Seeking Godly Civil Rule

Taken out of the context of the whole Bible, the Romans 13 passage has been misused by many to justify turning over to Caesar everything that Caesar asks for. Not so. Verse 7 tells us to render to Caesar his due. He is not due everything he demands. Actually, when Caesar no longer is a terror to those who are evil but actually becomes a terror to those who do good, it becomes the duty of the people to revoke the authority which they have given to the ruler. Not individually. Corporately. No lone rangers allowed. No terrorism or independent acts to overthrow a government. As much as we may chafe at the evil set over us now, we must know that having a civil ruler is indeed of God, and we must not long for chaos. Civil rule, by its nature, is corporate. We disobey God if we seek to be out from under civil rule. Our duty is rather to seek to be under godly civil rule.

Our so-called revolutionary war was not a revolutionary war at all. The colonies were not seeking to be out from under governance, nor were they seeking to take over London and Parliament and unseat King George III. They wanted to be under godly rule, determined that King George III was not a godly ruler, opted for their colonial parliaments, and seceded from England. Thus, our war was vastly different from the one that followed it about 15 years later in France, which was a true revolution, viciously anti-god, and has crippled France to this day.


Excerpt from "Trusting God or Trusting Ourselves"

Relationship Is Key

American dying partakes too much of a fixation on the tree of knowledge. We act as if just knowing enough will enable us to beat the curse of Eden. Better trained doctors and nurses. More pharmaceutical research. Better surgical tools. Knowing more about diet. Better computer systems to track things, to keep more nearly complete records and to keep them available to our fingertips.

No. No. While knowledge isn’t to be disdained as nothing, neither is it everything. It is not sufficient. Knowledge doesn’t give life. God gives life. In the Garden, Satan had us believe that eating of the tree of knowledge was desirable, though it had been forbidden. Knowledge without obedience to God isn’t life. It is a prolongation of death. A medical system – any system – which is set up to run apart from a real, practical, confessed connection to the God of life is vanity.

If you are inside healing arts professionally, do not mistake knowledge as the key to life. Relationship is key. Right relationship to God and right relationship to man, our patients, redeems an otherwise sterile knowledge. Relationship first with God and then with another human being – the patient – is the foundation of medicine. Without it, the finest machinery and chemistry is folly. If you are not in medicine, beware that we who are are steeped in knowledge, but by training systems not only devoid of a dependence upon the gospel, but actively now hostile to it. Medical training is a glutton at the tree of knowledge, but avoids the tree of life. Unless redeemed by explicit and specific biblical instruction, medicine is dangerous to the life of the soul.


Excerpts from "Are We Christians Dying to Meet Him?"

Belong to Jesus

There are many features to being ready for death, but the essential foundation is to be rightly related to the Son of God.

“I belong to Jesus, he will keep my soul
when the deathly waters dark round about me roll.
I belong to Jesus, and ere long I’ll stand
with my precious Savior there in the glory land.”
(Hymn “I Belong to Jesus,” vs. 5)

Belong to Jesus and, whatever the method or the timing, you will not be alone in the dying.


Excerpt from "Are We Christians Dying to Meet Him?"

Charity vs. Coercion

Hard questions need to be asked, asked by people who know that the death rate is one apiece, and who know with The Preacher, that there is a time to die (Eccles. 3:2). Charity is when we consult our wallets and our consciences and make a decision to meet a need. By definition, a civil state which collects its revenues under threat of the sword cannot do a charitable deed. It is preposterous that we have a punitive, coercive institution of God, the magistrate as the civil government is called, trying to accomplish a task that is related closely to nurturance, mercy, and tender love.


Excerpt from talk given at Westminster Presbyterian Church