GOD’S AUTHORITY VS. MAN’S AUTHORITY
LEVELS OF AUTHORITY - PART 2
It is extremely important that we understand levels of authority.
The results help you function:
1. In the Body of Christ
2. In your Home
3. In Civil Government
4. In Church Government
5. Have peace and order biblically patterned
God is getting everything back in order.
What has happened in the church is loss of the power of God.
Men seized control back during the sub-culture development of the 1960’s and 70’s
With Haight Ashbury in San Francisco the church got so weak at some point because of the influence of the sexual revolution
Then God exploded with the Jesus revolution and Jesus people.
Chuck Smith and others in California began to win the hippies by the hundreds of thousands to Jesus Christ.
IT WAS A REVOLUTION AND MEN SEIZED POWER IN THE CHURCH.
Out of that movement also came the hyper-shepherding movement.
I am not speaking in any condemnatory tone except that men who felt what they were doing was right took something that was good to an extreme view.
So determining that before you could marry, date, move, leave your residence, or leave the church you had to have it “approved” by your shepherd and it became known as the “shepherding movement”.
It’s not new and we still have many of their churches around here in San Antonio and all over the country.
Now the men who started that have split up. These were good men - very anointed men, but they were wrong in their concept of the responsibility and authority of the church in the life of the individual. God is bringing it back into balance.
If it was right it was going to fly. It tears apart because it’s not right. (Acts 5:34-39)
IT MAY HAVE HAD A GOOD MOTIVE BUT IT CERTAINLY WAS NOT SCRIPTURAL.
Isaiah 9:6, 7:
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David, and upon His Kingdom, He shall order it, and establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.
A government ultimately subject to God! Increase of God’s government always brings peace.
It is His government he wants expressed through His church, through those who are followers of Him.
Anywhere God’s government is working you will have righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
So, if you do not have it in your home, we do not have it in the church, we do not have it in our government. We do not have the government of God being established.
The government of the Lord Jesus is a government that:
1. Proceeds out of love
2. Proceeds out of the anointing
3. It is a government that blesses
4. It is a government that lifts
5. It establishes: righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit
Romans 13:1
Let every soul be subject (literally stand under) under the higher powers (authority). For there is no power (authority) but of God: the powers (authorities) that are ordained of God.
Now the key here is higher authority.