DISOBEY TO OBEY by Joshua Nyaulingo
“Honor
everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor” RSV 1 Peter 2:17
If you don’t do according to the order
that has been given by the authority of a certain community group that you live
in, you’re automatically disobeying or breaking the rules, and because of that,
you deserve punishment. I hope that i have already defined these two terms,
disobey and obey. In additional, these two words are relatives, when I say they
are relative I don’t mean that they relate, no. what I mean is that, a
word “disobey” is neither negative nor
positive, the same applies to a word “obey” though disobey sounds negative. May
be this example will make you understand more the tittle “disobey to obey”. you
are a Christian working in a certain company or organization, you are may be
also in a certain big position in that company, you are probably a secretary
and you are told or ordered by your bosses to write false information about the
company for the sake of the company that you are working with, if you don’t do
that, you are fired. There you are! You either disobey your bosses and obey
God’s word or disobey God and obey your bosses. That’s what I mean by “disobey
to obey”
So many times authorities, pastors in
the churches, parents in families, bosses at working places and elders in the
communities have misuse their positions that God granted, they use the bible,
God’s word to tell people to be submissive, obeying, honoring, respecting the
authority, it is true but you can’t use God’s word to favor your side, never,
and there is owe to those who change the truth to be lies and lies to be truth,
those who justify the wicked and condemn the righteous Proverb 17:15. The bible
never only says to respect, honor, obey or be submissive to authority, there is
more than that people do not say or speak about it simply because they want to
favor their sides, they use that as defensive mechanism which is totally wrong,
and we don’t use God’s word to do evils. This grieves God’s heart.
May be what I am going to say next may
sound more rebellious to you, those who are in authority, parents, husbands and
pastors may not understand me, or it might sound fishy to them. Sometimes to
fear God is to be ready for a wife not to be submissive to a husband for God,
for a slave to disrespect their masters for God, for a citizen not to be
submissive to authority, for children to dishonor their parents for God. I know that doesn’t sound good to many but
that’s how it is.
There are so many scriptures in the
bible that speak about, obeying the rulers and being submissive to the
authority. When you read the book of Romans 1;7a, you find that Paul is writing this letter to
all those in Rome and he is emphasizing by saying “….who are loved by God and
called to be saints..” so Paul was writing this letter to born again Christians
or believers. Now read here what is writing about submission to authority,
“Let everyone must submit himself to the
governing authorities. For there is no
authority except that which God has established, the authority that exist have
been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against authority is
rebelling against what God has instituted. and those who do so will bring the
judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right…….” NIV Romans 13:1-7
Mind
you that Paul wasn’t talking about church authority here, but he was talking
about the governing authority or the ruling government of that time and it seem
that these romans (believers) wanted to separate themselves from the government
responsibilities simply because they were born again Christians.
Is it true that there is no authority except
from God?
I hope most
of you would like to hear about this because of the political situation that is
going on in your state. What I can say is yes, there is no authority except
from God, He is the source of authority To
begin with, God places a high value on authority because He is the one who
created it. The Bible says that all authority comes from and originates with
God. He is the absolute source of authority in the universe, and has delegated
His principle of authority to mankind to maintain order in the world. “Let
every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority
except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore
whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist
will bring judgment on themselves” (Rom. 13:1-2).
God’s Word says that followers of
Christ should be obedient to secular laws and government because according to
scripture, secular authority is intended to be a “minister of God for our good”
(Rom. 13:4), and serves His purpose of keeping law and order on the earth (1
Pet. 2:14-15). The Apostle Paul wrote, “...submit yourselves to every ordinance
of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as
to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise
of those who do good” (1 Pet. 2:13-14).
Have you ever thought of those whom
you think they are evils, are the ones that they are called ministers of God?
When they exercise the authority they serve the purpose of God. Jesus himself
acknowledged that those who were in authority in those days, they were given by
God in spite of their evil doings, here he speaks to Pilate;
Jesus answered, “You would have no power
(authority) over me if it were not given to you from above” NIV John 19:11
Do
you see that? Jesus knew that those who are in position whether they are born
again Christian or not, they are exercising God’s authority. And Jesus here is
assuring Pilate that the authority that he had was from above, no matter what.
Is there no authority that comes from the
devil?
Just
as God is the source of all authority, Satan is author of all rebellion. We may
recall that the Devil (Lucifer), a former archangel, was originally cast out of
Heaven because he led an insurrection against God (Isa. 14:12-15). Rebellion is
the very spirit of Satan’s attitude (Eph. 2:2), and if we permit it to dominate
us it will infect and taint our attitude toward all authority, including God
and His Word.
The
prophet Samuel said, “...rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and
stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:23). The Apostle Peter
said that those who are corrupt “despise authority” (2 Pet. 2:10) without
forgetting that he was speaking to born again Christians, and the Proverbs say,
“An evil man
seeks only rebellion...” RSV Proverbs 17:11
Satan
initiated nothing, the bible terms him as a liar and father of lies, he twists
whatever is good to bad. He changes the mind of rulers and leaders to act
against God’s way of ruling. So he has nothing to do with authority though he
is able to use the ones in authority to abuse and act injustice.
What if the authority is unjust?
I have never been to any school of
law, so I may not satisfy you with my answers because I may also ask you what
is being just and unjust, then come to find out that being just and unjust is
relative. that means it depends on the social context, what you think is just
to you might be unjust to another person of other countries .but we have a
divine weigh to measure what is just and what is unjust, that’s God’s word. Let
me ask this question to you as a Christian. What do you do if you find that
your authority or government is unjust and corrupt? Most of your answer is, I
pray for it. It isn’t that easy, can you really pray for the government that
you hate? How do you pray?
Let’s see what the early church did to
the unjust government. First of all this is what Peter is telling the believers
It’s true that, in the absence of
Godly and moral values, there can sometimes be abuses of authority and
perversions in government. Such was the case when Peter and John were forbidden
to preach the Gospel by the Jewish Sanhedrin. They replied, “Whether it is
right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge” (Acts
4:19). The only circumstance that disobedience to authority is justifiable by
scripture is if it conflicts with the laws of God.
Paul tells us to pray for all those in
authority: “ I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions,
and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in
authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and
reverence” (1 Tim. 2:1-2). God can use our prayers for those in authority, to
either change their heart or remove them from power entirely. God reserves the
right of administering discipline and reproof to those who represent His
authority (Rom. 14:4, 1 Chron. 16:21-22).
May be I should talk about this just a
bit. There are so many riots and strikes that happen in Tanzania, especially
that of teachers against the government. Many times we born again Christians find
ourselves in the same track of grumbling and murmurings against the government.
There is something that Paul in his letter to Timothy, 1Tim 2:1 he begins with,
“first of all” means, before doing anything, what is to be done? Supplications,
prayers, intercession and thanksgiving to be made to all men. But what happens
people do not start with that! They think riots and strikes is the answer. I don’t
want to go deeper on that but there is a secret of problems that happen when
people riots and suddenly they get what they want, and think that their
problems have been solved, and they conclude that “riots help” no big NO. What
really happens is that, you have forced the government to meet your need with
the money that was not planned for that or the money that was planned for that
is no more, in whatever means they will cover that through yourself or they will
look for loan that put our country in danger till now. What I want to say is
that, think big, and make prayers your priorities. Ephesians 6:12
Authority should be cooperated with except in
those situations where laws depart from the basic moral and righteous principles
of God’s Word, there where disobey to obey works.
In the book of Daniel chapter 3, here
we see the story about two God fearing men who disobeyed the king to obey the
King of kings, these are Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego, and I know that you
know well about this story. Mind you that these three people were not only
citizens but also among the government leaders of Babylon. The bible says that
King Nebuchadnezzar set set the image of gold and commanded everyone to bow
before it and worship it, and the penalty for this was very big, the penalty
wasn’t that of not being given their salary or to be fired or dismissed from
work, then, if it was that, even me I would say “to hell only one month salary”
but the judgment was to be thrown into the blazing furnace, ooh what a scaring
punishment!. We need to take a simple example, I had a friend of mine, she was
a Christian employed to a certain organization, she was very open to me
especially at a time her boss wanted her for sexual pleasure, remember, she was
a Christian. At the first time when she was asked, she came and shared to me
and I asked her “what did you tell him”, “I told him that I wasn’t ready for
that “she replied. Then I asked her “when are you going to be ready?” “I don’t
want it because am a Christian and it is sin” she replied with anger, as if I
was her boss, I told her that is what she was supposed to tell her boss. The
truth is this she was afraid to tell him no! So us to protect her job and
position and that’s what most of we Christian do. When God gives us jobs, we
forget everything and we start mess up by doing our bosses’ will that is
against God’s will. For long time that lady was quiet. One day again she called
me on the phone asking for a help, she said that she didn’t go work because her
boss wanted to go with her for dinner, “did you tell him that you are a
Christian and it is sin” I asked her, “no its hard Josh, I know if I say that I
will lose my job, she replied. “ what is better, to lose the job or to lose the
one who has given you the job” I asked her, she was silent for a while. “Okay,
you are at home now that’s mean you haven’t gone to work, what did you tell him”?
I asked her. “I told him that am sick” she replied, “so you lied” I asked, “yes
I did, better that than going out with him”, “you have sinned and you have to
repent”. You know what, these three guys did not give any excuses, their
answers were no to the golden image, they didn’t say that they were busy with
their works, they didn’t say that it was against their religion, listen to what
they say;
“But if not, be it known to you, O king, we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” RSV Daniel 3:18
That
was black and white men! There were no excuses. when are we going to have leaders who can stand in the parliament and
say no to what is ungodly, to say no to emblazonment, to say no to corruption. When
are we going to have church members who will stand before the church and say no
to false teachings cooked by some of the pastors and false teachers? Do you
know what happened to the king after hearing what these God fearing men said?
“Then
Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury and the expression of his face was changed
against Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego. He ordered that the furnace heated
seven times more than it was usually heated,” RSV Daniel 3:19
O men! are you ready to be kicked out
of the office just because you have disobeyed your boss and obeyed God?, are
you ready to be separated from the people of your own blood an insulted simply
because you have not kept their traditional things because of your faith to
God? Woman, in spite of the engagement ring, are you able to say no to sex to
your partner before marriage? Are you ready to see the face of your partner
changed in such a way you have never experienced and told you no marriage and
its over?
NB, we
are to obey the laws the government establishes. The only instance in which
disobeying the law is permitted by Scripture is if the law contradicts God’s
commands (Acts 5:29
Is it possible for children to disobey their parents in order to obey God? what does the scripture say?, you will find it in the next post, God bless you.xo
