Last week we talked about Moses being called to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt. All the Israelites were happy and praised God, till things got harder for them. Then they began to question Moses’ calling and authority.
We also spoke briefly on discernment, and said that discernment begins once we have recognized and submitted to true authority.
You may ask, “What if I discern that my leader is not making a very good choice? Should I obey him, knowing he is headed for misfortune.”
Well, John shared something the Holy Spirit showed him. The Lord had asked if He had placed the Pastor in authority as Pastor or if he had placed John in that position. When John replied that the Pastor was placed there.
The Holy Spirit said, “Because I placed him in the position of Pastor and not you, I will show him things I don’t need to show you, and many times I will keep the wisdom of his decision from you on purpose to see if you will follow him as he follows Me.
It’s not our responsibility to decide whether or not our leader is making a wise or good decision, no matter what the outcome. The One who put the leader in authority will be the One to judge.
Leaders will be judged, but so will we. Leaders will be judged for the decisions they have made, and the judgment they will receive will be more strict then ours.
Luke 12:48 "But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.
James 3:1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.
But, our judgment will be based on our submission, because authority is from God. To resist or go against delegated authority is to go against God.
In our second lesson I shared John’s story of the youth and the cancellation of home groups. Not only did John believe the Senior Pastor was wrong, but he felt the Senior Pastor had been influenced against him.
The office manager, who worked closely with the Senior Pastor, did not like John and was building a case to see John fired.
This officer had erected a wall of separation between John and the Senior Pastor by giving negative reports to each about the other. Most were blatantly untrue.
When the Senior Pastor cancelled the home groups, John says, he saw it as another attack against him, due to the lies and such being brought against him by this manager.
John felt certain that he was ‘discerning’ properly. Feeling that he was the one in the right, he believed the Pastor had been mislead and was making a bad decision as a result.
John wondered, “How could God want eight months of hard work washed down the drain along with the potential of many salvations?”
“For all these reasons I was relentless as I challenged the Senior Pastor for twenty minutes in that meeting. I left feeling righteous and justified – only to be rebuked by the Holy Spirit when I got home. Then the deep realization came to me: I was dealing not with a man’s authority, but with God’s.”
Shortly afterward the Lord impressed a scripture on John’s heart. Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.”
The king in this scripture represents the person in authority over you. Whether that leader is kind or harsh, the scripture says that leader’s heart is in His hand.
Even the heart of a harsh ruler? Well, the scripture doesn’t say the ‘kind’ leader’s heart is in His hand. It also doesn’t say, ‘As long as the leader hasn’t been influenced, his heart can be turned by the Lord.’
You may say, “What if I have concrete proof that the leader is making a bad decision? What if I know for a fact that the leader is being wrongly influenced? Isn’t there anything I can do?”
The answer is yes.
Esther is a good example of this. Abraham’s children were captive under Persian rule. Haman came up with a plan and influenced King Xerxes to sign a decree to kill all the Jews. The King even set the date.
Queen Esther, unknown to anyone, was a Jew and descendant of Abraham. Mordecai came to Esther and asked her to go to the King on behalf of her people. Mordecai understood that this would be a dangerous thing for her to do. It would make it known that she also was a Jew and could jeopardize her freedom by exposing her heritage to try and save her people.
Before Esther went to the King, she fasted for three days, and God caused the King to look favorably upon her. (Remember in that day, her going to him when he hadn’t called for her could have been grounds for death in and of itself)
The King asked Esther what her request was, and she invited the King to a banquet she was going to hold for him and Haman. He agreed and both he and Haman went to the meal she had prepared for them.
Later that evening, the King, unable to sleep, asked one of his servants to read to him the chronicles. While listening to the reading, he remembered that Mordecai the Jew had saved his life, and had not been rewarded for doing so.
The King, wanting to honor Mordecai, consulted Haman as to how to honor this man. Haman, thinking that the King was speaking about him, came up with a very elaborate way of honoring this person. He thought he was setting up his own blessing.
The King then told Haman that he wanted this form of honor carried out, that Haman was to be the one to do it, and that it was to be done for Mordecai. Haman was mortified due to his hate for Mordecai, but God was working something in the King’s heart. God was preparing the King’s heart for what Esther was going to tell him.
When the King and Haman returned to Esther for another meal, the King once again asked her what her request was.
Esther 7:3-4, “If Your Majesty is pleased with me and wants to grant my request, my petition is that my life and the lives of my people will be spared. For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had only been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would have been a matter too trivial to warrant disturbing the king.”
Wow! Let’s look at this. The first thing we see is that the King had made a mistake in an uninformed decision he had made, yet Esther spoke to him with the utmost respect. Secondly, she showed her wisdom in a very humble way in the presence of his authority.
She made a request, but left the decision in his hands. She didn’t challenge his authority. She brought to him in a humble way, a clearer view, so that when he followed through his decision, it was an informed one.
She relied and trusted that God would work in the heart of the King. God did work in the heart of the King. Haman was hanged and the Jews were spared being slaughtered.
Esther had concrete evidence, not just discernment, that her leader lacked information vital to his decision. She brought him the facts in a non-threatening, non-challenging way, leaving him with the decision without direction or influence.
She didn’t put down the King for his ignorance. She didn’t try to change his decision or give her opinion of how it should be handled. She trusted God to work the answer in the King, and only brought him information he was not aware of.
Well, that worked out ok, but what if the decision has already been made before all the facts can be brought to the leader?
Well, let’s look at David and King Saul. For forty days the Philistine, Goliath, had defied the armies of God. He had challenged Israel to send out a champion to fight him. With one battle between two men, the matter could have been settled.
The Israelite armies were terrified of this giant, and were afraid to answer this giant’s threats. God put it on David’s heart to fight the giant. King Saul instantly refused permission. Let’s face it; David was just a boy. What could he do when the whole army was in fear?
David, being told no, didn’t argue but made an earnest request. I Sam.17:34-37, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth;
And when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God…
The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
There was respect in his presentation of information to King Saul. He told Saul things that he knew Saul didn’t know when he made his initial decision. Then he trusted God to change the heart of his leader. The Lord did change the heart of Saul, and Saul told David, “Go, and the Lord be with you!”
When bringing fact to a leader, about a decision that has been made or is about to be made, we must remember humility. We don’t need to change the leader’s mind. We aren’t responsible for the decision made by the leader.
We need to keep our reverence for the authority, remain submitted when bringing fact, and remember the decision rests in the hands of the leader. Our job is to trust God, because “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord.”
Next week we wrap up “What if authority tells me…?”