Obeying God Rather Than Men

Now, does that mean no one should say anything in church? By no means. I have been in many services where the Spirit of the LORD came down and worked through many different people in a variety of ways. But we do have to practice caution. For we must make sure that it is the flow of the Holy Spirit in our hearts rather than our own spirit or even an evil spirit tricking us to cause harm.

I remember years ago having to deal with a lady who had convinced herself that God had told her that she should go to different churches, interrupt the service and tell the people that there were living wrong. She came to our church and told me that God had told her she needed to get up and chastise all the people during one of our services. I tried to tell her as sweetly as I could that God had called me to be the spiritual leader of that particular congregation and that each week God laid His word and His message on my heart to share. The Holy Spirit would tell me if she was to get up or not. I had to remind her that I was the shepherd of that flock and I did not believe that God wanted her to come in and tell everyone what they needed to do. All she would be doing was to cause confusion and bring attention to herself. She was not going to uplift Jesus or help the congregation to grow.

You see, she did not want to do it in a spirit of love and forgiveness. She wanted to set them right. She didn't even know the people nor had she spent time in prayer for them. She just felt that God wanted her to come and set everyone straight. I invited her to come and be with us and after a period of time (through prayer and fasting) that God would show us and our leaders if she needed to share any message at all. Sadly, she got mad, pouted and left. I found out later she was on a circuit. She believed that it was her gift to go and tell people how they needed to get straight with the LORD. She felt that it was her mission to cause confusion and chaos.

We all know that the Holy Spirit does send people like that to churches but when He does it is always in a spirit of love, a heart full of godly sorrow and a humble attitude. They come ready to help a church not tear it apart. They come prayed up and full of Holy Ghost Love. And when they do what the Spirit says you can feel a sweetness, you can sense an anointing falling all around. Without that anointing, without that sweetness it is all simply noise and confusion.

So, how was Peter able to look the High Priest square in the face and tell him - WE MUST OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN and it be the right thing to say?

How was Peter able to stand up against the religious establishment and in fact be right in doing so?

1. We see that he did it by being a person saturated with scripture. He did it by being a man of God's Word.

2. He did it by being a person saturated in prayer; both individual and corporate. For Peter was not speaking on his own, he was speaking on behalf of all the apostles that had been arrested and told not to speak in the name of Jesus.