Lessons

The scripture reading was Romans 13:1-7 during the lesson on July 19, 2009 where the Romans Study picked back up with part 15 in the series. Derek opens the lesson with an article on the fallacy of living with the regrets of yesterday and burden of tomorrow. Today is a gift from God and that is why the call it the present. Psalms 138: tells us that the word of God is even more important than His name. Psalms 138:2 “I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” We can’t live without the word of God. This lesson covers the second chapter in the practical section of Romans and it can be divided up into two parts: The Christian’s relationship to civil government and how can we achieve that through love. Civil government has been ordained by God. The passages that show this are Daniel 1:1-2a “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand…” God gave Jehoiakim up to Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 2:20-22 speaks to God removing and setting up kings. Daniel interprets the dream Nebuchadnezzar had and said in Daniel 2:37 “ Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.” In Romans 13:3 it says “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:” But what do you do when civil government becomes corrupt, calling that which is evil good, and that which is good evil? When the leaders oppose the constitution, the very document they swore an oath to protect, we have a ruler that is evil instead of good. The same thing happened to our founding fathers. David Barton wrote an article about the American Revolution asking the question, “Was it an Act of Biblical Rebellion?” This question was asked in relation to Romans 13.