Romans: The Revelation Of Righteousness – Part 13 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness Part 13 with Pastors Aaron and Lawson Perdue! In this session we’ll learn about what is our responsibility towards godly government.

Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness Part 13 Transcript

Praise the Lord, friends. Today we’re gonna be in Romans 13. We’re gonna be talking about what is our responsibility towards godly government. And not only that, we’ll be talking about God’s royal law, the law of love. And finally, we’ll be talking about how we can conceive good things in the Word of God. My son, Aaron, is gonna share something I’ve never heard before, but it is a powerful teaching. So, open your heart and receive the Word of God today. Blessings. Friends, we’re so glad to have you with us today. And I’m here with my son, Aaron, and we’re gonna be sharing from Romans 13. And in Romans 13, we hear first of all about what is the responsibility of godly government. That’s a keyword, godly government, and what is our responsibility to them. And then secondly, we see God’s royal law, the law of love. And finally, we see how do we live in these last days. So, a lot of things are really brought out here. We’re gonna begin in Romans 13. Aaron, if you wanna read Romans 13:1-7.

Sure. It says: Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there’s no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Will thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is a minister of God to thee for good. But if you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he bears not the sword in vain, for he is a minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that does evil. Wherefore you must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For this cause, pay tribute also for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

So, Paul begins here in Romans 13 talking about our attitude towards authority, towards authority specifically in the government. And I think we have to guard our attitude towards authority, both in the government and in the church. And we have to… Really I think we learn the proper attitude towards authority in the home as children. And I think it’s important for us as parents that we train our children up at a young age to respect authority in the home. And I think that puts them on a road really for success when they get into the educational field, when they get into the work field, when they get into all these different fields. And really, we live in a time where there’s a tremendous, tremendous lack of respect for authority. But he says in verse 3, he’s not just talking about submitting to ungodly authority, but he’s talking about submitting to godly authority.

And I think one thing that people don’t realize in today’s kind of society is that you can disagree with someone and still be respectful towards them, you know?

Right.

And in my education, there were plenty of professors and other students that I disagreed with about several things, but I’d still have respect towards them. And that’s just very, very important to respect people. And I love what Paul’s saying, that there’s no higher powers but those that are ordained of God. You know, I was thinking about how the United States began, who granted, you know, our forefathers the right to create their own country? In the Declaration of Independence, it doesn’t say, “Well, France is giving us the right to do this, or Russia is, or England.” They said that we have certain inalienable rights granted to us by the Creator. They were saying that God himself, the Creator, gives us the right to establish a government, to establish a nation, to establish authority. The authority that we have as a country is given to us by the Creator.

And when we respect God, the Creator then, and we respect the principles laid out in the Scripture. And really until the United States, I don’t know if there was another government formed that really understood, you know, godly government, like our government. And our Founding Fathers founded the United States of America on godly principles. And they basically, a lot of them said, “You know what? You cannot rule an immoral people or an ungodly people.” So, governmental regulation was made for godly people. But we also need to have governments that act godly. And we’ve seen a lot of examples of ungodly government. We’re talking about our attitude towards a godly government. And we don’t just submit to every rule or everything. For instance, in the days of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar made a rule that everybody had to bow, and he made this idol of himself, and worship when they heard the sound of music. And you know what? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not bow when they heard that. And they said, “You’re gonna be cast into the flame of the hot fiery furnace.” And they cast them out in there. But the only thing that burned off of them was the ropes and the clothing that they had them bound with. And the king looked down from where he was into that furnace and said, “Didn’t we cast three in there? And lo, I see four. And the fourth one looks like the Son of God.” And so Jesus showed up for them.

Yeah, when nations and and rulers, you know, plot against the things of God, the Bible says in Psalm 2 that, you know, “Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves together and the rulers takes counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.’ He that sits in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall hold them in derision.” So, I love that. So God holds these ungodly nations and rulers accountable. It says he will hold them in derision.

Right.

And I studied that out. In the Hebrew, the word derision means to go crazy. Like it means, like they’ll lose their mind. That’s what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.

Right.

He lost his mind. There are rulers here in this nation that have a hard time thinking clearly. Even that word to hold in derision means to lose your mind and to start babbling, to be unintelligible, like what you are saying.

And that’s very evident.

Yeah.

And so Nebuchadnezzar also made a rule that nobody could pray to him, you know, for 30 days. And when Daniel, when he knew the writing was signed, he went and opened his window three times a day, like he did before.

So if there was a governor that said, “you can’t sing at church,” should you-

Yeah, they’re crazy.

Should you not sing or should you do what God says?

What if there’s a governor that says you can’t have church? You know, the Bible says “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, and so much more, you know, as you see the day approaching.” We were the last big church in Colorado Springs to close, and we were the first big church to open in the pandemic. And really God gave me clarity and he showed me, our governor in Colorado did not have a plan to open the church. But we looked into the, you know, even their laws from the Health Department, and we found a way we felt like we were legal to operate. And we went ahead and we operated. And the Health Department told us after they got this stuff, they had had it for about 10 days, told us we couldn’t. We told them, “It’s too late, we’re gonna go ahead. Our lawyer saw it different.” And we went ahead and opened our doors. You know, the Bible says, “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, and so much more as we see the day approaching.” And so we’re probably gonna see more crazy things like this. And, you know, our Health Department, they attacked me in a few ways and gave me a few choice words. And I told them this wasn’t China, this is the United States of America. But in the Scripture, in Romans 13:3, he says, “Rulers are not to be a terror to good works.” Rulers should not be fighting good works, should not be fighting the church, but the evil. He says, “Will you then not be afraid of the power?” So if you’re doing evil, then you should fear, you know? In other words, we need to have a godly respect for godly government and godly authority. He says, “Do that which is good, and you shall have the praise of the same.” And so when you abide by the laws of the land, if they’re not causing you to disobey God, it’s gonna cause good things to happen. He goes on and talks about the godly government. They’re ministers of God to people for good. In verse 4, he says, “If you do that which is evil, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. He’s a minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath on him that does evil.” So, godly government is to execute wrath on those who do evil, but they are not to fight people for the good. And so he goes on, he says, because of this, he says, “Don’t only do this, be subject,” he says in verse 5, not only because you’re afraid for wrath, because you know you’re gonna get in trouble, but also for a good conscience sake. So, Paul says in a number of places that we need to keep a good conscience. And he said, “I exercise myself to keep a good conscience before God and before man.” And so we need to keep a good conscience. And then he says, “For this for this cause, pay taxes also.” And I know some people try to get out of taxes in all these different ways. You know, I fully believe in using the law to, you know, in having good CPAs and good people to help you with your taxes and using the laws to your benefit. But at the same point in time, don’t try to just get by with paying nothing. There’s been a few people-

Yeah, don’t break the law. Jesus was asked by the Pharisees, they were trying to trap Jesus, it says they were trying to trap Jesus and asked him, you know, “Is it lawful to pay tribute, to pay taxes unto Caesar?” And they were asking him this because if he said, “Yes, you gotta pay taxes,” then they knew that all the Jewish population would be angry at Jesus because they didn’t like Roman authority over them, didn’t like paying taxes to the Romans. But if he said no, then they knew that they could send the soldiers after him, the Roman soldiers to arrest him because he was breaking the law. But Jesus said something interesting. He just said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

He said, “Bring me a coin.” And they brought it to him, and he said, “Whose image is that? That’s Caesar. So give Caesar what’s Caesar’s.”

And render unto God the things that are God’s. So what image do you bear, you know, as a child of God? We are created in his image. You know, mankind are created in his image. Children are created in his image. You know, children that are being formed in the womb are being formed in his image. So, they aren’t yours. They’re not even the mothers. They belong unto God.

Amen. You know, I raised you and your brothers, your two younger brothers, with this mentality. These are not my children. These are God’s children. And he’s given me the privilege-

Responsibility.

And the responsibility of training them up to know him. And it’s worked out very well. We thank God for that. God’s a very gracious God and a good God. And you guys responded well to the gospel at a young age. But you know, because of this, don’t try to cheat the government. You know, you’ll get yourself in trouble. Just, you know, get good CPAs, you know, get a good tax plan, get a good investment plan. There’s things that will work for your good; But at the same point in time, you know, pay what you owe. And at the current time, I pay a lot of tax. But thank God, I’m blessed. One of my good friends told me years ago, he was one of my mentors, he said, “Well, you either pay income tax or interest. So, you gotta figure out which one.” And I’ve paid plenty of both in my life. But God’s been good to me, amen? Now we go on in verse 8 and he begins to talk about God’s royal law, the highest law. And we need to know this because this is the law that makes everything else work, even in the body of Christ. And so in verse 8 through 10, he says, “Don’t owe any man anything but to love one another. For he that loves one another has fulfilled the law. For this, you will not commit adultery, you will not kill, you will not steal, you will not bear false witness, you will not covet. If there’s any other commandment, it’s briefly comprehended in this saying, namely that you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love works no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” Now, when we look at this, we’ll comment on this before the break, but the first thing he says is, “Owe no man anything but to love one another.” Does that mean that we’re not to borrow money? We’ll come back right after a short break and we’ll answer that question for you. Blessings. Friends, I’ve been teaching from my series on “Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness.” Romans is actually my favorite book of the Bible. And I teach this class, I’ve been teaching it for years, at Charis Bible College in Woodland Park with Andrew Wommack. And so I’m teaching about the gospel is the revelation of righteousness. You wanna get ahold of this. I have a book on it. I also have a four CD mini teaching on it. And then most recently we’ve done the 16 teaching USB that you can get just as we’ve been teaching it here on television. And so you wanna get ahold of this revelation. If you get ahold of this revelation, it will change your life. So, “Romans: The Revelation of Righteousness.” Thanks so much for being with us today. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy this great teaching and you’ll wanna share it with your friends. Blessings. We appreciate you. Praise the Lord, we’re back. And we said we would answer the question in Romans 13:8, where it says, “Owe no man anything but to love one another.” Does that mean that we cannot borrow money? That it’s a sin to borrow money? Aaron, I’ll let you answer that. What’s your opinion?

Oh no, that’s actually taken out of context. This is talking about, you know, paying tribute to people, giving honor to people, giving love unto people. So it’s not really talking about finances.

Right. So, the Bible actually says in the Old Testament you will lend and not borrow. This is one of the blessings. So if it’s a sin to borrow, then it must be a sin to lend. And the Bible says you will lend and not borrow. And I started under three multimillionaire farmers who were mentors to me when we pastored in Eastern Colorado and pioneered our first church. And all of them started out with nothing and borrowed a lot of money and became wealthy. And they were mentors to me and I learned things from each one of them. And I employed those in my life. And now guess what happened to me? I became a multimillionaire, praise God. And I’ve used debt, and I don’t… This is my rule with debt. I don’t like to have debt on things that depreciate. I like to, you know, only take debt on things that appreciate, right, like a house, right? Like things that get worth more money. So, I try never to take debt on something that’s going down. Now, you may have to, but I don’t believe that that’s God’s best. And so I try to believe God and stay outta debt on things that depreciate and pay cash for those things, and never take debt, for instance, on televisions and junk, you know, consumer debt. It’s one of the worst things that you can do. There’s other things that are even worse than that. But you know what? I’ve taken debt on houses. I’ve taken debt on businesses. I’ve even taken debt for a short time on churches. But in a short time we paid those churches off. But God opened up great doors of opportunity because we listened to the Holy Spirit.

To buy a house, you know, the vast majority of people need to, you know, take a loan to buy a house. But if you get a low interest rate, you know, kind of a fixed rate loan that’s, you know, in a good neighborhood with a good house, that’s gonna appreciate in value. If you take a loan for 3%, but that home is appreciating 10% a year, you’re making 7% just off of the investment in that home.

You’d be crazy. Just off the debt, plus the other. So, you know, and I think houses in Colorado Springs, and you know, we’re blessed because we’ve lived in a growing economy, but year-to-year, you know, there’s some downs, you know, but year-to-year, longterm, you know, these houses get worth more and more and more. And there may be little downturns. For instance, the house that I live in, I bought it in 2011 at the very bottom of a bear market in the nation and in our city in one of the best areas. But I bought the house for, you know, over 35% cheaper than it sold five years earlier. But today it’s worth double what it sold at the high, so in 2006, I bought it in 2011 for 35% cheaper than a real estate person, an attorney bought it in 2006. And you actually came back from college when I bought that and you walked through it. I got a amazing deal. It was foreclosed. But you walk through it and you said, “Hey, daddy, this house, when you close this as soon as you can, because as soon as you do, you’ll make $200,000.” But that house now is worth three times what I paid for it and worth double what the people paid for in 2006.

You know, my wife, when she first moved to Colorado, she moved here to go to Bible college. She was a widow at the time, and she never lived in a home that she had owned. So she moved here with her four-year-old son and she bought a small home in Woodland Park, Colorado to go to bible college there. And she bought this home for, I believe it was like 260,000. She put 20,000 into fixing it up, lived there a year while we dated, then we got married, and she sold that home after she lived there over a year. And she sold it for I think 315,000. So after fees and the money she put into the house, she made about $15,000 on the house. But she also, you know, saved money from rent. You know, I was thinking about the rent there in that town. To rent a place for her and her boy, it would’ve been, you know, 1,600 a month. So she would’ve spent, you know, $18,000 or more than that.

20,000.

Yeah, 20,000 in rent. So, she was up 20,000 in what she would’ve spent in rent plus the profit on the house. So she was up, you know, $36,000 by buying that house rather than renting that first year she was here.

Oh, and sometimes people get a house and it appreciates a little bit and they say, “Oh, I need to run off.” But if you’re in a good economy, that’s a growing economy, like Colorado Springs, front range of Colorado, longterm, you know, and you gotta use the little wisdom. I mean, sometimes these people go real crazy when it’s going up. But use some wisdom and, you know, I believe you can… You know, we just had a staff member get a phenomenal deal and he bought this house a good 30% under the market, and these people just had favor. He had favor and God just blessed him and helped him. And it’s still a faith deal for him. That’s all he could spend. But if you’ll believe God, God will bless you and God will help you. And so, you know, owe no man anything. Really, I think when I was a kid, I would go to a new school and it seemed like every place we went, we would almost get in a fist fight, you know. My parents moved when I was kindergarten, moved when I was first grade, moved when I was third grade, and I changed schools again, you know, in fifth grade. And every new place it seemed like I’d get in a fight and we’d say, “I owe you one.” That’s what I think this is talking about when it says don’t owe anybody anything but to love one another. For he that loves his brother has fulfilled the law. You can’t commit adultery with your neighbor’s wife and love your neighbor. You can’t commit adultery with your neighbor’s wife and love your neighbor’s wife. You can’t commit adultery with your neighbor’s wife and love yourself. You can’t commit adultery with your neighbor’s wife and love God. So, love is a fulfilling of the law.

He’s probably talking about the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. So they took your eye, so I owe him an eye that I gotta take out.

Well, that’s probably what it is. You probably got one up on me here. So anyway, he says, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not kill or murder.” You know, you can’t murder somebody. Now, the Bible says in 1 John 3 that he that hates his brother is a murderer. So you gotta watch hatred, too. And that’s talking about God’s royal love, law of love. You shall not steal. You can’t love somebody and steal from him. He says, “You shall not bear false witness.” You can’t love somebody and lie about them. You cannot covet. If there’s any other commandment, it’s briefly commanded in this saying, the royal law, you will love your neighbor as yourself. Now, when you talk about loving yourself, sometimes religious people get offended at that. But you need to get a good opinion of yourself, and you need to see yourself the way God sees you. And when you see yourself that God loves you, and you don’t need to take anybody’s opinion of you ultimately, but God’s. God’s opinion of you is the best opinion. So, you need to take that. So he says, “Love,” in verse 10, “works no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” Now he kind of moves into a little bit of a different thought, but in walking out the royal law of God’s love, he says this in verse 11, “Knowing the time, it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” You know, we’re closer to the coming of the Lord. We see all these signs, you know, wars, rumor of wars, famines, pestilent, earthquakes. You know, this is the beginning of sorrow’s birth pains, like Jesus is coming, praise God. And you know, we see all these things. He goes on and says, “The night as far spent, the day is at hand. Let us throw off, let us cast off the works of darkness.” You know what, I’m not trying to see how close to hell I can live and still make heaven. “And let us put on the armor of light.” The light of God will protect you. “Let us walk honestly, as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness.” That means shacking up, living with somebody, right? Going to the bed chamber with somebody you’re not married to, letting your flesh have anything it wants. “Not in strife and envy.” Notice he puts the sins, sexual sins right next to strife and envy. So, you gotta watch against that. The Bible says where envy and strife is, there’s confusion and every evil work, in James 3, about verse 16 or verse 17. Finally he says this, and Aaron, I wanted you to comment on verse 14, but he says, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof.” This word, when he says, “Make not provision for the flesh,” is the Greek word pronoia, and it means a premeditated plan or forethought. So if you go get in major sin, you don’t just go from loving God and serving God, and then go jump, you know, commit adultery or get drunk. That it’s a… You begin to think these thoughts, right? And you don’t control your thoughts and they go in a bad direction. And so if you can use your thoughts and go in a positive way, but you can also use your thoughts and go in a negative way. So, you had a Scripture you shared the other day from Psalm 7:14.

Yeah, just the other day I was reading, just reading my Bible, and I actually felt kind of led to read from the ESV, the English Standard Version, so that’s what I’m gonna quote from, Psalm 7:14. Today we’re reading from the King James Version. I also like the New King James. I know you like the modern English version. They’re kind of based off of the King James translations. But sometimes it’s good to read from other translations. So, this is Psalm 7:14 from the ESV. It says, “Behold the wicked man conceives evil, is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.” That really struck me because I’ve heard a lot of teaching on, you know, on the power of the seed. You know, we are born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. So, I’ve heard a lot of great teaching on the seed of the Word, on the seed of your giving, and what that bears fruit. But this is kind of neat, because it talks about conceiving, being pregnant and giving birth, and it uses it kind of in a negative context, talking about a wicked man. But he conceives evil. He is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. So, I find it really fascinating that with some wicked person, what ends up manifesting in his life is actually lies. It’s what comes out of his mouth. You know, you think of wickedness, like the worst thing, you know, wicked people do. It’s like may be kill or steal or commit adultery. But here it says on that wickedness, once it’s conceived evil, that’s talking about in the heart, and is pregnant with mischief, it gives birth to lies. What manifests is what comes out of the mouth.

And so Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” And so, you know, we have to guard our heart, right? And if we guard our heart, see we have the Word of God in us. But if you begin to think on evil things and you’ll become pregnant with evil, you’ll begin to move into lies and it will produce negative fruit.

So, spend time in the Word of God. Spend time in the Spirit. You know the word of Jesus. He said, “This is spirit, it’s life.” So as you spend time in the Word, that’s how you conceive his Word, his righteousness, his plans for you. And just bear it, you know, carry it with you and then it’s gonna give birth to abundant life.

Amen. Thanks so much for being with us today. We’ve certainly enjoyed our time teaching from Romans. We’ll be back tomorrow at this same time. And praise God, tell your friends about the broadcast, and if you need prayer, give us a call. Thank you so much. Blessings.

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