DURING a Sunday afternoon football game, one of the players got upset at a referee for a call that he made. The player was twice as big as the referee and probably ten times as strong. He was angry. He did the unthinkable and the unacceptable. He bumped the referee. The rules in football are very strict. You don\u2019t put your hands or any part of your body on the referee. When a player touches a referee, that referee has legal rights, even though he\u2019s smaller than you, even though the player is bigger than the referee, even though the player has got on all of this equipment, even though the referee only has on a T-shirt and a pair of pants \u2026 the referee has legal rights.<\/p>\n
The referee reached in his back pocket, pulled out a yellow flag, and flung it up in the air. He started waving his hands up and down and sent the player off the field. The referee told the player, \u201cYou are out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wait a minute! How dare a little, puny guy, who can\u2019t lift half the weight of the football player, who has no equipment to protect himself, how dare he throw a flag up in the face of a three hundred pounder? Where did he get the power? Where did he get the strength? Where did he get the confidence? It is all legal. It has nothing to do with strength or equipment or weight. It has everything to do with authority.<\/p>\n
Satan is bigger than you. He\u2019s been lifting weights longer than you. He\u2019s got on more equipment than you. But you\u2019ve got a flag in your back pocket. Based on Jesus Christ, you have legal rights. The power of the believer who uses his legal rights in heavenly places is more potent than the power of Satan. You have legal rights.889<\/p>\n
[Kingdom of God, Power of; Satan]<\/p>\n
James 4:7; 1 John 4:4<\/p>\n
A SOLDIER one day went to the doctor. He was disturbed because he was a chain smoker and he couldn\u2019t get rid of his habit. He had tried in the past to stop smoking but he had failed each time.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cDoc, these cigarettes are killing me. You know, I\u2019m smoking two packs a day and I can\u2019t stop. Doc, do something. I need something to deliver me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The military doctor looked at him and said, \u201cOkay, on my lapel you see two bars. Tell me what they represent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey represent the fact that you are a captain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
The solider said, \u201cWell, I\u2019m a private.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen, who\u2019s in charge here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you are, because you\u2019re the captain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOK, then as your captain, I command you to stop smoking permanently, beginning right now, and you must obey my orders.\u201d<\/p>\n
This man who\u2019d been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for a long time stopped smoking on a dime because now he was talking to his captain. The doctor rather than going into his medicine chest reached out based on his authority. The man stopped smoking and never smoked again because his commanding officer said so. The young solider started off talking to his doctor. He wound up talking to his commanding officer. When he recognized who he was talking to and allowed the captain to be the captain over him, he was able to overcome something that he hadn\u2019t been able to overcome for a long time.890<\/p>\n
[Surrender, Benefits of]<\/p>\n
Heb. 13:17; James 4:7<\/p>\n
I KNOW people who will say that they can\u2019t go two hours without smoking. But put them on a plane to England and they\u2019ll go eight hours without smoking. How can people who can\u2019t go two hours without smoking get on a plane for eight hours and not smoke? Because the commander of the plane tells them that they are on a nonsmoking flight. They can\u2019t smoke on the plane.<\/p>\n
If people who smoke want to get from one point to another by plane, they have to give up something. The commander of the ship has told them that they can\u2019t take the trip if they don\u2019t abide by the rules.<\/p>\n
As Christians, our problem is not an inability to change. Our problem is that we don\u2019t know who we are talking to. If we really knew that we were dealing with the \u201cCommander,\u201d the all-powerful God, then we would find that power to do things we didn\u2019t think we had power for.891<\/p>\n
[God, Authority of; God, Fear of]<\/p>\n
Isa. 8:13; Matt. 10:28<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DURING a Sunday afternoon football game, one of the players got upset at a referee for a call that he made. The player was twice as big as the referee and probably ten times as strong. He was angry. He did the unthinkable and the unacceptable. He bumped the referee. The rules in football are … Continue reading “SPIRITUAL
\nAUTHORITY, POWER OF”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}