Okay then, so what I want to do then we'll just have a look here in this verse here. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except of God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. So firstly I want to look at God's mandate to parents, God's purpose and mandate for parents. You need to understand why you're parents. Well just parents have kids, and we raise the kids, and they get off. Then we retire and we die, and then they carry on. Listen, is that all there is to it? Man, I've spent a whole two months trying to get us to realise that whatever God does is for eternity, see? So we need to understand that when you have children, you're bringing an eternal being into this world, and need to understand how to go about fulfilling your responsibility.
When you come home from the hospital with a wonderful little child, you now have a responsibility and a mandate from God, and we need to know what God says about it. So God has a purpose for parents. He has a responsibility He entrusts to you, and with that responsibility He gives you certain authority to act. So God called every person, adults and children, to come under His authority. The core of sin is, I want to run my life my way. That's sin. We tend to think of sin as breaking, you know, killing, murdering - that's all sin, but then sin is deeper than that. Sin is actually, I don't want anyone, especially God, or any of His representatives, to tell me what to do with my life. I want to be the sole source of what I will do. I want to run my life my way, with no accountability to any person. I want to be able to do what I want to do. That is freedom, for this generation.
Now you see that's what the Bible calls sin and lawlessness. God wont' tolerate it! So God has devised and formed several structures in society; number one, family; number two, the church; number three, government; number four, business - business all through the Bible, God's all into business; but there are certain principles and responsibilities in the governing of the business. The Bible's full of that as well, what a worker should do, their responsibilities; what an employer's responsibilities are, and their authority. Parents, parents have responsibilities; so we're going to look at your responsibilities in a moment, and children also have responsibilities. If you're a child, God speaks to you directly, and He gives you certain responsibilities, and what's wonderful, He says if you will fulfil these responsibilities, there's certain things I can guarantee you will happen in your life.
Okay then, so God calls parents. He has invested us with authority, notice what it says; let every soul. How many are left out of that one? No one, no one left out. Let every soul be subject to higher powers. That word subject means this; it means to position yourself under an authority, following their direction, so together you can accomplish a common task. It's to place yourself under someone God's put over you, with a view to co-operating and getting a task done, so when the Bible tells children to be subject to their parents, it's saying put yourself voluntarily under their leadership; because they have a task, they have something God's given them to do, and it can only take place if you will respond to their leadership in your life. So everywhere in life it's got to operate that way, so parents have authority. You know why a parent has authority? You have an authority because God gives it to you, and the government can't take it away. God has given you a responsibility to fulfil, and with that, authority, the legal right to speak and act. That's what authority is. It's delegated to you from God.
You have the responsibility to do certain things with your children, and then God gives you the right to speak and act on His behalf, to make that happen. You have to understand, that it is God gave you the authority as a parent, God gives you the responsibility as a parent, so when the government, or any kind of civic authority, tries to alter the standing of a child, put a child on the same standing as a parent, they violate God's basic order, because God has said something like this: parents, you're in charge. You pay the way, you're in charge. Parents are in charge, so if you're a parent, you are to be in charge. Now that one thing alone, we'd have a whole heap of problems with many people - often, so many of them from Havelock [expensive suburb] - I've noticed have real trouble understanding: parents, you're in charge. You're in charge of your children.