AUTHORITY
AUTHORITY
Sunday, July 23, 2023, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
GOD-GIVEN AUTHORITY - Church and Earthly Government
I was blessed this week to hear Prophet Tony Kemp at Lora Allison’s conference.
His message was to leadership and addressed leadership pain. “you can only grow up to the level of your pain capacity and still love God and still love His people.”
I call this the “pain-free zone,” “the realm of no offense.”
2 Peter 3:17-18: Beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen
Brother Kemp further emphasized:
1. Growth = change
2. Change = loss
3. Loss = pain
4. Pain means growth.
Another point of emphasizes by Brother Kemp was comparing the church of the 21st century to the seven churches in the Book of Revelation. Three of the churches had a deficit in hearing and seeing what the Spirit says to the churches. There was a deficit of faith and a deficit of self-denial. They had left their first love.
The real burden of the Spirit of God in the earth today is that men everywhere, who are seeking to come into the fullness of Christ, might have strong perception to hear and to know the Voice of the Chief Shepherd as He speaks to His people. The Call of the Shepherd continues to go forth in the earth… calling the sheep of His pasture into this intimate union and relationship with Himself. The sheep are responding, for we know the Shepherd’s voice, and a stranger we will not follow.
God’s true shepherds are sheep before we became shepherds; and we continue to be sheep after we become shepherds. The shepherds and the sheep alike find ourselves in one common fold of the Chief Shepherd. The only difference is our “calling” in the Body of Christ.
When Jesus came forth from the heart of God, He was God’s answer to the needs of the scattered sheep of God. As Jesus gathered the flock of God about Him and nurtured them in the ways of God. There was conflict with the hirelings, as might be expected; but the True Shepherd speaks, and the true sheep follow.
Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn. 6:68).
What Jesus did on the earth, He did as the Son of God sent from the heart of the Father. Now, He is exalted at the right hand of the throne of God. He sent forth His own apostles (sent ones) and they continued the work which He had begun. Their authority would not be impaired by reason of their infirmity. Jesus was born the Son of God by birth. We, like the apostles, were sinners, but became sons of God by new-birth. We will not share equally with his majesty, position, or glory, but we are being transformed into His image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2. Co. 3:18).
All the former frustrations they went through whereby they were seeking earthly preeminence for their King and for themselves had to pass away. They must learn by experience that the true shepherds would serve the sheep and not themselves. They would feed the sheep, care for the sheep, and not be concerned for their own welfare.
They were given delegated authority by the Son to minister His Kingdom in the earth, just as the Son had been delegated by the Father; so they works which they would do in His Name would even be “greater.”
Jesus did and will ask and receive of the Father whatever provision was and is needful for His own. It was not the apostles who were doing the “greater works,” it was the Living Christ… living, moving and walking in His chosen ones in the earth by His Holy Spirit.
When God truly establishes His Authority in the earth, He projects into the hands of that Authority the power that is required for the execution of that office; and the Authority is answerable to God who established it. This is true as it relates to governments in the earthly realm, or in the Church. A man or woman with Authority from God does not need to ask the people for it, or even seek after it. It is just there! It is! If God gives it, He will confirm it. Those who have the Spirit of Christ are content to leave it entirely in His hands to vindicate and to stand behind whatever purpose God intends.
I can use as an example when God called me to Pastor, “Carolyn, never tell a man-of-God your gifts and callings. I will tell the ones I want to know.” Believe me, I have never defended or tried to promote my callings. I don’t have to. Whatever God has planned for me, it will be! --- as long as I walk in God’s ways.
No minister with the Authority of God upon their lives need to seek, nor should desire, any other support for that ministry. God confirms and establishes it Himself, and he gives to every one of His chosen ones whatever power and authority is required for the faithful execution of the ministry that God has imparted.
It is important for God’s ministers to know that even though we have authority and power from God, because of our office, we can still walk in disobedience.
1. Moses had authority to strike the rock and bring forth water to quench the thirst of the people of Israel, but he failed to go into the promised land because of his disobedience. (Numbers 20:12).
2. Saul as King had authority to slay the priests of the LORD. When his personal bodyguards, who were duty bound to obey their master, refused to do so, Doeg the Edomite, took up the charge, and slew God’s anointed ones. Doeg was simply obeying instructions from the authority over him, but it was not God’s Authority. Hear what God had to say about his actions: “God shall likewise destroy you forever, he shall take you away, and pluck you out of your dwelling place, and root your out of the land of the living” (1 Sa. 22: 11-23). Doeg was not acquitted by God even though he obeyed orders.
3. Peter had just received the office of his apostleship. Matthew 16:18-19: You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. But just a short time later, Peter messes up: Matthew 16:23: Get thee behind me, Satan; you are an offense unto me; for you savor not the things that be of God, but those that me of men. Peter had just received the wonderful revelation of the Christ, the Son of God, and his authority as an apostle followed hard after that revelation. But in the second instance he was speaking as old Peter the fisherman himself … inspired by Satan.
God has given us ample warning in the Scriptures of what would happen when His misguided ministers seek to take advantage of the authority they have to serve their own purposes …
“Lord how we need the power and authority of heaven to minister to the needs of suffering humanity, and to deliver your sheep that have been scattered and bruised in the wilderness of life. But Lord! Do not, we pray, place in our trust any measure of authority and power that is not counter balanced with an equal measure of grace, humility, meekness, patience, kindness, long suffering, mercy, and wisdom. Lord just as the sword of Goliath was taken out of the hands of David, wrapped in a priestly garment, and hidden away in the Sanctuary until he was prepared of God to have it permanently, and to use it wisely, continue to hold us in the hollow of your Hand as a sharp sword to be used of you at your discretion. Continue to polish us like the shaft of the arrow, and keep us in your quiver, that when you send us forth, we shall not miss the mark, but shall strike through the heart of the enemy unerringly. For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory and may we partake in harmony and union with you and your kingdom purposes. Amen.” (George H. Warnock)
EARTHLY GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY
I want to speak into our Authority concerning earthly government. God’s Government in the church, and our relationship toward it is entirely foreign to the governments of this world order that leaves God out of its reckoning. The fact is that the “god of this world” is determined to take over the Government of God in the Church and to sit in the very Temple of God. Just as the god of this world intends to overthrow the constitution of the United States, it also intends to overthrow the Government of God which established our constitution.
We are presently in a constitutional crisis because the U.S. government is overtly weaponized against “we the people.” We are no longer drifting toward a state of anarchy, but to coin a metaphor, “we are crossing the Rubicon.”
Our citizenship is in Heaven. Our walk is in the heavens. Our warfare is in the Heavens. In this heavenly realm the body of Christ has the authority to do the will of God and activate that authority over the principalities and powers of the spiritual world according to the will and purpose of God. This effectual warfare in the Spirit will bring about whatever changes in the earthly and the ecclesiastical realms that God has determined. We are a powerful army. In the realm of the Spirit, we wage effectual, triumphant warfare against the powers of darkness.
The godless Roman Empire that was dedicated to the destruction of Christianity was literally subdued and conquered by an army of saints and martyrs. Daniel saw this in vision many centuries earlier. He saw the saints of the Most High taking the Kingdom, and a Stone cut out of the mountains without hands smiting the Roman empire in the feet, and bringing it to nothing (Dan. 2:34). Since then, the Stone has been growing, growing, growing, and it shall yet fill the whole earth. Daniel 2:35: And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
Our government has purposed to oppose the Name of Christ and to enact laws and decrees that are designed to crush the saints of the Most High and destroy our witness in the earth. God’s people are going to have to stand up in the power of the Holy Spirit against the combined might of the man of sin and god of this present world, as he sits in the very Temple of God in the earth. Through woke Christianity, acceptance of L.G.B.T.Q. in churches, abortion and mutilation of children is the man of sin sitting in God’s Temple.
Deut. 23:1: He who is emasculated by crushing or mutilation shall not enter the assembly of the LORD.
Phi. 3:2: Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation!
When Jesus was here on earth, He was the Prophet that Moses spoke about, who would come into the world, that all men must hear and obey. He was the Apostle, and the High Priest of our profession. He was the Evangelist, the bearer of good tidings. He was the Teacher, who gathered the disciples about Him and unfolded the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. He was the Good shepherd of the Good Pastor, that would lay down His life for the sheep. In other words, He was the fullness of all ministry. But now He is exalted at God’s right hand, and He has sent forth the fullness of His ministry (even the five-fold ministry) into the Church. We have the overflow from His exalted throne in the heavens. Now He is glorified and as a result of His glorification He is able to send forth from His own heart a corporate ministry with the authority of the Father.
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
www.eastgateministries.com 10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane, Richmond, TX
Scripture from N.K.J.V. I entered into the labors of “Feed My Sheep”{ by George Warnock (1917-2016); quotes from Prophet Tony Kemp as noted. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those who I entered into their labors.