Hagar 4

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king. (1Samuel 15:23)

We are still on friends losing that friend badge and today we will look at another aspect that is sending droves of ministers to hell, rebellion.

What is rebellion?

It is a wilful refusal to obey an order from a superior.

And in our case this superior is none other that Christ, the Lord of lords and King of kings. This superior is the One who has decided to call us His friends.

Entitlement was what guided our rejection in our last post.

I think it is that same entitlement on steroids that takes us to rebellion.

If what I deserve guides my expectations, what is below my class guides my rebellion.

However, as ministers, we are able to bathe those issues in a barrage of verses to make them spiritual, even godly.

I am working on a post on impossible orders based on 1 Kings 20: 35, 36 where a young man is killed by a lion because he refuses to hit his friend enough to inflict an injury.

But I do not want to go that far because I know enough of us would not even want to imagine such an order. Or have you ever heard that being preached?

We will look at simple orders that we routinely disobey.

You have prepared a very good sermon because the invitation came long before the event. You had prayed adequately in the preparation of that sermon.

Then, as you are waiting to be called to preach, God orders you to put that sermon and its notes down.

What will you do?

I was a very young preacher the first time it happened and it shook me to my bones.

But after reasoning with God for the longest time (meaning that it was getting closer and closer to the time I would be called), I agreed to do so and was immediately called to the pulpit.

People talk about butterflies, but for me at that time birds were fluttering in my chest.

I stood up, opened the Bible and started preaching, though I have no idea what I preached.

But several people got saved when I made the invitation.

Many ministers will never entertain such disruptions in their routines, especially established ministers with a thing or two to prove.

Or how would you behave if you are given a contrary message to your most popular ones?

But that is just one aspect.

Allow me to give a scenario I have used again and again to explain what I am saying.

God probably sent you to a harvest field in your youth. Meaning you went with just a backpack or small box with all your possessions.

Then God blessed and multiplied your obedience and your small mission effort has become a denomination with you at its helm, meaning that they maintain you very well.

You are now in your middle age with children in college, their demands ever increasing.

What would you do if God calls you out of all that to begin another outreach without the support of that denomination? What would you do if the denomination you founded then tells you to choose between serving them and ‘following your whims’ when you share those orders?

Sadly, that is where most ministers lose that coveted friend badge.

Their craving for security blinds them to the demands Christ makes on them.

How up to date are you with your Lord?

Are you still following the orders He gave decades ago even when they ceased being orders.

You see, an evangelist stops being one when he starts shepherding.

In the same way a missionary ceases being one once he starts running a church, even the one he started.

Just as you would not be called a youth or children’s pastor if you continue with the same crowd you started with years ago.

This means that I should expect and listen to new orders once the dynamics of the one I was pursuing are overtaken by reality or circumstances.

But many ministers get stuck. And that becomes rebellion.

The only dynamic that does not change is the reality that I am Christ’s slave, even when He calls me a friend, especially when He calls me Friend.

I should be consistently hearing new orders to remain relevant.

Another thing associated with senior ministers is dictated by that seniority.

And that is the sifting of the voices they listen to.

And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king's counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? (2Chronicles 25:16a)

These ministers are so senior that they must qualify the voices they listen to. They must look at the CVs of anyone with a message to them.

Incidentally, I believe this is the reason many senior ministers employ personal assistants and bodyguards to forestall any unfiltered prophecy from reaching them.

I do not want to call it pride though it is not far from that.

I think God used that ass on Balaam because he had blocked any other avenues for that rebuke.

Sadly, many senior ministers may be worse that that as they may require that ass to present its CV and especially explain why it is not scared of ‘touching mine anointed’.

We believe that God does and can use anything to pass His message.

Why then do we look for excuses to restrict those sources? Why do we fear hearing messages from enemies as if God cannot use an enemy to speak to His servants?

What killed Josiah?

God used his enemy to order him from the war that killed him.

Incidentally, that heathen king was adamant that those were God’s orders.

But Josiah thought he knew better and chose to go to war instead of seeking clarification for that enemy king’s voice, especially because he had said that they had proceeded from God.

Like many of those senior ministers, he was too spiritual to listen to a heathen king.

Sadly, and to his detriment, he learnt too late that his spirituality had trashed God’s voice because he had restricted it to the channels he approved.

I hope you get what I mean.