Seven Sacred Authorities 1: God's Authority

There are Seven Sacred Authorities that God has established. If we are going to have the full blessings of God in our life, we have to get under the proper place of authorities. God has created these authorities, so that we can have spiritual and physical protection in our lives.

Responsibility: condition, quality, fact, or instance of being responsible; obligation, accountability, dependability

Authority: the power or right to give commands, enforce obedience, take action, or make final decisions; jurisdiction

Right: that which a person has a just claim to; power, privilege, etc. that belongs to a person by law, nature, or tradition

By Pastor Andrew Grosjean

For the full audio version of this study, e-mail me at internetpreacher@gmail.com

The Authority of God is unquestionable. His authority stands because He is before all things. His existence was manifest before any create thing or person existed. Indeed He has created all that is created. Not only was all created by Him, but further it was created for Him.

So, the authority of God stands It stands no only by the nature of his existence, but also because of His eternal work of care. He has the right to say how His creation will maintain itself. He has given certain creatures the faculty of free-will. These include insects, animals, humans, and angels. He gave some the faculty of morality and conscience. God reserves the authority to set the limits of what choices His creatures have the opportunity to make and what choices His creatures should make.

There is no limit to God’s authority, not in what he can or cannot do, nor in what He should or should not do. Because He is the standard, everything He does is moral for Him though the same action may or may not be right for His different creatures.

I. God’s Authority

    A. Origin of Authority: Why he is sovereign?  What right does God have to tell us what to do?

          1. He is Creator (Col. 1:16)  Hey if you make it, you have the right to do what ever you want to do with it.  But our selfishness takes this right away from God and we want to act like we are our own god.

          2. He is the Maintainer Acts 17:28, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” (Col. 1:17)  Not only did He make us, but he maintains us every moment in time and space.  By His mercies, the very atoms and molecules of our bodies continue.

         3. He is the Redeemer (Col. 1:14)  If it was not enough that He made us, and then maintains us, He went further and bought us back from the forfeitureof Adam.  When Adam sinned, he not only separated us from God, but he also gave up the divinely appointed rights to the Earth, universe, and all nature.  These were given to us in Creation but we sold our selves with all our rights to Satan by default when we sinned.  These rights could only be reclaimed by a human.  So, the Son of God was born into human flesh so that He (as human) could reclaim all that forfeited in Adam.  This redeeming included our rights to all Earth, animals, nature, and the entire universe.  But more importantly, it included us.  Our very lives belonged to Satan (the god of this world) because we forfeited them.  Jesus bought us back from the bankruptcy of sin and the forfeiture of rights.  I Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

         4. He is the Perfecter (Rom. 8:19-21)  Finally, we owe Him our obedience because He will perfect us.  He does not need to offer us glorification, but He does.  We just needed salvation from the condemnation of sin.  But in Salvation, we are united with Him.  We are now heirs of every promise that God has promised Jesus.  This is far above just forgiving our sins and freeing us from hell.  We are now partakers of the divine nature of Jesus Christ.

     B. Responsibility  God has committed to fulfilling some responsibilities.  God does not owe us anything;but in His love for us, he promises us something that we do not deserve.  He limits His almighty prerogative enough to promise us some things.

          1. To maintain creation Col. 1:17, “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” (Acts 17:28)

           2. To restrain sin. II Thes. 2:7, “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth [will let], until he be taken out of the way. 8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:”  People mock God by saying, "If there was a God, then why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?"  The fact is that we have no idea how much God limits what the black and filthy heart of man.  We have no idea what we could and would do if God was not restraining us.  One day, God will show how just He is.  He will take those that mock Him and give them no more chances to do evil.  They will see that the reason we have so much evil and suffering in the world is not because of the inability of God.  They will see it was because wicked men used the ability that God gave them to do unspeakable things.

          3. To sustain the perfect Word Ps.119:89, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.”  God has promised to maintain a Book so that we could know Him.  God is great enough to make us.  He is good enough to love us.  If those two things are true, which they are, then God will communicate that message to us.  Love is not real unless it is communicated.  Now, if God is powerful enough to give us a Bible, He is powerful to preserve it.  By the way, He has.  There is a Bible that you can trust.  He has preserved a Bible in Hebrew, Greek, and I believe in the English as well.  There are no errors in the King James that cannot be fixed by educating yourself.  The problem is not in the King James, but in your understanding of the Book.  If we do not have a preserved Book, then God has dropped the ball.  He has not dropped anything.

     C. Authority  Because God has the responsibility to do these things for us, He also has the authority to command us.  There are limits to His power.  These limits are there only because He has chosen to submit to them.   The greatest limitation that God has imposed on Himself is in giving us the ability to refuse His every desire.  He has given us the ability to say no to Him.  God is a Gentlemen.  He will not force anyone to love Him.  He wants us to choose Him our self.

            1. To command (Deut. 4:2, 40)  If we were in unity with God the way we should be, we would never say no to Him.  For His commands are not grievous to those that know His love.  They are not always what we want, but that is the problem with man.  Man's wants are broken.  If we did not have a selfish, self indulgent, and stiff-necked nature, we would not rebel against what God asks. 

             2. To judge (Ps. 82:8; Ps. 96:13; Ecc. 3:17)  The fact is that you will be judged by God.  You will be judged whether you are His adopted child or if you remain the child of the devil.  Even if you will not let Him give you His salvation here on earth, you will call Him your Lord in the hereafter.  Better to bend the knee of your own will in love, rather than to bend the knee as a conquered foe.

            3. To reward Rev. 22:12, “And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward [is] with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.” (Isa. 40:10; 62:11) He will give to us all the reward that we deserve.  This is true whether we have become His children or if we are His enemies.  You think you will get back what you put out.  You will get from others what you have done to others.  Well, that is at its core a Biblical truth.  God will judge you according what you have done.  You can continue to live your own way in selfish sin.  Or you can call on the Lord and ask for His mercy.  He will give you complete forgiveness, love, and fulfillment in life.

      D. Rights

            1. To have mercy on whom he will. Rom. 9:15, “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 16 So then [it is] not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”

             2. To harden the hearts of those that oppose him (Rom. 9:18)  You want to harden your heart against God.  That is fine.  Do not sit there and act like you are wronged when you get what you deserve.  If you look at Jesus and say, "I don't need you.  I don't want your salvation, your heaven, your commandments,

            3. To glorify himself (Rom. 9:23)  God is, well, He is God.  He deserves all glory.  He has the right to receive and command worship.  We are tempted to think that this is wrong.  It is not wrong for Him because He is God.  It is wrong for us to do these things, but we are not God.

       E. Limitation: self imposed.  God has limited Himself in a number of ways.  God the Son limited Himself to be a servant of God the Father.  The Spirit limited Himself to serve the Son.  God the Father will limit Himself when He glorifies the Son.  The Father limited Himself by exalting the Word above His name. Psalms 138:2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy
lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. 

           1. The Father (II Pet. 3:9)

                    a) On will of created

                    b) On love of created

           2. The Son (Phi. 2:5-7)

           3. The Spirit Jn. 16:13, “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”