Only the government of God can rightly steward the voice of God. That has been proven by failure throughout history when the voice of God comes, and the government of man shuts it down. This happened in our lifetime in the 1980s when the voice of God picked areas across our nation to come into, but man’s government shut down the voice. It is painful. He was going after the heart. We rejected the voice from the throne because the government of man was in place, and look what it did to the heart of our nation now. Look at the consequences of that fact and that act.
“Only the government of God can rightly steward the voice of God.”
How did we get here? I can tell you. We rejected the voice and tried to correct those who were carrying that voice. It is not that some do not need correction; each of us needs correction. We would all agree that we needed a measure of correction in that time, but you cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater, and you cannot go around the world apologizing for the voice that challenges the church and spanks it. That is not a legitimate ministry, that is cowering when it takes courage.
The advent of the Voice demands something of God’s people, and it is obedience. It is disruptive when it comes to us personally, corporately, or in any way it comes. The voice from the throne is a disruptive voice firstly. It disrupts my thinking and my thoughts, my direction, my purpose, and my intent. It brings God straight into it. It sets Him on His throne and makes and elevates His purpose above everything else.
When that voice comes into a church that has its own government–to an organization or a denomination that has their own government, or to me with my own government–it is disruptive. It will come to the government first and disrupt there with the intent of redemption and allowing the government of God to come because only the Government of God can steward the voice of God.
We have seen through history that when the government of God comes, the government of man kills the voice or kills the vessels of it. It chases them out of town or better yet puts them into Bible College to teach them something. They are carrying the voice. They are not carrying it because they have it all together, but they are the perfect vessel because the church does not have it all together either and God is using kind. But we cannot connect the dots and put two and two together and see that the messenger is not just carrying the voice, the messenger is the voice. That is what you see with the prophets of old. They did not just carry a message, they were the message. So the scramble was to get that under control, and it killed it.
“The messenger is not just carrying the voice, the messenger is the voice.”
Our nation is going through what it is going through because we rejected the voice. We can hem haw and make excuses, but until we humble ourselves and repent, it is not going to help us. We must understand the times and know what needs to be done. When we look at the government of God, over each individual is where it always starts. Am I under the hand of God’s government? Is God governing me? Not just in the church but all day every day? Or do we have man’s government? Is God able to speak what He wants to say? Is God able to challenge? Is God able to move us onto heavenly ground? Or do we cater to a system that tickles our fancies and allows us to do a church in our image, church as we have known it, church as we have experienced it? Or does the fear of the Lord rest on the thing?
It is God’s house and God’s people, not ours. It is His image that He is working by His Spirit to conform us to. It is always a disruption. The government of man is being disrupted on every possible level that the Holy Spirit is allowed to challenge. We have to understand it personally and see it corporately. Where that is not happening is where God is not allowed to do it.
This article is excerpted from a message Terry preached on 2/14/16.
Listen to the whole message here