We’re to be Under Authority
Scripture: Ephesians 4:11Devotional Series: The Good Shepherd
Teaching: The Good Shepherd pt. 1 (SUN_AM 2021-03-07) by Pastor Star R Scott
In your natural man, how many of you do not like people bossing you around? How many of us even get mad at inanimate objects like traffic lights when they change before we go through them and our progress is hindered? We are rebels at heart, every one of us. And every one of us thinks he should be God. In your rebellion, in your refusal to subordinate to the Word of God, you succumb to Satan’s lies challenging God’s Word: when God said, “If you eat this fruit, you will die.” No, he said, “You shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Then Satan came and said, “Ye shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Since that moment every man has had to make the choice, “Will I believe God or Satan?” We think it’s our own flesh, but it’s Satan: it’s the power of sin; it’s the secret power of lawlessness. “I will not let God’s Word stand as it pertains to everything in my life: my life’s choices, the course that I have set, etcetera.”
When we talk about the secret power of lawlessness, it’s not just about civil Law (though it pertains to that), but about that innate lordship. Every one of us must see that the lord of self is crucified and crucified daily; amen? How many of you have noticed that the days, when you don’t crucify that old man early, don’t go very well? It’s in us; it’s in our flesh. Henceforth we should walk in the Spirit and we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The lusts of the flesh listed in Galatians are just self‑indulgence, self‑promotion, and preferring self; that’s all the lusts of the flesh are.
This secret power of lawlessness goes beyond those things that pertain to our fleshly appetites, and we see it in different doctrines in church denominations. At the time of the Reformation there were a couple of things that planted seeds within the church that are still bearing destructive fruit and confusion and schism and weakness, right up to the twenty-first century. One of the things that happened was resentment within many of the religious leaders as they opposed authority in the Roman church. Remember what allowed the Roman Catholic church to be so powerful: it kept its people ignorant of the Bible; that’s why the mass was always held in Latin. If you keep the people ignorant, you make them depend on you to be the source of truth (you meaning “the papacy, the priesthood, the church). During the Reformation these men came out from under the Catholic church and received the revelation of the priesthood of the believer. But what happened was that people began to use this new‑found liberty in a way that promoted self and independence: it was a doctrine of the priesthood of the believer that said, “We no longer need any hierarchy: we are all kings and priests; we are all full of the Holy Spirit.” They found the verses that say, “Ye need not that any man to teach you” (1 John 2:27) and took the position that promoted independence and exalted self. Though all of those are biblical truths—thank God that we have the Holy Spirit residing within us as our Teacher—you can’t take that as a general statement because Ephesians says, “And He gave some…teachers” (Ephesians 4:11). People take a verse and run with it to provide proof‑text for their position, but you have to read it in context. John stated that because people were standing up and saying, “We have received special spiritual illumination. We are the teachers who have this hidden mystery, these secrets of God, that others don’t know.” John speaks to them and says, “Wait a minute: we don’t have need of new enlightenment from these self‑appointed teachers. We have a more, sure Word of Prophesy”; amen?
When we talk about the secret power of lawlessness, it’s not just about civil Law (though it pertains to that), but about that innate lordship. Every one of us must see that the lord of self is crucified and crucified daily; amen? How many of you have noticed that the days, when you don’t crucify that old man early, don’t go very well? It’s in us; it’s in our flesh. Henceforth we should walk in the Spirit and we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The lusts of the flesh listed in Galatians are just self‑indulgence, self‑promotion, and preferring self; that’s all the lusts of the flesh are.
This secret power of lawlessness goes beyond those things that pertain to our fleshly appetites, and we see it in different doctrines in church denominations. At the time of the Reformation there were a couple of things that planted seeds within the church that are still bearing destructive fruit and confusion and schism and weakness, right up to the twenty-first century. One of the things that happened was resentment within many of the religious leaders as they opposed authority in the Roman church. Remember what allowed the Roman Catholic church to be so powerful: it kept its people ignorant of the Bible; that’s why the mass was always held in Latin. If you keep the people ignorant, you make them depend on you to be the source of truth (you meaning “the papacy, the priesthood, the church). During the Reformation these men came out from under the Catholic church and received the revelation of the priesthood of the believer. But what happened was that people began to use this new‑found liberty in a way that promoted self and independence: it was a doctrine of the priesthood of the believer that said, “We no longer need any hierarchy: we are all kings and priests; we are all full of the Holy Spirit.” They found the verses that say, “Ye need not that any man to teach you” (1 John 2:27) and took the position that promoted independence and exalted self. Though all of those are biblical truths—thank God that we have the Holy Spirit residing within us as our Teacher—you can’t take that as a general statement because Ephesians says, “And He gave some…teachers” (Ephesians 4:11). People take a verse and run with it to provide proof‑text for their position, but you have to read it in context. John stated that because people were standing up and saying, “We have received special spiritual illumination. We are the teachers who have this hidden mystery, these secrets of God, that others don’t know.” John speaks to them and says, “Wait a minute: we don’t have need of new enlightenment from these self‑appointed teachers. We have a more, sure Word of Prophesy”; amen?