If a child has not been disciplined, or held accountable for their behavior, they will likely view any exercise of authority as cruel, extreme, and dictatorial. On the other extreme, those who have been wounded by abusive authority will tend to see even the wisest, most gentle, and caring authority as brutal and threatening.

       Like wounded animals, wounded people tend to fear anyone that would try to get close to them, even those seeking to help them. These two scenarios capture a large part of the human population. This makes how we relate to and exercise authority one of the most important issues in our time. This also makes it understandable why the ultimate battle between light and darkness at the end of this age is a battle over authority.

       The coming kingdom of God is about God’s authority being brought to the earth. Satan’s ultimate resistance to the kingdom of God is to expand his authority over the earth, and to poison people against God’s authority. He seeks to bind the entire world with his counterfeit authority. To resist this, we must first be able to recognize the difference between God’s authority and Satan’s, resolve to only obey God’s, and exercise His authority and not the devil’s.

       The most basic distinction between God’s authority and Satan’s is that God’s authority is exercised in love for those it is serving, and Satan’s authority is exercised with fear to bind and control those by whom it wants to be served.

       Satan is called “Lord of the flies” in Scripture for good reason. In prophetic symbolism in dreams and visions, flies usually represent lies. Satan is called “the father of lies,” because lies and deception are his primary method to bind and destroy people. We can understand this better by understanding flies.

       Flies carry and spread sickness and disease everywhere they go. Every time a fly lands, it defecates, depositing the germs and bacteria it has picked up from all of the disgusting places it has been feeding. Such is also the nature of those people who carry lies.

       Flies especially swarm to wounds, just as lies do to wounded people. After a Civil War battle, one of the participants wrote about the loud sound of the flies swarming to the battlefield. They were coming to the battlefield because of all the wounds they would find there. The infection flies spread going from wound to wound keeps the wounds from healing. An ultimate strategy of the devil is to keep the wounds that people have from ever really getting healed so that he can control them with those wounds.

       A person with unhealed wounds cannot get close to others and will resist being touched. Just as it is in the physical, it is true with emotional and spiritual wounds, too. This creates increasing divisions between people and an inability for them to get healed. This is another basic strategy of the devil against people.

       One requirement for priests in the old covenant was that they could not have “scabs.” A scab is an unhealed wound. A person with unhealed wounds will be too sensitive to let people get close to them or touch them. If a priest has unhealed wounds, how are they going to get close enough to others to help them get healed?

       Some of the most diabolical lies to bring conflicts and divisions between people have come from unhealed wounds, especially through people of great influence. One of the best-known examples of this was reformer Martin Luther. When his reformation theology was rejected by a group of influential rabbis, he reportedly became so incensed at them that he turned against all Jews. He went on to produce a deeply perverted theology against the Jews that is considered the seed of the Nazi Holocaust.

       Both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin had early exposure to the church—Hitler through his Catholic upbringing and Stalin through formal training in an Orthodox seminary—yet neither was transformed by it. How could history have been changed if perhaps the two most infamous tyrants in history had been taken in by the church, healed of their wounds, and been made healers instead?

       These unhealed wounds from authority figures are why many think that anyone who is bold and decisive in exercising authority is a tyrant. Is this not the root of what we today call the “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a recognized malady that causes extreme reactions to anything President Donald Trump does or says?

       Many who are wounded by authority resist any exercise of authority. Others who are wounded by authority go to the opposite extreme, seeking and submitting to the strongest authorities, obviously seeking to fill the vacuum of authority in their lives and seeking the security that it gives. Of course, this issue and the remedies for it are a bit more complicated than presented here, but if we begin to understand these foundational principles, it will help us much better understand—and hopefully be able to help—more people. To understand someone, else we must begin by standing under what they have.

       Recognizing godly or demonic influences in authority is one of the most important human issues of this time. As the harvest is the time when all seeds come to maturity, all of the seeds of authority are also coming to full maturity at this time. However, to discern between the good and the evil, there is an important factor we must keep in mind: No human authority will be perfectly good or perfectly evil. The best will make mistakes, and the worst will do some good things. We must expect this and cannot let it deter us from thoroughly examining the fruit. 

       We will continue to cover this crucial subject next week.

 

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