LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR pt 1 // Sunday, Oct 13, 2024 // Jeff Hines, Lead Pastor
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Sunday, October 13, 2024
Love Your Neighbor
(Picture of Yard Sign)
The link between Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah are strengthened by the support of the Venezuelan dictatorship, which responds to the influence of Cuba and a superior one from Russia.
There are growing concerns that these connections are transforming from criminal activities to acts of urban terrorism.
Biblical Insights on Government
1. Government is intended for our good.
Romans 13: 1 (ESV)
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Romans 13: 2 (ESV)
Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed,
and those who resist will incur judgment.
Government is intended to incentivize good conduct and to restrain evil.
Romans 13: 3 (ESV)
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?
Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval,
Government officials are to be servants of God.
Romans 13: 4 (ESV)
for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
Because God instituted government for our benefit and to restrain evil, we should:
a. Be good citizens
Romans 13: 5 (ESV)
Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath
but also for the sake of conscience.
b. Pay our taxes
Romans 13: 6 & 7 (ESV)
For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
2. Government is inherently flawed because of sinful humanity
Government will reflect the quality fo the people employed and empowered with it.
Acts 16: 36 - 40 (ESV)
…the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace.”
37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.”
38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. 39 So they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. 40 So they went out of the prison and visited Lydia. And when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them and departed.
Christians cannot retreat from their engagement with civil authorities.
3. Periodically, government falls under demonic powers.
Revelations 13: 5 – 7 (NLT)
Then the beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God. And he was given authority to do whatever he wanted for forty-two months. 6 And he spoke terrible words of blasphemy against God, slandering his name and his dwelling — that is, those who dwell in heaven. 7 And the beast was allowed to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And he was given authority to rule over every tribe and people and language and nation.
How?
Voting in the wrong people
Naked Communist
(points from book)
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools… Soften the curriculum… Get control of teachers’ associations.
20. Infiltrate the press.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers…
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history…