REBELLION
Rebellion is active
opposition to established authority. In other words, Rebellion can be vigorous,
hostile and resistant to the recognized authority figure or organization. The root cause of Rebellion
is selfishness, which leads to bitterness, quarreling and ultimately disobedience. The Word of God says
in 1 Samuel 15:23a, “For rebellion
is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”
Wow! Pretty harsh, huh?!
Since
the Fall of Man back in Genesis, mankind has desired to live their lives for self instead of for God. This
is Rebellion. There is an inner conflict between our two natures as Followers of Jesus
Christ, the old fleshly nature vs. the new spiritual nature. Paul discusses this warring of the soul in
Romans 7:14-25: “We know that
the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what
I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want
to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it
is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For
I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I
want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not
want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at
work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's
law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner
of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this
body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then,
I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”
There are numerous examples of
Rebellion throughout the Bible. Saul was a man who had no regard for God’s will.
He lived his life according to what he desired versus what God wanted (1 Samuel 13:1-14: “Saul was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned over Israel
forty-two years. Saul chose three thousand men from Israel; two thousand were with him at Micmash and in the hill country
of Bethel, and a thousand were with Jonathan at Gibeah in Benjamin. The rest of the men he sent back to their homes.
Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost at Geba, and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul had the trumpet blown
throughout the land and said, "Let the Hebrews hear!" So all Israel heard the news: "Saul
has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel has become a stench to the Philistines." And the people were summoned
to join Saul at Gilgal. The Philistines assembled to fight Israel, with three thousand chariots, six thousand
charioteers, and soldiers as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Micmash, east of Beth Aven.
When the men of Israel saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets,
among the rocks, and in pits and cisterns. Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.
Saul remained at Gilgal, and all the troops with him were quaking with fear. He waited seven days, the time set by
Samuel; but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and Saul's men began to scatter. So he said, "Bring me the burnt offering
and the fellowship offerings. " And Saul offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished making
the offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him. "What have you done?" asked
Samuel. Saul replied, "When I saw that the men were scattering, and that you did not come at the set
time, and that the Philistines were assembling at Micmash, I thought, 'Now the Philistines will come down against me at
Gilgal, and I have not sought the LORD's favor.' So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering."
"You acted foolishly," Samuel said. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you
had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure;
the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's
command.") And the Israelites
throughout their wandering in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 9:6-24: “Understand, then, that it is not because of your
righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
Remember this and never forget how you provoked the LORD your God to anger in the desert. From the day you left Egypt
until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the LORD. At Horeb you aroused
the LORD's wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you. When I went up on the mountain to receive
the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and
forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water. The LORD gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger
of God. On them were all the commandments the LORD proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
Then the LORD told me, "Go down from here at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become
corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made a cast idol for themselves."
And the LORD said to me, "I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed!
Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation
stronger and more numerous than they." So I turned and went down from the mountain while it
was ablaze with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. When I looked, I saw that you had sinned against
the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. You had turned aside quickly from the
way that the LORD had commanded you. So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking
them to pieces before your eyes. Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days
and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the
LORD's sight and so provoking him to anger. I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for he was angry
enough with you to destroy you. But again the LORD listened to me. And the LORD was angry enough with Aaron
to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too. Also I took that sinful thing of yours, the calf
you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust and threw the dust into
a stream that flowed down the mountain. You also made the LORD angry at Taberah, at Massah and at
Kibroth Hattaavah. And when the LORD sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, he said, "Go up and take possession
of the land I have given you." But you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You did not
trust him or obey him. You have been rebellious against the LORD ever since I have known
you.”). Nothing has changed today.
We are still a rebellious people who desire to have things our way, not God’s.
Almighty God is not the only established authority we rebel
against. We also we rebel against God’s established authority in the church.
So many within the church have come against their own Pastors because their own selfish agendas aren’t being
followed. We begin to pray and speak against the direction of the church because it may not be how we believe
things should be. When that happens, we begin to try to cause a revolt by having that Pastor removed or
by trying to get others to leave the fellowship. That my friends, is Rebellion.
Rebellion can manifest in the following ways:
1. Jealousy/Envy>resentment against another’s success; hinders growth (Genesis 37:5, 11:
Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers,
they hated him all the more. His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.)
2.
Fear>anxiety caused by perceived
approaching danger; creates weakness (Numbers 13:30-33, 14:9: “Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession
of the land, for we can certainly do it." But the men who had gone up with him said, "We
can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." And they spread among the Israelites
a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people
we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim).
We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. Only do not rebel
against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection
is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them.")
3. Impatience>inability to control one’s desire for action, delayed blessings (Genesis 16:1-3:
“Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children.
But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from
having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her. Abram agreed
to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian
maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.”)
4. Greed>excessive desire for things; can bring judgment on others (Joshua 7:11-12:
“Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant,
which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put
them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn
their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever
among you is devoted to destruction.”)
5. Stubbornness>self-willed, unyielding and unteachable; (Isaiah 48:4-8:
“For I knew how stubborn you were; the sinews of
your neck were iron, your forehead was bronze. Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they
happened I announced them to you so that you could not say, 'My idols did them; my wooden image and metal god ordained
them.' You have heard these things; look at them all. Will you not admit them?
"From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you. They are created
now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So you cannot say, 'Yes, I knew of
them.' You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ear has not been open. Well
do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth.")
6. Unbelief >unwillingness to accept what is true; can lead to murmuring (Deuteronomy
9:23: “And when the LORD sent you
out from Kadesh Barnea, he said, "Go up and take possession of the land I have given you." But you rebelled
against the command of the LORD your God. You did not trust him or obey him.”
Psalms 106:24-25: “Then
they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe his promise. They grumbled in their tents and did
not obey the LORD.”)
7. Hypocrisy>showy, empty display of religious behavior; fault finding in others and self-righteousness (Matthew
15:1-9: “Then some Pharisees and
teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?
They don't wash their hands before they eat!" Jesus replied, "And why do you break
the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother’
and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or
mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor
his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right
when he prophesied about you: " 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far
from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” Luke 18:11-12: “The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers,
evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'”)
All
forms of Rebellion are ultimately against God. Whether it’s someone turning away
from the church or a child rebelling against their parents, it still comes down to a person wanting to do
what they want versus what God wants. This form of sin is evil and keeps us from receiving our blessings.
We should all examine our lives to
see if there is any Rebellion lurking in our hearts, then confess it, repent, submit and obey God.
This also includes legal authorities, parents and our spiritual leadership. We will never mature
in Christ with Rebellion in our hearts.
Next topic: Submission
