Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to talk about when kingdoms collide. The two kingdoms we're talking about are the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. As many of you know, I was one of the attorneys representing Ken Miller at his recent sentencing hearing in Vermont. In case you're not familiar with the case, I'll give you a few of the details. Ken was being sentenced for aiding and abetting an international parental kidnapping. The parent he was convicted of helping was Lisa Miller.
At the time her daughter was born, Lisa was in a civil union with a lesbian woman named Janet Jenkins. Well, Lisa later broke off the relationship with Janet, and she filed to legally dissolve her civil union with her. This was in the courts in Vermont. In the dissolution of this civil union, Lisa was given custody of her daughter; she was the biological mother, and Janet Jenkins was given visitation rights.
Now, Lisa had been a Baptist as a teenager, and so she soon returned to Christ after she moved back to her home state of Virginia, and she became a very committed Christian. Well, over the years, she felt the visits with her former partner, Janet Jenkins, were harming her daughter. So she decided to challenge the legality of the visitation order in the Virginia courts. That was because Virginia does not recognize same-sex unions. In fact, by Virginia law, such a same-sex union is null and void. That is in Virginia.
So you had an issue here of conflicting laws between two states, the state of Vermont and the state of Virginia. But the visitation order was created in the state of Vermont. Well, Lisa eventually lost in the appellate courts, and the courts ordered her to allow the visitations. Well, she made a decision to simply disappear with her daughter rather than to comply with the court order. And Ken was convicted of helping her move to Nicaragua.
Now, the federal government has been unsuccessful in their attempts to find Lisa and her daughter. In fact, none of us know if she's still in Nicaragua or, if so, where she's living or with whom she's associating. But nevertheless, the federal government decided to prosecute some of the people who they believed helped her. This gets back to what happened last week. At Ken's sentencing, which ended up being a nearly two-hour session, this was in the federal district court in Burlington, Vermont.
The prosecutor, it was a woman, she stated that the government respects and appreciates the diversity of religious bodies that we have here in the United States, and our Constitution guarantees us the right to believe in accordance with our consciences. She said the problem occurs when people want to act on their religious beliefs, and the government often can't allow that. Well, interestingly, the prosecutor saw no problem with this. To her, this made perfect sense.
You can believe what you want, but you can only act according to the way the secular government tells you you can act. However, as followers of Jesus, we would recognize a real problem with this position. I can't tell you how much I wanted to jump out of my seat and say, "Your Honor, what good is Christianity if you can't act on it? A religion that exists in your mind only?" But I wasn't the attorney doing the speaking at the hearing, and I don't think the lead attorney would have appreciated my butting in there.
But it's certainly something I can talk about now. Now, there may be some religions that can operate that way, but certainly not Christianity. Our actions are an intrinsic part of Christianity. You can't divorce what we believe as Christians from what we do as Christians. I mean, after all, the Jewish authorities were willing to let the followers of Jesus alone so long as they didn't act on what they believed. Sure, it's fine if you want to believe Jesus is the Messiah, but don't go out and tell anybody else.
Just hold that as a personal belief. But when they tried to command the apostles not to tell others about Jesus, they were asking them or commanding them to do something that would make the apostles disobey Jesus Christ. So they were going to have to be disobedient to someone, either to Jesus or to the human Jewish government. And as we all know, they decided to disobey the government rather than to disobey God.
Well, with that in mind, what I want to do over the next hour is to discuss what happens when kingdoms are in conflict. I'm talking about kingdoms of this world coming into conflict with God's kingdom. And we're going to look at seven New Testament principles that govern our relationship with human governments. Then I want to revisit this situation with Lisa Miller. Let's talk about the scriptural principles involved. So let's begin by going through these seven New Testament principles.
The first one is that all governmental authority comes ultimately from God. Yet as Christians, we are commanded to obey human government laws, Caesar's laws, you might say. The passage that sets this forth most clearly is Romans 13, verses 1 through 5. I'm going to read that to you. Romans 13, verses 1 through 5. I'm reading from the New King James Version. "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.
Therefore, you must be subject not only because of wrath, but also for conscience's sake." So that's our beginning principle that as Christians, we don't have the right to say, "Well, I don't have to obey the laws of the government I live under because I'm a citizen of God's kingdom, and so I answer to a higher authority." Well, it's true that we answer to a higher authority, but that higher authority tells us to obey the laws of the land where we live.
That those governments aren't there because they've usurped power, but because God has instituted human governments. And it's not hard to see why he's instituted governments, with a few exceptions. Virtually every human government has been far better than what you would have without a human government, and that would be anarchy. But then you would end up with a government. It would be the government of the powerful, the government of the thugs, of the wicked, and nothing would be safe.
So even the pagan governments that Paul is talking about when he wrote this, the Roman emperor of whom he was a subject was either Nero or perhaps Caligula, both of them wicked men. And Nero was the first Roman emperor to start persecuting Christians, and he killed them in horrible ways. He would dress them up in animal skins and then have them thrown to wild beasts to be torn apart by savage dogs or lions or things like that for his own enjoyment and the amusement of his friends.
He even had them soaked in flammable liquid and then nailed them to stakes and set them on fire to serve as lanterns in his garden. I've actually walked in what's left of that garden today in Rome, and it's rather humbling to think that my brothers and sisters at one time burned here for the amusement of a wicked, wicked man. And yet he still was appointed by God. Not that God personally chose Nero, but that he personally chose that all countries have a government. And oftentimes he does choose particular people.
Other times it appears that he merely tolerates them. Now, some Christians want to make Romans 13 the beginning and the end of the discussion. And so on issues where Jesus said, for example, to love your enemy, not to resist evil, they say, "Well, sorry, Romans 13 says we have to obey the government, and so that trumps whatever Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount." Well, no, that's not the case, as we're going to be seeing.
This is just the first principle, is where we start, that we don't view the governments as something evil, as something instituted by Satan, but as something that operates under the authority of God. Jesus himself told Pontius Pilate, "You would have no authority at all over me unless it was given to you from above." So let's move to our second principle. That second principle is this: although God is ultimately in control, the whole world, including human governments, are under the sway or influence of Satan.
They often do his will rather than that of God. For example, 1 John 5:19 says this, "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one." So as Christians, we don't kid ourselves that we're serving under Christian governments. We'll talk a little bit more about that under principle three. But we recognize that human governments are under the power of Satan, and they tend to do his will.
Even when they don't directly fight against God's people, they invariably promote laws and viewpoints that are contrary to those set forth by Jesus. Now, this doesn't change the fact that we still have to be obedient to them, but we aren't obedient to them because we view them as something godly, only as something that God has ordained.
We remember that one of the temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness is Satan offered to give him all of the kingdoms of this world if he would bow down and do an act of worship to Satan. Well, Satan could hardly offer them to Jesus if he didn't already have them in the palm of his hand. It doesn't mean that Satan created them or that God had no influence over them, but just that they were under Satan's influence, just as 1 John tells us.
And Jesus didn't answer back, "Uh-uh, you can't give them to me because they're not yours." No, he answered that we should serve and worship God alone. All right, principle number three. And that is Jesus has established his own kingdom here on earth, which operates independently of the kingdoms of this world. Now, he talked about this kingdom all throughout his ministry. It's the theme of his preaching, the kingdom of God. And when he was before Pontius Pilate, he said this. It's in John 18, verse 36.
When Pilate asked him about his kingdom, he said, "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." So he announced a totally different kind of kingdom, one that is not of this world, one that can't be defended with human swords or guns or cannons or things like that. It's a totally different kind of kingdom.
He once said, "The kingdom of God is within you." He told the Jews the kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to a people producing the fruits of it. Now, this wasn't some other country, but people from all nations, including Jews, who would be producing the fruits of his kingdom. Well, this creates the situation that is often called the two kingdoms, the doctrine of the two kingdoms.
You have the kingdoms of this world, but then you have another kingdom, the kingdom of God, that is superimposed upon all of the kingdoms of this world. None of the human kingdoms, whether it's the United States or England or whoever you want to think, none of them are God's kingdom, and you can't turn them into God's kingdom. They will always be part of this world and will always be under the sway of Satan in one way or another. And yet there's another kingdom here on the earth that is Christ's kingdom.
In one sense, Christ recognizes the boundaries of all of the earthly kingdoms. In another sense, he disregards them. His kingdom goes wherever he wants it to. And if a government says, "Nope, we don't want your kingdom here," make laws against it, that doesn't stop Christ. His people will still be there. No human government can exclude them indefinitely. And so often these two kingdoms come in conflict because the kingdom of God has its own laws just like the governments of this world do.
And so you often have these conflicting laws. Jesus says one thing, the governments of this world say something else. And that's going to lead us to our next principle. The fourth principle, and you might say this is the keystone principle in this group of seven, is when obeying Caesar would require us to disobey Christ, we must obey Christ and his Father rather than human governments. And that's what separates authentic Christianity.
That's what separates what I call kingdom Christianity from what often goes under the name of Christianity. Now, I make no judgments about individuals and where they stand with Christ, but I have no hesitation to say that a form of Christianity that would have us disobey Christ because Caesar, because human governments tell us to, is an imitation Christianity. It's not authentic Christianity. It may have the appearance of Christianity.
It may have the right theological beliefs, but it's missing an important facet of authentic Christianity. And that is we are citizens foremost of Christ's kingdom. And that takes precedence of any kingdoms on this earth where we live, whether they call themselves Christian nations, Muslim nations, pagan nations, it doesn't matter because none of them are God's kingdom. And it is of the utmost arrogance when they claim that they have authority greater than that of Jesus Christ.
Because in effect, they are saying, "My authority is greater than the authority by which I was established." They want to imagine, kind of like Pharaoh back in ancient Egypt, that they're more powerful than God, that what they say trumps what God says. And that's not the way it works. Now, many professing Christians will give in to that authority and say, "Well, okay, if you say it, then I have to go by what you say." But not kingdom Christians. The apostles were kingdom Christians.
They recognized God's kingdom as the ultimate authority in their life. And one of the final commands that Jesus had given the apostles was to go forth unto all nations, making disciples of Jesus Christ, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so naturally, the first thing they did after the church was established was to go out and preach about Jesus Christ. Well, the Jewish authorities didn't like this.
We can read what happened in Acts 4:18-20, an extremely important passage in the New Testament because it removes any doubt of what we should do as Christians when Christ's law conflicts with human laws. It says, "They," these would have been the Sanhedrin, says, "And 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.'" In other words, they said, "No, you tell us not to speak in his name, and he told us to go out and speak in his name. And we're not going to listen to you in place of God. We're going to listen to God." Don't mistakenly think, "Oh, this was an interchurch conflict or a conflict between religious bodies." The Jewish nation, like every other nation on earth at that time, had no separation of church and state.
The Jewish high priest was appointed by the Roman emperor. Church and state were combined. And the Roman government gave the Jews the freedom to practice their religion and gave governmental authority to their religious leaders. They didn't have unbridled authority, but they had authority to arrest people, to whip them. They had soldiers under their authority. And this was all ultimately under the authority of Rome. So it was Peter and John versus the government.
And they said, "No, we're not going to obey you," not because they disrespected the government, not because they didn't understand the governments were established by God. Well, anyway, what happened? You probably remember the account that they went out and preached. They were arrested. They were put in jail. And then the angel of the Lord came and freed them and told them to go back to the temple and preach again, which they did. Well, they got arrested again. And we can read of this in Acts 5:27-29.
It says, "And when they had brought them," these would have been the soldiers under the authority of the religious government, "they set them before the council. And the high priest," and again, remember, this is the high priest who was appointed by the Roman government, "asked them, saying, 'Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name?
And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine,' that is, with your teaching, 'and intend to bring this man's blood on us.' But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, 'We ought to obey God rather than men.'" End of discussion. And most of those apostles ultimately paid with their lives for the position that they took. But they were going to obey God rather than men. And this is what happens when these two kingdoms collide.
We can pretend to be a citizen of God's kingdom because so often the two kingdoms don't come into conflict, at least not in a way that brings us before the government. But when they do, then we have to show where our ultimate allegiance lies. And that has to be with God's kingdom. There was no gray area here, nothing they had to weigh. It was an absolute instance where God said one thing, the human government said the opposite, and they had to choose God as ruler rather than man.
And if we want to be authentic Christians, then we have to do the same likewise. Principle number five is we can expect to be punished when we choose Christ over Caesar. We should have no illusions about this, that, "Oh, I'm doing what God wants me to. Therefore, he's going to make sure the government doesn't do anything bad to me." No, that's not what God promises. Jesus made this clear. Matthew 10, I want to first look at verses 17 and 18.
He says, "But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you," that is, whip you in their synagogues. "You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles." Okay, so Jesus is telling us flat out that we will be delivered up to councils. He didn't say, "I'm going to protect you from that happening." He says, "This is going to happen. You're going to be brought before governors, kings, religious councils. You're going to be whipped.
And I'm going to allow this as a testimony to the world." He goes on to say, beginning with verse 21, we'll look at 21 and 22. "Now a brother will deliver a brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved." So it's not just that we're going to have to appear before courts and maybe be whipped, imprisoned.
No, he says, "You're going to be delivered unto death. It might be your own brother who does it. It might be your own parents. It might be your own children." In other words, this is going to get very personal. He didn't say, "You're going to be loved by all people for my name." No, you're going to be hated by all of them for my name's sake.
And his message to us, it's a message and a warning, "He who endures to the end will be saved." We can't think that when these trials come that, "Oh, okay, I've already got an uncancelable ticket to heaven. And so it doesn't matter if I denied Jesus under persecution." No, he says, "You have to endure to the end to be saved." That was principle five. Now, principle six, Christ does authorize one specific thing that we can do in the face of persecution. And that is we can flee.
Matthew 10:23, he said, "When they persecute you in this city, flee to another." He didn't give us the authority to fight back. In fact, there at the Garden of Gethsemane, he even set up a lesson. He had several of the apostles, two of them, to bring swords so that they had the opportunity to fight back when he was going to be arrested. And Jesus pointed this out to Pilate, "If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought to keep me from being arrested." But his kingdom isn't of this world.
He did not want them to fight. In fact, when Peter, rather, used his sword in defense of Jesus, cut off the servant's ear, Jesus told him to put his sword back. And in saying that, he told that to all of us, "Put your sword back. You don't use swords to defend my kingdom." And then he turned around and healed the servant's ear, showing that our position is to love our enemies, even if they are going to do us harm. So we don't fight back with physical weapons. We don't stage mass demonstrations.
The apostles didn't do this at Jesus's arrest. They didn't do it later on. They didn't protest against the many wicked things the Roman government was doing. No, they went out and made disciples. They undermined the strength of the Roman Empire by taking people who were citizens of the Roman Empire and transforming them into citizens of God's kingdom. Okay, the seventh principle is Christ expects us and requires us to remain faithful to him.
As I said before, this isn't one of those situations where we can decide, "Well, Christ wants me to obey him rather than Caesar. But because we're saved by grace, I can go ahead and disobey him, and it's not going to affect my salvation." No, he tells us the opposite. Still there in Matthew 10, he says this, verses 27 through 34, "Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light. And what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
But rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell or Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore. You are of more value than many sparrows. Therefore, whoever confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.
Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword." Those are some very sobering words. But he tells us not to fear as though God isn't in control. In other words, he knows what's happening, as we know from other passages of scripture. If we have the faith, he will give us the strength to be able to endure whatever is brought before us. And if we show ourselves faithful to him, he will acknowledge us before his Father.
But he also tells us, "If we deny him before men, then he will deny us before the Father." Our eternal destiny is at stake in these situations. And then just to drive it home further, he said, "Don't think I came to bring peace. I didn't come to bring peace but a sword." Not that the sword is in our hands. The sword is going to be in the hand of our enemies. And it's going to be controversial being a Christian. So those are the seven principles. Let's go over them again.
The first one is we must obey the governments of this world. As we saw later, that's not an absolute commandment. Number two, we saw that the governments of this world lie under the power of Satan. We shouldn't imagine them to be Christian governments, even if they give themselves that name. Number three, Jesus has established his own kingdom that is not of this world, that he makes citizens of people who are also citizens of human governments. So there's two kingdoms.
And when these two kingdoms collide, when they come in conflict, the fourth principle is we must obey God as ruler rather than men. But then number five, we can expect persecution. He's not going to protect us from that when we are faithful to him. He will reward us in the end. Sometimes he'll protect us. But he's told us, "Don't expect me to cushion you from persecution." Jesus endured it, and we are not greater than him.
Number six, he gave us authority to flee but not to take up weapons and fight back with carnal weapons. And finally, he commands us to be faithful when these trials and tests come upon us. Those are the seven principles. The seven principles we've talked about are fairly easy to remember. But applying them in real life isn't always so easy.
The difficult question we must ask ourself usually is, "To obey Caesar's law, does this require me to disobey a direct commandment of Jesus Christ?" Remember, we must obey Caesar unless his law conflicts with Christ. That is, to obey Caesar, we're going to have to disobey Jesus. Now, to arrive at the right conclusion, there are some supplemental questions we might want to ask ourselves. One would be, "What would Jesus and his apostles have done in this kind of situation?
What examples do we have from their lives in similar situations? What lessons and analogies can we draw from their teachings and their actions?" I mean, often what we're facing is not going to be direct on point with something that happened in their lives. But there might be something similar. There might be a principle that will give us guidance.
Now, one of the things I do see when I look at the example of the apostles in the New Testament is that they didn't impulsively or lightly come to the conclusion that they had to break Caesar's law in order to be obedient to Christ.
Otherwise, I mean, after all, Romans 13 would have little meaning if every time we could turn around and say, "Well, that law doesn't exactly coincide with Christ, so I'm going to disobey it." I mean, nearly all of the conflicts that Jesus and his apostles had were with the Jewish religious leaders, not with the secular Roman authorities. When the apostles were brought before the secular authorities, it was usually on the grounds of disturbing the peace. And they were normally innocent in that regard.
They had broken no laws. So they didn't take the position that they could break Caesar's law simply because it was burdensome or because it was inconvenient. So we have their example as a guide. Nevertheless, it's still not always easy to know where to draw the line today. We don't have perfect guidance from the New Testament because, as I said, we often face situations that they didn't. Now, during the first persecutions, knowing where to draw the line was fairly easy.
I mean, the first conflict we have for the apostles is there in Acts where the Jewish religious leaders told them that they weren't to preach anymore. And as I've mentioned, their ordinance had the authority of law. But Jesus had directly given them the commission to go out and make disciples. And when they were released from prison, God's angel told them to go back to the temple and preach. So there was no gray area. It was perfectly clear where to draw the line.
If we're going to obey Jesus, we can't obey the Jewish religious authorities. Now, later on, during the end of the first century and during the second and third century and the early Christian persecutions, again, usually it was pretty clear where to draw the line. They were told, "Deny Jesus Christ." Well, Jesus said, "If you deny me before men, I'm going to deny you before my Father." There was no gray area.
Or they were ordered to make a sacrifice before an idol or to swear to the divinity of Caesar, something like that. Very clear where to draw the line. And the early Christians set an enormous example for us of being willing to undergo horrendous tortures and death rather than to deny Christ. But sometimes it got a little trickier when Caesar saw that just putting it out black and white that Christians would usually refuse to deny Christ or to sacrifice to an idol, they tried other methods.
Oftentimes we read that they just would say, "Are you a Christian?" If you said, "No," that was it. They would leave you alone. Just say, "No, I'm not a Christian." Is that the same thing as denying Christ? Well, the early church felt it was. No, to say, "You're not a Christian," well, number one, you're lying. But number two, that's an indirect way of denying Jesus Christ. So that was not permitted. All right, another trickier one Tertullian makes reference to that they would offer them blood sausages to eat.
He doesn't make it clear exactly how this happened, if this was while they were in prison and the only food they brought them was a blood sausage. So now what do they do? Do they eat it? Now, you may not understand why that was an issue because somewhere Christians got the idea that they could throw out Acts 15. Whereas this was a basic Christian command to the early Christians and to the New Testament Christians. Today, most Christians don't pay any attention to it.
I'm talking about the letter that was sent forth from all of the apostles in Acts 15, verses 28 and 29, where they wrote, "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us." So we have all the apostles plus the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. "To lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things that you, one, abstain from things offered to idols, two, from blood, three, from things strangled, and four, from sexual immorality.
If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well." So these were four commands that would be at the top of the list that Christians cannot do. Now, when it's talking about keeping free from blood, they understood that to mean just that, from eating blood. And why things strangled was forbidden is because when you strangle an animal, it has not been properly bled. The blood will still be there in the meat. Now, this was something forbidden under the Mosaic law, but the law was done away with.
That wasn't the issue. The issue was the law given to Noah, which is on all families and tribes of the earth. It's on every one of us. The covenant that God made with Noah, sometimes called the Rainbow Covenant. And he told them that he was allowing mankind now to eat meat, but not with the blood. The blood had to be drained out of the meat before eating it. So it was clear to the early Christians what God's commandment was. And they took a united stand.
"No, we will not eat a blood sausage." Because to deny Christ's law is to deny Christ. Well, sometimes it got even trickier. In the early 300s, the worst persecution broke out up to that date. This was under the Roman Emperor Diocletian. One of the commandments that he laid out was that the leaders of the churches had to hand over the sacred writings of the Christians to be burned. Now, they weren't asked to deny Christ. They weren't asked to sacrifice to an idol. They didn't have to deny they were a Christian.
They didn't have to deny the scriptures, just turn them over and we're going to burn them. Well, is that a place where you have to draw a line in the sand and say, "No, I will not cross this line. I will die first." Some leaders felt like they could do this. Or at least they did it. Maybe they felt they shouldn't, but they wanted to avoid death or avoid imprisonment, so they would turn over the scriptures. Now, this became a huge issue in the church once the persecution was over.
The ministers who had complied with this, who had handed over the scriptures to the authorities to be burned, were called traditores. That's Latin for meaning a person who hands over because they handed over the sacred writings. And incidentally, that's the origin where we get our word traitor. These were viewed as traitors to Christ from that word traditore. So the church took a universal stand on this.
When the persecution was over, all of the bishops and other ministers who had compromised and had handed over the scriptures were removed from office or even banned from communion. Even though the early Christians were willing to die or to go to prison rather than to hand over the sacred writings of the Christians, when I present this test to Christians today, when I tell them about it, I find that many Christians today feel like this would not necessarily be denying Christ to turn over copies of the Bible.
Well, what has changed? Well, the biggest thing that's changed is the invention of the printing press. In the early centuries, a copy of the Bible would have been very expensive and would have been the product of a year or more of work. Most churches probably had only one Bible for the entire congregation. If you turned over the church's only copy of the scriptures, it might take a year to replace it. During that time, the church would have no Bible.
But today, a given congregation might have 100 copies of the Bible or even more on hand. The minister could turn over 25 copies of the Bible to the authorities, and there would still be plenty left. And those 25 copies would be fairly inexpensive and easy to replace. So this test doesn't necessarily have the same meaning in the 21st century as it did in the year 300. On the other hand, perhaps it does, and we've just grown soft today.
My point is that where we draw that line in the sand and say, "This is as far as we will go, and we will go to prison or die before we cross that line," well, that varies between different Christian consciences, and it varies in different eras. Military service is a good example. The historic position of the church was that Jesus's teachings in the Sermon on the Mount concerning non-resistance and loving our enemies means that Christians cannot take up the sword in war or in self-defense.
That's historic Christianity. And that position has been maintained by every kingdom Christian group from the time of Constantine through the present day. And it was maintained by the whole church prior to Constantine. However, exactly where a Christian should draw the line has varied between different Christian groups. It's varied between different countries, and it's varied between different centuries.
I think this is mainly because the circumstances have differed between countries, between centuries, and also between different consciences. In the year 200, this is what Christians faced. There was no military conscription in Rome, that is, the Roman Empire. Military service was an hereditary type of thing. If your father was a soldier, then you had to be a soldier as well. And it's something you did your entire life until retirement.
I'm not sure what the retirement age was, whether it was 40 or 50 years old, something like that. You did get to retire, and they would give you land or something so that you would be able to provide for yourself once your term of duty was over. But you couldn't get out because it went against your conscience, because you decided you'd rather follow another trade or something like that. So it made for a very difficult situation if somebody was a soldier and then they converted to Christianity. What did they do?
There was no way out. Well, around the year 200, the church took the following position. If you came to baptism and you were a soldier, you had to make a solemn declaration that you would never use the sword, you would never torture anyone, you would never take an oath, you would never make sacrifices or give other worship to a false god. And if you gave that solemn declaration, then you could be baptized because there was no way out of the military once you were in it except death.
On the other hand, in the early church, if you were not in the military, but after your baptism, you voluntarily joined the military, I mean, they did take volunteers, well, then you were put out of the church for doing that. Some kingdom Christians today are critical of the position taken by the second-century church with regard to baptizing new converts who were still in the military. Well, all I can say is don't criticize fellow kingdom Christians until you've walked a mile in their shoes.
Here in the West, we don't face anything remotely similar to what our faithful brothers faced in the second and third centuries. I think the church made the right decision for the circumstances that they faced. On the other hand, it wouldn't be appropriate for a person in the military today to argue that they don't need to get out because the second-century church didn't require it. That's because our circumstances today are totally different.
Here in the United States, by law, the armed forces have to give you an honorable discharge if you can establish that you have come to non-resistant convictions after you entered the armed forces. No such opportunity existed in the year 200. Where a line needs to be drawn sometimes does differ between centuries. Now, with Constantine, then things changed because within a few decades of the Council of Nicaea, Christians began fighting in the army.
And before the fourth century was over, only Christians were allowed to be in the Roman army. And the church took the position that there's basically two ways you can go as a Christian. There's the perfect way, the complete way to follow all of Jesus's teachings. And the church admired that and praised that, and the Roman state respected that. Now, to follow the way of the perfect generally meant you became a monk or you were ordained to the clergy, something like that.
And you were exempt from military service when you did that. But for everybody else, military service was treated as something okay to do, even praiseworthy. And there usually weren't any exemptions for individual consciences. Now, again, during that time, you didn't have universal conscription. And so it wasn't quite the issue that it's been in modern times. But kingdom Christians took the stand that there's not a distinction between perfect Christians and morally Christians.
There's one standard for all of us, and that's the same standard that the church had said fit the perfect. That fits everybody. And so they refused as a group to participate in war or military service. Now, during the centuries, during the Middle Ages and during the Reformation era, you had the Waldensians and the Anabaptists who usually were persecuted for preaching that it was wrong for Christians to go to war. The issue usually wasn't that they were being conscripted and they refused to go.
It was usually because they publicly preached that it was wrong and the state church didn't like that. Now, in modern times, for the last, I'd say, 200 years, you've had universal conscription of men in most, if not all, of the Western European countries and the United States, countries like that. I mean, it's varied. The draft hasn't always gone on during peacetime. Sometimes you've had it, sometimes you haven't. Christians who are opposed to war, they've drawn the line in different places.
And I'm not saying I agree with all of these different places. I'm just saying people have followed their conscience in a different way. The Seventh-day Adventists and many just individual pacifists, they feel like the line is drawn that you do not take up a gun to kill somebody or do anything in any way involving harming another. But they feel it is okay for a Christian to serve in the military if it's in a non-combatant position. Typically, this is serving in the medical corps, helping the wounded and the sick.
And they feel like that does not violate Jesus's teaching because they're not resisting evil, they're not hating their enemy. Now, most conservative Anabaptists today take the position that, no, they cannot do that. Joining the military puts you in an organization that is dedicated to not loving our enemies. And you're certainly not being non-resistant. Even if you yourself don't take up a gun, you are making it possible for somebody else to take up their gun.
But conservative Anabaptists have usually felt they could do alternative non-military service. And that's where I would personally take the stand myself on that point. Now, the sect I grew up with felt like doing alternative service is still compromising. You're basically saying the government has a claim to your life, even though they didn't give you your life, that they have a claim to it, and your life is dedicated to Jesus Christ. And to acknowledge Caesar has a claim to part of your life is a compromise.
I don't agree with that position today. On the other hand, I respect it and understand it. My point is that different Christians have drawn the line in different places, even though they all agree that that is kingdom Christians and those who want to live by Jesus's teachings, that we cannot go to war as Christians. Now, what I can see from looking at what has happened through history is that it helps enormously when there is a church-wide position.
In the early church, it was literally the entire church had a position that it took. In modern times, we're talking about a given denomination or a given Christian group. They said, "This is where we take a stand," for example, the way conservative Mennonites would do today, rather than churches that say, "It's up to each individual and you decide where the line is drawn." I mean, I'm not saying it's wrong for a church to do that.
I'm just saying the fruit hasn't worked out very well with regard to military service. Now, some of the churches that have done that would be the Church of Christ and a lot of Pentecostal groups. And what has happened that when war came and you had this enormous pressure and you were facing prison or death, if you didn't go into the army, that those groups have tended to apostatize, to compromise in those kinds of situations.
As a result, today, most people wouldn't think of the Pentecostals or the Church of Christ as being non-resistant Christians. And those churches as a whole have lost any kind of witness or testimony to non-resistance. So it definitely helps if we band together as a group and say, "This is where we're going to draw the line." In deciding where to draw the line on a number of issues, we also have to keep in mind what I call the Daniel factor.
This refers to the situation that the prophet Daniel faced back in Old Testament times. As you remember, King Darius was tricked into signing into effect a law that forbade anyone from praying to any god for 30 days except to the king. Now, Daniel could have continued praying to God anyway. He could have done it in his closet. He could have prayed at night in his bed. He could have prayed silently anytime he wanted to. He would have committed no sin in doing that.
And more than likely, that's what most of the Jews did. The problem for Daniel was that it was his custom to always pray visibly at his windowsill three times a day, facing Jerusalem. Now, if he stopped doing that for 30 days, it would have appeared to both the pagans and to the Jews that Daniel was following the new law that made it illegal to pray to Jehovah or to any other god. Now, if Daniel had been a shepherd or a potter that no one knew, probably no one would have paid any attention to him.
It wouldn't have been that significant if he just prayed silently. However, Daniel was the highest-ranking Jew in the Persian government, and he was one of the leading government officials in the entire Persian realm. So if he quit appearing at his window to pray, the pagans would have thought that they had won a major victory. And no doubt many of the Jews in Babylon would have been stumbled by it.
It would have appeared that Daniel was saying, "Okay, we have to obey this law and not pray to God for 30 days." And Daniel felt like he could not let that happen. So he continued to visibly pray at his windowsill three times a day as he had always done. Well, as a result, he was thrown into the lion's den, but as we know, God rescued him. But I don't think there's any question that he did the right thing to continue to pray publicly as he had done before.
Appearances can be very important, particularly when we are in a position of leadership. If it looks like we're compromising with the enemy or denying Christ, even if we really aren't, it will likely weaken the faith of other Christians, and it may cause them to be disobedient to Christ. And of course, it will be a huge morale booster. It will appear as a huge victory for our opponents. For example, earlier I mentioned the situation around the year 300 during the Diocletian persecution.
You remember church leaders were ordered to turn over their sacred writings to be burned. But most of the church leaders refused to do so because it would have been publicly viewed that they were turning against Christ. But some of the leaders figured out a way to get around the law. They turned over non-sacred Christian writings to be burned. For example, perhaps they had the writings of Tertullian there in their church, and they turned those over. They weren't inspired writings. They didn't claim to be inspired.
So we'll give these to the officials. Other leaders turned over heretical writings, like Gnostic writings, to the government. I mean, after all, the Roman officials didn't know the difference. But was it okay to do that? Well, see, this is where the Daniel factor comes in. Those ones who appeared to comply with the law, even though they really weren't, it looked to others that these church leaders had caved in and had sided with the enemy. The pagans thought that, and most of their Christian brothers thought that.
And that may have led other Christians who looked up to them to compromise or to lose their faith. And it certainly was very discouraging to those Christian leaders who were suffering in prison for refusing to hand over the scriptures when they hear, "Oh, Brother So-and-So, who's the bishop or one of the presbyters in such and such a church, well, he's turned over the writings to the pagans." In fact, that very situation led to one of the earliest schisms in the church, and that was the Donatist movement.
What had happened was that one of the bishops in North Africa appeared to be a traditor, someone who had given in and handed over the scriptures to the pagan authorities. Well, after the persecution ended, many of the Christians in North Africa no longer viewed him as a valid bishop, and they didn't recognize anyone that he ordained thereafter.
Now, this man had been the bishop of Carthage, one of the principal cities in North Africa, and he later ordained one of his close friends, someone who had supported him during the persecution, a man named Caecilian. Well, like I say, these other Christians didn't recognize the ordination of Caecilian. So you ended up with two rival bishops there in Carthage, each claiming to be the only legitimate bishop of the church.
And so this caused an enormous schism there in North Africa, and eventually the issue was taken before a church council. Well, at the council, it was claimed that the traitor bishop had actually turned over Gnostic writings to the pagans, not the scriptures. And so the council decided in his favor. Well, his opponents didn't believe the story, and the result was a permanent split in the church in North Africa. So the moral of the story is we always have to take into account the Daniel factor.
If we find a clever way to get around the law where we don't have to break it nor deny Christ, that may be fine and good. On the other hand, it may mislead others and lead to their spiritual downfall. Another issue that comes up when God's kingdom collides with the kingdoms of this world is that of testifying against our brothers or sisters. This became a big issue in Ken Miller's trial.
At Ken's sentencing, the prosecutor made the comment derogatorily that Ken is, quote, "enjoying his status as a hero among our Anabaptist people." You know, I had just spent a couple of hours with Ken the night before at the state prison where Ken was being incarcerated. His spirit was unbent, and his convictions were firm, but he was hardly enjoying his status. What he wanted to do was to be home with his wife and children. Instead, he was sitting in prison hundreds of miles from home.
He was certainly willing to suffer for Christ, but not because he was getting some kind of selfish enjoyment out of it. But Ken is a true hero in my book, although probably not for reasons the prosecutor would understand. You know, Ken could have avoided every bit of what was happening simply by agreeing to cooperate with the United States government in this case. He was offered immunity if he would simply testify and tell the government everything he knew about the situation.
And his testimony wouldn't have caused any problems for Lisa Miller. Ken doesn't know where she is, and he doesn't know who would know where she is. So he couldn't give them any information that would help the government to find her. Actually, there was only one person who might have been adversely affected by Ken's testimony, and I don't know that the government would have been successful in prosecuting that person, even with Ken's testimony.
Nevertheless, if someone was going to go to jail, Ken preferred that it be him. He wasn't going to buy freedom from prison at the expense of his brother going to prison instead of him. He came to his own personal code of Christian conduct for situations like his that I think is a good model for the rest of us to consider. Now, this code doesn't necessarily apply to situations where there is direct persecution, where Christians are operating underground.
In those kinds of situations, normally we don't want to give any kind of testimony about anybody. But rather, it's for situations like that of the Lisa Miller case where a Christian believes that to obey Caesar would mean crossing the line of obedience to Christ, and so they choose to be obedient to Christ. Anyway, these are the conclusions that Ken came to, at least for himself.
First, if two or more brothers are involved in wrongdoing that does not concern obedience to Christ, then it's permissible for a Christian to testify against his brother. For example, let's say, God forbid, that two Christians rob a store. Well, here they are breaking both Caesar's law and Christ's law. So there is nothing heroic or praiseworthy in refusing to cooperate with the state if the law catches up with one of them.
Number two, however, if two or more brothers are involved in a situation where they have violated Caesar's law, either knowingly or unknowingly, because they feel they must do so in order to be obedient to Christ, then if one of them is caught, he should not testify against his brother since they were both acting in obedience to a higher law. Loyalty to Christ and love of your brother means you should be the one to suffer and not buy your freedom at his expense.
But point three, nevertheless, if one brother is the principal actor in violating Caesar's law, again, even if no one realizes they are actually breaking the law in what they're doing, and he gets others involved in his actions, then he should not let the others go to jail in order to protect him. In Ken's case, several brothers testified that Ken had called them up and asked them to do specific things concerning Lisa Miller.
Well, if that's the case, then it would only be right that Ken be the one to answer to the law if the others are offered immunity for their testimony. If Ken is going to show love to them, he shouldn't let them go to jail to shield him if he's the one who got them involved in it. Now, I'm not saying that this is the model everyone has to follow, but I think it's something for all of us to think about. Well, in conclusion, let's go over the seven principles again.
Number one, all governmental authority comes ultimately from God. As Christians, we are commanded to obey Caesar's laws. Number two, although God is ultimately in control, the whole world, including governments, are under the sway or influence of Satan. No earthly government is God's kingdom here on earth, and there is no such thing as a Christian nation.
However, Jesus has established his own kingdom, which operates independently of the kingdoms of this world, even though his subjects normally must obey the laws of the land where they live. Number four, but when obeying Caesar would require us to disobey Christ, we must obey Christ and his Father rather than human governments. Number five, we can expect to be punished when we choose Christ over Caesar. He told us we will be persecuted.
Number six, Christ authorizes us to flee in the face of persecution, but that's all that he's authorized. He has not given us the right to take up arms and fight against the government. Finally, number seven, Christ expects us, requires us to remain faithful to him. If we deny him, he will deny us before his Father. So, as kingdom Christians, we are normally law-abiding good citizens who live quiet and peaceable lives.
However, when God's kingdom collides with the kingdoms of this world, that is, when Christ's law conflicts with the laws of a human government, then we must obey God as ruler rather than men.