11/05/24 BEWARE ILLEGITIMATE AUTHORITY

11/05/24 BEWARE ILLEGITIMATE AUTHORITY

Submission to legitimate authority is a primary principle.
Submission to illegitimate authority is fundamental to failure.

Some people who have some legitimate authority claim to have authority in areas that they do not have legitimate authority.

Do not follow the deceived or the deceivers.
Whoever claims authority illegitimately is an usurper.
Whoever follows illegitimate authority will be disobeying legitimate authority.
Those who follow God, follow legitimate authority at various levels.

God has given legitimate authority to others. When we resist legitimate authority, we are resisting God.
God chooses to reveal His authority through humans (husbands, parents, pastors, elders), as they submit to His will and His word.

Those who redirect their allegiance to an illegitimate authority are rebelling against God.
Those who set themselves as the authority, aside from Biblical revelation, are rebelling against God.

Submission to legitimate authority is active confession that we are not our own masters. We are bought with a price. We are answerable to God and His rule.
This is why oneness of mind with God and His people is important. Anyone who resists humility and submission to legitimate authority is bringing divisiveness into God's plan for Divine order.

Even in our rejection of illegitimate authority we need to be orderly. Though it is true that we ought to obey God rather than men, it is also true that God is not the Author of confusion.

With God and His people we need to be of one mind, we need to have the mind of Christ, we need to think more highly of others than we think of ourselves.
Christ humbled Himself.
Christ submitted to legitimate authorities.
Christ learned obedience and became the perfect Servant and Sacrifice.
Christ kept the Father's commandments and instructs us to do the same.

Paul wrote.
Philippians 2:2-8
2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.