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Tyranny And Self Defense

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• The message today is "Tyranny and Self-Defense," and I want you to look in Romans 13, beginning there with verse 1. And God says, "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 to themselves damnation. 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. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake." When we began talking about tyranny and self-defense, you have to understand something about tyranny.

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• Tyranny is not always heavy-handed. Tyranny can oftentimes, and most likely is, incremental in nature, much like that proverbial frog in the water. You turn the water up and heat it slowly, and the frog sits there basically until he cooks to death. You put him in hot water, and he will immediately jump out. Well, we are finding ourselves today in the same predicament that our Founding Fathers found themselves in, facing King George III of England.

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• The Declaration of Independence says it like this: "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." So we are basically finding ourselves in this same predicament because we are willing to suffer while it is bearable.

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• But you have to ask yourself these questions: Have we suffered? And the answer is yes. But you have to ask a larger question: Have we really suffered enough? When I say that, we have to understand—and most people do not understand this—that the interests of governments are not necessarily the interest of the people, because governments desire more and more control, while the people oftentimes desire more and more liberty, freedom, and certainly privacy.

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• I want to give you a quote by constitutional attorney John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute, and in this he makes a statement in his book, *A Government of Wolves*. I just want you to understand that when I give you this quote and I say, "in my book," I'm quoting John Whitehead. So I didn't write the book; John Whitehead wrote the book. But I want you to listen.

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• I thought this was so appropriate and so applicable to our situation today. This is what he says. He says, "For those of us who have managed to survive 2014 with our lives intact and our freedoms hanging by a thread, it has been a year of crackdowns, clampdowns, shutdowns, showdowns, shootdowns, standdowns, knockdowns, putdowns, breakdowns, lockdowns, takedowns, slowdowns, meltdowns, and never-ending letdowns. We've been held up, stripped down, faked out, photographed, frisked, fracked, hacked, tracked, cracked, intercepted, accessed, spied on, zapped, mapped, searched, shot at, and tasered, tortured, tackled, trussed up, tricked, lied to, labeled, libeled, leered at, shoved aside, saddled with debt not of our own making, sold a bill of goods about national security, tuned out by those representing us, tossed aside, and taken to the cleaners."

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• "As I point out in my book, *A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State*, we've had our freedoms turned inside out, our democratic structure flipped upside down, and our house of cards left in shambles. We've had our children burned by flashbang grenades, our dogs shot, and our old folks hospitalized after accidental encounters with marauding SWAT teams. We've been told that as citizens, we have no rights within 100 miles of our own border, now considered Constitution-free zones. We've had our faces filed in government databases, our biometrics cross-checked against criminal data banks, and our consumerist tendencies catalogued for future marketing overtures."

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• "Cleverly, it worked for the dark side. The corporate media isn't going into great detail about the recent discovery that the Chicago Police Department has for years been operating a secret, off-site, extrajudicial, unconstitutional detention and interrogation center in a nondescript warehouse on the west side of the Windy City. Americans, so the talking heads would have us believe, have more important things to busy ourselves with. The protest against this outrage is growing, however, because at Homan Square, as it's known, the local police disappear American citizens before charging them with any crime."

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• "They hide them there for hours or days without the knowledge of their lawyers, family, friends, interrogating, threatening, abusing, and at times coming up with cleverly inhumane ways to torture them. Think Gitmo. Think Abu Ghraib. Think Pol Pot. Think Mao. And when you read something like that, what can you say except, he's put his thumb exactly on where we are today. C.S. Lewis pointed this out: 'Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep; his cupidity may at some point be satiated. But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own consciences.'"

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• And certainly that is true. Alexander Hamilton gave this warning: "Liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race. Civil liberty cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice." So we look around, see tyranny emerging on every hand. We see despotism arising. And we have to ask ourselves this question: Can we defend ourselves? And once we ask that question, we are following up with other questions like, are there biblical answers? And if there are biblical answers, what are those answers? And how do we defend ourselves biblically from such? Well, let me begin by saying this: the biblical philosophy of freedom is far more than just simply demanding that government get out of our lives. The biblical philosophy of freedom simply means this: we have to get the tyranny out of our own lives before we can get the government out of our lives.

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• Let me explain what I mean by that. Usually when people do things that we necessarily disagree with, or we don't like, usually right out of our mouths come these words: "Well, there ought to be a law against that," or "They should stop that." And what we fail to realize is this: whenever we begin to tyrannize and regulate other people, we are setting a precedent for our own tyrannization and our own regulation.

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• Now I'm not talking about sin and wickedness and ungodliness, but I'm just simply talking about the right to work, the right to pursue your own happiness, the right to be left alone, the right to privacy. So obviously we have to get the tyranny out of our hearts. Arthur W. Pink said a long time ago, and I certainly agree with him, he said, "One of the main reasons we don't like the Pope is because we want to be the Pope ourselves." In other words, we want to be the one telling everybody exactly what to do, and that is certainly true. Well, there are biblical answers to tyranny. I certainly cannot cover them all today. But I am going to give you three, and I'm not even going to be able to develop these three answers in such a way probably to satisfy everyone. So I'm going to encourage you to do your own research and to do your own studying and try to discover these answers in depth on your own. What is the first way, biblically speaking, to deal with tyranny?

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• Now, listen, I'm glad you're sitting down because here's the first way: Deception.

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• Now, as I say the word "deception," I can hear the gasps from the pietistic believers everywhere, and they are saying, "Well, deception? Why, no Christian should ever deceive!" And my response would be, "Really? Have you read your Bible lately? And do you understand that there is a difference between a wicked, vile, ungodly deception which is condemned in the Scripture, and a deception that is for the benefit of yourself and others whereby you are trying to keep others from violating God's law and doing that which is wicked and evil itself?" So there is a deceit then that is what you and I would call just—it is intended to save life and obey God's law. So, let me begin by saying this: we must remember that all warfare involves deceit. In fact, I could say that all warfare is deception.

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• I have a book in my library, and I think the title of it is *Camouflage in World War II*. I read it many years ago. And the interesting thing is, a lot of our air bases and a lot of our tanks and other equipment that were photographed by the enemy from the air were nothing more than cardboard cutouts and plywood. And that's deception. We're trying to deceive them and making them think that basically we've got all this equipment when in reality we had none of it or very little of it. All warfare is deception. Camouflage is deception. That's why when you go hunting, you put on camouflage clothing. You don't want the animals to see you if you're hunting them. That's deception.

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• You have to also understand this: that when you smile at someone, and you're really infuriated with them, and yet you're standing there smiling, you're deceiving them. Because you literally—what you're thinking is, "I'd like to rip your heart out," and yet at the same time you're smiling, pretending like everything's okay. Telling your wife that she looks lovely in a lovely dress is deception. I mean, plain and simple. So obviously, you have to understand this.

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• Let me ask you this question: Do you think that tyrannical and despotic governments are going to be truthful, honest, and upright with you? Until you point out, "We're going to enslave you. We're going to make you our own little slaves." No, they're not going to do that. What they're going to do is deceive you, and they're going to develop their control over you incrementally, little by little, deliberately, purposefully. And then once they have you in their tentacles, they're going to tell you this is for your own good and for your own protection. They're not going to be honest. They are the deceivers.

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• Did you know the Bible says in Job 12:16, "The deceived and the deceiver are His." The deceived and the deceiver are His. So, the questions that we have to ask would be some of these: Can a Christian use deceit? Has deceit ever been practiced in the Bible by believers? But even a more important question would be this: Can God—and has God ever used deception? And I'm going to try to answer those questions for you.

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• Now let me just tell you, in order to save time today, I'm going to tell you where certain things are in the Scripture. I'm going to quote some. I don't have time to cover every one of these answers in detail. So we are talking about deception. Do you realize that Abraham is known as the father of all those who believe? He is called the father of the faithful, and he is also called the friend of God. Well, Abram, the friend of God, in Genesis chapter 12, verses 12–20, deceived Pharaoh when he told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister. Well, truthfully she was a half-sister, but she was more than a half-sister; she was his wife. When you get to Genesis chapter 20 and verses 1–12, he now deceives Abimelech by telling Abimelech that Sarah is his sister. And when you get to Genesis 26, verses 1–9, Isaac follows in his father's footsteps, and he tells Abimelech that Rebekah is his sister. And of course Abimelech finds out she is not his sister.

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• Now you would have to ask this question: Why would these men deceive these rulers? If you read each of these passages in its context, you would find that both Abraham and Isaac reasoned like this. They said, "Surely the fear of God is not in this place." That is exactly what they said. "Surely the fear of God is not in this place." What do they mean by that?

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• Well, Pharaoh is a law unto himself. He does what he wants to do. Abimelech was a law unto himself. He was a tyrant. Here they were, just their little family there, and here's Pharaoh and here's Abimelech with large armies. And what in the world can they do? How can they resist them? And so what they are doing, they are using deception to save their lives. Moreover, you have to understand back in those days and times, no one could take a woman for a wife unless he went to the family.

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• And since Abraham and Isaac would have been the brother who was there, they would have had to have contracted with the brother. So it was a way then of not only saving their wives but saving their own lives as well. And so they were using deceit. So surely they reasoned, "The fear of God is not in this place," and so they were deceiving the tyrant. You'll remember in Exodus chapter 1, verses 15–21, there were two midwives by the name of Shiphrah and Puah. Shiphrah and Puah had been given a direct order by Pharaoh, and that order was this: when you find a male child, you kill him. But they spared the male children. They saved the male children alive. They did not murder according to Pharaoh's command. So when Pharaoh found out that they were sparing these male children, he asked them why.

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• And here's what they answered in verse 19. Listen: "And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them."

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• Now I want you to stop and think about that. They said the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. Why? The Hebrew women have had their babies by the time we get there. You have to remember that there were approximately a million Hebrew women in Egypt at that time. And you mean to tell me that not one of them ever needed help in delivering a child? And that all of them delivered their children before the midwives ever got there?

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• Well, what were they doing? They were deceiving Pharaoh. They were pretending like all of these women could deliver their children in and of themselves, by themselves, never needing any help. You know what God did? The Bible says that God blessed them and built houses for them. Did they use deceit? Well, of course they did. They deceived their tyrant. There is another good plain illustration, and that is found in Joshua chapter 2.

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• You remember how the spies had gone into Jericho and they had gone to the house of Rahab. Of course she made her confession there in Joshua chapter 2 as well. But she took those spies and hid them on the top of her house. Here it is, listen to this—by the way, she not only deceived her king, she deceived the king's soldiers. So in Joshua 2:4–6, "And the woman"—that is Rahab—"took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were: and it came to pass about the time of the shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went I wot not."

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• "Pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof." So, what did she say? "They went that-a-way. I saw them, that's the way they went. Listen, if you hurry up you can catch them." Well, obviously she was deceiving them.

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• They had not gone anywhere, and she had hidden them. And what was she doing? She was using deception to fight tyranny and to save the lives of these individuals. And by the way, the Lord not only saved her and honored her, He put her in the genealogy of Christ. But that's deceit. You read through the Bible and you'll find that many of the biblical heroes used deceit. Look at Ehud. Ehud was the left-handed man. He put the dagger on his right side. Most men were right-handed.

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• And he pretended like he had no weapon. And when he got to Eglon the Moabite, the king, he took that dagger out and killed the tyrant. Look, if you would please, at Gideon. Gideon was pretending that he had this vast army when he only had 300 men. And they were blowing trumpets and pitchers and making everybody think that, "Man, here are thousands." No, there are only 300. And look at Samson. You remember how Samson had taken foxes and set their tails on fire and burned down all the standing corn of the Philistines and killed some of them and then went up to the mount. And the Philistines then invaded the land and surrounded everything out.

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• And the Judahites said, "Why in the world did you come up against us?" They said, "Well, to get Samson." So Samson's own family, his own people, went up to the mount and said, "Look what you've done." Samson said, "Are you going to kill me?" They said, "No, but we're going to deliver you to the Philistines." So they were willing to deliver their deliverer to the Philistines. Samson said, "It'll be all right."

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• "Promise me that you will not fall upon me." They said, "Fine, we won't fall upon you. We won't kill you." So they tied him with ropes. And what did he do? He walked down behind them just as meek and helpless as he could be. And of course, pretending. And when the Philistines shouted against him, the Bible said he broke those ropes like they were nothing. And then he reached down and picked up the jawbone of an ass and slew a thousand Philistines. That's deceit.

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• He deceived them into thinking he was weak, when in reality he was strong. So, the question that I've got to ask you is this—I could show you illustration after illustration—but the question is this: Does God ever use deceit? And has God used deceit? Well, you have to remember the *lex talionis* of Scripture, which I've preached to you innumerable times. The *lex talionis* is just Latin for the law of retribution. That is where God makes the punishment fit the crime.

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• So let me quote to you from Ezekiel 14:9, and I do want you to turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. As you turn to 2 Thessalonians 2, listen to Ezekiel 14:9 where God says, "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel." So God said, if a prophet is deceived, I've deceived him. I've deceived him for the purpose of destroying him. And that's exactly what God said that He would do to the false prophets. Now, I want you to watch this in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and let's begin reading there with verse 10. Watch carefully 2 Thessalonians 2:10: "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." Why are they perishing?

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• Here it is: "Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." You got that? "They received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." Now look at verse 11: "And for this cause"—what cause? Because they received not the love of the truth—"for this cause God shall send them strong delusion," or strong deceit, "that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." What does the Bible say? That God shall send them a strong delusion. What is a delusion? It's a deceit.

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• You are delusional if you think that you can jump off the Empire State Building and live. You're deceived. Because when you hit the concrete on the bottom, you're going to be dead. It's just that simple. And when individuals think they can jump off and fly and or land safely, they find out they cannot land safely. They're just simply deceived.

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• Now, does God use deceit? Obviously He does. He sends people a strong delusion who refuse the truth. Please understand this: if you refuse the truth, the only thing open and left for you is delusion. If you are not going to receive the truth, you are going to be deceived. That is all there is to it. It is only the truth that will set us free. I want you to look in your Bibles to 1 Samuel chapter 16. We are still asking the question, does God ever use deceit? In order to understand 1 Samuel chapter 16, you have to understand what happened in 1 Samuel chapter 15. In 1 Samuel chapter 15, God had sent King Saul on a mission to kill all the Amalekites. He said to slay them all: man, woman, ox, suckling, boy, girl, ass. God said kill them all. But Saul spared Agag the king of the Amalekites, and the best of the oxen, and the best of the sheep. And then of course he played the hypocrite, and he said when he saw Samuel, "Blessed be thou of the LORD, I have performed all the commandment of God."

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• And about that time something went "baa," "moo." And Samuel said, "If you have obeyed God, what meaneth the bleating of the sheep, and the lowing of the oxen in mine ear? If you had obeyed God, everything would be dead." Anyhow, in this passage Samuel told Saul, "God hath rejected thee, because you have rejected the word of God." And when Samuel turned around to walk away, Saul caught his garment and it ripped, and Samuel said, "God hath rent the kingdom from you, and hath given it to another." Now when you get to 1 Samuel chapter 16, God orders Samuel to go to Bethlehem and anoint David to be His king. Okay? Watch. 1 Samuel chapter 16, verse 1: "And the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons." Now look at verse 2: "And Samuel said, How can I go? If Saul hear it, he will kill me."

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• "And the LORD said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the LORD. And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee." Now, notice verse 2. After God tells Samuel, "You go and anoint David," Samuel says, "How can I go? If Saul hears it, he's going to kill me. He's rejected You. He's a tyrant."

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• "Your word, Your law is not binding on him in this sense of the word. He's already rejected Your word. He'll kill me." God says, "Just say that you're going to do a sacrifice." Now here's my question: Did Samuel make a sacrifice when he got there? Yes, he did. Was that the purpose why God sent him? No. He sent him to anoint David to be king. The giving of the sacrifice, or the making of the sacrifice, was just the cover story. So what is this?

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• This is using deceit to deceive a tyrant. It's using deceit to get around someone who could care less about God's law and is willing to violate God's law. Now, let me show you—I want you also to understand this principle: sometimes when God deceives someone, He tells them that they're being deceived, and they still won't believe Him. If you'll look in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 22. 1 Kings chapter 22. 1 Kings 22, and let's begin in—but before I do, let me tell you the story. In 1 Kings 22—and I would encourage you to read this when you get home today—Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, who is basically a godly man, has gone to join affinity with Ahab, a wicked, reprobate king of Israel. And he asks Jehoshaphat to go to war with him.

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• And Jehoshaphat stupidly says, "I am as thou art, and my people as thy people." And then he said, "Are there not any prophets here of the LORD that we may inquire of them?" Oh, Ahab said, "I got plenty of prophets." So he brings out all the prophets of Baal, and they're all telling Ahab, "Go up and prosper, go up and prosper." Jehoshaphat said, "Is there not here a prophet of Jehovah?" Ahab said, "There's one. But I hate him. He never prophesies anything good concerning me." And he said, "Let not the king say so, but bring him." And so Ahab gives orders to go and fetch Micaiah the son of Imlah. Now here's my question: How did Ahab know where the prophet of God was? And the answer is, because Ahab had him in prison. Because after it was over, he said to the man who brought Micaiah out, "Take this man back to the governor of the prison, and feed him with the bread of affliction and the water of affliction, until I return in peace."

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• "Take him back." He knew exactly where he was. He had him in prison. And so when the man went to get Micaiah, he said, "Look, all the prophets have prophesied well concerning Ahab, so let your word be as theirs." And so Micaiah said, "As the LORD liveth, I can only say what He allows me to say." So when Micaiah gets in front of Ahab, very sarcastically he says, "Go up and prosper, go up and prosper." And Ahab knew he was being sarcastic, because Ahab said, "How many times must I adjure you to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?" So Micaiah said, "You want the truth? I'll give it to you." So look in verse 19. Here it is, 1 Kings 22:19: "And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner."

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• "And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will persuade him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee." Now isn't that amazing?

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• Here Micaiah said, "You want the truth? I'm going to tell you. God has sent a lying spirit in the mouth of all of your prophets. They're deceiving you. And you're going to die when you go up to Ramoth-gilead. That's all there is to it." And that's when Ahab said, "Take this man back and put him in prison, and feed him with the bread of affliction and water of affliction until I return in peace." And Micaiah said, "If you return in peace at all, the LORD hath not spoken by me."

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• And of course you know the story how he got shot in the chariot and died. So, but what did God do? God used deceit. He sent a lying spirit in the mouth of His prophets. I want you to understand something about deceit. And when I'm telling you there is a time to use it, you must understand this principle: You must always give the truth to those to whom you owe the truth. But you do not owe the truth to someone who's going to abuse and misuse the truth. So if I'm walking down the street and a man jumps out of the alley and puts a knife at my chest and says, "Give me all your money or I'm going to kill you," and I reach in my pocket and I pull out three Federal Reserve notes and I hand them to him, and he says—he looks at that measly little three bucks—"Is this all you got?"

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• I'm not going to stand there and say, "I cannot tell a lie. I have 600 bucks hidden in my left shoe." What if I told him the truth? What am I doing now? I'm aiding and abetting his theft and his robbery, his violation of the law of God. I do not owe that man the truth because he's going to misuse and abuse the truth. So I've used this illustration, but it's to the point. Here's a man that is your enemy.

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• You've tried to reconcile with him. You've tried to do what is right, and he refuses to make things right, and you finally see him on the street one last time, and you walk up to him, and you say, "Look, I know there's been hard feelings and bitterness between us, but I really want us to work things out, and I want us to be friends again." And he says to you, "Get out of my face. If I ever see you again, I'm going to kill you."

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• He turns around, storms off. And you're at home that night having supper, and you hear tires squealing, and you look out your window. Here's that man jumping out of his truck, running towards your door with a double-barrel shotgun. And you don't have a weapon in your house, and you run and you dive under the bed and hide, because you don't have a weapon. And here's that man knocking on the door with the butt of that gun, said, "Let me in or I'm gonna blow this door down." And your wife goes to the door, and she's shaking, and she opens the door, and as she opens the door, he comes in with that shotgun.

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• He says, "Where's that blankety-blank rascal? I'm gonna blow his head off." Now, here's my question: At that point, do you want your wife to say, A, "I cannot tell a lie, he's hiding under the bed," or B, "You're 30 minutes too late, he just took a plane to Timbuktu"? Do you realize if your wife told the truth at that point, she would be an accessory to murder?

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• She would be complicit in helping that man violate the law of God. So the principle is, you must always tell the truth to those to whom you owe the truth. But when someone is going to abuse and misuse the truth, you do not owe him the truth. And certainly it would be right to deceive that individual who is going to murder and violate God's law. So, deception is a means of dealing with tyranny. There's a second one, and that is what I'm going to call avoidance or flight. Avoidance or flight. Now, if it is possible, you should always try to avoid or pass by tyranny. We are told in regard to sin—and tyranny is sin, by the way—but we are told in regard to sin in Proverbs 4:15, "Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."

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• So, if we can stay off the train track where the locomotive of tyranny is running down the track at full speed, we need to stay off the track. It's just that simple. If we can avoid it, if we can go around it, if we can bypass it, we certainly need to do that.

  #51 | 36:23 to 36:40 | cleaned

• Now, when I'm talking about flight, do not think that flight makes an individual a coward. It's not. There are multitudes in the Bible who have fled and have done so intelligently, bravely, and I might also add, biblically. Moses fled from Pharaoh. You remember that? Forty years in the Midian desert. Did you know that the Apostle Paul himself fled in 2 Corinthians 11:32? Because the governor and the king was seeking his life, and they let Paul down in a basket over the wall so he could escape. What was he doing? He was fleeing.

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• He was getting out of harm's way. May I remind you also that our Lord Himself fled at the first instance at the commandment of God the Father, because God told Mary and Joseph, "Take the child and flee into Egypt, because Herod is going to seek his life." Of course, when our Lord came back and began His ministry, in John 7:1 the Bible says, "After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for He would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill Him."

  #53 | 37:25 to 37:56 | cleaned

• So what is He doing? He is staying out of their way. He is avoiding them. He is passing them by. So that is a form of flight. So there are plenty of people who fled in the Bible. All you have to do is read Hebrews chapter 11, and you'll find a multitude there.

  #54 | 37:56 to 38:12 | cleaned

• Now, when we're talking about avoidance or flight, you have to understand there are several problems with avoidance and flight. First of all, when we think of tyranny, unhappily, we always tend to think of our federal government or some government in third world countries. We never stop to think that tyranny can be local or tyranny can be individualized. Let me give you a quote by Brandon Smith. I want you to listen. He says, "Tyranny is not a wholly definable condition. There are many forms of tyranny and many levels of control that exist in any society at any given time. In fact, the most despicable forms of tyranny are often the most subtle. The kinds of tyranny in which the oppressed are deluded into thinking that because they have choices, that necessarily makes them free. Tyranny at its very core is not always the removal of choice, but the filtering of choice, the erasure of options, leaving only choices most beneficial to the system and its controller." So if you have a choice to vote for Socialist A or Socialist B, what difference does it make?

  #55 | 38:12 to 39:31 | cleaned

• You're still voting for socialism. But here's what he said: "There are many forms of tyranny and many levels of control that exist in any one society at any given time." Have you ever stopped to think about this? The state government can become tyrannical. The county government can become tyrannical. The city government can become tyrannical. Look what has been happening in Arizona, that little town where there's been an uproar for years over the city or the county council there. It's crazy. And what we also fail to realize is that any individual who has any power can become a tyrant as well. Look at what is happening to our law enforcement agencies. Now, let me just tell you something. I have friends that are law enforcement. I have some friends who are godly men, and men whom I believe that are constitutionalists and patriots. I understand that. But overall, as a whole, look at what is happening in our law enforcement agencies. Look at the citizens that have been shot and killed by law enforcement, and a lot of them shot in the back.

  #56 | 39:31 to 40:53 | cleaned

• Now, here's my question: How can a law enforcement officer really and truly say that he's in fear for his life when the man's running away from him? By the way, there's a website, www.killedbypolice.net, that will tell you and show you how many people have literally been killed by the police. I'm going to read one such article to you. Listen carefully. The tally for 2014—that is the number of people killed by police in 2014 in this country—1,100 people killed

  #57 | 40:54 to 41:34 | cleaned

• by those sworn to protect. That is an average of three people a day. Do not mistake this as saying that those who were killed were innocent. However, when we look at the violent crime in this country, we can see that it is at an all-time low. While violence among citizens has dropped, violence against citizens carried out by police has been rising sharply. When we look at citizens killed by police over the last two years, deaths have increased by 44% in this short time. 763 people were killed by police in 2013, 1,100 in 2014.

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• As a comparison, the total number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2014 was 58. Fifty-eight. In a war zone, 1,100.

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• here in this country. Fewer soldiers were killed in war than citizens back home in the land of the free in 2014, by a large margin. So why is that? Is this some natural tendency of police in free societies to kill their citizens more in an effort to maintain this freedom? Hardly. And hardly is the United States a free country.

  #60 | 42:38 to 42:59 | cleaned

• Now this may shock you. Hold on. According to the 2014 Legatum Prosperity Index released in November, in the measure of personal freedom, the United States has fallen from 9th place in 2010 to 21st place worldwide, behind such countries as Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Uruguay, and Costa Rica. Other such ranking systems show the United States as low as number 46. Let's look at our immediate neighbors to the north, Canada. The total number of citizens killed by law enforcement officers in the year of 2014 was 14. That is 78 times less people than the United States. If we look at the United Kingdom, one person was killed by police in 2014 and zero in 2013. English police reportedly fired guns a total of three times in all of 2013, with zero reported fatalities. From 2010 through 2014—listen—there were four fatal police shootings in England, which has a population of about 52 million. By contrast, Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a population 1% of the size of England's, had 26 fatal police shootings in the same time period.

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• China, whose population is 4.5 times the size of the United States, recorded 12 killings by law enforcement officers in 2014. And here's the shocker: From 2013 to 2014, German police killed absolutely no one. So you stop and think: 1,100 citizens killed last year. And in Germany, not one citizen was killed. In China, 12. So you have to ask, what in the world is happening in this country?

  #62 | 44:38 to 45:23 | cleaned

• Gerald Celente said it like this. Listen: "It's cops gone wild because the nation has gone wild. The nation can only think of war and slaughter. The militarization of America, when you bring it all together, it's a collapsing third world country. That's the way police behave in third world nations." Arthur Reeser, who's a former police officer and a member of the military, said it like this: "If we're training cops as soldiers, giving them equipment like soldiers, dressing them up as soldiers, when are they going to pick up the mentality of soldiers? If you look at the police department, their creed is to protect and serve."

  #63 | 45:23 to 46:08 | cleaned

• "A soldier's mission is to engage his enemy in close combat and kill him. Do we want police officers to have that mentality? Of course not." And while I disagree with Ayn Rand's theology, here's a quote that I think is great. She says, "The only proper functions of a government are, number one, the police to protect you from criminals; number two, the army to protect you from foreign invaders. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man's deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of criminal, vested with the right of wielding violence against the victims, deprived of the right of self-defense."

  #64 | 46:09 to 47:01 | cleaned

• Now, let me just explain what I'm saying. I'm pulled over by an arrogant cop who is not only unbiblical but unconstitutional, violating statutory law, violating everything. And he pulls his pistol and kills me. The only thing he has to say is, "I was in fear for my life." On the other hand, if he starts to pull his pistol and kill me, and I pull out a pistol and kill him before he kills me, and when I say, "I was in fear for my life," where am I headed? Not only to jail, but probably to the electric chair, unless there's some video recording or some witness somewhere that says, "Yes, the cop did it." In other words, the point I'm trying to make, and the point that she's trying to make, is this: When you turn everything upside down, those who should protect

  #65 | 47:02 to 48:14 | cleaned

• you now become those who punish you, and they do so freely and without any problem, and you have no right to defend yourself against them. Well, certainly one of the problems we have with avoidance and flight is that we don't understand that sometimes tyranny is everywhere. It's not just in the big governments. It can be in local governments as well. The second problem you have with flight and avoidance is that sometimes it does not always work.

  #66 | 48:14 to 48:49 | cleaned

• You have to remember this: Not everybody can flee. And if you could flee, where would you go? How can you take your family? How can you move a whole church? How can you move a whole community? How can you move a whole society? How could you move an entire state? And you have to understand that many times flight can be a failure at any point, even when you consider it successful. Let me give you an illustration. You'll find this—don't turn there right now, I'm going to try to read it myself—but you'll find in Jeremiah 26 a man by the name of Uriah. Uriah was a prophet of God. He was preaching and teaching exactly the same thing that Jeremiah was preaching and teaching. And Jehoiakim the king was a tyrant, and he didn't like what Uriah was preaching. So listen to this, Jeremiah 26:20–23: "And there was also a man that prophesied in the name of the LORD, Urijah the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath-jearim, who prophesied against this city"—that's Jerusalem—"and against this land"—that's Judah—"according to all the words of Jeremiah."

  #67 | 48:50 to 50:08 | cleaned

• "And when Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all the princes, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death: but when Urijah heard it, he was afraid, and fled, and went into Egypt; and Jehoiakim the king sent men into Egypt, namely, Elnathan the son of Achbor, and certain men with him into Egypt. And they fetched forth Urijah out of Egypt, and brought him unto Jehoiakim the king; who slew him with the sword, and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people." Now here is my question: Did Uriah make it out of Jehoiakim's jurisdiction? Yes. His flight was successful. Originally. Initially. Until Jehoiakim sent his CIA down into Egypt and kidnapped Uriah and brought him back. And then Jehoiakim the king murdered him. So flight is not always possible. And sometimes it is not always successful.

  #68 | 50:09 to 51:16 | cleaned

• So that brings me to the third response, and that is what I would call physical resistance or self-defense. It was President John F. Kennedy who said this: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." You have to understand that self-defense is a God-given right. It is the right of an individual. It's the right of a family. It's the right of a church. It's the right of a society. It's the right of a state. It's the right of a nation.

  #69 | 51:17 to 51:53 | cleaned

• If you deny it in any one of those, then you deny it in all the rest of them. If I do not have the right to defend my life, what then does a family have the right to defend their lives, or a church, or a society, or even a nation? If there is an invading army coming in, we have no right to defend ourselves. Then obviously they're just going to kill us and take everything. So you can't deny self-defense in one area without denying it in every area. You have to remember in Exodus 20:13, God says, "Thou shalt not kill," or "Thou shalt not murder," or "Thou shalt not take life except

  #70 | 51:53 to 52:33 | cleaned

• on God's terms." And when you read through the Bible, you will find that there are 21 lawful reasons for taking life. You can take life lawfully on God's terms under 21 particular reasons that are listed there. Granted that a lot of these are given then to the state as the executioner of justice and the minister of justice, but still that is the lawful taking of life. And you have to remember that I'm not re-preaching those two messages I have on the biblical doctrine of self-defense, or the 15 messages on the biblical doctrine of war, or the message "Teach Us to Fight." But it's all through the Bible.

  #71 | 52:33 to 53:14 | cleaned

• Now, the point I want to make is this: So many people have never thought about this. They've never studied it out. They don't know what the Bible teaches about self-defense. When you are in it up to your neck, it's too late to sit down and try to determine, "What can I do under God, and what can I do and obey the Scripture?" It's too late when it's up to your neck and you have to do something just to save your life. So the point I'm trying to make is this.

  #72 | 53:15 to 53:49 | cleaned

• We're in the mess that we're in because of our ignorance. Ben Franklin said this. Listen: "A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and to prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins." We're ignorant of our Bibles. We're ignorant of history. We're ignorant of the Constitution of the United States. We're ignorant of our state constitution. We're ignorant of our laws. We're ignorant of everything. And that is the realm in which tyranny actually begins.

  #73 | 53:51 to 54:28 | cleaned

• And so, not only must you have knowledge, if you're going to defend yourself, you must have weapons. And you must be trained in the use of those weapons. If you are not trained in them, then your weapon is basically useless. Aristotle, a pagan, a philosopher, said this: "It is also in the interest of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms, and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion."

  #74 | 54:28 to 55:08 | cleaned

• You stop and think about this. Do you realize the average American today is so poor he could not go down and plop down six or seven hundred bucks for a brand new rifle? He couldn't do it. And what are most Americans doing? They're working their fingers to the bone from daylight to dark in some two and three jobs just to try to keep their heads above water. They can't think about resisting tyranny. They're just trying to live.

  #75 | 55:10 to 55:40 | cleaned

• Of course, when you read the Bible, you find out a tyrant also tries to forbid the use of weapons. That's why there's such a stress today on taking away our weapons, because how can you defend yourself? And how can you fight tyranny if you have nothing to fight tyranny with? When it comes to physical resistance, we must use wisdom and we must use discretion. You have to understand this: It is possible to win a battle and lose the war. I'd much rather lose a few battles and win the war. So you have to understand—look, I have to know why I'm fighting, who I'm fighting, what I'm fighting, and I have to know what the war is really all about. I want to read something to you. I want to encourage you when you get home to look this up, and I want you to read all of it. This was written on July the 6th, 1775. It was written by our founding fathers. The title of it is, "The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms."

  #76 | 55:44 to 56:52 | cleaned

• Now I'm not going to read all of this. I'm only going to read about three paragraphs, mostly the closing paragraphs. But I want you to listen. Our forefathers sat down and they wrote this Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. They said, "Here is why we are going to fight. Here is why we are going to resist." Listen. They wrote—and like I said, this is about the concluding three paragraphs—"Our cause is just. Our union is perfect."

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• "Our internal resources are great, and if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the divine favor toward us, that His providence would not permit us to be called into this severe controversy until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed the means of defending ourselves. With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms which we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness

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• and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being of one mind, resolved to die as free men rather than to live as slaves." Now remember, initially, the colonies did not want to separate from England. So that's what this paragraph is about. "Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and fellow subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them that we mean not to dissolve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored."

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• "Necessity has not yet driven us into that desperate measure, nor induced us to excite any other nation to war against them." In other words, we are not looking for partners right now. "We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain and establishing independent states. We fight not for glory or conquest. We exhibit to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offense that is on our part. They boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet offer no milder conditions than either servitude or death in our native land."

  #80 | 58:45 to 59:31 | cleaned

• "In defense of the freedom that is our birthright, and which we ever enjoyed to the late violation of it, for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest industry of our forefathers and ourselves, against all violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostility shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before." So what did they say? Think about this. They said, "We are forced to take up our arms."

  #81 | 59:32 to 1:00:04 | cleaned

• "We don't want to do it. But we've taken them up, and we're not going to lay them down until the war is over and there's never ever an opportunity for our enemies to rise up against us again. It's going to be to the end. It's going to be to the death. We're not going to keep fighting this. We're not laying them down until it's all over." You see, what a lot of people do not understand is, when the government becomes tyrannical, it loses its authority. Not only does it lose its authority, it is actually making war on its own people. John Locke wrote several treatises on government. His second treatise that he wrote in December of 1690, he said this—listen: "Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they"—that is those legislators, that Congress—"put themselves in a state of war with the people, who

  #82 | 1:00:05 to 1:01:18 | cleaned

• are thereupon absolved from any further obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence." What did he say? He said, when your Congress, when your government tries to deprive you of your property and your rights, and they're seeking to enslave you, they have entered into a war against you. It absolves you from all obedience to them. And furthermore, you're now left with the only refuge which God has provided, and that is self-defense. Hmm. Let me make this clear: tyranny is never a God-ordained form of government. So when you look at Romans 13, and when he says, "Whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God," he is not talking about a tyrannical government. If you study Romans 13, you will find the kind of government that God has ordained.

  #83 | 1:01:18 to 1:02:24 | cleaned

• One where government is His deacon, His servant, His public worship, one that enforces His law. What you're seeing today is a rise of arbitrary power. Malcolm Gladwell put it like this—listen: "The excessive use of force creates legitimacy problems. And force without legitimacy leads to defiance, not submission." All you men have to do is think back when you were boys. When that bully came up to you and put his hand on your chest and pushed you back, did you immediately get down on your knees and say, "Sir, what can I do for you?"

  #84 | 1:02:24 to 1:03:17 | cleaned

• "How can I please you? How can I help you today?" No. You know what you did? You put your hand on him and you pushed him back harder. And if he pushed you back, then you went to bloodying his nose, you went to beating him any way that you could beat him. Why? Because excessive force creates legitimacy problems. When he has no authority and when he does it without legitimacy, it creates defiance, not submission.

  #85 | 1:03:17 to 1:03:46 | cleaned

• And you're going to find the more illegitimate force is used in this country, the more defiant people are going to become. It will not create submission. It will create revolution. One last passage. I do want you to look at Psalm 94. I've explained this passage before, but it just fits in with exactly what I'm saying. So here it is again. Psalm 94, look at verses 20 and 21. Psalm 94, verse 20. Watch, if you would. Here's the question.

  #86 | 1:03:47 to 1:04:28 | cleaned

• So note, first of all, it is a throne, which speaks of government, power, authority. Notice it is a wicked throne of iniquity. It's a throne of iniquity. So it's a wicked civil government. Notice, if you would, here is the question: "Shall this wicked civil government have fellowship with thee?" What does this wicked civil government do? "Which frameth mischief by a law?" Mischief is another word for sin in the Bible. Literally, here is what it says: "Shall a wicked civil government have fellowship with thee, which makes sin legal?" So it is legal in this country to murder babies as long as you do it before they are born. Evidently it's legal to sell murdered baby parts, for that's exactly what Planned Parenthood is doing. It's legal in this country to be a thief if you are in governmental service or have power.

  #87 | 1:04:29 to 1:05:28 | cleaned

• You understand what I'm saying? So, "Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?" or makes sin legal? What's the answer? No. And if you look in verse 21, here's what that wicked civil government does: "They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood." God never ordained tyranny as a legitimate form of government. Such wicked, tyrannical governments that destroy righteousness, murder their own citizens, and enslave people—that is not the ordinance of God. And since it is not the ordinance of God, it may be lawfully and biblically resisted.

  #88 | 1:05:29 to 1:06:23 | cleaned

• Because one must defend himself, his family, his church, his community, his society, his state, and even his nation. Does the Bible have answers? Yes, it does. And there are more than these, and these can be gone into greater detail and greater depth, but it's important for you and I to know that there are answers in the Bible to every one of our problems, and we need to know those answers so that we'll know how to apply them when the time will come.

  #89 | 1:06:24 to 1:06:59 | cleaned

• Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we bow to Thee this day. We thank You for Your Word. We thank You for Your truth. We thank You, Father, that there are answers in the Word of God, and we ask that You would help us, Lord, to understand them, to learn them, apply them, and keep them in our hearts and not forget them. Give us grace, we pray. We pray for

  #90 | 1:07:00 to 1:07:19 | cleaned

• our people in this country. We pray for our nation. We pray, Lord, as the psalmist prayed, that the wickedness of the wicked would come to an end, and that Thou would establish the just. May Your Word have free course and speak to our hearts, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.

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• so so

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deepseek | deepseek-v4-pro | clean_readable_transcript | 2026-06-06T04:08:35Z