John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul did not let their governments get away with breaking the law. They spoke up about it. In John’s case when he rebuked the king for having his brother’s wife, it cost him his life. In Paul’s case, it saved his hide, and got the authorities to treat him with more respect.
Acts 16:35-39
³⁵And when it was daytime, the magistrates sent the sheriffs, saying, “Release those men.” ³⁶So the prison warden declared these words to Paul, as follows: “The magistrates have sent orders that you be released. Now therefore, you may go in peace.”
³⁷But Paul said to them, “They gave us a beating in public without due process of law, though we men are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now they are pushing us away quietly? Certainly not! On the contrary they shall come personally and escort us out.”
³⁸So the sheriffs reported these statements to the magistrates. And when they heard that they were Roman citizens, they were afraid. ³⁹And they came and apologized to them. And they escorted them out, and asked them to go away from the city.
Acts 22:22-29
²²Now the crowd had been listening— until those words. Then they lifted up their voice, saying, “Remove such a man from the earth, for it is not fitting for him to live!” ²³And as they kept up their shouting, and were tossing off their cloaks, and throwing dust up in the air, ²⁴the commander ordered him brought inside the barracks, and said to give him a flogging until he talked, so that he could find out the reason for all this clamor over him.
²⁵But as they stretched him out in the straps, Paul said toward the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen without a trial?”
²⁶And when the centurion heard this, he approached the commander and informed him, saying, “What are you about to do? For this man is a Roman citizen.”
²⁷So the commander came up to Paul, and he said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
And he said, “Yes.” ²⁸And the commander responded, “It took me a large sum of money to get that citizenship.”
And Paul said, “But I was actually born one.” ²⁹Then those about to interrogate him immediately withdrew from him. And even the commander was afraid, finding out that Paul was a Roman citizen and he had been strapping him up.
(Taken from my translation of Acts, which you can read here: https://bibletranslation.ws/trans/DRPbiblesofar.pdf )