32:26.160 --> 01:32:26.480 know, in 01:32:26.960 --> 01:32:31.680 living memory, was the god of Japan to his people. 01:32:31.680 --> 01:32:38.000 In fact, we uncovered a passage from letters regarding MacArthur last week 01:32:38.240 --> 01:32:43.360 where when Hirohito surrendered, there was discussion at some point between the 01:32:43.360 --> 01:32:49.440 Emperor and General MacArthur on whether or not Japan would convert to 01:32:49.440 --> 01:32:53.360 Christianity, because the Japanese properly understood that 01:32:54.640 --> 01:32:58.000 you have defeated us, that makes your gods stronger. 01:32:58.000 --> 01:33:02.320 If you demand that we worship your gods, we will. 01:33:02.320 --> 01:33:04.560 And MacArthur demurred. 01:33:04.560 --> 01:33:05.920 He's like, No, I I would never do that. 01:33:05.920 --> 01:33:07.680 That wouldn't be that wouldn't proper. 01:33:07.680 --> 01:33:11.920 So Japan is a pagan nation today because Americans refused to Christianize 01:33:11.920 --> 01:33:15.440 it. And the reasoning was, well, you can't do that by force. 01:33:15.440 --> 01:33:21.200 Well, as we mentioned in the Christian national nationalism episode, Europe was 01:33:21.200 --> 01:33:22.800 Christianized by force. 01:33:22.800 --> 01:33:24.960 You are a Christian because of force. 01:33:24.960 --> 01:33:27.840 Force is a stupid concept when it comes to 01:33:28.720 --> 01:33:31.760 what we call the gospel. 01:33:31.760 --> 01:33:37.360 When a man becomes a Christian, he has his household baptized. 01:33:37.360 --> 01:33:41.520 His children are baptized, his wife is baptized, his family becomes Christian. 01:33:41.520 --> 01:33:42.880 That's in scripture. 01:33:42.880 --> 01:33:44.240 That is the norm. 01:33:44.400 --> 01:33:51.680 Also including slaves, incidentally, full-grown adults directly reporting to the father 01:33:52.000 --> 01:33:55.120 had no choice but to become Christian. 01:33:55.120 --> 01:34:00.080 And some people say, well that's not a real conversion. 01:34:00.080 --> 01:34:01.600 Tell that to God. 01:34:01.600 --> 01:34:04.960 Because the fruits of that are that for thousands of years since 01:34:04.960 --> 01:34:07.120 then those are nations remained Christian. 01:34:07.120 --> 01:34:11.680 You can't tell me that that wasn't true or sincere or anything 01:34:11.680 --> 01:34:16.880 else. The history of Christianity is one where the king becomes Christian 01:34:16.960 --> 01:34:20.080 and then the people become Christian, for much the same reason. 01:34:20.080 --> 01:34:24.720 As I just mentioned, Pharaoh was a god, his people revered him 01:34:24.720 --> 01:34:25.680 as a god. 01:34:25.680 --> 01:34:28.000 Emperor Hirohito was a god to them. 01:34:28.000 --> 01:34:29.360 Obviously, it's not true. 01:34:29.360 --> 01:34:33.440 But the important part, and the part that ties in with the 01:34:33.440 --> 01:34:38.080 rest of this, is that although there that was idolatry, it was 01:34:38.080 --> 01:34:42.000 false worship of a false god, it was rooted in an entirely 01:34:42.000 --> 01:34:42.880 true principle. 01:34:42.880 --> 01:34:46.240 And the principle is this the king or the pharaoh or the 01:34:46.240 --> 01:34:50.960 emperor, whatever the godly head of the nation is, is standing in 01:34:50.960 --> 01:34:52.640 the stead of God. 01:34:52.640 --> 01:34:57.600 And so what was lost when the Tower of Babel caused didn't 01:34:57.600 --> 01:35:02.400 cause, but when men scattered from there and then apostatized, they remembered 01:35:02.400 --> 01:35:05.680 that the king stood in the stead of God, but they forgot 01:35:05.680 --> 01:35:06.320 about God. 01:35:06.320 --> 01:35:07.600 So what were they left with? 01:35:07.600 --> 01:35:10.000 The king is some sort of God figure. 01:35:10.000 --> 01:35:11.440 And then that's what got locked in. 01:35:11.760 --> 01:35:14.720 In some cases, probably took a generation or two. 01:35:14.720 --> 01:35:19.120 We see within the history of Israel how quickly people can apostatize, 01:35:19.120 --> 01:35:22.880 even in the most overwhelming face of evidence, of the one true 01:35:22.880 --> 01:35:28.480 God. So when these other nations revere their kings as gods, we 01:35:28.480 --> 01:35:32.400 should not view that as parochial backwater 01:35:33.440 --> 01:35:38.960 superstition. In a very real sense, worshipping Pharaoh as God is more 01:35:39.040 --> 01:35:43.520 is more godly than the pagan United States, where we just have 01:35:43.520 --> 01:35:47.280 no regard for our our heads of state whatsoever, because sometimes they're 01:35:47.280 --> 01:35:50.800 so contemptible, how could we possibly bring ourselves to do that? 01:35:50.800 --> 01:35:54.800 It's interesting that immediately after Saul's coronation, one of the very first 01:35:54.800 --> 01:35:57.200 things that happened at the end of that chapter was that some 01:35:57.200 --> 01:35:59.440 men went off and they were grumbling about it. 01:35:59.440 --> 01:36:04.000 That should not be the believer's response to someone being placed in 01:36:04.000 --> 01:36:07.600 charge. Now obviously as we said before, if you're the king, if 01:36:07.600 --> 01:36:11.280 you're the potentate, if you are the ruler over all people and 01:36:11.440 --> 01:36:14.960 in in your nation, and you answer only to God, that's a 01:36:14.960 --> 01:36:17.600 tremendous burden on you. 01:36:17.600 --> 01:36:21.520 And so we should when someone's being godly, we should give them 01:36:21.520 --> 01:36:24.000 some room and pray for them. 01:36:24.000 --> 01:36:25.840 God commands that. 01:36:25.840 --> 01:36:26.160 But 01:36:28.080 --> 01:36:32.800 those who look at the king as a god are frankly more 01:36:32.800 --> 01:36:33.760 properly ordered than 01:36:34.960 --> 01:36:39.920 a democracy that just despises all headship and says, well, I can 01:36:39.920 --> 01:36:40.720 do better than that guy. 01:36:40.880 --> 01:36:42.320 I'm gonna be in charge next. 01:36:42.320 --> 01:36:45.360 That's not there's no God in that picture at all. 01:36:45.360 --> 01:36:48.480 It le at least the pagans, when they worship their king, at 01:36:48.480 --> 01:36:50.240 least they have some headship in play. 01:36:50.240 --> 01:36:51.120 It doesn't save them. 01:36:51.120 --> 01:36:54.320 It's not saying they're not evil, but it is still a less 01:36:54.320 --> 01:36:57.840 evil version of government than what we have managed to concoct in 01:36:57.840 --> 01:36:59.440 our day. 01:36:59.440 --> 01:37:04.480 I want to add some emphasis on the point that when the 01:37:04.480 --> 01:37:10.320 father, when the head of the household converts, his household converts. 01:37:10.320 --> 01:37:10.640 And 01:37:11.520 --> 01:37:16.000 also add some emphasis on the point of force as used in 01:37:16.000 --> 01:37:23.280 conversions. For most Christians, historically, the way you are brought 01:37:23.280 --> 01:37:27.040 into the church is you are baptized as an infant. 01:37:27.040 --> 01:37:32.400 Now I'll get to the point for those listening who don't believe 01:37:32.400 --> 01:37:35.120 in infant baptism. 01:37:35.120 --> 01:37:37.520 We'll discuss that in another episode, but 01:37:38.880 --> 01:37:43.360 typically speaking, historically, you were brought into the church as an infant 01:37:43.360 --> 01:37:45.440 through baptism. 01:37:45.440 --> 01:37:47.760 An infant has no say. 01:37:47.760 --> 01:37:49.360 An infant goes where he is carried 01:37:50.480 --> 01:37:53.760 and eats what he is given. 01:37:53.760 --> 01:37:57.680 Insofar as he doesn't object to it, obviously, yes, babies object, but 01:37:58.000 --> 01:38:01.280 infants have very little say in anything in their lives. 01:38:01.280 --> 01:38:04.640 They have no power over anything, it is one hundred percent a 01:38:04.640 --> 01:38:06.160 matter of force. 01:38:06.160 --> 01:38:11.440 Now it's not overwhelming force in the sense of violence, but it 01:38:11.440 --> 01:38:12.400 is force. 01:38:12.400 --> 01:38:15.920 It is the use of the physical strength of one to control 01:38:15.920 --> 01:38:20.160 another. And that is your duty as a parent, that is your 01:38:20.160 --> 01:38:22.560 duty as a father. 01:38:22.560 --> 01:38:27.840 And so most Christians in the history of Christendom have been brought 01:38:27.840 --> 01:38:32.960 into the faith by being baptized as an infant with absolutely no 01:38:32.960 --> 01:38:35.520 say in the matter. 01:38:35.520 --> 01:38:40.720 And now today for those who supposedly wait until a supposed age 01:38:40.720 --> 01:38:44.480 of accountability or whatever term is used Used. 01:38:44.480 --> 01:38:49.440 If you did your job as a father, it's the same thing. 01:38:49.440 --> 01:38:53.040 Yes, I would say obviously you should have had your child baptized, 01:38:53.040 --> 01:38:56.480 but if you did your duty as a father, the reason your 01:38:56.480 --> 01:39:00.880 child now says that he wants to be baptized is because you 01:39:00.880 --> 01:39:05.760 indoctrinated him into the faith over a course of years, which incidentally 01:39:05.760 --> 01:39:08.880 is what you're supposed to do after you have your child baptized 01:39:08.880 --> 01:39:09.520 as well. 01:39:09.520 --> 01:39:12.080 You don't just baptize him and then abandon him. 01:39:12.080 --> 01:39:15.360 You teach him the faith, you catechize him, you indoctrinate him into 01:39:15.360 --> 01:39:16.160 the faith. 01:39:16.160 --> 01:39:19.120 And now again we've said this in previous episodes, but I will 01:39:19.120 --> 01:39:24.240 note again, indoctrination is not an inherently negative term, the same as 01:39:24.240 --> 01:39:26.640 propaganda. It is a neutral term. 01:39:26.640 --> 01:39:30.560 It depends on into what you are indoctrinating the person. 01:39:30.560 --> 01:39:35.680 It can be good or bad, depending on the subject, the material, 01:39:35.680 --> 01:39:38.480 the end goal, other things like that. 01:39:38.480 --> 01:39:42.080 In this case it's good. 01:39:42.080 --> 01:39:46.480 And so in either case, you are, as the head of the 01:39:46.480 --> 01:39:50.320 household, bringing your child into the faith. 01:39:50.320 --> 01:39:54.640 Your child does not actually have a say in this. 01:39:54.640 --> 01:39:59.280 Because as the father, if you are instructing your child properly, your 01:39:59.280 --> 01:40:03.600 child will believe what you are teaching him. 01:40:05.040 --> 01:40:07.520 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when 01:40:07.520 --> 01:40:09.360 he is old he will not depart from it. 01:40:09.360 --> 01:40:11.040 That's a promise from God. 01:40:11.840 --> 01:40:15.200 So if you train up your child in the way he should 01:40:15.200 --> 01:40:17.760 go, of course he is going to want to be baptized. 01:40:17.760 --> 01:40:21.200 Yes, you should have baptized him as an infant, but better late 01:40:21.200 --> 01:40:22.480 than never. 01:40:22.480 --> 01:40:27.280 In either case, you are using force to bring your child into 01:40:27.280 --> 01:40:29.040 the faith. 01:40:29.040 --> 01:40:31.120 And that is simply how it goes. 01:40:31.120 --> 01:40:36.400 Because as we mentioned earlier, authority, in a very real sense, is 01:40:36.400 --> 01:40:37.760 based on force. 01:40:38.480 --> 01:40:40.400 Yes, of course. 01:40:40.400 --> 01:40:45.520 It is also an issue of justice and morality and right, truth, 01:40:45.520 --> 01:40:52.960 etc. However, God can bring absolutely overwhelming 01:40:53.680 --> 01:40:59.120 force against any other being in existence, because He created each and 01:40:59.120 --> 01:41:01.760 every one. 01:41:01.760 --> 01:41:06.240 And so in a sense, and to a certain degree, God's power 01:41:06.240 --> 01:41:10.640 rests on his ability to bring overwhelming force. 01:41:10.640 --> 01:41:12.560 And he uses this in Scripture. 01:41:12.560 --> 01:41:15.680 See the number of times that God fights for the Israelites, that 01:41:15.680 --> 01:41:20.480 he appeals to his Majesty in power, that he appears in Majesty 01:41:20.480 --> 01:41:22.000 in power. 01:41:22.000 --> 01:41:28.160 There is nothing inherently morally wrongful about the use of force. 01:41:28.160 --> 01:41:31.200 Now, of course, again, we have to give the disclaimer, we're not 01:41:31.200 --> 01:41:35.840 advocating for violence, but we are pointing out that from a Christian 01:41:35.840 --> 01:41:41.520 perspective, there is nothing objectionable in this sort of use of force 01:41:41.520 --> 01:41:43.760 in bringing people into the faith. 01:41:43.760 --> 01:41:48.080 In fact, it is a good thing, because the alternative is that 01:41:48.080 --> 01:41:51.120 they do not come to the faith, and that they spend eternity 01:41:51.120 --> 01:41:52.640 in hell. 01:41:52.640 --> 01:41:55.760 And I'm going to go ahead and say that no matter how 01:41:55.760 --> 01:42:00.080 much force was used to bring someone into the Christian faith, when 01:42:00.080 --> 01:42:03.120 you meet that man in paradise he's going to be very happy 01:42:03.120 --> 01:42:10.080 he is there instead of the alternative, regardless of how unpleasant the 01:42:10.080 --> 01:42:13.760 process may have been in this life. 01:42:13.760 --> 01:42:18.240 Now, as Christians, I'm not saying that we go out and forcibly 01:42:18.240 --> 01:42:20.160 baptize and convert everyone. 01:42:20.160 --> 01:42:21.840 That's not the point. 01:42:21.840 --> 01:42:23.680 The point is that 01:42:24.800 --> 01:42:29.440 you have to think about these issues in the right context, with 01:42:29.440 --> 01:42:31.760 the right background. 01:42:31.760 --> 01:42:36.320 A prince converting his nation to Christianity, even if he must use 01:42:36.320 --> 01:42:39.680 force to do so, is in the right. 01:42:39.680 --> 01:42:44.720 A father, converting his family to Christianity, even if he must use 01:42:44.720 --> 01:42:47.520 force in doing so, is in the right. 01:42:48.240 --> 01:42:54.160 It's not the ends justify the means, it's that force for the 01:42:54.160 --> 01:43:00.960 head of the family or the state is a permissible tool. 01:43:00.960 --> 01:43:02.080 That's the moral argument. 01:43:03.040 --> 01:43:07.840 That's the point that I am making with this particular argument here 01:43:07.920 --> 01:43:11.440 in this part of this episode. 01:43:11.440 --> 01:43:17.200 It is not morally wrongful for those to whom God has entrusted 01:43:17.200 --> 01:43:22.400 the use of force, to use that force for legitimate ends, for 01:43:22.400 --> 01:43:24.240 godly ends. 01:43:24.240 --> 01:43:29.360 And of course that includes conversion to the Christian faith. 01:43:31.440 --> 01:43:34.240 So to wrap this up, I'm gonna shift gears just a little 01:43:34.240 --> 01:43:38.000 bit. As I mentioned at the beginning, there's something about kingship and 01:43:38.000 --> 01:43:42.880 governance in general as it relates to the nations in scripture that 01:43:43.200 --> 01:43:46.800 is revealed in scripture that we just kind of gloss over. 01:43:46.800 --> 01:43:47.120 And 01:43:48.080 --> 01:43:51.520 before I get into this, I want to make a point clear. 01:43:51.520 --> 01:43:53.920 I'm not a Michael Heiser guy. 01:43:53.920 --> 01:43:58.000 I'm not trying to latch on to one small corner of something 01:43:58.160 --> 01:44:03.440 and weave some huge elaborate tapestry of narrative around something we can't 01:44:03.440 --> 01:44:04.240 possibly know. 01:44:04.240 --> 01:44:06.480 There's one narrow place in scripture where God says something 01:44:07.360 --> 01:44:08.800 truly remarkable. 01:44:08.800 --> 01:44:11.840 And so I'm gonna discuss it now because it has very profound 01:44:11.840 --> 01:44:18.800 implications for us understanding that something God says in in scripture when 01:44:19.200 --> 01:44:24.880 in Daniel 10 Daniel is receiving a vision from God. 01:44:24.880 --> 01:44:30.960 Jesus, the the preincarnate Christ, is appearing to Daniel in a vision. 01:44:30.960 --> 01:44:35.920 So we have a prophet of God, we have immediate revelation, and 01:44:35.920 --> 01:44:37.120 we have a vision. 01:44:37.120 --> 01:44:42.480 That's three levels removed from what is humanly ascertainable. 01:44:42.480 --> 01:44:45.200 So as I talk about this, again, I just want to reinforce, 01:44:45.200 --> 01:44:48.400 I'm not saying that we can figure that stuff out today. 01:44:48.400 --> 01:44:51.920 I'm simply highlighting that this existed, and we have no reason to 01:44:51.920 --> 01:44:53.440 believe that it doesn't still exist. 01:44:53.440 --> 01:44:56.320 In fact, I think that we should rightly confess that it still 01:44:56.320 --> 01:44:56.880 does exist. 01:44:57.120 --> 01:44:59.680 We just can't see it any more than they could see it 01:44:59.680 --> 01:45:00.720 in their day. 01:45:00.720 --> 01:45:03.520 But as we'll get to at the end, it's referenced numerous times 01:45:03.520 --> 01:45:06.720 in scripture, just not as directly as here. 01:45:06.720 --> 01:45:08.320 In Daniel 10. 01:45:08.320 --> 01:45:11.760 And behold, a hand touched me and set me trembling on my 01:45:11.760 --> 01:45:15.280 hands and knees and he said to me, O Daniel, man greatly 01:45:15.280 --> 01:45:18.720 loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, 01:45:18.720 --> 01:45:20.560 for now I have been sent to you. 01:45:20.560 --> 01:45:22.640 And when he had spoken this word to me I stood up 01:45:22.640 --> 01:45:26.160 trembling. Then he said to me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the 01:45:26.160 --> 01:45:29.520 first day that you set your heart to understand, and humbled yourself 01:45:29.520 --> 01:45:32.720 before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come 01:45:32.720 --> 01:45:33.760 because of your words. 01:45:33.760 --> 01:45:37.840 The Prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty one days, 01:45:37.840 --> 01:45:41.600 but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for 01:45:41.600 --> 01:45:44.320 I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to 01:45:44.320 --> 01:45:47.280 make you understand what is to happen to your people in the 01:45:47.280 --> 01:45:48.080 latter days. 01:45:48.080 --> 01:45:51.280 For For this the vision is for days yet to come. 01:45:51.280 --> 01:45:54.240 And again one having the appearance of man touched me and strengthened 01:45:54.240 --> 01:45:57.600 me. And he said, O man, greatly loved, fear not, peace be 01:45:57.600 --> 01:46:00.000 with you, be strong and of good courage. 01:46:00.000 --> 01:46:02.480 And as he spoke to me I was strengthened, and he said, 01:46:02.480 --> 01:46:05.680 Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me. 01:46:05.680 --> 01:46:08.400 Then he said, Do you know why I have come to you? 01:46:08.400 --> 01:46:10.800 But now I will return to the fight against the prince of 01:46:10.800 --> 01:46:13.840 Persia, and when I go out, behold the prince of Greece will 01:46:13.840 --> 01:46:16.480 come. But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book 01:46:16.480 --> 01:46:17.200 of truth. 01:46:17.200 --> 01:46:21.120 There is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, 01:46:21.120 --> 01:46:22.720 your prince. 01:46:22.720 --> 01:46:27.440 So the reason why I highlight this passage is that in this 01:46:27.440 --> 01:46:28.240 particular 01:46:29.440 --> 01:46:35.280 Vision when God is referring to princes, he's not talking about human 01:46:35.280 --> 01:46:39.200 beings. This is one of the 01:46:40.480 --> 01:46:43.440 ranks of the angelic. 01:46:43.760 --> 01:46:47.360 We usually call them angels, but that's also a narrow term for 01:46:47.360 --> 01:46:52.960 one particular type of servant of God who is eternal and supernatural. 01:46:52.960 --> 01:46:56.320 So Prince is one of the ranks. 01:46:56.320 --> 01:46:58.160 We know that God is a God of order. 01:46:58.160 --> 01:46:59.600 He's a God of hierarchy. 01:46:59.600 --> 01:47:02.640 We know that there's hierarchy in a heaven as there is an 01:47:02.640 --> 01:47:08.480 earth. And so when God refers to Michael, one, that's the archangel 01:47:08.480 --> 01:47:10.320 Michael, which again is a rank. 01:47:10.320 --> 01:47:14.400 Angels and archangels, archangels are obviously higher than angels. 01:47:14.400 --> 01:47:18.560 And then princes are further up the chain than that, maybe. 01:47:19.120 --> 01:47:19.920 there's debate around that. 01:47:20.080 --> 01:47:23.680 I'm not trying to take a particular position on what the hierarchy 01:47:23.680 --> 01:47:24.640 looks like. 01:47:24.640 --> 01:47:27.680 But it's important to note that when God refers to the prince 01:47:27.680 --> 01:47:30.240 of Persia, which is a phrase probably a lot of us, at 01:47:30.240 --> 01:47:32.880 least if we're old enough, have heard, because that was a name 01:47:32.880 --> 01:47:34.560 of a video game. 01:47:34.560 --> 01:47:37.920 I didn't know this until you know years later that Prince of 01:47:37.920 --> 01:47:40.800 Persia came from of a vision of God. 01:47:40.800 --> 01:47:44.640 And Prince of Persia, again, it's not a man, it's referring to 01:47:44.640 --> 01:47:45.680 a demon. 01:47:45.680 --> 01:47:49.600 Because this is the Archangel Michael, and this is the second person 01:47:49.600 --> 01:47:55.440 of the Trinity waging war against this prince of Persia. 01:47:55.440 --> 01:47:59.520 A house cannot be divided against itself, which means necessarily that this 01:47:59.520 --> 01:48:03.520 was a supernatural entity, which makes it a demon, and Prince is 01:48:03.520 --> 01:48:04.640 its rank. 01:48:04.640 --> 01:48:08.880 And so God references the Prince of Persia, he references the Prince 01:48:08.960 --> 01:48:14.560 of Greece, and he references Michael, your Prince, referring to Daniel, who 01:48:14.560 --> 01:48:17.920 was of course the the prophet to the people of Israel, even 01:48:17.920 --> 01:48:21.360 while they were under subjection by the Babylonians. 01:48:21.360 --> 01:48:24.480 The reason that this is important is that it highlights that there 01:48:24.480 --> 01:48:24.640 is 01:48:25.520 --> 01:48:30.160 A supernatural element to governance that's simply invisible to us. 01:48:30.160 --> 01:48:31.200 But it exists. 01:48:31.200 --> 01:48:32.560 It existed in that day. 01:48:32.560 --> 01:48:36.480 And remember that angels and demons are they're supernatural. 01:48:36.480 --> 01:48:37.600 They don't die. 01:48:37.600 --> 01:48:41.200 They were created during the six days of creation, and they're perpetual 01:48:41.200 --> 01:48:42.640 from that point on. 01:48:42.640 --> 01:48:48.080 So, whoever the prince of Persia was, whatever his name was, we 01:48:48.080 --> 01:48:48.480 don't know. 01:48:48.480 --> 01:48:49.680 I'm not gonna speculate. 01:48:49.680 --> 01:48:52.240 Don't go Don't go looking for the names of demons because they 01:48:52.240 --> 01:48:55.360 have names and that's a place you don't want to go. 01:48:55.360 --> 01:48:59.440 I'm not trying to stir up interest in delving deeper. 01:48:59.440 --> 01:49:03.600 I'm simply pointing specifically to this passage because when God refers to 01:49:03.600 --> 01:49:07.280 the Prince of Persia, he's referring to a demon that ruled over 01:49:07.280 --> 01:49:09.600 the kingdom of Persia. 01:49:09.600 --> 01:49:14.880 There was the ruler of that place, the human physical ruler, and 01:49:14.880 --> 01:49:19.040 there was also side by side, a demon, the prince of Persia, 01:49:19.040 --> 01:49:20.160 who also ruled. 01:49:20.160 --> 01:49:25.200 In Greece had one, in Israel had one, in Daniel's day. 01:49:25.200 --> 01:49:27.440 These entities still exist. 01:49:27.440 --> 01:49:29.920 Again, we're given the name Michael, we're not given the other names. 01:49:29.920 --> 01:49:31.120 I don't want to know them. 01:49:31.120 --> 01:49:34.800 I'm not encouraging any sort of speculation around where these people, these 01:49:35.120 --> 01:49:37.920 entities, the angels and demons went. 01:49:37.920 --> 01:49:41.840 But I think it's vital to know that the supernatural and al 01:49:41.920 --> 01:49:43.920 interacts with the political. 01:49:43.920 --> 01:49:47.120 That's why I wanted to end on this, is that there's a 01:49:47.120 --> 01:49:51.840 lot of debate today, especially as Satan's forces in the world are 01:49:51.840 --> 01:49:57.040 rebelling against the idea of people even talking about Christian nationalism. 01:49:57.040 --> 01:49:58.560 People are freaking out. 01:49:58.560 --> 01:50:02.640 The devil's people are freaking out, because that is the antidote to 01:50:02.640 --> 01:50:04.400 the evil evil that we're facing. 01:50:04.400 --> 01:50:08.960 Christian nationalism, as we've said, doesn't necessarily mean fascism or monarchy or 01:50:08.960 --> 01:50:11.360 whatever. It's not a particular type of government. 01:50:11.360 --> 01:50:16.800 It means an autocracy ruled by a godly ruler, someone who's in 01:50:16.800 --> 01:50:20.640 charge. He must be godly above all other things. 01:50:20.640 --> 01:50:24.880 These These angels and demons interact with the nations in this way. 01:50:24.880 --> 01:50:28.000 We don't know how they interact, it's not revealed to us. 01:50:28.000 --> 01:50:31.680 But this is something that's repeated, as I said, many places in 01:50:31.680 --> 01:50:37.600 the New Testament where you hear rulers, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers. 01:50:37.600 --> 01:50:40.960 Those are different names and different translations. 01:50:40.960 --> 01:50:45.360 But the hierarchy is clear, or the existence of some sort of 01:50:45.360 --> 01:50:46.480 distinctions are clear. 01:50:46.480 --> 01:50:48.080 Hierarchy is not necessarily clear. 01:50:48.080 --> 01:50:49.760 I think we can infer some of it. 01:50:49.760 --> 01:50:55.040 But again, it's I don't want to entice excitement about the esoteric 01:50:55.040 --> 01:50:56.160 or about the occult. 01:50:56.160 --> 01:51:01.920 It's simply believe Colossians 1 16 for by him were all things 01:51:01.920 --> 01:51:05.600 created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and 01:51:05.600 --> 01:51:10.720 invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all 01:51:10.720 --> 01:51:12.720 things were created by him and for him. 01:51:12.720 --> 01:51:16.320 This is obviously referring to Christ, the second person of the Trinity, 01:51:16.320 --> 01:51:18.080 by whom all things were created. 01:51:18.080 --> 01:51:23.120 This includes both things in heaven and earth, things visible and invisible, 01:51:23.120 --> 01:51:26.400 and then God lists some of the invisible things, and he lists 01:51:26.400 --> 01:51:29.200 thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. 01:51:29.200 --> 01:51:32.080 These are not referring to earthly 01:51:33.360 --> 01:51:38.240 states. We're not talking about physical flesh and blood kings and princes 01:51:38.320 --> 01:51:40.560 and so forth. 01:51:40.560 --> 01:51:46.640 These These demons, and then in some cases angels, are waging a 01:51:46.640 --> 01:51:52.160 spiritual war between physical political nations that exist. 01:51:52.480 --> 01:51:55.680 That's the whole point of highlighting this, is that today, in current 01:51:55.680 --> 01:52:00.560 year, as we look at the devolution of society and the death 01:52:00.560 --> 01:52:05.280 of Christendom and the death throes of Christianity, if we lose this 01:52:05.280 --> 01:52:11.360 fight, and we look at countries being collapsed politically through violence, through 01:52:11.680 --> 01:52:17.200 subversion. As we've said in the past, there's clearly a spiritual element 01:52:17.200 --> 01:52:18.640 to everything that's going on. 01:52:18.640 --> 01:52:22.240 And I think that a proper scriptural understanding of that claim is 01:52:22.240 --> 01:52:23.200 found here. 01:52:23.200 --> 01:52:27.920 There's a demon of Persia, you know, twenty six hundred years ago. 01:52:27.920 --> 01:52:30.080 There's a demon of Iran today. 01:52:30.080 --> 01:52:31.920 Not saying it's the same one. 01:52:31.920 --> 01:52:35.920 We know it's a demon because Iran is not a Christian nation. 01:52:35.920 --> 01:52:40.320 And it's interesting the Prince of Greece that's mentioned here, this was 01:52:40.640 --> 01:52:44.320 given the timing of Daniel, this would have been shortly before the 01:52:44.320 --> 01:52:46.160 birth of democracy. 01:52:46.160 --> 01:52:50.800 So So Greece, the you know, that location was a pagan area 01:52:50.800 --> 01:52:52.160 at this time. 01:52:52.160 --> 01:52:57.600 Democracy was created in that place, starting in Athens, and they continued 01:52:57.600 --> 01:52:59.040 to be pagans. 01:52:59.040 --> 01:53:01.360 That means that they were ruled by demons. 01:53:01.360 --> 01:53:04.080 If they were ruled by angels, if they had been ruled by 01:53:04.080 --> 01:53:08.960 one of God's servants, they would have not worshipped false idols. 01:53:08.960 --> 01:53:10.560 They'd have would have not had 01:53:11.440 --> 01:53:13.920 things like the Parthenon that were 01:53:14.880 --> 01:53:20.720 huge temples to false gods, to idols, and also to demons, incidentally. 01:53:20.720 --> 01:53:22.800 I think that's one of the things that we miss when we 01:53:22.800 --> 01:53:26.160 look back at the pantheon of Greek and Roman gods as we 01:53:26.160 --> 01:53:27.680 think, oh well that's all made up. 01:53:27.840 --> 01:53:30.400 Well, they were worshiping something. 01:53:30.400 --> 01:53:34.880 We know that demons appear to men to seek their worship because 01:53:34.880 --> 01:53:37.120 what what does God Satan achieve? 01:53:37.120 --> 01:53:42.080 He misdirects the human desire to worship God and redirects it to 01:53:42.080 --> 01:53:45.280 something evil, which ultimately separates souls from God. 01:53:45.280 --> 01:53:49.120 So it doesn't matter that there's some particular form It only matters 01:53:49.120 --> 01:53:50.720 that there's disobedience. 01:53:50.720 --> 01:53:53.920 And so we both see the physical manifestation in the case of 01:53:53.920 --> 01:53:58.160 temples and thrones that are erected by these countries, these nations, and 01:53:58.160 --> 01:54:04.400 we also see scripture revealing that there are Actual demons behind the 01:54:04.400 --> 01:54:06.720 scenes doing something. 01:54:06.720 --> 01:54:09.840 And that's not us claiming that we can say what their names 01:54:09.840 --> 01:54:11.600 are or what they're doing or where they are. 01:54:11.600 --> 01:54:12.640 That's not important. 01:54:12.640 --> 01:54:16.880 It's simply important to acknowledge that this is both a spiritual and 01:54:17.040 --> 01:54:18.320 a political battle. 01:54:18.320 --> 01:54:21.600 And if you properly understand it, there's no difference. 01:54:21.600 --> 01:54:27.120 Because it is God's people waging war with and against Satan's people. 01:54:27.120 --> 01:54:28.400 Satan has people too. 01:54:28.400 --> 01:54:30.480 And they're trying to destroy Christendom. 01:54:30.480 --> 01:54:34.400 And so the political fights and the religious fights, all the fights, 01:54:34.400 --> 01:54:39.440 are fundamentally simultaneously natural and supernatural. 01:54:39.440 --> 01:54:42.160 And it's a it's a tough thing. 01:54:42.160 --> 01:54:45.120 It's a tough thing to delve into because we're not given very 01:54:45.120 --> 01:54:48.160 much. And as I said, I don't want people to try to 01:54:48.160 --> 01:54:49.840 extrapolate a whole lot more. 01:54:49.840 --> 01:54:54.080 It's simply to acknowledge that we're facing a spiritual war, and we 01:54:54.080 --> 01:54:56.000 should act accordingly.