“Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not to the king’s profit to tolerate them.” Esther 3:8
Thinking last night about Mordecai’s disobedience of the king’s edict, I reread Matthew Henry’s comment: “The religion of a Jew forbade him to give honours to any mortal man which savoured of idolatry, especially to so wicked a man as Haman.” So Mordecai’s obedience to the Lord sets him at odds with Hamman, setting the stage for reprisals toward all Jews. Now consider what Paul commands the believers in Rome: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Romans 13:1,2)
You can see where I’m going with this, right? Here is a man who resists authority, yet rather than incurring judgement, he is rewarded, and all Jews living in the king’s realm are receive a reprieve from a death sentence. Okay, I suppose one explanation might be that Mordecai’s disobedience resulted in all of G-d’s people being under condemnation, which G-d could not have happen. So, G-d had to rescue all his people. But would G-d still allow Mordecai to receive eventual honor, despite his violation of the law of the kingdom? Perhaps Mordecai should not have disobeyed; maybe he should have honored Haman. That would have appeased Haman. What do you think? Does appeasement of evil really work? Or does it merely postpone the inevitable confrontation between good and evil, light and dark?
You’ve had Pastor Youcef on your heart, and in your prayers. Perhaps he felt he must stand up and protest the teaching of a religion to which he was not a member. He needed to be an example and a protective shepherd of a flock to which The Lord gave him charge. But according to Apostle Paul, G-d appointed the rulers of Iran, and to their authority all must defer. Is that correct?
Digest that for a minute or two.
Now let’s look at another possible scenerio. Perhaps G-d appoints rulers over those to whom He is not known. And we, as His children-by-adoption, are exempt from the authority of humans. We are subject to a greater Authority. We are directly subject to the Master and Creator of the Universe. There are no intermediaries, except Y’shuaJesus, who makes a relationship with the Father possible. Perhaps. But that does sound a bit arrogant. And, of course, we’ve never been accused of being holier-than-thou, arrogant, pompous, fools, have we? There are many opposed to the Truth, to the Lord. They persecute those whom they perceive as close to the Truth. They really are jealous of us, however. They can’t accept the Truth, so condemn it.
There are some ideas that I have that might place us somewhere between blindly following the Earthly kings of the land, and the shunning all Earthly authority saying we are following the commands of G-d. I also want to speak about something that C.S. Lewis wrote about: connivance. But we shall begin that next week.
Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .
JonahzSong 