Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

King’s word to us today is found in 1 Timothy 3:1-15. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

“This is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence.

For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God? Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Likewise, deacons must be reverent, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for money, holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. But let these also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons, being found blameless. Likewise, the wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things.

Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a good standing, great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.

These things I write to you, though I hope to come to you shortly. But if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.”

Let us pray.

Merciful God and heavenly Father, we ask you to give us the light of spiritual understanding that we, being instructed by the pure doctrine of your word, may walk in the way of your truth and that we may know, love, and obey you ever more fully in this life and rejoice in you forever in the world to come. Through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Please be seated.

I have for the better part of the last 20 years, more often than not, preached an election day sermon in the context of the civil elections in this state and country. This is a tradition that is coming back into vogue. This is a tradition of our country’s history in the early founding period, in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The 18th century particularly saw election day sermons by the pastors of colonial America that were very important in teaching about the civil governance of the nation and how it should be rooted and founded in the scriptures, the word of God. It was not uncommon for many years for these election day sermons to be published in the newspapers prior to the election to give people an understanding of the word of God as it relates to our civil government.

So today I’ll be doing an election day sermon. And you may wonder, if you’re new to this church, why do we do these kinds of things? So what I want to talk about first is why these things are important. Why is it important to address civil governance and the election? How we vote, in other words, in the preaching of the word?

You know, we’re talking today about the two untouchables, right? Religion and politics are the two things people say you’re never supposed to talk about, and particularly together. But we’re bringing them together now to talk about some basic truths from the scriptures in terms of one specific ballot measure that I think is somewhat of a bellwether for what’s happening in our country.

But why do we have these election day sermons at all?

The first point in your outline is that we preach election day sermons to proclaim the crown rights of King Jesus. The reformers knew this well. The song of Martin Luther is an indication of that. In Psalm 2, the kings of the earth take counsel against the Lord Jesus Christ. He receives the inheritance from his Father. In Psalm 2, he is declared king—King of kings and Lord of lords, ultimately. So the first reason we talk about the importance of the word of God and Jesus’s words is to say that He has crown rights. He is King of kings. He is Jesus Christ, who is the one whom the kings may rage against or try to ignore, but ultimately He is King of kings, and our civil government should reflect the crown rights of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Secondly, another reason to talk about civil governance based upon the scriptures and election day sermons is to help effect political evangelism.

In Deuteronomy 4, if you would turn there, I think this is a very important set of verses. In Deuteronomy 4:6 and following, we read about the importance of observing the laws that the government had been given by God.

“Therefore, be careful to observe them, these laws, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples. Who will hear all of these statutes, civil statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?’”

So the idea is that as a nation, a group of people, a community, a city, a county, a nation frames its laws in accordance with King Jesus’s word, fitly applied to its particular situation. This side of the cross, you’ve got to take all that into account. But nonetheless, as a nation forms its statutes according to God’s statutes and his judgments, his word, it produces political evangelism. We can say other nations say, “Gee, that’s really wise and great. You’ve got good civil governance going on for you.” And it draws people to the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s a demonstration of wisdom and understanding to the nations.

Verse 9 says:

“Only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself lest you forget the things your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren, especially concerning the day you stood before the Lord your God in Horeb, when the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me and I will let them hear my words that they may learn to fear me, all the days they live on the earth and that they may teach their children.’”

He’s talking here about the giving of the law, the Ten Commandments and its application in terms of their particular point in history, of their development, of their particular priestly nation status. And so he tells us that his law is to be understood and applied in the context of civil governance, and this is political evangelism. It results in people seeing the bright light set on a hill. And that’s what this country once was. That’s why the immigrants came to America—because of the wisdom and the wise and understanding statutes they’d been given by God.

The colonial period planted the laws of our country with deep roots into the word of God and grew a civil governance based on that, and that produced the kind of political evangelism talked about in Deuteronomy 4.

A third reason to enter into civil discourse and discourse about civil politics from a biblical basis, a third reason for election day sermons is that really there’s a sense in which the elections have become our Mars Hill.

I thought of this as I was listening to the radio this last week. I’ve got a quote on your outline there. Walter Mondale said that voting—the voting that we’ll do on Tuesday, that most of us have done in Oregon already through mail-in ballots—but he said that voting is the most sacred of all processes. What a telling line, is it not? The most sacred of all of our processes is this election thing that we end up in.

Well, if you’re a believer in statism, if you think the state is, you know, ultimately God itself, voice of God working through the state, then if you believe in the state as your savior, then political action is indeed a religious work for you. It is the most sacred of everything that you end up doing. It’s like going to church when you go to the ballot box. And those kinds of statements are now openly made in the context of our country—blasphemously made, of course, saying the state is more important than our religious worship of our Creator and Redeemer. But nonetheless, openly made.

And as a result, because of this, civil governance issues become our Mars Hill. You know, in Acts 17, Paul went to Mars Hill and spoke with a group of men. This story is near and dear to my heart because the only man whose name we have been given to us in scripture who was saved out of this group was a man named Dionysius, which is the Greek root of my name, Dennis. Dionysius was one of these Mars Hill guys that just liked to get together and yak all day long. And I suppose I have these tendencies myself. But they would talk about the issues of the day, the philosophies of the day at Mars Hill.

And really, the political process has almost become the same thing for us. It’s when the great issues of the day are talked about—economics, governance, moral issues, ethical issues—all of these things are talked about in the context of civil politics. And so it’s a great opportunity for the Christian church to go, as Paul went to Mars Hill, to go into these processes and talk from an explicitly Christian perspective, a biblical perspective as Paul did with these men on Mars Hill.

Doug H. and I had the pleasure of going to a ballot measure forum at Portland State University last Tuesday evening—or Monday evening, I can’t remember—something this last week. And I got to give a little two-minute presentation as to why we think Measure 17 should be voted no on, which is what I’m going to talk about today. And the guy in favor of it had two minutes—a young man who’s been pushing this ballot measure to lower the age requirement in Oregon for state senators and state representatives to 18 from the current 21.

And then each of us had two minutes, and then there were questions for about 15 minutes afterwards. And what a delight to be able to use a Mars Hill opportunity to speak from an explicitly Christian and biblical perspective on bringing God’s wisdom—the wisdom of God’s words, his statutes and judgments—into the political arena. And it produces then this kind of interaction and dialogue about ideas.

So election day sermons are good to generate conversations, to equip you as the body of Christ to go into these discussions that happen during the election cycle and speak based on the authority of God’s word. And Paul is very explicit about that, and that would be a good text to review as we go about doing this sort of work.

A fourth reason for election day sermons is that statism is a focal point of the attack on God’s kingdom.

I didn’t have Luther’s quote readily available this week, but Martin Luther said something to the effect that if we preach the whole gospel and yet don’t really address the one point where Satan is attacking at that particular point in time, we really have done a disservice to the gospel and to the cause of Christ. The word of God must be proclaimed particularly at those points where the attack of the opposition to God’s word is strongest. Okay?

So you know, if the attack is abortion, then the church wants to sometimes avoid controversial issues, so it won’t talk about abortion. And yet that should be precisely where the crown rights of Christ are proclaimed. The truth of God’s word is addressed at the specific issue where the point of conflict is happening.

And in our culture, in our particular period of time, as is frequent in the history of men, our particular focal point of the attack of Satan on the Christian family and the Christian church is through the offices of the civil state. The state, you know, has dramatically undercut the idea of the Christian family and to some degree the church—although it’s irrelevant mostly because most churches don’t really serve as a power base for God anymore.

So the real focal point of the devil’s attack, through the state, has been on the Christian family. You know, we’ve talked about this for 20 years. But education—we had to fight to get liberties there because the state wants to, now the state’s taken a different tack, to try to co-opt homeschoolers through cooperative programs and eventually bring them back into the public system. Child abuse, the inability of parents to discipline their children correctly and use character-building devices in the context of the home. All kinds of attacks on the Christian family have come specifically from the civil state.

And so election day sermons that address the civil state are necessary to combat where Satan is particularly attacking in our day and age.

In Leviticus 18:21, and it’s a long exposition of the Ten Commandments—one of the 70 laws I believe found in this section of God’s word—is in verse 21:

“You shall not let any of your descendants pass through the fire to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.”

Now, there was a time in Israel’s history when children were actually burned alive in consecration to Molech. But the more common practice, probably referred to in Leviticus 18, is a consecration of the child to Molech. There would be a flame, and you would take the child and just sort of pass him through the flame. He wouldn’t get burned, but it was a way to dedicate him to what the flame represented.

And this flame of fire in this text represents Molech worship. The root of Molech worship is the word “melek,” which means “king” in the Hebrew. So it’s king worship. Molech worship is state worship. It’s worshiping the king and the political institutions as the institution that can bring salvation, health, education, welfare—like we have in our country.

So the state more and more wants to see children consecrated for its purposes—the purposes of the civil state—instead of to the purposes of Yahweh. And so Leviticus 18 forbids the sort of intrusion of the Christian family by the civil state that we see going on in our day and age.

So this is a point of attack on the Christian family.

I had an interesting email as a result of the voters’ guides and the many different opportunities we’ve had to talk about a biblical perspective on the ballot measures. I got an email from a man that said that he went to our website and we said we were pro-family. He wanted to know what this means, “pro-family.”

Well, we say pro-family because the state attacks the fundamental authority of the family today through education and intrusions into childbearing, et cetera. Egalitarianism that tries to blur the distinctions of the father and the mother—makes them equal in terms of function, not in terms of essence, but function—is another attack on the Christian family and the proper governmental structure of it.

And so we think it’s important to blast forth God’s trumpet, reasserting the importance of the family as a central governing unit.

So that attack comes, and election day sermons are necessary for that reason.

A fifth reason, and we could go on with other reasons, but a fifth reason is we really want a better world.

I mean, there’s evangelistic purposes, and there’s, you know, rebutting Satan’s attack. We want to make use of the discourse opportunities. We want to proclaim the crown rights of Christ. But ultimately, as we said last week, the purpose for Christ coming and speaking his word was the salvation of the world. The Great Commission is not individual salvation through evangelism one-on-one. The Great Commission is to disciple the nations—to take the actual national structures that are given to us and teach those structures to obey the law of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We really want a better world. We want this new creation that John’s gospel talks about manifested, made evident in the context of our world. And it’s important to speak forth the truth then in election day sermons and in your discourse with other people to affect us.

Remember at the conclusion of that first half of John’s gospel that we spoke about last week—the last section began and ended with the Lord Jesus Christ crying out and saying the importance of what He said. Speech is tied in that section to the center of it, which was Jesus saying that He came not to judge the world but to save it. Christ saves the world through the proclamation of His truth, through His words. And the word preached in Lord’s day service is that word, and your words, as you take the truths of God’s word and enter into political discourse and other sorts of discourse, is that word as well. And we want to see them, this new creation, by proclaiming and speaking these words. We want to see a better world.

Isaiah 8:19 and 20 says:

“And when they say to you, ‘Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living to the law and to the testimony. If they do not speak according to this word, it’s because there is no light in them.’”

The only light we have to shine forth and see manifested this new creation, the effectual light that we can take, must be a light that’s based upon the law and the testimony. It’s not good enough to talk about whether 18-year-olds should be representatives or senators here in Oregon and just say, “Well, common sense says this or that or the other thing,” or “I kind of think this,” or “My gut reaction is this.” That’s useless in the context of what we’re doing.

Now, a lot of times we speak that way because our common sense is founded really upon the scriptures. But it’s very important to test ourselves. If you’ve already voted, and many of you have, how did you analyze who you voted for and what you voted for? This Isaiah 8 passage, which I’ve used, you know, many years now as a central text in much of my thinking and preaching, is that we must go to God’s revealed word to make proper application of what we’re supposed to do. And as we do that, we shine forth light.

So that’s why we do these things.

Today, the particular election day sermon, I want to talk about Measure 17, a very simple measure. It just says that, you know, right now in Oregon to be a state representative or a state senator, you’ve got to be 21 years of age. And this measure very simply seeks to lower that to 18.

And so there’s this very simple measure. And it’s been fascinating to me—the last, well, it was fascinating to me that the thing got on the ballot. Number one, it was a constitutional amendment produced by the legislature—a Republican, conservative-dominated legislature.

There are many people in this church who have, for varying years, and some of us go back 20 years, tried to affect political change based upon the scriptures. And we’ve worked long and hard for 20 years now and been successful in helping elect a Republican majority in the House and Senate. And not only that, but an increasing majority of pro-life, anti-abortion members of the House and Senate.

Now, we’ve been involved in this process for a long time. And we finally get to that place a few years back. And that Republican House and Senate then gives us a ballot measure saying, “Well, let’s let teenagers be part of the ruling governance, the ones who make the laws for the state of Oregon.” It was shocking that it be on the ballot.

Even more shocking has been the response I’ve gotten as we took what we thought was an obvious position against it. Teenagers making laws for us. Well, on the face of it, at least to those of us who’ve been around for a while, it’s a kind of ridiculous notion. But not so for the country in which we live. There’s a tremendous confusion of the electorate.

You know, the Portland State ballot measure forum was one example of that. I’ve gotten many emails just absolutely irritated we would ever talk about this issue from a biblical perspective at all. And that’s the problem. You know, this separation of church and state and religion and politics has been promulgated so much in the last 30 or 40 years that this ship of state that we’re riding on has left the dock. It’s cut the anchor, which once was the word of God. The dock and moorage was that it’s out there in the middle of the ocean now, being blown about here and there, and weird ideas just surface.

And you know, good men, otherwise good men and women, who may be Christian and maybe conservative, but who are not thinking biblically—well, why not? You know, they’re voting. They’re 18-year-old. They vote. They can go fight for their country. You know, why not do this?

So, there’s a great deal of confusion in the electorate that produced this measure and then will produce, no doubt, the passing of this measure in the context as the votes are counted on Tuesday, or Tuesday evening rather.

You know, the question I asked at our ballot measure forum is: Why have an age requirement at all?

And that began to resonate, at least with one man in the audience. He began to ask the fellow, “Yeah, why aren’t you saying let’s get rid of the age requirements, or let’s lower the age to 18 for the president or the governor?” Well, if age is some kind of arbitrary thing and what we really are interested in is letting the best men run, the best men and women run, well, who knows? Could be an 18-year-old who’d be a great president or governor. Could be a 16-year-old or a 15-year-old. You know, there are very brilliant guys at that age and girls. Why have an age requirement at all?

So, there’s a great deal of confusion. The context for this, it seems to me, is kind of a subjectivism and an antinomianism that doesn’t like the idea of restrictions that are objective standards at all.

I mean, the problem that people have, and why this ballot will pass, is: why should we have what they would see as an arbitrary standard of an age, but in the context of you have to be a particular age to govern? What’s age got to do with it?

Because the culture doesn’t want objective standards. They want to deny. They want to suppress the truth of God and righteousness. They want to deny that there is legitimate marks in maturity that are accompanied not just by wisdom or experience or intellect, but by a progression of time, overseen by the God who makes the sun go up and down, or the earth go around the sun, and give us seasons and years.

You see, why is the country so confused in terms of its basic movement away from objective standards?

Because the church, at least my perspective, is the church has created this confusion.

I didn’t just get angry emails from men and women around the state. I got angry emails from Christians about this specific measure. “How dare I say that anything in that Old Testament has anything to do with what we’re doing today?”

“Jesus cleansed the temple when he was 12. The only reason he didn’t start his public ministry is because his parents held him back.”

I got that email from someone. I put that into print. I mean, he didn’t cleanse the temple when he was 12. He did when he was 30, and then when he was 33 at the end of his ministry. They’re talking about him teaching in the temple, of course. And even Mr. Goth seems to indicate that, “Oh, it was Christ’s intention to begin his public ministry then, but his parents held him back.”

Well, that just is—there’s no textual evidence for any of that.

The church has moved away from objective standards. It has moved into kind of a gushy, meaningless, you know, no moorings, no objective evaluation of age anymore, position. And that’s what’s affected our culture.

So, it seemed to me that this might be a good measure to address.

Additionally, I think that this is part of the continuing turning over to judgment of our nation. We’re told in Isaiah 3:12:

“As for my people, children are their oppressors. Women rule over them. My people, those who lead you cause you to sin and destroy the way of your paths.”

Oh, that’s what we’re seeing happen in our day.

What does judgment look like? It looks like a bunch of conservatives in Salem leading us astray and having children become now our rulers. And when children rule, when teenagers rule, they tend to become oppressive.

This is what’s going on. We’ve already seen the elevation to ruling authority of women as a group in our country. You know, I tremendous—you’ve, those of you who have heard me the last year or two, know that I think that there are many ways I would say the majority of ways in which women are superior to men in the context of our culture. But the scriptures are clear that men are to rule in the family, the church, and the state.

So, we are seeing the manifestation of judgment as women and children rule over us here in the context of our day and age.

I’m going to read this quote, and it’s kind of long, but it’s right on target, by Dabney, who is a 19th-century southern Presbyterian theologian. This is in our ballot measure, biblical ballot measure guide, put out by the Parents Education Association. And this year, we put the full quote in. We used to edit it down because it’s kind of objectionable and at the end, but it’s significant.

Speaking of secular conservatives, the sort of men who are down in Salem who gave us this ballot measure—who are not, or if they are Christians, don’t let their understanding of the scriptures get deep enough or important enough to them to have them vote that way—this is what Dabney says about secular conservatism:

“This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party and aims to save its credit by a respectful amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. So he’s saying the liberals go this way, the conservatives try to pull back a bit, but they go right down the same path, unless they’re Christians rooted in sturdy principle, instead of the spirit of the age.

“What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today one of its accepted principles of conservatism. We’ve seen that in our day and age. It is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its community and will be succeeded by some third revolution to be denounced and then adopted in its turn.

“American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows radicalism as it moves forward toward perdition. It remains behind it but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt has utterly lost its savor. Wherewith shall it be salted?

“Its impotency is not hard indeed to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth. It has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. Oh no, not martyrdom. I’m going to be respectable and follow just a step behind. Yet always, when about to enter a protest, very blandly informs the wild beast whose path it yet says to stop that its bark is worse than its bite, and that it only means to save its manners by an act of decent role of resistance.

“The only practical purpose which it now so serves in American politics is to give enough exercise to radicalism to keep it in wind, to prevent it becoming Percy and lazy from having nothing to whip. So it serves the liberals because it gives, keeps them energized and keeps them kind of exercised as a little bit of the opposition of conservatism.”

And then the practical application in Dabney’s time, no doubt: “After a few years, when women’s suffrage shall become an accomplished fact, conservatism will tacitly admit to this creed and then forward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing, with similar weapons, the extreme of baby suffrage.”

Well, this is precisely what happened. Women’s suffrage, at first resisted by conservatism—having some kind of residual memory of Christianity that meant men to rule in church and state—then gave way. And it, what Dabney predicted, happened. I mean, how could you find a Republican today who would be against women suffrage, women voting?

And he says that they would then resist baby suffrage. Well, we’ve seen the same thing. The voting age has become lowered, and conservatism takes right up with that, eventually first resisting it, then going along with it.

“And when that too shall have been won, it’ll be heard declaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suffrages to asses. There it will assume with great dignity its final position.”

So his point is that it does nothing to retard and to speak forth sturdy principles from God’s word. And now we have conservatism not just lowering the vote in this state to 18, but now it’s lowering the ruling age to 18 as well.

And you hear these ridiculous arguments being made that should make sense to no one.

Well, they can vote, so they should be able to hold office. What is—we have family groups, our children voice their input into some decisions we make, but at the end of the day, the parents make the decision. There is no logical connection between simply voting for a group of people and then saying they ought to be able to rule as well. There’s just a great deal of goofiness here.

Plus, you know, the point is made: well, we’ve decided as a culture that 18 is the age of adulthood. Well, 18-year-olds can’t drink, you know, if they can’t hold their liquor. That’s a determination of the culture. Why should we want them to hold office? You know, there’s just a lot of fuzzy thinking in this area. And unfortunately, a lot of the conservatives do it as well.

Now, you may or may not agree, and I may or may not agree, with Dabney’s position on women voting. But his basic point—that conservatism without being rooted in biblical principles is somewhat worthless against a liberal tendency towards seeing the state as sovereign in every area—that basic point is clear.

It is absolutely clear, as the sun rose this morning. It’s that clear—that the conservatives simply go a few steps, a few years behind the liberals and move the same way.

So, we want to talk about some of that sturdy principle. We want to talk about what the scriptures say.

The title of the sermon is “Old Enough to Vote, Not Wise Enough to Vote, Not Experienced Enough to Vote—Old Enough to Vote.” Because the scriptures place specific age requirements, both by example, by warning, and by actual case law, in the context of what it teaches us about governance.

So, we want to move now to “Old Enough to Vote—the Biblical Evidence.” What are those sturdy Christian principles that which help us easily decide this measure?

Now, the first one we’re going to make is more of a big-issue sort of thing, but it is so important. Because it isn’t just a problem with 18-year-olds wanting to be state senators, the problem is we have a youth culture that exalts youth and denigrates age, and that wants youth to get right to where they want to go as quick as possible.

That’s the essence of the fall of mankind.

In our Genesis curriculum for the six and seven year olds, they’re memorizing three falls of Genesis and then the three recoveries by the major characters and the flow of the gospel in Genesis—the recovery affected through Christ being pictured by Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. But the first fall of Adam and Eve is the first in the series.

Cain falls by striking out at his brethren. And then the sons of God, the Sethites, the godly line, fall by intermarrying with non-Christians, the daughters of men. So there’s and then their recoveries as Genesis continues to the whole world is saved at the end.

Well, the first major fall of Adam and Eve is a desiring to govern, to rule, to determine good and evil prior to their being mature enough to handle governing tasks. I think that’s what that is all about.

God had told them that every tree, that every fruit was food for them. And then in the context of every tree being okay, he tells them this tree don’t eat from. The indication is that when they’re mature enough, they can eat from that. They can indeed determine good and evil. They can make wise discernments and judgments because they’ll be wise and older. But now for a period of time, Adam and Eve are restricted from partaking of that fruit that represents the determination of rule, to discern good and evil.

And Adam and Eve impatiently grasp at the ruling fruit before it’s given to them. And we see this model throughout the Bible—that impatience, a desire to rule, to grab the robes of authority, right?

That’s what’s going on after the flood, after Noah rejoices with God and goes to sleep. His son Ham comes in and takes his robe. I don’t think there’s something sexual going on there. The robe is his authority, and it’s a desire to grasp after authority too early.

This is a basic tendency that we all have. Your children want to eat the cookie before waiting for dinner. Your children want to tell you how the family should be governed before they have their own families. You know, we all want to tell each other what to do. We want to grasp for authority usually too quickly.

So, it is a basic sin, a basic truth of the fallen nature that we desire to rule before it’s time for us to rule. We want to drive the car before we’re safe enough to do it. We want to drink liquor before we’re old enough to hold the liquor, right? That’s what we want to do.

And so, this measure, you know, feeds that fuel of impatience on the part of teens.

Now, there’s some specific case laws as well. And in I give you a series of scriptures here: The age for military enrollment is an age. It doesn’t say when he’s big enough or quick enough or wise enough, or he’s married or he’s not married, or he’s got his own home that he lives in. Doesn’t say any of that stuff. What it says is that the basic age to be enrolled as an adult in the theocracy of Israel, the basic age was 20. That was it. There was no test. There was an age requirement.

You see, old enough to engage in military service was equated with old enough to be individually on the roles of the nation of Israel. Individual enrollment. So there’s a significance to this age of 20. That’s where the Bible, at least in the theocracy of Israel, makes the distinction.

Now, if there are people that want to argue that there were particular priestly reasons for that, or maybe we should see that changed, okay, we can have that discussion. But let’s at least start by saying that in these case laws, God honors age—a specific attainment. You’ve seen 20 springs, summers, and falls, or whatever it is, 19 of them. You’ve gone through that process of time, and there’s an objective standard by which you are then enrolled in the military.

20. That’s the age of adult. And you can look at those scriptures on your own. There’s lots of them. It’s not disputed.

Now, the ruling age—this is a little more complicated. The texts that give the ruling age are found mostly in Numbers 4. Numbers 4 is the listing of all the different tribes, the three major tribes of the Levites, their responsibilities. It makes a summary statement in verse 47:

“From 30 years old and above, even to 50 years old, everyone who came to do the work of service and the work of bearing burdens in the tabernacle of the meeting.”

And throughout that Numbers chapter 4, it gives these specific references that in order to serve as a Levite, you had to be 30 years old, and then at 50 you’re retired.

Now, this is really the listing of the requirements of the three tribes, or the three subsections of Levi, who carried the tabernacle. Okay? They have to carry the tabernacle around, and they’re required to set it up and put it down. One of the tribes had to carry the big boards that were the supporting structure. Another group of men had to carry the tent, the skin of the structure. And then a third group of Levites had to carry the internal organs—all this stuff, the altars, the basins, the labors, and the material that goes along with it.

So there’s physical requirements going on here. And it seems like that’s probably why 50 is the age of retirement from that service. They don’t do heavy lifting anymore once they’ve hit 50.

But the but the idea of ruling as a Levite: You’re a Levite, of course, when you were little. You were born into that tribe. But you actually were enrolled to rule in the context of tabernacle oversight, which was not just the religious center. It was the political center of the people as well. This requirement was age 30.

Now, later in 1 Chronicles 23, we read that the Levites were numbered from the age of 30 years and above, and the number of individual males was 38,000.

So here we see the specific enumeration again, overall, being saying that they were numbered at the age of 30 for Levites.

However, in Numbers 8:23, we read this:

“The Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘This is what pertains to the Levites. From 25 years old and above, one may enter perform service in the work of the tabernacle of meaning.’”

So here the age is put at 25. Most of the verse citations site 30 as the age to enter into full Levitical service. Now, the Levites were priestly guys. But the Levites were also judges and officers as well. So that has civil governance was performed by the Levites as well.

And so the age for ruling seems to be set at 30, but then it’s also set at 25. And the way that most commentators kind of correlate this is that you would become an apprentice at age 25. You wouldn’t rule individually at that point in time. Only when you became 30 would you fully enter into your own individual area of rule in the context of the theocracy.

But there was this 5-year apprenticeship as well. So there’s a distinction given to us here between the age of military enrollment and then the age requirements in the Hebrew theocracy of rule. Military: you could go to war. You could be involved in civil matters when you’re 20. But you couldn’t actually rule as a Levite in church or state until you’re 25 or 30.

And so there is this objective standard that God’s word places for us.

So we have the general case from Adam’s impatience, the case from the case law, and then we also have the wisdom literature of the scriptures.

Proverbs is a book written to teens to prepare them for rule. And over and over again in the book of Proverbs, they’re warned about several things. They’re warned about being too early involved with various things. They’re warned about power and the corruptions of power. They’re warned specifically about wine. Most of the scriptures—wine’s a good thing. In Proverbs, it is too, but there’s many warnings against wine. Why? Because teens are apt to abuse it and get drunk.

There’s warnings about women. Male-female love is a tremendous thing, mediated through Christ, but the wrong women. There’s warnings about bad companions throughout Proverbs. There’s warnings about greed, and there’s warnings about being puffed up or prideful.

That’s because teens are tempted in each of these areas. And if a person is tempted to get into trouble with wine, women, or song, bad companions, they’re tempted to be prideful, or greedy, then you don’t want them in the context of power positions in the civil state.

Now, we turn to 1 Timothy 3, which we read at the beginning of our sermon, and we have the requirements given to us in 1 Timothy 3 of officers in the church. People say, well, this is church stuff. What has it got to do with what we do in the context of the state?

Well, it seems to me that there is no instruction specifically for civil rulers, but there is this instruction given for overseers. The word “bishop” simply means “episcopo,” to look over, to oversee in a ruling fashion some things. And here explicitly it said how you should behave yourself in the church, the house of God. But it seems legitimate to me, at least, to say if we’ve got these kind of requirements here, then probably these are the same kind of requirements we would see for men who are going to be overseers, bishops, overlookers, supervisors, or rulers in the context of the civil state.

And what’s interesting is that the same thing that Proverbs warns about is what we see warned about in the context of office, the office of overseer. It’s a good office, it says, but he must be blameless, the husband of one wife—a one-woman sort of man. He can’t be tempted to look at a bunch of other women. Well, that’s just what teens are tempted to do. You see, they haven’t settled down on the one wife that God has for them yet, typically. So, they fail in terms of this qualification.

They must be temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach. Not given to wine. Same warning about wine. Not violent. Warning about anger. The way Proverbs warns about that character problem. Not greedy for money. Over and over in Proverbs, diligence as opposed to sloth and greed is talked about. Gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous. One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence.

“For a man doesn’t know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?”

And why would it be illegitimate to say: If a man can’t demonstrate that his own governance of his household, how can we trust him with the governance of the household of the state of Oregon? How can we get a guy voting on a budget and overseeing the budget in terms of its distribution of money who hasn’t demonstrated financial acumen and responsibility in his own home or with his own household?

I think it’s a legitimate question to ask.

So, it seems like the basic requirement of overseers given to us in 1 Timothy 3, as well as other places in scripture, would say that we can’t judge whether an 18-year-old has these characteristics or not. And in fact, Proverbs warns us that he’ll probably fail in some of these things. He probably will have trouble for a while drinking in moderation. He’ll have trouble with the roving eye for a while until he settles down in his own household with his own wife. He’ll have trouble with slothfulness until he demonstrates diligence in vocation.

Which, over there, you know, the incredible thing about this 18-year-old rule is that there was a time in this country when 18-year-olds were pretty mature people. 50 years ago, they had homes frequently by the age of 18. They had vocation 100 years ago quite common. Today, no, they’re in high school. They’re just getting out of high school.

You see, they don’t have the ability to demonstrate the kind of character required of overseers. And in fact, they’re very much given to us in Proverbs, but they’re tempted in the very things that this text warns us about in terms of temptations that they’ll face in office.

This isn’t just the New Testament. There are also warnings, there are requirements of proven character and family and community in the other texts that talk about ruling as well.

In Deuteronomy 1:15, Moses says:

“I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of 50s, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes.”

So he says here that in terms of the civil governance of the smallest unit of civil government—10 households—it’s always got to oversee. They had to be wise and knowledgeable. Wisdom comes through time. It didn’t come through book learning. Wisdom comes through time, knowledgeable in terms of how to exercise governance correctly.

Numbers 11:16 Moses says, or God says to Moses:

“Gather 70 men of the elders of Israel whom you know to be the elders of the people.”

The Bible, both in the Old Testament and New Testament, describes civil governance as elders. Okay? Elder means older guy. It means the old guys are supposed to run the civil government in the Old Testament, and the old guys are supposed to run the civil government in the church in the New Testament. And it seems like the basic idea here is that maturity by way of age and being elderly is a requirement for both ecclesiastical and civil governance.

So these texts tell us, I think, that 18-year-olds are not really equipped to be seen as wise or knowledgeable. They’re not elders. They’re not—they don’t have a proven track record on neither the home nor vocation, and certainly not in a biblical church either, because they shouldn’t be given tremendous responsibilities in the church until they’re older.

So, it seems like these things are all problems for us.

And then 1 Timothy 3:6 gives us an explicit warning against being a novice:

“Not a novice. Why? Lest being puffed up of pride, you fall into the same condemnation of the devil.”

The word “novice” is a newcomer. You don’t take a new Christian, no matter how old he is, and make him an elder or a deacon. And you don’t take someone who’s a novice in the sense of being new to rule and authority, who’s a teen, and make him that either. Why? Because he’s going to be tempted to pride. He’s going to be tempted to pride.

It seems to me that 18-year-olds are clearly novices when it comes to governance of civil matters. And that the scriptures warn us against that lest they be proud and puffed up.

And I would say that the representatives of this movement are precisely that—proud and puffed-up teenagers. Proud and puffed-up men who can’t wait to do something that they shouldn’t do while they’re still in their short pants, so to speak.

So, finally, we have the big, another big-picture item: the ideal king, David.

And people tell some of the emails I got, well, you know, David—he got right in there and mixed it up with Goliath when he was a young man. Well, it’s true. And he was anointed then. But he didn’t take rule until he was 30. The scriptures tell us that explicitly in 2 Samuel 5:4.

He was patient. Young man may have an idea that this is his calling to be a state representative, state senator, governor, president, whatever it is. But if that man grasps at the office in his teen years, I don’t want him as a ruler later. You see, I want him exhibiting the kind of patience in rule that David exhibited, and that our Savior exhibited as well, because He was 30.

Luke tells us when He began His public ministry. Again, 30. Why? 30 is the age of Levitical ruling element. 25 apprentice. 30 you actually begin to rule. And that seems to be repeated—not just for the small offices, but for the large office of civil governance of King David and King Jesus as well.

Now, you may disagree with me. You may disagree with the exposition or with the application of the text. That’s fine. You know, that’s okay. The purpose of the sermon is not to take a position on this ballot measure. The purpose of the sermon is to encourage and exhort you as you seek the Reformation—we all celebrated, most of us celebrated last Thursday evening.

As you seek Reformation in the family, the church, and the state, that you do so based very explicitly on the word of God. You may make different applications of that word than I’ve made it today. Okay, that’s fine. But the thing that I’m urging you to, as a congregation, is to be part of the light that shines forth into the area of civil governance, as well as the other areas we always do, based upon the only light which is the word of the Lord Jesus Christ as found in His scriptures.

You know, we’re told in Judges 21:25 that in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. This is usually taken to mean that there’s a denial on the part of God’s people of Yahweh as their king. And as a result of having no ruler in their hearts, maybe explicitly they understood the scriptures taught it, but when they did not apply it in their own hearts, then they’re left to their own devices. They do what’s right in their own eyes.

This is the place we’ve come to as a country. That doesn’t make any difference what the word of God says. And in fact, shut your mouth for using the word of God in these kind of discourses is what I’ve been told more than once in the last month. Everybody does what’s right in their own eyes. They enter into the spirit of the age. And the spirit of our particular age is an exaltation of youth and a denigration of maturity.

More than one person that wrote me said: We ought to kick all the old people out of Salem, put all the teens in there, and let them do some stuff right for a change.

Well, you know, I agree that oftentimes our state legislators do act infantilely. They do act immaturely, as I think they did when they put this ballot measure before us. But having said that, the problem we have is that we have a culture that exalts youth.

The scriptures envision a far different culture—not just in terms of civil governance, but overall.

Again, going back to Leviticus and the 70 commands that are an exposition of the Ten Commandments, we read in verse 32 of chapter 19:

“You shall rise before the grey-headed and honor the presence of an old man and fear your God. I am the Lord.”

Scriptures envision a culture that trains young people not to exalt themselves in their youth, but to look toward the gray heads, to look toward their fathers and grandfathers, to look to the elders—the old men—in the church, in the state, and in the workplace—and rise before them. Show them reverence and respect.

Sure, it’s good to involve young people in the civil process. All kinds of aides to representatives and senators that I’ve seen in my trips to Salem are young people who are giving good advice and counsel to the gray heads who are supposed to be ruling. But I think that what we have in this ballot measure is the exultation of youth and a denigration of maturity.

May God give us the grace as a community here at Reformation Covenant Church to understand the tremendous importance of honoring maturity, honoring the objective standard of physical age—not experience and wisdom, but the physical age structure itself. The scriptures give us—again, Proverbs 16:31:

“The silver-haired head is a crown of glory if it’s found in the way of righteousness.”

Old men can go astray. But you see, it is a tremendous crown of glory to look at a mature man who is old and to reverence and respect him because of his age. The scriptures tell us that as we mature properly, we’re able to rule.

Hebrews 5:14 says:

“Solid food belongs to those who are of full age—come to maturity. That is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

You see, discern good and evil. Not autonomously, projecting our standard before we’re ready to rule, but through patience and maturity, serving in the family, serving in the church, serving by voting and engaging in political discourse in our teen years—then kids have exercised their senses, ready to discern good and evil. And then they become able to rule in the context of either the church or the state.

This Measure 17 is kind of a great picture, I think, of the rejection of biblical standards, objective standards, a rejection of the laws of God found in the Old Testament, a rejection of the requirements of maturity for rule given to us in the New Testament, a rejection of the warnings properly given to teens that Proverbs contain.

You know, we put these warnings in the voters’ guide, and people thought they were stupid. Stupid, you know, warning about wine, women and song down in Salem. It is not stupid. It’s the very warnings that our Savior gives us in the book of Proverbs to warn our young people about, over and over and over.

Teens in our church, don’t take this as an offense against you, but understand that you are not ready to rule yet. Most of you are not ready to rule at 18 in your homes. You’re not ready to rule in the context of the church. You’re not ready to rule in the context of civil government. I don’t care how wise and understanding and committed you are. The scriptures say there is an objective standard that tells me, without having to think any further, that you’re still a teen. You’re still moving toward full adult life.

Some of you, you know, may do that chronologically earlier and some later, but the Bible tells us that 18-year-olds are in a position to be learning and submitting, not to be ruling.

I talked to a 16- to 19-year-old Sunday school class this morning. We’ve got the new Sunday school program beginning the first Sunday in December as we track the liturgical year. We’re really urging—I’m greatly tempted, you know, the teens in this church are wonderful kids, wise and mature in many ways—but not ready yet to rule. But I’m tempted over and over again to use them as assistants in the Sunday school program, teaching some of the younger kids.

But we told them—I told him again this morning that no, we’re saying 16 up to 19 years of age, we’re encouraging you to stay in the age-graded Sunday school classes, learn the scriptures, learn your Bible well, and then when you hit 20—the biblical age—then we’ll see about you going ahead and teaching in the context of another class.

So the scriptures tell us that we’re not to have a youth culture. We’re to have a culture that exalts maturity, age, and wisdom. And that God would cause us to do that. We should pray that God would have us do that, not just in the civil arena, but in the context of our church and our families as well.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for your scriptures. We thank you, Lord God, for the tremendous opportunities these election cycles give us as a community of Jesus Christ here in where you’ve planted us. We do pray that as discussions continue over the next few days, that you would give us opportunity—the Lord God—to speak to the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and His word as the wisdom that undergirds all the decisions that we make.

We thank you for the opportunities. We pray too for our families. We pray for young men and women. We know that one of the most frequent prayer requests that’s seen in our prayer groups is that children would not talk back to their parents. We pray for our children, Lord God, that they would respect the wise, mature ones that you placed in the context of the home. That they’d respect their parents, not answering back, but submitting graciously, mercifully, to the great governance of the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ who oversees us all.

We thank you, Father, that you are referred to as the Ancient of Days in the scriptures. Help us, Lord God, to seek and desire maturity before we rule. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.