The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 72 - Is it sinful to vote in an election? - Faith, Politics, and the Legacy of Democracy
Is voting a Christian moral duty or does it challenge the belief in Jesus Christ's ultimate authority? We invite you to explore this provocative question and discover how faith intertwines with political involvement, especially during election seasons. In this enlightening episode, we question the origins of true power—whether it springs from the people or divine governance—and how these perspectives shape our engagement with worldly politics. By scrutinizing historical and contemporary Christian views, we reflect on the spiritual dimensions of political action and re-evaluate what it means to genuinely participate in society's transformation.
Our conversation takes a historical twist as we chronicle the rise of the Roman Republic and the iconic figure of Julius Caesar. Journey back to a time when the republic struggled between the populares and optimates, and witness Caesar's bold attempts to reform a system marred by corruption. We uncover the tensions and ambitions that fueled Caesar's life, drawing intriguing parallels with today's political ideologies. The tales of Augustus Caesar and Mark Antony come alive as we compare their visions of empire, weaving these ancient stories into modern debates on globalism and regionalism.
Finally, we reflect on the power of prayer in governance, drawing insight from biblical passages like 1 Timothy 2:1-2 and Proverbs 21:1. This episode challenges you to rethink the role of government and the church in enacting change. Discover the transformative potential when communities prioritize stability and peace over direct political engagement, uncovering how the true revolution is often sparked from within. Join us as we orient our hearts towards a Christ-centered vision of society, rekindling the timeless interplay between faith and politics.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization, and we'll think a little bit about political power and elections. Now, because it's big around the world. There's huge elections this year all around the world and well, there always are, there always are, and in the propaganda for them they're always the biggest one ever in my lifetime I cannot recall when such important things were at stake. Literally every election is of that character, or at least that's what the people say who are whipping up the mob to get involved, to get involved. But what's extraordinary in some of these ones is the Christian posturing in it, how Christian people have become highly involved in it, on different sides, in different ways, and some people are very tied to a candidate. Some people use their Christian faith to oppose a particular candidate and all that's going on. And is that right? And what is a Christian, biblical view of elections and political power in general?
Speaker 1:I've seen some people there was a guy who'd preached that it was a Christian moral duty to vote and that if you live in a Republican democracy, god requires you to vote on the basis that, just as he requires you to take responsibility for your family and household, that the whole nation is included in that biblical injunction and I found that an extraordinary thing because in my life when I was younger, many, many Christians I knew, very godly people, regarded it as obviously not right to vote. Many, many Christians did not vote on principle because they thought it was a messy thing and that the real issues of the kingdom and the truth of Jesus Christ none of that was available in politics, and politics was not about the clarity of the kingdom of God and his word and real right and wrong and justice and truth and things, but it was all just a mess of compromise and mixture and dark backroom deals and things, like so many many Christians when I was young said no, I'm not gonna vote in it. Whatever my personal views are, I don't wish to do. I'm not going to vote in it. Whatever my personal views are, I don't wish to do that. I'm voting for Jesus, I'm only choosing him and I entrust it all into his hands. That was common, but now that's very uncommon and almost considered ridiculous. And in fact, when I've heard people expressing that they are most viciously attacked not by non-Christians but by Christians who say don't you care about the state of the world and the implication is the only way of caring about the state of the world is to vote in elections. That's how political change happens by voting in elections Whereas the older generation of Christians would regard that as like well obviously no real change, not real transformation of a nation. Nothing of that can happen in an election. If there's going to be real change for good, that must come from above, from the divine emperor, and that's what we're about.
Speaker 1:In the Christ-centered cosmic civilization, we're always trying to reorientate our hearts and minds to look up, up at the Lord Jesus, who reigns in the highest heaven and all authority and power has been given to him, and think about how often in scripture we're told that all authority and power belongs to him. It's in Psalm 2. It's in Daniel 7. It's in Matthew 28. It's in Philippians 2. It's well, over and over and over again, through the law, the prophets, the apostles, the gospels, revelation, over and over again, we're being like, constantly drummed into us all authority and power is in the hands of Jesus, and yet we are addicted or indoctrinated. I think it's fair to say we're indoctrinated, and then become addicted to the notion that, no, that is a kind of illusion or it's a nice thought to have afterwards.
Speaker 1:But our primary focus for the vast majority of Christians, I would say, in the modern Western world anyway is that power comes from the people and it is for the people, and that's like a slogan that often is stated. And that's like a slogan that often is stated power. And the idea is like, unless the people have the power, there is no hope, there's no accountability, there's no way to bring political change, and and and that idea that, okay, there may be problems with democracy, but how else are you gonna have uh right and wrong or things sorted out or people held accountable, as if being held accountable, as if the Lord Jesus was irrelevant and then people could say, no, no, you should pray, pray that the people exercise their power correctly, as if that's what Jesus is, just a kind of cheerleader for the people, as if that's what Jesus is, just a kind of cheerleader for the people. But the Bible seems to ruthlessly, incessantly assert that all authority and power belongs to him, and how often it talks about his authority over the nations, and we might get into that later. So that's the question Is, in the elections, are we really saying that political power flows from the people, for the people? And if that is what we deeply believe. How does Jesus fit into that picture of the world? And with the heavens and that, you know, we think about the first heaven, the second heaven, the third heaven we love all that and then, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, far above all powers and principalities, jesus raising up political leaders, crushing them down, and there's lots of that. And yet do we really believe that? How does that impact us in elections? And do we really believe that? And I'm thinking now of when Jesus is standing with Pontius Pilate.
Speaker 1:Pontius Pilate, and Pontius Pilate says I have power over you, so you need to respect me, kind of thing. You're not talking to me, you're not taking me seriously, jesus, and that's how Jesus was with Herod also. You know Herod's like okay, here you are, jesus, I'd love to see some of your magical bowers. I've heard about that. That would be tremendous fun. And Jesus doesn't even interact with him. He has nothing to say to him and that is a very powerful political statement. That is not Jesus being non-political, that is a massively political thing for him to do.
Speaker 1:The fact that he doesn't acknowledge Herod, he doesn't really acknowledge Pontius Pilate, he doesn't really acknowledge any of these leaders. In a sense, you could argue he acknowledges the power of Caesar with the coin point and we might return to that later that he does acknowledge sacral monarchy, but anyway, in a way, he doesn't acknowledge them as on his level, he is far, far above all of them, all of them. And so Pontius Pilate says I have power over you, you need to take me seriously. Jesus doesn't take him seriously because he says you would have no power unless it were given to you from above. And we argue that jesus is saying no, I have power over you and all your power is actually from me, from me, I've given you it. And that pontius pilate well, his wife, I think, does know that um, and pontius pilate, I think, maybe, maybe, like at some level of his being, certainly in luke's gospel, is aware of that and, uh, is fearful of jesus because jesus has this absolute power of the cosmos.
Speaker 1:Now then, what about Pontius Pilate? There, he has a particular understanding of politics, doesn't he? And he thinks, and the crowd knows that Pontius Pilate believes that power is earthly. And they say you need to be careful, pontius Pilate, because your political overseers and the emperor will be upset if you don't play the game of politics, but in a deep sense that was a democracy. There were elections and had been for a long time. So let's get a sense of democratic power in the Roman Empire, because we're going to come back to Paul and Luke and Mark and others.
Speaker 1:They don't mention any of that. They don't mention about democratic elections and things, and then people nowadays go that's because we invented that very recently. That's ludicrous. That's been, it's been around for hundreds of years before the new testament, uh, but, and there's maybe reasons why they don't mention it. But first of all, let's hand over to pj from the global church history project. He's with us again, but let's have pj explaining to us something of the history and setting of politics, particularly democratic politics, in the roman empire or republic or what's the right way to refer to. I'm handing over to him. So at the time the new testament was being written, people will have referred to the state they lived in as the Roman Republic. They were strongly under the impression that it was Republican in a similar sense to which modern states are. Republics believe that totally.
Speaker 1:And when we look at pompeii, the city that's kind of frozen in time because of that volcano, and we see election slogans on the walls and there's people who fit into kind of two broad categories, who are like battling against each other, and they come up with slogans and they're saying you've got to vote on this day and everything. So, as the whole city was being destroyed and everything, and we think about everything else going on, there were still actually elections and stuff on people's minds. And well, maybe when the volcano actually went, then they'd forgotten about that. But like, up until that point, ah, you'd be surprised that people are so addicted to democracy and elections that even when the elections go, even when the eruptions going off, they might be saying quickly, get your vote in before it kills us all. Yeah, it's entirely possible. So, yeah, that's the thing. We've got to understand that. How did things work? How did people vote? What kind of power did that give them?
Speaker 1:So, basically, you've got this history of the Roman Republic, that it used to be a kingdom and then the kings appointed a group called the Senate who would determine who would be the successor to the king, because it's not always clear that the eldest son should rule, because we see a senate, similarly, but like, um, you know when david has to succeed, and then there's some wise elder men who then do follow the lord's recommendation of getting behind solomon. And so the succession is meant to go in that way, so that there is some argument for this idea of a senate that, like succession, can be complicated and it's not always the king to the eldest son and everything. So it was basically just an advisory committee that's meant to figure out the details of who's meant to succeed to become the monarch, and then they overthrow the monarch when there's this one particularly tyrannical king tarquin, and they overthrow him, and then they basically are kind of in charge, but not really. But so then they just have to set up loads of very complicated systems of um assemblies. It's basically based on assemblies and they set up this idea that all the power is from the people and it belongs to the people, and so if they just assemble and say this is who we want to do a job, then that's as much authority as anyone can ever have. So that means that person is in the job, and so there's lots of different kinds of assembly.
Speaker 1:But then, as time goes on, so this tarquin guy, he's around 500 BC, isn't he? Yeah, and he isn't actually killed in the revolution, but he escapes, and then there are actually Tarquins. Throughout the Republican period that family survives, but then people who are Republican certainly don't like that particular line, and so there's always this fear in Rome of getting kings back because he's said to be very evil. Of course, we only have republican propaganda. We don't know how much they made up, but, uh, in order to evoke that kind of response from people, he probably did overstep a few lines and things. Uh, we so we don't know exactly what happened, partly because the Roman Republic at one point was invaded by some Britons basically, who burnt it all down, including all their records. So we don't actually know what went on in ancient Rome.
Speaker 1:But the story that we have received is that there was a guy called Tarquin who was very tyrannical and totally evil and should believe everyone who tells you that, and he had to be overthrown and so there had to be this. Who was very tyrannical and totally evil and should believe everyone who tells you that, and he had to be overthrown and so there had to be this republic, and then everything is just set up to local assemblies, theoretically, but then as time goes on, these traditions kind of build up and some aristocrats basically develop, and so there's this idea that you've got patricians who should be in charge, and then you've got patricians who should be in charge, and then you've got plebeians who shouldn't be, and really all the plebeians should just back the patricians. Who knows what's best for the plebeians? So the idea that there's a kind of ruling elite of people and they know what's good for people and they'll make decisions about how society should be run and the plebeians job is to approve of them, yeah, and give them support when required. Yeah, so it's, it's our world, yeah, yeah, yeah, nothing, nothing's changed, definitely so, um, yeah, so that's the basic system.
Speaker 1:And then, every now and then, you just get the plebeians and there's two theoretical groups before the empire, but some people say they didn't exist, like parties, like we shouldn't think of them. Like you know, in america you have the dnc and the rnc and people actually go to places and they're all formal organizations. It's not quite like that, but we do see that there's some people who say you know, I'm just going to appoint a plebeian and everything, and then they are the popularies. And then you've got the optimates, who are their rivals, who are saying oh, it should just be aristocrats, people who know what's best for you. So it's it's the popular party and then optimates his like best party. Yeah, so saying it's populism, between like versus kind of elitism. Those were the two parties really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, before julius caesar. And so julius caesar is a popular and and he basically thinks are all the, everything in the Roman Republic is so corrupt, and if you're poor, because he lived in a slum, he grew up in a slum and then, but he's descended from one of the kings of Rome, so he's got that, that he quite likes that. But he's been poor, he's been looked over and he's just like yeah, if you're someone like me, you can't actually get places and this whole system just brings you down. And there's a point at which he's in his 30s and he's just thinking, wow, I've been trying all my life to get somewhere and I'm just still like pencil pushing in a desk job doing nothing. And then he just decides you know, I'm going to just change the whole thing. And then he, then he does, he works his way up, he becomes this great commander and he conquers gaul, tries to conquer britain doesn't quite work out, but nevertheless he does these amazing things. And then he just thinks I'm going to march on rome. There's a lot that makes him decide to march on rome. But basically at one point he says I'm going to do that and I'm going to fix everything. I'm going to fix everything, I'm going to make everything actually kind of democratic so the plebeians can depend on the system to work for them and all of this. And so, yeah, and things go great for the plebeians. But then some of the aristocrats then conspire because they don't like all this power being taken from them. So let me just pause there. So, in a way, julius Caesar wants to make Rome great again and he's coming back to do that. But he's done these phenomenal achievements, hasn't he?
Speaker 1:And then it's funny because the medievals look back on Julius Caesar as one of the great worthies. Is it one of the seven Of the nine, isn't it Nine? One of the nine pagan worthies? Oh, there's three. Yeah, there's nine worthies overall three gentile, three jews and three christian. Oh, that's it. And he's one of the gents. The three gentile worthies? Yeah, I don't suppose we can quickly remember who the other two are. Yeah, the uh, alexander. And yeah, hector. Oh, yeah, so you've got, yeah, alexander, the great julius caesar and hector. Yeah, okay, wow, we could do episodes of each one of those, but anyway, let's, oh, yeah, so you've got, yeah, alexander the Great, julius Caesar and Hector, yeah, okay, wow, we could do episodes of each one of those, but anyway, let's not.
Speaker 1:And then let's leave who the three Christian and Jewish ones are. Probably the Jewish ones is David, is he one? Yeah, and Judas Maccabeus Judas Maccabeus, and I think Joshua, joshua, it is, it's Joshua. And then the three Christian ones. Let's not even say who they are, because we know who they are and they're super interesting. But, yeah, so there's Julius Caesar. He's achieved all these awesome military victories and if you read his Conquest of Gorba, it is his own book and so he obviously makes himself look incredibly cool, but he does sound incredibly cool in that book. And then, when he's achieved all that, he's going to go make Rome great again. But the elites don't like him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the guy who overthrew Tarquin the Proud, his surname was Brutus and one of his descendants is also called Brutus and he had been like a son to julius caesar, and so julius. And so he gets this assassination attempt, kind of going, a conspiracy, and then they all just stab him and then, as he's dying, um, yeah, he's upset because he's like brutus, how could you do this? Yeah, you have turned against me. And then they're all very upset, isn't it because they've killed this great man? And then some there's like this shock that they've done that, yeah, and the people hate it. So people hate that. They, they are wanting justice for julius, and and so augustus is in julius caesar's will. He adopts his, his nephew Augustus, or, at the time, he's called Octavian I gave a bit of a spoiler by calling him Augustus but he has this nephew called Octavian, who's very talented, and he adopts him as his son. And then this Octavian then is like, well, I'm gonna avenge him. And he does hunt down all the murderers of this politician Julius and brings them to justice and everything.
Speaker 1:And then, though, julius Caesar had all these different friends who had different perspectives, because Julius Caesar was trying to restore the Republic, but Augustus is kind of trying to do that in one sense, but they all have different ideas, all of Julius' friends, on how to do it. So one of his friends, mark Antony. He had this idea where we should have the Republic as it was, where you have lots of different groups. Just to clarify, mark Antony's base is Egypt. Yeah, well, yeah, he becomes the pharaoh. He becomes the pharaoh and he because he fancies what's her name? Cleopatra Cleopatra, and there's all sorts of famous things about that. So his base is Egypt and Alexandria and that's important because that's going to be relevant perhaps later when we're thinking about how Mark perhaps thinks about it. Based in Egypt. Yeah, and he's named after Mark Anthony. Yeah, mark the gospel writer is named after this Mark Anthony.
Speaker 1:So his vision is not so much like Augustus' view. So Augustus is like I'm going gonna handle all this and sort it all out and I'm for the people. The people can trust me to put everything right, whereas mark anthony's view is no, let's have the elite people running it as it used to be, because they know what needs to be done, or is that fair? He's a bit more popular, he's more Julius' friend and all this, but he certainly thinks the monarchies of the east should be preserved. So he's saying let's respect all the kingdoms. So really, let's run it as a true empire that has all these kingdoms that are autonomous under the empire. Yeah, so then you can keep some of the, because some of the um democratic institutions, the bigger they become, become inefficient.
Speaker 1:So there's this thing where you basically just show up to an arena and you just put your hand up and say, oh, I vote for this. But if you're voting on something that affects the entire republic, everywhere, from spain to israel, um, that will be obviously unrepresentative, like, you cannot fit enough people to represent everyone into this arena and of course, just people who live in that area will vote, so then it will become aristocratic. But then if you then had instead, let's have all these different areas with their own kinds of governance, those things can work again. You could just think, all right, just show up to the arena and vote, so it would be a way of preserving the republic. But then also, you know, the pharaoh, the pharaonate of Egypt, could be preserved, and the kingdom of Israel, they could all be preserved in their own way. So that was his vision.
Speaker 1:So Augustus is like no, no, let's change the whole constitution so that, like, when people vote, it's to specific things that can make sense, so anything that doesn't make sense as an empire, we get rid of that right. So he wants laws that actually do work for everybody, from spain to israel, to egypt to greece. He's like the only laws we should have are laws that actually work for everybody, whereas mark's saying, yeah, but that doesn't always work because everybody's got their own cultures and diversity is our strength and things like that. And now I guess this is like no, we just need an enlightenment, set of values that work for everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. So that becomes the kind of two um going forward. Then those are the two kind of ideas, the two political ideologies, the two parties kind of you could vote for.
Speaker 1:Yeah is either like an imperial, universal kind of globalism I suppose augustus is a bit of a globalist in a way and then Mark Antony's more of a regionalist and believes in the strength that people have, differences and cultural differences and they should govern themselves on that basis. Yeah, right Now, how would? Oh, no, do you want to go on a bit more? Yeah, so there had been a similar kind of precursor to it that might be quite helpful to think about, because as Rome was initially spreading, it was originally a city state.
Speaker 1:As it was initially spreading, it would have alliances with different kingdoms in Italy and they would be called the socials and there was this big social war where then some of the socials were saying, no, we've got to have all the rights of citizens and everything, and that changed that constitution and so that's kind of important. But kind of biblically because, like Luke is probably, his ancestry is probably from Lucania, which was one of the social, so it's the people who could vote is Roman citizens could vote, but because of this war, that also socials who are not Roman citizens but have a status, they could also vote. Yeah, right, and so it was basically removing basically any legal distinction between those two. So where there had been distinction, it was like, yeah, lucania can run itself by its ancient traditions and everything. But then they were like no, we actually want to be a part of the Roman Empire. And that becomes the kind of view loads of these. So so they go to war to kind of be like, yeah, you've got to include us in the machinerist state, but then that expands this machinery which, as we said, made anything democratic not really work. So that had happened beforehand.
Speaker 1:And it kind of is that sort of view where some people would say, no, we've got to have the social kingdom. You know that are like separate with their own laws, but then loads of those people might not want to preserve those laws and they might actually want to be a part of the roman empire and in the fall of the roman empire that film they captured that kind of idea where some germanic confederates want to be a part of rome and then part of what uh makes the fall of the roman empire is that they're unable to integrate them. Um, so that is in that film, this kind of idea. They apply it to a later period, but I think the that's what they're going for. It's fascinating. You mentioned, like films and things.
Speaker 1:For me, whenever I think of augustus caesar, I always think of him as brian blessed. So, though, in a way, the fascinating, these different political parties and perspectives and they in the elections, these two perspectives and parties are available to vote for, and Roman citizens would be encouraged and there'd be political campaigns and material available and persuading the people, the citizens, the socials, everything like that. Here's what we need to go forward. This will produce justice, this will produce peace, this will produce all these sort of things. And paul is a roman citizen, he he's. He would be eligible to vote in all that and presumably knew about all these things, luke, as you say, from lucania, he would know.
Speaker 1:Mark may well also have had a vote in all of this and, of course, many of the people mentioned in the goss in in the letters. Quite a lot of those will have been, and yet, strangely, none of them ever mention any of it. So what I want to acknowledge there is one. It's, on a human level, absolutely fascinating and I'm kind of thinking who would you vote for? I like mark anthony's vision of regionalism and and and the cultural distinctives of the of egypt, israel, gree. I like that that's a good idea. And then I kind of like augustus's big vision of an empire that holds it all together and we make sure we do what's good for everybody. And I'm like, yeah, that's good. So it's all fascinating.
Speaker 1:And yet and you and nowadays you couldn't imagine a christian leader failing to go of course we should all vote for augustus or we should all vote for mark anthony's party or something now political, like christian leaders constantly tell us about their political views on everything and in fact some of them preach about it and campaign about for it and things, and they say no, because this is so important. And some will say, because this is how the kingdom of Jesus Christ will be implemented in the world. You know, like the Augustusus party, that is how the kingdom of god's going to go forward or no, it's the mark anthony party. That's how the kingdom of god's going to go forward. Because that, because we are on the side of justice and augustus, or no, it's not, justice is mark anthony or whatever. And you could imagine all.
Speaker 1:And yet, strangely, in the in the new testament we have, I mean, we could suspect. I think me and you have discussed quite often what we suspect paul's voting patterns might be or luke and luke, we luke is almost obvious. So time, but let's not get. They don't actually tell us and it's as if nothing that is so unimportant in comparison, because it's as if they say, yeah, all that's going on and but we are directly serving this ruler, this king of all kings, we're part of his ambassadorial team that's really changing the world and we have a manifesto that's really changing the world and we have a manifesto that's bringing total revolution to the world and we're not going to be. It's almost as if we don't want to give our lives to tinker with temporary adjustments and sliders and things we want to bring. We're working for a total revolution of the entire world system. Is that a fair point? Yeah, absolutely. We're working for a total revolution of the entire world system. Is that a fair point? Yeah, absolutely. And that is what kind of happens. There's this incredible moment.
Speaker 1:We think about Constantine a lot. He's this sacral monarch who really then just puts an end to the Republic and says that's it, we'll go monarchy, because he's inspired to do so from the Bible and also he has this wonderful vision, several wonderful visions, of the Archangel Michael who basically tells him it's like yeah, you've been appointed, so you're supposed to be a monarch, and that's actually how this all works. Like you just have Michael explain this all to him, and so he's like that's it. So he just ends all this kind of Republican stuff and says we've just got to go as a monarchy now. And then Eusebius then backs him up on that. I'll tell you what we've got to do an entire episode on Eusebius' life of Constantine, yeah, and that's so important for understanding sacramonarchy and just some of the wonderful things you saviour says, some of which are quite funny to a modern ear. But we, we like um. We're kind of almost out of time and you've that's a brilliant job either. I'll just like end with um like jesus and elections there.
Speaker 1:He is involved in two elections. One is there's a referendum on jesus should he be crucified or not? And the mob go, yeah, crucify him. So he, that's a, that's an election he's involved in and, uh, they they seem as almost universally uh, express their will to crucify him. Then he's also involved in another election where he is put up against a different candidate called bar abb, which just means like a father's son, it's like a nobody, and he is, of course, the father's son. And so, in a way, it's an election between do you want the eternal son of the eternal father or do you want this guy who nobody knows, like the nobody, the son of somebody, the nobody, the, the son of somebody. And it's an election count, like it's a very brief election campaign, but it happens, and then the mob vote and they vote for the barabbas guy, the, the son of nobody.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of wonderful in a way, because in a way, the mob expresses this, their will, but that will is, of course, determined beforehand from above, like it's already been decided no, yeah, that the eternal son, the immortal son of the father, will die, impossibly die, in order that this nobody who is doomed to die, will go free and have life. And we're like, oh, my goodness, like that is awesome. That the immortal god dies for me. That's what barabbas would feel. The immortal god has died for me and that the the people thought they were choosing that and making that happen. But it had actually been determined before the world began that that will happen, that that must happen. And so it's in a way that when Jesus is involved in these two elections the referendum and then the election campaign between him and Barabbas you could say Barabbas wins, but actually Jesus wins because that's the way it must be. But the will of the people is not what determines what happens. Actually, the Bible really strongly tells us no, what happened was by the set determination of God that whatever they meant, they meant it for ill, but he meant it for good, and that's tremendously important. I know we've run out of our time again, so I'll just conclude by reminding us that, like Romans 13, we pray for, but we submit to the leaders that God has appointed, and we just got to be so careful that we don't imagine that we appoint anybody.
Speaker 1:1 Timothy 2,. 1 to 2,. Pray for everybody, for kings, for those in authority. Why? So that we can bring about justice. No, they can't bring about justice, truth and goodness. He actually says pray for everybody, for kings and those in authority, so that we can live a quiet and peaceable life, as if to say so that we can get on with the real revolution. They're not going to bring about the real revolution. The best that they can do is maintain a stable society with justice and stability and peace and order, so that they don't get in our way while we really bring about justice and truth and goodness in society. That's what church really does. Proverbs 21, verse 1,. The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wants. Think about that, meditate on all that and how Jesus says every day begin our father in heaven, your will be done, your kingdom comes.