My Journey To Orthodoxy: SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY By Watchman Nee (contributed by Matt Cuthbertson)

SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY By Watchman Nee (contributed by Matt Cuthbertson)

PART ONE

AUTHORITY AND SUBJECTION

Obedience to God’s Will – the Greatest Demand of the Bible

Why did Samuel say that “obedience is better than sacrifice”? Because even in sacrifice there can be the element of self-will. Obedience alone is absolutely honoring to God, for it alone takes God’s will as its center.

Obedience Must Be Recovered

Everyone thinks he is able to distinguish good from evil and to judge what is right or wrong. He seems to know better than God. This is the folly of the fall.

Obedience is a foundational principle. If this matter of authority remains unsolved, nothing can be solved.

Some Lessons on Obedience

1. Have a spirit of obedience.

2. Practice obedience.

3. Learn to exercise delegated authority.

Authority Is God’s Choice, Not Man’s Attainment

Spiritual authority is not something one attains to by effort. It is given by God to whomever He chooses. How very different is the spiritual from the natural.

The Lord Initiates Obedience

God exalts whoever humbles himself. This is a divine principle.

The Riches of Christ Is Authority

We often misunderstand authority as something which oppresses us, hurts us, and troubles us. God does not have such a concept. He uses authority to replenish our lack.

The way God grants His grace to us is twofold: sometimes, though rarely, He grants grace to us directly; mostly He gives His riches to us indirectly – that is, God puts above you the brothers and sisters in the church who are more advanced spiritually so that you may accept their judgment as your judgment. This will then enable you to possess their wealth without you yourself having to go through their painful experiences.

The Manifestations of Man’s Rebellion

In what particular areas is man’s rebellion most obviously manifest? In words, in reasons, and in thoughts. Unless there are practical dealings in these areas, the hope of deliverance from rebellion is very dim.

Ham Broadcast His Father’s Failure

Let us see what Ham did when he saw his father’s nakedness. He went out to tell it to his brothers, Shem and Japheth. He who is insubordinate in heart always expects the authority to fall. Thus Ham got his chance to reveal his father’s fault. His doing so fully proved that he was not at all in subjection to his father’s authority. Ordinarily he outwardly submitted to his father, but it was only half-hearted. Now, though, he had discovered his father’s weakness, so he seized the opportunity to broadcast it to his brothers. Today many brethren, due to a lack of love, enjoy criticizing people and take great delight in disclosing others’ faults. Ham had neither love nor subjection. He is a manifestation of rebellion.

Rebellion Is Linked with Fleshly Indulgence

Christians today lose their power no less through mouth than through act; nay, they lose even more power through mouth. All rebellious ones have trouble with their mouths. Those who cannot control their words cannot control themselves.

Slander Comes from Reason

People of this world live in reason. Wherein, then, are we any different from worldly people if we too live in that realm?

Recapturing the Captive Mind

Whether or not a brother has met authority may be readily discerned by observing:

1. whether he has any rebellious words,

2. whether he reasons before God, and

3. whether he still offers many opinions.

Life and Authority

Difficulties within the church are rarely found in matters of outward disobedience; mostly they are related to a lack of inward submission. But the governing principle of our life ought to be submission, just as that of birds is to fly and that of fish is to swim.

Saints may possess different opinions and yet there still be no insubordination, for even with differing opinions we can nonetheless submit to one another. Thus are we one in the faith. The life we have received is not only for dealing with sin – the negative side – but more is it for obeying – the vital and positive side. If all the local churches walk in this way of obedience, the glorious fact of the unity of the faith will verily appear before our eyes.

PART TWO

DELEGATED AUTHORITIES

Three Requirements for a Delegated Authority

He must know that all authority comes from God.

We ourselves have not the slightest authority in the home, the world, or the church. All we can do is execute God’s authority; we cannot create authority for ourselves. The policeman and the judge execute authority and enforce the law, but they should not write the law themselves. Likewise, those who are placed in authority in the church merely represent God’s authority. Their authority is due to their being in a representative capacity, not because they in themselves have any merit more excellent than the rest.

For one to be in authority does not depend on his having ideas and thoughts; rather does it hinge on knowing the will of God. The measure of one’s knowledge of God’s will is the measure of his delegated authority. God establishes a person to be His delegated authority entirely on the basis of that person’s knowledge of God’s will. It has nothing at all to do with having many ideas, strong opinions, or noble thoughts. Indeed, such persons who are strong in themselves are greatly to be feared in the church.

Only God’s acknowledged judgment is authoritative; whatever comes from man is wholly void of authority, for it can only represent himself.

Do not think that because one is older he can suppress the younger, because one is a brother he can oppress the sisters, or because one is quick-tempered he can subdue the slow in temper.

He must deny himself.

He must constantly keep in fellowship with the Lord.

Those who are God’s delegated authority need to maintain close fellowship with God. There must be not only communication but also communion.

May I speak frankly, that the difficulty today is that many of God’s servants are either too bold or too strict or too overbearing. They dare speak what they have not heard from God!

Never Try to Establish One’s Own Authority

Authority is established by God; therefore no delegated authority need try to secure his authority. Do not insist that others listen to you. If they err, let them err; if they do not submit, let them be insubordinate; if they insist on going their own way, let them go.

Make No Self Defense

Vindication or defense or whatever reaction there may be should come from God, not from man. He who vindicates himself does not know God. No one on earth could ever be more authoritative than Christ, yet He never defended Himself. Authority and self-defense are incompatible.

Resurrection Life Is Basis of Authority

Sprouting of the Dried Rod Keeps Men Humble

Only the foolish can be proud. Those who are favored will prostrate themselves before God, saying, “This has been done by God; there is nothing of which man can boast.”

Touchstone of Ministry Is Resurrection

Men are chosen to exercise spiritual authority not because they are different from the rest but on the basis of grace, election, and resurrection.

What Is Resurrection?

Resurrection is that which I cannot, but which God can; what I am not, but what God is.

Authorities Must Be Both God’s Choice and Church’s Choice

After Saul’s death David inquired of God as to what city he should go to. Humanly speaking, David with his army should quickly descend on Jerusalem, for there was the palace. This was a chance not to be missed. Yet he asked God and God told him to go to Hebron. Hebron was only a small and insignificant city. David’s going there proved that he was not trying to snatch authority on his own initiative. He waited to be anointed by the people of God. Samuel had first anointed him because he was chosen by God. Now Judah anointed him, because he was the people’s choice. This action typifies the church making its choices. David could neither oppose nor refuse the people from anointing him; he could not say, “Since I already have the anointing of God upon me, I do not need your anointing.” To be anointed by God is one thing; to be anointed by His people is another thing. There must be both the church’s choices and God’s choice. No one can force himself upon others.

All those who know God can wait. If one’s condition is right he will be recognized not only by the Lord as His representative but also by the church as God’s representative.

Maintaining Authority

No one should ever permit another person’s authority to be damaged in order to establish his own.

To Be Great, One Must Be a Servant

God has never used a proud soul. God only uses the useless.

To Be in Authority Often Means Loneliness

Loneliness is the mark of authority. It is not due to pride but for the sake of representing God’s authority.

Authority Is Based on Sanctification

He who is in authority does not grasp authority; he serves God, is willing to pay the price. To be in authority requires one to climb high, to not fear loneliness, and to be sanctified.

-many thanks to Matt Cuthbertson from Aniheim California for making this book abstract available to the students of SMS-

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Achtiname of Muhammad

The Achtiname of Muhammad, also known as the Covenant or Holy Testament of Muhammad, is the document or ahdname which is a charter or writ ratified by the Prophet Muhammad granting protection and other privileges to the monks of Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai. It is sealed with an imprint representing Muhammad's hand. ""This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day."

Prayers by the Lake - St. Nikolai Velimirovic

Who is that staring at me through all the stars in heaven and all the creatures on earth?

Cover your eyes, stars and creatures; do not look upon my nakedness. Shame torments me enough through my own eyes.

What is there for you to see? A tree of life that has been reduced to a thorn on the road, that pricks both itself and others. What else-except a heavenly flame immersed in mud, a flame that neither gives light nor goes out?

Plowmen, it is not your plowing that matters but the Lord who watches.

Singers, it is not your singing that matters but the Lord who listens.

Sleepers, it is not your sleeping that matters but the Lord who wakens.

It is not the pools of water in the rocks around the lake that matter but the lake itself.

What is all human time but a wave that moistens the burning sand on the shore, and then regrets that it left the lake, because it has dried up?

O stars and creatures, do not look at me with your eyes but at the Lord. He alone sees. Look at Him and you will see yourselves in your homeland.

What do you see when you look at me? A picture of your exile? A mirror of your fleeting transitoriness?

O Lord, my beautiful veil, embroidered with golden seraphim, drape over my face like a veil over the face of a widow, and collect my tears, in which the sorrow of all Your creatures seethes.

O Lord, my beauty, come and visit me, lest I be ashamed of my nakedness—lest the many thirsty glances that are falling upon me return home thirsty.

Who put me in this bed of worms? Who buried me in the dust, to become a neighbor of snakes and a banquet for worms?

Who pushed me off the high mountain, to become a companion of bloodthirsty and godless men?

My sin and Your justice, O Lord. My sin stretches from the creation of the world, and it is swifter than Your justice.

I count my sins throughout my entire life, throughout the life of my father and all the way back to the beginning of the world, and I say: Truly, the name of the Lord's justice is mercy.

I bear the wounds of my fathers on myself-wounds that I myself was preparing while I was still in my fathers—and now they have all appeared on my soul, like a spotted hide on a giraffe, like a cloak of vicious scorpions that sting me.

Have mercy on me, O Lord, open the floodgate of the heavenly river of Your grace, and cleanse me of leprous evil, so that without this leprosy I may dare to proclaim Your name before the other lepers without them ridiculing me.

At least raise me up by a head above the rotten stench of this bed of worms, to inhale the incense of heaven and return to life.

At least raise me up as high as a palm tree so I can laugh at the serpents chasing my heels.

O Lord, if there has been even one good deed in the course of my earthly journey, for the sake of that one deed deliver me from the companionship of bloodthirsty and godless men.

O Lord, my hope in despair.

O Lord, my strength in weakness.

O Lord, my light in darkness.

Place just one finger on my forehead and I shall be raised. Or, if I am too unclean for Your finger, let a single ray of light from Your kingdom shine upon me and raise me-raise me, from this bed of worms, O my beloved Lord.

III

Are there days gone by, O man, to which you would wish to return? They all attracted you like silk, and now remain behind you like a cobweb. Like honey they greeted you, like stench you bade them farewell. All were totally filled with illusion and sin.

See how all the pools of water in the moonlight resemble mirrors; and how all the days that were lit up with your levity resemble mirrors. But as you stepped from one day to the next, the false mirrors cracked like thin ice, and you waded through the water and mud.

Can a day that has a morning and an evening as doorways be a day?

O luminous Lord, my soul is burdened with illusions and longs for one day—for the day without doorways, the day from which my soul has departed and sunk into the shifting shadows—for Your day, which I used to call my day, when I was one with You.

Is there any happiness gone by, O man, to which you would wish to return?

Of two morsels of the same sweetness the second is the more trite. You would turn your head away in boredom from yesterday's happiness, if it were set out on today's table.

Moments of happiness are given to you only in order to leave you longing for tme happiness in the bosom of the everhappy Lord; and ages of unhappiness are given to you, to waken you out of the drowsy dream of illusions.

O Lord, Lord, my only happiness, will You provide shelter for Your injured pilgrim?

O Lord, my ageless youth, my eyes shall bathe in You and shine more radiantly than the sun.

You carefully collect the tears of the righteous, and with them You rejuvenate worlds.

My elders taught me, when I was a youth, to cling to heaven and earth, lest I stumble. For a long time I remained a child, and for a long time I used to lean on the crutch that they gave me.

But once eternity flooded through me and I felt like a stranger in the world, heaven and earth snapped in two in my hands like a frail reed.

O Lord, my strength, how frail are heaven and earth! They look like palaces built of lead, but they evaporate like water in the palm of the hand in Your presence. Only by their bristling do they conceal their frailty, and frighten uneducated children.

Get out of my sight, suns and stars. Sunder yourselves from the earth. Do not entice me, women and friends. What help can I receive from you, who are helplessly growing old and sinking into the grave?

All your gifts are an apple with a worm in its core. All your potions have passed through someone's entrails many times. Your garments are a cobweb that my nakedness mocks. Your smiles are a proclamation of sorrow, in which your feebleness is screaming to mine for help.

O Lord, my strength, how feeble heaven and earth are! And all the evil that men do under heaven is an admission of feebleness and—infirmity.

Only someone strong dares to do good. Only someone who is nourished and watered with You, my strength, is filled with strength for goodness.

Only someone who sleeps in Your heart knows rest. Only someone who plows before Your feet will enjoy the fruit of his labors.

My childhood, nourished with fear and ignorance, came to an end; and my hope in heaven and earth vanished. Now I only gaze at You and cling to Your gaze in return, O my cradle and my resurrection.