Speaking Beyond Your Authority

Tensions in East Germany on November 9^th, 1989 were at an all-time high. With the collapsing Soviet Union, the puppet government in East Germany was having trouble controlling the population that was desperate to leave the communist country. Nowhere was the pressure building more than in East Berlin a city literally divided by a wall.

The ruling party, in order to dampen the fervor, agreed to a temporary arrangement to allow emigration. The idea was to bury the issue in legal hoops and red tape. A dense document was to be read by the media spokesman Guenter Schabowski at a press release. For an hour he read the stiltedly-worded regulations out in full, the first time he had ever seen them. At the end, he has surprised when a reporter asked when the regulation would go into effect. He didn’t know so he responded “as far as I know… this is immediate, without delay”.

That is all it took. Soon people were flooding to the border crossing. Attempt to convince the crowd to wait till the next day were ignored. By midnight the gates were overrun and the Berlin wall was no more. After 28 years, a botched announcement by a tired and partly informed official changed history, even if that wasn’t what he was supposed to say.

That’s why we need to be careful when we speak for God. I can say some things for God because he has told me to say them. But yet speaking from God isn’t the same a speaking for God. Too many religious folks make claims that are not what He has said or not fully what He has said. I can speak of the judgments of God but I’m not authorized to make those judgments. We need to speak only what know and not on what we think.

It’s sad to think on judgment day there will be those that think they have access thru the gates of heaven but don’t because someone misspoke to them God’s will. Let’s never speak beyond our authority in matters regarding God.

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