Christians and Politics Part 2 : Biblical, Patristic, and Early Anabaptist Perspective - Dean Taylor

We are thrilled to present "Christians in Politics: A Challenge from History," now available as a free Historic Faith course. You can watch it on the Historic Faith website and right here on the Sound Faith channel. In these unprecedented times, it's more vital than ever for Christians to stand firm and reflect on the kingdom we are called to serve. This episode, we're going to look at biblical, patristic, and early Anabaptist perspectives. In review, we've looked at terrible things that have been happening in this world, and we're acknowledging that we are living in very challenging times that we've seen all over our country. Just things absolutely falling apart. We're now coming to a political system that's very divided and drawing for attention.

And a lot of people are looking at this and saying, "Well, the system's broken." And a lot of evangelicals and Catholics and Orthodox are beginning to say, "Well, so maybe our ideas of the church involved with politics is not the best idea. Is there another system?" And that's where people are beginning to look at the early church, looking at the Anabaptists, and that's what we're doing, looking at today. The thing that concerns me a lot is that right when people are starting to now look this way, this is the kind of stuff that's making the press.

And I know you mean well. Many of you doing this kind of thing means well. But the fact that you're cloistered is one thing that's difficult for the world to understand. But what they say is that, "Well, at least you're representing some better thing.

Our systems are messed up, and you've got a better system." But when you come and do this—I'm looking at a picture of an Amish buggy on a Trump rally—it's just there's so many things that just show us that we've got to look at the heart of where things went wrong and what's the original way to do things the right way, to do things the Jesus way. We looked at, on the last session, on this concept of the Kyperian worldview, that the concept of trying to have the church change all of society and being a part of all of society. But we saw that even with this Kyperian worldview, there's this virus. There's something wrong in this system of the systematic theology that must be changed.

We looked at Richard Niebuhr and his views of trying to find this perfect balance of how Christians could get involved. But now we're seeing—we also saw how evangelicals today, some conservative evangelicals, are feeling very torn and like, "We can't give our allegiance to this. We certainly can't give our allegiance to that.

What's God saying?" And that's what we'd like to look at in this episode. So kingdom, Anabaptist, early Christian worldview of the church in politics, let me say what it's not. It's not intended to be a cloistered-out group that has no influence in the world. Jesus was very clear when he said in John 17:15, "I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth."

So we need to keep in mind that this concept is not intended to be out cloistered somewhere. We need to come and face our society and always have a prophetic voice in society, but by Christian principles, by Christian kingdom principles that we should do this. So what was the early Christian kingdom view? The early Christian view was a genuine two kingdoms. They saw the worldview in a genuine two kingdoms, but that expects a genuine loyalty and allegiance to only one, to only one of those nations. It is truly Jesus is Lord. Today, you could say Jesus is king, or better yet, Jesus is president.

It's not one kingdom, the church and the state, with militant or even some kind of pseudo-pacifist view. It's two kingdoms with genuine allegiance to just one. An analogy that often comes to my mind, I think about for me, is when I was in the army. So when I was in the army, we lived—Tanya and I, we were both in the army, and we did most of our time in Germany. And I was stationed in Germany. While I was stationed in Germany, I was an American. I voted in American elections. I wore American clothes. I ate American food. I paid American taxes. And I might have known who the burgermeister of Kaiserslautern was or something, but if I did, it was just by osmosis or something.

Clearly, I was an American living in Germany. And I think that analogy really helped me because that's the way we are to be here, be in the world, be a part of the society that we live here. But yet our kingdom, our nation is different.

I love the passage in 2 Timothy 3:4, and it makes me think of my time in the army. "To Timothy," Paul said, "You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." It doesn't say go off somewhere and hide, but you must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. But then he said this, "No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier." So out of our—if I would have been in the army over there and I would have said, "I'm going to get involved. I'm going to run for burgermeister," my commander would have said, "Excuse me.

No, you're not." That's the kind of allegiance that Jesus Christ wants from us. That's the kind of allegiance. And that's the kind of thing that we see in the early Anabaptist view of the church. Now, there's a lot of things the early Anabaptists stood for in this coming into this Christendom that most Protestant churches take for granted now. The separation of church and state, the gathering around, collecting of a church together around belief and faith and adult baptism. These things have become norm for most, for a lot of people.

But there was something more to that concept of the church that has not been dealt with by a lot of the Protestant churches and a lot of the systematic theology that still has this Christendom kind of tucked inside somewhere.

The early Anabaptist confession, the Schleithaim confession in 1527, most likely penned by Michael Saller, put it this way. He said, "Finally, it is observed that it is not appropriate for a Christian to serve as a magistrate because of these points." And it's interesting, the early church said the same thing about the idea that you cannot serve as a magistrate.

It goes on. "The government magistrate is according to the flesh, but the Christians is according to the Spirit. For time's sake, the worldlings are armed with steel and iron, but the Christians are armed with the armor of God." I love that. "With truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the word of God." You see how it's not intended to be hiding or anything. It's supposed to be warring, a warfare, but as the church of God. And particularly about the sword, and I'm only bringing this in because of its politics, it says, "The sword is ordained of God outside the perfection of Christ." And this is going to be an important point with a clear concept of two kingdoms.

They didn't reject the authorities of this earth, and that is so important for an understanding of two kingdoms. They said, "The sword is ordained of God outside the perfection of Christ. It punishes and puts to death the wicked and guards and protects the good. And the law, the sword was ordained for the punishment of the wicked and for their death. And the same sword is now ordained to be used by the worldly magistrates." We're going to see that in both the early church and the early Anabaptists, they believed that God used governments to govern the world, but that we live by grace. We live by the grace of Jesus Christ and faith in Jesus Christ and the church, but God wants to make sure that there's not anarchy and he's given us.

And I'm going to show you some very important passages and a paradigm shift, as we've heard about in the last session, that help us to understand where that virus is in the Kyperian view, Jesus and state. So let's get into it. This is great.

So Jesus made it very clear, "Seek first the kingdom of God." And I tell you, so many people that I have spoken to, that when they've just gone through the scriptures and meditated on Jesus's call for the kingdom, it's sort of like you see a light bulb coming in.

I'm coming on. I've often called it the kingdom epiphany. It's like when someone gets that concept, the whole Bible starts to make more sense. I mean, the people of God in the Old Testament going right into the prophets, and you see how God wanted his people to glorify him and his people to give blessings to the whole earth. And this keeps going, and it goes to the prophets, and it comes to Jesus, and it comes to the New Testament. And you see the whole Bible coming alive. And I've seen a lot of people that I've known that just focusing on Jesus's teachings and then reading that back into the Old Testament even, there's this kingdom epiphany.

It's awesome. This concept is so central for Jesus. It's the most common theological word used by him. More than heaven, salvation, more than faith, kingdom. And what did that mean to him? He said in the Lord's Prayer, we pray this all the time, "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth like it is in heaven." That's our prayer that what we do on earth is modeled after heaven. He ends the Lord's Prayer, "But deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." This theme of God's kingdom in this earth is the missing element in this Christendom concept.

One of the most distinctive lines, I think, if we can look at this, that Jesus and the state, is the scene of Jesus before Pilate. I don't think the line between the two kingdoms is so graphically demonstrated anywhere else than this spot.

Jesus before Pilate. And there's some really important stuff that's said there in this scene. In John 17:33, it says this, "Then Peter entered the practorium again." Excuse me. "Then Pilate entered the practorium again, called Jesus and said to him, 'Are you the king of the Jews?'" And it's interesting how Jesus answered all of these questions. Jesus answered him, "Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning me?" It was like, did you get this from some sort of revelation? Are you getting it, Pilate?

And he's pushing that. But then Pilate pushes back and says, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and chief priest have delivered you to me. What have you done?" And Jesus makes this very profound statement, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here." Now, here's something very subtle you have to watch for right now. And that's the Gnostic concept of spiritualizing spiritual truths, Christian truths.

The tendency for us is to say, "Okay, so your kingdom is not of this world. Oh, so it doesn't really matter then." And that's what Pilate did. Pilate said, "Well, are you a king then?" I mean, Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world," and made this very proclaimed thing. So Pilate said, "Well, okay, that's spiritual talk. Are you a king then?" And then very profoundly, I see Jesus just looking at Pilate right in the eyes and saying, "You say rightly that I am a king.

For this cause, I was born." Wow, what a moment. So him spiritualizing, "Are you even a king then? You said rightly that I am a king. For this cause, I was born. And for this cause, I have come into the world that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.

Are you hearing his voice? Are you listening to his voice? I pray that we can hear his voice today." To accomplish this kingdom, Jesus inaugurated a kingdom that would live out his teachings, his cure for humanity, his plan for humanity in this world. One of my favorite teachers, John D. Martin, here's a great episode, newest episode of Anabaptist Perspective, interviewing John D. Martin. And John D. Martin's, I think, favorite quote is this concept of the church. And he puts it this way as you just can conceive the right way to view the church. So imagine the church. Remember we're praying, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and all these things.

And John D. Martin's quote is that the purpose of the church is to demonstrate to the whole world around us what the whole world would look like if it would only obey the king. So on Judgment Day, I mean, those that are lost should be able to look and say, "Oh, that's what the church was talking about. It's supposed to look like this." But when we take the lesser evil, when we give in to these politics of this world and don't take Jesus's cure to this world, we're losing this. So looking at backing it up and just making a quick jump through the Bible, we look at some of the ways that after the fall and after the things that happened in the fall, God wanted to use his kingdom to bless the whole world.

We see in Genesis 12:2, he said, "And I will make this is God speaking to Abraham, 'And I will make of thee a great nation. And I will bless thee and make thy name great. And thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless him that bless thee and curse him that curses thee. And in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.'" It's God's purpose to bring this kingdom blessing to the whole world. Coming to from Abraham, we go through 400 years or more. We're going finally to Egypt, and we come to Moses. Comes through the Red Sea and comes to Mount Sinai. And God is speaking to them and calling them to be this special people that will bless the whole earth and glorify him.

I love this passage. It's in Exodus 19. The scene is up there. Moses, God speaking to them, "This is what you should tell them." And Moses went up. This is Exodus 19:3. Exodus 19:3. "And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain saying, 'Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel, 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.'" And this idea that special people, this called-out people, in Numbers, it talks about them being a singular people, different from the nations, glorifies God, and God has glorified that. So jumping through a lot, but coming up into the prophets, into the prophecies that are coming about Jesus bringing this kingdom to us. In Isaiah 6, it so beautifully puts it there, "For unto us a child is born." Excuse me. 9:6. Isaiah 9:6. "For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

We all know this is one of the most famous passages. We hear it during the Handel's Messiah. But it goes on in verse 7, "Of the increase of his government," catch this, "and peace, there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this." When Jesus comes and he inaugurates this into his world, the increase of that government and peace, there shall be no end. In Isaiah, at the beginning of that, it says, "And nevertheless, the gloom" in Isaiah 9:1, even before that verse 6 that I gave, it says, "Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed.

And when at first he lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards more heavily oppressed her by the way of the sea beyond the Jordan and Gadoli of the Gentiles, the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined." And then we see Jesus, when he comes into the beginning, coming out of the wilderness after his temptation and coming into the beginning of his ministry, quotes from Matthew, quotes from Isaiah, saying, "This is fulfilled." And then verse 17, Matthew 4:17, "From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" That Jesus is born, Messiah, the wonderful counselor, mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and the increase of this government and peace shall have no end.

That was started in Jesus Christ. And we should not trade that for any of the sweetest frames, any of the politics, any of the things that this world has to offer. Jesus has the cure for humanity. It's in the Sermon on the Mount and through his teaching and through the word of God. This is what we should give to the nations, not their politics.

This is what we get through the New Testament. In Acts 1:3, after Jesus was ministering now for the time with the apostles, after filled with the Holy Spirit, after glorified body in Acts 1:3, it says, "To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs being seen of them, 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." Speaking 40 days to them about the things of the kingdom of God.

In the end of Acts, the apostle Paul, when he's in prison in house arrest, it's mentioning to him, mentioning of him in that verse in Acts 28:23, "And when they had appointed him a day, they came many to him into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets from morning till evening." I would love to have been there to hear him expounding the kingdom of God, of Jesus, all through the Old Testament. This is that view that you see the Old Testament as one continual story, the coming of the Messiah and his kingdom, glorifying God.

Jesus puts it that this is such a fundamental thing that it was created from the foundations of the world. They're giving us the glimpse of Judgment Day in Matthew 25:34. And Jesus says, "Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, 'Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'" So this mentality, this idea of this kingdom and the people of God, the scriptures, the apostles wanted us to understand very clearly was not supposed to be of the world's system. Jesus is giving us his system, if you would, his ways. And to be mixing with the pagan politics, and it's always been a mistake.

In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter repeating that Exodus 19 vision of Moses speaking to the people of God. Peter gives that to the New Testament through the Holy Spirit and says in 1 Peter 2:9, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation." Get that? You're a holy nation, a people belonging to God. Why? "That you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." When we lose this beautiful kingdom of God and trade it for the world, we're losing this whole purpose. This whole purpose of this kingdom of God is to give glory to God. And that's just, you don't want to lose that. But it's supposed to be something that's active.

Active, but not of this world. And so when you think of this Constantinian synthesis, when you think of this Kyperian worldview of trying to say all of arts and this and the other, we should just Christianize all of that. Be careful with this.

Because there's a promise that you could miss. In 2 Corinthians 6:14, Paul's warning them, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers." If that's not clear enough to answer the politic question today, I don't know what it is. But let's go on. "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial?" Something worthless.

Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? I can show you right beyond here is the state house. What concord is there with that? It goes on, "For you are the temple of the living God. As God said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate,' saith the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean. And if you do this, and I will receive you, I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and my daughters,' saith the Lord Almighty."

He's calling clearly for a separation. What does that look like in a Constantinian synthesis? He's calling for a separation of not mixing the world with the church. Now, it's not to be cloistered. It's a proper criticism to bring against Anabaptists or any kind of a kingdom view when we're out cloistering and not bringing Christ to the nations. It's fair criticism. He goes on a few chapters later and gives us very clear that it's not to be passive. He says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds." God wants us to be prophetic in every generation.

He wants us to bring down these strongholds and these principalities and powers, but not involved with them. And I tell you, when we think of what it means, what guilt we have upon ourself when we begin to get into these politics. And I tell you, when I look through my life of the decisions that I've made, either in the army when I resisted going and being involved with the Persian Gulf War, all the way through the wars of my lifetime up into this last Persian Gulf crisis with the Syrian refugees, I'm so blessed to have made that decision. There's one, listen to this.

We have had half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And is the price worth it? I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it.

The price is worth it. You see, if I would not have left and been a, if I would have not have said, "I'm not going to be part of this bombing of Iraq in the early 1990s," and there would have been a bit of a guilt of taking upon this kind of a thing.

I mean, I think it's a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it. I don't think so. One of the blessings that I've ever had, every time that I've, one of the biggest blessings in my life is a couple of years ago when I was in Camp Moria on Lesbos Island working with the Syrian refugees. And there was a particular couple of refugees, a man and a woman, not married, who were coming from Iraq. And they were telling of all the horrors and nightmares of things of coming from Iraq, and they were living in Syria, and now they've made it to Lesbos Island. And I was there in this little tent in the dark.

It was at nighttime. And I began to talk to them. And fortunately, Christian Aid Ministry had just published my book, Change of Allegiance into Arabic, and I had it with me. And I was able to show them that all that you're talking about there in Syria and those wars and those things, it's not our God. It's not the way of Jesus. And when I was able to show him my testimony and things, he literally started crying in that refugee camp. And through the translator, this was all through the translator. And I was just so blessed that to be able to tell him right in his face, "Jesus has a better way." And when you watch the, you look into this and you start to see even the proxy war that the United States and Russia has fought back and forth over Syria and the Middle East and all that.

And it was a kingdom epiphany to not have to have the guilt on my hands of that politics. I encourage you in that. So then the question then, so what is the place of human government? This is an extremely important question. And I'm afraid that a lot of pacifists, well-meaning, have messed this up. The thing with the government is that an early Christian view of government and an Anabaptist view, an early Anabaptist view, a biblical view of government is that we do believe that God has given us a human government to govern this earth, as I said earlier. In the Sleightheim Confession, it goes on and it says this, "The sword is ordained of God outside of the perfection of Christ.

It punishes and puts to death the wicked and guards and protects the good. In the law, the sword was ordained for the punishment of the wicked and for their death. And the sword, and the same sword is now ordained to be used by the worldly magistrates." This is a deep point. And you can't miss this. And I hope that some of this kind of pacifist understanding of this, I can dispel some of that so that you can get the beauty of the truth of what the early church and what the scriptures are saying.

A lot of it comes out in Romans 13 and in the passage with Matthew 22 of, "Given to Caesar, what is Caesar? Given to God, what is God?" And these passages are very important for us not to just sort of confuse it and kind of hope for this kind of bizarre Christian principles added in in a little weird pacifist way or some weird socialist pacifist way into the government. That's a mistake. God calls for a radical separation from the politics of this world.

Not in a retreatism. That criticism is fair. Here in facing the people, but doing it by God's way in his kingdom. Romans 13 is very clear, and let's not explain it away.

Romans 13 says it good. Romans 13:1, "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God." It's an interesting, really important point. "For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whosoever, whoever resists the authority, resists the ordinance of God. And those who resist will bring judgment on themselves." And then here's a really important point, and let's press this to the limit. "For he," that is the emperor, the leader, "for he is God's minister, Diakonos. He is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid. Why? For he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil."

Now, Paul, just in the chapter before, instructed us to be not conformed to this world, but to be conformed to the ways of Christ and the renewing of our mind. He says, "Do every way you can to bless those and feed our enemies, and they will heap burning coals upon his head." So the question is, then what do you do with the governments of this earth? And he's making it very clear. God gave us those ministers. Now, the sword that Paul was talking about, the sword given to him by God, did not change when the same sword cut the apostle Paul's head off.

The authority given to him was given to him by God even when it cut Paul's head off. What? It's an important point to pay attention to. And let's go back to the scene between Jesus and Pilate to really get a clear understanding on it. In John chapter 19, it takes us to a detail that I don't want you to miss, really important detail. And John 19:10, "So Pilate said to him, 'You will not speak to me.'" So Jesus wasn't answering him, and he was just being silent. "'You will not speak to me. Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?'" So it's a very important point. I mean, Jesus is in front of Pilate.

He's not talking to him. Pilate's saying, "Do you get it? I have the authority to let you go. Or if you could just, I have that authority." What's amazing is that Jesus didn't say, "Uh-uh." He didn't say, he didn't rebuke him. He acknowledged it. And it's incredibly important. Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above."

So Pilate was given the authority to kill Jesus by God, according to Jesus here. That doesn't make him blessed. He goes on to say that the Jews had the worst sin, but still considers the sin definitely. But the concept is that just because God has given authority to something doesn't mean he blesses it or even likes it.

Watch me now. And let's go to see this even in the Old Testament. In Jeremiah chapter 25, when God wanted to bring judgment on his own people, on Judah, and to bring judgment to them, he was using Nebuchadnezzar. There's lots of passages where he, two chapters from 25 or so, it mentions that he will give all the nations will bow to Nebuchadnezzar. Bad paraphrase, but just making it clear that he has given the authority to Nebuchadnezzar.

But here's the point. The question is, just because God blesses something in a system, like these governmental systems or something, it doesn't mean, I mean, just because God has given authority to those systems, it doesn't mean that he has blessed those systems. Let's look at this passage. And there's this one in Isaiah are really important. I'm trying to try to get through those layers of Christendom. So please pay attention. There's a lot of scriptures, but please pay attention because these next two verses, these next two sections, Jeremiah and Isaiah are very important for this.

In Jeremiah 25:8, "Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, 'Because you have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,' says the Lord, 'and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land.'" This word, my servant, is the Hebrew equivalent to that same word, the minister. God is calling Nebuchadnezzar his minister to execute wrath on his own people.

So just because he assigned or gave that authority, does that mean he's happy with Nebuchadnezzar? Does that mean he's blessed with him? No. A couple of verses later, he goes on to say in verse 12, "Then it will come to pass when 70 years are completed that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquities," says the Lord, "and I will make it a perpetual desolation." Wow.

So God uses the human government. The human government does their thing that they're doing. And then from that, after he uses them, he turns around and punishes them because he goes on another passage because of their pride and because he's done with them.

The other passage that's really important, and there's a verse in here, it's the only time this really comes out so clearly in the whole Bible. It's really important to hear. It's in Isaiah chapter 10. Here now God is using the Assyrians to come against his people.

And he says it in Isaiah chapter 10, verse 5, "Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger and the staff in whose hand is my indignation." So he's calling the Assyrians his rod. "I will send him against an ungodly nation, and against the people of my wrath I will give him charge to seize the spoil and to take the prey and to tread them down like the mire of the streets." The Assyrians, he's sending against his own people because of a judgment that he's bringing on them. But here is the really important passage. So what's going through Nebuchadnezzar's mind? What's going through Pilate's mind? What's going through the Assyrians' mind when they're being used of God?

They're feeling, "Ah, I'm with God, I'm with God." Watch this next verse. It's really important. "Yet he does not mean so, nor does his heart think so, but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off not a few nations." Do you see the importance of this? That God uses these nations. He may use America, he may use a king, he may use a king of England or whatever, and they don't know what's going on in their mind. In their mind, I'm just being a great emperor. I'm doing this great and powerful thing, but God is doing this. In his mind, he's thinking he's just conquering people, but God is using his passions to bring judgment on him.

But even though he uses them like that, does he turn around and does that mean he's blessed with this activity? Does that mean he's happy with the Assyrians? Again, no. A few verses later, "Therefore it shall come to pass when the Lord has performed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem that he will say, 'I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the glory of his haughty looks because he said, 'The strength in my own hands have I done this and by my wisdom, for I am prudent.'" And he's done all these things and thinks he's very powerful.

You know, a few months ago, I was following the president's activity about Iran and Turkey. And as he was doing that, I came on this tweet and it reminded me of this passage from Nebuchadnezzar and this passage from the king of Assyria.

As soon as I heard it, I just felt this sinking in my heart. I can't believe the president just said this. And it reminded me of Nebuchadnezzar. President Trump said, "As I have stated strongly before and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off-limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the economy of Turkey. I've done it before.

They must, with Europe and others, watch over that." When I heard that, I just got this sinking in my gut. I went, "Wow. What could be happening? What could be happening to the president? What could be happening?"

This is an important concept because of this is an important concept because there's sometimes you start reading in history and you start to see this historical intervention of God. You know, like there's things here in Boston that you just think, I mean, it seems like God had to have done that. I mean, some of the revolutionary wars and some of the different things, and you're like, surely God was involved with that. And this allows this theology and then particularly that Isaiah 10 passage to make us understand that God does use these nations according to the way he wants. Now, it doesn't make you a five-point Calvinist. Even the most Armenian Anabaptist still must recognize that God, even though he allows for personal choice, God is still controlling the nations according to his will.

And that when he will say, "This far and no further." And we see that in many different things. Like for instance, I grew up with these stories, like I'm going to show you this quick video of these stories of God as my co-pilot, of how pilots were in World War II and they just miraculously got through. Here's one. Listen to this. "God is every player's co-pilot." "It's an unforgettable story of unconquerable men and the spirit that fights with them into the rising sun.

Men who know that God is their co-pilot." So this is an important concept. And I dwelled on it a little bit because of trying to understand the concept that God is working with the nations of this world to bring in that. So let's come into the next thing of where this came from and how to look at that sword and the law through the Old Testament. Now, I've thought about actually breaking. If you'd like to take a break, this would be a good place to make a break and to come back. I have a few, I have several more slides. And with those slides, I'm going to be getting into some of these details of very important points about the basics of this kingdom concept of these two kingdoms.

We're having to unravel a lot of things that have been there over Christendom and through these things. So bear with me. I think these are very important points. So let's start looking into how God gives us this sword through history. In Genesis chapter 4:15, "And the Lord said unto him, 'Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.' And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." And this is the concept that when Cain was not living by the righteous way, we needed a law. We needed a fear of law to be able to keep order. And this is what it did. It gave this kind of an order.

So there was the people of God who live by grace and truth, and there's always been a people that God will govern in other ways. The two ways. So Genesis 6:5, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." And this is when God brought judgment through the flood. He also says in Genesis 6:8-9, "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God." After the flood, the laws that God gave also of governing this earth. "For man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth.

Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man." And so the idea that this law, this resistance of evil, this bringing in of this natural law is something that God has put into our societies to govern this earth. But he has desired, particularly the fulfillment of that with the new covenant, that we live by God defending us and God's government being different than this government.

So let me give you some more that we have here. We have more to offer this earth. One of the analogies or the parables in the Bible that often get ignored is the argument, is the one that comes here with Gideon and then judges.

And in Gideon, you know, he makes this incredible defeating of Baal worshipers and all these types of a thing. And then people are like, "This is the first time that I've found, I don't think there's any other before this, the first time that someone said, 'Hey, why don't you be king?'" The first time. And it's interesting to see the way he responded.

In Judges 8:22, "Then the men of Israel, oops, then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, 'Rule thou over us, both thou and thy sons.'" He had a bunch of them. He had 70. "And thy son's son also, for thou hast delivered us from the land of Midian.

And Gideon said to them, 'I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. The Lord shall rule over you.'" And I know we spiritualize this a lot. And obviously, we see in the Old Testament a working of a kingdom there, of a Christian, or not a Christian, a nation kingdom that particularly what starts happening here after with David.

But this concept, again, we're not talking about non-resistance right now. We're just talking about the concept of the nation and our ways and being the people of God or the people of a different nation, that he wants to be the king of this, of us. And mixing that with the world was very grievous to God. And interesting, so 70 brothers get killed and the half-brother is wanting to be king. And then Jotham gives this beautiful analogy. When Jotham learned that the people had crowned Abimelech as king, he climbed up to Mount Gerizim and told this story. And it's an interesting parable. Judges 9:8, go look at this because it brings a lot of understanding of the way the people of God should be in this world.

Judges 9:8, "The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them." So you get the idea of the king. The trees went out and said, "Hey, we need a king." So they went out to first the olive tree. And they went to the olive tree and said, "Hey, you be king." But the olive tree said, "Would I give up my fatness, my oils, wherewith by me they honor God and man to be promoted over the trees? No, I won't do that. I won't do that." So they said, "No, I won't be your king." So he went up to the fig tree. They went to the fig tree, "Okay, you be our king."

The fig tree said, "Would I give up my sweetness and my good fruit to be promoted over the trees? I won't be your king." Said, "Okay." So they went to the vine and they went to the vine and said, "You be our king." And the vine said, "Would I give up my wine, the cheer of both God and man to be promoted over the trees? I won't do that either." So then they came to Briarbush, some bramble.

And they said, "Okay, let's get this guy. Will you be our king?" He answered them differently. And he said, "If in truth, ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow. And if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon. So if you can come under me and be under me, I'll be your king. But if you lift yourself up, let the fire devour you." You see, in each case, the olives, the grapes, they had too much of a precious purpose, too much of a great gift for this world than these politics of ruling.

Do you see the analogy that they gave us there? God wants that place in us. So who ruled then? If they're not going to do it, well then we'll say, "Well, if they're not going to do it, then only lousy people will do it. And if Christians aren't going to be in the government, well then the worst people will be in the government."

Exactly. But God is in control. And we have a God giving us an understanding to know that. In Daniel 4:17, don't miss this verse. The prophet Daniel warning us today, he says this, Daniel 4:17, "This matter," and think of all the mess we have right now and ponder this verse over it, "This matter is by decree of the watchers," that's the angels, "and the demand by the word of the holy ones to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men, kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will and set us up over it the basis of men." That's the lowest. So I want you to understand the angels are speaking to you that you need to understand that God rules.