What About Our Role When A Government Rewards Evil & Punishes Good

Romans 13

In reality the greatest threat to this nation is the government, the government. And I want to show you how we are to understand that. Turn to Romans 13, Romans 13. Listen carefully to what the apostle Paul said: “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it doesn’t bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”

The role of the government is to restrain evil; and when it functions to restrain evil, it is fulfilling its God-ordained purpose. Please notice in verses 1 and 2 that government is from God, by God, of God. It is designed as a necessary restraint in a world of sinners. Verses 3 and 4 tell us it is not a threat to those whose behavior is good, but evil. It is those who do evil who should be afraid, not those who do good. In fact it offers praise to those who do good, and brings wrath on those who do evil. And rulers actually, according to verse 6, are servants of God, devoted to that service.

This is God’s design for government. The problem is, when government ceases to function by God’s design, it yields up its authority.

The same would be true in a family. God’s design is that the father lead the family. When the father leads in a destructive and evil way, he yields up the right to exercise that God-given authority.

And by the way just as a footnote, the man who wrote that, the apostle Paul, was in violation of the government more often than any other person in the entire New Testament.

And when he went to preach the gospel, he was very often thrown in jail; and ultimately he was executed by the government that he refused to obey when it no longer functioned to protect good behavior and punish evil behavior.

1 Peter 2:13-14 “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.”

A question of asked to one preacher: “What does Peter mean when he says: ‘Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake’......what does ‘for the Lord’s sake mean’?

The answer: “When the government is doing what the Lord designed it to do.”

I can go on my own commentary but for your and my sakes I want, but just to say that what we see today is anti-truth.

I can also see a weird push to reward evil and in some cases punish good.

I have never seen anything like this.........Crime to one side, the relentless push to legalize abortion makes me scratch my head..........

Diane Feinstein said in her questioning of a supreme court justice: “The decision to whether or not a woman should give birth to a child is completely the mother’s right”...........she further said “It is a shame that dogmatics (hard stance) will cause a woman to have to give up her career because she gets pregnant.”

This is a hard line push to destroy fetuses/babies because of a lack of self-control.

When the government ceases to yield to God’s design, it ceases its authority.....throughout history a government the forgoes God’s design for their own (which is evil) that government fell!

John Calvin said it best: “[We’re] subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it, nor be moved by all the dignity which they possess as magistrates.”

Throughout Biblical history we see instances of defiance to the system: The 3 Hebrew children, who defied the command of the king! A king who after dealing with faithful saints of God for so long (his own captives) that he finally surrendered to the truth of God!

Acts 5:26-33...........We ought to obey God rather than man.......this is our supreme objective above all things.......

I am not sure what will happen after these elections but there is a push to go away from God’s design and I would say that they are part of the way there.....

However, it is interesting to me that a law that has been established for 50 years to legalize abortion federally, was done away with when the party so in favor of abortion was in power.

I believe we can see the Lord working His good!

Government has already become the purveyor of wickedness. Government is a murderer, slaughtering millions of infants in abortion; elevating the LGBTQ agenda, the bizarre transgender deception. The culture has become anti-truth, we all know that. The truth is the biggest threat to lies.

William Pitt, well-known name in English history, said this: “Necessity (i.e., public health, common good) is the plea [of] every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants. “Get people afraid, and they’ll do whatever you want. A fearful society will always comply; panicking people will believe anything” [(Cantrell)]. “During the gruesome and bloody days of the French Revolution, when 40,000 innocent [people] lost their heads,” you would be interested to know who was operating the guillotine: the Committee for Public Safety [(Cantrell)].

One writer says, “Governments now get voted into power by promising to oversee housing, education, medicine, the economy, [the] currency, a minimum income, food, water, land, and the list goes on.

The government become a parent, and the citizens are dependents. The government in this role becomes a monstrous juggernaut of bureaucracy, devouring taxes and trying to regulate every detail of life.” And they definitely want to regulate the church and silence its proclamation.

In his book The Glorious Body of Christ, Kuiper wrote, “Our age is one of ecclesiastical passivism. . . . When a church ceases to be militant it also ceases to be a church of Jesus Christ. . . . A truly militant church stands opposed to the world both without its walls and within. .

Does government win? Does Satan win? No, because in chapter 19 of the book of Revelation, Jesus comes back, right? And destroys all kings set against Him. Battle of Armageddon, He wipes them out.

Listen to Psalm 2: “Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed”—this is what the rulers of the world do. And they say, “‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’ He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, ‘But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.’” The King is coming, isn’t He? “