4. THE STAGE OF CRITICISIM
This is the fourth stage. Once rebellion passes the level of passivity, or level of passiveness, it gets into the level of criticism, where your subordinates, members begin to criticize you and you’re amazed, wondering why they are criticizing you. Where your members come to church with biro, with note books and you’re teaching believing that your people are beginning to believe in what you’re teaching, not knowing that they’re trying to mark you on that day. Checking out your tenses, checking out your mistakes, the grammatical errors, you look at them you think they are writing down the revelation coming out- no! they are just writing down the mistakes you’ve made, that by the time you’re done, they look at it and evaluate on the message and how, pastor spoke wrong English, for twenty-five times! .
That is rebellion. Pure rebellion!
What am I trying to say here? Am not saying it to you because you’re in the pew, am saying it to the pew and the pulpit, because at a point in my life also even as I am today I have men above me. So I am speaking to myself.
It manifests in us once in a while, so the essence of the message is to help you check it when it comes, because rebellion can destroy you.
A disloyal person moves from being passive to being critical, at the point all he does is to find fault with the leadership. In the realm of the spirit, it is assumed that followers are blind. If you want to follow well, when you’re following a spiritual leader, you must be blind.
When I taught on the ‘Ladder Holders’, I told you that leaders are on top of ladders, members are the ones holding the ladder and the possibilities of seeing the nakedness of the one on top is there, but if you see, be careful what you say.
In drunkenness of Noah, his son stumbled into his nakedness and was punished for it. A man that God saved, gave victory, didn’t destroy his family, the first thanksgiving Noah did was to be drunk. In the thanksgiving he got drunk, and was down sleeping with his legs scattered. In that state his son came in, and mocked him; but what the son didn’t know was that he shouldn’t criticize spiritual leadership.
What you don’t know keep shut!
His two other sons walked into their fathers hut with their backs to cover his nakedness, the amazing thing is that the bible said that the father woke up and knew what the other brother did.
How did he know?
It was God setting up the fool (son). So sometimes God will allow you to see the nakedness of the leader who is on the ladder to watch what you’ll do. To see if you will expose him. What you don’t understand is that you’ve deprive yourself the opportunity of climbing the ladder in your life. And if per venture you climb the ladder, all the people holding the ladder will criticize you once, because you can’t sow and reap what you sow, you will reap a hundred fold. So be careful!
Num 12vs 1, 2Sam15vs3, still on Absalom, in Numbers 12…. Miriam was the elder sister to Moses; Aaron was the elder brother to Moses. They have a prophetic lineage, Miriam was a prophetess, Aaron was a priest; but you know what happened, if God bypasses your elder brothers and anoint you, they will have no choice but to serve you.
I don’t understand why Christians or in the Christendom why we must always ascribe respect with age. The God we’re dealing with does not have respect with age, he is ageless. That’s why he doesn’t anoint people based on age, so when he leaves a set in your family and anoints the younger one, or better still if God decides to anoint my first daughter who is still five years old, I’ll have no choice but to follow.
It is very hard in the Christendom for us to see respect and loyalty, we see it more with the people we call ‘unbelievers.’
Rebellion!
In 2Sam15vs3, Absalom did something very amazing, we’re in the critical stage, after the third stage which is passiveness we enter into the critical stage. Absalom went to the gate of the entrance of the palace and sat therein, people coming to report to his father of their issues, he will stop them, and act as king to them, by running his father down. He sat at the gate of the father, and say to the people that the king is not ready to hear them.
Take away your pride and submit to the Lord.
Most of us have not had an encounter with this king, which is why where we’re placed we look at the head of the man with disdain. If we know who we are serving, whoever he presents before us, we will serve him.
A king ruled over Israel from the age of eight, (King Hosiah) the whole Israel listened to him; but in our time of Christianity, the leader will be talking, people will be analyzing, why? They don’t know what they are doing. That is the highest form of rebellion, disloyalty not just to man, but toGod Himself.
Critical stage when a person rises to criticize everything that the leadership does; if you have them in the office , they are criticizing the manager, they are criticizing the marketing manager, sales manager, etc, everybody around them is not doing it right, they are the only one that is seeing what is not done right.
Stay loyal
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