We Christians believe that submission to God means submission to His Word. Submission to His Word will eventually lead a believer to the writings of the apostle Peter, which we look at together every Friday, in connection with the Bible study I am now giving in Chicago.

I bring up submission this week because Peter does, in chapters 2 and 3, no less than 3 times. And it's not all about wives submitting to husbands, fellas. Submission is an across-the-board quality that God must develop in His people. The things we will suggest in the next weeks are unheard of in the Muslim world, with whom we must part company early in this study.

For, the Muslims serve a different God. Allah is not Jehovah. Allah had no son. They read a different book. It came later, 600 years after God said, "Don't add any more!" True enough. But their submission is different also. Though it is ostensibly a humility before a Divine power, it is also a submission to self, to hatred, to emotion, and especially to other Muslims with whom they are in agreement. Muslims rebel against those leaders with whom they differ.

Christian submission is far more radical, far more difficult. Without the Spirit of the true God in us, it is impossible. For example, in today's reading, I Peter 2:11-16, Peter exhorts believers to submit to "every ordinance of man."

Incredible! A person like me, who is known in Heaven, born directly of the Spirit of God, destined for life with Jesus Christ the very Son of God forever, inheritor of riches and power untold, I must go 35 miles per hour if the sign says 35? That seems to be what it says.

Militant Muslims, tauting "islam" , submission, move into nations ready to destroy and kill and subvert governments. But serious Christians are taught to be aware of and follow every law that man has come up with. To be harmless as a dove.

We know that Peter himself made an exception to this rule when he preached Christ instead of obeying the "gag" order he had been issued (Acts 5:28-29). But we must not dwell on exceptions or we lose the power of this apostolic command.

God says to us through Peter that "for the Lord's sake" we are to do everything in our power to conform to the rules of men, so that we can have a testimony that is untainted and unquestioned. When men see this, they will quite possibly listen to our message of redemption.

On the other hand, if we have a rebellious heart and enjoy letting people know that "we are not under the law" , we will cause men to despise us. That attitude Peter refers to in verse 16 as a cloak. A cover.

Imagine yourself visiting a prison. You see a man with a policeman's uniform. You assume he is a policeman. But in fact, imagine, he is a prisoner who has just escaped from his cell, overpowered a guard, and taken to himself the guard's clothing. The prisoner has put the uniform on to fool you into thinking he is a free man.

So do many of God's people, before they grow out of this foolishness, wear the uniform of "liberty" while continuing on in their bondage to sin. They understand not that the liberty we have in Christ frees us "from" sin, not "to" sin.

Many are the testimonies that could be told of those on the "outside" who saw an obedient believer and eventually decided for Christ. Let us join those who are true islamists, truly submitted first to the true God, then to every ordinance of man also. Tell me, what kind of witness is it when your bumper sticker proclaims how much you love Jesus, but you are pulled over receiving a speeding ticket?