Amen. Well, if you would turn in your Bibles to the gospel of Matthew chapter 22, we'll be looking at verses 15 through 22 this morning, Matthew chapter 22 verses 15 through 22. Last time in the parable of the wedding feast two weeks ago, we saw Jesus warn Israel that the kingdom would be taken from them, and would be given to a nation bearing the fruit of it, the fruits of righteousness, which is the end for which that we are saved. And for the first time, at least in Matthew, Christ also indicated that Jerusalem would be burned by an army that in the parable was the figure of God, God would send the army. However, at the end of the parable, Jesus added a warning to all those who would seek to enter God's kingdom by believing in Him, that they too must have that proper apparel, they too must place all of their confidence in the righteousness of Christ, even as they must bear and yield the fruits of that righteousness in their own lives. And that's because beloved the standard of salvation, the standard of God, for the Gentiles is the same as it was for the Jews, because there's only ever been one gospel of salvation from Genesis through revelation by grace alone, we are justified in Christ alone through faith alone, and yet that faith never is alone. It always, the moment it exists, it begins to produce good works, and that's always been the case, and that was what that image of that man being thrown out, who didn't have the right clothing on, was warning us about, that we stand by the same standard that the Jews had to have, which is truly trusting in Christ, not themselves, but truly bearing the fruits of righteousness that are saved and changed heart, will and must bear. Well, in today's text, we get the first of several attempts to bring Jesus down by trapping Him in His words. It's an age-old maneuver by the enemies of God, that though they can't stop the word, though they can't refute the word, they try to silence the messenger of the word, and through plotting, and through scheming, and through maneuvering, and whispering, and they try to turn people against, they try to twist what He says, the faithful minister, and turn the people against Him, so that they can silence the word that they don't want, so that they can substitute it for words that they do, and bring in false teachers. It's not a wonder, beloved, that the church so often, so many churches have bad ministers, unfaithful ministers. It's a great temptation on the half of the people and the pastor to say things that's going to make everybody happy, that's not what Jesus did, and that's why, as we see in this text, He is attacked, and they try to destroy Him. Let's pray as we turn to God's word. Father again, we want to just pause for a moment to pray, to ask for your blessing, Lord God, that you would give us your spirit, that again we would be hearers and doers of your word. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Here now the word of the Lord from Matthew, chapter 22, beginning in verse 15, this is God's holy word. Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk, and they sent Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Teacher, we know that you are true, and you teach the way of God and truth, nor do you care about anyone, for you do not regard the person of men, tell us, therefore what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes, to Caesar or not, but Jesus perceived their wickedness? And He said, why do you test me, you hypocrites? Show me the tax money, so they brought Him a denarius, and He said to them, whose image in inscription is this? They said to Him Caesar's, and He said to them, render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way. May the Lord establish this word in our hearts this morning, I pray, amen. First of all, I want you to notice this morning, valacious seeking, I want you to notice a valacious seeking. Look at verse 15, when the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His word. Beloved, this is the true motivation for everything that comes in the rest of our text. Everything that we see after this verse, it's a ruse, it's a subterfuge, it's a hoax, it's a sham, it's a lie. They're not interested in seeking Jesus and seeking words from His mouth and seeking answers to His question. They want to, as it says in the text, they want to entangle Him in His talk. They come to Him pretending to be one thing, and they're actually something else, which is why Christ calls them a hypocrite. They're putting a mask on their face to hide their true motivations and intentions, which is not to find out what He thinks, but to catch Him, to trap Him, to snare Him. The word trap here, by the way, is the ordinary word for a trap, a hunting trap, or a bird snare. They want to catch Jesus like an animal, so that they can destroy Him. Remember, they have to operate this way because look at verse 46 at the end of 21. They sought to lay hands on Him, but they feared the multitudes for they took Him for a profit, so they just can't openly oppose Christ because the multitudes see that He's true, that He speaks things that are good. How can they oppose one who is clearly good without themselves looking bad? So they have to get Jesus to look bad, so that when they oppose Him, they look good. And that's what this whole thing's about. They've got to destroy Christ's reputation with the people. They've got to make Him look bad. It's the Pharisees who do this. You see it in our text again. Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. I'm not going to say a lot about the Pharisees. Now I'm going to say that for a future sermon, Lord willing. But in the beginning, let's just notice this, the Pharisees very clearly were the conservatives. The Pharisees were the conservatives in Israel. They were their religious party of the conservative ones. They believed all of the Bible. They started off very good, very good intentions to not be worldly, to be separate from the world, to keep themselves pure, to not get involved with the idolatry, which was the reason why they went into captivity. They pledged themselves to pure obedience to God. A very noble thing. The Pharisees started off noble, and on paper they were still that group. On paper they were those who were interested in keeping the law, in following God perfectly. Again, they believed in all the scriptures, not just part of the scriptures, like the Sadducees. In fact, on paper they would have looked like they agreed with everything that Jesus agreed with. That the Bible is the Word of God that you have to do what it says. Oftentimes, because of this, because of what they looked like, many evangelicals, unfortunately many reformed people today, even believe it. They believed the facade, the sham of the Pharisees, and they said things like, well, the Pharisees' problem was that they cared about God's law too much. The Pharisees loved the law too much, so they couldn't see grace. The love of the Pharisees loved the law at all. They would have seen grace, and the more they would have loved the law, the more they would have loved in long for grace, because that's what the law does. The Pharisees' problem was not that they loved God's law too much. The Pharisees' problem was that they hated God's law, and they would do anything to get out from under it. Jesus addressed this to them over and over again, but I want to point it out to you one more time. In Matthew 15, verse 3, Jesus says to the Pharisees, why do you transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? You see that? They break God's law so that they can keep their tradition. That's what they were interested in. Jesus goes on, you have made the commandment of God of no effect. One translation says, void, for the sake of your tradition. They hated the law. They took the law, and they made it nothing so that their tradition could stand their own rules, their own practices, their own beliefs. That's what they really did. They wanted to look like they liked God's law because they know they're supposed to. That's the hypocrisy, but they didn't, didn't reality. They outwardly said good things, but then they would reverse it. They would substitute for it. They would replace it with their own tradition. In fact, Jesus goes on in Matthew 15 hypocrites. Well, did Isaiah prophesy about you saying these people draw near to me with their mouth. They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And then they worship me, listen, teaching his doctrines, the commandments of men. That was the sin of the Pharisees. Their own commandments, they substituted for the law of God. They took God's law. They twisted it. They put their tradition over top of it, rounded underneath it, and their tradition trumped the law of God. Even as they tried to look like, they were so concerned about the law of God. They were hypocrites. But what I really want you to notice is how we can see their hypocrisy in this text. And that is in verse 16, they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians. This shows how desperately hypocritical the Pharisees were. If the Pharisees were the conservatives, the Herodians were the liberals. The Herodians were the progressives. They were the ones who were all about the government's going to solve our problems. That's why they were called the Herodians. They were for the party of Herod. They were for Herod the great and his sons being in power, which was by the Roman government. They were in support of Rome. They compromised with Rome. They compromised with the world. They didn't keep separate. They didn't care about the scriptures. In fact, the commentaries all say the Herodians were not even concerned with religion. They were not a religious party. They were a political party. It's the government that's going to rescue and solve and make things great. The Herodians were the progressives. The liberals. You know, they only appear three times in all of scripture. One of the other times is the parallel in Mark of this account. So there's only two occasions where the Herodians even have anything to do with Jesus. And it's here where they're trying to destroy Him. They're trying to trap Him. And why is that the case? Because Jesus teaching spoke against them in their concerns, yes, in their political concerns. This political party can't stand Jesus because His teaching did address their concerns just as it addressed the religious concerns of the Pharisees. The Pharisees outwardly looked to scripture, but they trumped scripture with their own traditions. The Herodians looked to the Roman Empire and both sides were interested only with their own power and in their own getting rid of Jesus who was a threat to their power. That's why the Herodians are there, beloved. If Jesus didn't say anything against them, they wouldn't be there posting Him. They have to get rid of Christ. And so they come together in this unholy alliance, this foul unity, this fake unity. And that's because Christ's teaching, William Henderson says it this way, Christ's teaching denounced the self-righteousness of the Pharisees and the worldliness of the Herodians. Christ was against them because he shined the Word of God on both to expose that they were really hypocrites and corrupting and turning from the Word of God. In fact, if you think about it, when Christ entered into the city on the donkey, fulfilling scripture with the crowd shouting to Him, right? Hosanna to the king, the king of Israel, the son of David, blessed as he who comes in the name of the king, the Herodians would have hated that. The king is Caesar. They supported him because he kept them in power. Herod the great came into power because of the help of the Romans. The Romans sided with Herod. There were a couple Jewish parties for a while buying and eventually they sided with Herod and Herod and his sons stay in power because of that. So the Herodians were all about that. But the Pharisees hated it too. They didn't want Jesus to be the Messiah. They wanted their own Messiah. They wanted to control the Messiah and they wanted the Messiah to do what they thought He should do, which was to restore Israel to its glory, even apart from repentance for their sins, which they did not admit that they have. And so both sides are against Christ being the Messiah and being the king. So this plot to catch Him in His words, Matthew Henry says it this way, it has been the old practice of Satan's agents and emissaries to make a man an offender for a word, a word misplaced, mistaken word or misunderstood word, a word through, though innocently designed yet perverted by strained innuendos, to take the word to Jesus, to twist them so that they can catch Him and silence Him. Matthew Henry goes on, thus they lay a snare for Him that reproves in the gate. He cites Isaiah 29-21 here, and they represent the greatest teachers as the greatest troubblers of Israel, thus the wicked ploteth against the just, and quote Matthew Henry, it's a long quote, but I think it's worth noticing, because I think this is the right. This is what happens over and over again in the history of the church, both Old Testament and New Testament. The prophet comes, he proclaims repent, God's judgment is coming and what happens. When it's Jeremiah, they beat him. They throw him in a well. They beat him again. Isaiah proclaims repent, God's judgment is coming, and eventually they saw him in half and they kill him. Zachariah proclaims repent, you've got to turn back to God, put away your sins, and they stone him. John comes in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. He eventually gets thrown into prison and he gets beheaded, and the Pharisees did not accept him. Jesus comes preaching repent for the kingdom of God as in hand, and here he is. They're going to silence Him too, because he's not playing ball. And he's not saying what the people in charge, the leadership, want him to say, the great men, the leaders of the church. Psalm 2 says, the rulers and the great men of the earth take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. This is what we see happen in history over and over again, but I would know when seeks God, unless God changes their heart and gives them the grace, so that that word that they hate, now they love and they run to. This is a fallacious seeking. Secondly, I want you to notice flattering deceit. I want you to notice flattering deceit. Look at verse 16, and they sent to him their disciples with the Herodian saying, teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God and truth, nor do you care about anyone for you do not regard the person of men. Boy, I love this verse. This is one of my favorite verses in Scripture, because it's so insightful. And to the wickedness of man, look what they say about, look how clever they are. So the Pharisees went, they plotted, they took counsel in the darkness. How can we turn the people against Jesus? How can we make them look bad? And then they sent what? Notice it. You might not have picked up on it. Verse 16, they sent to him their disciples. They didn't go themselves. Do you see that? They're smart enough to know that they're going to send to him these young, these students, these learners, these disciples who are just looking for help. They're not the Pharisees, they're the students. They just need a teacher, and they come to Jesus and what do they say? Teacher, didaskaloss. Oh, you're a teacher, we're students. We need help. Won't you help us? Of course you will. It would be wrong for you not to. We're honoring you with this praise, and then they give him this flattering statement that in and of itself. I think it's one of the most profoundly true statements about Jesus in the Bible. I think it's one of the most highest forms and expressions of praise that Jesus ever receives in Scripture. And if these men would have meant it, if they would have said it with any faith, it would have been a great condemnation of their faith and of their understanding of who Christ was. But we know it's a facade. It's a fawning praise in order to try to get Jesus off his guard. Teacher, we know that you are true and that you teach the way of God in truth, nor do you care about anyone. For you do not regard the person, literally the process upon, the face of man. In other words, you don't look at a person and say, oh, I better change what I'm going to say, because I'm not going to get what I want out of this person. I could tell by their body language, oh, I'll nuance this, I'll say something else, I'll change my story, I'll change my teaching, I'll change what I'm going to say because I've got to get people to believe what I want so that I can get what I want from them. What hypocrites do. So what liars do? This is what the great men of this world so often do. We nuance, we change the thing we're going to say or the way we're going to say it, because everybody out there is a potential object of advantage for me and I'm all about me and I'm all about using and manipulating people. So facts and the reality of the situation, no, no, no, what matters is how I can get that person to think and believe what I want them to think and believe that will most advantage me. We know that you are true. You teach the way of God in truth. You don't care about anyone. You don't regard the person of men, in fact, what they're saying is in other words, Jesus, you don't do any of that. You never do that. You never knew what you're teaching. You never water down. You never change it. You never try to use it in some way to get people to think something that's not quite there. You never say one thing but kind of mean something else. You never disguise what you're saying. You never do that. And they're absolutely right. Jesus never, ever did. Not even once. This is the only truly 100% unbiased person that has ever lived. He is the only truly absolutely impartial person who never showed favoritism to anybody or never accepted a bribe. You know, I scratch your back, you scratch mine, all cut corners for you. You cut corners for me. He never does any of that. Not single time. Not once. They're absolutely right in what they're saying about Jesus. Luke's version says verse 21, you do not show personal favoritism. It's the sin of partiality. And it's a great sin. And we're often guilty of it. James chapter 2 writes about this sin in the church. James chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, my brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with partiality. And then he goes on for like six or seven verses to talk about the sin of people in the church who when they see somebody wealthy come into the church, oh, they saddle right up to them. Oh, they become buddy, buddy with the wealthy one, oh, they're over their house. They're helping them out. They're best friends. And it's because they have money. And they think that they're going to get some advantage by being buddy buddy with the one who has money. We can do it with somebody who has power, somebody who could help us in our career. And suddenly we're so nice to them, oh, but to that poor person, that one who doesn't have anything to offer us, sit at my footstool, James says that people will say, in the church, in the church, it happens, Christians manipulating others, using others, seeing relationships as a way to advance their personal material gain in this world. They're very opposite of what Christians ought to be doing, treating everyone the same, not looking for advantage in men, not looking for this, that's accepting a bribe, the Old Testament calls it, accepting a bribe, Luke 20 verse 20 says, they watched him and sensed spies who pretended to be righteous so that they might seize on his words in order to deliver him to the power and the authority of the governor. See, these guys are pretending to be righteous. The disciples of the Pharisees, the disciples of the rodents, these young learners, students who just need some help from this great teacher, and they're flattering him with this praise so that he will be off his guard so that he will answer the question and they'll be able to condemn him in what he says. The great irony of this text is the thing that they're praising Jesus for not doing is the very thing that they're doing, how many do you see it? It's just so ridiculous, how hard can your heart be? Oh, teacher, we know that you are true and they're not being true at that very moment. We know that you teach the way of God and truth and they're not seeking the way of God and truth at that moment. We know you don't care for anyone and they are, they're caring for him because they're manipulating the way they're saying simply because of who he is. You don't have regard for anybody, for any person, and that's exactly why they're doing what they're doing. They have regard. They are doing this thing that they know is wrong because they praise Jesus that he never does that. I mean, how hard does your heart have to be? To be in the midst of an evil that you pray someone else for not doing? Oh, beloved, Jesus was forthright. He called us, say, the spade. He tells it like it is. He spoke candidly, frankly, without guile, no nonsense. He told it straight, straight out, straightforward, straight up. Jesus always spoke without an agenda. He was unbiased. Christ was the ultimate no spin zone. There was no spin on anything that he said. He was genuine. He was transparent. You saw everything in what he said outwardly because there was nothing different on the inside. He was on the level. He was on the up and up. He was upright, up front, uncontrived, unassuming, undesigned, undisguised, unpretentious, unfaithful. Our Lord would tell it to you, swear, matter of fact, point blank, eye to eye, man to man. You know why? Because he was committed to the truth, the truth, that the truth would prevail, that the truth would come out, that the truth would be exalted, not the way he wanted to manipulate the situation. There was no wanting to manipulate the situation. There was a wanting of the truth to go forward in all this fullness. That's was our Lord. He was the truth incarnate. And he addressed the issues of his day, the religious issues, the political issues. There is nothing off limits to the word of God, and so both the political party and the religious party hate him, and they're both out there trying to stop him. But he's shown the light of the word of God on everything. Because beloved, there is nothing off limits to the word of God. Hope you know that. Hope you know there is nothing in your life that's off limits to the word of God, and that a faithful minister ought to address everything. And Jesus did, and that's why they wanted to destroy him. He didn't keep on his spiritual reservation. You just talk about peace and love pastor, and shut up about everything else. He didn't do that. He talked about all of it, and so all of them come out to destroy him, oh, that we would want the truth more than our own earthly advantage, because beloved we're all guilty of this sin, of flattering, falsely, of obsequious sycophancy, which just means kissing up to people in order to get what you want, a faunting false praise. It's disgusting, it's shameful, and we need to ask God to forgive us and to deliver us from it. Thirdly, I want you to notice a false dilemma. I want you to notice a false dilemma, verse 17, tell us therefore what do you think they say? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Oh, they think they got Jesus here. There is nothing he can do. You have the Pharisees, and the Herodians, and everybody knew they disagreed about this issue. This was the main issue between them, the place of Rome, the Herodians supported Rome. It was by Roman tax that the Herodians were in power. They needed that tax. The Pharisees hated it. It was by the Roman tax that they were reminded of, their subjugation, that they were not a free people, and they did not have their king on the throne as God commanded them. The Pharisees were against it. The zealots didn't pay it, and we're ready to kill for it. The zealots were even further conservative as it were within the Pharisees. But the people largely sided with the Pharisees. Most of them resented Rome. That's why Jesus talks about the tax collectors being the emblem for the great sinner, right? Or let's say tax collectors, always tax collectors. Matthew, who was a tax collector, is the one who points that out more than anybody else, because they were often so corrupt, and they were traders to the nation very often that that was the case. So everybody knows that they disagree about this, and Christ knows that they are not interested in his answer. He knows that this is all a game, but here's the issue. If Jesus says yes, immediately he looks like a collaborator. He looks like a compromiser. The conservatives would say, look, he's gone liberal. He wants to give lip service to Rome now. Oh my goodness, he's turning against the scriptures. And if he says no, why the Herodians will go right to their Roman compatriots, and say he's telling people to resist in rebel against Rome, Rome would kill him. So either is going to lose face with the people, and lose much if not all of his support, or the Romans are going to destroy him. And I think they were pretty sure that Jesus was going to say no, because they were conservative and they were thinking this, and they thought Jesus would say that. But beloved, it's a false dilemma. They were making a mistake. They thought you could either honor God or honor Rome. That's what false dilemma is. It's a logical fallacy, where we reduce things to an either or, and things in that particular situation, if the fallacy is committed, they're not. There's not the only the either or the or. The fact of the matter is, as Christ shows, you could, and you should honor both Rome and God. That's what Jesus taught, but how does he do it in order to escape this trap, by which if he just says, yes or no, he's going to lose? Well, first he exposes what they're doing, and I think this is really important. Verse 18, Jesus perceived their wickedness. Mark says, knowing their hypocrisy, Luke says, perceiving their craftiness, he knew what they were doing, Jesus perceived their wickedness and said, why do you test me, you hypocrites? He calls them hypocrites, publicly, in front of the crowd that they're having this dispute. I mean, Christ just takes them ass right off. And now this one who the crowd is confident is a prophet, has just said that these people are being false. You see how that's going to prepare them to hear what Jesus is going to say. So I think it's important that he rebuked the sinful way in which they were conversing with him. He pointed it out. He exposed it. But then, Christ does answer their question, and he answers it in such a way that no one can say anything against that. In fact, he says, yes, it is right to pay taxes to Caesar, but listen to how he says it. He says it in such a way that that very simple obvious thing that everyone was assuming, Christ shows and makes it the ground upon which the answer is obvious. Let's look at these verses, 19 to 21. Some of the most profound verses of the wisdom of Christ, I think in all of scripture, show me the tax money. So they brought him a denarius, and he said to them, whose image and inscription is this? They said to him, Caesar's, he said to them, render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God, the things that are God's. What's the principle here? To willingly use the coin of a realm is to acknowledge the legitimacy of that realm. You're using money that has Caesar's head and name on. You're lining your purses with it. You've been doing it for years. You're making a living off of this money that's minted by the monetary system of Rome, and you're able to spend it, and you're able to get wealth off of it, and you're having the ability to have peace because of the laws of Rome. And you're able to conduct commerce because of the justice of Rome, and all the rest. And here you are, you've been a Roman province for almost a hundred years, and yet because they started this tax in 86, and there was actually a small revolution over it. Because of what it was a particular kind of tax, I don't want to go into that now, but it was a very sort of shameful tax for Israel to pay that would show them their subjugation to Rome. But you're benefiting from this money. How can you not pay the owners of this money there do? May monides, the great Jewish scholar of the 12th century, said, quote, whenever the coin is of any king, wherever the coin is of any king is current, they're the inhabitants acknowledge that king as a ruler. Well, of course they do. If you're living in a realm, you're benefiting from all of the power of that realm to have a stable economy, and you're using that wealth, you obviously owe that realm, it's due. And that's what price points out. You can't benefit from a realm's monetary system and not give them back what they own and what you benefit from. It's a simple principle of justice, of ownership. Somebody owns something you're using and you're benefiting, well, you owe them something for that. John Calvin says quote, the money attest that sees are rules over you, so that by your own silent consent, the liberty to which you claim, that's what they claim that we should be free. Calvin says is lost and gone. You don't want to pay taxes to see their, Caesar, stop using his money. Leave his realm or establish her own, but as long as you are in his realm, benefiting from his protection and using his money, you do owe him taxes. And so the principle here at Beloved is that there is no defection, there is no declining from the true faith of the worship of God by God's people to be subject to a fully pagan government and to pay taxes to it. Why the same thing happened to Israel and captivity? Remember when Jeremiah and the other prophets are saying Babylon's going to conquer us and we're going to be there 70 years and we need to bear, he went around with the yolk. We need to bear the yolk of Babylon and God tells them in his word in the prophets and pray for the nation that takes you captive and work for its good because you're going to be there, plant vineyards, buy houses, you're going to be there for decades and work for that nation's good because I'm doing it. It's my will that you go into captivity and the same was replaced with Rome. It was God's will that Israel be under subjugation to Rome and therefore because they were in that condition they needed to pay their taxes. And Jesus expresses this insight, such an insight into such an obvious truth that no one can find fault with it. When he shows them the coin and they all have it in their pockets, how can they say they don't know Caesar or anything? No one could say a word. This is a false dilemma. Fourthly, I want you to notice fantastic wisdom, I want you to notice fantastic wisdom. Sometimes this verse is used to say that Jesus taught like an absolute submission to human government that we always have to do whatever Caesar says, rendered Caesar, things that are near Caesar's. And we can never disobey unless it's a sin, unless the government commands us to sin, it's the only time we can disobey and that's not what Jesus says in this text. Jesus does recognize and he affirms the legitimacy of the state, even a pagan state, but he also limits it. He doesn't say rendered Caesar, all that Caesar wants doesn't. Rendered Caesar, everything Caesar asks for, he doesn't say that, he doesn't say rendered a Caesar, all that he wishes he had, rendered a Caesar, all that is God's. He draws a line. Rendered the Caesar, the things that are, in other words, the things that are due to Caesar. What does he owe? What does he deserve? And rendered a God, the things that are due and that you owe to God. And you do not give the things of God to Caesar. That's what Christ says here in this text. He clearly recognizes, yes, these two kingdoms as it were, Martin Luther preached five sermons on this text. I had them in my complete collection of Luther's sermons. I always go in there to see if he preached on my text beforehand, maybe once or twice he will. I had to read five sermons for this one, but it was worth it. He talks about, and he goes back to Augustine, he talks about the Christian lives in two kingdoms. We live in the kingdom of God by faith and repentance, and we live in the world. And we have to operate. And the answer is not what was given in the Middle Ages so often, all the way up to the time of the Reformation, well, you either have to completely withdraw from the world to be holy, right? I'll renounce all my possessions, I'll go into them on a scary, that's where the really holy people went. We had that view today in the Reformation, in the Anabaptists, where they, you see some of it in the Amish to some degree, the men andites before them, or the hotterites, where they would completely leave society. You have to, a Christian can't be any member of the government. He can't be a citizen of a nation that's not the Christian nation or whatever. And that view was there, so you have to completely separate yourself. That was always the radical minority view. The main views before the Reformation was the view in the East, the eastern part of the empire, where there was only one kingdom, because the emperor told the church what to do. The emperor deposed or positioned patriarchs and bishops. There was one kingdom and it was the emperor. He was over the church, and in the West and Rome it was the opposite. The Pope was over the emperor, in fact the Pope's replaced kings, Pope Innocent III removed three European kings, and the Pope crowned kings. There was one kingdom, again, in the West, and it was the church over the state, but the Reformation came and recovered the doctrine of Augustine, that there are two kingdoms. There is a state, and the state has power, and that state's power is coercive, and there is a church, and that church has power, but that power and authority is ministerial and declarative. We can only declare what the word says. We can't add new laws, but the state can require your obedience, and they can punish you physically. Romans 13 gives the sword to the secular ruler, to that time a fully pagan ruler, Paul says he has the sword. So there is this kingdom that the church has to recognize, and yet we live as sojourners in that kingdom, as pilgrims, as strangers. We have no permanent place there. Our place is in the heavens. We look for a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. That's our home. We have to sojourn in this one, and we pay our respects and our honors, and the kings in this realm have a right to our honor and to our taxes and to our obedience, but in the other realm, in the church, in the spiritual realm, directly to God, under Christ as mediatorial king, we owe faith, we owe repentance, we owe obedience, we owe our hearts, not just the outward. The state can't command your heart. God must command your heart. We owe our hearts, and we owe things like right and wrong. God tells us right and wrong, not the state. God tells us truth and falsehood, not the state. God tells us good and evil, not the state, and when the state transgresses into that place, into matters of faith, we say no to the state. We say no when they transgress. Listen to Martin Luther. Quote, when the emperor and the princes require of me to believe so and so, I reply dear emperor and lords, you are reaching too high. You are lords over the temporal life, not over the eternal life. He goes on, if the Roman emperor has the power and might to require people to believe as he wills, then the Turkish ruler also has such power and might as does the magistrate of every village and the father of every home. I love the way Luther always reduces it to absurdity, reductio absurdium, right? If the state really can require you and matters of faith, then so can the local magistrate, then so can the father, the husband. How many of us want that? The husband is telling the wise, well you have to believe this because I said so and I'm an authority. Well if the state has that right, so do husbands. It follows without exception. So beloved it's it's a limitation. We limit to Caesar what is due to Caesar, but we give to God, what is due to God. Let me ask you this. What do we owe to God? What is due to God? How about everything? Every drop of blood, every ounce of sweat, every breath we take, every beat of our hearts. We owe it to God, obedience in everything, and we owe it to Him from the heart. In fact, the only reason we actually owe obedience to the state and to Caesars because God said so. There was a time when God told us people go into the land and wipe out all the states, and that was right for them to do so because God said so. But now God tells us to obey, to give honor to whom honors do, taxes to him, taxes, fear to him, fear. So it is legitimate. But what I want us to see is that we have to be prepared to draw a line when and if Caesar encroaches into the realm of faith, into the realm of good and evil, into the realm of right and wrong, into the realm of faith and obedience and the word of God, we cannot compromise the word of God. And again, it's not just, well, as long as they don't command us to sin, we have to do it. That's not what Paul did. For example, from Acts 16, beginning in verse 35, remember, Paul and Silas were thrown in prison for preaching the gospel. They were beaten. And it says verse 35, when it was day, the magistrates sent the officers saying, let those men go. You hear that? The magistrates. Caesar. The magistrates sent the officers saying, let those men go. So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul saying, the magistrates have sent to let you go. Now therefore, depart and go in peace, two imperatives, depart and go, the magistrate said so. Now, let me ask you this. Would it be a sin for Paul and Silas to obey the magistrate at that point, to depart and go? Of course not. Of course it's not a sin to just leave. What sin would it be? It was not a sin for them to obey the magistrate, but they disobeyed the magistrate. They disobeyed the magistrate when it was not a sin to obey him. Listen to what Paul says to this simple order to leave. But Paul said to them, they have beaten us openly, uncontembromance and thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed, Paul says. No. I say no to Caesar. No. Because he has violated my rights. And even though obeying him would not be a sin, I will say no to him. And the officers told these words to the magistrate. Paul says no indeed, let them come themselves and get us out. The officers told these words to the magistrates and they were afraid when they heard they were Romans and they came and they pleaded with him and they brought him out and they begged him to depart from the city. Paul said no when it was not a sin to obey because they trampled on his rights. And we are allowed to stand up for our rights when our leaders violate them. And maybe we wouldn't draw the line in the same place. Do you think I'm setting you up for something but I'm not? I really hope everyone in this room recognizes the truth of that principle that somewhere you have to draw the line. If you're going to obey God, I don't care where we draw it at this point. I just want everyone to recognize the truth of the matter that we cannot give to God or cannot give to Caesar what is God's. And we have to be willing to draw that line when I was reading Alexander Soltz and Eatson's Gulag archipelago and he laments about how many tens of millions of Russians were beaten to death, starved to death, imprisoned to death, tortured to death, kept to wait to death. That was one of the unique tortures wrestlers did to their own people. And he laments that they let it happen, that every one of them just marched off. Just whole families, one after another until it was 66, he estimate 66 millions and it may have been more killed by their own government. Can you imagine? He said, we just let it happen. Why didn't we resist? Why didn't we cry out? Why didn't we stop it? And I've heard the same thing about the Jews in the Holocaust. Why did they let it happen? And when Israel formed their modern state, it was never again. And that's why the Jewish military is feared and their secret service and their special forces are so feared because they will never lie down again and let tyranny and totalitarianism just destroy them. They won't do it. And you know, beloved, we have to draw that line. I don't know where things are going in our nation, but I think I can see things, if things continue to go in a certain way. Some Christians have had to draw that line already and have lost their jobs for standing up for their Christian beliefs. I don't know where to draw, but I can tell you this, it's too late when we're getting on to the train to go to the gas chamber.