Should We Obey the Government

I want for us to read from Romans chapter 13 and I want to speak this evening on a subject that we have talked about amongst ourselves but we have not preached on and when I mentioned Romans 13 you can figure out what the message is. It's about whether we ought to obey the government or not, particularly in the issues of the virus and the closing down of the building and those kinds of things. So let's read first in Romans 13 and then I'll make a few more comments before we get in and I'm going to look at a lot of scriptures. I'm going to look at all the main scriptures that are used in this in this debate because it is a debate but let's just read to begin with in Romans 13 and verses 1 through 7. Romans 13 verses 1 through 7. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves for rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil do you want to be unafraid of the authority and do what is good and you will have praise from the same for he is God's minister to you for good but if you do evil be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil and therefore you must be subject not only because of wrath but also for conscience sake for because of this you also pay taxes for they are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing render therefore to all their due taxes to him taxes are due customs to him customs fear to him fear honor to whom honor and so there is a raging debate going on and I feel it's important to make some comments particularly for our own benefit but also for the benefit of others who are struggling with the conflicting ideas I watched someone last Sunday in fact in London speak on the subject and I said thought he did a pretty bad job of of dealing with the topic didn't really answer the question at all and then some of you may be aware that one of our neighbors has made a very public statement this last Friday on Friday made the statement that they will be opening the church the Sunday and that they will be ignoring the government's decree that the buildings are to be closed at the same time there are all sorts of rumors and fake news going around in different parts of the world concerning California that the government has closed the churches and that we may not meet together I made references on Thursday and that we can't even meet in homes and and that is part of what we need to we need to understand this whole thing so I'm going to go to four scriptures the four scriptures that are used in this in this debate and we're going to look at them step-by-step one by one and see what they have to say and the first one is Daniel chapter 3 verse 15 you know the story well the three young men were called to worship the image the whole the whole city was called to worship the image the three young men refused to worship the image and they were thrown into the fiery furnace so Daniel 315 says now if you are ready at the time you hear the sound of the horn the flute the harp the lyre the psaltery a symphony of with all kinds of music and you fall down and worship the image which I have made good but if you do not worship you shall be cast immediately into the midst of the burning fiery furnace and who is the God who will deliver you from my hands now we know who that God is now this verse is used to say well you see they were they refused the command of the king and they refused to bow and God rescued them and save them yes that is true but I want you to we need to pay attention to the context you can't just take and this is the problem people are just taking little verses here and there and building a whole ideas on them without understanding the context who were these three young men they were Jewish boys who would bring been brought as captive to Babylon but they were serving in the government of the Babylonian Empire so they were not just ordinary Jew boys they were they were servants of the Empire they were working for for the for the Emperor for for Babylon now I want you to pay attention did they refuse to serve the king no they served the king and remember there was the three and then there was the fourth one who was Daniel not the fourth one in the furnace but there was the other man Daniel who writes the book Daniel served not just that Empire but also the media Persian Empire that followed and he served all of his life for about 70 or 80 years and finally died there these men were senior advisors in the government they did not refuse to obey the government on any other issue except on this one issue back there two issues not come back to the second one in a moment the issue of worshipping the beast of the beast well it's a it is a symbol of the beast but the worshipping the image and of Nebuchadnezzar and so they didn't refuse to do their job they didn't refuse to collect taxes on behalf of the government because they were on that side of the of the of the game they didn't refuse to enforce the laws of Babylon they did everything that was required of them except for two things the one is they would not eat food that was offered to idols and the second is that they would not bow down and worship the image and so their disobedience is very specific it is specific in two areas which contradict the commands of God they were not to eat things presented to idols they were not to eat food food that was unclean and they were not to worship anything else other than God those were clear specific commands that God had given them and they they were willing to burn for those commands now later on you remember that Daniel the king well they set a trap for Daniel because they know that he prayed faithfully and so they they they went to the king and they said look you know Daniel prays to his God he's worshipping his God and he's not serving you make a decree that no one is allowed to pray and of course Daniel says I must pray God has given me an instruction I must pray and so Daniel prays and we know what happened in that story God they take him throw him in the lion's den and the Lord rescues him and again just like there was the fourth man in the furnace there is one like unto the Son of God walking with Daniel there in the lion's den and so that sounds good so that means then that when the government says that we can't meet inside of the building then we must obey the government but this is the point is this a essential to the face is the government telling us to do something that is against the Word of God on the one hand or are they preventing us from doing something that we are commanded to do in the Word of God I'm going to answer the question later I hope I hope I remember the next account in Acts chapter 5 the Apostles are preaching and they preaching in the name of Jesus and the the leaders of the Jews were not happy with us because they were taking followers away from from Judaism and converting them into Christ into Christians and so they said did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name and look you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood Jesus on us what was the command the command was that we're not to preach in the name of Jesus or to teach in the name of Jesus do we have a specific command that says that we must teach in name in the name of Jesus yes we do go into all the world make disciples teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded unto you so again what the leaders are saying is contrary to the Word of God let me answer that question before I forget when we are told we may not sing is that contrary to the Word of God well some people will say yes it is but what is the principle behind singing what are we doing when we're singing we are worshiping do I have to worship vocally ideally yes if we can be together and we can sing out loud and we can praise God out loud that is ideal but when we are said we can't sing out loud does that mean we cannot worship God no we can worship God and we we follow on the hymn and if you want to hum along with a hymn you can hum along with a hymn we're still following the words we still lifting up our hearts in praise to God we're still paying attention to to the to the song and to the music and to all of those things and so here's the here's the problem we have we have built certain things into our faith which we say are essentials when in fact they are not essentials there are there are thousands of Christians all over the world who cannot sing because they live in oppressed countries are they not are they then bad Christians because they don't sing no they sing and and and there's just two verses in the New Testament that tell us that command us to sing and one of those two verses says singing and making melody and anyone finish the verse in your hearts to the Lord so one of the two verses which they use says you need to sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord now we extrapolate that and we say well that means that I'm a sing vocally yeah sure we would enjoy singing vocally we want to sing out loud but if we can't sing out loud because we have a particular set of circumstances then it doesn't mean that we could we wish we stop to worship but here's the problem at no stage that the government tell us that we cannot worship God that was the command for it for Daniel Daniel you may not pray to your God and Daniel of course he prays out loud could he have prayed softly yes he could have but he was making a point the government has not prevented us from worshiping God and whether we worship him in singing or whether we worship him by following the hymn in our hearts it makes no difference the vast majority of our prayers well I don't know about you but but 99% probably a hundred percent of my private prayer is not spoken out it's only spoken out and that when I Sunday afternoons when it's not hot and I'm able to go up into the mountains and I'm able to talk with God out there but for the rest of the time nobody knows nobody can hear what I'm praying is that an invalid prayer because I'm not speaking it out no of course not God hears the prayer of my heart and therefore singing does not necessarily have to be vocal to be acceptable to God it's not ideal of course we want to sing of course we want to we want to sing the hymns and and so on the other command and I want to deal with us now and then we're going to look at at Romans chapter 13 and and and Peter the other instruction we have is that we may not meet inside of a building the government has closed down the churches the whole world is in uproar if you've been on Facebook you would have seen this the government is closed the churches in California what is the church is this the church this building is not the church this is the church and the government has not closed the church it is simply closed the buildings and there's a massive difference between the church and the building but the problem is that these that these preachers who are going on on this disobedient trip to the government are saying the government is closed down the church we can't worship because we need to be inside to worship folk we are not Roman Catholics you have to be inside and face the altar and see the cross and and and and have the smoke and all of the stuff we worship God in spirit and in truth and we are able to worship God whether we're under a tree or out on the patio or whether we're inside our comfortable chapel but the chapel is not the church and the government has not and I'm not defending you you know I'm a political in the sense I'm against all politics whether it's Democrat or Republican I have a problem with them all but at the same time we have to be righteous in our judgment and we have to be righteous in what we say and and I mentioned that I'm working on an article on on conspiracies and and the problem with conspiracies is that in propagating them when we post them to Facebook what we are doing is we're bearing false witness that is incredibly serious we're saying stuff that we don't know whether they are true and in many cases are not the truth and when we say that the government has closed the churches we are lying we are bearing false witness and God will hold us accountable we must be righteous we must be just in our in our communications we must be righteous in how we understand things and how we communicate those things so the church has not been closed and yes we may face a general shutdown we may get another stay-at-home order I'm grateful I watched the statistics like a hawk and I just told you today I see that the that the transmission rate has come down to 1.06 it was 1.12 a week ago and it's deadly come down to 1.11 110 18 it is 106 today that is a good sign which if it keeps going that way obviously it takes some time before that translates into the hospital take-ups and and and hospital beds and and deaths and so on but if they close us down and they say you can't meet at all does that has that closed the church no we will go back to zoom or to Skype or to whatever else we have and we will meet that way and we will meet in ones and twos and we will still preach on the internet and and on YouTube and on Facebook the church folk is not bound to a ritual of being here on Sunday morning yeah it's not convenient for me to be here on Saturday night I'm tired by the end of the week I much prefer Sunday morning but for now this is fine and I'm grateful to have Saturday night I'm grateful that I can see you and that we can be together and that we can encourage one another and that we can worship to the extent that we're able to worship so let's go to sorry verse 29 I missed out but Peter and the other apostles also said we ought to obey God rather than men we ought to obey God rather than men so let's go to Romans chapter 13 and there's seven verses and I'm going to go through those seven verses quite fast we dealt with this when we dealt with the book of Romans long time ago but let every soul be subject to the governing authorities excluding churches excluding pastors let every soul oh no no but this is not for Christians this is for the world Paul is not writing to the world he's writing to Christians and he says be subject to the governing authorities it's interesting that he uses that word governing authorities in other words he's covering all the bases and he's saying whether it's the magistrate or whether it's the governor or whether it is the the Emperor it doesn't matter who it is who if they're governing and if they're in authority you need to be subject to them now the problem is that what the what people are saying is no we are not subject to them we are subject to God and I'm going to answer that question in a moment but you'll see here that Paul is specifically saying let every soul Peter says exactly the same to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God now this verse is misunderstood because some people understand this by saying understand this in that it's it says that that God appointed the current president to be in the White House and when we have the elections and whoever wins the election that is God ordained that is not what Paul is saying here that is not what this passage is dealing with what the passage is dealing with is the principle of government God has ordained the principle of government for the purpose of order and we'll see that as we as we go along so whether you have a democracy or whether you have a empire or whether you have a monarchy or whether you have a dictatorship God has placed in order the system a system of government I don't believe that God is interested in whether the White House is occupied by a Democrat or a or a what's the other thing Republican or the birthday party anyone knows about the birthday party God help us God's not interested in who sitting on the throne he's interested in the principle of authority and the authority is there for a purpose now he says there is no authority except from God and the authority exists are appointed by God therefore whoever resists the authority resist the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves but it can't be simpler than that as long as the government is not telling us to do something that God tells us to do or telling us not to do something that God tells us to do and we resist the government we disobey the order we say well we're going to open these doors we're going to meet inside we're tired of being outside here Paul is saying if you do that you are resisting God because that government whoever it is is ordered by God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves so churches who have chosen to open will know God's judgment upon themselves beyond any doubt now that doesn't mean that the thunder or lightning is going to come out of heaven and strike the preacher in the pulpit I wish sometimes it would happen but a darkness will come upon their hearts and their minds because when you start twisting the Word of God to say what it does not say a veil follows and you see that how that happened for Israel and a veil falls upon their hearts so that they're not able to understand and I wonder sometimes how can preachers deal with these scriptures and twist them the way they twist them because they are already under the judgment of God and that's a harsh saying Romans 13 verse 3 for rulers are not a terror to good works but to evil do you want to be unafraid of the authority do what's good and you will have praise of the same in other words if you don't want to get into trouble do the right thing as simple as that I don't want the government to cut our water and lights our electricity wait for the airplanes because without electricity we can't have the amplifiers and then it's going to be really hard to have this meeting so I don't need to get in trouble for something that is not important for something that is not a biblical thing and then verse 4 for he is God's minister to you for good but if you do evil be afraid for he does not wear the sword in vain for he is God's minister God's servant and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil but I want you to notice verse the first part of the verse for he is God's minister to you for good now who was Paul writing to to the Roman believers where are the Roman believers in Rome are they under Jewish jurisdiction no they are under Caesar is Caesar a good a good King no he is evil there is nothing about Rome that is good they were they were evil at every level they were pedophiles they were they swung both ways sexually they they were they were cruel they were murderers and incidentally when when we saw that verse earlier and I need to move a bit faster but when we saw that verse earlier that they're appointed by God how did the Caesars get to power by murdering one another 95% of the Caesars came to power by murdering the previous Caesar and yet Paul says that they said by God not because the man himself is good or evil but because the principle of government is right all right let's move on verse 5 therefore you must be subject not only because of wrath but also for conscience sake there are two reasons one we don't need to get into trouble with the government he does not bear the sword in vain he has tools in the old days a sword they would could beat people they could imprison people and today they have those same things plus they have prison but we're not just obedient because we're afraid of the consequences that the government can can bring to us but because of conscience sake conscience sake so that we can have a clear conscience folk how can you come to the Word of God and you say well Lord I want you to speak to me from your word but he has spoken to me through the government and I'm not hearing that I'm disobeying that how can I come to him in prayer when I have blatantly disobeyed him how can we as a church expect God's blessing upon us as a congregation when we have blatantly disobeyed God by disobeying the government and I know there are many questions and I'm going to try and get to some of those questions for because of this you also pay taxes for their God's ministers God's servants attending continually to this very thing what do they use the taxes for in in Rome to build themselves palaces to build themselves big monuments that are still standing today to build a Colosseum in which they would throw the lions to the the Christians to the lions that came out of the taxes oh no I can't pay my taxes because the government uses the taxes to sponsor things that are not good well if anyone abused the money Rome abused the money and yet both Jesus and Paul says you got to pay your taxes render therefore to all they do taxes to whom taxes are due customs whom customs fear to whom fear honor to whom honor all right let's go to Peter first Peter chapter 2 verse 13 and we were here six months ago therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance so here we have we have to the two bookends Paul says who must submit every soul everyone Peter says which ordinances should we submit to the ones that we think are nice the ones we think are fair no to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake see here it comes back again remember when we were in this in Peter Peter speaks and he goes on he speaks about our relationship with our masters and we serve our masters as though we serve Christ and we serve we obey the government as though we obey the Lord for the Lord's sake for his testimony sake whether to the king a supreme or to governors so in the king we can put the president I guess governors we have governors as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good you can see that he's saying exactly what what Paul said for this is the will of God now look at this this is the will of God pastors and churches are agonizing what is God's will should we open the building or do we keep the building closed here's the will of God by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men what is the doing good here obeying the government keeping the laws that you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men folk here's the problem our testimony is at stake and when we make a public statement that thousands and thousands of people because and we don't have that kind of profile but some of these guys do have that kind of profile with thousands millions of people read the statement we are bringing shame upon the name of Christ because we are mishandling the Word of God number one and number two we are teaching men to be disobedient to the Word of God now here's the problem if I as a teacher teach you and say you can ignore whichever commands of the government you don't like as long as you can find some kind of scriptural base for it you can ignore that and then you get yourself into some terrible sin and I come to you and I say brother you you shouldn't be having another man's wife just as an example what is the response brother you taught me to disobey the Word of God folk I one of the reasons why this is so important to me is because I don't want one of us to think that we have liberty to play fast and loose with the Word of God to change the Word of God when it suits us when to obey what pleases us and to not obey what what doesn't please us because we have a testimony before the world and the world is looking at the church and saying well what kind of people are these they are disorderly they cannot work within the framework of of of government as free yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice but as bond servants as slaves of God but here's one of the arguments we're free we're free from the laws of men we can do whatever we choose to do we just obey God no he says you're not free don't use your liberty as a cover for disobedience for sin for vice but serve as bond servants of God verse 17 on all people of the brotherhood fear God honor the king exactly the same as as Paul now here's the here's the some of the practical that some of the practical issues and I have one more scripture which will close with one of the issues and one of the arguments is that all of this is preparing us for the Antichrist and so if we give in on this then we will willingly take the mark of the beast I've had people tell me that by wearing a mask you have taken the mark of the beast folks let's get real a mask is not a statement that you are a Republican or a Democrat a market mask is not a statement of the political affiliation and a mask is not a statement of affiliation with the Antichrist it is simply a device to protect us I trust that each of you wear seatbelts oh but you're doing what the government's telling you to do the government's got you tied down the government's got you where it wants you you the moment you get in the car you put on the seatbelt so it's not a bad thing to obey the government particularly when it's for our good yes there are many laws that are stupid there are many laws that are that are not right there are many laws that discriminate there are many laws that are unjust but we don't get to choose which we want to obey in which we don't want to obey until it directly contradicts the Word of God for taking the mark of the Antichrist and I said this before I'm going to say it again is not something that you can do unknowingly by putting on a mask by taking a vaccine by having a social security number most of us here have social security numbers is that preparing the way for the Antichrist in a sense it is because without the social security number you cannot buy anything except with cash you cannot have a bank account you cannot buy a house you cannot rent a house you cannot get a job does that sound something like the mark of the beast yes it does but is it the mark of the beast no it is not because the mark of the beast is not a technological thing like a social security number or a credit card or a driver's license the mark of the beast is very clearly and I think there's seven scriptures in the book of Revelation that speak about the mark of the beast it is connected to worshipping him it is something that you know what you're doing you're identifying with him and it's a question you need to you it's not it's not something that that's going to just happen just by wearing a mask or by having a social security number the time will come when we will have to disobey the time will come when we will have to disobey I trust it's not going to be in Clayton in my time but it may be in your time when the government says that you may not meet not because of the virus but because Christianity has been outlawed young guys you must disobey that command when the government says we can no longer preach the Word of God we must disobey that command when the government begins to look into my sermons and begins to tell me what I must preach I must disobey that command there are things that we must disobey and there are things that we will suffer for but what we're doing now what we're experiencing now has nothing to do with any of that the rules whether you like them or not whether you think that the mask works so it doesn't work when you think social distancing has value it doesn't have value it is there for our good it is not a these are not laws that are made against the church there are laws that are made for the good of society the same way as wearing a seat belt is a law that is made for everyone and I have seen nothing in what the government has done from Washington to Sacramento to downtown LA that is telling me to do something that God told me not to do all the other way around but here's the problem if we don't know the difference between when to obey and when to disobey we could very easily be set up for the fall what do I mean by that well there's a there's a story in the Bible about the boy who cried wolf right no it's not in the Bible but it's a it's a good story and what does the story about the way that cried wolf teach us that if you cry wolf often enough eventually people are not going to listen right now here in our area people are crying wolf people are tired of the fireworks and they still keep going on and it's been months and months and months now so what I see people are doing now is they're calling 9-1-1 and they're saying people are shooting with a gun because that way the cops will come out but how many times can you do that before the police say no we know this game we're not going to go out and in fact the next time maybe a real gunman in the street and folk if preachers are telling people disregard the law disregard the law disregard the law the time may come when we must disregard the law and we've cried wolf one time too many and people say we don't believe you anymore because you told us before folk I grew up in church where people told me that you couldn't have an identity document in South Africa you have a little book called the book of life and it has your marriage in it marriage certificate and in your gun licenses and your birth certificate and what everything is in that little book and preachers say you you can't have that because it's the it's the mark of the beast then they came with us with it with the barcodes stores started having barcodes on the back of food and there was 666 you see it's a mark of the beast it wasn't the mark of the beast and we can go on and on and on and on of all of the times that we've cried wolf but we need to be we need to be righteous we need to call things the way they are and not try and scare people into things you see here's the here's the strange thing the same churches that are ignoring the government's command to not be in the building are what we call 501c3 organizations they are tax-exempt and we are tax-exempt I have no problem with that because it doesn't come with strings attached the government doesn't tell us what to preach or anything like that it's just a privilege that we have of not having to pay taxes on the properties but the same churches that choose to ignore the government on covered those same churches will take millions not in our case but in other cases millions of dollars in tax rebates from the same government that they will just ignore you can't take the bad the good and and and and ignore the bad you have to take what what comes but here's the more the scarier thing and I'm I'm going to draw to a close because I see I'm running out of time the same Christians who are crying Bambi crying long tears because the government has closed the churches will miss church for a football game God help us will cry because we can't meet inside because of the virus but we will miss the meeting for anything the same people who cried that the government doesn't allow us to to to to pray in schools and yes it's a pity we can't pray in schools but those same people don't pray with their kids at home so what kind of hypocrisy is this if prayer with children is so important then why don't you pray with your children at home instead of fighting with the government who's chosen to to to throw prayer out of the schools and we can go on and on and on and on about the hypocrisy the stuff that we will complain about that the government does but we do exactly the same for the rules are are there for our good and yes we may not agree with them when we remodeled these buildings as you know we worked for a year with the building inspectors the rules are ridiculous I can tell you I can entertain you for hours on the stupidity of some of the rules if you go into the restroom you'll see that on the on the door the restroom is one sign and on the side of the door is another sign which says men and women why they two signs one's round one square the other one's a triangle whatever because the one is a federal requirement and the other one is a state requirement it's stupid it's ridiculous but we obey the government and when the inspector says I don't like that sign you have to get new signs we take the signs we say yes sir no sir three bags full sir because he is the government and he has the power to close us down let's not make a big deal of things that aren't a big deal let's I thank God for the for the privilege that we have of not living in China or in North Korea or in some parts of Mexico or so many other places Arabic countries you know in places like Dubai and Qatar some churches meet at four o'clock in the morning the reason is because you're not allowed to have church in any other place except a designated compound which is designated for churches and churches have to have to rent space and that space is rented out 24 hours a day for 24 hours a day churches are meeting in those places and so right through the night Christians are having to get up in the middle of the night to get to the to the meeting place in order to have their meeting I thank God that we can choose whether we want to meet on Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening or Saturday afternoon or whenever all right the rules are not just for us but the rules are for everyone but we have a testimony to uphold and I'm not going to go there but some of the you that were here when we came here know that the testimony of this previous church was in ruin they had ruined the name of Christ in this area by their behavior all right let me go to the last scripture and that is in 1 Timothy chapter 2 there's so much more I want to say but we're way out of time therefore I exhort first of all that supplications prayers intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men for kings and all who are in authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence we must pray for the government most churches in America will only pray for the government if it is a Republican government they will not pray for a Democrat government we don't get that choice we pray for the government where is Paul when he's writing this letter in prison in Rome and he's saying pray for the king pray for the for Caesar pray for everyone who's in authority and here's the bottom line what do we want out of the government you see we've got to get down to the to the to the to the brass tacks here what is it we want out of the government all we want a government that will do this for us and that for us and the other thing for us no here's what we want this is what Paul says we should be wanting that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life with godliness and reverence all we want a government that's without corruption yeah sure I want a government without corruption but that's not in the New Testament that's not one of the options that Paul says I need to pray for I need to but we need to pray for the virus to go away why do we want the virus to go away so we can have a comfortable life no so that we can get back to normal church life for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth why do we pray for the government that number one we have a peaceable life in which we can preach the gospel because God wants everyone to be saved secondly we pray for the government that they may be saved because it's God's will that all men be saved but we need to pray for the government whoever wins the election in November we need to pray for him whether you like him or don't whoever's sitting there today we need to pray for him whether you like him or don't whoever's in Sacramento we need to pray that they will rule wisely so that we can have peaceable lives not so we can have a great life but so that we can get on with the business of the kingdom because when there's tumult when there is strife when there is war when there is the stuff that's going on right now it's very hard to preach the gospel father we thank you for your word Lord these are difficult things because there are so many voices out there right now and all there are men who have great degrees and vast followings who claim to have answers and yet they're teaching men to disobey your word Lord I pray that you'd help us to obey you well I pray that you'd help us to be discerning to understand the times when we may be called to do something which is against your word and all that we may have the grace to be disobedient at that time but Lord in the meantime give us grace that we may be good citizens Lord not because we want the approval of men but because we want an opportunity to testify to them and Lord when the church sets itself up in opposition to the government then how can we preach the gospel to them and so Lord I pray that you'd help us that we have a right relationship with these things Lord that you'd help our hearts and Lord we're all tired of all of this time of the rules changing from day to day Lord we're tired of not being able to just meet in the in the chapel in our normal way and being able to sing the hymns and be able to do our readings and and do the things that we do Lord we're tired of the noise out here in the street but Lord I pray that you'd help us to be those who endure and all those who are faithful to the things that you call us to do and Lord I pray for other churches in the city and in the county and in the state I pray Lord for those churches who've just completely shut down when there's really no need when there's some other ways that can be found to to to worship and I pray Lord for those who've chosen to be disobedient I pray Lord that you would bring those leaders to back to your word and Lord that you'd convict them of the need to uphold your word not only when it suits them but when it's inconvenient also so Lord I pray for those who are not here Lord those who are away from us those who are not well I pray that you'd minister to each one according to their need and I pray that you'd go with us now as we part we ask this in Jesus name amen you