COMING UNDER DIVINE AUTHORITY
Our brother has spoken to us powerfully about chastening, which is in line with what we had over the weekend. It occurred to me that, before his conversion, Saul knew very little about chastening. He was a man used to having his own way and his own will. He did what he wanted to do, he did it how he wanted to do it. He was a powerful self-willed man! We know the story so well, beloved, but the Lord spoke to him, he was spoken to by Jesus on the road to Damascus. That was something he would never forget. It was something that changed him.
What I wanted to speak about was this matter of coming under divine authority. Saul was not used to any authority apart from his own, or the authority that had been given to him by the high priest in Jerusalem to persecute the saints. But here we have in the second section I read, that he comes under another authority. He was told to “rise up and enter into the city and it shall be told thee what thou must do”. He was a man who was not used to that! But really the Lord Jesus was coming into his soul and starting to subdue him. Saul came to accept that he was under another authority, a divine authority and that is a challenge for us all. We come to know the Lord Jesus first as our Saviour, and how vital that is. The gospel goes forth with that end in view, and of course that is the gateway into all that God has in mind for the believer. One early and essential step is that the believer comes under divine authority. And this overbearing man, this awkward man, came under divine authority after he had had a transaction with the Lord Jesus. We all have to learn that His way is best! Naturally we always want our own way, even from when we are children right through to old age, we enjoy having our own way; it is human nature in all of us. What we see here is a man who was starting to come under divine authority, and what blessing ensued from accepting divine authority. That is so for us; we come under great blessing if we accept this.
You might say, how does that happen? It cannot happen by our trying naturally, because we all know how much we fail. It is essential to have a link with the Lord Jesus in His heavenly position, and to know the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who helps to refine us and helps us to accept the divine authority. We then find that the Lord’s way is best! When Mary was found sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus in Luke 10, He told Martha that Mary had chosen the good part (v.42). It was not perhaps what others thought she should have been doing, but she had chosen the good part in being near to her Lord. An important part of our accepting such authority is knowing Jesus as Lord. As I said, we know Him as Saviour to start with, and He will always be our Saviour, but coming under His lordship is a further matter, recognising that His way is best. Here was this man who was changed, transformed you may say, and from this point was able to accept the authority of another.
It is for our blessing. Naturally we would never accept the Lord’s will; we fail every day, we know that, and yet there is a rich provision from on high to help us, to subdue us to accept the ways of God. Our brother has spoken about chastening. Naturally you would never accept chastening, but the gift of the Spirit, a link with the Lord Jesus and the compassions of the Father help us to accept and get through to what our brother has brought before us. How much Paul was chastened; he was a prisoner in chains for a large part of his life, he suffered in many ways. But what gain and fruit there was for God and for himself, and that fruit comes right down to us in the ministry that we call Paul’s ministry. We see many examples in scripture and also amongst us of that fruit and it is an encouragement to think, as our brother has said, of the end in view, because God here had Paul’s blessing in mind He has our blessing in mind, but first we must accept and come under the authority of the Lord. It is a simple thought, but may the Lord bless what we have said.
Word in meeting for ministry, Bad Endbach, Germany
7 October 2015
D.H. Marshall