“And especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries.”
and despise authority
“Authority” carries the ideas of ruling power, lordship, dominion. These people loved to overrule God’s authority. False teachers held the lordship of God’s Word in contempt. They denied their Lord. They did not want the Lord to have dominion over them. Solipsism has no authority but its own.
“Despise” means to make of no account, to regard as nothing. The word “despise means to think down upon. False teachers despise authority and treat God and His Word with contempt and scorn. They treat God’s authority as having no impact on them. False teachers held authority in contempt because God’s Word violated their values.
Mt 6:24, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
PRINCIPLE:
A civilization without ultimate authority will result in anarchy.
APPLICATION:
The authority of God’s Word is our only ultimate mooring in a society without an anchor for its values. Once we reject the authority of the sovereign Son of God and the Word of God that reveals who He is, then we lose our moorings. We have nothing to which we can finally anchor our souls.
Today we spawned a generation that despises authority. They reject the authority of the home, work, government, and church. These people despise any rule that would challenge their liberty; the self is the ultimate authority.
Children soon learn when the ground rules of the home are not enforced. They know that those rules do not mean anything. They carry that rebellion into school and do not respect authorities at the university. All this begins with the rejection of the Bible as the final authority. A civilization without ultimate authority will result in anarchy. If we take the Bible away from our children, we will find them in a lawless state or even the penitentiary.
Some religious people love to ridicule the Bible. No wonder people have little respect for God. There is a fundamental attitude of rebellion against authority in considerable areas of religion today.
