In overseeing a church, the elders must first touch something called authority. Authority represents God. In the church there is such a thing as God's delegated authority. Once you try to annul it, there will be no administration of the church, and there will be no reality of the church. There are many denominations today. They all call themselves churches, but can you see the reality of the church there? Rarely do you see it. Why is this so? It is because you do not see authority among them. If you go to a group of Christians and you do not touch authority there, you have to put a big question mark on that place. Wherever a place has authority, you can say that surely the church is there. It may not be the entire church, but at least it is a representation of the church.

I have absolute boldness to speak what I am speaking of here, because I have found out these things from experience. We experienced this matter when we were first raised up to meet in North China. Regardless to which meeting you went, you could sense something that you could not oppose. Once you opposed it, you would have trouble with God. Once you opposed it, you would not be able to pray any longer. Once you opposed it, you could not go on as a proper Christian any longer, nor could you go on in life, nor could you go on to serve. There was no other way than for you to submit yourself to this thing. I could not tell you what this thing was before, but now I know that it was the representation of God's presence. In other words, it was the authority.

Not everything that a delegated authority of God says is right. From my experience I can tell you that there are often many mistakes. But from our side, we can only refuse to obey; we cannot refuse to submit. Once we refuse to submit, it is as if we are throwing away our own life. In some things the delegated authority may not perceive as clearly as you do, and his judgments and decisions may not be accurate. You can only refuse to obey; if you do not obey, it will not cost you your life. I believe you understand what I mean by costing your life. It means that you cannot go on before God. However, the minute you refuse to submit, you know that you have immediately sacrificed your life. You will get into problems with your spiritual life, with your service, and with your fellowship, a fellowship not only with God, but with the brothers and sisters. An elder must touch authority, and all the brothers must also submit to authority.

Never presume authority to be a matter of a person, a few persons, or a group of persons. Not at all. Suppose here is the chief executive of a government department. He is of course an authority, but if you understand authority to be this person alone, you are wrong. On the one hand, the chief executive of a government is an authority. But on the other hand, when the office of chief executive is changed to another person, the authority still remains there, because what we have is a nation and a government. In the same principle, what we have here is the church. It is the place of God's administration on earth. God commits His presence and establishes His deputy here. As such, even when the person is changed, God's presence and His deputy authority still remain.

Down through the years, the matter of authority has caused me to realize that there is God and there is a sovereign One in the universe. If what we are serving is merely a name or some doctrinal terms, there will not be the reality of authority among us. But because the God whom we serve is real and living, the matter of authority is here among us. The Gentiles can advocate democracy or a congressional system, but in the church none of this kind of thing will work. The Gentiles are without God, and they are merely a community of people. With the church, however, there is the question of God's presence, God's move, and God's operation. For this reason, democracy cannot be applied to the church. Moreover, neither can autocracy be applied, for autocracy centers around a single individual. With the church, it is not a question of many or one. With the church, it is a question of God's presence and its representation. If this representation is with two or three, then it is a matter of these two or three. If this representation is with ten persons, then it is a matter of these ten persons. If this representation is with one individual, then it is a matter of this individual. The representation of God's presence is God's authority in that place. One cannot oppose this; he has to submit himself to this. For this reason, the elders have to learn to be those who submit to authority.