Rejecting Authority Part 2

If you have your Bible, and I hope you do, we're back in the book of Jude this morning, that little
book at the end of the New Testament right before Revelation.
I should tell you that it was in the second semester of my senior year in high school that I got in
trouble for skipping class. Now, let me explain what happened, okay? I arrived at my fourth period
class on a spring day. It was a lovely spring day. My fourth period class was choir.
And I found out we had a substitute in our choir class, and like I said, it was a nice day.
The substitute had said, we're just going to have a study hall in the class. Well, choir was not
set up with desks or tables. You were in chairs sitting back to back.
I hadn't brought any books to study. You were going to choir class. So he says, we're going to have
an hour, and it's going to be a study hall, and you all can talk quietly amongst yourselves. And I
just thought, this is a complete waste of my time. And so I think five minutes into the class,
I just got up, gathered whatever I had, and I just left. I didn't say I'm leaving. I just walked
out, which I should not have done. Now, I walked out.
I don't remember what I did. I think I just goofed off for the next 45 minutes. I don't remember
that I hung out with anybody, but I was glad to be out of there. Now, some of you might look at my
circumstances and you go, well, I understand why you left because there wasn't much going on, but
here's the problem. And this is connected with what we're looking at in the book of Jude. I
rejected authority when I did that. I let my rebel heart lead the way.
Now, anybody else in here have a rebel heart? Raise your hand if you do. We all do, okay. I'm not
talking about Ole Miss fans. I'm talking about those of you who recognize your rebel nature.
I know some of you hear me talk about skipping a class in high school and you think, That's the
best you got for a rebel heart? I mean, some of you are going, I got a whole lot more than I can
offer, and I do too. But the point is that we've all got manifestations of that rebel heart.
We're prone, as one author said, to wanting to draw a circle around our lives and declare ourselves
Lord of the Ring, right? We want to run our own lives and follow our own rebel heart.
And as we've seen in this study of Jude that we've been going through, we've been looking at the
false teachers who Jude says have crept in unnoticed to the church. These are men who are leading
others away from God, away from the truth that has once for all been delivered to the saints.
And now in Jude's day, these men are taking...
away from the Old Testament scriptures and the apostolic teaching that has been passed on to them.
And this is an unrestrained, unchecked rebel heart that beats in the chest of every false teacher.
Every false teacher has that rebel heart and says, I will not submit to authority.
We've all got it. The difference is that the false teacher embraces it, does not fight against it,
but embraces it. He sets himself up. or herself up as the ground of authority,
the source of authority, the ground of truth. He sees himself as the way, the truth,
and the life. Only he has the truth. And if you want to get right with God,
you need to follow his way. We saw last week that as we looked at this in Jude, verses 8 through
10, these false teachers rely on their own dreams and visions to set the agenda.
as their source of truth, and they justify and legitimize their own sinful desires and appetites,
particularly when it comes to sexual sin. Jude says they defile the flesh. They give their bodies
over to immoral excess. And as it says right in the middle of verse 8, they reject authority.
That's where we stopped last week. We're going to pick it up again there this week. And I want us
to be thinking about these things as we look at Jude this morning. First of all,
I want us to be asking the question, are we alert to the rebel heart that is inside each one of us?
So when it comes to spotting a rebel heart, are you alert to the rebel heart that is in you?
Do you know how to address or tame your own rebel heart? And do you know how to look for the
characteristics of a rebel heart in the lives of others, particularly those who are spiritual
leaders or teachers? So that's what I want us to be focusing on as we look at these verses from
Jude. Let me read the passage. Let me pray for our time in God's Word first. Father,
again, we ask for your Spirit to be our teacher. We ask for the gift of illumination,
that as we come to your Word, you would open our eyes, that you would unplug our ears,
that you would soften our heart, that we might hear and understand and obey your Word.
We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
The letter of Jude beginning at verse 8. This is the word of God for the people of God. Jude
writes, Yet in like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams,
defiled the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
But when the archangel Michael... contending with the devil was disputing about the body of Moses,
he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. But these
people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like
unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. That's what we're going to look at this morning.
Amen. May God add his blessing to this reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower fades,
but the word of God will last forever.
Last week, we looked at how these false teachers despise or reject authority. You remember this
little girl, right, who said, you're not the boss of me? I played that song by They Might Be Giants
called Boss of Me, and my wife heard it later, and she said, that's going to get stuck in kids'
heads, and they're going to be singing it all week. And I don't know if it got stuck in your head,
but I was singing all week, you're not the boss of me now. So maybe it wasn't such a great
illustration, but we're going to circle back to that idea later. I want to look at the rest of this
passage, and there are some things in this passage that need some explanation, some things where
you need to know a little background, a little history, a little culture to make it make sense. So
let's look at that. Look at verse 8. After Jude says that these false teachers reject authority,
he says they also blaspheme the glorious ones. That's what it says if you've got an ESV Bible.
The Greek word is blasphemodaxa. And in the ESV,
it's blaspheme the glorious ones. The New American Standard says revile angelic majesties.
The New International Version, heap abuse on celestial things.
The King James, speak evil of dignitaries. And the Christian Standard Bible says slander glorious
ones. So you can see there's a lot of... for how you are going to translate blasphemo doxa there.
It's a little tricky to figure out exactly what Jude is talking about here, but here's what I think
is the best way to understand this phrase. The Jews... Remember, I think Jude is writing to people
who are steeped in Judaism. They either grew up as Jews or they have been well taught the Old
Testament. He makes allusions to things like Sodom and Gomorrah without any explanation, figuring
they know about these things. So he is talking to people who grew up in Judaism.
And these Jews understood that when God brought the law to Moses on Mount Sinai,
he delivered them.
Let me show you some passages that show this. In Acts chapter 7, where Stephen is giving his...
sermon right before he is executed, before he's stoned to death, he's talking about how the Jewish
people rejected Moses' leadership and authority. And he says there, this Moses whom they rejected
saying, who made you a ruler and a judge? That's rejecting authority. This man God sent as both
ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
There's an angel involved here. You go on, this is Moses being set apart by God to lead Israel out
of Egypt. This man, Moses, led them out performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea
and in the wilderness for 40 years. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites,
God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. This is the one who was in the
congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai. and with our
fathers. He received living oracles given to us. So there was the understanding when God delivered
the law, there was angelic mediation of the law being brought. Now,
if you look also at the parallel passage in Galatians 3, verse 19, Paul's talking about God's
promise to Abraham, and the question comes up, well, if God made these promises to Abraham,
why then the law? Why did we need the law? if God made the promises. And the answer is, it was
added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made,
and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. The law was established.
Through angels. Angels, by the way, it's just a word that means messengers. Now, these are divine
angelic beings, but their job is to deliver messages for God. They are messengers for God.
And so when the law was given, it was angels superintending the giving of the law. So you take that
now back to Jude, verse 8. And Jude says, when he says these false teachers are blaspheming
glorious, the glorious ones, most interpreters believe that this is a reference to false teachers
blaspheming the divinely delivered law of God. So they are speaking evil against the law and
against the angels who delivered it. They're blaspheming. They're saying that didn't come from God.
That's not from God. That didn't come from angelic delivery. In fact,
if you put the whole verse together, verse 8 is saying these false teachers are governed by their
lust, they reject God and God-ordained authority in their lives, and they freely speak evil about
the law of God and those who delivered it to Moses.
Governed by lust, rejecting God's authority, rejecting God's moral law.
Michael Green, the Anglican commentator who died a few years ago, says about the false teachers,
these men were anti-law. A common state of affairs when people follow their own lusts and exalt in
their own knowledge.
You turn against God's ways when you exalt in your own knowledge and you follow your own lusts.
Now again, we need to be careful as we read this because these false teachers don't just ride into
town with their heresy guns blazing. They creep in unaware.
They are subtle with their blasphemy. They don't just blast out blasphemy.
That would be too obvious. They drip their poison in drops.
But where it leads is to a place where lust rules, God's authority is rejected,
and God's law is spoken against. It's blasphemed. One reason interpreters believe that This idea of
blaspheming glorious ones as a reference to angels is because in verse 9, there's an illustration
that Jude uses to talk about whether it's appropriate to blaspheme angels.
And it's all about an angelic interchange that took place between Michael the archangel and Satan
over the body of Moses. This is pretty interesting. So look at this verse. Jude is comparing false
teachers in his day who blaspheme against angels with the archangel Michael who refused to
blaspheme Satan. So it's not a comparison of two things that are alike, but it's these guys do this
instead of doing what they should. It's the bad example juxtaposed with the right example. So verse
9 says this, When the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of
Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke you. Now
what's that all about? Well, I can't give you a passage or a verse in the Old Testament to look at
for that. You need to know some extra-biblical Jewish tradition at this point. And we find a story
that's not in Scripture, but a story that would have been familiar to most Jews. And we can look at
this story and go, well, is that a true story or not? And the answer is, because it's not in
Scripture, we can't vouch for the veracity of it. But when Jude is writing about it, he assumes the
truth of it. So we can go that far with it. According to tradition, when Moses died,
God sent Michael, the archangel, to go get Moses' body and bury it secretly.
And when Michael got there, Satan was already there. And Satan said,
this belongs to me. This guy is a murderer. Don't you remember?
A murderer, he can't go with you. He's a sinner. He committed murder. He committed a mortal sin.
His body belongs to me.
Now, the question comes up, what did Satan want with the body of Moses?
And why did God send Michael and say, go get it and bury it privately? We don't know. Here's what I
think. If we had Moses' bones or we knew where he was buried,
what do you think people would do with that? people would go visit the bones of Moses thinking that
there might be some kind of anointing, some kind of special miracle power. If you can go get near
the bones of Moses, the anointing might rub off on you. You go to his burial site, there would be a
tomb there that would be full of idolatry for that matter. And so I think God was saying to
Michael, go get the body and bury it where nobody knows where it is so that that doesn't happen.
And Satan says, I want that body probably so that he could Carry out that very plan.
Take it to some Jewish leaders and say, here, why don't you make a shrine out of this? Why don't
you keep these bones, put them in the Ark of the Covenant?
And so this is speculation on our part, but God does know our tendency toward idolatry. It was John
Calvin who said that the human heart is an idol factory. Our heart is continually making idols.
And so I think that's what Jude 9 is talking about here, a confrontation that took place between
Michael and Satan over the body. Moses. Michael shows up, says,
I'm taking the body. Satan says, no, it belongs to me. And here's the main point in this story.
When Satan said that, Michael didn't say, get thee behind me,
Satan. He didn't say, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus, Satan. He said,
the Lord rebuke you. He said, I'm going to let the Lord deal with this.
I'm going to let the Lord handle you. That's really the point of all of this. The point of the
story is if angels, an archangel like Michael, won't speak a rebuking judgment against Satan,
should we?
Who do we think we are? That's why I'm always wary when I start here. Bible teachers who get into
this, they start commanding Satan to do this and that, right? And they start saying, I bind you,
Satan. I command you to depart from here. I rebuke you, Satan. I wonder what they do when they go,
Michael wouldn't do that.
Listen, the Bible tells us that greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. The problem
is when you start thinking, it's all about me. I have the power and the authority to do this rather
than thinking that power belongs to God.
False teachers think it's all about them. It's not. And the point is, false teachers are not shy
about making slanderous accusations toward anyone, against angels,
against anyone with whom they disagree. Even when they are slandering the devil,
they're going beyond what the archangel Michael would do.
So I think we can say what's true about the devil. He is a liar. He's the father of lies.
We can expose him for who he is. But in terms of direct confrontation with the devil or with
angelic beings, my default posture is the Lord rebuke you.
I think this is analogous,
I think, with what's going on here. If you are a person who will... slanderous accusations against
the devil, here's what starts to happen. You start to think of yourself as being morally or
spiritually superior, right? I mean, if you start to go,
I can tell the devil to do this and that, you start to think, I'm pretty special. And people who
think that they are morally or spiritually superior are headed in the wrong direction.
When the woman caught in adultery was brought before the Pharisees, These morally and spiritually
superior men thought we have the right to bring a slandering accusation against her.
Until Jesus said, yeah, you do if you haven't sinned. They dropped their stones and went away.
And then Jesus says to the woman, who's left to condemn you? She says, no one but you, Lord. He
says, well, I don't condemn you either. Go and sin no more.
I think we've got to be careful with slanderous accusations, whether it's toward the devil.
or toward anyone else. These false teachers don't shy away from that. They're full of it.
They're full of their own superiority, their own spiritual authority, their own righteousness.
And Jude says even the archangel Michael knows better than that. He's going to leave it with God,
leave it in his hands. And I think his is the example, the right example for us of how we ought to
handle situations like that. Which brings us to verse 10 where these false teachers are acting more
like animals following their own lusts and they're acting like image bearers. Verse 10 starts with
these people. It's the same. reference that he made back in verse 8. These people, these creepers,
these dreamers, these false teachers, these people blaspheme all that they do not understand.
They speak evil freely against things they have no position or no,
they're in no position to speak against. They do it because they don't understand their own
depravity.
When you start speaking blasphemy against others, you have to pull back and go, well, wait, what
about my own heart? Right?
They blaspheme things they do not understand. They're destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning
animals, understand instinctively. In other words, these are men who are not acting on godly
wisdom. They're acting on their own instincts. That's what unreasoning animals do. They follow
their instincts or their appetites or their passions. They don't have a moral conscience.
Unreasoning animals don't stop and ask themselves questions. I wonder if this is the right thing to
do. I remember hearing Al Mohler talk about this once. He was talking about the cheetahs who live
out in the Serengeti. And he said, you know, the cheetahs are the fastest animals out there. They
can go as much as 80 miles an hour, a cheetah. Imagine that, right? Animal going that fast.
And they go after the wildebeest or the warthogs or the antelopes.
They chase them down and they tear them apart. And they devour them. Dr.
Mohler said, I don't think any of those cheetahs, after they've caught their prey and they're
devouring it, stop and go, I wonder if this is right. I wonder if we should be doing this, you
know? Is this right? I wonder if this is moral. We should be better than this. No,
they don't do that. They are unreasoning animals that they just do what their instincts tell them
to do. They go devour their prey.
Verse 10 is saying these false teachers are just like those cheetahs. They are devouring their prey
by instinct without any reasoning. They're amoral animals rather than being moral men and women
made in the image and likeness of God capable of moral reasoning and moral choice.
They follow their instincts and they are destroyed as a result.
So that's when Jude in verse 8 says these are people who follow their lusts,
reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. He goes on to say they're not following the
example of Michael who would not even blaspheme Satan, but instead they're just following their own
passions. They're not thinking rationally or morally. And that,
I think, is what this passage is saying. Now, I want to pull back and spend the rest of the time we
have here talking about how it is right for us as followers of Jesus. to be people who do not
resist, reject, or despise authority in our lives, but people who submit and surrender to
authority, both God's authority, the authority of Scripture, and God-ordained human authority.
It is right for us. It ought to be our default position not to have the rebel heart against those
things, but to train ourselves to be in submission to God-ordained authority in our lives.
In fact, here's a good verse for you to memorize if you don't have it memorized already. James 4,
7, submit yourself to God, resist the devil,
and he will flee from you. That's just a good bellwether verse there. Submit yourself,
therefore, to God. Come under his authority. Submit to him. Resist the devil.
He will flee from you. That's the starting place for how we respond to authority.
And we talked last week about how, by definition, Christians voluntarily place themselves under the
authority of God. That's what you do. You follow Jesus. I'm under your authority. God,
I'm going to do what you've called me to do. You are my Lord, my master. I'm under the authority of
you and your word. So the question for us is, do we study the Bible?
Do we study it so we can know it better, or do we study it so we can obey it? I've shared this
story before, but I talked to some college professors years ago, and they had been teaching since
the 70s, and it was now in the 90s.
Professor said, what was the difference between the kids at the Christian college in the 70s and
the kids at the Christian college in the 90s? Said in the 70s, the Christian students used to come
and say to us, teach us God's word so that we can obey it. Now they said, teach us God's word so we
can consider it, understand it, see if we agree with it.
I saw a tweet yesterday, and I looked to try to capture it so I could share it with you. But here
was the point. Somebody said, when we move from a study of the Scripture to what's now called
biblical studies, we go from a different place of saying the Bible has authority over my life to
it's an artifact that I want to consider and see what I think about it. Got to be very careful in
how we approach the Scriptures. It's not like another book that you look at critically to see
whether you agree or disagree. It's the book of authority. So we are to submit to God and submit to
God's word, but we also honor God. Listen, we honor God by humbly submitting ourselves to
appropriate human authority.
We do not reject, resist, or despise authority like the false teachers do.
We honor God through humble submission to biblically appropriate.
And here's why it's important, because if you are routinely chafing or pushing back against human
authority in your life, it won't take long before you're starting to do that with God. You develop
a default way of thinking that you make the decisions rather than having any authority over you.
And when you do that on a human level, it spills over into how you relate to God. There are three
God-ordained institutions. that are mapped out for us in the Bible.
By God's design, all three of these institutions have authority and submission built into these
institutions. The three are the home, the church, and human government.
Those three God-ordained institutions have some people who are in positions of authority and some
people who submit to that authority. That's by God's design. And the Bible gives us clear
instruction. on who it is that is supposed to submit and how we are supposed to submit to
authorities that are over us in each of those domains. Let me show you what I mean. Turn with me in
your Bible to Ephesians chapter 5. We could spend a lot of time here, but this is where Paul,
in the second half of the book of Ephesians, is explaining to us what it looks like to walk in a
manner worthy of our calling. Ephesians 1, 2, and 3 is all about what God has done for us in
Christ. Then in chapter 4, Paul turns the corner. He says, because of what God has done for us in
Christ, here's how we should walk in a way that is worthy of that calling. And he starts to map it
out for us. That's what Ephesians 4, 5, and 6 are. These are the imperatives as a result of the
indicatives. When you get to the middle of Ephesians chapter 5, look at verse 17. Paul says,
look carefully at how you walk. not as unwise but as wise,
not as unreasoning animals but as wise people, making the best use of the time because the days are
evil. Therefore do not be foolish. but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now,
again, we could spend a lot of time here. We don't have the time. I just want you to note he's
talking about how important it is for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is to be walking
regularly in the power of the Holy Spirit, aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit, following the
leadership of the Holy Spirit in our lives. To be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you are filled
with wine, you are bumbling and stumbling because... is now in control of your life.
If you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're walking in a manner worthy of your calling because
the Holy Spirit is now in control of your life. That's the juxtaposition there. Be filled with the
Holy Spirit. Two things will happen when you are filled with the Holy Spirit. You will be
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the
Lord in your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ and submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So two things,
you give praise and thanks to God when you're filled with the Spirit and you submit yourself to one
another out of reverence for Christ. Now there are people who read this passage, submit yourself to
one another, and they say, well this is the Bible talking about mutual submission. I submit to you
and you submit to me.
Nobody has authority, we just defer to one another, we submit to one another. Let me just say, that
makes no sense, that's ridiculous. Mutual submission. Try that with your employer tomorrow.
Just go to your employer and say, we should practice mutual submission. I'll submit to you, but you
submit to me. Try that with the police officer who pulls you over. And just say,
I know you think you have the authority, but let's practice mutual submission. You submit to me and
write me a warning. Just see how that goes for you.
That doesn't even work.
If I submit to you, I am putting myself under your authority.
I can't put myself under your authority and then tell you that you need to be submitting to me and
be under my authority. It doesn't work. So what Paul is saying in this passage is we are to submit
to one another in those relationships where authority and submission exists.
In human institutions, authority and submission exists, and as Christians, as followers of Christ,
we're to come under appropriate God-ordained authority. in places where that exists.
And he gives three examples in the household. So he draws, he says, you want to know where to start
learning authority and submission? You learn it in the household. And in Ephesians 5,
22 through 33, he says that should look like this in a marriage relationship. Wives submit to the
husbands. Husbands lovingly lead their wives. And here's what it should look like with parents and
children. Ephesians 6, 1 through 4, children obey your parents. Fathers, don't provoke your kids to
anger. And then in chapter 6, verses 5 through 9, he says, here's what it should look like between
slaves and masters. Slaves come under the authority of the masters. Masters do not treat your
slaves harshly. So he's saying, you want to know what it looks like to submit yourselves to one
another? If you're a wife, you submit to your husband. If you're a kid, you submit to your parents.
If you're a slave, you submit to your master. And then he goes on and says, and by the way, there
are also responsibilities for the husbands and the parents and for the masters.
Husbands, love your wives sacrificially. Give your lives up for them. Lay your lives down for them.
Fathers, do not provoke or exasperate your children, but instead bring them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord. Masters, do not deal harshly with your slaves. And of course,
the master-slave, that was still a household, part of the household structure there. Slaves lived
in the ancient world with... who were their masters, they lived in the home, so it was a part of
the home cold, the house rules that are being addressed here. The closest thing we have to master
-slave relationship now is employer-employee, which is not a home situation, but still it's
employers don't deal harshly with your employees, and employees submit to your employers.
Now, today there are a lot of people who read this part of Ephesians, and they don't really have a
problem with parents and children or even with slaves and masters, but they have a problem when it
comes to wives submitting to husbands, right? Because they've seen it done poorly. They've seen
husbands who have been abusive in their authority. I remember there's a woman named Bunny Wilson
who wrote a book called Liberated Through Submission. And she told me in an interview that we did
with her about her book, she said, one day I ran across a scripture. She was a new Christian. She
said, I loved reading the Bible. One day I ran across a scripture that said, wives, submit to your
husbands unto your own husband as in the Lord. My first thought was, why would God mess up a good
book with a scripture like that? She said, I've never heard of anything so oppressive in my life.
So when people read, wives, submit to your husband, say, well, you can't mean that. It can't mean a
wife's supposed to do that. That feels dehumanizing. That feels degrading. So they start to look
for loopholes. That must have been a cultural thing. That was for them back then, but not for us in
our enlightened day. Or they say, well, it means mutual submission. But again, we saw mutual
submission is a non sequitur. It doesn't make sense. Very few people suggest that parents ought to
mutually submit to their children or that employers ought to mutually submit to their employees.
So the idea that that should be what you do in a marriage relationship wouldn't make sense carrying
it through the rest of the passage. Let me just add here. I think this is important to say. When we
talk about authority and submission, we're not talking about a person's dignity or value or worth.
Employers and employees all have dignity and value and worth. Children and parents have dignity,
value, and worth. Husbands and wives both have dignity. value, and worth. The fact that there's
authority and submission worked into those structures does not mean that the one who has authority
has more dignity or value or the one who is submitting has less dignity or value. Equal dignity,
value, and worth. But in the right structures, somebody has to be in charge and somebody has to be
following.
So whatever authority and submission look like in the home or anywhere else for that matter, it
needs to look like people being equally honored, valued, and treated with dignity. If it doesn't
look like that, it's not the right kind of authority or submission.
But the point of this Ephesians passage, going all the way back to Ephesians 5.21, we show
reverence for Christ by submitting ourselves to God-ordained human authority in our lives,
in the home. And the reason, like I said, the reason the master-slave thing is in there is because
that was a home relationship. Now, if you're thinking to yourself, I got a lot of questions about
how that's supposed to work out. That seems wrong or harsh or I don't understand that.
I did a message, this was about five years ago, on what submission looks like and what it doesn't
look like. And I'll just point you to the URL. If you want to go find this, you can go on our
website. Go to RedeemerLR.org slash submissions slash biblical dash submission.
You can copy that down, pull that link up, and listen to that message.
And it will cover what submission should look like and what it should not look like in a marriage
relationship. And if you've got questions after that, let's talk. because we don't have time to
unpack all of that. There's also a book from Kevin D. Young that I think is helpful. Chapter 5 in
his book talks about what authority and submission in the home should look like. The book is called
Men and Women in the Church, right? There it is. And he sums up what Ephesians 5 teaches about
roles in marriage this way. He says, it may sound archaic, if not fundamentally sinister, but God's
design for the home is a thoughtful, intelligent, gentle, submissive wife in a loving, godly,
self-sacrificing, leading husband. That's a summary of what it's supposed to look like.
My point here this morning is not to dive into submission in marriage. It's to say that submission
is a way of showing reverence to Christ. Learning to be humbly submissive to authority on earth
makes us more prone to being humbly submissive to God's authority in our lives.
It's not just in the home that we're supposed to be submissive. We're supposed to be submissive
when it comes to civil government. So in 1 Peter 2,
we read this, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution,
whether it be to the emperor as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil
and praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good,
you should be... should put to silence the ignorant and foolish people. Live as people who are
free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor
everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.
So think about this. This is Peter talking to people who are under persecution from an oppressive
government, and he says, be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, even to the
emperor.
On the heels of that, look at Romans 13, Paul writing to the church at Rome facing oppression,
and he says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there's no authority
except from God. Those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the
authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
Now, again, some of you are going, well, wait. How does all of that play? I've got questions about
that one. Okay. I'll give you two more sermon links you can go to. Go to redeemerlr.org slash
Christians dash and dash the dash government dash part one and part two.
You can copy those down or look those up. I did a deep dive into this subject there,
and you can look at what that looks like. But here's, I'll just summarize. We have a responsibility
as citizens and participants in a participatory democracy,
which we live in, which they didn't live in in Rome. We have a right and a responsibility to make
our voice heard, to use our vote, to try to be involved in helping to shape civil society and to
advocate for godly government characterized by righteousness and judgment. We have the privilege to
do that and a responsibility to do that, and we should. But you don't find any instruction in
Scripture about revolution against an ungodly government. You don't find anywhere where Paul says
to the Christians, look, we've had enough with Nero, who's putting our people to death. We're going
to go storm the Colosseum.
You honor Christ by submitting to governing authorities. Are there caveats to that?
Yes, I'll get to one of those caveats in just a minute. Or you can go back and listen to those.
Here's the final place where biblical submission is spoken of. It's in regard to leadership in the
local church. Hebrews 13, 17.
Obey your leaders and submit to them. This is in a church context. For they're keeping watch over
your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with
groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. So the leaders are told. Do it with joy,
and you're going to have to give an account for how you do it. We are told, submit to those leaders
who keep watch over your soul. That should be the posture for us in the church that we are
submitting to those who are spiritual leaders over us. Now,
the question comes up, in the home, in government, in the church, are there times when you should
not submit to authority?
Yes. The Bible gives us examples of times when there was not submission to godly authorities.
So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were told, bow down to this idol, and they said,
not going to do it. David was told, don't pray to God for 30 days. He said,
no, I'm going to pray to God. That's why. the three children wound up in the fiery furnace Daniel
and the lion's den because they resisted authority rightly and appropriately when Peter and James
were brought before the Sanhedrin and told do not preach about Jesus anymore they said we must obey
God and not man
here's the principle you need to keep in mind When it comes to submitting to human authority,
when any human authority forbids you to do what God requires or requires you to do what God
forbids, you must resist. You must not submit. Let me say that again. When any human authority
forbids you to do what God requires or requires you to do what God forbids,
you must resist. You must say no. You do it respectfully.
You do it in a way that honors the Lord.
But you say, I can't do that. The rest of the time, your default setting is submitting.
But in those instances where the government or husband or parents or church leaders are telling you
to do something that God forbids or requiring you to do something that God does not allow,
you say no. Let me give you an example from church history of this. Of course,
we're coming up on October 31st, which is what? No, it's Reformation Day.
Who said Halloween? You're up on church discipline for that.
We call it Reformation Day because on October 31st, 1517, an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther
decided he was going to start a theological debate. He was concerned about abuses in the church of
his day, the Catholic church.
95 theses, 95 propositions where he was saying these are ways in which our church is out of line
with Scripture. He was calling the question. He was inviting the debate. He had no idea that it
would lead to the Protestant Reformation. Reform means what Luther wanted to do was take the church
that had drifted and reform it back according to Scripture. Protestant means he was protesting.
The Protestant Reformation was the protest in order to reform the church. Instead of reforming the
church, what led was a new branch of the church. The corruption inside the Catholic Church
continued, and many left and started a branch of the church,
the Protestant branch of the church, that is that branch that is realigned with what the Bible
says. And you may realize that Back in those days,
when someone would post something like the 95 Theses on the door, this was not something that was
like, well, let's just have a friendly debate. To criticize the church,
put you at odds with the church, and if they determined that you were a heretic,
you know what the penalty for heresy was?
Death. So you raise an issue and say, I think this is wrong. I think this is what's right.
If the church says you're a false teacher, death is the outcome. In fact,
that's what happened with Luther. So he raised this issue, and the disputes went on for a couple
years. He began writing and saying, here's where I believe the church is out of line. He had
written a whole bunch of things, and finally there was a trial.
It was a council where the church was gathered, and Luther was put on trial. In those days,
they used to call trials a diet. I don't know why they called it a diet. I think we would get our
word diatribe from that, but the diet. And it was held in a place in Germany called Worms,
which in English looks like worms. I remember the first time I had a book on Luther,
and I was looking at the table of contents, and down here was the diet of worms. And I thought,
gross, what? Like Luther went on some kind of a new food diet where all he was eating was worms?
No, the diet was this trial in Worms, Germany, and they brought Luther in,
and they... They queried him. What about this? What about that? They had all of his writings laid
out. And at the end of it, they said, okay, Luther, our judgment is you must recant.
You must say you were wrong in what you've written or face a sentence of death.
We'll give you a day to think about that. Luther went away and took a day and then he came back and
everybody was waiting to see what Luther was going to say. And rather than me just reading it to
you, I'll show you this clip from the movie, Luther. where you can see what his response was to
that inquiry.
Unless I am convinced by scripture and by plain reason,
and not by popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves,
my conscience is captive to the word of God.
To go against conscience is neither right nor safe.
I cannot
and I will not recant.
Here I stand.
and do no other.
That is not the crowd cheering him on. That's the crowd calling for his head because he would not
recant. By the way, that's not dialogue from a movie. That's lines from history. That's what Luther
said in front of that trial. My conscience is bound to the word of God.
You're telling me as the church, I must submit to you. I cannot and will not because the word of
God is an authority over that. That's a time when you say no.
when you don't submit. And you can see, even as that's acted out,
is that Joseph Fiennes who's doing that? You can see as that's acted out, Joseph Fiennes is not
doing that belligerently. A lot of people will recite Luther's words and they will do it like he
was thundering, I cannot, I will not. No, I think Luther was trembling to go against the church and
say, I can't. Here I stand, God help me.
There are times when you Do not submit to authority, but here's what our default should be, and
I'll close with this. Final illustration of what appropriate submission looks like.
I hope you've read Prince Caspian. It's the second in the Chronicles of Narnia.
If you've not read it yet, you're probably not a Christian, okay? I'm kidding.
Prince Caspian, spoiler alert, he eventually becomes King Caspian in this book. He has a loyal
courtier. a dwarf named Trumpkin, not Trump,
Trumpkin, okay. And there's a stunning scene in the second half of this book where Caspian is
outlining a plan. He says, I think it's time for us to blow the horn. And everybody's debating
whether they should blow the horn or not. And finally, Caspian says, we're going to have to blow
the horn. And Trumpkin thinks Caspian is crazy to blow the horn. And then the king says,
I need a volunteer who will run an errand. for me on this and one of the other officers who also
thinks Caspian is crazy refuses to run the king's errand which at that point Trumpkin gets upset
let me read to you this is here's Trumpkin he says thimbles and thunderstorms cried Trumpkin in a
rage is this how you speak to the king send me sire I'll go but I thought you didn't believe in the
horn Trumpkin said Caspian no more I do your majesty what's that got to do with it I might as well
die on a wild goose chase as die here. You're my king. I know the difference between giving advice
and taking orders. You've had my advice. Now it's time for the orders. I will never forget this,
Trumpkin, said Caspian. As followers of Jesus, I hope we understand the difference between giving
advice and taking orders. I hope we understand that we are people who are to submit to human
authority, submit to God and to his word. That's our ultimate authority. Under that,
submit to human authority as we can. That should be the right posture. We should do it respectfully
and humbly and train ourselves to be people who live under authority, whether
it's human authority in the home, in our nation, or in the church. Let me pray. Father, we thank
you for your word. We confess to you that we are not people prone to submission to authority.
We are prone to a rebel heart.
Lord, I pray that you would cure our rebel heart and that you would make us people humbly
submissive to you and your word first and foremost, and then humbly submissive to human authority
that you have ordained for our good and for your glory.
Lord, I pray this morning for those who are here or those who are watching online who have not yet
made the first step of submitting to you as the ultimate authority in their lives,
whether they have been in church or reading their Bible, whatever it's been, they would know in
their heart that they have never bowed their knee and said, Jesus is my king,
I will do whatever he says.
Lord, I pray that you would, by your Spirit, stir in their hearts and that today would be that day
when they would make that decision to truly become your child and
to follow you in humble submission. I pray that you would stir that in their hearts. and transform
their lives as a result of that decision. I pray it in Jesus' name.