Address—C. Hendricks
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Let's start by reading a verse from Psalm 40.
Psalm 40.
Verse 6.
Sacrifice and offering, thou didst not desire.
My nearest hast thou opened?
Burnt offering and sin offering. Hast thou not required? Then said I, Lo, I come, and the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will.
Oh my God, yeah, thy laws within my heart.
The margin of my Bible.
The word opened.
It's given Hebrew.
Dig.
Pioneer.
Mine ears hast thou dig. Now this passage is quoted.
In Hebrews 10, I just read the quote from it.
It's quoted a little bit differently.
In Hebrews 10, verse 5 Wherefore, when thou cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not.
Body hast thou prepared me in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin? Thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I Lo, I come, and the volume of the book it is written of Maine to do thy will, O God.
I was noticing the expression in our readings over and over again. He that hath an ear, let him hear. It's a beautiful connection, that when the Lord Jesus came into this world, he took a body. That body was prepared him.
The Hebrew of that in Psalm 40 says, My ears hast thou?
Did. And what I'd like to talk about this afternoon and the little while we have together.
Is the subjection of Christ, and the authority of Christ, and then ours as derived from him.
The word.
That is often translated in our Bibles obedience.
Means literally to hear under or to hear subjectively.
Dependently, the word that is translated disobedience, very similar word is to hear alongside of.
And that's the only difference is in the preposition that's attached to the word to hear.
The Lord Jesus. He was given dig dears and opened ears.
Every day, every day, he gathered fresh instruction from his father from Isaiah 50.
The openness mine ear to hear is the instructed morning by morning.
He gathered fresh instruction from the father.
It's beautiful that the Spirit of God says to us. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
The Lord Jesus, when he came into this world and became a man, he assumed a position.
And a condition that required obedience.
And so he he got. He got Dig Deers. His ears were digged. His ears were opened.
To hear what God had to say to him, the only perfect man that was ever here in this world.
The only one that ever heard submissively in everything. How often times we have heard instruction given to us from our superiors. It may be our parents, maybe our employer, it may be our older brethren in the assembly. And we have said yes, but and we do not hear subjectively.
That's disobedience.
To hear subjectively is obedience, and we see that in the perfect.
Subjection of Christ.
I really have it upon my heart to talk about.
Authority.
But before we can deal with that subject, we have to understand.
Subjection.
Because authority wielded apart from the principle of subjection.
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Is abused authority.
It's misused authority. It becomes tyranny.
And it becomes oftentimes, unrighteousness.
I have felt for a long time that when I've heard of the subject of authority and scriptures spoken of.
I've felt that's one sided, lopsided.
Truth.
It's not presented in the proper balance that we ought to have.
There is such a thing as assembly authority. I have heard the subject of assembly authority.
Pressed, and I felt oftentimes in hearing it.
Something's missing?
The authority of a father, parental authority father and mother over their children.
That sometimes the way it's presented and what I'm speaking on this afternoon.
Is ministry that I feel very much in need of myself.
I hope you won't reject what is presented because you look at the vessel and say who is he to give such truth?
Because I'm conscious of failure in the very thing that I'm going to be speaking about.
But I believe it needs to be spoken about.
The Lord Jesus was the perfect subject 1.
And it is to him that God has committed the future.
Reign of the Kingdom.
It is to that lowly subject 1 to the one who.
Though he was in his deity, God over all blessed forever, and yet he took up manhood.
He came into the place where obedience and submission and subjection were.
Proper to him, and he never got out of that place when he was down here as a man.
Never got out of that place. He discharged that that position of subjection.
Perfectly. And God the Father to that man, to that blessed One, that has discharged that position, that responsibility and perfection, in lowly subjection. It is into his hands that He commits the Kingdom. Everything will be placed under his feet.
And we're really not qualified to exercise authority.
If we haven't learned to submit.
Children, if you haven't learned to obey your parents and to submit to their authority, which is really the authority of God, because it is God who has vested them with that authority, you'll not be qualified later on to be a parent.
If we haven't learned at work to submit to our superiors.
As employees to our employer.
We wouldn't be qualified to become a manager and to be in a position of authority over others.
If you as a younger brother.
Do not know what it is to submit to the authority of those who are over you in the Lord.
You won't be qualified to exercise that position of authority.
Later on.
We're all in a training period and we need to learn.
Subjection.
That is what is necessary in the school of God in order to graduate into the position of authority.
Everyone of us, regardless of what our station in life is, is in subjection to someone.
We're all citizens of this land and.
We are subject to those who are over us, the authorities, the powers that be, Romans 13 says.
The subject to the powers that be.
Now those who are in the place of subjection, like the Lord himself when he came here.
When he got those Big Deers to learn and to hear subjectively.
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Submissively, every instruction that the Father gave him.
Let's look at him a little before we proceed. Let's turn to John's gospel and we'll start with just a verse or two and John four. We must proceed rapidly. There's much to cover.
John 434 Jesus saith unto them, My meat.
Is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.
As we read some of these passages in John's Gospel, we will come across that expression, him that sent me, him that sent me over and over and over again.
He delights to refer to himself as the sent one of the Father. He had come to do not his own will, but the will of him that sent him. It was his meat to do that. It was his delight to do that. We read that in Hebrews and in Psalm 40. My delight is to do Thy will, O God, So if you are in the place of subjection, if you're a son or a daughter in a family, if you are a wife, to be subject to your husband.
If you're unemployed, to be subject to your superior at work, a citizen to be subject to the government over which under which you live.
One in the assembly to be subject to the action or the discipline of the assembly.
A place to be subject.
But I want to get to the.
Responsibility of those who are in the position of authority and how that.
Authority is to be exercised.
Because it was the Lord Jesus that showed us imperfection, the path of submission and subjection, in order that God the Father could elevate Him to the position of authority and power in a coming day.
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength, and honor and glory and blessing. All of those sevenfold things are his by virtue of what he has won as a man down here in perfect obedience and subjection to his father, not by virtue of who he is in his own person, but he has won them because of his perfect obedience.
And subjection.
Now we're to walk as he walked.
We're to follow in his steps. He is our example, He is the one that is trod the pathway before us.
And it's blessed, a blessed pathway. Let's turn to John 5.
John 5 verse 17 Jesus answered them. My father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the Lord to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, his own Father, making himself equal with God. It's striking that in all of these expressions that we're going to be looking at where he's presented as the subject. 1 It's in the gospel according to John that presents him in his eternal deity.
In His eternal sonship.
The very first verses of our gospel bring that out. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him. Without him was not anything made that was made. The eternal Son, the Word, the Creator, the Sustainer, the upholder of the universe. He became a man. He came into the place of subjection, to show you and me how to live in that place of subjection for what we're all in that place, no matter how high you have come, achieved in the in the latter of success in this world.
There's someone to whom you are accountable.
Someone that is over you. So we're all subject to someone. We have to learn how to to fulfill the role of subjection before we can properly discharge the role of authority. And I believe that one of the greatest sins that exists in the world today is the abuse of a God-given authority. You see it in governments.
I picked up a book at the Perth conference. It was about the the the Roman emperors, those that reigned and ruled over the Roman Empire.
When Paul wrote Romans 13, be subject to the powers that are over you and the Lord. Nero was on the throne, one of the most wicked.
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Tyrants the Roman Empire ever saw.
Tiberius Caesar was another terrible these men were.
As close to being insane and possessed with their own importance.
And.
Independence of anyone else that you can imagine.
And yet, Paul said be subject.
So it's not a question of whether the authority over you is exercising that authority properly or not calling upon you to be subject or not to be subject. We're called upon to be subject.
You might say I have a very unreasonable father.
And I have to be subject to him. Yes, you do.
You have to be subject to him.
I have a very unreasonable husband. You mean I have to be subject to him? Yes, the word of God says.
Wives, be subject to your own husbands.
We haven't come to the other side of the truth, but I want to get to.
And the responsibility of those in authority to exercise that in the spirit of dependence.
Well, let's go on verse 19 of chapter 5. Then answer Jesus, and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son.
Whenever we read of the Sun, it's his essential glory.
The Son can do nothing of himself.
Nothing from himself as a source.
But what he seeth the Father do, for what things so ever he doeth these also doeth the Son likewise.
He takes the place of subjection, and this is so much more forceful to us because it's in the Gospel of John where he's presented as the eternal Son.
But he had become a man. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and in that new position.
Of dependents. He fulfilled it in perfection. He would not do anything from himself. That's the beauty of the four Gospels. Here's the man that never did anything for himself. He had those big deers. He's the one that really had ears to hear, and he heard every word the Father gave him.
And he obeyed it. He heard it submissively.
And he obeyed it.
Perfectly turn to John 6 verse 38.
For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will.
Will of him that sent me, that was his meat. That was his delight, he says. I don't act from myself as a source. I do all from the Father. It was authority in submission.
How Noah, this man speaks, they said. This man speaks with authority.
And they couldn't understand it. You didn't have any degrees behind his name, but he spoke with authority.
But it was always with submission in submission to his Father, to do the will of the Father.
That's why he was here.
Chapter 8.
Verse 26 I have many things to say, and to judge of you, But he that sent me is true, and I speak to the world, those things which I have heard of him. He had that open dear, that dig dear. He heard the instructions the Father gave had given him, and he spoke those things. Everything that he spoke, everything that he did, was in perfect obedience to the Father.
Verse 28 Then said Jesus unto them, When he have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself.
But as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
Taught of the Father, He spoke those things. Verse 29 And he that sent me is with me. He delighted to refer to himself as the scent. One of the Father he that sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone, for I do always those things that please him. Isn't that wonderful to be here, to please another, not to please myself, not to do my own will? He said. I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.
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And he was here to please the will of him that sent him, the one who sent him.
And everything he did and everything he spent, he said, was with that in mind.
Chapter 9 verse four. I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day.
Chapter 10 And here is a very precious passage, verse 17.
Oh, how wonderful it is.
Therefore, does my father love me? He always loved him, but here now he speaks of a fresh motive.
For the Father to love his son, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. Ah, you say now there he's speaking.
From himself as a source, Let's go on. I have power or authority to lay it down.
And I have power to take it again. Yes, he had, being who he was, the eternal Son of God. He had the authority to lay his life down of himself, and to take it again. But notice the last words of the verse. This commandment have I received of my Father. He did it in obedience to the Father's command. The Father told him, you lay your life down and take it again. And he did it. He had the power himself to do it, to act independently of the Father. That he wouldn't do that.
Never would do that.
And when you do your own will, and when you act independently. When I do my own will and act independently of God.
I sin. That's what sin is. Sin is lawlessness.
Independence of God the Lord Jesus is our perfect example. Never did his own will trace his pathway In the four Gospels. There's a man that never did his own will. It was his delight. It was his meat and drink to do the will of the Father.
I didn't read the verse out quoted in John Six. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live on account of the Father, so he that eateth me, he shall live on account of me. We live on account of him. We live for him. Paul says it in Philippians 121 For me to live is Christ. I live as he lived on account of the Father. And that's our portion. That's why we're here, not to do our own will. He was here to glorify the Father.
And so he says, Therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life. He laid it down as an act of obedience and submission.
To the command of the Father. He had authority to lay it down, and authority to take it again.
But he didn't do it independently, he says. This commandment have I received of my father, Oh.
What a savior.
Chapter 12 Just want to pick out a few verses.
Verse 44 Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me.
But on him that sent me.
And he that seeth me, seeth him, that sent me, So perfectly did he carry out the Commission. The Father gave him the words, The Father gave him to speak the works, the Father gave him to perform. So perfectly did he discharge that, that he says, he that seeth me, seeth him that sent me verse 49. For I have not spoken of myself.
What he said did not originate from himself.
That would have been out of place for him because he had taken the place of subjection.
It says in Philippians 2 he emptied himself.
He emptied himself of the prerogative to act of and from himself. When he became a man and came into the creature place, He the Creator, became the first born. But it would have been out of place, having taken that position, to have acted independently of the Father. That was his perfection.
His submission and his subjection was his perfection. His ears opened, his ears digged, to always hear, to always hear submissively to the command of the Father. I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me. He gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting. Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me.
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So I speak so the very words he spoke with the Father's, and he summarizes all that he said.
As the commandment from the Father, it was all done in obedience to the Father, in submission to the Father.
If you would see if I would see more that.
The place of Subjection is the place which the Lord of Glory took in infinite grace to reach down to the likes of you and me, to bring us into blessing. It's the place that he and lowly grace took, and he's going to be awarded for that, the highest place in glory.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.
Why? Because he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
In his lowly past.
The way to a position of authority is through subjection and the proper exercise of authority.
Is on the principle of subjection to the Higher authority.
We are all subject to a higher authority.
Chapter 14.
Verse 9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you? And yet hast thou not known me, Philip?
He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father. And how sayest thou then show us the Father.
Believeth thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me the words?
That I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, from myself.
Independently, no, he didn't speak that way. But the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
He speaks of the words. He speaks of the works.
The works all a manifestation of the Father. And then just the 17th chapter, he says in verse four, I have glorified the Father on the earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou, me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
And so the man that showed us the way, who is the way? Who put all our sins away by his perfect obedience unto death, and that the death of the cross? But he did more than that. He showed us how to walk.
Lay aside our own wills and be subject. Now turn to Ephesians Five. Time is quickly slipping by.
Ephesians 5.
Verse 21.
Submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of God, Mr. Darby renders that. Submitting yourselves 1 to another in the fear of Christ. I like that, because it brings before us the fear that was ever before him, as a man down here, always doing the will of the Father.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own, Husbands is unto the Lord.
Verse 25, Husbands, love your wives.
Chapter 6. One Children obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.
Verse four and you fathers provoke not your children to wrath.
Verse 5 servants be obedient and verse 9 ye masters do the same.
Without threatening, you have 3 couplets here. You have wives and husbands, children and parents, servants and masters. The one that is in the subject place is always put first because that's the place that he took in grace.
And the reward for perfectly fulfilling the responsibility of that place by himself will be that everything will be placed in subjection under his feet.
So the way to the way to authority is through subjection.
And the proper exercise of authority is through subjection. The husbands are heads of their wives. The wives are to be subject to them. How are the husbands to exercise that authority and headship? Husbands, love your wives.
Even as Christ.
Love the church.
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Husbands, love your wives.
Even as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it.
That's the proper exercise of the authority of the husband over his wife, she exercise of love.
The Lord Jesus, in exercising obedience to his Father, was doing it.
To an authority that was nothing but love to him, and he submitted.
And yet there was in the will of God, which he had come to do, the Soros trial. None of our trials can even be mentioned in the same sentence with it. They're not worthy of it to what he faced.
When in the garden, he contemplated the awfulness of drinking the cup of divine wrath against sin.
And as we've heard in the conference in the ministry, he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood.
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me nevertheless, in the perfect submission that was ever his. Not my will, but thine be done.
That was the greatest horror conceivable to drain that cup of divine wrath against sin.
To take it from the Father's hand.
In obedience and submission. You've never been called upon. I've never been called upon, never will be to go through any trial like that.
But his obedience was perfect. Had it not been perfect, beloved, everything would have been lost. Everything would have been lost. Had he faltered once, Had he made one misstep, all would have been lost.
The accomplishment of redemption required perfect obedience.
Perfect submission.
Hearing under whatever the father gave him.
Not my will, but thine be done. That was his path.
That's our path.
And where does it lead to?
Leads to the glory.
Husbands.
Love your wives as Christ loved the church. And then it says.
Verse 24.
Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ.
So let the wives be to their own husbands and everything.
I've never heard this verse quoted in connection with an assembly decision.
But it ought to be.
As the Church is subject unto Christ.
Every assembly decision that is taken ought to be taken in the spirit of submission.
To subjection to Christ, and obedience to Him and His Word.
If that isn't what characterizes an assembly action, it is not the proper use of delegated authority.
If that is not what characterizes me as a father.
Or you as a father or a mother with your children.
If it is not the.
Realization that you are subject.
To another the Father to Christ.
The wife to the husband.
Christ to God, and he carried out that subjection perfectly. So the one that we have brethren, fathers, men over us, is the one that perfectly was subject.
To his father, and he calls upon us now to be subject to him in the exercise of that authority over our wives.
If that was before us.
There wouldn't be the abuse of authority.
That would be the proper use of it.
Authority.
That is.
Misused as tragic.
Talking to one recently and.
The wife, with tears, said I can't talk to my husband.
You see, he has authority over her and what he says goes and that's it. But there's no communication.
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I remember the words.
Of brother Daniel.
Hey ho, never forget it. The message that he gave says. A long day's work and you're tired and you finally get to bed and you're lying there next to your wife and she says those 3 words and I thought he was going to say I love you, but he said no, that's not what he said. He said talk to me.
She had been with the children all day long. She wanted to talk to her husband.
She wanted that communication. She wanted that exchange. She wanted to share with him and to have him share with her.
And I know I'm confident in that family.
That was carried out properly.
I said I was going to say some things that.
Hit right home and that's one of them.
And that's true with our children.
Sometimes we don't have any communication with our children.
Oh, we have authority over them. We can tell them what to do.
But is that the proper use of authority?
The army style, The army Sergeant do as I say and don't ask questions.
An assembly action when it is taken.
Must be bowed to prima facie on the face of it, assuming that everything that has been done.
Is of God, but the assembly does not act independently of the head, as the church is subject to Christ. So let the wives be to their husbands and everything.
Every assembly action, to be of God, must be in subjection to the head, according to the Word.
As directed and led by the Holy Spirit.
If it's an action of independency, or controlled by one or two strong willed brethren that gain the ascendancy over the consciences of others, and the assembly isn't really acting, they are being subdued to the strong wills of others is that of God.
Is that the proper use of authority? 1000 times? No.
And how often some of us have been guilty of that.
Or if we would just study him, the Lord Jesus.
The Perfect Subject 1.
As the church is subject to Christ, so let the wise be to their husbands and everything.
What has Christ done for the church? He loved it and gave himself for it. He is sanctifying it with the washing of water by the Word. And that's what the husbands ought to be doing with their wives. They ought to be sanctifying them, and applying the Word of God in their lives, and lovingly nurturing them and and leading them on and supporting them.
And one day he's going to present it to himself, a church glorious without spot or wrinkle.
That's the way he exercises his authority over the church.
The authority of love.
Completely different than the kind of authority that we often think of.
And I say that it were not in a position to exercise authority properly until we have learned the principle of subjection.
Subjection to the one who's over us. No matter how high you go in this world, there's always one higher.
There's always God.
Always gone.
David said it is it is necessary that he that ruleth over men must be just thrilling in the fear of God.
I've heard, I've heard that it even said that the Lord Jesus submitted to evil.
Never.
He submitted to authority.
That may have been exercising itself improperly.
He submitted to that.
But he never submitted to evil. Let's not misrepresent the truth.
He submitted to God-given authority, He said to Pilate, Thou couldst have no authority at all over me, if it were not given me from above.
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He submitted to authority, but he did not submit to evil.
He was always above that.
And the apostles.
When they were required by the authorities to do what was wrong.
What was wrong?
They said we must obey God rather than men.
There's always a higher authority.
A husband who has authority over his wife may require of her something that.
She cannot conscientiously do before God because it would deny the Lord.
Then she has to obey the higher authority.
Just the last word we as older, brethren.
In exercising authority over those who are younger in the faith, do we do it with an iron hand?
All we do, we exercise it in love.
Again.
I said I was going to speak on things that hit right home, and I'm sure there are others here that hit right home.
But how do we exercise the authority that is placed in?
Says in Hebrews 13, obey your leaders, for they watch over your souls as those that must give account to whom? To the one who's over them.
For everyone of us in the exercise of authority must give a count.
To the one who is over us.
Time is up.