It's been said that the history of philosophy represents nothing more than footnotes to the teaching of Plato and of Aristotle. As I was listening to the first two messages this afternoon, what I thought of was this, that anything that transpires from this moment onward for the rest of this conference will merely be footnotes to the two messages we've heard already.

Uh, I'm I'm speaking this morning or this afternoon after hearing these first two messages, uh, in something of a state of shock, uh, something of a state of conviction because we have tried very hard at St. Andrews, uh, to resist the temptation to the trendiness of contemporary worship and to examine everything that we do very carefully to make sure that our worship service is structured according to a way that is pleasing to God. And where I lose sleep is not that we're too grave or too formal, but I'm afraid that we're not formal enough. And I've been sobered by listening to again the call of the word of God to worship God in the way that he requires, the way that he commands. And I think that each one of us, and particularly those of us who are in positions of ministry, that we need to be on our face before God, turning the guns of criticism on ourselves all the time, on a regular basis, saying, "Is this what the Lord wants?"

Now, by way of footnote, when I heard Doug start speaking so eloquently from Hebrews 12, I said, "Well, there goes my message." Because my basic text this afternoon is the very text that he spent so much time expounding. But since it's the word of God, I believe it bears repetition. So let's look at it from a little different perspective. Chapter 12 of Hebrews, beginning at verse 18.

"For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched, and that burned with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. For they could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, 'I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.'"

Now, let's just stop here for a second before I go on with the rest of the text. The author of Hebrews is telling us here what New Testament worship is not. We don't come to that mountain where God required the people of Israel to come before he would give to Moses the decalogue. Everybody knows what's in Exodus 20 in the Old Testament, the record of the Ten Commandments. But rarely do we look carefully at Exodus 19, which was the setting for the original context of the giving of those commandments, where God descended to his holy mountain and called the mediator of the old covenant, Moses, to come up into the cloud and speak to him face to face. But before this takes place, God commands Moses to instruct the people to set boundaries around the base of Mount Sinai, that they are not to transgress. And if anyone steps over the line, touches the mountain, they are to be executed. If one of their beasts of burden wanders into the mountain, it is to be shot by the arrow or killed. And in fact, the people are not even allowed to come to the base of the mountain until first they go through three days of extensive purification. Listen to this. In which they were required, before they came to the base of the mountain, to wash their clothes. Does God care how we dress when we come near to him? Our flip-flops and shorts okay? You would have dropped dead in that kind of outfit at Sinai. So that this meeting between the people of God and their God was anything but a casual event, anything but a cavalier moment in their history. And so after elaborate cleansing and purification and preparation, God comes down with fire and lightning and with clouds. And again, as it is recalled here by the author of Hebrews, the mountain burned with fire and was marked by blackness and darkness and tempest. And he says, "That's not where we go to worship. We don't come before God in the tempest or in the blackness or in the darkness."

But the first question with respect to worship that I want to address, which has already been mentioned by both of our speakers, is the question of the locus of corporate worship. Where do we worship God? And here is where we read the text.

"But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels and of the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel."

Now, is that better? There are few of us, if any, who believe what I just read from the word of God. I mean, do we really think that when we come together for worship that we actually ascend into heaven? I was speaking at a church locally here a few years ago, and they had gone from one service to two services, and it didn't work out very well because they would have about 800 people at the second service and about 35 at the first service. But I came to the first service, and I looked at this great big room, and there were only 35 people there, and I said, "I hope you'll excuse me if I sound or seem to be nervous this morning, but I really get intimidated whenever I'm called upon to speak before such a huge crowd." And everybody laughed. And I said, "I'm not kidding. Do you realize the size of this congregation?" And they looked at me like they wondered what I'd been smoking. And I read this passage to them, and I said, "Do you understand that when we come into church on Sunday morning, we walk over a threshold? We make a transition not only from the profane to the holy, from the secular to the sacred, from the common to the uncommon, but from the earthly to the heavenly. That if you are in Jesus Christ, and if Christ is in you, then you enjoy a mystical union with him and with all other people who also are in him. And that doesn't just mean the people in our local congregation, but it means with the church of all ages."

Is this thing still on? Can you hear me? They took my whiteboard and put it all the way back here. Who can see this thing back here? You can't see that thing up there. How am I going to use this? Watch. I'll fall all over myself. Hey, this actually can be moved. We got to get the Latin out of the way. If you're familiar with the Apostles' Creed, you say the words, "I believe in the communion of saints." The communio sanctorum. What does that mean? There's the word unio from which we get the idea of union or oneness. One of the reasons why the early church, in confessing their doctrine of the church, said that the church is one. It's holy. It's catholic. It's apostolic. But it is one. And the prefix "com" means "with." And so there is a profound unity that takes place in corporate worship where one Christian is united with every other Christian who is there, and it is the community or the communion of those who are the holy ones. I am all for evangelistic outreach services. I think it's great to have midweek services of outreach or special evangelistic crusades, but corporate worship is for the saints in the presence of God. It is to be designed for the fellowship of the saints. So we see, first of all, that the locus of worship is heaven, not earth.

And who are the participants of this worship? The author of Hebrews says, "We have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company, a countless number of angels." What was the attendance this morning? Huh? >> Yeah. Myriads and myriads and myriads of angels. And what were those angels doing? The angels were joining in the heavenly choir, joining with the seraphim, singing an antipal response, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts." I mean, we're in that choir. I'm always trying to get more choir members at our church in St. Andrews. And then there's one of these days I'm going to hear a voice from heaven where God's going to say, "What's the matter? Isn't the choir that I've provided for you sufficient? We're there in the company of the angels." But you see, we can't see them. Those people in the Old Testament could see that smoke, and they could see that lightning. They could see that mountain. But we go into the heavenly holy of holies, which right now remains invisible to us. We can't hear the angels singing, but they're there. They're participants in this experience. I know that they don't know most of the songs that we're singing. I don't think they care to know them. But in any case, to the general assembly. I know this is not a Presbyterian general assembly. But it's to the general assembly and the church of the firstborn. Who is the firstborn of all creation? Who is the firstborn from the dead? Who has gathered for himself a people who are his? What church do you belong to? I belong to the church of the firstborn. And we worship every Sunday with the congregation of the firstborn. To those who belong to Christ, who are his church in heaven, to God the judge of all.

Before I had the greatest honor of my life and most unspeakable privilege of being the pastor of a church and instead had the simple task of being a teacher, proving the ancient adage that those who can do, and those who can't, teach. I would move from church to church and place to place and sit in the congregation. And often I would find that I would be sitting in the congregation, and the minister was a former student of mine, and they would gulp when they see me come in, and they'd come up and greet me before the service, but their hands would be shaking, and they were saying, "Oh, I didn't know you were going to be here this morning. You know, I'm, I wish I were better prepared." And on and on about how intimidated they were because I was going to be in their congregation. I said, "Does that bother you?" And I said, "Yeah." I said, "You have to preach before Almighty God every Sunday morning. Why should I bother you?" But the other Hebrews said, "We come into the heavenly city, into the heavenly, uh, tabernacle where we have the firstborn, where we have the innumerable companies of angels, and where God himself is present." Who else? The spirits of just men made perfect.

One of the things I hear all the time, and when I speak here and about about worship with my friends who disagree strongly with my views of worship, and we'll talk about it, and they say, "RC, we've got to be able to reach Generation X. They, the old music doesn't cut it. They don't like it." I say, "They don't know it." And I say, "Can you imagine designing worship for one generation of people?" One of the great things about church history and the great liturgies of the past is that they reach across the centuries. They reach across classes. They reach across age groups. You know, the church was not invented for teenagers. The whole corporation, the whole corporate body. When it was wonderful to hear that story that that you gave about the two-year-olds raising their hand in our church every Sunday morning, we sing the Sanctus. Do you know, after singing it every Sunday, Sunday in, Sunday out, and do I get tired of hearing the Sanctus? I get tired of the song. I get upset with the Sanctus. I have to admit it. It kills me. Every week we sing it. When it's over, I could stand up there and sing the Sanctus over and over and over and over and over and just let myself float into the heavenlies singing the Sanctus. And we do have, this is one of the things I sweat about. We do have the little children who don't sit through worship the whole time. And I have to look at that. But they do come in. The nursery ladies bring the kids in the side door, the little ones for the Sanctus, and they'll never forget the Sanctus because it is so rich and so full, and that it touches over the centuries the communion of saints, and it is appreciated by those in attendance on Sunday morning. Who are the spirits of just men made perfect?

Finally, finally, with respect to this point, not finally with respect to the me, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, to the blood of sprinkling that speaks, speaks better things than that of Abel. We come into the presence of Christ. I know that I have a friend in Jesus, and he invites us to call him friends. And I know that because we are justified, we have peace with God, and we have access into his presence. And I know that we are invited to come boldly into his presence. But that invitation to come boldly is never an invitation to come arrogantly. And there is no Christian in this room who, if the Lord Jesus Christ walked in that door right now and walked across in front of you, would walk up to him and say, "Hey, Jesus, great to see you, buddy." Nobody would do that. You would be on your faces, and you know you'd be on your faces. Well, that's who you're going to see on Sunday morning. You're coming into his presence, into the presence of God, into the presence of the angels. And then you have to ask yourself the question, what is appropriate? What kind of behavior is appropriate? What kind of activity is appropriate if you enter into the heavenly holy of holies?

Now, he makes another statement here at the very end of this text that I don't want to just miss. "To Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks, that speaks better things than that of Abel." Wow. New covenant worship beats Abel.

In the middle of the 20th century, an important book on the church, on ecclesiology, was written by a Roman Catholic theologian by the name of Yves Congar. Professor Congar wrote this book called *Ecclesia Obscura*, "The Church from Abel," in which he said the church, in terms of a group of people involved in corporate worship, really began with Abel. And he had in view the text that closely precedes what I've just read in chapter 12, where we look back at the roll call of the heroes of faith in chapter 11, where we read in verse four of chapter 11, "By faith Abel offered offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts, and through it he being dead still speaks."

To refresh your memory of that, let me read these words from Genesis chapter 4. "In the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain and his offering." Stop right there. Brothers, different livelihoods. One's a farmer, the other one's a herdsman. One brings from his livestock, the other from his produce. One gives his offering, God respects it, God accepts it, God delights in it, God is pleased by it. The other brother subjects his offering, and God has no respect for it. God rejects it, and he is not pleased by it.

Now, before we ask why God accepts the offering of Abel and rejects the offering of Cain, let us see the first thing that we learn from this text. The first thing we learn from this text is that God does not accept all forms of worship that are offered to him. And we need to know that that's a scary thought because what if your worship is not acceptable to him? What if your worship is offensive to him? What if my worship is displeasing to him? Well, let me answer that question. That's not just a rhetorical question, ladies and gentlemen. If my worship is displeasing to him, then I've got to change my worship, and I've got to find out what kind of worship is pleasing to him.

Now, the facile answer to the question that I hear again and again from people as to why it is that God accepts, uh, Abel's offering but doesn't accept Cain's offering is the idea this: "Well, obviously it's because Abel's offering was a blood sacrifice and Cain's wasn't." And so, what do you say to that? What do I say to that? So, is there some principle in the Old Testament that the only kind of sacrifice that is acceptable to God is one that involves blood? Did not God himself institute cereal offerings and grain offerings in Israel that were completely delightful to him? I don't think that we can get to the root of this question by looking at what was offered on the altar. And when we get to the book of Hebrews, it doesn't say, "By faith, Abel offered a blood offering and Cain offered a non-bloody offering." No. The difference was one was a sacrifice of praise to God that was offered in faith, and the other was not in faith.

Again, as we've heard over and over already this afternoon, we are to worship God in spirit and in truth. And God seeks such to worship him in spirit and in truth. Obviously, beloved, there was something wrong with the spirit of Cain's offering that made it unacceptable to God. His was not a loyal, faithful response of worship. Obviously, Cain's act was centered on Cain and not on God. To worship God in spirit is to worship from the deepest chambers of our soul, from our heart, not from the flesh, not from the surface, not through simple rote. I mean, obviously, as has been said already, traditional worship can be as repugnant to God as other forms of worship if it is not offered in spirit. The people of Israel went through the forms. They went through the liturgy. And as Jeremiah said to them, "You people come to the temple. You do the right things. You sing the right songs. You follow the right liturgy. And you say, 'This is the temple of the Lord. The temple of the Lord. The temple of the Lord.' You say it until the cows come home. But you trust in lying words because your heart's not there."

But what if you have really zealous worship? It just sort of misses the truth a little bit. Well, in all of scripture, the record that we have of the most zealous worship ever brought before God by the people of Israel, the best attended worship service ever, where the singing was with the greatest gusto ever recorded in sacred scripture, where for the first time Israel had an authentic mega-church was while Moses was up on the mountain and the people were dancing around a golden calf. A calf which led to their being poisoned by that very artifact. They choked to death on their sin. There was zeal, there was numbers, there was excitement, but there was no truth. It was false worship. That's why this is such serious business that we be careful that what we do in the presence of God, in the presence of angels, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ is according to spirit and according to truth.

Now, somebody made mention to the, the, uh, idea of the worship wars of our day. And I guess it is a war. There's a lot of rhetoric, a lot of anger, a lot of heat. But I think for the most part, we've, we've heard that the battle's over because the church has been completely conquered by the new models of worship, seeker-sensitive worship, and that that's the order of the day. And so there's no reason to be concerned anymore. And that those of us who haven't followed along are the dinosaurs who are rapidly passing out of existence. I wonder how much hostility there really is when people differ over worship style and worship theory. I guess these issues can be pretty serious when you stop and think that the first record that we have in sacred scripture of homicide, which actually was fratricide, took place when one human being murdered another human being because he was angry that the one other person, his brother's worship was acceptable to God and his wasn't. And when we see that, beloved, we have to ask ourselves with as much honesty and integrity as we can muster, is my worship of God the worship of Abel or the worship of Cain? Because there is a difference.

Now, the model of worship that we find in the heavenlies. We've looked at the locus of worship. We've looked at the participants. We've looked at the demeanor in terms of faith. And now I want to look briefly at the, at the depth dimension of worship, which is found in the word "glory." I very much agree with the observation that our church has fallen back to a theologia gloria rather than a theologia crucis, theology of glory rather than the theology of the cross. However, when we come together to worship the living God, we are coming there to ascribe to him glory. One of the solas of the Reformation, *soli Deo gloria*, to God alone the glory. And I'd like to take just a few moments to see what this means.

That the word "glory" in English comes from the Latin *gloria*, which translates the Greek *doxa*, which takes us back to the Hebrew *kavod* or *kabod*. And when we look at that concept of the glory of God in the Old Testament, his *kavod*, the Semitic roots of that word mean "weightiness" or "heaviness." That's interesting, isn't it? That God's glory describes his weightiness. Now, obviously, it doesn't describe his weightiness in crass physical terms. It's not like God is Buddha, who's obese and huge in his physical size. But rather, the idea of *kavod* speaks of the weightiness of God's dignity, of his majesty, of his holiness. And we use that word "weighty" or "heavy" in the same metaphorical manner in our own culture today. If we hear a speaker say something that we think is particularly deep or particularly profound, we might say, "Woo, heavy. That's heavy stuff." And if somebody ignores us or deals with us in a superficial way, we say they took us lightly. That's another barometer that we should use for our worship. Is our worship light? Or is it weighty? Is the one we're worshiping light or weighty?

You know, I have no brief against contemporary music. Please trust me on that. I've written hymns myself, and since I'm still alive, they could be called contemporary to some degree. And even though Jim Boyce has gone to be with the Lord, his hymns, which are very rich, are still part of the contemporary music scene. I don't think there's anything wrong with being new in music. Every song that we hold dear in the life and the tradition of the church was new at one time. It wasn't like the, the, uh, *Benedictus* was composed and then the church waited four centuries before they sang it. No, the problem is not the difference between old music and new music. It's between good music and bad music, between music of substance and music that is frivolous, that is so light. It may be entertaining for a moment, but sooner or later people say, "Is there nothing more?"

And let me say something else at this point. If we carry the gospel into a remote part of the rainforest of South America, and we come to a primitive tribe of people, or in Africa, or wherever, and we begin to teach them the things of God, and we gather together for worship. Is there anything wrong with singing "Kumbaya"? No, there's nothing wrong with that. But after these people have gone through instruction on the things of God year after year after year after year, there comes a time when you get beyond "Kumbaya," or else you're still in the elemental stages. You're still in the place of milk, which the New Testament tells us, "Don't ever be satisfied with that." When I was in seminary, the homiletics professor said, "If you become a, a, a preacher in a church where the congregation is college-educated, remember, don't ever preach above an eighth-grade level, or you'll lose your congregation." And I said then, I said, "That's just simply not acceptable." I have people in my church come up to me, and they say, "RC, you use words that I've never heard before." I say, "Isn't that great? You come often enough, pretty soon they're going to be part of your vocabulary. And maybe you'll begin to think about justification and propitiation." But we insist on remaining babes in the things of God. And we're not allowed to do that. No.

The great Augustine, when he talked about the experience of worship and the experience of music in worship, he used a word. Oh, I said I had to get, I didn't get done with the Latin. Can I have one more? Thank you very much. You'll understand immediately what English word comes from this: *gravitas*. Gravy, right? Our worship should be like gravy. No, he said that worship should be marked by a certain gravity, not the law of gravity where we all fall down. That's not what he's talking about. But a gravity again that resounds with this concept of the weightiness of the one whom we are worshiping. When I come into the presence of God, I come with a solemnity born of reverence and of adoration.

I once read the story of Babe Ruth when he visited Europe, traveled to England, and was invited to meet the king. But before his audience with the king, Babe Ruth was instructed in court etiquette, on the proper protocol for how one addresses a monarch. And they told him how he was to give obeisance and show respect to the king of England. And they went, rehearsed it, and taught it to Babe Ruth. And they said, "Do you get it?" And he said, "Yes, I understand it." So finally, the doors to Buckingham Palace were opened, and the official came out and greeted Babe Ruth and escorted him into the presence of the king. And as soon as Babe Ruth saw the king, he walked in. He said, "Hi, King. How you doing?" See, only an American would do that in the presence of a king. See, he felt no sense of gravity, no sense of majesty, no awareness of the augustness, at least, of the office of a king. In a word, beloved, he treated the king lightly, rather than with glory.

Again, this gravity is not a gravity of severity. It doesn't mean that worship is to be severe, or that the only way in which we can please God is if we come into his presence as sourpusses. That's not the idea. But again, it is coming in the posture of honor. I mean, we wouldn't even have to talk about this. As I said a few moments ago, if Christ himself came in, or if God right now, who is an all-consuming fire, would manifest himself to you in a theophany this moment, we'd stop talking about what is the proper way to enter into his presence. And so, to put it simply, there are only two things that people have to remember when they come to church on Sunday morning, when they come in with the corporate people, with the communion of saints, when you come to worship God. There are only two things you have to remember: Who God is, and who you are. If we keep those things straight, that our worship is theocentric, not anthropocentric. If we come into church on Sunday morning and we are fixed on the one whom we have come to praise and offer the sacrifice of praise, and realize who God is, and we know who I, who we are when we come into his presence, that will define our behavior.

Twenty-five years ago, I met with a young man who had a vision for reaching the lost. And he took a survey of thousands of people in the metropolitan area of the city where he lived. Talked to thousands of people who at one time had been church members and who dropped out of their churches. And he asked them, "Why did you leave the church?" And he said the number one reason people gave for leaving the church was because church was boring. And the second most frequently given reason was the church was irrelevant. He said, "So I understood that if I'm going to reach this generation of people for Christ, if I'm going to reach these people who are lost and dying, we've got to rethink church altogether. We've got to revolutionize church. We've got to change how church looks. We've got to change how church functions. We have to change how the music is," he said, "because I'm going to make sure that nobody who comes to my church will be bored, and no one will ever walk out of here and say it was irrelevant." And that man single-handedly revolutionized American worship and built the fastest, biggest growing church in our day. And we talked about this 25 years ago. I said to him, "You know, I look in the Old Testament and I see all kinds of records of people encountering God, and their subjective reactions differ one from another. Some people, when they come into the presence of God in the pages of scripture, they cry. Some people pass out. Some people leap for joy. Some people are stricken with silence. Some people tremble in fear." Said, "But I've never found anywhere in scripture where somebody encounters the living God and is bored." Ever. It's a human impossibility. Nor do you ever find anybody in scripture who encounters the living God and yawns, walks away and said, "Not much to that. It was irrelevant." I said, "The way in which you reach out to people who are lost about the living God is not by hiding the living God from them. But if you want a worship service that is alive and exciting and interesting and relevant, then do everything in your power to make sure that the character of the living God is made known in that worship service."

And finally, just to piggyback on what was said before me, Gene Edward Veith, in his book on literature, makes an interesting distinction, and I'd never heard of it before, when he talks about the postmodern American. He said that historically we've divided people into two groups: the literate and the illiterate. Those that could read and write, those who can't. He said, "But that won't do anymore. These categories are insufficient to really describe the culture in which we live." And he said, "There's a third category in addition to the literate and the illiterate." And it is the a-literate, or the aliterate. And Veith means by that that there are tens of thousands of people in our culture today who are literate in the sense that they can read and they can write, but they're aliterate in the sense that they're not interested in reading and they're not interested in learning through that means. They want to learn through sense impressions, through sound bites, through, uh, the kinds of things that Sinclair was spelling out just a few moments ago. What are you? I read recently that in a given year in the United States of America, only four people ever, four people out of a hundred, ever walk into a bookstore and buy a book. Not to mention the kind of books they're buying, but just buy any kind of a book. Only four people out of a hundred. We are no longer a reading people. And isn't that strange when the way in which God has chosen to nurture us and to bring us to fullness in Christ is through his word, and we are called to be the people of the word?

Look at your church architecture. What does it say? I go into churches all over the place in this day and age, and you know what I see in the center? Well, it's not even a chancel anymore. It's a stage that speaks volumes. But on the stage is a plexiglass, translucent and transparent little plastic, uh, podium that's portable. You can pick it up and move it. Now, I'm sure that there are preachers all over America today who are preaching sound messages behind those portable pulpits. But that change in architecture signals a change in what is important to church. And so I ask the question, when the pulpit disappears from the sanctuary, can the sermon and the preaching of the word of God be far behind? Christian people, think what's happening. Ask yourselves, is this improvement? Is this advance, or is this retreat? Because what we're concerned about is not our comfort, but the glory of the living God.

Let's pray. Father, we don't always know if what we're doing is pleasing to you. We don't always search your word and use that as the norm by which we accept or reject our experiments. But oh God, protect us from offering strange fire on the holy altar, and protect us from trivializing your weightiness. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Before I leave here, I just want to say one of the best books I've ever read on this issue, on this debate of worship. There's a little book entitled *Gospel Worship* by the Puritan Jeremy Burroughs, that we have down across the hall and at the *Soli Deo Gloria* section there. That book, you know, really caused me to stop dead in my tracks. Read it at your own risk. Okay, we're going to continue tonight with our study of Paul's letter to the church at Rome. And as those of you who have been with us regularly know, we are still in the eighth chapter. And I'm sure that God is not willing that we complete that chapter this evening, but that we make progress into part of it, at least. And so I'd ask that, uh, the congregation stand for the reading of the word of God. I'm going to read this evening from Romans 8, beginning at verse 28 and reading through verse 30. This is a lengthy passage, so I pray that you'll have the strength to remain standing throughout.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called. Whom he called, he also justified. And whom he justified, these he also glorified."

This passage that I've just read is known in the history of theology as the golden chain of those actions wrought by God in his grace to bring about the redemption of his people. The infallible word of God for our edification. Please be seated.

Let us pray. And now, oh God, in this evening hour, as we explore briefly the depths and indeed unfathomable riches of the sweetness of your providence by which you order all things that come to pass and work them together for the good of those who are your people. We pray that our hearts may be lifted up and our souls thrilled to contemplate the mystery of your divine providence. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

We know from the teaching of scripture that our ultimate destiny, of scripture, or of, as Christians, is to enter into heaven. A place that we are told in the book of Revelation where there will be no night, no death, no tears. It will be a place where we will live forever without affliction, without pain, and an environment that in no way is marred at any time by the presence of evil or of sin. That is to say that heaven, dear friends, is a place where nothing ever goes wrong, where no evil ever takes place, where nothing bad will ever happen to us. And so we look with joyous anticipation, as the apostle did just before this text, when he spoke about the fact that there is no comparison between the afflictions that we endure in this life and the glory that has been stored up for us in heaven to which we look forward.

But now I ask you the question tonight: What about now? What about here? We're not in heaven. We're still in this vale of tears. How would you feel if Jesus walked in that door and came to the front of the church and asked me to please leave the pulpit, which I would be happy to do if he were here to speak directly to us. And he said, "I have good news for you that for the rest of your lives in this world, I promise you that nothing bad will ever happen to you again." How would you feel if our Lord gave that announcement and that assurance to you about the rest of your life in this world? Wouldn't that be great if he would say to us, "Don't worry. Nothing bad will ever happen to you." Well, in a very real sense, beloved, he's already said that. He says it sort of in a sideways kind of a way that we'll explore this evening. But that's basically the affirmation that we are getting here in Romans 28:28, when the apostle Paul says with assurance, and we know he's not speaking, I don't think, in the editorial "we" or the magisterial "we," but he's speaking inclusively of all of those who are in the faith, that one thing that we know for sure, that we know that all things are working together for good for those who love the Lord and who are the called according to his purpose.

I mentioned last week when we first spoke of this passage that there's so much contained in it that all we'll be able to do this week is to scratch the surface of it. It's an astonishing affirmation that the apostle gives us when he says with certainty that all things that we experience are working together for good for those who love the Lord and who are the called according to his purpose. Now, I know that one of the most fundamental principles of biblical Christianity is this: that we are never, ever to call good evil, or to call evil good, because that is essentially the lie of Satan that has been spread abroad through every generation. The great seduction of the enemy is to convince us that sin that brings pleasure is really not so bad. In fact, it is actually a good. And if we are to experience the best that life has to offer us, then we must indulge ourselves in things that God prohibits. Because Satan lies. He calls evil good and good evil. And we are not supposed to do that. So I have to be very careful how I handle this text tonight, because I'm afraid I will come perilously close to indeed calling evil good and good evil.

I had a mentor in my theological training whose views were cited to me last night at our banquet, who was fond of making a distinction among four types of actions. And those four types are these: There are what he called those actions that are good, good. There are those kinds of actions that are bad, good. And there are those kinds of actions that are bad, bad. And then those kinds of actions that are good, bad. Now, that should be enough to confuse you for the rest of the week. Let me just go over it again quickly. There's good, good; bad, good; bad, bad; and good, bad. Now, what was he getting at with these fine distinctions? Well, let's look at them seriatim.

First of all, the good, good. The good, good is that kind of virtue that is done by Christ, by God, by the saints in heaven, where there is no alloy of evil mixed in it. In this world, whatever good that we are able to do, as we are being sanctified, never reaches the level of good, good, because there is a pound of flesh in all of the virtue that we accomplish in this life. As St. Augustine well said, "Our best works, because of the way in which they remain tainted by our human pride and the way in which they fall short of the glory of God, are at best splendid vices."

That's again takes us to the second category, bad, good. Good that is intended to be acts of virtue and obedience to God, but nevertheless may be accompanied by shortcomings and failures. This could also describe what, uh, Calvin defined as civic virtue, that righteousness that is achieved even by the unbeliever or the pagan who is unregenerated. That even the unbeliever can, through enlightened self-interest, at times stumble upon the good and do good, though not of a heavenly sort. The person who drives his car according to the speed limit and is obedient to the civil magistrate is doing a good thing. But when we consider goodness from the perspective that God considers it, God considers an act both in terms of its outward conformity to his law, but also in terms of the inward motive, which is that motive that is, uh, uh, inclined to be pleasing to God. Now, the pagan may have external righteousness. He may drive his car according to the speed limit at 55 miles an hour on I-4. But the reason why he drives his car at 55 miles an hour is not because he has a desire in his heart to please the Lord, but he's trying to escape a ticket or other, uh, bad consequences to his economic situation. We find people who drive 55 miles an hour on the interstate, not because they're desirous of being model citizens of civil obedience, but because they like to drive their car at 55 miles an hour. You find same people drive their car at 55 miles an hour in a 35-mile-an-hour speed zone, or even in a 25-mile-an-hour speed, when it just happens from time to time that their outward behavior corresponds to the law, but not out of any virtuous intent. That's bad, good. That's good that is not motivated from a pure heart.

Then we look at bad, bad. Bad, bad is so bad that there is no admixture of virtue in it. It is pure transgression, transgression outwardly motivated by a hostile heart to God inwardly. This is the kind of action that is undertaken every moment by Satan and his fallen angels. Now, I think it's easy to understand these three categories that I've just given. But the one we're concerned about now is this one that we call good, bad. Good, bad is true badness. That's why we don't want to say that good, bad is really goodness. But we see that there are certain actions that when they take place are evil. They are bad. Nevertheless, under the providence of God, under his sovereignty over human events, God has the power to bring good out of evil, which is a glorious thing that we can experience as Christians, knowing that all of the bad that we are called upon to suffer in this world, which things are truly bad considered in and of themselves, nevertheless, under the sovereign power of God, these bad things are being used by God for our ultimate good. So viewed from an approximate perspective, they are indeed bad, and there is no redemptive virtue in it. But from the ultimate perspective, it is good that they are happening because God is using them for his ultimate purpose.

Now, that's a critical point for us to understand if we are to understand anything of the providence of God. The fact that this can happen is based on what we call in theology, and under the heading of providence, the doctrine of concurrence, or of concourse, where in certain actions that are taking place where human beings are involved, we're exercising our wills. We are doing what we want to do. In many cases, those choices that we are making are diabolical. They're harmful. They are wicked. They bring destruction upon ourselves and upon others. Nevertheless, even in our sin, the providence of God is at work. And he has the power to trump our evil inclinations, our evil desires, and in spite of ourselves, bring good to pass.

The best illustration of this that we have in the Bible is found at the end of the book of Genesis, when Joseph, who had suffered so greatly at the hands of his treacherous and jealous brothers, who had wasted away for years in a prison, separated from his family, from his countrymen in a foreign land, sold into slavery, falsely accused, thrown into prison. And then finally, through the providence of God, is rescued from that fate and elevated to the right hand of Pharaoh, becoming the prime minister of Egypt. You know the story how that famine comes into the land of Canaan. And Jacob sends emissaries from his sons down to Egypt to seek relief from the famine from the storehouses of Egypt. And in that process, they meet Joseph. They don't recognize Joseph, and they speak Hebrew among themselves, but Joseph recognizes them. And it's one of the most poignant narratives that we find in the entire Old Testament. Well, finally, the moment of truth comes where Joseph is revealed to his brothers, and they're terrified of his wrath, and they beg for his forgiveness. And you remember what Joseph said, "Don't worry, I'm not going to play God with you." And he said, "You meant it for evil. God meant it for good." What an incredible, incomprehensible biblical revelation that is, in such a way that God so orders his providence as not to cancel out secondary causes, not to annihilate the actions of the

Human will, which are undertaken freely. In that text, we see that Jacob or Joseph is aware that his brothers not only sinned against him and committed something that was really evil, but they sinned with intent, with malice of forethought. They had conspired together and schemed up this plot to get rid of their brother of whom they were so jealous. And so we have in this text the appearance of what we call intentionality. That as rational beings, the brothers of Joseph fully intended to bring harm against him, and so their sin was intentional.

But Joseph said, "While you had your intentions in this action, and you worked to exercise your will to bring evil to me in that very action, God was involved. God was acting, and his intention was purely righteous." No mixture of evil in it. His sovereign providence in it was altogether good. We could see the same thing operating in the story of Job, where Job is at the mercy of Satan and of the Sabi, Sabians, and the Calaldans, who exercise their intentional actions of harm against Job. All the while, in their sin, they're fulfilling the plan of God himself, whose purposes in these things is never evil, but altogether good and glorious.

People choke when I say to them that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass, at least in some sense. As the great St. Augustine said, "In our confessional standards, the Westminster Confession says that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass," but is quick to amend that by saying that not in such a way as to eliminate secondary causes, or to make of no significance the will of the creature, and does no violence to the will of the creature. Nevertheless, God's sovereignty prevails in every instance. I'm sure you've heard this statement many times. Maybe you've repeated it in the past, but now, of course, you will repent of that and never say it again. That you hear this statement that God's sovereignty ends where human freedom begins. Have you heard that? That's blasphemy. A moment's thought will reveal it to be blasphemy, as if the sovereignty of God were in any way limited, conditioned, or dependent on your authority. No, your freedom is a gift of God. It's real. You exercise it. You enjoy it. But your freedom is everywhere limited by God's sovereignty. That's what we mean by sovereignty. God is the sovereign. We are not the sovereign.

And even the fall of the human race was, in some sense, ordained of God. Listen carefully, please. Recently, at the Southern Baptist Convention, a special, last month, a special session was held with 5,000 ministers present, and a debate ensued between one of the top officials of the Southern Baptist Confession or Convention and the president of, uh, Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Dr. Dr. Al Mohler, on the doctrines of grace, and specifically with respect to the doctrine of election. And in the course of the debate, sin was placed at my doorstep, where the head of the Baptist side said, "R.C. Sproul teaches that God needed to have the fall in order to bring about his plan of election." Well, that heated up the email society, and the internet went nuts with that, and I was getting inquiries from many circles, not the least of which from Al Mohler and some of my other friends who were present on that occasion. They said, "R.C., did you ever say anywhere that God needs the fall to bring about his plan of salvation?" I said, "You know, I don't remember everything I've ever said or ever wrote, but I'll have to tell you, I would cut my tongue out before I would make a statement like that. And where this gentleman ever got that quote, I challenge you to ask him to document it, cite it, because he's going to have a hard time because I've never said such a thing. God doesn't need anything. He doesn't need me. He doesn't need you. He doesn't need the fall. He can bring to pass his sacred will however he desires, not because he needs it."

Now, somebody could have heard me state an exposition of Karl Barth, where, in his qualified super lapsarianism, Barth speaks as if God needed the fall to bring about his plan of redemption. And I may have been expounding Barth on some occasion and said, "Barth teaches that God needs the fall," and somebody turned on the radio and heard me say, "God needs the fall." Just heard the second half of the sentence. But, uh, but please don't go out of here thinking that I'm teaching you that God needed to have the fall. But I did say he'd ordained it, in some sense. Why? How do I know that? Well, because it happened, and because God is sovereign, and because God is omniscient, and he knew before the fall that Adam and Eve were going to fall, and he had the power and the authority to intervene to crush the head of the serpent before the serpent ever opened his diabolical mouth. And he could have prevented the fall from occurring, but he didn't. That's not the same thing as saying he forced Adam and Eve to sin. He let them sin when he could have stopped them from sinning. And if he could have stopped them from sinning and did not stop them from sinning, then that means clearly that he chose not to stop them from sinning. And if he chose not to stop them from sinning, then manifestly, in some sense, he ordained that they not be stopped. And if he ordained that they not be stopped negatively, then that means positively he ordained that they would, in fact, sin. Is that clear? That's simple, isn't it? Really, that's not rocket science.

But if the Lord God omnipotent even permits the fall for his own purpose, he must have a good reason for it. And even though evil is in the world, and evil is evil, it's good that it is here, or it couldn't possibly be here, because whatever God ordains that should come to pass according to his inscrutable purpose and eternal purpose must be ultimately for good. Now, I said I'd come perilously close to saying evil is good. And I'm, I'm close, but no cigar. Evil is still evil. I'm saying that evil is evil, but that it is here is within the broader eternal purpose of God for some good purpose, which we know ultimately is his glory. What if the creator would permit the creature to be engaged in evil only to manifest in the final judgment God's perfect, just justice in punishing wickedness? I don't know that is the reason, but I know that whatever God does, he does well. And here is the affirmation in Romans 8:28: "that everything, all things, not all things are good." It's not an illusionist saying there is no such thing as evil. That's not what Paul is saying. But "all things are working together for good." That is, the ultimate purpose is a good purpose. And in the meantime, even though evil befalls us and afflicts us, that evil that is afflicting us now is working for our good. The Greek word that Paul uses here is the word *synergeo*, from which we get the word synergy. A work of synergy or synergism is a cooperative venture. When two or more parties work together on a task, we say that there is synergy involved in the activity, a working together of two or more parties. And that's the word that Paul uses to describe the way in which God's providence works together with our afflictions for good.

Now notice the restriction. Notice the limitation that the apostle places here: that this divine synergy by which all of the bad things that happen to us or through us or by us are working together ultimately for good is not a statement that Paul makes for the benefit of everybody. It's not that everybody is living in a world where their afflictions are working together ultimately for their good. Rather, the restriction is plain: "All things are working together for good for to those who love God and to those who are the called according to his purpose." So, first of all, this drama of concurrence of synergy, whereby God is making all things work together for good, is simply for those who love him. And obviously, that is not everybody, because the vast majority of mankind live and die at enmity with God and are not numbered among those to whom all things are working together for good. But if you are a Christian, and the love of God is shed abroad in your hearts, then you have nothing to fear. Remember that this statement, 8:28, is in chapter 8, and we're still dealing with the question, "Is it safe?" Are we in a situation and an environment in our lives as Christians where there is now no condemnation that we have to fear? That we have nothing to fear from eternity. We have nothing to fear from the afflictions that we have to endure in this present life. Because all of these things are, every moment, working together under the sovereignty of God for good if we love him. It is working for the believer, for those who love God. And who are those who love God? Paul does not leave us to grope in the dark about their identity: "for those who are the called according to his purpose."

You know, we hear debates all the time about election, predestination, that sort of thing. It's endless. The discussions will go on until the second coming. I'm sure that every generation of Christians has to fight this battle as if the doctrine of election were some esoteric doctrine that only elite intellectuals and the professional theologians can grasp, as if it weren't on every page in the Bible. But it is. But if it weren't, and that the only verse in scripture we had was the one I just read, that would be enough to establish the doctrine of election forever. Because the assurance is given to those who love God, and those who love God are identified as the ones who are the called according to his purpose.

Now, how do people deal with this text? They will say, "Well, the Bible, when it speaks of those who are called, means those people who have heard with their ears outwardly the preaching of the gospel. And some of those who hear the gospel respond positively, and some reject it. And those, obviously, who say yes to the call of the gospel are those who are the ones who love God, and those who reject the calling of the gospel are those who do not love God, in the final analysis." A nice theory. It's not what the apostle is saying here. It's not at all what he's teaching here, because he's defining those who love God as the ones who are the called according to God's purpose.

Now, here's something that may be surprising to you. In almost every occasion in which the Bible, the Word of God, speaks of the call of God, it is speaking of what we call the effectual call of God. Last night, if you were at the banquet and we had the Q&A session afterwards, the very first question that was raised was about effectual calling. And that is a term that describes the power of God's call whereby what he calls forth to occur occurs, that what he purposes to effect by that call is effected. It starts with creation, when God calls the world into existence. Acts *nilo* calls the light to shine into the darkness. It is not an invitation. God does not plead with the darkness to produce some light. He does not woo or entice the universe to come into being, saying, "Please, O world, come into being." When God, in his omnipotent power, says, "Let there be light," and makes that call, that call is always and everywhere effectual. What God purposes in whatever call he gives, that purpose is never and can never be frustrated. Why, dear friends? Because God is God. He really is God. He's not a president elected by majority vote. He rules sovereignly from all eternity because he is the Lord God omnipotent who reigns. Nothing, no darkness, no void, no emptiness, no threat of chaos, no sinful disposition can ultimately resist the power of his call, because his grace in this call is irresistible. Not in the sense that we don't have the capacity to resist. My goodness, our whole lives demonstrate that we can resist grace. We do resist grace. But when we talk about irresistible grace, we're not talking about an attractive young lady named Grace that nobody can fail to be charmed by. But irresistible grace means, even though we resist with all our might, God's grace trumps our resistance and brings to pass what his eternal plan has been, what his divine purpose is to bring it to pass.

When God and Christ called Paul to be an apostle, it was no mere outward summons. When Paul identifies himself, his mission, his life, "Paul called to be an apostle, not by men, but by the will of God," he's referring to that divine vocation, that divine purpose which is effected by the call itself. So when we're talking about the called or the elect, those who are the called-out ones from the world are those who are not merely been summoned outwardly, but those whom the Spirit calls inwardly by coming into their hearts, changing the disposition of their hearts, and affecting the transformation of their souls, the resurrection from spiritual death to spiritual life. That is the power of the Holy Spirit working among us. If you are a believer today, it's not because you made God's call effectual on your life. It's because God made his call effectual on your life, because you were the called according to his purpose.

What is a purpose? It's a desired end, a planned consequence. And when we set forth our goals and articulate our purposes and set down in writing the ends that we would like to accomplish in this life, such goal setting, in all due diligence, is nevertheless at best fallible, and we know the best-laid plans of mice and men can go astray and fail to end in the designed purpose. But fortunately, the poet, in talking about the best-laid plans of mice and men, did not include God in that category, because the best-laid plans of God never come to naught.

There is a doctrine of God that is pervasive in the Christian world today that strips him of his sovereignty, that in effect strips him of his very deity, by which this poor, impoverished deity wrings his hands in heaven, hoping and praying at times against hope that somebody will take seriously the sacrifice that his Son made and bring his plan of salvation to fruition. That's not God. Not worthy to be given the title God. God is the Lord God. The God who says to Moses, "Let my people go." I mean, not Moses says to Pharaoh, "Let my people go. And if you don't, I'm going to destroy your very land in which you live." "That the world may know that I am the Lord." Okay, go. Go. Please get out of here. Just no more plagues, Lord. But God hardened Pharaoh's heart. So on the judgment day, Pharaoh will say, "Well, God was a hyper-Calvinist. He hardened my heart. What could I possibly do? How can he judge me harshly for doing what he purposed that I should do?" No. Sometimes the writer says Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Sometimes the hardening is attributed to God. Paul will explore that further, as I said, in Romans 9. But keep in mind that even Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the universe at that time, was clay in the hands of our Creator and our Redeemer, who had a purpose for his people and through his people to the whole world. A purpose of Exodus, a purpose of liberation, a purpose of redemption, and a purpose of salvation, which was not, beloved, an afterthought. It's not as if God never considered the Exodus until he heard the cries of the people of Israel groaning about the burdens imposed upon them by Pharaoh, who wouldn't give them straw for their bricks. And so God notices this calamitous situation, said, "I better do something about this." No, no. As early as Joseph, whom the future Pharaoh didn't know, God spoke to the children of Israel through their brother Joseph, saying, "You meant it for evil. God meant it for good, that many will come out through his salvation." That God planned the bondage of Israel. He planned the exodus from Israel, just as much as he planned the betrayal of Joseph and his imprisonment, and his demonstration that all of the afflictions and suffering that Joseph endured was working together not only for Joseph's good but for Israel's good, for the good of all of the saints of all of the ages.

That's why it's not by accident that immediately following this dramatic affirmation that "all things work together for good to those who love the Lord," Paul launches into the golden chain, whereby he says, "For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Whom he predestined, these he called. Whom he called, these he also justified. Whom he justified, he also glorified." That golden chain comes immediately in the wake of Romans 8:28.

One last point before I finish: that what we can get from Romans 8:28 is this, that in the meantime, in between time, each one of us is visited in our lives at some point with what may be called or defined as tragedy. We are actors in the theater of the tragic. Tragedies are on our minds every day. They're in our bulletin every week as we pray for those in our congregation who are experiencing the tragic in their lives. But what Romans 8:28 teaches, dear friends, is that ultimately, ultimately, not approximately, but ultimately, there are no tragedies for the Christian. The tragic now is blessing later. That every tragedy we experience in this world, God is working with it, molding it, shaping it for our eternal blessedness. So the tragic is ephemeral. The tragic is temporary. The tragic is simply in this world, but never, ever permanent.

The other side of the coin is this: Before the unbeliever who persists in his unbelief, every blessing that he receives from the hands of God in this life and in this world, dear friends, is ultimately working together for his damnation. So that every blessing that the impenitent person receives from the hands of God ungratefully adds more sin to that depository of sin that Paul mentioned earlier, where we heap up treasures of wrath against the day of wrath. Every blessing that goes unthanked, unacknowledged, unappreciated by the pagan will end up as a tragedy for that person. We live in a topsy-turvy world where the tragedy for the Christian is a blessing for eternity. The blessing for the pagan is a tragedy for eternity. Again, "all things God works together for good for those who love him. For those who are the called, not just outwardly called, but those who are the called according to his divine, his supernatural, and his omnipotent purpose."

Let's pray. Surely, O God, it is safe for those who love you. And that though we suffer evil for a season, that evil is nothing compared to the good that you are working for our benefit through us. Help us, O God, to look at today always from the perspective of eternity and in light of your promises that cannot be broken. Amen.

If we look at the period of the 18th century in the American frontier, we notice that there was a recurring motif during the Great Awakening in the preaching that was found at that time, and there was a sort of a dual emphasis. On the one hand, the the message of the preachers was that man is very, very, very bad, and that God is very, very, very mad. In other words, there was such an emphasis on the sinfulness of man and the wrath of God that, uh, almost what some have called a scare theology that dominated that period. And then in the 19th century, we saw a dramatic reaction against that kind of accent in preaching. So that now the message was, well, man, it's not quite so bad, and and God's not really quite so mad. And there the emphasis was upon the love of God and the the goodness of man.

Well, at the turn of this century, the beginning of the 20th century, there was a response to that reaction on the continent in the world of theology with the advent of a theology called crisis theology. And it was called crisis theology because it borrowed the term from the from the Greek word *krisis*, which means judgment. And these theologians on the continent said that if we're going to take seriously the biblical portrait of God, we must once again take seriously what the Bible says about the wrath of God.

Now, there were some extremists in that group who said that what we see in the scriptures, particularly in the Old Testament at certain times and places, is an expression of something that is irrational in the character of God himself. In other words, they said this: "Yes, we do see, unavoidably and unmistakably, a manifestation of the anger of God in the pages of the Old Testament. But that anger is not so much a manifestation of God's righteousness or of his holiness as it is a manifestation of a defect within God's own character." Believe it or not, I've read some theologians that speak about the "shadow side of Yahweh," saying that there resides within God the element of the demonic. And this demonic aspect of God shows itself, displays itself, by sudden, unprovoked manifestations of a whimsical, capricious, arbitrary anger.

Some of the passages that are in view would include, uh, a narrative that we read in the book of Leviticus, which I'll read briefly for you. At the beginning of the 10th chapter of Leviticus, we read this account: "Now Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons, took their censers and put fire in them and added incense. And they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord."

Now, in this understated, terse description of the death of the sons of Aaron, it seems to indicate for us an example of this swift and capricious manifestation of God's wrath. When I read this, I, I try to read between the lines and I ask myself, how did Aaron react to all of this? Imagine it. You remember earlier in the scriptures, the elaborate ceremony that God ordained when he consecrated Aaron as the high priest of Israel. How God ordered the minute details of the design of the garments that were to be worn by the high priest that were designed for glory and for beauty. And then we can imagine how Aaron felt when he saw his own sons consecrated to the priesthood. And here are these young priests who, they do something that we're not exactly sure what it was, but somehow they came to the altar and they did, as young clergy will often do, try a little experimentation, innovation, play a little, uh, almost adolescent type pranks as they're fooling around in their job, and in a sense of immaturity, and without warning and without rebuke, as they offer this strange fire on the altar. Wham! God strikes them dead instantly. Can you hear Aaron? He goes to Moses and he says, "What's going on here? What kind of a God is it that we serve? I'm devoting my entire life to the ministry and to the service of Yahweh, and what are the thanks that I get like that? He takes my sons for a small transgression. What kind of a God is this?"

Listen to what Moses said. Moses then said to Aaron, "This is what the Lord spoke of when he said, 'Among those who approach me, I will be regarded as holy, and in the sight of all the people I will be honored.'" And then we read these words, "And Aaron held his peace." You better believe Aaron held his peace. When the Almighty comes down and said, "Look, Aaron, I know that this is crushing to you that I have taken the lives of your sons, but do you remember when I established the priesthood? Do you remember the day I set you apart and consecrated you for that holy task that I said that there are certain principles I will not negotiate with my priests? I will be regarded as holy from any by anyone who dares to presume to minister in my name and before the people. I will be treated with reverence." And when God spoke, Aaron shut up.

But there are other occasions like that, aren't there? One of the, the most bloodcurdling stories in the Old Testament is the story of Uzzah the Gittite. You all know the story of Uzzah. You tell it to your fuzzy. No, that's about a bear. It's the story of the transfer of the Ark of the Covenant. Remember, the Ark of the Covenant was the throne of God. It was the most sacred vessel in the Holy of Holies, and it had fallen into the hands of the Philistines. And then, through a series of amazing incidences, it had been returned to the Jewish people and kept in safekeeping for a while until it was the appropriate time had come to pass for the Ark of the Covenant to be restored to its place in the sanctuary. And David ordered a celebration and called for the Ark of the Covenant to be transferred into the city. And the people lined the streets and they danced and they sang as they moved and saw the procession of God's throne before them. And we are told that the Ark of the Covenant was transported by virtue of being placed in an ox cart. And the Bible tells us that as the cart was moving down the road, the Gittites were walking along beside it, protecting it, watching over it. One whose name was Uzzah. And in the midst of the procession, suddenly one of the oxen stumbled, and the cart began to teeter and to tilt, and it looked as if this holy vessel of Israel was about to slide from the ox cart and fall into the mud and be desecrated. And so instinctively, involuntarily, Uzzah stretched forth his hand to steady the ark, to make sure that this throne of God would not fall into the mud. And what happened? The heavens opened, and a voice came down saying, "Thank you, Uzzah." No. As soon as Uzzah touched the holy ark of God, God struck him dead.

I remember reading a Sunday school curriculum in one of the denominations I used to work with. It came from our headquarters, and I looked at passages like this and it said, "Now, we understand that these kinds of stories that we read in the Old Testament, like Uzzah and Nadab, like God's destroying the whole world with a flood, men and children, God's ordering the Harem, telling the Jewish people to go into the land of Canaan and to slaughter all of the inhabitants of Canaan, men, women, and children, that this can't possibly be a manifestation of the real character of God. But we have to understand these stories in the Old Testament simply as ancient, primitive, pre-scientific, semi-nomadic Jewish people who interpreted the events that they saw in light of their own peculiar theology. Probably what happened was that Uzzah had a heart attack and he died. And the, and the Jewish writer attributed the cause of his death to an unmerciful expression of this vicious wrath of God." In other words, it was unthinkable to the authors of this curriculum that God himself could actually have anything to do with the death of Uzzah.

Yet, if we look carefully at the Old Testament and see the history of the Gittites, I think the answer is made apparent to us. You remember that in the Old Testament, that the 12 tribes of Israel were given certain tasks and certain allotments of the land. And the tribe of Levi was set apart from God as the family that would be responsible for the priesthood and the matters of this, of the temple and of education and so on. And Levi was the tribe, and within that tribe of Levi, there were certain other major families, and each family was given a particular task. Now, Kohath was one of the sons of Levi, and the family of Kohath were were separated by God for a specific task. Their job, their whole reason for being, their life's vocation was to take care of the sacred vessels. And they were trained and disciplined from children with all of the prescriptions and the meticulous details of the law of God about how these sacred objects and vessels were to be treated. And the one absolute, non-negotiable principle that every Kohathite had drummed into him from the time he was a child was this: Never, never, never, never, ever touch the throne of God. And God said, "If you touch it, you die."

First place, we wonder why in the world the ark was being transported in an ox cart. It was to be transported on foot. There were loops at the edge of the throne through which staves were inserted to make sure that no human hand touched that throne. But instead, they were in a hurry, and they put it in the ox cart, and they're going down, and did the unthinkable. He touched the throne of God. But we say, "So, wait a minute. Why did he do it? Motive was pure. He was trying to preserve the throne of God from being desecrated by the mud." But the presumptuous sin of Uzzah was this, ladies and gentlemen: He assumed that his hands were less polluted than the dirt. There was nothing about the earth that would desecrate the throne of God. The earth was lying there on the ground, doing what God has called earth to do. Being dirt, turning to dust when it's dry, and turning to mud when it's mixed with water. It obeys the laws of God day in and day out, doing exactly what dirt is supposed to do. There's nothing defiling about the earth. It was the hand of man that God said, "I don't want on this throne." In a word, Uzzah broke the law of God, and God killed him.

But still, it seems, doesn't it, that this is a manifestation of cruel and unusual punishment? If you look, for example, in the Pentateuch, and and and see the list of capital crimes that are set forth in Israel, there are over 30 offenses for which God commanded the death penalty among the Jews. Not only for first-degree murder, but for homosexual acts, for adultery. If a child was unruly in public and and assaulted his parents, he could be put to death. It was a capital crime for a Jewish person to go to a fortune teller. Over 30 offenses, God ordained that people should be killed. And again, the theologians look at that and they say, "How primitive, how bloodthirsty, how severe. That can't possibly be the Word of God." Particularly in light of the New Testament spirit of mercy and love.

You know, one of the fascinating chapters or footnotes of church history is that the historical incident that provoked the formal compilation of the Bible as the canon of sacred scripture. Remember, this is a book that's made up of many separate books, 20-some books in the New Testament. These individual epistles and gospels that were written very early were circulated in the early church and were recognized as scripture and functioned as scripture, but nobody bothered to put them together in one binding and said, "This is the Bible," until a man by the name of Marcion came along and produced the first formal edition of the Bible, the first canon of Holy Scripture. It's a very strange canon. The Old Testament was absent, and most of the gospel materials was absent, and just a few remarks from the Apostle Paul were comprised in this canon because Marcion's working principle was this: that any reference to the God of the Old Testament, Jehovah, couldn't possibly be sacred scripture because Jesus in the New Testament reveals a different deity from that explosive, hot-tempered, ill-willed deity that thunders from Sinai in the Old Testament. Have you ever wondered about that? I hear it today all the time. There are Marcionites all over the place saying to me, "Well, I like the New Testament, but that God of the Old Testament is more than I could handle."

When we compare the Old Testament to the New Testament, the Old Testament seems severe. I've had help in dealing with this from the, of the writings of a, of a very important theologian who's very controversial in the Roman Catholic Church. His name is Hans Küng. In one of his earlier and most important writings, written in German under the title, translated in English under the title *Justification*, Dr. Küng deals with this very question of the seeming injustice of God's wrath that we find in scripture, particularly in the Old Testament. And he makes this point. He said, "You know, the real mystery of iniquity, the real puzzle, is not that a holy and righteous God should exercise justice. What is mysterious about a holy Creator punishing willfully disobedient creatures? He said, 'The real mystery is why God, through generation after generation after generation, tolerates rebellious creatures who commit cosmic treason against his authority.'" Do you ever think of it like that?

And Küng goes on to say this. He said, "Remember that even though there are 30-some capital offenses in the Old Testament, that doesn't represent a cruel and unusual form of justice at the hands of God. It already represents a massive reduction in the number of capital crimes." He said, "Remember the rules that were set forth at creation when God, the omnipotent ruler of heaven and earth, breathed into dirt the breath of life and shaped a creature in his own image and gave that creature the highest status on this planet and the greatest blessing and gift that he owed them. Not at all, the very gift of life, and stamped his holy image on that piece of dirt. Gave them life. He said, 'The soul that sins shall die.'" All sin was viewed in creation as a capital offense. And not that this, the punishment would be death sometime after you've had your three score and ten. But what are the terms of creation? "The day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." Now, I know people look at that and they say that what the text is saying there is, is that the day the transgression takes place, we suffer spiritual death. That's not what God said. That may be true, that man suffered spiritual death the day he transgressed the law of God. But the, but the terms of creation were, "The day that you eat, you die biologically. It's over."

Now, is there anyone who could convict a holy, perfectly righteous Creator who, out of sheer mercy, creates a creature, gives him all of this blessing? Is there anything wrong with that God extinguishing a creature who has the audacity to challenge God's authority to rule his creation? Have you ever stopped to consider what is involved in the slightest sin? In the slightest sin, beloved, I am saying that my will has a right that is higher than the rights of God. It terrifies me in our culture that people do things like abortion and say they have the moral right to do it. If I know anything about God, I know God never has given anyone the moral right to do something like that. And I shudder to think of what will happen when a person stands before God and said, "I had the right to do that." Where did you get that right? But in the slightest sin, never mind a heinous sin like abortion. In the slightest, what we would call a pecadillo, in that thing, I defy the authority of God. I insult the majesty of God. I challenge the justice of God. But we are so accustomed to doing that and so careful to justify our disobedience that we have become recalcitrant in our hearts. Our consciences have been seared, and we think it no serious matter to disobey the King of the universe. I call it cosmic treason.

But what God did was this, as Dr. Küng points out. He says that instead of destroying mankind in the moment of that act of revolt and rebellion against God's authority, God reached forth and extended his mercy. Instead of justice, he poured out his grace. And the history of the Old Testament, beloved, is the history of repeated episodes of the manifestations of God's gracious forbearance and merciful forgiveness towards a people who disobey him day in and day out. And Küng speculates. He said, "I grant I don't know the secret council of God. I can't read the deity's mind. But he said, I wonder if what it is that why we find periodically in scripture this swift and sudden exercise of justice. Perhaps God finds it necessary to interrupt his normal pattern of longsuffering, forbearing grace and mercy to remind us of his justice. He himself complains that his forbearing mercy is designed to give us time to repent. But instead of repenting, we exploit it and we come to think that God doesn't care if we sin, or even if he does care, there's nothing he can do about it."

I saw a young man once defy God, screaming to the heavens, "If you're up there, strike me dead!" challenging the Almighty like that. I didn't want to look. But I saw his dead body the next day, and I'll never forget it. But ladies and gentlemen, we become so accustomed to God's normal patterns of grace and mercy that we not only begin to take it for granted, we begin to assume it. We begin to demand it. And then if we don't get it, we're furious.

This morning I spoke at Dallas Theological Seminary. I spoke from a passage on the New Testament where Jesus spoke to this very theme. And I used my favorite illustration of this. When I was a young college teacher, I had the task of teaching 250 freshmen in a college, Introduction to the Old Testament. And on the first day of class, I had to give out the assignments, and I had to be very careful about what the requirements were, because they'll twist them any way they can to get out from them. And I said, "Look, we have just a few little term papers here, uh, three to five pages or two to four pages, short little papers. I said, 'Four of them. If you don't turn them in on time, you get an F for the assignment, unless you're confined in the infirmary or a death of immediate family.'" Had to spell that out for them. So, does everybody understand? Oh, yes, we agree. The first one's due September the 30th. September the 30th. 225 students diligently came forward with their term papers. 25 of the students were standing there shivering and shaking in fear, and they said, "Oh, Dr. Sproul, we didn't get our papers done. We didn't budget our time. We didn't make the transition from high school to college. Please give us a, don't give us an F. Let us have a couple of days extension." I said, "Okay." I said, "I'll let you have it this time, but don't let it happen again." Now, remember now, next month, I want those papers here in time. October 30th came. 200 students came with their term paper. 50 of them don't have their term paper. So, where's your term papers? They said, "Oh, Professor, everybody's term papers were due this week, and this week was was homecoming, and we were busy with floats and all that stuff, and please give us one more chance." And I said, "Okay, I'll give you a two-day extension." And you know what happened? They began to sing spontaneously, "We love you, Professor Sproul. Oh, yes, we do." I was the most popular professor on campus until November the 30th. November the 30th, 150 students came with their term paper. The other hundred walked in like they were going down the street for a loaf of bread. They were casual, relaxed, came in. I said, "Johnson." He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Where's your term paper?" He said, "Hey, hey, Prof. You know, don't worry about it. I'll have it for you in a couple days." I took out the black book. I said, "Jones." He said, "Yes." I said, "F. Ewalt. Where's your paper?" "I don't have it, sir." I said, "F. Cunningham." F. About that time, somebody in the back of the room shouted out. You can have guess what they shouted? What? "That's not fair!" Patrick, did you say that? He said, "Yes." I said, "You said that's not fair." And he said, "Right." I said, "Do I recall that you didn't turn your paper in on time the last time?" He said, "That's right." I said, "Okay, if you want justice, you're going to get justice." And I wrote F for both. I said, "Anybody else? Anybody else want justice?"

Ladies and gentlemen, we need to understand the difference between justice and mercy. The minute you think that God owes you mercy, a bell should go off in your brain that warns you and tells you that you're no longer thinking about mercy. For by definition, mercy is voluntary. God is never obligated to be merciful to a rebellious creature. He doesn't owe you mercy. As he has said, "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy." And I'll close with this. A holy God is both just and merciful, never unjust. There is never an occasion on any page of sacred scripture where God ever, ever punishes an innocent person. God simply doesn't know how to be unjust. I thank him every night that he does know how to be non-just, because mercy is non-justice, but it is not injustice. And so I'll leave you with this: When you say your prayers, don't ever ask God to give you justice. He might do it. And if God were to deal with us according to justice, we would perish as swiftly as Nadab and Abihu and Uzzah and Ananias and Sapphira in the New Testament. But we live, beloved, by grace, by his mercy. And let's never forget it.

Let's pray. Our Father, forgive us for presuming upon your loving kindness, for demanding it, for being angry when we don't receive it. Oh Father, help us to be amazed by grace. For we ask it in the name of Christ. Amen.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled, and they realized that they had been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them to go aside of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, "What shall we do with these men? For indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them, that from now on they speak to no man in this name." And so they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them because of the people, since all they had all glorified God for what had been done, for the man was over 40 years old on whom this miracle of healing had been performed.

Let us pray. O Father, give us ears to hear of the boldness of Peter and John before this august body of authority and instruct us by thy Spirit on how we are to act in similar circumstances. But we ask that in Jesus' name. Amen.

I was reading a novel the other day, and I came across a strange line where one of the police detectives was often on television in the city, and somebody came up to him and said, "Oh, you're that world-famous detective." And he said, "Yes, I'm world-famous in the city of Minneapolis." Anytime somebody says that somebody's has to introduce somebody is saying that they're famous, it seems to be unnecessary, because if they're famous, they shouldn't have to be introduced. But we never know how far and how broad our influence may extend. And sometimes we're surprised, aren't we?

I'll never forget one of the most shocking, surprising experiences of my life came on the day when Lech Wałęsa, the leader of the Polish Solidarity movement, was placed under house arrest by the Soviet officials. Some of you will remember that the picture of his arrest was on the front page of every newspaper in America. And when he was arrested, he was shaking his fist in defiance of the arresting authorities. And in his hand, he was holding one of my books. I said, "That's incredible." I said, "And not only that, I, I later found out that that same book he placed in the casket of his father when his father died and was buried." And so I thought, "Never would have dreamed in a million years that anything I ever wrote would ever find its way into the hands of Lech Wałęsa." But it made me think a lot about his position in modern history, because I thought, "Why was it that the government at that time interested in arresting him? Why didn't they just execute him?" That's usually the way it works in tyranny. The tyrants always have a secret police. They find a way to get rid of those who are in opposition to them. And usually it's by some form of execution. But I realized that the reason why Lech Wałęsa was put in house arrest and was not executed was that he had already become too well known, and to kill him would have made him a martyr. And the thing that every tyrannical regime fears more than anything else is the public uprising. Back in the 18th century, the philosopher Montesquieu, when he wrote

His book, The Spirit of the Laws, said that the maintenance of all forms of tyranny depends and relies upon the ability of the government to keep the people afraid. That's why you have purges. That's why you have secret police. That's why you have mass execution in nations that follow that sort of regiment. And what Monescu said was that it only takes one person, one luck Valencia with enough courage to withstand the tyrant to bring down their powerful regime.

Well, throughout history, we have seen individuals who have swam against the current, who have stood against powerful obstacles. Mahatma Gandhi in our own country, Martin Luther King stood against the authorities of his day. He defied those authorities and raised all kinds of questions about the legitimacy of civil disobedience.

Back in the middle of the 18th century in the little town of Northampton in Massachusetts where Jonathan Edwards was the preacher, the town itself was divided about equally well before the Revolutionary War in terms of their loyalty to the crown and to their loyalty to their local magistrates because already the division over those loyalties was being felt in New England. And if you read your American history, you know that there were Christians on both sides of that debate. There were those Christians who insisted that it is never legitimate for any person or body under any circumstance to disobey the civil magistrate. And so though they were feeling exploited by the taxation and so on coming from Parliament in England, they refused to rebel or to join in the rebellion on matters of principle and on conscientious grounds of being obedient to civil magistrates because the Bible teaches again and again that it is the Christian's duty to submit to those who are in authority over us. Whether it's children to their parents, students to their teachers, employees to their employer, citizens to their government, whatever it is, wherever we find levels of authority over us, the Bible calls us to be model citizens of submission and of subjection.

And it was out of that principle of submission to the civil magistrate that Mary and Joseph made the arduous journey to Bethlehem, risking the life of both Mary and the unborn infant Jesus. Out of this deep affliction and inconvenience, they made the journey to obey the authorities that were over them. The principle that comes to us again and again in scripture is the principle of submission to those who are in authority. But always the question arises, is it ever legitimate? Is it ever ethically right to refuse to obey authorities who are over you? That's the question I want to look at this morning in light of the text that I just read.

Let's look again at what's taking place because we continue to deal with the reaction of not only the people but the authorities that ruled over the Jews in Jerusalem to the healing of the man who had been born unable to stand or to walk when he was healed by Peter and John by the gate. Beautiful. And so we read in chapter 4 this.

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they noticed they perceived that they were uneducated, untrained men. Now they could have stopped right there and said therefore ignorant rabble rousers who have no credibility. But that's not the point here because they add to it and they marveled because they marveled at their power. They marveled at their persuasive skills. They marveled obviously at the eloquence of Peter as he spoke on this occasion bringing to mind does it not the promise of Jesus to his disciples before he left this world saying don't be afraid when you are brought up before councils and the rulers of this world because in that time the Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you the ability to say what needs to be said. And so these men believed that promise of God. And in the face of adversity and opposition, Peter spoke with this boldness so that the whole Sanhedrin, the 71 of them along with the people were amazed and they realized they had been with Jesus.

What a statement. How many sermons could we get just out of that one line? How many times has anybody ever said to you, "Oh, I know about you. I can tell that you've just been spending time with Jesus." Nobody's ever made that connection to me. They talk about my connection to the Steelers or the Penguins or to the Irish or whatever, but nobody says, "Oh, he must have just been with Jesus." But they made the connection. The events that had transpired so recently in Jerusalem were so resonant in their ears that was unmistakable that these men belonged to that group that followed Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.

Well, sure they could say something against it. They'd say anything they wanted to against it. But what the author of scripture is telling what Luke is saying is they didn't dare publicly say anything against it. Who from the Sanhedrin? Who among the scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees going to come out and say that's enough of that. Stop this healing. We can't have any more miracles around here. They didn't dare say that because of the multitudes of the people who were there. So then they commanded them to go aside out of the council and they conferred among themselves. They went into executive session and they said, "What do we do with these men?" But it doesn't even say, "What do we do with this men?" The question is what? What do we do to these men? We have to do something to them because this is getting out of hand and this has to stop. And when they said, "What shall we do to these men?" They weren't suggesting giving them some kind of honorary banquet. But they said, "Indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it."

Now, here are the enemies of the apostles conferring among themselves, and they say, "Well, what are we going to do now? It's manifest. It's clear that through these guys a notable miracle has taken place. The whole city knows about it and everybody's cheering them on. Of course, we aren't. Can you believe how wicked the hearts of fallen people are when they know the manifest power of God has been given right before their very eyes and they still enter in a conspiracy to squaltch it? That's what they're doing. But so that it spreads no further among the people, here's what they come up with. Let us severely threaten them. Let's not just warn them. Let's not just say you stop this or else. Let's make our threat severe that from now on they speak to no man in this name."

So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. They come out of executive session. They call back in Peter and John said, "Come on in here. We're not going to do anything to you now for what you've done. We're gonna let you slide this time. We'll just write it up as a warning, but don't you dare ever mention the name of Jesus again as long as you live. We don't want to hear that name from your lips."

Now, let me ask you this morning, if the apostles at that moment decided, the Supreme Court of the nation has spoken. It is our obligation now to obey. And suppose Peter and John came out of there and the people said, "Well, what they say?" Peter said, "My lips are sealed." I'm never going to speak about what's his name again. Had that been the response of the apostles, we would not be here this morning talking about it or listening to a story about it, would we?

But all of a sudden, Peter and John are in the worst of all possible conflicts of ethics. A conflict between ruling authorities. Every child knows what it's like when the child goes to the mother and says, "Mama, can I go to the movie tonight?" And mother says, "No." And so what does the child do then? Goes to daddy, hey dad, can I go to the movies tonight? Tries to set one authority after the other, but it doesn't work because the father always says, "Go ask your mother."

There's the soldier who's on trial for his life for war crimes at Nornberg, involved in genocide, and the court interrogates them. And the excuse that is given is what? "I was only obeying orders. I was only doing what my commanding officer required of me." But the court said, "No, you are required at that point to disobey this magistrate rather than to commit genocide." Martin Luther King knew the law. He knew that any statute published by any state in the United States was challengeable by the Supreme Court if it violated constitutional rights. And so with passive resistance, he went ahead and broke the law in order to get the test case before the Supreme Court. Which right was given him by the higher magistrate with respect to the lesser magistrate? We still have that. But the conflict of those situations at times can be unbearable.

And here's how the apostles handled it. They said, "Whether it's right in the sight of God to listen to you or to God, you judge." Wow. These guys are supposed to be the judge of Israel. Of the Supreme Court. But you see, still ringing in the ears of the disciples and of the apostles because only a few weeks had gone by since they heard these words was the word of Jesus that we call the great commission to go into all the world to make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the name of the Son. And of the name of the Holy Ghost. Jesus gave to Peter and to John and to the entire church of the first century a mandate and it's our mandate.

And if any authority under heaven comes to the Christian and tells them he may not pray, he may not preach, he may not worship, he may not tithe, he may not do any of those things that God commands, that Christian may not only disobey, that Christian must disobey. Now in our ethics courses in the seminary, we give the principle and I've said it's a simple principle. Anybody can understand it. The application of it to concrete circumstances is often excruciatingly difficult. The principle is this, that we are always to obey those in authority over us unless that authority commands us to do something God forbids or forbids us from doing something God commands.

If the husband says to the wife, "I want you to earn some extra income for us by turning to prostitution." Not only may she disobey him, she must disobey him. On the other hand, a woman's married to an unbelieving man, and the man says to her, "You may not go to that church on Wednesday night and join the choir." What should the wife do? She should stay home because God nowhere commands women to sing in the choir. I plead for it, but I can't command it. But what if the husband says to the wife, "You are not permitted to go to church on the Sabbath and join the corporate worship of the people of God." Not only may she disobey him, she must disobey him because God commands her to be in the assembling together of the saints.

Do you see how this can be very painful and very costly when we are caught in this vice between two authorities that differ and we can never use the copout "I'm just obeying orders" as a license or an excuse for sin. But the other side of it is this. Just because God gives us the right and the responsibility to disobey when an authority over us commands us to do something he forbids or forbids us from doing something God commands. That is not a license to be disobedient. Just when we disagree with the authority or if the authority is exploiting us or if the authority is afflicting us bringing us discomfort or inconvenience. How inconvenienced were Joseph and Mary in making that arduous journey to Bethlehem. But they submitted because God never commanded that Joseph and Mary be comfortable or be wealthy or be popular.

And so again, the principle that's the general principle is we bend over backwards to be submissive, but we stand with ramrod defiance when the magistrate commands disobedience to God. That's why it's very important for us to understand in our daily lives, what it is God commands, and what it is God forbids. Otherwise, we are like sheep without a shepherd and we go along with what Nichi called a herd morality, doing whatever anybody tells us to do. When in fact, there are times the Christian has to say no. There's a reason why the first century was a century where the blood of the church became the seed of the church's growth through the martyrdom of those who would not submit to tyrants who told them to deny the faith in Christ. With Job, we have to say, "Though they slay us, yet we will honor him." And so I urge you Christians to be prepared for that time when you have to choose obedience to those who command sin or obedience to Christ.

Let's pray. Father, forgive us for the times when we have disobeyed authority for our own pleasure, not out of ethical necessity. And at the same time, forgive us for the times when we've capitulated to authority out of fear rather than faithfulness to thee. Oh God, give us the wisdom to know when it is proper to disobey the authorities that you have put over us. That we may by our obedience whenever we can give honor and glory to that one who has authority over all lesser authorities, even the King of the Kings and the Lord of the Lords. For we pray in his name. Amen.

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How To Identify An Evil Person Before They Ruin Your Life | Rc Sproul Teaching Series

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