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State's Rights - Part 2

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• I want you to open your Bibles tonight, Romans chapter 13, and let's begin reading with the first four verses. Romans 13, beginning there with verse 1. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive of themselves damnation."

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• "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid. For he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

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• Now last night, I tried to deal with the historical aspect of states' rights. Historically speaking, it was the states, or more particularly, the people of the states, that came together and created what you and I know as the federal government. There is so much documentation, and I gave you a great deal of it last night, that it certainly does not need to be repeated. And history is indeed important. In fact, let me tell you how important history is.

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• Before you ever begin disdaining history, you just remember that history is nothing less than God's eternal decrees coming to pass in time. You know, the Bible says in Deuteronomy 29:29, "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things which He reveals belong to us and our children that we may do them." So we don't know what God's secretive will is until God brings it to pass in time. And then we know it as history. And as important as history is for our founding fathers, there was another document that was even more important. And that document was the Bible.

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• Now, many of you have heard David Barton in his video "America's Godly Heritage," and I want to just give you one quick quote. And here he's talking about Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman, and he makes this statement. He says, "Donald Lutz and Charles Hyneman reviewed an estimated 15,000 items with explicit political content printed between 1760 and 1805. And from these items they identified 3,154 references to other sources."

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• "The source they most often quoted was the Bible, accounting for 34% of all citations. 60% of all quotes came from men who used the Bible to form their conclusions. That means 94% of all the quotes by the Founding Fathers were based upon the Bible. The founding fathers took the ideas from the Bible and incorporated them into our government." And the interesting thing is the book that our founding fathers most usually quoted from in the Bible was the book of Deuteronomy, which, of course, is the book of law.

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• Now, when you and I begin to consider states' rights, we have to consider it not just simply from a historical perspective, but also from a biblical perspective as well. And as we do so, let me explain the statement that I'm going to make, please. In order to understand this biblically, we've got to understand that a state, in the strictest sense of the word, is not a biblical entity. Now, I want to explain that by saying this. In order to understand states' rights, we have to understand individual rights. Who is it that comprises a state? Who is it that forms a state? It's the citizens. It's the people. Do you realize without the people or without citizens, you do not have a state.

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• It is God that ordained and created three very basic institutions. And only three, I might add. He created the family, which is a ministry of education. He created the church, which is a ministry of grace. And He created what I would call the state or the civil government, which is a ministry of justice. But that does not mean, since God has ordained civil government, that a state, therefore, was created and given certain rights. No, it is the people who were created by God. It was the people who were given these rights, and it's the people who came together and formed the states. Now, when they came together to form a government, that means that there are now corporate rights only because the group of individuals have come together. Do corporate rights then stem from individual rights? And so you have to ask this very simple question. From where do people derive their rights? And the answer is from God and God alone. Government cannot give rights. Government does not have any rights to give. According not only to the Bible, but even our historical documents, it is the government's position to secure these rights.

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• Most of you can quote from the Declaration of Independence when it says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Now notice what the Declaration said, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. So the purpose then for government, according to the Declaration, is to secure our rights. And then the Declaration went on to say this, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

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• Now that's a very interesting statement. One of the things I try to teach people is this, that every negative has a positive and every positive has a negative. So if government, therefore, derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, then where does it derive its unjust powers? Through usurpation and theft, not from the consent of those over whom they are ruling. So anytime we give consent, it would be a just power. When we do not give our consent, it would be an unjust power.

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• Now, let me try to explain the concept of states' rights by referring you to a biblical illustration. Every one of us understands Israel. I mean, there were 12 tribes that made up the nation. But do you realize what Israel was was simply this. It was twelve states joined together under the constitution or the compact of God's law. Do you realize that each tribe or each state had its own flag, had its own princes, its own rulers? And so you have twelve equal states coming together under the constitution of God's law. Now, what one state or one tribe did was not necessarily binding upon the other tribes. In other words, what Issachar did, did not bind Manasseh. What Manasseh did, did not bind Judah, because each one of them had their own separate government. But that government was under the constitution of the law of God.

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• Now, when you say, well, here's the tribe, that is true. But you've got to understand, it is the people who make up the tribe, just like it's the people who make up the state. So, without the people, there would not be any states. We've got to remember what I emphasized last night, and that is this, that it was the states that created the federal government. The federal government did not create the states. Even today, the federal government cannot make a state. It may admit one to the Union, but it cannot make a state. Only the people coming together can do that. So states' rights then really and truly translate into individual rights, family rights, ecclesiastical rights, and finally corporate rights. And when I say corporate rights, I'm talking about the right of the people, therefore, to freely assemble and to create and control their government. That's what we're talking about. You see, we have inalienable rights that have been given to us by our Creator. And I want to tell you, and I probably won't get to preach on this tonight, but I believe this, that first and foremost, one of our most important rights is simply the right to be left alone.

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• The right to be able to tell government to butt out of our business. Now, let me just try to delineate several important points for you from the Bible tonight. First of all, when we talk about states' rights from a biblical perspective, states' rights would begin with the biblical principle of limited government. States' rights would begin with the biblical principle of limited government. Each of us have heard the adage that the government that governs least governs best.

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• Now, according to the Scripture, that is a very accurate statement. Why? Because, let me show you, the only authority that God gave civil government is the authority to execute justice. Look in your Bibles, Romans 13, verse 3 and verse 4. Here he says, "For rulers," and I'm going to point out who they are in a little while, "for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil."

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• "Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same, for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

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• Now, according to the word of God, God has limited civil government to a ministry of justice. In that limitation, there are two sides of one coin. God has given government, civil government, that number one, it might punish the wicked, and number two, that it might protect the righteous. It's just that simple.

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• Now, when you and I talk about the Constitution of the United States, we've got to remember that our Constitution is referred to either as a limited powers document or an express powers document. When we call the Constitution a limited powers document, all that means is this, that the only power that the federal government has is that which is limited to the federal government by the Constitution. When you call it an express powers document, it means basically the same thing. It's saying the same truth another way. It is saying the only power that the federal government has is that which is expressed in the Constitution. So the Constitution then is called a limited powers document or an express powers document, and that means this, that whenever the federal government goes over and above and beyond its constitutional limits, therefore, it is usurpation, theft, and tyranny.

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• We use the term limited government. What does that really mean?

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• Now you stop and think about this. When we use the term limited government, most commonly it refers to a government whose functions are restricted and prescribed and limited by law. What is the law that limits or prescribes the limits for our government? It is the Constitution. All you've got to do is go to Article 6, Paragraph 3. This Constitution is to be the supreme law of the land, and all governmental officials and judges are to be bound thereby. And so when we talk about a limited government, it means government does not have all power. It is limited by the law, by the document. Now, please remember this. The Constitution of the United States was not written to limit the people or the states. It was written to limit the federal government. Do you realize that when God ordained government, He gave it as a ministry of justice. God never ordained government to be an educational ministry. He never ordained government to be a welfare ministry. He never ordained government to be a religious ministry in the fact that it runs the churches and tells the churches what to do and how to report and what kind of forms to file.

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• No, no. All God did was give government, what? A ministry of justice.

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• Now, when I say that when government goes over and above and beyond the Constitution, it is usurpation, it is theft, it is tyranny. Some would say, now, Brother Weaver, that's being hard. No, that's not being hard. That's being truthful. Alexander Hamilton wrote many warnings against the usurpation of the Constitution, and he said that any time the public or the people permitted the public service to flout the people's mandates, that is, flouting the Constitution, that there were certain traits involved. When he said what I'm about to quote, he was referring to the state constitution of New York. So he wrote this in 1784 and he said, talking about public servants, who give such defiance, that is to the constitution, he says, such public servants who defy the constitution, it would be a treasonable usurpation upon the power and the majesty of the people. Now notice what he said, he called it a treasonable usurpation of the power and the majesty of the people. How could he say that? Because first of all, the power came from the people.

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• Remember, the just powers are from the consent of the governed. And then he said the power and the majesty of the people, and the reason he used the word majesty is because the people are in reality the kings in republican form of government. And so he calls it a treasonable usurpation. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, said this. You want to know where we've fallen by the wayside?

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• Listen to what he said. "Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late revolution, that is, the American war for independence, the free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents."

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• "They saw all the consequences in principle and avoided the consequences by denying the principle." Now listen to what Madison said. He said what happened during the American Revolution was this. That our fathers did not wait until a usurped power has strengthened itself or it had become entangled in legal precedents. No, no. He said they saw the consequences in the principle and then they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.

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• Now what was he talking about? Do you remember how Parliament tried to tax the American colonists? There's the tea tax, the stamp tax, all these taxes. Stop and think. The taxes were an extreme minimum. A half a cent? A cent? Now stop and ask yourself this question. Who's willing to lose their life over a penny? Or two pennies? It was not the tax. It was not the amount of the tax. It was the principle. The colonies were never under Parliament. Parliament had no authority to tax the colonies.

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• Each colony had a charter, had a constitution, had a covenant, had an agreement with George III. And George III was king of England, yes, but king of Georgia and South Carolina and North Carolina and Virginia and all the colonies. And each colony had its own legislature. And so the colonies were never under Parliament. And when Parliament did begin to pass a law saying, well, you'll pay this tea tax or this stamp tax or this tax, they said, no, we won't.

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• Because the principle is you have no authority over us. How would you like it if Canada passed a law that we had to pay them five cents on every American Federal Reserve note? What's Canada got to do with us in that sense of the word? What if China said that, yeah, you're going to pay us two cents on every Federal Reserve? What has that got to do with us? They have never, and we have never, been under their authority, per se, as a government. And it was the same situation in the American colonies. And they said, look, we are going to avoid the consequences by denying the principle. And the principle is we don't owe Parliament a duly squat and we're not going to pay them. We'll fight. Read the Fairfax Resolves.

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• Now, the problem that we have today is this, that we've fallen asleep at the wheel. We've not been diligent in watching over our liberties. And hence they've been slowly and surely eroding away before our eyes. And what has happened now? We've allowed usurpation to get strong and there are so many legal precedents today. You go into the courtroom and you are absolutely flabbergasted. I tell people I'm not a communist.

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• I have no sympathy with communism whatsoever. But there was one communist that said something that I did agree with. It was Gus Hall. Gus Hall said the reason we refer to our courts as the halls of justice is because the only place you can get any justice is out in the halls.

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• Now you stop and think about that. That's the truth because there's none in the courtroom. We have fallen asleep at the wheel. Do you realize the Constitution of the United States limits the federal government? It does not limit it as closely as the Word of God, but it does limit it. While it makes 80 grants of power to the federal government, it limits or levies 115 prohibitions against it. And while it gives 20 grants of power to the federal legislation, then it also places 70 restraints upon it.

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• Limited government just simply means this, that we the people are free to live our lives without governmental interference and without governmental permission. Now, I'm not as old as some of you. But I'm older than a lot of you. And I can remember when I was a boy, if I ever wanted to see a police officer, I had to go to town on Saturday. And then really look around. Because we just didn't have them. We didn't need them. You can't drive five miles today without seeing 30 or 40 of them.

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• Now, there's a reason for that. And I'm going to tell you before I end tonight, there is a reason for that. But the problem is this, folks. We've lost control of our government. Where government is limited, there is liberty and freedom. Where government is unlimited, there is tyranny, oppression, and enslavement. And states' rights, when you understand them, is a means to secure the limitation of power. Now let me go to my second point tonight, and that is this. States' rights include the biblical principle of freedom from tyranny and despotism. States' rights include the biblical principle of freedom from tyranny and despotism.

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• Let me ask you this question. How free are we? How many freedoms have we lost in this country? I've heard people say and I've seen people revel in this statement. We are the freest country on the face of the earth. Well, we may be the freest, but that does not mean that we are free. I mean, you know, can you have the flu just a little bit and not have the flu? No, if you got the flu, you got the flu.

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• And if you are enslaved, you're enslaved. You just stop and think of how far we have progressed in this country that we now need governmental permission to do just about anything and everything. Let me use another word, we need a governmental license. Do you want to know what the word license means? Go to Black's Law Dictionary or Bouvier's Law Dictionary and look up the word license and here's what you will find. Permission from a competent authority to do that which otherwise would be unlawful to do. So now you have to have a license to get married. Why is it unlawful to get married? You have to have a license to drive. Why is it unlawful to travel? You have to have a license to perform your occupation. Oh, is it unlawful to work?

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• You say, come on, brother, we were listening. I could go on all night just on this. But do you realize I was preaching in Fairfax County, Virginia? It was probably 30 to 35 years ago. And I was absolutely horrified when the pastor told me that he had to get a license—and by the way, Fairfax County right next to Washington—he had to get a license to cut down a tree that was in his yard.

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• I said, what? I couldn't believe it. And that was 30 to 35 years ago. That same pastor's son, by the way, not too many years ago, was arrested for cutting down trees on his own property without license. Now, ask yourself. How free are we? John Dickinson made this statement. I want you to listen and think about this. He said, "Another truth respecting the vigilance with which a free people should guard their liberty that deserves to be carefully observed is this. That a real tyranny may prevail in a state while the forms of a free constitution remain." Now listen to what he said, that a real tyranny may prevail in a state while the forms of a free constitution remain. Folks, we have the form of a free constitution in this country. But let me ask you another question. How many of our politicians pay any attention to it? How many have ever read it? Although all swear with an oath that they will uphold it and perform it and guard it.

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• Do you realize it is now possible to go through law school, to graduate from law school, pass the bar exam, and never, ever have one course in constitutional law? And you remember most of our politicians are lawyers.

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• Now, all I'm trying to say is this, folks. You can have tyranny while you have the form of a free Constitution. By the way, in my book, "The Christian Civil Government," I define the word tyrant for you, and by the way, the root word from which tyrant comes literally means one who rules without God. So we are facing tyranny. Now, I want you to look in Romans 13 verses 1 and 2. "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God." Now folks, look in verse 2, "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive unto themselves damnation." It is true and exceedingly clear that God ordained civil government. What does it say? "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God." I cannot read that verse without thinking of Lester Roloff.

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• Many of you have known him. He's been dead a number of years. He was killed in a plane crash. But the state of Texas attacked his church and the children's homes and all the other homes that he had there. And he was in a meeting with one of the welfare workers there. And he was telling her that he was not going to take a license to exercise his ministry that God had given him.

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• And she said, "Now, Brother Roloff, don't you know the Bible says that every soul be subject to the higher powers?" He said, "Yes, ma'am, and I don't have any problem with that issue. Lower powers has given me this." Yeah, it's the lower powers, that's a fact. But do you realize when God said, "Let every soul be subject to the higher power," that means this, no matter how high you are in authority, there's always someone higher than you. I don't care if you're the president of the United States. I don't care who you are. God is supreme. There's a billboard.

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• Some of you have seen it. There's one on I-75 heading north down in Florida. And it says this, "The real supreme court meets up here." Signed God. Well, that's true. That's true. Because He is the final authority. He is the sovereign. You know what the Bible says in Psalm 75, verses 6 and 7. Listen to this. Psalm 75, verses 6 and 7. God says, "For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is judge. He putteth down one and setteth up another."

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• Now what does that mean? It means that God is the sovereign. And God is the one who puts up civil rulers, and God is the one who takes down civil rulers. You see, certain men by the name of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Ashurbanipal, Jeroboam, Ahab, they found out that to be the truth. They found out that God put them up, and God can take them down. Now listen to this. It is true that God ordained civil government.

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• You can't get around that. That is clear from Romans 13 verse 1, and also clear from a lot of other passages. But listen, although God ordained civil government, it is equally true that God has never ordained tyranny and despotism as a legitimate form of civil government. Now, I did not say that sometimes God will not use that. Yes, He will.

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• Now, you've got to remember this. God is not the author of evil. God is not the instigator or the infuser of evil, but God is the controller of it. And it is true that God has used tyrants in times past to chastise His people. All you've got to do is read Isaiah chapter 10. And He said, "O Assyrian, the rod of my power and the staff in their hand is my indignation." It is true. God has used them.

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• But all I'm telling you is this. When you study the Bible, tyranny and despotism has never been a legitimate form of government that has been instituted and ordained by God. And I will prove that to you just shortly. I'm going to show it to you from the Bible. When you think of tyranny and despotism, you first got to think of the purpose of government. Do you realize, first and foremost, I'm going to point it out again, that God has ordained civil government for our good?

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• How did He do that? By establishing it for our justice. Look in verse 3. He says, "For rulers are not a terror to the good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?" Now look, "Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he," the civil ruler, "is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid." Why?

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• "For he beareth not the sword in vain." So God says, I have given you civil government for your good. And what it means is this, that that civil governor now has the power of the sword. He is to execute my justice. If you do wickedly, you be afraid. If you don't do wickedly, hey, there's nothing to be afraid of at all. We've got to understand this, that whenever a government goes over and above and beyond its delegation of authority, it becomes corrupt and tyrannical and wicked. We have to understand that perverted, abused, misused, usurped, tyrannical and oppressive governments are not an ordinance of God.

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• Then he explained it like this. Why did God ordain government? He said to be a terror to the evil works and to protect the good works. When government is turned upside down and it begins to terrorize the good works and protect the evil workers, that is not God's institution. Read Psalm 82. That's the psalm that God gives against the judges and the judicial rulers. And He talks about how they turn the world upside down by perverting justice. God has said, look, I've ordained civil government for your good, and for your good by that I mean it is to exercise justice. It is to punish the wicked and it is to protect the righteous. The problem is this, that fallen man likes to play God. Fallen man, when he likes to play God, wants to pretend that there is not a limitation upon his power, and therefore he wants to throw off all restraints that God has placed upon him.

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• Now I want you to turn in your Bibles to two passages. I want you to turn to Psalm 2 and then to Hosea chapter 5. Psalm 2 and then Hosea chapter 5. I could sit here tonight and multiply verses for you. But look in Psalm 2. We'll begin with verse 1 with this question. "Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?" Now, what is the vain thing and what is the raging? Look in verse 2.

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• "The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed saying, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us." In other words, God in His sovereignty placed bands and restraints and restrictions upon the civil rulers. He said, here is your delegation of power, just like God said to the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." That's exactly what He said to the civil rulers. But the civil rulers said, hey, we don't like those restrictions. We're going to cast His bonds from us. We're going to throw off His cords. We're not going to have that.

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• We will do what we want to do. Well, if you look at the next verse, verse 4, "He that sitteth in heaven shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision." They're not going to get away with it, but that's how men want to do it. They want to break away from the restraints that God has placed upon them. And if you'll look in your Bibles to Hosea 5 and verse 10, you'll see it again.

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• And there's a multitude of other verses. Hosea 5 verse 10. "The princes of Judah were like them that removed the bound" or the boundaries. "Therefore, I'll pour out my wrath upon them like water." So the princes did not like the limitations that God placed upon them. So they moved the boundaries over a little bit. God says, "Therefore, I'll pour out my wrath upon you like water." You've got to remember that water pours very easily, very freely and very quickly. You see, any and all tyrannical, oppressive and wicked governments that seek to enslave and bind and destroy the people are in rebellion against God. And they're not only in rebellion against God, they're in rebellion for the very purpose for which God created them. He created them to be His minister of justice and to execute justice. He did not create the institution of government to enslave and to oppress and to tyrannize.

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• Secondly, let me point this out. I just said it, but I want to emphasize it. Secondly, God ordained civil government to be His minister and His instrument of justice. Since civil government was created by God, it is therefore accountable to God and responsible to God. And it has a mandate to represent Him. Now, I want you to look with me very quickly in Romans 13, because I want to just show you the titles that God gives the civil rulers in this verse. Now look in verse 1, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power, but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God." Now, three times in verse 1, you have the word "powers." The word "powers" is the Greek word exousia, which just simply means powers or authorities. Literally says this, there is no authority, but that which is of God. No one can have any authority unless God gives it to him. And with every grant of authority, God always places a limitation.

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• I'll explain that a little bit later. But notice he said, "There is no power" or there is no authority, "but of God." Look in verse 2, "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." Now in verse 2, civil government is called the ordinance of God. Diatagē is the Greek word. It just means that God instituted it. God ordained it. So now in verse 1 you can see civil government is referred to as a power or authority. Verse 2 is the ordinance of God. Now look in verse 3. "For rulers." Rulers. The Greek word is archontes, which literally means chief ones, first ones, leaders or rulers. Now, look, if we stop right there, there's no one in this country that's going to disagree with us because everybody's going to say that God instituted government. It's got authority. It's got power. It's the ordinance of God.

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• And it has to do with rulership and leadership. And then they'll say, obey your leaders. But you know, Romans 13 doesn't stop with verse 3. Look in verse 4. "For he," who is the he? Go back to verse 3. "For rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil, wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?" Now we've got the power and the rulers connected. So that which God ordained to be a power, that which God ordained to be a civil authority, that which God ordained to be His ordinance, that which God ordained to be a ruler is now referred to in verse 4 as "he," "for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God." Twice in verse 4, the civil ruler is called the minister of God. Some of you have heard me say this before, but the Greek word is diakonos. It's where we get our English word what?

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• Deacon. And what does the word deacon literally mean? Servant. Servant. Why did God ordain civil government? To be His deacon. To be His servant. Ah, but that's not all. Look in verse 4. He says, "For he is the minister of God to thee for good, but if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the deacon, or the servant of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Now the word revenger is the word ekdikos in the Greek.

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• Ek is a preposition which means out of or from. And dikos is from dikaios, which is righteousness. A revenger is someone who draws forth, who draws out, or who exacts righteousness.

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• Now, let me ask you a question. Whose righteousness is the civil ruler to exact? Well, it would have to be God's, for man doesn't have any righteousness. Civil rulers have no righteousness. God says, I've ordained civil government, not just to be a power or an authority, not just to be an ordinance, not just to deal with leadership, but to be my deacon, my servant, my exactor, my drawer forth of my righteousness. But, you know, it doesn't even stop with verse 4, look in verse 6. He says, "For this cause pay you tribute also. For they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing." By the way, before I explain verse 6, I do want you to turn to 2 Chronicles 19 and look in verse 6. I just want to show you one scripture. There's a multitude, but let me just show you one that deals with the civil rulers exacting the righteousness of God. Look in 2 Chronicles chapter 19 and verse 6. Look at what the Bible says. 2 Chronicles 19, verse 6, "And said to the judges, Take heed what you do, for you judge not for man, but for the Lord who is with you in the judgment."

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• Who are judges to judge for? The Lord. They're to exact His righteousness. Period. So civil rulers, then, are to be God's exactors of righteousness. When you go back to Romans 13 in verse 6, you'll see once again they're called God's ministers. However, the word ministers in verse 6 is different from the word ministers in verse 4. In verse 4, it's diakonos, from where we get our word deacon. In verse 6, it is the word leitourgos, the plural, leitourgoi, and that is where we get our English word liturgy. For they are God's liturgy. You know what a liturgy is? A liturgy is a public form of worship. You know, you have high liturgy, you have low liturgy, but you have liturgy. When you think of liturgy, we think of the Roman Catholic Church.

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• You know how the people will come in and they'll dip their fingers in what they call holy water and they'll kneel and they'll cross themselves or the Episcopal Church. And you know a lot of Baptists say, oh man, we will never have any of that stuff. Listen, every church has a liturgy. We had one tonight. Somebody prayed before I preached. We sang some songs before I preached.

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• And we took an offering. That's a Baptist thing, you know. That's a liturgy. I don't care how you cut it. Whatever you do, if you pray, if you sing, that's a liturgy. It's a public form of worship.

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• Now, let me ask you this question. How many are willing to go as far as God does when it comes to civil government? What does God say in Romans chapter 13? Yes, God ordained civil government, but He ordained civil government not just to be a raw power, not just to have tyrannical authority, not just to be an ordinance, not just to have leadership. Yes, He gave them power and authority. It is His ordinance.

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• And He made them rulers by that they might be His deacons, His exactors of righteousness and His public worship. Wow. Let me tell you, whenever any form of civil government ceases to function in the way that God ordained it, it ceases to exist for the purpose for which God created it. Let me explain this to you. Let me go further. Let me make one more statement. It actually becomes autonomous and idolatrous. God only created three institutions, the family, the church and civil government.

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• Now, we can see this very clearly in the first two. I don't know why we're so blind when it comes to the third one. I don't think I'm going to be foolish enough to ask this question again, because I asked this question Sunday to our people. I said, why did God give thee a wife? One of my men said, because God wanted to chastise her. And of course, he got a good laugh. I said, all right, well, let me ask you this. Then why did God give you a wife? Well, I could ask this another way. Women, why did God give you a husband?

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• Now, I want you to listen to me. If I were to ask you, why did God give me my wife? Did God give me my wife so I could be a tyrant and slap her around and demand that she jump every time that I speak? And if she didn't do that, I would kick her and I would abuse her and I would hurt her. Did God give me a wife for that reason? Do I have any authority to look at my wife and say, now, sugar, I can tell you the scripture says wives obey your husbands and everything.

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• And so I don't have enough money to pay my bills this month, so I want you to take this pistol and go down and rob the bank so I'll have enough money to pay my bill. Do I have any authority to ask her to rob the bank? No. God has never given me any authority to violate His law or His word. God gave me my wife, according to Ephesians chapter 5, so I could be a type of Christ to her and love her the way Christ loved the church. So I could love her exclusively. I could love her sacrificially. And God gave her to me so that she could be a type of church and submit lovingly to me so that she could represent the church's position to Christ.

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• Now, the point I'm making is this. God never gave me a wife so that I could be a tyrant and be oppressive and abuse and misuse her and harm her and hurt her. Why did God make me the pastor of a church? Why did God make Brother Romo a pastor or Brother Patrick a pastor? Why? Did God make us a pastor so that we could go to the churches and destroy people and hurt people and preach lies and fables? Did God make me a pastor so that I could look at everybody and say, you will wear red every time you come to this church or I'll run you off. I have no authority to tell you what color of clothes to wear.

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• Now listen, if I demanded my wife do things that were wicked and wrong and ungodly and I abused her, you would say, huh, you've left your sphere of authority. God never gave you the right or the power or the authority to misuse and abuse your wife. Would you not say that? If I tried to destroy the church and preach lies and error and heresy, would you not say God never, ever gave you the authority to do that? You've gone over and above and you've lost and you've left your sphere of authority. We can see that in the family and we can see that in church. Why can't we see it when it comes to civil government? God ordained civil government for the simple purpose of justice, punishing the wicked and protecting the righteous.

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• But you know what so many people have done? They totally misconstrued, misinterpreted and misunderstood Romans 13 and try to make it teach unlimited submission to your civil rulers, the divine right of kings. Huh? Well, don't you know, Brother Weaver, the Bible says, "Let every soul be subject to higher powers." Yes, it does. But those higher powers are to be subject themselves, and if they're subject, they're not going to be asking me to do that which would be wicked and wrong and unbiblical and ungodly.

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• Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter, chapter 2, because I want to show you a passage that has been greatly perverted. 1 Peter, chapter 2. I've had this verse thrown at me so many times. It's unbelievable. Look in 1 Peter 2 and verse 13. The Bible says "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake" and people stop right there, "submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." And you know what they do, they then turn around and interpret the word ordinance to mean ordinance, law, regulation, statute. Well, the Bible says we have to obey any and every regulation that they give us. Well, what if our country passed a law like China?

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• That you women can only have one child. And if you had more than one, you had to kill all over one that you had. Would you obey that law? Would you? Why? But the Bible says, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." But you see, the word ordinance here in verse 13 has nothing to do with law, statute, regulation or ordinance as the way we think of it. Nothing at all. It doesn't even have to do with law as such. The Greek word for ordinance is the word ktisis, K-T-I-S-I-S.

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• And it literally means that which is established or the act of establishing or the act of founding. Now, let me ask you, let me illustrate it. Does God demand a certain form of government? And I'm going to answer that for you, I'm going to say no. I believe the principles in the Bible lead to a republican form of government. But does God demand that we have a monarchy? No. A constitutional monarchy? No. Does God demand that we have an oligarchy or an aristocracy? No. Now, I could ask you this question. Could God ever use a monarchy? Yes, He did. Could He ever use a constitutional monarchy? Yes, He has. England? Could God use a republican form of government, like in our country? Yes, He could. Now, the point I'm trying to make is this.

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• If you look in verse 13, he says, "Submit yourself to every ordinance of man." If you would read that like this, submit yourselves to every kind or every form of government of man for the Lord's sake. And here it is clarified, "whether it be to the King as supreme," whether it's a monarchy, "or unto governors," some type of representative government, "or to governors as of them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well."

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• Now I want you to note something. God is saying it really doesn't matter in one sense of the word what kind of government that you set up. Whether it's a monarchy, a constitutional monarchy, or republican, as long as it is set up for the purpose of executing the ministry that God gave it, and that's justice. And if you look in verse 14, when he talks about the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well, that's exactly what he says back in Romans 13 verses 3 and 4. Why did God ordain government? And the answer is that it might be a ministry of justice, that it might execute the wicked and that it might protect the righteous. So it doesn't really matter in one sense of the word whether we have a constitutional monarchy or if we have our republic as long as it functions the way God ordained it to function, it would still be a biblical government.

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• Like I said, I believe the principles in the Bible lead to a republican form of government, but David was king and he was a man after God's own heart. I'm just simply pointing out the fact the Bible does not demand unlimited submission to government, period. And if I had time tonight, I could give you illustration after illustration. I could even show you the Bible where God himself acted to overthrow the civil rulers. And He did so. Thirdly tonight, I'm going to try to tie this together for you.

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• And this is a very broad statement, but states' rights would include any and every right that a free people have that has been given to them by God. I could literally sit here and go on for hours. I could multiply points by saying that states' rights include the right of self-defense. It includes the right of nullification. It includes the right of secession. It includes the right to worship unhindered. It includes the right to be unlicensed by government. It includes the right to freely assemble. It includes the right of redress of grievances. It includes the right of freedom of speech. I could go on and on, but all I'm trying to show you is this. That states' rights, when viewed from a biblical perspective, translates into individual rights, and therefore it would cover every right that has been given to us by our Heavenly Father.

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• Now, I want to point out to you tonight that we cannot be free, nor can we maintain our freedom apart from our obedience to and the blessings of our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ. Do you realize what the first freedom should be that we desire? That would be freedom from our sins through the atonement of Jesus Christ. The second freedom that we would desire and should desire would be freedom from our lusts, if you want to say that, or freedom from our wrong thinking. That we might bring our lives under self-control and discipline that we might bring them in conformity to the Word of God.

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• These are what I would call the two basic freedoms. The problem in this country is this. There are a lot of people who wish to be free. But they only wish to be free in order that they might be anarchists and rebels. May I point out that freedom is from sin. It is not freedom to sin. Real freedom is the ability and the liberty to do that which we've been commanded by God. Real liberty and freedom is what I can assume responsibility for my life and my actions under God, the way God has commanded me.

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• We cannot escape the concept of government. Lay this truth down deeply in your heart. There is no individual, there is no family, there is no church, there is no state, there is no nation that can exist without government. We have to have government. It's not a question as to whether or not we will have government. The question is, what kind of government will we have? I've had people tell me, Brother Weaver, you just want to overthrow the government.

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• I say, no, I do not. You can't live without government. I don't want to overthrow the government. I just want to throw wickedness out of the government and have a government the way God ordained it. That's all I want. And we're going to be governed. We'll either be governed biblically, or we will be governed by someone who will use force. We will either have a godly government and be free, or we will have an autonomous, idolatrous government and be enslaved.

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• Robert Winthrop said this years ago. In fact, the source that I got it from is from a book printed in 1852. But Robert Winthrop said this, listen carefully, "Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them, either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man, either by the Bible or by the bayonet." Did you hear that? "Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them, either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man. Either by the Bible or the bayonet." And when we refuse the Word of God, we're condemning ourselves to be governed by the bayonet.

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• Have you ever wondered why our freedoms are disappearing so quickly and so rapidly in this country? And have you ever wondered why you cannot awaken people? Our brother knocked on about 9,000 doors. And most people probably stood there with a blank expression on their face, they had no idea what he was talking about. Have you ever wondered why? Let me explain. A slave is a slave is a slave.

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• You say, that's no explanation. Oh, yes, it is. You see, the Bible teaches that man by nature, that is, without regenerating grace of God, man by nature is a slave to his sins. Jesus Christ said, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant" or the slave "of sin." And when men are enslaved personally and their lusts have control over them and reign over them and rule over them, the man who is under personal bondage has no concept of national liberty and freedom. He cannot even think in terms of freedom. Why? Because he is still a slave. Why in the world should a slave be concerned about national or state liberty and freedom?

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• What has happened in this country is this. When our country was first founded, it was based upon the word of God, we had one culture. We had one Bible. We had one faith. That's true. Everybody agreed basically that the Bible was the word of God and that Jesus Christ was Lord and Savior and that we were to be a Christian people. But you know what has happened over the years? We have lost our faith. As a nation, we have deviated from the word of God, we despise the word of God, we denied the word of God, we denigrated the word of God. And when we lost our faith, we lost our virtue. That's why you have a sexual revolution and every other revolution. And when you lose your virtue, you lose your freedom.

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• Many of you have read George Washington's farewell address. Here's a sentence that he makes in that address. He said, "The federal government can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any other despotic or oppressive form of government, so long as there shall remain any virtue in the body of the people." Wow! Where there's no virtue, there's no liberty. There's no freedom. Where there's no virtue, you're going to have slavery and bondage.

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• You know what Peter admonished us in 2 Peter, chapter 1 in verse 5, and I'm going to quote this for you just so I can prove my point. I said earlier that when we lose our faith, we lose our virtue. When we lose our virtue, we lose our freedom. In 2 Peter 1 in verse 5, Peter wrote this. "And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue." You must have faith before you can ever have virtue.

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• When we think of national liberty and national freedom, I want you to think of all the people in all the nations that God either sent into captivity or destroyed because they refused to worship Him. No faith, no virtue, no freedom. You know how to have national freedom? You know how to have state freedom? Only by having personal freedom. There is no man who can be free apart from Jesus Christ. There is no family that can be free apart from Jesus Christ. There is no state that can be free apart from Jesus Christ. There is no nation that can be free apart from Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone is the source of our rights and our freedom. Benjamin Rush.

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• One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence said this. Listen carefully. "The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion" or Christianity is what he's talking about. Let me go further. Listen now. "The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this, there could be no virtue. And without virtue, there can be no liberty. And liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. Without religion," that is, without Christianity, "I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind." What? "Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to morals and the principles of mankind." He says education divorced from Christianity only produces educated fools and crooks.

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• As old Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. used to say, you've got to be educated where you can forge a check. If you have no morality, if you have no integrity, if you do not have Christianity, all you will be is an educated fool. The fool has said in his heart, there is no God. What the states' rights translate into individual rights, family rights, church rights, are you listening? When states' rights are denied, inevitably, our churches will not be free. Our families will not be free. And we will not be free. Read Leviticus 26. Read Deuteronomy 28. And you'll find that God promises blessings in obedience and curses in disobedience.

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• If we want our liberty, if we want our freedom individually, familially, ecclesiastically and nationally, we must come back to the Word of God. And submit to it. And make it our standard of daily living in every area of life. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would indeed teach us and help us to see the vital importance of faith and virtue. And their connection with liberty and freedom. Give us, Lord, hearts that will be obedient. And Father, direct our paths that our lives may be brought into conformity to your word. In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask and pray. Amen.

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-06T03:24:14Z