Your Really "Greatest" Authority
In teenage — your authorities were most awesome, all-ponderous, demanding and important. You didn't know what these authorities were — didn't even recognize you were under them (you fancied yourself "free") but you obeyed. Without a complaint. Usually instantly.
Where did you go? With whom? Why?
In "hanging around" the corner drugstore, malt shop or drive-in, sort of "waiting to see what happens" you were actually cowering in front of a giant dictator — a huge authority in your life that DROVE you to do what you did, dress as you did, cut your hair (or refuse to) as you did, and eat, talk, walk, play sports, date, kiss and even repair cars like you did!
Teens DESPERATELY try to "belong." They must be just as "mature," rough, tough and ready — JUST as "in" as all the others. (Who, incidentally, hope to be "in" like the ones who in turn strive to be "in," assuming others are already — if, that is, all this makes any sense).
Were you striving to be dashing, handsome, sports-minded and the life of all parties?
Or did pimples prevent it?
If so — you probably resented the smooth complexions from the other side of the tracks, and found for yourself a set of friends to go with your face. Complete with all habits and modes of dress to match.
Like long hair, cigarettes, autos with huge rear tires, and a rebellious attitude.
Or like short skirts, ironed hair, blonde dye, canvas sneakers, and a walk that resembled a cross between two different savage rhythms.
Be honest with yourself. Regardless as to the mode of the times — forgetting the era in which you grew up, what were the real authorities in your life?
What were you like? Not what you THOUGHT you were like or what you wanted to be like — but what were You like?
You were striving desperately, the chances are, to be just like all the others in your particular circle of friends! So those friends, THEIR modes of dress, THEIR likes and dislikes, THEIR morals and habits — THEY BECAME YOUR AUTHORITY!
You can probably remember MANY occasions when your parents and those friends were in complete opposition one against the other. Which one did you follow? If not follow, which one did you WANT to follow — even though forced to follow the dictates of your parents?
Like most young people, you very probably respected the "authority" of OTHER YOUNG PEOPLE your own age, and THEIR customs, far more than the authority of your parents.
So your really GREATEST authority in your life, during those years was VANITY.
Some want to be "rugged," tough, calloused, indifferent — want to "drop out" and become known for their "don't care" attitude. So they adopt that particular pose. They're unhappy. They don't REALLY want to drop out — they want to drop IN — IN with a group whose acceptance they covet.
Some want to be popular, the life of the party, active in sports and school activities — and so try to become that type of person.
But in every case — VANITY is behind it all.
Human nature — VANITY
You are the sum total of all the thoughts, experiences, and occurrences that have made you what you are. Without realizing it — you have been subject to certain powerful AUTHORITIES all your life.
I said you live in an "authority." That's only another way of saying you live in a LAW ABIDING universe, a LAWFUL solar system, and an ecology that follows patterns and LAWS.
Man, himself, in all the creation, is lawless.
But, like the physical laws that act upon you, there are certain spiritual forces at work as well.
Human nature in you exerts a powerful PULL. Just as the PULL of gravity pulls you DOWN to this physical earth, and other humans through the earth think they are "right side up" — so is there a powerful MENTAL and EMOTIONAL pull inside of you that pulls you in a downward direction, spiritually.
That PULL is a hidden, unseen, spiritual FORCE.
The only source to which you can go to understand human nature — to see WHAT it is, and WHY it is that way, is the source of the inspired Word of Almighty God.
In the Bible, and in the Bible ONLY, can you come to understand your own nature!
God REVEALS what your nature really is.
He says: "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7).
It just CAN'T be subject — God says. Sometimes, it kids itself it WANTS to be — that it wants to obey God, and live according to the laws of God, but it just can't seem to resist an unseen, powerful AUTHORITY that is everywhere present in this world!
Jeremiah was inspired to write: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9)
Yes, — DECEITFUL — above all things. We like to KID ourselves we're FREE. That we are in bondage to NO man (as the Jews said to Christ) — when ACTUALLY WE'RE SLAVES.
Slaves to our own NATURES. To the PULL of our flesh, and to a hidden SPIRIT BEING WHO RULES OVER MEN IN THIS PRESENT WORLD!
Human nature Is the same KIND of nature as that of Satan, the devil.
His nature is DESCRIBED in the Bible, in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. He is described as the epitome of VANITY. Vanity consists of JEALOUSY, LUST and GREED. The devil is described as the beginner of all lies (John 8:44), as the Prince of the Power of the Air (Eph. 2:2) and as the very GOD — the LEADING AUTHORITY — of this present world (II Cor. 4:4).
As such, the devil HOLDS SWAY over the minds and hearts of men!
Let's understand this! Human nature might be likened to a powerful NEGATIVE CURRENT. The devil is, for the sake of this analogy, a powerful POSITIVE current. There is a terrific ATTRACTION between the two — for the flowing of that powerful current.
It's like a powerful magnet — human nature. It PULLS you in the direction of covetousness, lust, jealousy, greed, VANITY.
Your desires to HATE one person, and COVET the affection of another — your DISGUST toward one race and feelings of SUPERIORITY toward another — your physical, sensual PULLS of the flesh — all these are the same feelings of the devil. They are the powerful AUTHORITY that wields RULE over you!
Without knowing it — you have allowed your vanity to DRIVE you — to WHIP you into submission, to COERCE you into committing acts, harboring resentments and attitudes, doing things you KNEW WERE WRONG!
Human nature, believe it or not, is VANITY, jealousy, lust and greed!
It is as if the nature of the devil himself had been PUT WITHIN man.
The "FREEDOM" Preachers
But only a RARE one-in-a-million person will ADMIT he has been a slave!
Only a tiny handful have come to the place they have been willing to see themselves as in literal BONDAGE to the hidden authority of the devil, to the pull of their own nature, and the authority Of THIS WORLD around them!
Millions fancy themselves FREE.
They especially fancy they are free from having to OBEY GOD!
They speak of "grace," which means, to them, being in some sort of spiritual CONDITION which releases them from obligation to OBEY GOD'S AUTHORITY!
But grace is NOT a spiritual "condition" — it is a quality of the nature of God! Grace is merely GOD's FORGIVENESS — His attitude Of MERCY and PARDON, unearned, undeserved, which He will show toward anyone who REPENTS of sin!
Never make a mistake! You ARE under authority. You always WILL be. The only question is; "WHOSE?"
You have been under the authority of this world and its customs, habits, beliefs, fables, false religions, dogmas, prejudices, politics, warped history, and its people. You have been — though you didn't realize it, and may deny it still — UNDER the authority and sway of the hidden god of this present age, who Is Satan the devil.
But the great influence who presently holds sway over mankind likes to allow man to believe himself free. He even has ministers (II Cor. 11:13-15) who preach his special kind of "freedom."
Listen to this! "While they [the false ministers of Satan] promise them [their followers] LIBERTY, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage" (II Pet. 2:19).
Peter was inspired to write of these teachers, calling them ' . . . beguiling unstable souls . . . cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray . . . wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever" (II Pet. 2:14-17).
They preach FREEDOM — "grace," as they call it.
And, inevitably, that "grace" they preach means their listeners are "free" from ANY OBLIGATION TOWARD GOD'S LAWS. They preach it is perfectly all right to BREAK God's laws, and that such DISOBEDIENCE and law BREAKING IS "liberty."
But, true to the prophecies of Romans 1, and the modern-day admissions of evolutionists, there is always an underlying MOTIVE in such messages.
And what is the motive Peter reveals? "For when they speak great swelling words of VANITY [which appeals to vanity!], they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error" (II Pet. 2:18).
Lust of the flesh — SEX sins — these are underlying MOTIVES in many a false doctrine.