Submission to Governing Authorities

Every one of us is called to submit to the Governing Authorities of the country we live in.

Christians in these countries must exercise wisdom and to find out whether they are permitted to share the Gospel to Muslims openly or not. You my like to say: "If we do not obey the Great Commission we fail to exercise our duty as Christians." So, we are faced with this dilemma - Fulfilling the Great Commission and forbiddance in sharing the Gospel to a section of the earth's population.

Paul said: "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" (Romans 13:1, 2, NKJV).

Unfortunately many Pastors, Church members, in their zeal and eagerness to win souls, fail to submit to the governing authorities in their country which clearly state that sharing the Gospel to Muslems is forbidden, and in line with what Paul said, they resist the ordinance of God and so bring judgment on themselves. Furthermore, some Bible Schools or Seminaries teach their students how to share the Gospel to the Muslims. Some Churches invite speakers to speak in their Church Camps on how to witness to Muslims step-by-step - how to be bold, insisting and forthright and so on. In my opinion they are being disobedient and resist the ordinance of God.

Let me state the Great Commission here so that you don't have to look it up - After His resurrection, Jesus said to His disciples: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. God therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:18 - 20).

There are ways to overcome the problem of getting Muslems saved and so fulfill the Great Commission. One of the ways is to pray for their salvation. Pray that the Holy Spirit may convict them of their sins and that reverent fear will overcome any resistant. It is said that behind every soul that is saved God heard our prayers seven time - either seven Christians have been praying or one Christian prayed sever times. Whether you believe it or not, this is bearing fruit for many Muslems are at present serving as Pastors and Evangelists. Their government knows about it but keeps quiet. I believe it is because of Christians' prayers.

The Blessings of Obedience

The Great Commission was Jesus' last words. I believe the last words of any person are important and more so of Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore our Lord desires that every Christian obeys the Great Commission. Let us look at the blessings and benefits of being obedient to His Word.

God carries the theme of obedience throughout His Word, from Genesis to Revelation. In Revelation 22:14, He says, "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, ..."

From beginning to end, from paradise lost to paradise gained, God's Law is unchangeable. Only obedience gives man access to the Tree of Life and God's favor.

You may ask how man gained access to the Tree of Life when his original disobedience close the way. Paul said: "For by one man's disobedience many wer made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). Read also Philippians 2:8, 9 and Hebrews 5:8, 9.

The whole redemption of Christ consists of restoring obedience to its place. The beauty on His salvation is that He brings us back to the life of obedience, through which the creature can give the Creator the glory due Him. It is in this way that the creature can also receive the glory his Creator desires to give him.

Old Testament Obedience

In the Old Testament, obedience always came into special prominence with any new beginning in the history of God's Kingdom. Noah, the new father of the human race, acted "according to all that God commanded him, so he did" (Gen. 6:22). Read also Gen. 7:5 and Gen. 9:16. The Bible mentions Noah's obedience four times. God entrusts His work to the man who does what He commands. God will use the obedient man to save His people.

The writer of Hebrews said: "By faith Abrahem obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going" (Heb. 11:8).

God chose Abraham to be the father of the chosen race because He knew Abraham had an obedient heart. After Abraham had spent forty years learning faith and obedience, God came to perfect Abraham's faith and crowned it with His fullest blessings. Nothing could pepare him for this but a supreme act of obedience. When Abraham had tied his son on the altar, God said: "By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, you only son - blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice" (Gen. 22:16 - 18).

The blessing contnued for Isaac. "... I will perform the oath which I swore to Abrahem your father. ... because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws" (Gen. 26:3 - 5).

When will we learn how unspeakably pleasing obedience is in God's sight? When will we understand how great the reward is that He bestows because obedience!

On Mount Sinai, God gave Moses this message: "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine" (Ex. 19:5).

In the very nature of things, it cannot be otherwise. God's holy will is His glory and perfection. Only by entering His will through obedience is it possible to be His people. The Bible says nineteen times that Moses, while building the sanctuary where God dwelled, and acted "According to the Lord commanded." Because Moses obeyed God, ".... the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle .... and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar" (Ex. 40:33, 34; Lev. 9:23, 24).

God delights to dwell in the midst of His people's obedience. It is the obedient He crowns with His favor and presence.

After the forty years wondering in the wilderness and its terrible revelation of the Fruit of disobedience, the Hebrews were ready for a new beginning. They were about to enter Canaan. In describing the Hebrew nation at this time, the book of Deuteronomy uses the word "obey" more frequently and speaks of the blessing obedience brings more than any other book. The whole idea is summed up in the words: "Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse; the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I commanded you today; and a curse, if you do not obey ..." (Deu. 11:26 - 28).

Yes, "a blessing if you obey!" That is the keynote of the Christian life. Our Canaan, just like Paradise and heaven, is a place of blessing as well as the place of obedience.

New Testament Obedience

In the New Testament, we immediately think of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ and the importance He placed on obedence as the one reason He came into the world. Jesus entered the world saying, "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God" (Heb. 10:9). He always confessed to men, "I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me" (John 5:30). Or all he did suffered, even to death, He said, "This command I have received from My Father" (John 10:18). In Christ's teaching, we find everywhere that He claims the same obedience He rendered to the Father from everyone who desires to be His disciple.

During His whole ministry, from beginning to end, He said obedience was the very essence of salvation. In the Sermon on the Mount, He began with that subject. No one could enter the Kingdom "but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (Matt. 7:21). In His farewell discourse, He wonderfully revealed the spiritual character of true obedience. It is born of love, inspired by it, and opens the way into the love of God.

Take into your heart the wonderful words, "If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him" (John 14:15, 16, 21, 23).

No words could express more simply or more powerfully the glorious place Christ gives obedience. It is only possible with a loving heart. Obedience opens the door to all God has to give of His Holy Spirit, His wonderful love, and His indwelling in Christ Jesus. No Scripture passage give a higher revelation of the spiritual life or the power of loving obedience as John 14. Let us pray and earnestly ask God that, by His Holy Spirit, light may transfigure our daily obedience with its heavenly glory.

Living daily in His Commandments

Chapter 15 of the Gospel according to John, the parable of the vine, confirms this idea. How oftern and earnestly we have asked to be able to live continually like Christ! We think that by studying the Word, having more faith, offering more parayer, or attaining more communion with God will make us Christ-like. Yet we have overlooked one simple truth. Jesus clearly teaches: "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love" (John 15:10).

For Him, as for us, the only way under heaven to live in divine love is to keep the commandments. Have you known obedience? Have you heard it preached? Have you believed it and proved it true in your experience that obedience on earth is the key to a place in God's love in heaven? Unless ther is come correspondance between God's wholehearted love in heaven and our wholehearted, loving obedience on earth, Christ cannot manifest Himself to us. God cannot abide in us. We cannot live in His love.

In Acts 2, Peter shows how our Lord's teaching entered into him. He said it was by, "the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him" (Acts 5:32). He showed that the preparation for Pentecost was surrender to Christ. Later he said, "We ought toobey God rather than men" (Acts 5:32). We are to be obedience even unto death. Nothing on earth can dare to hinder obedience in the man who has given himself to God.

In Paul's epistle to the Romans, he asserted, in the opening and closing verses, that "... for obedience to the faith among all nations for His name. And by the prophetic Scriptures has been made known to all nations ..." (Romans 1:5; 16:26) was the reason he had been made an apostle. He spoke of what God made happen "to make the Gentiles obedient" (Romans 15:18). He taught that as the obedience of Christ makes us righteous, we become servants of obedience. As disobedience in Adam and in us was what brought death, so obedience in Christ and in us is the one thing that the gospel makes known as the way of restoration to God and His favor.

Listening to and obeying the Word

James warned us, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves" (James 1:22). He then described how Abraham was justified and his faith perfected by his works.

In 1 Peter, obedience has an important place in Peter's system. In 1 Peter 1:2, he speaks to the "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." He shows us that obedience is the eternal purpose of the Father. It is the great object of the work of the Spirit and a chief part of the salvation of Christ. He writes, ".... as obedient children, no conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct" (1 Peter 1:14, 15).

Obedience is the starting point of true holiness. In 1 Peter 1:22 we read, "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth..." Complete acceptance of God's truth was not merely a matter of intellectual assent or stron emotion. it was subjecting one's life to the dominion of the truth of God. The Christian life was, first and formost, characterized by obedience.

We know how strong John's statements are. "I know Him, and does not keep His commandments is a liar" (1 John 2:4). Obedience is the certificate of Christian character. "Let us not love in word or in tonque, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight" (1 John 3:3:8, 9, 22).

Obedience is the secret of a good conscience and the confidence that God hears us. "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3). We reveal our love for God, to Him as well as the world, through our cheerful obedience.

Obedience holds this high place in Scripture, in the mind of God, and in the hearts of His servants. We should ask ourselves if it takes that place in our hearts and lives. Have we given obedience that supreme place of authority over us that God means it to have? Is it the inspiration of every action and every approach of Him?

If we yield ourselves to the seaching of God's Spirit, we may find that we never gave obedience its proper proportion in our scheme of life and that this lack is the cause of all our failure in prayer and in work. We may see that the deeper blessings of God's grace, and the full enjoyment of God's love and nearness, have been beyond our reach simply because we never made obedience what God meant it to be. It is the starting point and the goal of our Christian life.

Let us unite in prayer that the Holy Spirit will show us how defective the Christian's life is when obedience does not rule everything. Let Him show us how that life can be exchanged for one of full surrender and absolute obedience. We can then be sure that God in Christ will enable us to live this live successfully.