{"id":19165,"date":"2016-10-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/the-bible-and-voting-part-13\/"},"modified":"2016-10-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T05:00:00","slug":"the-bible-and-voting-part-13","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/the-bible-and-voting-part-13\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bible and Voting – Part 13"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[65],"series_event":[466],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19165","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-proverbs","series_event-the-bible-and-voting-2016","sermon_service_type-main-service","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"The Bible and Voting - Part 13","sermon_date":"20161002","sermon_month":"10","sermon_year":"2016","sermon_notes":3972,"sermon_slides":3974,"sermon_mp3":3976,"sermon_id":"10216953172","series_or_event":466,"service_type":[472],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":65,"chapter_and_verse":"14:34","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nSUGAR LAND BIBLE CHURCH\n\nOctober 2, 2016The Bible and Voting, Part 13\n\nRomans 13:3-4\n\nGood morning everybody.\u00a0 Happy October; it\u2019s hard to believe September has come and gone but pretty soon, if the Lord tarries I\u2019ll be saying Happy 2017.\u00a0 Let\u2019s take our Bibles if we could and open them to the book of Romans, chapter 13 and verses 3-4.\u00a0 We\u2019re continuing our study, coming near the end of it (I know I\u2019ve said that for the last 8 weeks, but there is an end in sight), The Bible and Voting. Everybody is talking about elections, politics, polls, pundits, and I\u2019m always a little bit frustrated when I see all the clamor because I\u2019ve felt for a long time that the Bible has so much to say on the things people are talking about.\u00a0 And that\u2019s sort of been the heart of this series.\u00a0 It\u2019s what I would call a topical study looking at Bible positions on political issues so that when we vote in this election (or any election) we have the mind of God; we have a framework of values that we can use to cast ballots for people.\n\nWe\u2019ve looked at economic issues, about ten of them.\u00a0 We went from there into social issues, we looked at several of those, about eight of them.\u00a0 And coming near the end here we\u2019ve looked at foreign affairs issues; these may be the most debated today, as the\u00a0 United States of America and the stewardship that we\u2019re given through the ballot box interacts with other nations.\u00a0 What does the Word of God say about foreign affairs issues?\u00a0 God has a great deal to say about one-world government, as we have seen.\u00a0 Many people today would like to have a one-world government.\u00a0 The Bible has a lot to say as we have talked about the reality of borders, national borders, and the morality of enforcing those borders.\u00a0 The Bible has a great deal to say about support for the nation of Israel.\n\nAnd as we began looking last week, the Bible has a lot to say about this final issue that we\u2019re considering which is called peace through strength.\u00a0 Will the candidate pursue a foreign policy of peace through strength.\u00a0 And when you get into this subject you get into something that has literally inundated our lives and this is the whole issue of terrorist activities; not just here at home but around the world.\u00a0 We\u2019re reminded of terrorism constantly; it\u2019s almost become a part and parcel of American life.\u00a0 We think of September 11th<\/sup>, we think of Fort Hood, we think of the Boston Marathon bomber, we think of what happened recently in Orlando and Chelsea, New York, and San Bernardino, and people just sort of engaging in acts of violence against seeming unarmed and innocent civilians.\n\nWhy is this happening?\u00a0 And if it is happening (which indeed it is) does the Bible actually address this directly or indirectly.\u00a0 And as I have been thinking about this I am convinced that the Bible has so much to say on this subject of terrorism.\u00a0 There is the outline that we\u2019re following, we won\u2019t get through all of that today, we got through parts 1 and 2 last time, maybe if God allows it we\u2019ll get through parts 3 and 4 this morning.\u00a0 And then I\u2019m planning on (at least this is the intent of my heart) to wrap up the series next week as we look at Roman numerals V and VI, terrorism\u2019s false causes, Terrorism\u2019s true causes: What works against terrorism, What does not work against terrorism. \u00a0Can a government go too far in deterring terrorist activities.\u00a0 And are there actually legitimate methods that God calls any nation\/state to exercise when seeking to prevent, inhibit terrorist activity?\n\nWe looked last time at some false causes; you see, if you don\u2019t have the light of the Scripture and you see a horrible event take place, where innocent lives are taken, you have to blame that on something.\u00a0 And if you won\u2019t blame it on the wickedness of the human heart, and the Bible (as we saw) teaches the inherent wickedness of the human heart, you have to come up with some kind of explanation.\u00a0 And typically what happens in the mind of the non-Biblicist, the secularist, is they want to blame it on something external, outside the human heart.\u00a0 We would call this an environmental cause, an exterior cause, because after all, at the end of the day we really can\u2019t be that bad as people so some\u00adthing must have caused this outside of our humanity.\n\nSo people, as we saw last week have a tendency to blame these kind of events on poverty, sometimes a lack of education, and that\u2019s why I\u2019ve been sharing with you some of the statistics about terrorists; most people don\u2019t know this but those involved in Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan were in the upper middle class and were largely college educated with a strong bias toward the natural sciences and engineering.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t sound to me like it\u2019s the poverty stricken crowd\u00a0 that doesn\u2019t have access to education that\u2019s involved in terrorist activities.\u00a0 In fact, when you get into this you\u2019ll see many times it\u2019s the exact opposite.\u00a0 Bin Laden, as we mentioned, was a multimillionaire at the time of his terrorist activities.\u00a0 Other people, as we saw, want to blame it all on the United States; somehow if anything is wrong in the world it\u2019s the fault of the United States.\u00a0 They like to blame it on what they would call American Imperialism, maybe they say we overreacted to 911 by invading Iraq and Afghanistan.\n\nAnd as we saw last time the basic problem with this is terrorism goes all the way back to the administration of Thomas Jefferson.\u00a0 Thomas Jefferson, before America even became a real super power that we know it as today was struggling with this issue of terrorism in what is called the Barbary Pirates.\u00a0\u00a0 And he did not understand why these people kept engaging in unprovoked attacks against innocent Americans constantly.\u00a0 And he actually purchased and began to read a copy of the Koran, not to build America on an Islamic foundation, that\u2019s what the historical revisionists will tell you, it\u2019s not true, he was trying to analyze what is going on in the minds of these people that propels them to engage in one unprovoked attack after another against us when we haven\u2019t done anything against them.\u00a0 So it\u2019s difficult to blame all of these things on poverty, a lack of education, American imperialism, but you see, if you don\u2019t have depravity in your thinking these are the typical explanations that the secularist comes up with.\n\nWell then, what are the true causes of terrorist activity?\u00a0 There are two; the first is\u2026 and these two factors must come together in concert, if you have these two factors coming together in concert you have the recipe for terrorism.\u00a0 The first is something that has contaminated every member of the human race.\u00a0 If you are alive and breathing today you have been contaminated by something called human depravity.\u00a0 What that simply means is Adam\u2019s sin transmitted to all individuals, the only exception (of course) is Jesus Christ, which is why the virgin birth was so significant but other than the miraculous virgin birth of Christ every human being has been contaminated by a sin nature.\u00a0 My sin does not make me a sinner; rather I sin because I already am a sinner.\u00a0 I never had to learn how to sin; I was never given a class on how to rebel against God, it comes to me quite naturally because of human depravity.\n\nAnd what you need to understand is human depravity is so severe that it has affected or it has contaminated the condition of the heart.\u00a0 This is why God, very early on in human history, in Genesis 8:21 said, \u201c\u2026the intent of man\u2019s\u201d what? \u201cheart is evil from his youth.\u201d\u00a0 Jesus, in Mark 7:20-23, we talked about this passage last time, as Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, who were criticizing His disciples for eating or consuming necessary nourishment on the Sabbath, Jesus makes a tremendous statement to them in response that deals with the root of man\u2019s problem.\u00a0 Jesus said, \u201c\u2018That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. [21] For from within,\u201d notice the repetition here, \u201cfrom within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts,\u201d look at that next one there, \u201cmurders,\u201d you might even substitute the word \u201cterrorism\u201d into that language, \u201cadulteries, [22] deeds of coveting and<\/em> wickedness, as well<\/em> as<\/em> deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and<\/em> foolishness. \u00a0[23] All these evil things proceed from\u201d where? \u201cfrom within and defile the man.\u201d\n\nYour average person on the news, trying to analyze terrorist activity almost never attributes this as a cause, looking to the outside of a person rather than the inside of a person.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is, I\u2019m a terrorist already and so are you; it\u2019s the natural hate and condition of the human heart.\u00a0 But you see, there is something else that must go into the mix in order to germinate and to create and to harbor terrorist thinking; that sin nature which already exists within us must come into contact with an ideology of some sort that gives people freedom to vent their sin nature.\n\nAnd this is why the teaching of the Word of God is so significant; this is why (contrary to what you hear today) America\u2019s Founding Fathers were so adamant about the teaching of the Scripture, particularly in the public schools.\u00a0 They understood that as this depraved human heart came into contact with the Word of God there would be a natural deterrent against the violence that already exists in people.\u00a0 And this would be a principal ingredient in what we would call self-control.\u00a0 And our Founding Fathers reasoned that if people were self-controlled through the Ten Commandments and the power of the Scripture and the Holy Spirit and the new nature than an all-encompassing police state to keep people in check would not be necessary.\u00a0 And this is the only way America could ever work with our concept of limited government.\n\nAnd isn\u2019t it interesting that today the government keeps getting larger and larger and larger and expanding into almost every area of our lives.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because we don\u2019t have self-control any more.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t we have self-control?\u00a0 Because we don\u2019t have the light of the Scripture which is really the only buffer against a depraved heart.\n\nThis is not some teaching that I engineered; this goes back to America\u2019s thinking from its earliest days.\u00a0 Notice this quote from Robert Charles Winthrop who was the Speaker of the House from 1847 to 1849.\u00a0 I won\u2019t read you the whole quote but he says, \u201cMen, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.\u201d \u00a0[Robert Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions<\/em> (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1852), 172. Speech to the Massachusetts Bible Society (1849-05-28).]\u00a0 He gave this in a speech to the Massachusetts Bible Society.\u00a0 Think about that, a leading politician, not just a leading politician but somebody who held a key position in American government speaking at a Bible Society and telling these people that were distributing the Bible thumbs up, keep it up, good work, because as long as the Word of God is going out people have self-control and our experiment in limited government is going to work.\n\nHow we have drifted from this formula of freedom that our Founding Fathers were so wise to give us.\u00a0 What happens instead, if your sin nature comes in contact with a different ideology, something that gives your sin nature permission to do what it already wants to do?\u00a0 Something that tells people that the murder of innocent civilians is actually a good thing, that is going to bring about something better, worldwide conquest.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting to me that some of the most rabid terrorists in our day, even before getting into the subject of Islam, were controlled by a Marxist ideology.\u00a0 You think of people like Bernadine Dorn, Bill Ayers, who became prominent in American thinking around 2008, since it was exposed that they were very close affiliates with the current President of the\u00a0 United States.\u00a0 They were involved in something called the Weather\u00a0 Underground.\u00a0 Well, what is that?\u00a0 It was people that were so against the Vietnam War that they actually went to war against innocent people in America.\u00a0 These are people that actually set off bombs in the Pentagon, police headquarters in a local city; many other examples could be cited.\n\nWhy did they do it?\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t because their sin nature, which is already murderous, was under the control of the Bible, I\u2019ll tell you that much.\u00a0 They came into contact with an ideology that gave their sin nature permission to act; in the case of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn, it was the doctrine of Marxism.\u00a0 When a sin nature comes in contact with something that gives the sin nature permission to vent you have the formula, if you will, you have the ingredients of a terrorist.\n\nAnd put yourself in the position of a non-Christian, someone who is unsaved, someone that knows nothing about the Bible or assigns it very little value at all, and suddenly they come into contact with something that seems so right; it seems so reasonable.\u00a0 Why does it seem reasonable?\u00a0 Because it\u2019s telling me to do what I already want to do anyway; it\u2019s just sort of masqueraded in the form of pursuing a higher good.\u00a0 Think how that would be so intoxicating, particularly if it comes into the mind of a very young person from someone with a PhD after their name in a college or a university.\u00a0 Think how right it would seem to someone very young that really hasn\u2019t had a lot of life experiences yet to evaluate right from wrong.\n\nThe book of Proverbs, chapter 14 and verse 12 tells us very clearly that \u201cThere is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is\u201d what? \u201c\u2026 death.\u201d\u00a0 One of the reasons I am confident as I stand here today that the Bible is the Word of God is because this book is always telling me to do something or not do something that I naturally want to do.\u00a0 I mean, the things I don\u2019t want to do the Bible says do it; the things I naturally want to do the Bible says don\u2019t do that.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost as if it\u2019s a perfect buffer or a check and balance against my depraved heart.\u00a0\u00a0 You sort of get the idea as you read this book that God knows my heart pretty well and He\u2019s given me order for my life that will bring fulfillment and fruitfulness and He tells me to stay away from certain things.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t it interesting that the very things I do I\u2019m told not to do.\u00a0 The very things I think I\u2019m told to stay away from.\n\nBut what if the opposite were true? What if all of a sudden you come into contact with a philosophy or an ideology that gives you the exact opposite, lets your sin nature vent itself so a radical ideology in a sinful heart becomes the ingredient through which terrorist activity comes forth.\u00a0 I\u2019ve given you several citations from the Koran last week but one of them that stands out is Surah, which means chapter, Surah 8:12, \u201cI will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.\u201d\u00a0 A system that appeals to the sin nature, a system of thought that tells the sin nature to do and to perform murder in the name of some sort of higher good in a heart that already wants to do those things anyway.\u00a0 Or a system of thought that gives me what I would call permission to impose Caliphate.\u00a0 What is Caliphate?\u00a0 Caliphate is quite similar to the Marxist idea of a one-world system where the wealth is redistributed and everything is fair at the end of the day.\u00a0 Caliphate is kind of an analogue to that, it\u2019s the idea of a global imposition around the word of Allah\u2019s will legally in what is called Sharia law.\u00a0 And those who pursue, whether it\u2019s the Marxist end game or the Islamic end game, those that are committed to this honestly believe that they are fulfilling something good.\n\nIt reminds me very much of the words of Jesus Christ that He gave to the apostles as they were about to leave the Upper Room.\u00a0 He said the time will come when people will come against you, people will in fact kill you thinking that they\u2019re doing God a service.\u00a0 It is deception and blindness at the highest level when someone is led to believe the destruction of innocent life is somehow something that is God\u2019s service in so doing.\u00a0 We underestimate how blind we can be when an ideology of some sort comes into contact with a depraved heart.\n\nThis comes from Yoram Ettinger, a retired\u00a0 ambassador from Israel, and he is talking about what is being taught and what is actually being read as I speak in Iranian school textbooks (Iran, of course, being a Shite Muslim theocracy).\u00a0 What are they learning?\u00a0 Are they learning grammar?\u00a0 I\u2019m sure they are to some extent.\u00a0 I grew up with the old Janet and Mark stories.\u00a0 What are they growing up with?\u00a0 Ettinger writes, \u201cIranian school textbooks, such as The Qur'an and Life<\/em> (Grade 12, p. 125) prepare Iranian children for the Ayatollahs\u2019 sublime goal: the apocalyptic, horrifying, millenarian, military battle against the USA and other\u201d here\u2019s some quotes, \u201c\u2018arrogant oppressors of the world,\u2019\u201d this is why people are trying to blame terrorism on the United States; it\u2019s part of a world view, \u201cwhich are ostensibly led by \u2018idolatrous devils.\u2019 While the \u2018savior\u2019 \u2013 the infallible, immortal, divinely ordained and eventual global leader, the Mahdi \u2013 has not surfaced yet, Iranian children are taught that the battle is already raging throughout the world, awaiting their sacrifice. School textbooks of Western democracies are the most authentic reflection of peoples\u2019 values and worldview. School textbooks of tyrannies are the most authentic reflection of the nature and mission of the regimes.\u201d\u00a0 He\u2019s saying you don\u2019t evaluate countries based on the speeches of their statesmen and politicians, you look at what they\u2019re teaching their children.\u00a0 \u201cIranian school textbooks reflect the strategy and tactics of the Ayatollahs, much more authentically than speeches, interviews, diplomatic statements and conversations conducted by President Rouhani\u201d who is current leader of Iran, \u201cand his Foreign Minister Zarif.\u201d\u00a0 [Yoram Ettinger, \u201cIran's School Textbooks\u2012Can Congress Afford to Ignore It?,\u201d online: http:\/\/theettingerreport.com\/Iran-and-MidEast\/Iran-s-School-Textbooks-%E2%80%93-can-Congress-afford-to-i.aspx<\/a>, May 29, 2015, accessed 30 May 2015.]\n\nWhat is happening around the world?\u00a0 Why is there this increase in terrorist activity?\u00a0 It\u2019s the depraved nature coming into contact with an ideology that gives the depraved nature free license to do what it already wants to do, exactly the opposite of what our Founding Fathers wanted, where they saw the Bible as the last bulwark between us and tyranny, because the Bible is the last vestige of hope that people have for controlling themselves\u2014self-government.\u00a0 If self-government is not a reality in the mind of a person then an all-encompassing government is always the next step.\n\nThat\u2019s why there is a war, beloved, on the Bible.\u00a0 Why doesn\u2019t Dan Rather run Easter specials against William Shakespeare?\u00a0 I mean, why are they always attacking the Bible?\u00a0 Why are they always attacking the resurrection of Jesus Christ?\u00a0 Why is it that the Bible is the only book that\u2019s thrown out of the school?\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason for that; if your end game is a big government, because that\u2019s your world view, you\u2019ve got to get out of the way of this book that calls for limited government.\u00a0 There is a political ideology at work in these attacks against the Scripture.\u00a0 You may have heard of the Explanatory Memorandum; an Explanatory Memorandum of the strategic goal for the group in North America published in 1991, what is this Explanatory Memorandum?\u00a0 It\u2019s created by a terrorist group called the Muslim Brotherhood; it\u2019s the master plan discovered by the FBI in a 2004 raid on a safe house in Annandale, Virginia.\u00a0 The document (it\u2019s actually a legal document), the document became key evidence in The Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial in 2008.\n\nWhen I quote this memorandum I\u2019m quoting from something that was actually admitted as evidence in a trial in a court of law.\u00a0 This is not fiction, it says in this document, among many other things, that the \u201cMuslim Brotherhood must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilizations from within and \u2018sabotaging\u2019 its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God\u2019s religion\u201d he\u2019s talking there about Islam, Allah, \u201cGod\u2019s religion is made victorious over all religions.\u201d\u00a0 They\u2019ve spelled out what they\u2019re doing.\u00a0 You know, as Westerns we look at this and we say it couldn\u2019t be true.\n\nLet me tell you, one of the greatest mistakes we have ever made in the history of mankind, we have not taken people at their word because there was a two volume set published some decades back, around the 1920\u2019s, called Mein Kampf<\/em>, written by somebody that most people has written off, the gentleman that wrote this, Adolf Hitler, was not just the Furor, just a crazy person rotting away in a jail and he meticulously identified and explained what he was going to do, how he was going to take over Germany, how he was going to persecute the Jewish people, someone, a young man, that had bought into a radical ideology, in this case known as Nazism.\u00a0 Think how different human history would be if somebody had given that young man the gospel, the Bible.\n\nWhat if this young man had become infatuated, not with the doctrines of evolution and Nazism and Jew hatred but he had turned to the Bible and he saw it as a check on his sin nature?\u00a0 What if that happened in 1920?\u00a0 Think of the countless lives that could have been spared simply through the power of the gospel.\u00a0 For whatever reason the gospel, I don\u2019t know whose fault it is, whether it\u2019s his fault or evangelists fault or whatever, I\u2019m not here to ascribe blame but the dominant ideology in young Adolf Hitler\u2019s life was not the gospel, it was not the Bible, it was this patriot and insanity germinating in the mind of a very young person, probably seeming right at first since it cooperated so consistently with what his hate-filled heart already wanted to do.\u00a0 And thus he writes this two volume set, Mein Kampf<\/em>, he explains exactly what he\u2019s going to do.\n\nAnd whoever took that seriously, those writings?\u00a0 And yet it was a blueprint.\u00a0 This document that I\u2019m quoting from here, people will write this off, it is a blueprint.\u00a0 Think of the ideology of Marxism, a tract, a treatise, a set of ideas, and think of the mayhem and the trouble and the countless lives that have been lost all over the world because of this little tiny tract written by Karl Marx.\n\nYou see the great problem in human history is we simply don\u2019t believe it could ever happen and\u00a0 yet Jesus, going back to Mark 7, is saying it can happen, it will happen, look at the state of your heart.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the book of Proverbs talks openly about \u201cGuard your heart with all diligence,\u201d why? \u201cbecause from it proceed the issues of life.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0[Proverbs 4:23]\u00a0 What about O. J. Simpson?\u00a0 What if he had\u2026 when he was filled with murderous rage what if he had guarded his heart with all diligence and simply allowed the light of the Word of God to be a bulwark against his murderous thoughts.\u00a0 Think about how his destiny would be different.\u00a0 Think about how Hitler\u2019s destiny, the destiny of the world would be different.\u00a0 Think about your destiny; are you guarding \u201cyour heart with all diligence,\u201d understanding that from the heart proceed the great issues of life.\u00a0 May God help us to understand these things.\n\nThink about how Iran would be different.\u00a0 I used this slide last week, that upper slide is what Iran was like prior to 1979, what you would call a modern country, modern dress, modern education, women allowed to pursue vocations and education of their choice.\u00a0 And look at how everything shifted to what it is today; look at the burkas, look at the oppression.\u00a0 God cannot be involved in that oppression because God, Jesus, has come into the world to give life and life to the what?\u00a0 To the full. You\u2019re telling me God is involved in a woman in the heat of the day draped in a burka where the only thing you can ever see is the slit of her eyes, perhaps to cover up the bruises of her husband who has permission to physically abuse her, walking five, ten, fifteen feet behind him everywhere he goes?\u00a0 You\u2019re telling me that\u2019s the light of God; that\u2019s not the light of God, that is the devil, that is bondage that Satan wants to bring the world into.\n\nThat\u2019s what happened in Iran.\u00a0 Do you realize that Iran, prior to 1979, when the Shah was deposed and replaced by the Ayatollah, do you understand that prior to that point in time that Iran was an ally of the United States of America, an ally of the nation of Israel?\u00a0 But people bought into this argument that the Shah is bad, we\u2019re not going to defend the Shah, he\u2019s a human rights violator.\u00a0 People want to talk about the lesser of two evils, here\u2019s the lesser of two evils.\u00a0 Who do you want, the Shah or what replaced it?\u00a0 I guess I\u2019ll take the Shah.\u00a0 But a whole culture in our very own lifetime shifted.\u00a0 Why couldn\u2019t it happen in the United States of America?\u00a0 Why is it that we\u2019re so slow to believe that it could actually transpire on our own shores?\n\nSo you\u2019ve got two things coming together in concert, you\u2019ve got two things coming together in harmony; you\u2019ve got a depraved human heart and you have a radical ideology.\u00a0 Well then once it germinates in the heart of a person how do you stop it exactly?\u00a0 By the time it germinates it\u2019s too late to really share the gospel; of course, I want to be careful in that because Paul says today is the day of salvation, God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.\u00a0 Of course the change of the human heart and the gospel, of course, is the greatest bulwark against terrorism that we have, but what if this ideology takes off and begins to affect countless people, and the gospel is never given?\u00a0 What do you do then?\u00a0 In fact, the Bible, I believe, has the solution to that.\n\nThat\u2019s why I had you turn to Romans 13:3-4, but before we get to Romans 13:3-4 let me tell you what does not work.\u00a0 The first thing that does not work in deterring terrorism is military reduction.\u00a0 There are a great many people out there that will say well if we set a good example then they\u2019ll follow suit; if we reduce our military they will reduce theirs and world peace will quickly happen.\nLet me quote the Wall Street Journal, if I could.\u00a0 \u201cMore ominously Mr. Obama\u2019s budget has an overall defense spending of falling sharply in the future years\u201d it gives the numbers [-- to $614 billion in 2011, and staying more or less flat for a half decade.] \u201cThis means the relatively boost to the economy and especially to domestic priorities, defense spending is earmarked to decline.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s the key word.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026defense spending is earmarked to decline.\u201d\u00a0 This is an old article, by the way, this goes back to 2009.\u00a0 The Wall Street Journal says this: \u201c The danger is that Mr. Obama may be signaling a return to the defense mistakes of the 1990s. \u00a0Bill Clinton slashed defense spending to 3% of GDP in 2000, from 4.8% in 1992. We learned on 9\/11 that 3% isn't nearly enough to maintain our commitments and fight a war on terror.\u201d\n\n[\u201cMore ominously, Mr. Obama's budget has overall defense spending falling sharply starting in future years -- to $614 billion in 2011, and staying more or less flat for a half decade. This means that relative both to the economy and especially to domestic priorities, defense spending is earmarked to decline. Some of this assumes less spending on Iraq, which is realistic, but it also has to take account of Mr. Obama's surge in Afghanistan. That war won't be cheap either. \u00a0The danger is that Mr. Obama may be signaling a return to the defense mistakes of the 1990s. Bill Clinton slashed defense spending to 3% of GDP in 2000, from 4.8% in 1992. We learned on 9\/11 that 3% isn't nearly enough to maintain our commitments and fight a war on terror -- and President Bush spent his two terms getting back to more realistic outlays for a global superpower. \u00a0American defense needs are, if anything, even more daunting today. Given challenges in the Mideast and new dangers from Iran, an erratic Russia, a rising China, and potential threats in outer space and cyberspace, the U.S. should be in the midst of a concerted military modernization. Mr. Obama's budget isn't adequate to meet those challenges.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0[By The Wall St. Journal\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB123595811964905929.html<\/a>.\u00a0 Posted March 2, 2009]<\/em>\n\nIf military reduction was some sort of panacea of cure to deterring terrorism 9\/11 would have never happened.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the Wall Street Journal is saying because prior to 9\/11 the defense spending in the United States of America decreased.\u00a0 Let me tell you what also doesn\u2019t work.\u00a0 Appeasement!\u00a0 What is appeasement?\u00a0 Go back to your school days, in elementary school, Jr. High School, High School, where the bully, someone bigger than you, says I want your milk money, or your lunch money, half of it every Thursday.\u00a0 And because he\u2019s bigger than you and more powerful than you, you appease, you give in to a demand.\u00a0 That\u2019s what appeasement means.\u00a0 Is that going to satisfy the bully?\u00a0 We all know how that\u2019s going to end.\u00a0 He comes back the next day and he says I want all of your lunch money for Thursday, and he\u2019s going to come back after that and say I want all lunch money for all five days of the week.\n\nWe all know instinctively that given human depravity that appeasement, acquiescing constantly to the demands of people doesn\u2019t create peace and harmony; it destabilizes, does it not?\u00a0 It emboldens the appetite for more aggressive behavior.\u00a0 We should have learned this, should we not have, with this individual, Neville Chamberlain, who did exactly that with Adolf Hitler.\u00a0 It was an exercise in appeasement; he came back to his home town and he said we now have peace in our times because I have the Furor\u2019s signature on this document.\u00a0 Of course he was heralded as a man of peace.\u00a0 And no sooner had the ink dried than Adolf Hitler violated the agreement, violated everything he said he was going to do and became more and more embolden and more and more territorial.\u00a0 As it\u2019s been said the great lesson from history is we don\u2019t learn from what?\u00a0 From history, we just act like these lessons that have come before us never happened, and yet the history books, I believe, are a very good teacher.\n\nWayne Grudem, in his book that I\u2019m quoting from here, which I recommend to you, Politics According to the Bible<\/em>, he has a whole chapter here on national defense.\u00a0 He writes this: \u201cThe only method that has shown any success,\u201d or \u201cthat shows any promise of success in stopping them\u201d that is terrorism, \u201cis the use of superior force by military and police forces within each nation so that these hardened supporters can be captured or killed before they are able to carry out an attack.\u201d\u00a0 Lawrence writes in his book, entitled Looming Powers<\/em>, \u201cRecounts in various places how Nasser and Sadat in Egypt and the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia attempted to appease terrorist elements in their own countries with various concessions and at various times but without any success.\u00a0 There is not a historical example where appeasement in the face of terrorism has worked.\u201d\n\nWell, I know what we\u2019re going to do, we\u2019re going to get into a dialogue; dialogue meaning I\u2019m going to convince you to come over my direction.\u00a0 And this is the great error of western thought, where we think that we can talk people out of things. \u00a0We do that every day, don\u2019t we, in bargaining.\u00a0 Let me ask\u00a0 you something: How do you even know that the person you\u2019re dialoging with is telling you the truth when their very own religious documents give them permission to lie, called taqiyya.<\/em>\u00a0 They\u2019re not bound by the same set of principles and ethics and codes you\u2019re bound by.\u00a0 Why do we assume that they are?\u00a0 Because we really don\u2019t understand the nature of what is happening.\u00a0 We do not understand our depravity.\n\nWayne Grudem writes, \u201cThe tendency towards evil becomes so powerful that those people cannot be reached by reason and negotiation and compromise that can only be restrained by superior power of a just government.\u201d\u00a0 Well, I know what we\u2019ll do\u2026 and by the way, today when you criticize Islam you\u2019re automatically looked at as a racist; you\u2019re a hater.\u00a0 I do not hate Muslims; neither should you.\u00a0 What I hate is a religion and an ideology which is holding them in bondage and is a threat to the safety of my friends and my family.\u00a0 That\u2019s what I hate; I don\u2019t hate people, what I do is I love people but I see what they are under and I pray for the day of their deliverance.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why quoting respected leaders, like Winston Churchill are very important.\u00a0\u00a0 You know, there\u2019s a reason why I have all these dark circles under my eyes when I come in here; when I research for a sermon I, when I use quotes I don\u2019t get them off social media.\u00a0 I might become aware of them on social media but I want to know is this an actual quote and I will literally spend hours simply tracking down quotes to make sure that they are authentic.\u00a0 What I\u2019m reading to you here is authentic.\u00a0 You can read about it yourself in a book that Winston Churchill wrote in 1899, it\u2019s available online.\u00a0 The title of it is\u2026 the full title is The Real War<\/em>, the subtitle is The Historical Account of the Conquest of the Sudan<\/em>.\n\nNotice what Winston Churchill\u2026 most people would look at Winston Churchill as one of the greatest leaders of all time; notice what he wrote in his book.\u00a0 \u201cHow dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism,<\/u>\u201d now there he\u2019s speaking of Islam as it existed in his day, \u201cHow dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism_lays on its votaries!\u201d<\/u> \u00a0Exclamation point.\u00a0 \u201cBesides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog<\/u>,\u201d isn\u2019t it interesting that when you criticize Islam, just like when you criticize the same sex movement today they throw the word phobia at you, you\u2019re a homophobe, you an Islamophobe?\u00a0 Why do they do that?\u00a0 Because \u201cphobia\u201d means something; a phobia is an irrational hatred.\u00a0 When they use the word \u201cphobia\u201d they are assigning to you mental instability; that\u2019s why they use that type of vernacular.\u00a0 The only reason you oppose Islam or oppose homosexuality is because of irrational thought.\n\nIt\u2019s very interesting to me that Winston Churchill, one of the greatest leaders in the history of the world, took the word phobia, which we throw around all the time, and put it right back at Islam, that\u2019s the phobia.\u00a0 Once that enters the mind of a person it\u2019s like hydrophobia in a dog; it is the confluence of a radical ideology coming in contact with the sin nature as that radical ideology gives the sin nature permission for what it wants to do.\u00a0 He goes on here and he\u2019s so direct about Muslims that I\u2019m not even going to read what he says; you can go to our website and read the rest of the quote there on your own.\u00a0 How do you appease somebody like that?\u00a0 How do you appease somebody that\u2019s like hydrophobia in a dog?\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019re\u00a0 not dealing any longer with rational thought, rational bargaining, rational give and take.\u00a0 This is why in the history of the world appeasement has never worked.\n\nWell, I know what we\u2019ll do, we\u2019ll enter into a treaty.\u00a0 What is a treaty?\u00a0 A treaty is like a binding arrangement, if you will, between two nations, they\u2019ll keep their end of the bargain, we will keep our end of the bargain.\u00a0 Notice once again this citation from the Wall Street Journal article entitled The Disarmament Illusion<\/em>, it says this, quote: \u201cIn the bitter decades of the cold war we learned that we had heard that the only countries that abide by disbarment treaties are those who want to be disarmed.\u201d\u00a0 The only people that abide by the treaties are the people that believe in the nature of the treaty itself.\u00a0 And the person that you\u2019re dealing with is probably telling you what you want to hear but given permission to lie, to deceive, they know,\u00a0 just like Hitler with Neville Chamberlain, they\u2019re not going to keep a single word of it.\u00a0 Treaties, as well intentioned as they are, do not accurately capture the whole concept of human depravity and a radical ideology.\n\nWell, I know what we will do, we will subsidize, we\u2019ll just give them money.\u00a0 Will giving the bully at school your lunch money ever work?\u00a0 Why do we think that Iran, or whoever, can be pacified simply by handing more money to them.\u00a0 You might have followed the Iran Nuclear Deal with the United States involving untold billions of dollars, leaving the United States into Iran and yet today as I speak Iran is not decelerating their nuclear program, they are accelerating their nuclear program as they get closer and closer and closer to joining the nuclear club, what we call the nuclear finish line.\n\nI know what we\u2019ll do, we\u2019ll just go around the world and apologize to everybody.\u00a0 We will bow and we will scrape before foreign dignitaries because of America\u2019s past sins, and there are some, and once they see our good-hearted nature they will being to accept us.\u00a0 Can I ask you a simple question: after two years of doing this, from 2008-2010, why then did the Arab Spring take place, where in the Arab Spring one moderate Islamic government after another was toppled and replaced with something far more radical.\u00a0 If apology tours are that effective and successful we wouldn\u2019t have the Arab Spring, would we, where we have statements like this: The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet Islam.\n\nAfter four years of saying things like this why did Benghazi happen?\u00a0\u00a0 Do you realize what happened in Benghazi, September 11th<\/sup>, that\u2019s an interesting date, they staged their attack on the American embassy on September 11, 2012.\u00a0 It was sort of like a reunion in their minds.\u00a0 What happened in Benghazi?\u00a0 Four Americans died, maybe more.\u00a0 The American ambassador, Ambassador Stevens, died. \u00a0It was an attack on the American Embassy; something of that nature has not happened to the United States of America since the Iranian crisis, hostage crisis, where Americans were held against their will for 444 days, going back several decades.\u00a0 If apology tours worked we wouldn\u2019t have Benghazi; we wouldn\u2019t have the Arab Spring.\n\nAnd as you move into this mindset of appeasement, dialogue, treaties, although the vernacular\u00a0 always sounds good, we\u2019re bringing peace to the world, the exact opposite happens;\u00a0 you have destabilization.\u00a0 The fact of the matter, whether we understand it or not, whether we believe it or not is the world today is more dangerous and it\u2019s a more dangerous place than it has ever been, because of our misunderstanding of radical ideologies coming into contact with the depraved human heart.\n\nSolomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes said it very nicely.\u00a0 Solomon (of course other than Christ), being the wisest man that ever lived, he said, \u201cBecause the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to vent evil.\u201d\u00a0 [Ecclesiastes 8:11]\u00a0 There\u2019s no fear, there\u2019s no fear of retribution, there\u2019s no fear of retaliation and so the sin nature says I\u2019m going to allow it to vent itself, vent myself more and more and more because after all, nothing negative, in terms of a consequence will ever happen to me.\u00a0 It\u2019s like dealing with a spoiled child in your household, and the child acts up and you have to as a parent stand your ground because one of these days that 10 year old is going to be an 18 year old, and if you can\u2019t control him at age 10 what in the world are you going to do at age 18?\u00a0 And so you issue, out of love, a consequence for bad behavior and if you don\u2019t follow through with that consequence, whatever it is, the child\u2019s nature does not improve; it becomes more and more embolden and more and more depraved.\u00a0 This is common sense, and yet for whatever reason common sense no longer applies in the United States of America when dealing in this subject of international relations.\n\nLet me take you back to the Roger Winthrop quote; what did he say, \u201cMen, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; \u2026 either by the Bible, [the Word of God] or by the bayonet.<\/strong>\u201d \u00a0[Robert Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions<\/em> (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1852), 172. Speech to the Massachusetts Bible Society (1849-05-28).]\n\nSo that takes us now to number 4, how do you control terrorism?\u00a0 All these other things I\u2019ve described here really don\u2019t seem to be working anymore. May I just say to you that God has a solution to this: God, who has placed us in this world of fallen human beings and random violence\u00a0 understanding what depravity is has actually built into the human race preservatives, things that will curb the sin nature if faithfully implemented.\u00a0 That is the whole logic for the Noahic Covenant, the beginning of human government.\u00a0 \u00a0Why do we need a Noahic Covenant?\n\nHave you read lately what the flood world was like?\u00a0 The pre-deluge world?\u00a0 Have you read Genesis 6:11, which says violence spread throughout the whole world.\u00a0 [Genesis 6:11, \u201cNow the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.\u201d]\u00a0 By the way, an interesting side for this, no extra charge, do you know what the Hebrew word for violence is?\u00a0 Hamas<\/em>, it\u2019s Semitic, derived from the same root that Hamas, a terrorist organization employs.\u00a0 And yet because as Americans we know so little about the Middle East and we know so little about Semitic languages we take their word for it when they want peace, that\u2019s what they tell us anyway.\u00a0 How could a group want peace when their name is violence?\u00a0 You want peace but you call yourself violence\u2026, something\u2019s wrong here.\n\nSo to prevent the world from becoming what it was like in the pre flood world, God in the post flood world establishes the institution of human government and God says this: \u201cWhoever sheds man\u2019s blood,\u201d notice this, \u201cby man,\u201d God is saying here I\u2019m not going to do it directly, I\u2019m going to do it through an institution that I\u2019m giving to the human race called the institution of human government, \u201cWhoever sheds man\u2019s blood, by man shall his blood be shed\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 Why would God care about man?\u00a0 Because man, as the rest of that verse says, for man, as the rest of that verse says, is made \u201cin the image of\u201d who?\u00a0 \u201cGod.\u201d\u00a0 [Genesis 9:6, \u201cWhoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.\u201d]\n\nWhen somebody engages in an unprovoked deliberate attack against an innocent human being and spills their blood, that is an offense against God Himself because there has been an attack on a being, whether they\u2019re saved or unsaved it\u2019s immaterial or irrelevant, there has been an attack on a being that has value because he has status as an image bearer.\u00a0 Even in our fallen state isn\u2019t it interesting that God cares about humanity and wants to preserve humanity because all of us, even in our fallen state, bear His image.\u00a0 That is the whole logic of human government.\n\nYou say well, that\u2019s Old Testament, that doesn\u2019t apply today.\u00a0 Oh my goodness, do we not understand the difference between the Mosaic Covenant, which does not apply today and the Noahic Covenant which does apply today?\u00a0 Yes, the Mosaic Covenant given at Sinai doesn\u2019t apply today because that was given only to which nation?\u00a0 Israel.\u00a0 Genesis 9, by contrast was given to the entire human race before Israel ever existed.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the Noahic Covenant applies today.\n\nLet me ask you a question: When you look out in the midst of a rain storm have you ever seen a rainbow?\u00a0 That\u2019s evidence that the Noahic Covenant is still in effect; it is a deliberate preservative that God has given to the human race, the power of the state, it\u2019s reflected in Paul\u2019s writings.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I had you turn to Romans 13 so we\u2019re just getting to the sermon now.\u00a0 \u201cFor rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; [4] for it is a minister of God\u2026 [to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.]\u201d\n\nIsn\u2019t it interesting that people in government are called \u201cministers of God\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0 Do you look at government that way.\u00a0 Why are they called \u201cministers of God\u201d?\u00a0 I thought a minister was a guy that stood behind a pulpit and preached to the choir.\u00a0 They are called \u201cministers of God\u201d whether they know it or not, because they are fulfilling the covenant that God gave with Noah which is a preservative or deterrent to widespread violence.\u00a0 People ask would you rather have a bad government or no government?\u00a0 And the answer to that for me is a no-brainer; I\u2019d much rather have a bad government than no government because if there is no government the reality of your life would be Genesis 6:11.\u00a0 There would be widespread murder and looting and bloodshed and terrorism on a level that would be unprecedented.\u00a0 This is why God sent the flood.\n\nI was driving through the streets of Los Angeles, fortunately not the day of the Los Angeles riots in 1992, but the day after; I was traveling from Orange County to Los Angeles, attending law school and I watched with my own eyes building that were once there destroyed.\u00a0 What happened in 1992 was the police could not get in to deter activity and people knew it; they knew that there was a window of time where they could commit whatever they wanted to commit and there would be no consequence.\u00a0 So what happened?\u00a0 Pillage, murder, destruction, violence for a season of time until the police could get control of that area.\u00a0 That is what Genesis 6 is talking about.\u00a0 That is what our world would be like on a daily basis without the institution of human government.\u00a0 If you do what is evil be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing, [14] for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.\u201d\n\nGetting now, which I\u2019m obviously not going to be able to cover, to the actual solution to terrorism.\u00a0 I told you what\u2019s not the solution and yet God has actually given us answers to these things as we grow in our understanding of the preservatives that He has built into society and culture, which are there for our own good.\u00a0 This should shape how we think about these things; it should shape how we vote.\n\nOf course the only solution to the depraved nature is the gospel.\u00a0 If you\u2019re here today and you\u2019ve never received the gospel our exhortation to you here at Sugar Land Bible Church is to trust for the safekeeping of your soul and your eternity in the promises of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Jesus has done all the hard work, we don\u2019t labor for our salvation, we rest by faith in what He has done.\u00a0 If it\u2019s something\u00a0 you have never done you can do it right now as I\u2019m speaking.\u00a0 The ultimate solution to terrorism is not necessarily government; government can come in after the fact but it is a changed nature which you only receive through personal faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit enters you. \u00a0Trust in Christ now, even as I speak, and if it\u2019s something you want more information on I\u2019m available after the service to talk.\u00a0 Shall we pray.\n\nFather, we\u2019re grateful that You have given us a book that doesn\u2019t just teach us how to get to heaven but it tells us what life should be like here in our fallenness; You have given us so many provisions, including the institution of human government which is, other than the gospel, the last full work against terrorist activity.\u00a0 Help us to grow in our understanding of these things, not from a left\/right point of view, not from a Republican\/Democrat point of view but from a biblical point of view.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t