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2 readings from God's word to focus our thinking this morning. The first, Paul's letter to the Romans, the thirteenth chapter, reading the first seven verses. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except

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from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. For he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.

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Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval. 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.

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He is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God attending

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to this very thing. Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. And the second reading is from the book of Revelation, the thirteenth chapter, and beginning

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at the first verse. And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns, and a blasphemous name upon its head. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth

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was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed. And the whole earth followed the beast with wonder.

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Men worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast. And they worshipped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?" And may God bless to us, and to our understanding, these readings from this book.

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Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We have a lot of ground to cover this morning, so let's get right to it.

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If you ask most Christians what the relationship between the Church and the State is to be, if they are biblically literate, most of them will refer to Paul's letter to the Romans, the thirteenth chapter, the first verse. There Paul writes, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is

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no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." These are the words that Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome in 58 AD. But if the person is a more astute student of Scripture, if they understand the nuances of the book as well as these more direct applications, they might be prone also to quote Revelation

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13 verse 1. Now Revelation was written by a man named John in 90 AD, about 32 years after Paul wrote to the Romans. And the book of Revelation, thirteenth chapter, first verse says, "And I saw a beast rising

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out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns, and a blasphemous name upon its head." Now as you know, the book of Revelation is written in a kind of apocalyptic language, and if we're going to understand this verse, we have to take a moment to decode it.

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In the code, or the apocalyptic language of Revelation, the "beast rising from the sea" refers to the state, to the government, the Roman government, which was imperial at that time. The seven heads, alluded to, refer to the seven well-known Caesars of the Roman Empire.

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Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vestasian, can't think of the next one, and Domitian, Titus, Titus and Domitian. Now you'll notice it says there were seven heads, but it also says there were ten horns. And that's because in addition to these seven major emperors, there were three minor emperors

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whose total reigns only amounted to about two years, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. So altogether there were ten Caesars, that's the ten horns, but the seven heads were the principal Caesars. The diadems in the verse refers to the crown worn by the emperor.

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And the blasphemous name in the verse refers to the names which the Roman emperors took for themselves, names like "God" or "Son of God." Nero called himself "God and the Savior of the World." You see, between 58 AD, when Paul wrote to Rome, and 90 AD, when John wrote to Rome,

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something very significant had happened in the Roman government, and that was emperor worship. So these two verses, one which says "be subject to the governing authorities," and the other which says "the government is a beast, claiming for itself titles and names to which it is

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not entitled," these two verses are really not inconsistent. The first verse, you see, says "be subject to the governing authorities when the governing authorities are doing that which is God's will." But the second verse calls us to remember that when the governing authorities take to

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themselves the authority of God, when they are no more than a beast, then they are to be rejected. The principle here, you see, is one of balance. Paul didn't have any hesitation to use the Roman legal system throughout his life, because

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at that time emperor worship had not come to the fore as it did, and he was proud of his Roman citizenship. But Peter, on the other hand, when he was told by the authorities, "Do not preach the name of Jesus," went right out and directly disobeyed them.

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Because you see, in this instance, the authorities had done that which was contrary to God. When we look at the prophets of the Old Testament, we found that people like Jeremiah, or Daniel, or Isaiah, they supported the government when what the government did was good, but they preached against the government when what the government did was bad.

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Now this concept of the relationship between the church and the state has been very much influenced across the years by the teachings of a number of people, two I want to note especially this morning. The first is Martin Luther.

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Luther taught that there were, when one talked to the church and the state, two swords, one held by the church, one held by the state, and he argued that they were equal in authority. The function of the state was to provide a peaceful environment in which the church could flourish, and the function of the church was to be the conscience of the state.

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This is the way Luther started out. But as his ministry went on and he became more zealous, he began to call upon the governing authorities to make Lutheranism something of the law rather than of the spirit. In 1526, for example, he asked the governing authorities to take over the discipline and

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the order of the faith within Germany. He went on to give more and more power to the state until he finally got to the place where he said, for the end of his life, that it was absolutely wrong for anyone ever to oppose the state.

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He said it was wrong for four reasons. First of all, the state can hurt your body, but it can't hurt your soul. Secondly, if the state is bad, it's probably God's way of punishing you for your sins. Thirdly, he said, vengeance belongs to God, it doesn't belong to men.

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And fourthly, he said, if you revolt against the state, the result will be anarchy, and no government is worse than any kind of government at all. And this view of Luther, of the subservience of the church to the state, flourished in Germany for 400 years, right into our own century.

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In 1930, when Hitler began to come to power in Germany, he did so with two arguments. The first argument was to revenge Germany against those who had taken advantage of it, as he described it in the First World War. And secondly, to oppose the Jews whom he accused of starting the First World War.

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Now because the church in Germany was so accustomed to being subservient to the state, when Hitler began to preach these doctrines, the church went along. As a matter of fact, in 1932, a new believing body was formed in Germany called the German Christian Movement, and they stood squarely behind Adolf Hitler.

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In 1933, they had a huge rally in Berlin, and the theme of the rally was, "Hitler has spoken to the church. The church must speak to Hitler and say, 'We will help to build a church of the Third Reich.'" Now as this German Nazi church began to grow, it developed some very interesting doctrines.

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It threw out the whole Old Testament, which it called nothing but "Jewish morality." It also threw out of the New Testament all the letters of Paul, whom they described as a "Jewish rabbi." Now some Christians in Germany saw what was happening.

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They saw how the church was becoming nothing more than a political tool, and so they pulled apart. This group was called the Pastors' Emergency League, and they were led by some people like Martin Niemöller and Karl Barth and other names that have become famous in the history

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of the church since. And as soon as this small group began to pull away, Hitler announced that that group could not speak in public. But they did not desist.

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They kept on proclaiming what they understood to be the truth. Now meanwhile, Hitler used Luther more and more to undergird his Nazi government. He did it in two ways. First of all, he reminded the German people, "Luther said you must go along with the state."

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And secondly, he chose some writings of Luther's which were very anti-Semitic. There was a time in Luther's life when he was very, very much possessed by a hatred of the Jews. He wrote a pamphlet called "Against the Jews and Their Lies," and he urged people to burn

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down their synagogues and to drive them out of the country. And Hitler picked up those ideas and brought them to the fore to justify his own heinous crimes against the Jews. Have you ever wondered why it was that a sophisticated, cultured nation like Germany could surrender

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to the will of an egomaniac like Adolf Hitler? Here's your explanation. For 400 years - that's twice the length of the lifetime of our country - for 400 years, the German people had been taught in their Lutheranism to surrender to the state.

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But this pastor's emergency league, those who saw that this was a prostitution of the gospel and a corruption of the church, they continued to speak the truth. And on one occasion, they met in a small town called Barmen. And there in Barmen, they wrote and published a declaration, which has come to be known

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as the Declaration of Barmen. And in that declaration, they said three things. They said, first of all, we must not worship the state. They said, second of all, we reject Luther's concept of the two equal swords.

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And they said, third of all, we will obey Christ and Christ only. Now, for the writing and the preaching of this declaration, many of these authentic German Christians died. Many of them spent years in the torments of concentration camps.

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But they continued preaching the truth. And at one point, they even organized together in a plot attempting to kill Hitler. So vigorously did they resist this desecration of the gospel and the truth. They took their stand at whatever cost.

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And it was this group of which Albert Einstein spoke after the war. He said, only this church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth. And I am forced to confess that what I once despised, I now praise unreservedly.

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Well, in 1967, when the Presbyterian church sat down and organized its book of confession, it included the Declaration of Barmen as one of those confessions. And this is the banner which it uses to represent it. At the top, the swastika, the symbol of Nazi Germany.

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But it is crossed out. Below it, raging flames, representing the struggle and the suffering and the pain that authentic Christians had to go through at this time. And rising out of the flames, the cross.

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What we have here, you see, is a testimony to the Lordship of Christ above any other Lordship. What we have here is Romans 13.1 and Revelation 13.1. Yes, you may obey the state when what the state does is right.

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But when the church is forced to choose between the state and God, it will always choose God. And what is represented here is also the view of the church and the state, which was taught by our Presbyterian ancestor, John Calvin. Calvin, you see, said that the church and the state were similar.

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And he said that the church owed its ultimate allegiance only to God. And if the magistrates went along with God, then they were to be obeyed. But if they did not, then Calvin said, using the picturesque language of that time, we should spit on their heads.

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In other words, the position was this. Obedience to civil authority stops where civil authority's disobedience to God begins. This is the reason Presbyterians played such a major role in our revolution against Great Britain.

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King George III of England described the American Revolution in this way. He said, "Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson." This congregation hired as its first minister Samuel Barr, fully knowing at the time that he was a fugitive from the law.

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He and his brother in Ireland had revolted against the authority of King George. Ireland was trying to do the same thing that America did. We succeeded, they did not. His brother was caught and hanged.

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He escaped to the United States and was known here as one that King George wanted at the end of a rope. And this church hired him as their first pastor. It spit on George III's head.

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At that time, this little cemetery outside was a public cemetery. And the revolutionary dead who are buried there, you will find every one of their names on the rolls of this church. Many people think because that graveyard is taken care of now by Trinity Episcopal Church

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that they were Episcopalians. They weren't. The Episcopalian church was called the Church of England and they stood with the English. And the defenders of American ideals and ideas gave their lives fighting the English.

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So they were buried in a public cemetery. But they all belonged to this church. They were Presbyterian, they were Calvinist, they were Reformed, they would understand what those people in Barman went through.

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They understood that if you're going to talk about the relationship of the church and the state, there's got to be Romans 13.1 and Revelation 13.1. Authority is given to the state when the state is good. But authority is denied to the state when the state goes against the things of God.

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This truth has very solemn applications in our time because we've seen a very curious turn of ideas here in America. There are many people today who argue that if you criticize our government, you're not Christian.

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And when they take that position, they're taking a position which is exactly contrary to what the scriptures teach and what our tradition holds us to. There are some people in America who are confusing conservative politics with the authority of God.

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They're making patriotism into a kind of religion. And that's what happened in Germany in the 1930s. I've been in sanctuaries in this country that are decorated entirely in red, white, and blue.

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And you hear a lot of very disingenuous romanticism about the history of America. You find people emphasizing not education, not understanding our theology and our tradition, but instead passionate support of certain ideas. And these certain ideas tell whether you're Orthodox or not.

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In other words, if you don't hold the right view on abortion, or if you don't hold the right view on school prayer, or if you don't hold their view on national defense, or if you don't hold their view on Justice Fork, then you see you're not of the true faith. You're not a good American, and you're not a good Christian either.

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There are people in this country today who are saying that your politics should be your religion, and we'll tell you what your religion ought to be. I had a woman meet me on the street in Pittsburgh and tell me that the reason she knew that America was God's chosen people was this.

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The middle three letters of the word Jerusalem are USA. And there are some very ugly ramifications for this, my friend. For example, down in the southwestern corner of the United States there are some of our Presbyterian churches that granted the right of sanctuary to some Salvadorian refugees

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who were trying to get in this country. They helped these refugees get in, even though it was against the law of the land. They followed their conscience. They believed that those refugees had a right to come here, even though it violated the

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law of the land. And they ran the risk of bringing them in. And the FBI came to them. The FBI secretly recorded their minister's sermons.

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And the FBI took pictures of everybody who worshipped in that church when they came and went on Sundays. And the FBI sent its agents to go through their parking lots and to write down all of their license numbers.

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Now, if I told you that was the KGB in the Soviet Union, you wouldn't be surprised. I'm talking about the FBI in America last year. Now, remember, we're part of a country which said at the end of the Second World War in the Nuremberg War trial that if some Nazi stood up and said, "I did what my government

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required me to do," then our response would be, "You should have done what your conscience told you to do before God, because good conscience before God is more important than any state authority." And that Nazi who did what he did because his government told him to do it, we threw

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him in jail or executed him. That's the position that we took. Now, we have some people in the Southwest who, following their conscience, go against the government.

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What do we do? We arrest them and throw them in jail. They're willing to go. They made that very clear.

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It's not a question of whether you agree or disagree with whether those refugees should have been here or not. I personally have very profound doubts about that. But I have no doubt at all about this because I'm a Presbyterian, that if your conscience

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before God calls you to go against the state and to be obedient to what you understand the will of God to do and to be, then that's what you must do and be. I may differ with what they stand for, but I cannot differ with their right to take that stand.

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It's part of my whole tradition. It's part of the testimony of the book, which I happen to believe is the most important book in all the world. We have a lot of issues facing us in our society today.

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Government taxing and intruding its way into private organizations to work its will. Individuals running around suggesting that America is the 20th century Israel. Individual leaders who say that if a country disagrees with us, that country is obviously part of an empire of evil.

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Our nation for the first time in its history violating the findings of the world court. Our growing armaments. Our complete disregard for what our children are going to live like because we're spending all of their money today and are building up such an incredible, almost incomprehensible

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national debt that they'll be mortgaged from the day they're born. Affairs entered into in other nations. Environment desecrated. The middle class slowly being eliminated as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

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Taxed, forgotten. Problems in the black communities today are as great as they were 30 years ago. Forgotten. Cities, with all of the problems that they confront and their inability to meet them.

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These are major moral issues. And if the church is silent about these, if the church just rolls over and plays dead and says whatever the government does is right, then it's violating scripture and it's violating its tradition.

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This Jesus whom we worship was a rebel. He was no milksop that spent all of his time talking about motherhood and home and heaven. He was killed because he was an agitator. He was crucified because he was seen to be a social menace.

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He's the greatest social reformer in all of history and this book is the most incendiary book that has ever been written. And if you follow it, you're going to pay a price. Martin Niemöller, one of those Germans who took a stand for right, said after the war,

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"In Germany when the Nazis came for the communists, I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came up for the trade unionists and I was not a trade unionist so I didn't speak up.

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Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time there was no one left to speak up." We must take our stand when there is still time for it to take. And those of you in this room who are listening to these words on radio or television or by

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tape, if you hate me for what I'm saying, then I say to you, I take no pleasure in afflicting you, but I must stand with this book and in this tradition, for I believe that that cross will always triumph above whatever flame. And if that be heresy, then make the most of it.

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And if that be heresy, then make the most of it. Amen. Jesus Christ...Amen