Let My People Go!
The Church is held in captivity! Very few realise, but it was prophesied (Is 52:2).
By ‘Church’ I do not mean the structure, the institution, the edifice. I mean the people who are God’s people imbued with His Spirit, for all who are led by God’s Spirit are His (Rom 8:14,9). She is represented prophetically as “the daughter of Zion” (Is 52:2).
Astonishingly, these people have sold them- selves for nothing! (52:3.) They have sold themselves to the unclean and unconverted (‘uncircumcised’, 52:1) – false ministers who are not ministers, rather they are overlords, ‘superiors’, dominators!
Through false teaching that elevates ministerial position to that of rulership OVER members, members of churches are thereby held captive. It is a psychological captivity. They are in bondage to false concepts, not realising what true authority is, and that they are wrong to submit to human authority that masquerades as God’s but is nothing of the sort. We expose this farce in God’s Church – Whose Authority?
You need to realise that a minister has NO spiritual authority over you. You are his equal in terms of spiritual privileges and ‘rank’. Christ bought you the same deal He bought all – to set you free through His blood. It is freedom from sin, freedom from subservience to illicit autocracy, freedom to express your individuality both spiritually and physically as you are guided by His Spirit.
Those last four words are the crux of this issue. It is the guidance of His Spirit that confers authority. You are not under a minister’s authority. You are under the authority of Jesus, and as a believer in Him you have HIS authority to harness as you submit to Him and do what He shows you.
The authority of the believer is much talked about by preachers who know what Jesus has paid for by His death. He has bought each of us deliverance from demons, healing, and wholeness. A believer in Jesus has His authority to do the selfsame things Jesus did to free people from bondage (Jn 14:12). But what these preachers don’t teach you – because they usually don’t know – is that you are not to play second fiddle to them. You are not to regard them as on a higher notch on some imaginary spiritual scale. In fact, in God’s estimation, many of them could be on a lower level spiritually-speaking. They may not be so imbued with the Spirit, or so submitted to God. Their residual pride may still need eradication, as the process of humbling has much further to go.
God’s accolades go to those who are humble – poor in spirit (Matt 5:3; Is 66:2) – especially those who are obedient to His every word (Matt 5:19). Notice it:
Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:19).
A minister who claims he has God’s authority OVER you is a charlatan. A minister who asserts himself from his pulpit as if he is a lord and master over ‘his’ congregation has set himself up as an idol and has caused his subjects to commit idolatry in so doing. He is not breaking a ‘least’ commandment; he is breaking a major one! He is taking the place of God in the arrangement of things in the Church – he is usurping God’s primary position, and Jesus’ position as Mediator, Teacher, Healer, Deliverer, etc. All that Jesus warned ministers NOT to do in this regard (see Matt 23:8-11) is being disregarded and violated. Church members may not call their overlording ‘ministers’ ‘Rabbi’, ‘Teacher’, or ‘Father’, but the principle is being broken continually, psychologically.
It’s all very subtle; so easily overlooked, just like the serpent’s clever deception in the Edenic Garden. It all appears so right; what we are used to; the way it has always been for centuries. Yes, ever since prating Diotrephes (3 Jn 9,10) and others like him sought the prime position, to control or to dominate.
Jesus COMMANDED: it shall not be so among you (Matt 20:26). But IT IS SO amongst the Church!
He adjures true believers:
Shake yourself from the dust, arise... Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion (Is 52:2). Depart! Depart! (52:11).
To the Church slave masters He commands:
LET MY PEOPLE GO!!! (Ex 8:1; 9:1.) &
Newsletter no. 74
Malcolm B Heap, December 2015 |
