By Pastor Paul Revere
Welcome to the Embassy of Heaven Church, an offspring of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, who is the firstborn of many, and the Embassy of Heaven Church is composed of His body.
The Embassy of Heaven Church is not a building, it is not a piece of ground, it is us. We are His body. Sometimes that is easy to forget in a world that does not know Christ. The world keeps pulling on us, trying to get us away from Christ. That's the battle we have before us.
Today's topic is overcoming the adversary's questions. How do we give answer to police officers, jailers and judges when they attempt to enforce their laws upon us? We believe very strongly that we are ones that are not required to be obedient to the State law. Not that we do things that are ungodly, but simply that we don't have to obey the commands of the State. One of our primary conflicts is over traveling. The State demands that we get a State driver's license and we believe we do not need a State driver's license. There lies the conflict.
When we are hauled before their courts for allegedly disobeying State laws, we can either aim for the gold or try for the silver. The gold prize is this: "I am of the body of Jesus Christ. I have been set free of the law because the law has been nailed to His cross. I can no longer be condemned. "That's the gold. The silver prize is: "Well, if I was under the law, then here would be my argument."
We've often found it very tempting to go after the silver prize, because our adversaries misuse their own law. These people are zealous to imprison and harm us because we are openly going against their decrees. They write up citations that are simply not a proper use of their law. It is very tempting to go after the silver prize, to get in and make a defense. Aiming for the gold prize is a little bit more difficult. You have to talk about Jesus Christ, you have to talk about the scripture, and most of us just simply are not qualified to try to present these principles. What we are confronted with is the dilemma of trying to make a defense under the law versus just simply standing in Christ.
Ever since we entered this battle, we've been trying to improve our argument, hoping to win in court. If we could somehow make the right argument, they would leave us alone - or so we thought. The mark we aimed for was to win in court. We started off not knowing anything about what we were doing. When we'd lose, we'd try to improve our position. We started studying their statute books. We became very intelligent about their laws. We found discrepancies. They were charging us with things that could not possibly be valid.
For example, we would be traveling down the highway, get pulled over by a police officer, and somehow get charged with failing to carry or present a driver's license. That's a jailable offense. The problem with this charge is that it only applies to people who have a valid driver's license. Here we are with no valid driver's license to present. Either it's expired, or we turned it into the State because we didn't want it anymore. Therefore, we are not ones that have a valid driver's license that we can carry or display. Thus, it was very tempting to go into those courts and argue under the statutes about the ridiculousness of asking us to display the impossible.
We kept progressing in the knowledge of their statutes. Sometimes we'd make successful arguments and sometimes we wouldn't. But we kept narrowing in on what we viewed the mark to be - victory in court. We kept honing in and getting closer and closer. All of a sudden things changed. Instead of getting decisions that we thought would free us and keep us from being dragged into those courts anymore, now the judges were rendering decisions that totally didn't make any sense. We'd build a defense, a perfect open and shut case, and the judge would render a decision like he was in a drunken stupor. And yet we were hitting the bull's-eye. We couldn't get any closer to the mark. What did this mean? The only explanation that I can think of is that we were shooting at the wrong mark. We should have been shooting at a totally different target!
We knew from the beginning that we should not make a defense, but it's very tempting. It is so tempting to make a defense. The reason it's tempting is because there are volumes and volumes of laws out there which men pass through their legislative assemblies. They say: "You shall do this!" or "You shall not do that." They just write them up and write them up. And they write so many of them that it is not possible to even be able to keep track of all the laws. But there they are with all their laws that say you shouldn't do this or that. And you figure, "Well, what should I do? They want to try me, they want to put me before a judge and they want a jury. They want 6 or 12 people to sit there and decide whether I disobeyed that law or not." And the whole system is founded on the premise that everybody is under the law - including you. Thus, they want to drag you into court and tempt you to build a defense.
For example, a member of the Church was recently charged with eluding a police officer. He went less than 300 feet from the time the officer signaled him to stop, traveled no faster than 20 miles an hour and headed into his own personal driveway. That isn't very far and it isn't very fast. And the place that he went wasn't like he was going cross country. Thus, the temptation to build a defense was great. He thought, "How could anybody consider that I was eluding a police officer with those kinds of facts?" So he was tempted. He tried to show the ridiculousness of the charge. And he failed. He went through the whole process and defended under the law. What did we learn from that? We should NEVER build a defense. Our full justification is in Christ.
In the beginning, I had a strong feeling that we should not defend under the law. But it wasn't a conviction because I didn't understand why. It was just a feeling, something that came from Heaven, from God himself saying, "You're not to defend yourself. My children should not defend themselves before men." But I could not figure out why. But after witnessing the way judges trample our pearls, it is now a conviction.
The reasoning is very simple. Our position under the Embassy of Heaven Church is that we are not under the law. We are not under men's laws. We consider ourselves of the government known as the Kingdom of Heaven with Jesus Christ as the head of that government. And we are expressing His government through our activities. We're officers for His government. And our government does not place us under the law. Our basic premise is coming from the Sermon on the Mount. We love God as Number One and in so doing we also love neighbor. We've come to save lives not to destroy them. We need not justify our actions before men. Scripture says we are not to be judged.