Who Has the Authority?
Good Morning,
Jesus told Pilate that he had no power at all.
John 19:11 “Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.”
A truth most of us believe, yet is so very hard to keep in our hearts, is the idea that God is the giver of all authority. Notice how Paul worded this same truth.
Romans 13:1 “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”
There is NO POWER, but of God. God holds all the power or authority in the universe, and no one gets a share of that power or authority without the Lord having His hand in the process.
As the persecuted disciples met together for prayer, they acknowledged that the power men used to crucify their Lord or to beat these men all came from God and was a part of the determinate counsel of God.
Acts 4:28 “For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.”
Though all of us have moments of fear, we must have enough Bible in our hearts to draw us back to faith and hope and to rest in the Almighty. Governments and rulers of all kinds have to face the Lord in judgment one day, and what these leaders do with their power will clearly be revealed in the future. Until then, may we rest in the many passages that assure us we are not alone and that the powers of darkness are all in submission to God.
When talking about being hated and sold, Joseph put it this way:
Genesis 45:7 “And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.”
vs. 8 “So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”
God makes it clear that even the powerful animals are under His rule.
Jeremiah 27:5 “I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.”
When David Livingstone was attacked by a lion, he did not grow bitter at God, for God knew and ordered the universe. God had a plan, and David Livingstone was willing to trust in that plan, although it left him crippled for the remainder of his life.
Could we trust the Lord today, at least in our head? Sure, we worry and fear, yet we should not; actually, we should confess it. To keep believing that He rules the universe is honoring to the Lord, for He most certainly does.
Pastor