The practical authority of God's Word in the governance of local church bodies is explored, emphasizing that true authority lies not just in theory but in daily practice. The sermon argues that for a church to function biblically, there must be a genuine desire among mature believers to govern, a willingness from all members to be governed, and an outward display of governmental order that honors God. Drawing from 1 Peter 5, it highlights the importance of humility, submission to one another, and the example of Christ in fostering a healthy, well-ordered spiritual community. The message concludes by urging believers to actively participate in and submit to God's established order within the church, reflecting both internal conviction and external conduct.
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Our Brother Tom Taylor from Hatboro, Pennsylvania, with the Ministry of God's Word. If you're about to display, you're about to see what is known as a demonstration of a truly gifted and clever man. working with modern mechanical devices. And I hope I don't strangle. But if I do, where's my wife?
If I do, remember my will was in the first drawer in a file marked personal matter. Now, they've got this thing for me so I can wander around and you can still hear me, but they've got a short corridor. That's like giving a fellow a giant lollipop, two inches around with a three-inch stick or something like that. So I predict only a reasonable amount of disaster will result. I'd like to read for you this morning in First Peter Chapter 5. First Peter Chapter 5, I have a funny than taking this stick, Brother Andrews, to the girls and whatnot in the fourth, chloroform would be my recommendation.
Large doses. But I don't know. You have to be young once. I'm just waiting for the day myself. See, I was born an adult. I've been going downhill for 40 come here. And I get to be about 65, I should have got about the teenage mentality, and I can hardly wait. 1 Peter chapter 5, talking about the practical authority of God's word in our companies and gatherings, and I will read verses 1 through 11, 1 Peter 5. The elders which are among you, I exhort whom also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed, feed the flock of God which among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.
Neither is being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fatheth not away. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elders. Yes, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility, for God resists us of proud and give us grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may agree. exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
But the God of all grace, who has called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. This morning I want to talk with you about the practical authority of God's word as far as our government is concerned. And I'm not talking about the government of the nation, but the government of the local company of God's people. I tried to stress the other night the emphasis of the difference between practical authority and real authority. And I will simply say here in a nutshell that real authority is what a person has in theory. Practical authority is the way it is used in the everyday practice of God. life. So when you're driving through a town and they have a sign up, it says radar used to check your speed.
It tells you to see that there is a real authority, that there's a certain speed limit, you're supposed to go with it, you're supposed to live with it. You don't know whether the radar is there or not. You secretly suspect that people in most towns wouldn't know how to work them anyway, but you don't know if it's there or not, but you see the sign. But when you see the state police sitting beside the road with a little gizmo blinking on the side of the car, there is real authority. The theory and the practice are met together at the same time. And even if you're going 10 miles under the limit, you usually slow down just to have a clear conscience when you get the on and to boast about it to your friends later. And now the problem that we face in our fellowship very often is that we profess to give the word full authority. And no doubt in the depths of our hearts we really mean it that way and want it to be that way.
But then in the course of life we often deny it the practical authority by not adhering to it and not listening to what it says. The man told me at a conference earlier this spring, he said, you know, he said, when you get into a place where influence is on one side and authority is on the other side, he said, influence will win every time. And so he said, we tell people what the word says, but because the word does not have sufficient influence in their lives, they go their own way and forget about the word until they get into some deep difficulty and then they have to turn back to it and then God and his grace may draw them that way. is to get people right from the start as believers to accept the word in the practical extent of its authority, and then as they see its influence on their lives, they will realize that it is right and the right way, and it will grow on them, and you won't have all these arguments later on.
I'll have to say that to myself, see, in many areas of life, too, because most of us are basically kind of self-centered and stubborn-minded, and a lot of other unpleasant things we'll not get into today, just as we stand in a natural sort of state. practical authority of the word of God is that which teaches us how Christ gave himself for us and that we may only be saved through him and through looking unto him in that way. And so what I've been pleading for, I hope to press more for in the course of the week, is that we come to take the practical authority of the word in our gatherings. In your own private life, certainly, but to take the practical authority of the word in our gatherings and not merely be those who say we believe it, but those who say we believe it and then who demonstrate in the course of action that we do it so that belief and doing come at least closer together.
Now, last night I chatted for a bit about the concept of the practical authority of the word in our gatherings, and I don't want to run back on that too much because the future is kind ahead of us, you know, but I will tell you this, that in any other area of life, people realize that the more fully they participate, the richer their experience is. Nobody really wants to be the water boy for the football team unless that's the only thing that he can do. But I've never known a water boy yet who didn't imagine he was the quarterback in his off-duty hours. They want to be in on it. And when I was over in Tennessee, there was an old soldier in Ray County who used to give lectures on all the battles that were fought during the wars in American history.
And you thought that Uncle Billy had been to all of them. But when he died and they wrote his obituary in the Chattanooga newspaper, we discovered that all he had ever been was a bugle boy. boy until he'd only served six months. But even the bugle boy who'd only served six months wanted to be a full part of the whole operations, and he viewed himself in that line. Somehow when we get to spiritual issues, the coin turns, and many seem to want to be just enough of a part to be sure that when they cross the river, they'll be on the right side, and yet not enough of a part to be vitally and soul and body activated in the present situation. Now, that's a problem I don't want to treat this morning. I want to talk about the practical authority in our government, the government of the local company.
But I want to emphasize to myself and to you too that it's only as the practical of the authority of the word grips us that we have real direction and real light and a real sure understanding. Now, here in 1 Peter 5, we have a starting point with regard to the practical authority of the word of God on the local company in its government. about what you call this fellow or what you call that fellow, but how the local company is governed in a biblical sense, and the practical authority of the word on that local company. I have tried for years to find the words that really describe the local company. I know that it's not a democracy. A democracy is where everybody shouts, and those that shout the loudest get the most attention.
I know that the local company biblically is not a democracy. I know it's not an autocracy that's run by one man that's a loud voice and a big stick. It's not even an oligarchy where there are a few that rule and many that crawl before them. I know it's not that. I know that it's a spiritual company where all believers are to function together in accord with the gifts and purpose of God and with their own dedication to Christ. But the five-one words it describes that I really don't know. And we usually pick up words like flock and group and company and church and assembly and gathering and other terms like that in an attempt to describe it. But I am concerned with the biblical authority, the practical biblical authority for the government and that company. So in 1 Peter 5 in verses 1 through 3, you pick up the first thrust as far as I can see.
And the first thrust is that in the company, there must be a will to govern. In the company, there must be a will to govern. That is, there must be those desirous of government. There must be those desirous of exercising themselves for the health of the whole company. So Peter introduces himself by saying that he is an elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ. And he writes to those who are elders also among the other groups. kind of taken for granted that the word elder was lifted by the New Testament church out of the Hebrew background that was associated with it. And of those who were called elders in that concept and consequently those called elders in the New Testament church were those persons of maturity, not necessarily age, but age and maturity sometimes at least or close, but those persons of maturity and insight who were qualified for the oversight of a particular circumstance.
So a Hebrew congregation was gathered around ten elders, gathered around ten elders who were comprised themselves a minor conessa. And those ten elders were really the voice of the group. They didn't run everybody's life and they didn't run the whole show, but they were basically the voice of the group. And they were never just ten men. They were, and by and large, ten family heads, and not any ten family heads, but those ten who demonstrated themselves to be interested and competent and able and a sufficient reputation to work on a ruling basis of the group. Well, certainly in the New Testament assembly, there is no designation on number no designation on other things also, I mean on some other things. There are a lot of designations, but some there are not. But the imagery of a person of spiritual maturity, willing and desirous of taking the oversight and the exercise for government seems to be a very plain thing.
Most of our churches have recognized that at one time or another. I was converted in the United Presbyterian Church many years ago. Not so many. It depends how old you are, whether it's many or not. It will be 30 years ago this fall, which of your 15 is many, long at all. But it will be 30 years ago this fall. And I remember the governmental system there very well. I lived with it for about five years. In that system, see, there was a government of elders. And even the pastor was only an elder. The difference was he was regarded as a teaching elder, and the other fellows were regarded as ruling elders. And I suppose they were abrasive elders who frictionized one another pretty often. But the idea was that of elders. And if you go back to Calvin and the boys who set a lot of these systems in motion, you find the idea of a group of an eldership or an oversight that works together in the care of the flock to be very prominent in their particular considerations.
Now, in this situation, Peter, without telling us much about the background or not telling us the names of particular men, says, I'm an elder, he says, one of spiritual maturity capable to prescribe for the flock. I'm also an apostle, a witness to sufferings of Christ, but he said, I write to those who are among you of similar spiritual status, and I exhort them feeding of the flock of God in verse 2 is a matter of taking the oversight or that which is, well, that which looks out for the welfare, the looking over, the examination, the looking out of the welfare for them. The oversight is the word from which we get terms like Episcopal and things like that, one who looks over the group and part of the looking over is the feeding of the flock and he says, I urge them to do it not by constraint but willingly, not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind, not because they are great masters in the company, but that they are to be of godliness and a proper manner of living.
So what I'm really saying is that if we take the practical authority of Scripture and bring it to local company, there must be a will to govern, a desire to govern, a desire to see for the spiritual health on the part of those who are mature and confident in spiritual things. If you say to yourself that is obvious, I suppose it is obvious, but in many, many places it is not discernible. Many places. I'm a young fellow and you shouldn't make pronouncements like you know every place in the world, but duties that is often not discernible. You'll find wise brethren that if you ask them a simple judgment, shrug their shoulders and say, well, I don't have the authority to make any statement on that. And in some circumstances, I've known places where a few incompetent persons had to assume the feeding of the flock and the care of the oversight and other things because competent persons felt no desire and felt no compulsion towards it.
Although we are told in the Samothian letters that if a man desired the office of a bishop, bishop is equated with elders taking 1 Peter 5, 2, and running it back to Acts 20, 28, and seeing that the jobs are the same, and the duties are the same, and the function are the same, and where there would be those competent not willing to exercise it, not willing to desire a good thing, somebody winds up doing it, and sometimes it winds up to be some ambitious idiot, and that's a strong word I know, but some ambitious person who is not confident and does not really know things. And we sometimes look at those people and say, well, they're wrong to take a leadership that they're not qualified for, but in a circumstance where those who could be qualified and will take it won't, then I don't know what you do. I don't know who's the most at fault, but I have a feeling that the most at fault is the part of a mature level that's unwilling to think in terms of government.
Now, it may not be that way in your own meeting, see, because I don't run around pronouncing bans or offering quick decisions in other places, but I've seen it all together too many times, where government was a matter of, oh, an emergency situation, emergency comes up, somebody threatening to blow up the building, and the brethren can decide that somebody ought to watch it. But apart from that, any concept of oversight or feeding, any concept of seeing that some type of diet is there for the group is purely left totally up in the air, totally up in the air. I personally have, I don't know if it's right or, you know, there's some things you don't know if you're doing the right thing or wrong thing, so I'll just tell you what it is and have to discern that for yourself.
But I personally have tried more and in ministry and assemblies to, oh, it's a bug them for two or three Sundays. A bugging means to harass them for two or three Sundays. People say, well, you come and speak. In the last three or four years, I've said, not for one day. I mean, you can preach the gospel one time on the street meeting. No question there. But when they say, well, you come and speak, I've usually said, well, please, not just for one day. That isn't because I think I am greatly gifted. It's just because I'd like to try to teach something. And I've discovered hours teaching, people don't even know it's time for recess when it's over. And that if you're going to do something constructively, there ought to be some kind of pattern of program. I'm not talking about a formalized thing like many of our companion Christian churches have where everything is structured to death, but an oversight that's concerned for the flock.
And the oversight knows that the flock hasn't had any vitamin E for a long time. And in their concern for it, they try to see that they get it. Some places live totally on a diet of gospel sermons preached to the saved. And that will not hurt your soul. It will never hurt you to hear the gospel. It will always do you good. But there are things to be desired and to build and added to that. And that is an enormously important factor. I feel it's pretty keenly myself, but I will try to go on and say something else in a minute. But the practical authority is that a desire to government ought to be there. Now, in 1 Timothy 3, and in Titus 1.
In 1 Timothy 3, and in Titus 1, both. You have a long section which discusses the marks of those that ought to be true, both of those who serve in a governmental capacity as elders, those who serve in a servant's governmental capacity as deacons. But the marks are given to them in 1 Timothy 3, and also given to them in Titus 1. And I would like to just say pretty bluntly, I'll say it to the young men, I think, and young as anybody under 45. Say it pretty But that my advice to a young brother would be, and it's to myself too, see, but my advice to a young brother would be that he observed these things and try to pattern his life after them.
Not a new legal standard, but that he try to pattern his life after them so that when he gets to be 90, he doesn't have to look around and say, well, do I have the qualifications or not? But throughout the course of his life, he's been living in a sober, vigilant manner, watching carefully his behavior. not given to excesses of life, living in a godly way, having those things about him in proper order, so that the pattern of his life is after the biblical pattern of virtue that qualifies one to govern the family of God. I think it's kind of tragic. Now, again, I don't mean to sound omniscient, but I think it's kind of tragic when you have somebody who's been in the assembly for 30 years and everybody has to wonder whether he has that kind of a life or not.
My own feeling is they either ought to know it or shouldn't know it. And maybe part of the problem has been that his pattern for living has not been a healthy pattern. Maybe he's patterned himself for years after some other man, rather than after the word and the standards and the word. The striking thing about oversight is that although there are gifts of government in the Corinthian gift list, the concepts of elder and bishop are not really gifts. They are offices in which people find themselves by qualifications of a spiritual sort, short, they function and ought to be recognized in their performance of that particular function in accord with the meeting's ability and skill. But you don't stand back and pray, at least I don't, I mean you can pray anything, but you don't stand back and pray and say, Lord, send us, you know, give me the gift of eldership.
You look to the scripture and say, I'd like to have the office of a bishop true, but the concept of what one ought to be spiritually is laid out before him so that he can read it and he can understand it and he can pattern his life by it. If you don't you're more mature physically don't be a brawler when you're less mature physically if you want to have a good reputation when you're older have a good reputation when you're younger and the kind of kind of go together now that becomes a long complicated thing but it's really a matter of patterning yourself in a particular area of life and growth and i say that i recognize there are a lot of young ladies and sisters with us but i say that the young men in particular that they look and see what peter wants the oversight to do and then say to themselves spiritually i'd like to grow by that pattern.
Write a copy of those things and pack it on the mirror so that when you look at a good-looking fellow every morning, you'll be able to see what it is, and you'll be able to see how his spiritual life ought to develop as well as how his hairline ought to receive. You'll be able to kind of see him together and have some concept of growth thereby. The desire to govern is not a bad thing. The desire to be a lord over God's heritage and to tell him what's what all the time, that is contrary to Peter's opinion. The desire to get rich by seizing the flock is kind of contrary to it, too. But the desire to govern is a necessary part of the practical authority of the Scripture. And one ought to see that the body is not a weed that kind of grows by itself, but a garden of which Christ is the immediate head.
The Holy Spirit is the intermediary in a ministry in teaching, and you as individuals are mediates who represent the Word of God in teaching and edification understanding for the body. But the desire to government is the first big thing there. Now, the desire to govern is not only one to be held by those who have the biblical qualifications for it. But in a sense, every brother and sister who wants a healthy body prays that there will be government there to ensure that it is healthy and that it grows healthy. It's the kind of thing that every believer may be interested in and desire a sovereign. But that brings me to the second thing I want to emphasize in 1 Peter 5, especially in verses 4 and 5, and maybe a tie over into verse 6.
There must be a desire to govern in the practical authority of the word. But then in 1 Peter, of course, the key verses are 5 and 6. 4 promises the crown of glory for those who serve faithfully. But the key thought then that comes in verses 5 and 6 is that there must then be a willingness to be governed. That is the hardest of the two. There must be a desire to govern, for governments that will honor God in an orderly company. But then there must be a willingness to be governed on the part of all those who fellowship in that company. So says Peter, you younger submit yourselves to the elder. Yes, all of you submit yourselves one to the other, and be dressed in humility.
God resists the proud, gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the great hand of God. And he may exalt you in due time. Do what he says. And that's what I refer to by the willingness to be governed. a willingness to be governed by God. Now here's one of those problems again. God is sovereign, he's supreme, he's king, he is governor. And he will be that in spite of you. But the emphasis here is that I'm making is a desire to be governed in peace and blessing. I'm one of those fellows who believes that in eternity every knee will bow to Christ, not in a saving capacity. I think people that are lost are lost forever. but they will recognize someday that Jesus Christ is Lord of the glory of God and that the Savior that they rejected is really the Lord of the universe.
I believe that. But I believe by the time they bowed at me it will be too late. I think that the day of grace for them will be over and it will merely be a recognition of what God does is right. So in a sense, see, the government of God may be imposed upon you. You may not want it, but it may be an act of discipline. It may be anything. Ultimately, he's supreme. There's no argument about it. that I don't think in my mind. But what we plead for here is the voluntary humbling of yourselves under the mighty hand of God. You can't get out of his hand, but you can act proud and boastful and kind of ruin the whole concept of government and any local company. So there is not only the desire to govern, but there's got to be the willingness to be governed. That means, believe it or not, it's painful to say it, but that means that if I am going to take the practical authority of the scripture for the government and the I have to put myself in a position of submission before the oversight of my fellowship and those who have the spiritual authority.
I don't mean by them I call them to ask what brand of coffee to drink, or you know whether I should have electric heat in the house, oil heat, or just make the kids run around to stay warm. I don't mean that at all. But it means that in spiritual areas I have to be willing to accept their leadership. Now if they become sinful, wicked, doctrines, that is another matter. But in the normal run of life, I have to be willing to accept their leadership. Frankly, nothing bothers me more than somebody who comes to me and says, what do you think I ought to do? Now, you know you have to word your questions carefully. If somebody says, what's your opinion, then I don't get very much concerned. I will give him my opinion, and I'll figure he's an opinion collector.
But if he comes and says, I'd like to know what you think I ought to do. Well, when I tell him what I think he ought to do, I just assume he to argue, let him go and tell somebody else and argue with him. But if he doesn't, if he wants to know, then let him ask. I'm not talking about discussing things. I'm a great discusser. I will sit up and discuss them until a quarter of 11 each night. Brother, if you are not saved by that time, you come back at 7 in the morning. Yes, I'm... But those who ask opinions and Those who look for advice and help merely to argue over it are a great thorn in the flesh.
They really don't want the truth. And so there are many people who say, I wish the elders in our assembly were more active. I wish they were more concerned. I wish, and so then the elders meet. And the elders say what we need is a series of meetings on worship. We need a series of teachings on worship. And elder, it's hard to pick a name out in a group like this and not ruin about half the company. Elder Rumpel Stiltskin is going to give him next week. He's going to give them next week. We've decided that four nights of ministry on worship by this brother is what we need. And you will soon judge whether the practical authority means anything or not by the people who want the elders to do more as to whether they are there or not. Now, that is a small point.
It ties in what I was trying to say last night. But in other judgmental areas, too, on my part, there's got to be an attitude of humbleness before God. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be saved. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be part of the body. and being submissive to him means I ought to be submissive to his order and to his practical circumstance. Now from time to time I have talked with the men who serve these functions in my own assembly. I won't say much about the meeting right now. I'll simply tell you that from time to time I've sat down and talked to them about two or three things and the thing that has bothered me the most is I have sometimes said if you men you know I preach in a number of assemblies around Philadelphia. If anybody would like to speak a lot there seems to be a great need around Philadelphia, so I can come north.
But I've said to them, and I've said it honestly, incidentally, I've said, if you men feel it would be better for me not to go to other meetings and minister, but to be here to meet, you know, on Lord's days, I say, if you would just say so, I will abide by your decision. And I mean that. Now, when I say it, there's a kind of a murmur run through my heart, but if they said, we wish you'd quit speaking altogether. You know, just so. And I realize, see, that there are people who have positions of oversight who abuse their power. I realize that. And I try to say it sincerely to them and listen for their judgment and their answers on particular things and try to abide by those things.
There's no point in asking if I'm going to argue or get nasty about it. But about half the reason why people don't want to govern is that the vast majority of people in our companies don't want to be governed. people who don't function, but when the people function, they don't want to be humble beneath them. Men, women, brethren, sisters, little kitties right down the line, very often see it's a matter of not being humble before God and not being humble before God's people. And consequently, when the Apostle says, cast your care upon the Lord, he cares for you. A lot of us are busy or making troubles for ourselves and could possibly be handled. At the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, a question was brought for a decision by the company.
The decision was made. And thereafter, whenever anyone stood contrary to it, they stood as a heretic or one outside the camp or on bad terms. And on the basis of the decision made there, Paul and Peter and these men continued their ministries for the glory of God. So what I'm saying is that there must be a desire to govern and there must be a willingness to be governed. Now, when I say must, must is a hard word. It's very strong in English. When that the practical authority of Scripture requires it. But no angel is likely going to come and wrestle with you about it. But the practical authority requires it. It requires that there be an interest in government, that the company be well fed, well cared for, well guarded, well oversalied, and that those in the company be willing to be governed.
Now mind you, if an elder comes in and says, I've decided that Jesus is not God, there are steps in the Scripture for dealing with that. follow wicked courses. There are steps for rebuking sin, too. Elders can be rebuked under proper circumstances, and we are told in Thessalonian and Timothian epistles. So we're not saying that, you know, an elder sneezes, and he says at this point in the service, you always sneeze, and you sneeze there. We're not being absurd about it. But there must be the desire for government, and then there has got to be the willingness to be governed. I've never forgotten being in a meeting years ago in Philadelphia when I was really a newcomer to that assembly, although I've been breaking bread here and there for some time, but I've never quite forgotten this.
A brother said that he thought he should minister more in the assembly. He meant by that in the gospel services and whatnot. And a man said to him, he said, well, he said, we have you speak now every, and my mind gets shaky here. I think he said every two months. It might have been every three months. He said, we have you speak every two months. Let's take two months for a moment. He said, we have you speak every two months, and he said, you are a great blessing to us. And the man says, I think my gift requires greater exercise than Adam and he said, brother, he said, I'll tell you frankly. He said, when you minister every two months, it's a great blessing to us. Then any more often than that, he said, it's a great trial. Now, I don't know if it was said in love, see.
I was stunned by it. I was kind of admired, filled with admiration for his frankness. I was kind of stunned by it. But do I have to tell you what happened? You know what happened, don't you? He left the meeting. First of all, he left the meeting. He said, brethren, I'd like to minister more. said, we're happy with how you minister. They didn't tell him he couldn't minister other places, but they simply, and he left the meeting. I'm not here to say that they were righter, he was righter, I was righter, you were right. I'm just telling you what happened. But the simple fact of the matter is, is that when I am in a fellowship of people, if I am unwilling to be governed, they will have a tough time governing me. And consequently, after a while, nobody wants to govern anymore, and place after place becomes a chaotic type of situation.
And what happens a lot of times is some very competent brother comes along, and since nobody's doing things in a biblical way, he picks it up for himself. And the first thing you know, we have what's popularly known as a one-man meeting, where he is treasurer, a bookkeeper, accountant, a correspondent, a checker of the rules, and a bunch of other important things, too, all at the same time. Now, I want to emphasize one third truth. Let's see. When we take the practical authority of the word to our meeting, first, there's got to be a desire to govern. concerned at the meeting ought to be spiritually reaching out to meet the qualifications that make government efficient a desire for government and secondly a willingness to be governed now the passage in peter is an interesting one he's looking at the trials they suffer and then he tells them in verse 8 to be sober tells them to resist the devil in verse 9 and promises them in verse 10 that god in due time will complete his work in them so what i like to say here is very simply that there must be a display of governmental order.
A desire to govern, yes. A willingness to be governed, absolutely indispensable. And then a display of governmental order in which those who meet as a company of Christians are awake and are alert and do stand against that which is evil and away from the devil that's roaring lion, resisting him and his accomplishments and looking unto God to perfect the end that is important for them. A display of governmental order, a display of it. I was at a place one time. I was just one of the peasants at this place and said, that late peasants mean I was one of the boys. And we were all sitting in a room talking at the same time, and nobody was trying to speak yet.
We were just talking at the same time. And it must have sounded like a great babble after a while. And so the man who was going to speak to this company came in about six feet from me, and he said to one of the fellows, one of the conveners, he said, who's in charge here? And the convening brother said, who knows? And this man said, I know. He said, nobody's in charge here. That's fairly obvious to me. Now, it was not only fairly obvious to him because nobody said anything, but because also there was no demonstration of order. I'll tell you a funny thing. If you sit quietly in a room before a meeting begins, even though there's no one on the platform, even though no one is saying anything, no one has made any motions.
If you sit quietly in your proper place and in a dignified manner, you give a display of governmental order, even when nobody is snapping the whip at you. You give a display of governmental order. Well, I know that displays are not the key thing. The heart is the key thing. But I've always been struck by the fact that God was concerned in the whole man. And the priest in the Old Testament, his heart was to be right, but even his Testament priest was not to look like an Assyrian priest or a pagan priest. Consequently, he was given prescriptions that he wouldn't cut his forehead, he wouldn't square off the beard, he would stand for God in heart and outwardly too. And the outward display, believe it or not, was enormously important to God, so much that they even prescribed how he'd mark up the garments and where he'd wear his bells and pomegranates and all of that sort of thing.
The outward display was important to God too. And so the display of governmental procedure likewise becomes important to us. In the Timothy letters and in Titus also, that's why the aged men, the aged sisters, the younger men, the younger sisters, are all given their proper place in government that they might show outwardly that they are governed by God and that they are in a proper relationship one with another. Now the company of God's people is the company of people who love one another and the Lord Jesus. But as it was told us yesterday several times, they love one another in a sense of decency and an order, God works that way, they work that way too. And the practical application of the authority of Scripture to the local company relates to those who will take an interest and a desire in government, relates to all of us in being willing to be governed, and relates to the total body in a strong desire to display the governmental order of God.
I was telling the gang at Greenwood last Friday night, and they probably thought I made it up. I personally have never had to make up any stories except when I wrote two or three fiction articles for magazines. I just have that type of mentality. If you do anything dumb around me, I will remember it forever. If you do something smart, I will remember it forever. If you preach a good message, I will remember it too and be blessed by it for a long, long time. So I was telling them how I sang with this choir in Europe several years ago. And we went out for this, they were going to sing heavy music, heavy music, did a few fillers, and I was glad to be with them. It was a great privilege to sing with them. But we spent the whole first day, we spent two hours, we spent two hours practicing standing up and sitting down.
We did not sing a note. We did not sing a note. The pianist would play flink-flink-flink-flink. The director was not a big effusive fellow. He was a quiet Coleman, like Jim, you know, a quiet Coleman. She would play flink-flink-flink-flink, And immediately after that he would scream, he'd say, no, no, no, no, no. We practiced for two and an hours, two hours, well, you know, it was two hours more or less, there may have been a minute off, but we practiced the whole period standing, we didn't sing a note. She would play, he would gesture, and he would sit us down. He would gesture, and he would sit us down.
He said, he said, I know that people want to hear you sing. said, I know that. But he said, I want them to expect good music from the moment you stand up. He said, I don't want them to see a straggly bunch of choir with people fighting for their hymn books and scratching here and there. So we practiced standing up and sitting down for two hours. I don't know how we did when it came to the big performance. I don't really know. I don't know if anybody cares. But I felt, believe it or not, an intense sense of accomplishment, with a group and learn how to sit down. And I could not help but feel that that small outward show built confidence in us and indirectly helped us in our contact with the group too.
I can't help but feel it. Ever since then I've looked at choirs, I mean they're sitting down. If you're standing up the start, it's a little different, but ever since then I've looked at choirs and I've said to myself, if the alto beats the tenors up, I've said to myself, hmm, don't know how to stand up. So now I'm sitting down. But that outward display, while the heart has to be right, that outward display is important, too. That outward display says to the world, in the only thing they can see, they can't see a lick of your heart. But that outward display says to the world, here is a people that demonstrate government and are interested in it. Now I'm going to stop there, I think, or just about to stop there.
I'll tell you, I once was down in Georgia, and I took my brother's son to a service one day. They are of a little different persuasion. And so I took him to a meeting with me and hoped he would enjoy it, and I think he did. But naturally, all the friends were there, and I don't say this in a faulty way. It's easy to give people a wrong impression. But the friends were all there, and they were talking and chatting and talking and chatting, and enjoying themselves enormously, see, and up to the time that the organization was struck the first note, it sounded like a, well, it sounded like Times Square on New Year's Eve. Up till the time it just, but mind you, they were friendly and I'm very much in favor of that. But the organ struck the first note and things began to get quiet.
And I looked down at him and he said, let me tell you something, Uncle Tom. He said, in my church, he said, the first thing we do is pray. He said, we don't talk to all our friends. Now, I'm not sure, see, that that was the way everything should go. But what he was saying was that at least they observed a government that made an impression on him. And I, by all means, am one of the big talkers. I don't want anybody to look at me and say, sit down and pray first, Bob. I mean, I want to be with the people. But an outward display of governmental order is about the only thing that our culture really sees till they're converted and can look on the heart. And that will cover itself not only in the services, but the way we conduct ourselves and move around outward.
is that you have to think of it for yourself, an outward display of governmental order very much in order. I will elaborate on that a little bit tomorrow, I think, in connection with my next subject, and after we pick up a couple more Psalms from Mr. Wilson. But here's what I'm discussing today, the practical authority of the Word of God in our meetings, especially in the government of them. And we're not talking about how many people you have, we're talking about the attitude towards the word that exists in your company. And one, there's got to be a desire for government to govern, and two, there's got to be a willingness to be governed that grips the group. And three, there needs to be a display outwardly that the government of God is honored and the program of God is honored and that we are in right submission to him and to one another.
And those are practical, authoritative concepts from the word. Shall we pray? We're thankful this morning, our Father, for a time to think about these things as a company of people. And we pray you would help us to think in a personal sense, but also in the way they affect our corporate unity and the way they affect our own assemblies. It may be, Lord, that some of us, brethren, have been shirking our responsibility and our spiritual privilege for a long time, along its best of chance. We would ask that we would receive a spirit of conviction, hear the words of Peter, and desire the health of the people of God.
And it may also be, Father, that some of us are really rebels of heart, even though trusting Christ, and resist every attempt to be governed and to be humble and to be submissive. Teach us that even the Lord Jesus, though his son, learned obedience by the things that he suffered. Teach us what submission one to another and to depend on the will of God for these things. And help us all, Father, together to be concerned for a demonstration of the order in government of a local group that will honor God. The people we know, we love one another and are God of the fact that we honor his word and are practically under the authority of the Scripture.
Bless us at that end. We pray today and watch over some of the continuing activities and our fellowship this day. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we respectfully pray. Amen.