DO NOT (PART 28) – RESPECT AUTHORITY

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Fear the Lord and the king, my son, and do not join with rebellious officials, for those two will send sudden destruction on them, and who knows what calamities they can bring?

Proverbs 24:21-22         

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

After a long military career, you learn many, many lessons. In regard to leadership, you quickly are taught this one:

You may not always agree with leadership but you will respect and honor it nonetheless.

When a person is in a place of authority, they are to be followed unless what they are ordering you to do is completely inappropriate and outside regulations. There is to be no rebuttal or undermining or rebellion against those placed in a position of leadership, only compliance, conformance, and obedience.

There’s a danger that comes with consistently adopting an attitude that rejects and objects authority. We can become people who are unwilling to follow anyone including the Lord God Almighty, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the One who reigns and rules over all.

As we look at the final sayings of the thirty Saying of the Wise, we find Solomon touching on the matter of respecting authority as he wrote the following words:

Fear the Lord and the king, my son, and do not join with rebellious officials, for those two will send sudden destruction on them, and who knows what calamities they can bring? Proverbs 24:21-22

Note what God’s word tells us our attitude should be toward those placed in positions of leadership over us. We are to fear the Lord and other authorities and refrain from any action rebellious in nature. Now as we see in other places in scripture, fear in this instance doesn’t mean a cowering in a corner, afraid to the point of being paralyzed kind of fear. No, fear here means a respect for authority, obediently following their guidance and loyally serving them.

Let’s be honest. We’re not always as good at this as we should be. In fact, sometimes we are downright awful at it.

We tend to want to find every single wrong in the people we work for and rail against it, forgetting that they are no different than we are, imperfect sinners who are under the rule of a perfect Lord. Rather than comply and seek to support those who lead us, too often we try to work against them instead of for them as we are supposed to do.

That’s why this word of the Lord is one we had better pay attention to for it sends a “do not” caution we would be well served to observe:

“Do not” disrespect and/or rebel against authority.”

Why?

Solomon tells us the consequences for taking such a stance:

“Those two will send sudden destruction on them, and who knows what calamities they can bring?”

Disrespect your boss at work and you could find yourself out of work.

Disrespect the Lord and you’ll have much more to worry about than just losing your work for you could lose a lot more than just that.

The bottom line is that nothing good comes out of rebelling against authority unless the rebellion has been ordered and blessed by the Lord who at times has sanctioned the overthrowing of leaders who chose to abuse their authority and mistreat the people the Lord placed under their control.

Know and trust that the Lord has, is, and will always look after His people. Because of this truth, we should show nothing short of our greatest gratitude to Him, honoring our Maker and Keeper with our obedience to everything He calls us to do.

The call here is clear. We are to respect authority.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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