Submission to authority does not in the smallest degree hinder the believer from paying honor to the powers that be, for that is clearly our duty (Rom. 13:1-7). This "honor" is not at all based upon their personal character; we have nothing at all to do with their origin, how they got their power, or how they use their power. All that we have to do, as believers, is to own God and the magistrate. Perhaps the magistrate, or the king, does not own God himself. That is a serious thing for him, but it does not change our relation. Our duty, even if the kings or the magistrates were all infidels, is to acknowledge them to be God's ministers, no doubt blindly serving, but still accomplishing in their position God's purpose, though they little think it themselves. In short, we are bound to pay this honor to the powers that be, and it is no question what their particular shape may be. It may be a monarchy or an empire, or a republic, or whatever men may own for the moment. Our business is to render honor and subjection to the higher powers. This makes the Christian's path extremely simple, and I press it, beloved brethren, because we are in a time when altogether different views prevail. The spirit of the age is totally against what I am now saying. I give you, therefore, full warning as to it.
You must not expect to find what I am now saying in the thoughts of men, in the mouths of men, in the writings of men. Exactly the opposite is being suggested. Men regard themselves as the source of power, not God. They think that the particular form of government is purely a question of man's will. I grant you it may be man's will as the mere outer source of it. But what people forget is this: it is God who governs, even though wicked men may be the instruments that come forward publicly. Our part is not with the choice of instruments at all, but to own God in whatever He allows for the time being to have power upon the earth. And this duty the Lord Jesus Himself has shown us in the most clear and decided manner, for there were very different thoughts in Israel when the Lord Himself was here. But He has touched upon this question and shown it in that memorable answer of His to the Pharisees and the Herodians when He demanded of them to produce the coin, and pointed to the image and superscription of Caesar, and gave them this decisive word: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Matt. 22:21.
This is our responsibility today, but how great the change when all things in heaven and on earth shall be put under the King, "the Great King." The Lord Jesus will be not only the acknowledged Jehovah, but King over all the earth. What was only in a partial and boastful manner said of the king of Persia, who was called "the great king," will be emphatically and intrinsically true of Him and of Him alone! Then how infinite the blessing when the heavens and earth shall all be united to His praise, and all shall be the fruit of His grace, and all shall be joined to His glory! This is what we wait for, and we know that by the grace of God we shall then be with Himself on high. We shall be with Him and shall appear with Him in glory when He appears in glory But this was only a partial type, and so much the more partial because the state of things was real, and in confusion where God held the reins only providentially, though it might be by men who were heathen. Such is the state of the times of the Gentiles. And the times of the Gentiles, you will remember, began with Nebuchadnezzar, and will go on till the Lord Jesus appears in glory. We are in the times of the Gentiles now, only we are called out of the world by the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven.