When Do Christians Resist a Government That Kills Its Citizens?

00:00:00.000 | Well, if you watch international headlines, you know that vigilante killings are happening

00:00:09.640 | with some level of regularity in the Philippines.

00:00:13.720 | Names of drug suspects are put on a list that's made by the government, and reportedly now

00:00:18.520 | over 1 million suspects are on that list.

00:00:22.080 | And it's raising important questions about whether Christians in the country are complicit

00:00:27.280 | in the government's activity towards these suspects.

00:00:31.000 | The question comes from a podcast listener named Hannah.

00:00:33.440 | "Dear Pastor John, I'm a listener to the podcast in the Philippines.

00:00:36.800 | I'm not sure what global news sources reveal about our current political situation, but

00:00:40.480 | there's plenty of local news about extrajudicial killings happening in our country, and a number

00:00:46.640 | of stories about young people being killed by policemen because they have supposedly

00:00:51.040 | been identified as drug dealers, though many witnesses reject those accusations.

00:00:56.840 | These events have occurred and have become highly publicized since the President declared

00:01:00.560 | a war against drugs.

00:01:02.980 | My intent is not to ask for a political commentary.

00:01:06.000 | As a Christian, my concern is that many Christians here in the Philippines are supporters of

00:01:09.640 | our President and his agenda, and are thus perceived as supporters of this violent war

00:01:14.800 | against drugs and, by extension, implicit supporters of the killings.

00:01:20.000 | Though it would not be fair to say that they approve of the killings outright, it does

00:01:23.880 | appear to us and other people who are against these political agendas that there seems to

00:01:28.400 | be a willful ignorance or a lack of discernment among these Christians who willingly declare

00:01:33.720 | their support for this leader without any qualification, and some who think that he

00:01:38.320 | has authority to do as he pleases so long as his methods solve the drug problem.

00:01:43.840 | As a result, Christians here are starting to get a bad rap for being blind followers

00:01:47.600 | and supporters of the killings.

00:01:49.800 | How can we respond in wisdom to these circumstances?

00:01:54.520 | It's dangerous, of course, for me to speak too confidently about a situation so far from

00:02:00.600 | my own, but I do want to say something because I heard such an amazing analogy, at least,

00:02:09.400 | between the situation in the Philippines and what we face in America.

00:02:13.040 | I mean, it's really fresh on my front burner because of what I saw in the paper this morning.

00:02:18.440 | There is a huge outcry here, throughout the nation really, about the number of people

00:02:24.360 | being killed by state officials who should not be killed.

00:02:29.100 | Just a few miles from my house, Justine Daymond was killed a while back by police, no apparent

00:02:37.440 | reason whatsoever.

00:02:38.440 | We've not, as far as I know, we've not been given any explanation that comes close

00:02:44.480 | to warranting what happened there.

00:02:47.400 | And just yesterday, there was a meeting with the Hennepin County attorney and the neighborhood

00:02:51.720 | people and one of the neighborhood people, "Why is there this double standard between

00:02:56.120 | police and citizens while this police officer is walking around free?

00:02:59.880 | And if any citizen did that, they'd be sitting in jail right now waiting for trial."

00:03:04.560 | And you know what the Hennepin County attorney said?

00:03:07.040 | He said, "I don't have an answer for that because I haven't thought in those terms."

00:03:09.880 | Wow.

00:03:10.880 | Well, that's our issue.

00:03:13.280 | And the analogy of our two countries, while not exact, is enough to make me want to say

00:03:20.880 | something anyway.

00:03:22.640 | It sounds like your government is acting with a high hand in killing drug suspects without

00:03:29.160 | what we would call due process of law, and that some of the Church is either supportive

00:03:37.200 | or silent and therefore coming in for criticism for what appears to be complicity in such

00:03:44.840 | unjust practices, because we're supposed to be submissive to the government.

00:03:51.480 | What can the Church do, we are asked here now in this question, what can we do to avoid

00:03:57.200 | that kind of tarnishing of Christ's reputation?

00:04:00.920 | So let me just say just four quick things.

00:04:04.200 | One, God is more passionate for His glory and His reputation than we are, and He will

00:04:11.400 | not suffer it indefinitely to be scorned.

00:04:17.160 | Here's Isaiah 48.10, "Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver.

00:04:23.160 | I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.

00:04:26.220 | For my own sake, for my own sake I do it.

00:04:29.240 | How should my name be profaned?

00:04:31.840 | My glory I will not give to another."

00:04:34.280 | So take heart.

00:04:35.980 | The vindication of God's name lies not mainly in our hands, but in God's, and He's more

00:04:43.720 | jealous for it than we are, so pray that He take action.

00:04:48.540 | Number two, 1 Peter 2, verses 13 to 15, is extremely important in this regard because

00:04:56.720 | it gives us a warrant for prophetically confronting government with its acts of injustice.

00:05:06.080 | Here's what it says, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it

00:05:11.640 | be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as set by him," now notice these next two

00:05:18.960 | clauses, "set by him to punish those who do evil and praise those who do good."

00:05:25.760 | And then verse 15, "For this is the will of God that by doing good you should put to silence

00:05:36.720 | the ignorance of foolish people."

00:05:39.400 | So, yes, the disposition of a Christian should be to support, be submissive to governments,

00:05:47.240 | local governments, national governments as part of God's will, but on the other hand,

00:05:53.160 | we should, both in writing and in speaking and in conversation, and I would include preaching

00:06:00.260 | in all of this, we should publicly confront governors and presidents who do not punish

00:06:09.220 | evil and do not praise good, and in fact reverse the pattern and start participating in the

00:06:17.320 | very evil they are supposed to punish.

00:06:20.000 | The church has a warrant for prophetically denouncing such injustice.

00:06:27.440 | So if we believe our president is acting in ways that do not confront evil but practice

00:06:35.660 | or participate in evil and do not support good but hinder good, we have a biblical warrant

00:06:42.460 | for publicly and prophetically denouncing those behaviors and policies.

00:06:47.920 | Number three, I think the reputation of the local church in the neighborhood, a local

00:06:56.000 | church in the neighborhood, and the reputation of an individual Christian as a neighbor is

00:07:03.360 | more effective in evangelism than the public reputation of this amorphous thing called

00:07:12.680 | the Christian church.

00:07:14.720 | If your local church is known for doing good, like 1 Peter 2:15 says, and you in particular

00:07:24.060 | are known by your colleagues at work, your fellow students, your neighbors, for being

00:07:29.780 | a gracious, kind, helpful, loving, sacrificial person, that is going to go much farther for

00:07:37.800 | the name of Christ among those with whom you live than anything they read in the press

00:07:43.040 | by way of criticism of the Christian church.

00:07:45.880 | That's number three.

00:07:46.880 | And here's number four.

00:07:48.720 | The last thing I would say is that we must never think that public misrepresentations

00:07:57.120 | of the gospel, criticisms of the gospel, will necessarily stop the growth of the church.

00:08:06.480 | A bad rap given to the church by the world won't stop God's purposes.

00:08:14.280 | And the reason I say that is not only because of what I just said in number three, namely

00:08:18.880 | that personal reputations are more effective in evangelism than public perceptions, but

00:08:24.840 | also what Acts 28:22 says about the early church.

00:08:31.680 | The situation is that Paul is addressing some Jewish people as he's in prison, and it's

00:08:38.760 | at the end of his life, and here's what they say.

00:08:41.840 | "We desire to hear from you what your views are, for with regard to this sect, we know

00:08:51.840 | that everywhere it is spoken against."

00:08:55.320 | That's incredible.

00:08:58.600 | We know that this Christianity that you came here promoting is a sect that is spoken against

00:09:06.760 | everywhere.

00:09:09.920 | And we know another fact.

00:09:11.680 | The church grew like wildfire for the first 300 years while it was being spoken against

00:09:19.360 | everywhere.

00:09:21.400 | So woe to us if we get all crazy about thinking that the church has to have a good reputation

00:09:29.840 | in order to do what it's called to do.

00:09:33.240 | We should care about the church's reputation.

00:09:36.440 | But if some nominal believers are acting in unbiblical ways, and the press is making much

00:09:44.960 | of it, well, welcome to the first century, folks.

00:09:49.320 | So don't lose heart.

00:09:51.240 | Speak for the cause of truth and justice.

00:09:55.160 | So speak, but mainly live.

00:09:59.320 | Live among real flesh and blood people the way Christ would live, and you will do a great

00:10:06.920 | service for the reputation of Jesus.

00:10:09.360 | Amen.

00:10:10.360 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:10:12.280 | And Hannah, thank you for the incredibly clear and articulate question that you sent in to

00:10:16.680 | us.

00:10:17.680 | Questions like this one are really the key to what we do.

00:10:19.640 | So please keep sending in those wonderfully worded, thoughtful questions.

00:10:25.560 | And listeners are pretty important too.

00:10:27.160 | So thank you for listening and making the podcast part of your week.

00:10:31.000 | And if you don't listen regularly, you can by subscribing to our audio feeds to get the

00:10:34.940 | brand new episodes pushed to your phone or to your tablet.

00:10:38.840 | And you can search our past episodes in our archive, even reach us by email with a question

00:10:42.340 | you may be facing about something you see in your country or city that makes you wonder

00:10:46.960 | how you should respond as a Christian.

00:10:49.800 | Send those emails in to us.

00:10:50.800 | You can do that through our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:10:56.520 | We are now going to break for the weekend, and when we return, we're going to look at

00:10:58.960 | Luke chapter 12, verses 47 and 48.

00:11:02.520 | And we're going to see if the rather harsh words that Jesus speaks there are directed

00:11:06.440 | at non-Christians or are they directed at Christians.

00:11:10.640 | That's next week on the podcast.

00:11:11.920 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we will see you on Monday.

00:11:14.760 | God bless.

00:11:15.760 | [End of Audio]

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When Do Christians Resist a Government That Kills Its Citizens?

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