Living under the Authority of God

Now, we have this idea in our culture that to be a man, to be a real man, to be macho man, is to surrender to nobody. “Nobody is going to tell me what to do.” That’s one of the stupidest statements that could ever come out of the mouth of a man. Real men don’t make statements like that. Because there’s lots of folks out there that can come by and tell me what to do, and I would say, “Yes, sir,” because they’re stronger than I am and more courageous than I am. They’re smarter than I am. And I’d be a fool not to follow them. But the quintessence of foolishness would be to try to get God on your side, under your leadership, under your authority. But that’s what we do.

We pray and we say, “OK God, I appreciate what You did yesterday. You did a great job on the battlefield there. Now I’ll give You Your assignment for tomorrow.” We think that our prayers or our petitions are mandates for the Deity to go into action, and we forget who is in charge. And this happens not only individually, but it happens corporately with churches.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of His church. Not a general assembly, not a session, not a presbytery, not a convention. Christ is the Lord of the church. And as a Christian, your conscience is to be held captive not by the institution, which is only a secondary source. And you’re supposed to respect it and listen to it and all of that. But your conscience is captivated only by Jesus Christ. Only Christ has the right and the power and the authority to bind your conscience, because only God has the authority ultimately to bind your conscience, and Christ is God. He is the captain of the Lord of hosts.