There is an old story about a captain on a ship, who looked into the dark night and saw faint lights in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south.” Promptly a return message was received: “Alter your course 10 degrees north.”
The captain was angry, because his command had been ignored. So he sent a second message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south – I am the captain!” Soon another message was received: “Alter your course 10 degrees north – I am a seaman third class Jones.”
Immediately the captain sent a third message, knowing the fear it would evoke: “Alter your course 10 degrees south – I am a battleship.” Then the reply came: “Alter your course 10 degrees north – I am a lighthouse.” (Paul Aiello, Jr., Leadership, Vol. 4, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com)
In these dark and foggy times, many people want to be the captain of their own lives. They refuse to submit to any authority, but that can only lead to certain disaster. I believe that’s the root of the chaos we see around us today.
Five years ago (August 2015), Barna research conducted a poll, which highlights what they call our “new moral code” here in the United States. They presented a series of statements and asked whether people agreed “completely” or “somewhat” with those statements. This is what they found for the following statements:
“The best way to find yourself is to look within yourself”—91 percent of U.S. adults agreed; 76 percent of practicing Christians agreed.
“People should not criticize someone else's lifestyle choices”—89 percent agreed; 76 percent of Christians agreed.
“To be fulfilled in life, you should pursue the things you desire most”—86 percent agreed; 72 percent of Christians agreed.
“The highest goal in life is to enjoy it as much as possible”—84 percent agreed; 66 percent of Christians agreed.
“People can believe whatever they want, as long as those beliefs don't affect society”—79 percent agreed; 61 percent of Christians agreed.
“Any kind of sexual expression between two consenting adults is acceptable”—69 percent agreed; 40 percent of Christians agreed.
These results led David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons to conclude in a book they wrote the following year that “the morality of self-fulfillment is everywhere, like the air we breathe. Much of the time we don't even notice we're constantly bombarded with messages that reinforce self-fulfillment – in music, movies, video games, apps, commercials, TV shows, and every other kind of media.” (David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, Good Faith, Baker Books, 2016, pages 55-57; www.PreachingToday.com)
A selfish, self-centered lifestyle is “the air we breathe” these days. Everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes, including a lot of believers. As a result, our culture is crashing on the rocks of relativism.
So how do you live in such a culture? How do you navigate in these dark and foggy times? How do you move forward without crashing into those rocks, yourself? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Judges 17, Judges 17, where we see Israel in a time when “everyone was doing what was right in his own eyes.”
Judges 17:1-6 There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And he said to his mother, “The 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse, and also spoke it in my ears, behold, the silver is with me; I took it.” And his mother said, “Blessed be my son by the LORD.” And he restored the 1,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, “I dedicate the silver to the LORD from my hand for my son, to make a carved image and a metal image. Now therefore I will restore it to you.” So when he restored the money to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith, who made it into a carved image and a metal image. And it was in the house of Micah. And the man Micah had a shrine, and he made an ephod and household gods, and ordained one of his sons, who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (ESV)
This is a refrain that you will see three more times in the book of Judges. It summarizes what is behind all the chaos in the country: There is no authority. So everyone is doing whatever they want to do. They’re doing whatever they think is right, which leads to chaos in the home, 1st of all.
What you have here is a typical Jewish home during the period of the Judges in Israel. Micah, whose name means “Who is like YHWH,” steals from his crazy mother, who curses the thief and then blesses him when she finds out its her son. He then builds a little god-house and makes a priestly garment, along with some household idols (vs.5). These are teraphim in the Hebrew, which were used to tell the future in the occult practice of divination. Micah also illegitimately elevates one of his sons to the priesthood, who had no business being a priest since he was not from the tribe of Levi.
A man with a godly name from a prominent tribe in Israel is involved in stealing, idolatry, and the occult, leading his own family astray. But that’s what happens when there is no authority, and everyone does what is right in his own eyes: There is chaos and anarchy in the home.
We see it in our own culture where the father is absent or passive in the home, the wife is going crazy trying to keep it all together, and the kids are out of control. So what do you do in times like these? Well, 1st of all...
SUBMIT TO GOD’S AUTHORITY IN YOUR HOME.
Surrender to God’s will, primarily, in your own household. Yield to God’s lead, starting with your own family.
Barbara Bush had it right years ago when she said, “Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens in your house” (Susan Page, “Barbara Bush never sent her final letter to her children. Here's what she wanted to say,” USA Today, May 10, 2019).
Ronald Reagan put it this way: “If we fail to instruct our children in justice, religion, and liberty, we will be condemning them to a world without virtue, a life in the twilight of a civilization where the great truths have been forgotten” (Washington Post, August 24, 1984, p. A7).
Reagan warned us 36 years ago! Now, we’re seeing the results of a whole generation raised without the moral absolutes of God’s Word.
Do you want to see order restored to a society in chaos? Then start at home with your own family. Submit to God’s authority and the God-ordained authority in your own household.
Pastor Tim Keller and his wife Kathy wrote a book called The Meaning of Marriage. In it, Kathy Keller gives an example of submission in a tough life choice:
In the late 1980s, our family was comfortably situated in a very livable suburb of Philadelphia where Tim held a full-time position as a professor. Then he got an offer to move to New York City to plant a new church. He was excited by the idea, but I was appalled. Raising our three wild boys in Manhattan was unthinkable! Not only that, but almost no one who knew anything about Manhattan thought that the project would be successful. I also knew that this would not be something that Tim would be able to do as a nine-to-five job. It would absorb the whole family and nearly all of our time.
It was clear to me that Tim wanted to take the call, but I had serious doubts that it was the right choice. I expressed my strong doubts to Tim, who responded, “Well, if you don’t want to go, then we won’t go.”
However, I replied, “Oh, no, you don’t! You aren’t putting this decision on me. That’s abdication. If you think this is the right thing to do, then exercise your leadership and make the choice. It’s your job to break this logjam. It’s my job to wrestle with God until I can joyfully support your call.”
Tim made the decision to [go] to New York City and plant Redeemer Presbyterian Church. The whole family, my sons included, consider it one of the most truly “manly” things he ever did, because he was quite scared, but he felt a call from God. At that point, Tim and I were both submitting to roles that we were not perfectly comfortable with, but it is clear that God worked in us and through us when we accepted our gender roles as a gift from the designer of our hearts. (Tim Keller and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, Penguin Books, 2013, pages 243-244; www.PreachingToday.com)
When Tim and Kathy submitted to God’s will, God led them to start a church in New York, which to this day has a huge influence in a city at the epicenter of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Submission to God is never easy, especially in the home, but that’s where you must begin to bring order out of the chaos in your world.
Men, that means you can no longer be passive in your role as husbands and fathers. However, don’t dominate your family. Just make decisions, with your wife’s input, that benefit your family. Don’t abdicate your role to lead your family, being the first to serve them. Instead, love your wife sacrificially, putting her needs above your own. Teach God’s Word to your children. Set appropriate boundaries and enforce those boundaries for their benefit.
Ladies, help your husbands in the process. And if you have to wrestle with God until you can joyfully support his call, do it.
And children, “Obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land” (Ephesians 6:1-3). Our survival as a society depends on children learning to respect and obey their parents.
In times like these, it’s absolutely essential that you 1st of all, submit to God’s authority in your home. Then 2nd...
SUBMIT TO GOD’S AUTHORITY IN HIS HOUSEHOLD.
Surrender to God’s will in the family of believers. Yield to God’s lead as His people in the church.
When Israel’s spiritual leaders failed to point people to God, Israel spiraled out of control as a nation. Look at the state of the Levites during the period of the judges. These were men charged with assisting the priests in leading people in worship and teaching people the Word of God.
Judges 17:7-9 Now there was a young man of Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. And the man departed from the town of Bethlehem in Judah to sojourn where he could find a place. And as he journeyed, he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah. And Micah said to him, “Where do you come from?” And he said to him, “I am a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah, and I am going to sojourn where I may find a place.” (ESV)
This Levite is a sojourner, a poor, homeless, itinerant preacher.
Judges 17:10 And Micah said to him, “Stay with me, and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year and a suit of clothes and your living.” And the Levite went in. (ESV)
The Levite couldn’t refuse an offer like that! Micah gave him a regular salary, some clothes, a place to stay and meals to eat.
Judges 17:11 And the Levite was content to dwell with the man, and the young man became to him like one of his sons. (ESV)
One who was hired to be a father and a priest became a son. The Levite lost any moral authority he might have had, because he took the job for the money. Now, he’s under control of the man who hired him. Do you think the Levite is going to condemn Micah for his idolatry? Of course not, or else the Levite would lose his job.
Judges 17:12-13 And Micah ordained the Levite, and the young man became his priest, and was in the house of Micah. Then Micah said, “Now I know that the LORD will prosper me, because I have a Levite as priest.” (ESV)
Micah thinks he can manipulate God, because he’s hired a real priest, but the priest remains under Micah’s control, and he is no real priest. He’s a Levite, an assistant to the real priests, who has no business serving in the role of priest.
Now, that was the spiritual state of Israel back then, and that is the spiritual state of many today. They think they can manipulate God, and they hire so-called “preachers” who are not preachers at all. They are hirelings, who say only what people want to hear.
The Apostle Paul warned that “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
My dear friends, we are in those times today. When our nation needs a prophetic voice from the pulpits of America, preachers are afraid to speak the truth for fear of losing their jobs.
Dr. Rosaria Butterfield, a former tenured professor at the University of Syracuse, was a committed and comfortable lesbian until she had what she described as a “train-wreck conversion” to Christ. At one point in her life, she wrote, “I found peace and purpose in my life as a lesbian and the queer community I helped to create.” Today she is married to Pastor Kent Butterfield and mother of four adopted children and numerous foster children.
After her conversion, Dr. Butterfield describes talking to a female counselor who wanted her to bend her message about homosexual practice. She said, “Rosaria, I want you to change your message... Tell people that it is only in your opinion that homosexual practice is a sin.”
Dr. Butterfield responded by telling the counselor that she is “not smart enough to have this opinion, but that this is the position the inspired and inerrant Word of God upholds.”
Dr. Butterfield said, “Changing my message would involve denying the plain meaning of Scripture, the testimony of the church, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the gospel. But to the postmodern mind… the counselor’s request seems reasonable enough: just own [your] position as a personal point of view.” However, Dr. Butterfield says, “Claiming something that is a universal truth to be a mere matter of personal preference is a lie by omission. This is the Bible's message, and apart from Christ, I am more condemned by it than the woman who made this request.” (Rosaria Butterfield, Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ, Crown and Covenant Publications, 2015, www. PreachingToday.com)
Sad to say, many pastors have bent their message about this and many other issues. They’re afraid to speak the unchanging truth of God’s inerrant Word, and so they have lost the prophetic voice that our country so desperately needs.
To be sure, we must speak the truth IN LOVE, but speak the truth we must! We must submit to the authority of God’s word even when it’s unpopular. For the Gospel is a powerful force for good in our world if we don’t water it down.
Nowhere, do we see the power of the Gospel more clearly these days than at the site of George Floyd’s death. A group of [Gospel based] ministries – Youth With a Mission (YWAM); Circuit Riders, a California-based missions movement; and Worldwide Outreach for Christ, a local church – have been holding daily services at the epicenter that sparked protests around the world.
One man, who was hopeless, overdosed on drugs, left without a pulse, and the next day he found a purpose to his life at the service. A 19-year-old man got his life call as a minister. He signed up to go to Bible school and share the message that radically changed his life. Others have been baptized.
Christophe Ulysse, 37, a YWAM leader, told Fox News they are seeing real change. “We're going from pain and hatred to healing and hope... I came here and I was broken,” Ulysse explained. "But those of us of color, as we're here, we're watching the change happen through the gospel. My heart is so filled with hope.”
Ulysse says, “For us, there is this deep conviction that we have tried everything to deal w/ this issue. We've tried politics, we've tried economics, and we've tried social reform. It's the same thing over and over,” he says, but “we have to go back to what actually works” – and that’s the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Caleb Parke, “Ministries hold daily services at site of George Floyd's death: 'From hatred to healing and hope,'” Fox News, June 9, 2020)
You see, Jesus’ death on the cross not only reconciled us to God. It broke down the barriers between races to reconcile us to each other.
Ephesians 2 says, “[Jesus] is our peace, who has made [Jew and Gentile] one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility... that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:14-16).
The cross kills the hostility between races and brings us together! That’s a message the church must proclaim loudly and boldly today to a world in desperate need of such a message.
In times like these, it’s absolutely essential that we submit to God’s authority in the home. Start there. After that, submit to God’s authority in the church, God’s household. Then, and only then...
SUBMIT TO GOD’S AUTHORITY IN THE COMMUNITY.
Surrender to God’s will in the country at large. Yield to God’s lead in the nation as a whole.
Israel failed to do that, and it led to anarchy in the nation. That’s what Judges 18 is all about.
The tribe of Dan is unable to settle in the land God gave them in the southern part of Israel, so they send five spies north to find a more suitable piece of land. When they get about as far north as they can, north of the Sea of Galilee, they find a quiet, peaceful city with no defense, the city of Laish. The spies return to tell their tribe, and 600 soldiers from Dan move out to take the city.
On the way, they steal Micah’s “priest” and idols; and when they arrive at Laish, Judges 18:27 says, “They came to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword and burned the city with fire.” After that, they rebuild the city, name it Dan, and worship Micah’s idol.
It turns out that the “priest” they stole from Micah was a grandson of Moses himself (vs.30), who leads them into idolatry. Israelites are fighting each other. A city is set on fire, and they are far away from God.
Sounds a lot like our country these days, and why? Judges 18:1 tells us why: “In those days, there was no king in Israel.” There was no authority, so everyone did their own thing, which led to anarchy in the nation.
What we see going on around us, with our cities on fire and a deeply divided nation, is the result of two generations (at least) rejecting God’s authority. We’ve kicked Him out of our schools, our courts, and our public discourse.
It’s like Ronald Reagan said years ago, “If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” Today, we are seeing our nation going under unless we invite God back into our public discourse. We need to submit to His authority again as a nation, but that starts in our homes and in our churches.
In his book Up with Authority, Victor Lee Austin uses the analogy of an orchestra to explain the need for authority. He says:
Orchestras need conductors because the musicians don't have a single right answer to questions like, “What should we play at the concert?” or “What should we practice today?” or “How should we interpret this passage?” Each musician might have a perfectly reasonable opinion, but their opinions will inevitably be different and will almost always be incompatible with one another.
It's no good for each musician to do what is right in his or her own ears. It won't do for the brass section to insist on playing a one musical piece if the strings have chosen to play a completely different piece. If the orchestra is to perform coherently, if the musicians want to perform music rather than just make noise, somebody has to have authority to decide.
By submitting to the authority of a conductor, individual musicians attain musical expression they could never realize individually or even as a collection of free-wheeling players. Authority is necessary for classical musicians to bring musical fulfillment to others.
In the words of Victor Lee Austin, the conductor's authority yields “a greater degree of human flourishing than we would have from the musicians separately or individually.” (Victor Lee Austin, Up With Authority, T&T Clark International, New York: 2010; www.PreachingToday.com)
Appropriate authority is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing, especially when it’s God’s authority. It allows us to flourish, rather than flounder on the rocks of moral relativism.
So, what do you do in these dark and foggy times? It’s simple. Submit to God’s authority first in your home, then in the household of God, then in the community at large. Accept God’s will for your life. Don’t just resign yourself to what’s going on around you.
Elizabeth Elliot says, “Resignation lies down quietly in an empty universe. Acceptance rises up to meet the God who fills that universe with purpose and destiny. Resignation says, ‘I can't,’ and God says, ‘I can.’ Resignation says, ‘It's all over for me.’ Acceptance asks, ‘Now that I'm here, Lord, what's next?’ Resignation says, ‘What a waste.’ Acceptance says, ‘In what redemptive way can you use this mess, Lord?’” (Jill Briscoe, “In the Father's Arms,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 141; www.PreachingToday.com)
Submit to God and let Him use you to redeem a broken world!
