For quite some time God has been laying it upon my heart to study His Divine Authority. I have been gathering notes and scriptures and began to put them together for this week. After working several hours on it Sunday night, God gave me a dream where He impressed upon me that man has made things much too complicated in our understanding of His Divine Plan. He gave me a dream and with His help I want to share it with you. God brought a visitor to our house—an old man with a graveled voice but with wisdom and simplicity who explained things in terms that the simple man could understand. I don’t always remember my dreams, but God allowed me to remember it vividly and with His help I will share what God revealed to me. As I reflected upon the old man, God related it back to old radio messages in the early 80’s from a man I used to listen to—J. Vernon McGee, born in 1904 and died in 1988. He had a way of cutting through the details to come up with the truth of the matter. He referred back to one of Solomon’s writings in Eccl. 12: 12 to make his point: “…of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” Bottom line in one phrase God said to me about this subject: “He who rules, makes the rules!” I got it! God rules and overrules in the affairs of men to bring about His Divine purpose and plan! God made me see that man has tried to complicate His plan in His Word by examining and dissecting until it has become foreign to us! At this time God wants to cut through it all so that we can understand what He is calling us to do today to share His story with our family, neighbors and whosoever we meet. He is our Father in Heaven that wants a relationship with us as His children and wants us to be about His business before He sends His Son back to earth to bring us to Him in Heaven! There is an old song that we sing that sets the tone for this study: Blessed Assurance. Read this in your hymnal.
God is making it clear to us: “All authority belongs to Him because He is the Creator of all things!” He created all heavenly and earthly beings to please Him—to obey Him. Paul best says it in Colossians 1: 9b-20: “We keep asking God that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding—to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. We pray that you may be strengthened with all the power that comes from His glorious might, for you to have all kinds of patience and steadfastness. With joy we give thanks to the Father, who qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son whom He loves. In Him we have redemption—the release of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created—in heaven and on earth, the seen and the unseen, whether thrones or angelic powers or rulers or authorities. All was created through Him and for Him. He exists before everything, and in Him all holds together. He is the head of the body, His community. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead—so that He might come to have first place in all things. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, making peace through the blood of His cross—whether things on earth or things in heaven!”
GOD CREATED THE ANGELS TO PRAISE AND OBEY HIM: Under God were the archangels and under the archangels were many other angels. The hosts of heaven worship Him saying, “You are worthy O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things. And by your will they exist and were created.” (Revelation 4:11) All the heavenly host lived by the principle of obedience to God’s authority, but when Lucifer, God’s anointed over the heavenly host, decided he wanted to be like God he introduced another principle, the principle of rebellion. (Isaiah 14: 13-14) Rebellion is a heart attitude toward God which says, “I will do what I want to do. I will not obey You.” As we know, Satan led a rebellion of one-third of the angels that were expelled from heaven that continues to impact the world.
GOD CREATED MANKIND IN HIS IMAGE TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM: God created mankind in His likeness with a body, soul (mind, will and emotions) and spirit and put Adam and his wife Eve into a perfect place—the Garden of Eden that He planted and gave them authority to rule over the earth. He gave them one rule to obey—“Don’t eat of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” However, Satan introduced his principle of rebellion through Eve who was deceived and through Adam who chose to disobey God’s authority. They said in their hearts, “I will do what I want to do.” By the rebellion of Adam, sin entered the world and his rebellious nature was passed on to his children and the whole world. The Bible says, “We have turned everyone to his own way.” (Isaiah 53:6) This is why the Bible refers to unsaved people as “children of disobedience.” Man had sinned and the first promise of redemption was given as God provided garments for them made from the coats of slain animals (most likely lambs) introducing the principle that there is no forgiveness of sin with shedding of innocent blood pointing to Christ’s sacrifice upon the Cross. They were expelled out of the Garden and into a world of toil and snares.
In the generations that followed to Noah evil continued to abound as Satan’s principle of rebellion ruled the people until God declared in Genesis 6: 5-6 that they had become so wicked that He would destroy all life upon the earth except Noah and his family who had not followed Satan’s principle of rebellion and had obeyed God and remained genetically pure as God created them. After the flood, God gave mankind a new test of obedience where they would have government and laws to maintain order and protect human life as a gift of God. This responsibility has never ended, and it will not end until Christ takes over the government. Again, man exalted himself in disobedience and resorted to Satan’s principle of rebellion and united in an effort to “build a tower—to be like God.” God rendered judgment and confused their language and dispersed them into the world.
GOD CHOSE A PEOPLE FOR HIS NAME. Again, we see Divine Mercy as God sought another man who would follow His plan of obedience. God chose Abraham to be the head of a race who would be called God’s people to be obedient to Him in the midst of the rebellious human race. Abraham is known for his great faith, but he was also a man who obeyed God’s authority. Genesis 18:19 says: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD.” God intended that, through the nation of Israel, all the people on earth would come to know Him. But the people of Israel were disobedient and followed Satan’s principle of rebellion. However, God made an unconditional promise of blessings through Abraham’s seed (1) to the nation of Israel to inherit The Promised Land (b) to the Church in Christ (Gal. 3: 17, 28-29) and to the Gentile nations (Gen. 12:3). God keeps His Promises and we await the fulfilment in His time.
God’s Divine Authority in a nutshell: God created angels and many of them rebelled against Him. He created man and man rebelled against Him, He chose the nation of Israel to be His people, but the people of Israel rebelled against Him. Then in the fullness of time, God sent His Son into the world. We know that the Lord Jesus came to die for our sins, but He also came to reestablish His principle of obedience to God’s Divine Authority. “Who being in the form of God…made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” (Phil. 2: 6-7)
GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE SENT HIS SON THAT WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL HAVE ETERNAL LIFE: Jesus was a man who was totally obedient to God. Jesus said, “I always do those things that please Him.” (John 8: 29) Jesus submitted to Jesus the humiliation of being under the authority of mere men; parents, civil rules, and was even abused by evil men. During His ministry people witnessed the authority given by the Father (Mat. 7: 29), in granting forgiveness of sins (Mt. 9:6), in calming the sea (Mat. 8:26), in healing sickness and disease (Mt. 9: 35), in casting out demons (Mt. 12: 22), and in gaining victory over death itself (John 11: 43). Since it was the Father’s will that He die on the cross for our sins, He willingly laid down His life. The Bible says, “And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil. 2:8) Having accomplished the work of redemption, He anticipated His ascension and coronation to be seated at the right hand of the Father and given the name that is above every name in the heavens and the earth (Eph. 1: 20-23). Before Jesus left this earth He said: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.” (Mt. 28: 18b) In the same breath He left this command to His followers—Go make disciples—teach them to be obedient to the Father and remember I am with you always!
That message is for you and me! Jesus grants us His authority in His Name! We must line up with our Head—Jesus—not with the doctrine of man and religious tradition—then we will come alive in God! It is Christ in us—His Spirit that is our authority! Colossians 2 gives us our marching orders! In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are ours—we are to walk in Him for in Him we have been filled with His fullness—His Spirit! In Acts 1:8 Jesus said that His followers would receive the power of the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses. In the New Testament there is a clear link between the giving of and use of authority, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. According to the Scriptures, we have the same power living in us that raised Christ from the dead! The Holy Spirit is God’s personal representative here on earth today and His role is to be our Helper and Comforter. However, if we do not recognize His presence, authority, and power, we can mistakenly believe and act like we are in this life alone. Jesus in His great compassion and wisdom gave us His Holy Spirit to teach, guide and help us. He instructs us in the truth and is our personal advocate before the throne of God. Whatever we face, Christ faces it with us personally through the indwelling presence of His Holy Spirit. Through our study we have seen that Satan’s principle of rebellion says: “I want to do it my way!” God’s principle is obedience—we must relinquish our will—the authority and rule of our lives to the authority and rule of the Holy Spirit—to will and do the will of the Father in us and through us. We must ask Him to remove anything from our life that would hinder His work in us and through us. When the apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesians, he prayed God would let them see “the exceeding greatness of His power”—the same power “He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power.” (Eph. 1: 19-21) God’s power is the greatest power of all and He dwells inside of us! Robert Munger said: “Christianity is the power of God in the soul of man.” May we experience this power in our lives to tread through the craziness of this present world! Luke 10: 19-20 says: “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” The Lord has given us authority to TREAD upon the enemy—to walk in His victory over every trail and tribulation that life brings! At this time with giants in our land, we need to put on the Armor of God (Ephesians 6: 10-18) and to have this militant attitude to walk in His victory and tread over the power of the enemy. Our authority is in the resurrection power of Jesus, and in His promise to be with us…even to the end of the age! May Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven—for Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever! AMEN