Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. These words from Paul’s letter to the Hebrews may be the most oft quoted, ardently proclaimed of contemporary Christianity. The verse preceding them is less referenced: “Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith you follow, considering the outcome of their conduct.” But what does obedience to the spiritual leaders immediate in your personal life have to do with the unchangeable nature of Jesus?

Modern technology has made the necessity of interpersonal relationships arbitrary. With the availability of mass communications, particularly in Western culture, it is hardly necessary to have any bond of accountability with a spiritual leader in order to obtain their teaching. Yet the word of God is like Him – it carries the timeless authority of God who breathed it. We cannot get “too modern” for the Bible to be true to instruct us. His word remains non-negotiable in every generation. So what does “remembering those who rule over” us have to do with 21st century Christianity?

Every spring Jews around the world celebrate Purim, the victory over an enemy who had obtained governmental authority to commit genocide. Haman was the descendant of King Agag whom Saul spared many generations earlier when he defeated the Amalekites, a nation representative of the resistant nature of the old man of our flesh whose lineage goes back to the Canaanite wives of Esau. When God said, “Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated” it revealed God’s attitude toward compromising obedience to His instruction. Esau rejected his birthright for a bowl of lentils. What a value system. Esau also took Canaanites for wives. When he saw “that Jacob obeyed his father and his mother” saying, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan,” Esau immediately got a new wife that fit his parent’s command.

Surely this was not the first time Esau had heard their instructions. It was just the first time obedience possessed his desired reward. We must suspect Esau’s obedience, now an attempt to regain his birthright. But this one act of compliance was pure manipulation. Esau’s true nature was revealed in the fact that before his birthright was at stake he had taken several Canaanite wives! Marrying the right woman in addition to all the wrong ones did not compensate for his rebellion.

Later in Israel’s history we find a tribe called the Amalekites constantly seeking to destroy God’s chosen people. Amalek was Esau’s grandson! As we trace that path we come to king Agag, the forefather of Haman, that enemy of the Jews. Partial obedience is complete compromise. It may endanger more than one generation of God’s inheritance. Religion, trying to cover our compromise with partial compliance without repentance, does not cancel rebellion.

The anointing Saul received as king led him to assume he could also serve as priest. But God had set boundaries that even His anointing upon a man did not negate. As we strive to present an anointed generation coming behind us we must be sure to teach them that God has set limits and boundaries for His chosen people. Through obedience to spiritual leaders we learn those boundaries. It trains us as faithful servants of the anointing.

The prophet Samuel gave Saul explicit instructions to destroy every Amalekite and all of their livestock. Saul invented a new interpretation of what God meant and spared the most “desirable” spoil. King Agag was among the spoil. To compensate for his disobedience Saul made a great religious pilgrimage in demonstration of his prowess as the anointed of God. But Saul presumed on the anointing. Seeing that Saul disobeyed past commands God did not speak to him directly. God sent His servant. If we have a history of disobeying God’s command or compromising His clear word, how shall we expect Him to continue to instruct us?

At the end of this story of Saul and Agag we find another very familiar passage: “to obey is better than sacrifice.” Saul’s religious efforts, like Esau’s, did not compensate for disobedience to the command that had come to Esau through his parents or to king Saul through God’s priest. Imagine the humiliation Saul experienced. In a public confrontation Samuel indicts Saul’s religious sacrifice as deserving of the same penalty that practicing black magic and idol worship required under the law of Moses:

When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you…The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the Lord your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die. Deuteronomy 18:9-18.

This “Prophet” is Jesus as referred to by Paul in Hebrews: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

The mark of Jesus’ sonship is absolute obedience to the Father’s word and will. He laid down His life to fulfill God’s command. We are His witnesses in every generation. The word for witness is the same as martyr. Your witness will cost your life in dying daily in order to obey His command. But your obedience can mean life for a whole generation to come. Think of all the lives that were lost in the years between Esau’s rebellion and Saul’s disobedience. Those compromises still threatened hundreds of years later. Much time had passed when Mordecai refused to compromise the command of God in Esther’s day. His obedience challenged Esther to obey. Her obedience, in risk of her life, saved a generation. What is God calling the church to today? Compromise or obedience? What has God already spoken in your life? Have you only partially obeyed? What are your spiritual leaders requiring of you? Do you answer to any leaders at all? There is no doubt that maintaining a pure testimony in an age of moral relativism will cost anyone who follows Jesus. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Going back to Hebrews 13: “Remember (Greek-- exercise memory) those who rule over (Greek-- command) you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith you follow (Greek-- imitate), considering the outcome of their conduct (Greek-- behavior).” The four words we translated are: “Remember rule-follow conduct!” or “Exercise memory of the command and imitate that behavior.”

Oswald Chambers wrote a powerful meditation on obedience. He said, “No man receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test over it. We disobey and then wonder why we don’t go on spiritually. The teaching of Jesus hits us where we live. He educates (trains) us down to the scruple. When Jesus brings a thing home by His word, don’t shirk it. If you do you will become a religious humbug (fraud or deception). Watch the things you shrug your shoulders over, and you will know why you don’t go on spiritually. First go- at the risk of being thought fanatical you must obey what God tells you.”
 

“I will hear what God the LORD will speak,
For He will speak peace
To His people and to His saints;
But let them not turn back to folly.
Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him,
That glory may dwell in our land.
Mercy and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yes, the LORD will give what is good;
And our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps our pathway.”
Psalm 85

References are to portions of Scripture found in Genesis chapter 28, 1 Samuel chapter 15 and the book of Esther.