By: General Jim Green (p. 2 in Issue Seven of The Tribal Call)
We’ve been talking about theocracies upon this earth. God-centered theocracies are ruled by God, not by man. We’ve also been talking about some key concepts found in the book of Deuteronomy. The first message was basically the introduction, and in the second message, we talked about the Transcendence of God, meaning that God is above man, that God is distinct from Man, that God is superior to man. And yet in this generation and in generations past, men have tried to be bigger than God. Even if they don’t recognize God, they want to play the role of God. They want to be superior, they want to rule, and they want to create. They either want to create wars, or they want to create peace, but it all boils down to men wanting to play God.
GOD HAS A HIERARCHY
So that we can cover more territory, we won’t be doing a review of what we’ve previously studied in Parts 1 and 2. We are going to be talking about point two which is HIERARCHY. God has a hierarchy, which means authority—delegated authority. This is a very touchy message for some people. Men that desire to be ruled over will love it, but men that don’t want to be ruled over won’t like it. Yet God has ordained authority upon this earth because God is superior. In fact, did you know that God still rules over men whether they believe in God or not? Whether they recognize His Government or not? God still rules over men; they don’t rule over themselves. Ultimately, in the big picture, God still rules the nations: He brings nations up, and He takes nations down. He does all kinds of things. He is still in charge of the universe; men are not. God allows men to go into folly until He has enough and then He’ll stop them. Regardless of how it may appear, He’s still in charge, thank God! God is in complete control of this universe. I’d hate to think about where we would be headed if men were in charge!
I like the end of the Bible: God’s people win! I mean, we are faced with a New World Order, and all of these conspiracies and wicked plots like the “Global Two Thousand,” where the secret government elite intend to annihilate billions of people because, in their opinion, they are “useless eaters.” We are talking about the committee of three hundred who have put this whole thing together in order to kill all of these people in the future. It is incredible what men want to do to each other, all because they want to play God. These are some of the conspiracies that are currently unfolding throughout the earth. A lot of people don’t even know this. They don’t even know that the United States plots to murder people around the globe. But it is still happening—men are still trying to play God. They are saying that people are useless eaters and that this race is worthless and needs to be annihilated. But ultimately, God is in control of all these things.
GOD DESIRES A HOLY NATION
What does all of this have to do with today’s message? It has everything to do with it, because God is wanting to bring forth a holy nation unto Himself. Nations have wandered from God. They have gone way out into another dimension: the dimension of rebellion, sin, sickness, and death. But God is wanting to bring a people back into His dimension. A dimension of holy rulership here on earth, ruling within yourself, ruling through His delegated authority. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that I believe it is possible to have a God-centered theocracy now, here on this earth. We don’t have to submit to man-made democracies, and we don’t have to submit to socialism or humanism nor any other false religions or ideologies of men, but we do have to submit to God. This has been the big problem, and this is what God is telling us. God wants to build a holy nation: He wants to bring forth a Holy Tribe, a nation under His government and under His kingship again.
You say, “Well what about all this Christianity that we have today?” The truth is that it’s not Christianity—it’s churchianity. Don’t tell me that the churches out there are letting God rule over them; they are not. If God was to rule the church in this land and in other lands, you would not see sin running rampant like we see today. Men are in charge of the church and that’s why it reeks with sin. That’s why it’s so sickening, and that’s why God is wanting people to come out of those places and come under His authority so they can find out what real Christianity is all about. And this is the call of our generation, the call to a HOLY TRIBE, a holy, righteous nation. I’m talking about a community of people, mind you, people living together, working together, praying together, doing mission work together. Just as the early church was formed into Ecclesias . That’s what God wants today, a community of people. Look at all the cities and towns around the world; some are big, and some are small, yet all those people are living together under some sort of a government, whether it be county, state, or federal, or whatever. Why can’t Christians live together under God’s theocracy? Why do we want to submit to a dead, man-made order—even though it may be good to a point—when we can have can have the perfect, divine order of Cod?
DEUTERONOMY – THE BOOK OF THE COVENANT
In this message, I want to talk about an idea found in the book of the covenant, Deuteronomy. Let’s go there. In chapter one, verses twelve through fifteen, Moses is repeating what God had told him in the past.
“How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife? Take your wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. And ye answered me, and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do. So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.” Deut. 1:12-15
What you see here is hierarchy, delegated authority. We have already discussed the transcendent God, that is God’s superiority. Now we are going to break it down and look at it more closely in terms of how it relates to men. God puts men in positions and gives them authority, yet God is superior. God delegates authority to men and women that they may rule over His people in this earth. And I know that people don’t want to have anyone rule over them, especially Christians. They don’t want to think that someone is going to rule over them and tell them what to do; they call that cultish, or heretical. And it’s primarily because they’re rebellious, because they don’t want to submit to God’s order. Nevertheless, God has ordained leadership and authority in His body.
The scripture in Deuteronomy breaks it down very clearly, describing the attributes of what kind of men should rule. Not just any kind of men, but men that are known among the people, men of good report, men that are honest, men that have understanding, and men that hate sin. These are the kind of men and women that God chooses to put in leadership capacities. So we see as we study the Biblical hierarchy that there is basically a system based on delegated authority. God chooses leaders and delegates authority to them. And you’ll find it in the New Testament also. This is a vast subject, and I’m only going to try to give you a small picture of it in this message, for the sake of the radio broadcast.
GOING BACK TO THE FIRST ADAM
Going back to the very beginning when God created Adam and Eve, we find that God gave Adam dominion. God gave Adam dominion over the earth, and everything that was in the earth. Dominion is a form of authority. And God gave him that dominion so that he could rule the world, that he could bring forth a people upon this earth over which God would have authority. We know of course that Adam broke the covenant with God and fell out of that place of dominion, and as a result, he came into a place of broken relationship with God. He lost the power God had given him. Dominion means power. Dominion means to rule over something, and Adam lost that power. And so did everybody that has ever been born out of the loins of Adam and Eve (which is everyone that’s been born to date). Yes, I know there have been multitudes of kingdoms and governments made by men, and they have brought forth all kinds of different hierarchies and power structures. Yet, the true God anointed, God appointed dominion was lost. It could not be anymore because the relationship between God and man had been broken; the covenant was broken. Adam had died covenantially, as we have been discovering. He didn’t die physically at the time; he died covenantially.
JESUS CHRIST – THE SECOND ADAM
Now let’s jump from Genesis to the book of Ephesians where we are going to take a look at the second Adam. Thank God, the second Adam, Jesus Christ, brought back that dominion power! Thank God that He brought back God’s hierarchy and authority! The whole book of Deuteronomy was a book of the covenant, where they kept the laws and the statutes, which had the do’s and don’ts of how they could live. That was what they had, but it wasn’t all that God intended. God has given us a better way through Jesus Christ. He has given us that dominion power which will live in our hearts, allowing us to live our lives for Him. Yet they didn’t have that dominion power back then. They had to go by the do’s and don’ts; they had to rely sotey on people ruling over them. But today, we are able to enter into a realm where we have dominion power within ourselves to rule ourselves. This is the essence of godly self-government, and I am not talking about democracy or any of these man-made systems that people have contrived. I’m talking about letting the power of God rule our lives. And we’ll discuss what that means here, but first, let’s go to Ephesians and look at Jesus the second Adam and His position of authority within God’s hierarchy.
“Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” Ephesians 1:20-23
The word church used here is really the Greek word Ecclesia, which in it’s real meaning bears no resemblance to the churches, or buildings, or denominational organizations we see today in churchianity. An Ecclesia is a community, a tribe, or a holy nation of people living under God’s government. The translators of the King James version used the word church, but the Greek word is Ecclesia, which means a community. And this is the message: “The Unity of Community,” a community of people following Jesus, living, working, praying, and seeking God together as they did in the book of Acts. I’m not talking about a bunch of religious people who live like the devil and yet they still go to Church on Sundays. That’s what people today call religion; they call that Christianity. That’s not Christianity—that’s churchianity.
THE ECCLESIA WAY OF LIFE
True Christianity is a way of life. It’s people living together in a community, living out their relationship with Jesus every day. That is the Ecclesia, and that is what God wants. This is what He has always desired, and this is what He is going to eventually have. I am declaring that God is going to eventually have His community. Regarding the Ecclesia, it says in verse 23, “…which is His body….” We know the Ecclesia is His body here on this earth. Now, I realize that all Christians can’t live together in one spot. Yet they can, and do, live together in smaller groups, or communities, scattered all around the world. And when we talk about the Body of Christ, we are referring collectively to all these Ecclesias around the world.
But a lot of people can’t grasp this concept, especially people in more “prosperous” countries like America. They think of church as just going to a building once a week to hear some dead preacher give some dead sermon to some dead congregation, and then they go home and live their dead life. They just do what they want to do six days a week, worshipping the idols of money, sex, food, sports, entertainment, and the pride of life, and then on Sundays they go pay some religious racketeer to tell them lies. That is basically what you’ve got out there. You’ve got a bunch of paid preachers giving you sermonettes to make you feel good and laugh a little bit, and it’s all designed to get your money. This is what they call “church.” Dear one, the true church of God is people living together, fighting together against sin and the devil, and working together towards the same purpose. And in all of these things, God is the head, and He leads and guides by His Spirit.
GOD’S TRUE LEADERSHIP AND AUTHORITY
Of course, this doesn’t mean that men don’t have positions of leadership within the Ecclesia. God delegates to both men and women positions of authority within His Body. Yet the concept of the pastor who is hired to run the church is not in the Bible, nor is it God’s desire. Modern Churchianity says, “We’ll pick out somebody who seems very nice and religious, then we’ll pay him a certain amount for salary or give him a certain amount in tithes, and he’ll preach a fifteen minute sermon on Sunday and take care of all the church “business.” And everybody loves the pastor because he makes them feel good inside, and he never talks about their SINS. That’s about all you’ll find out there in the land of churchianity. Of course, some men put on a much better show than others, depending on how much money they spend, and they can even convince you that they are “God’s man of the hour,” or that “the Spirit is really moving!” Yet, sadly enough, it’s all man-made, not God-made. The proof is in the fact that sin is not eradicated out of the lives of God’s people.
In Contrast, we need to look at God’s order as it is established in the New Testament. First of all, we’ve got Jesus Christ. He is the head of everything. He is the head of the Ecclesia, and He is the head of His true people. There is no man ultimately in charge of God’s community, and this brings us back to the hierarchy. Next we have God’s anointed and appointed leaders, or little heads if you will, whom God invests with the necessary authority to rule over His people on a day- to-day basis. Christ established His hierarchy in the heavenly dimension. He planted it in this earth among people, and now it is up to us to implement that hierarchy and build communities based on it. This ends our discussion about God’s hierarchy and structure of authority. There is so much more that could be said on this subject, and we invite readers to research on his or her own, letting God reveal a deeper understanding and appreciation of His true Ecclesia community, ruled and governed by His Spirit.
CONTINUED IN NEXT ISSUE…