Kingdom Authority | Part 1

Children of God have incredible kingdom authority.

Listen to Adrian Rogers. Folks, there is a power that exceeds atomic power so incredibly it's not even worthy of comparison, and that is the power that God brought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and has given that power to us. That power is called kingdom authority. And if you're a child of God, you have incredible authority and power. Whether you've discovered it, whether you've split the spiritual atom or not, it's there inherently.

Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the dynamic teaching and insights of Adrian Rogers. As Christians, most of us can accept that Jesus Christ is King and He has authority. However, some of us fail to grasp that He has given that kingdom authority to His servants. We are in a spiritual battle. We are up against the organized, mobilized, and demonized power of hell. Therefore, we need to understand what kingdom authority is in order to utilize it.

If you have your Bible, turn now to Ephesians chapter 1 beginning in verse 15, as Adrian Rogers tells us more about our kingdom authority. Back in 1940, Enrico Fermi and some other men in a makeshift laboratory, actually a handball court at the University of Chicago worked, and they took Einstein's theory of relativity and they began to apply it. And they said, we can divide, we can split the atom and release power in a ratio of one to six million.

That's what they did. And the atomic age began. Now, that power was there all the time, but it was unknown, undiscovered, therefore, unapplied. Folks, there is a power that exceeds atomic power so incredibly it's not even worthy of comparison, and that is the power that God wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and has given that power to us. That power is called kingdom authority, and we read about it in the book of Ephesians, and I want you to begin in chapter 1 and verse 15. Paul learned that the Ephesians had given themselves to Christ. He learned of their faith in Christ, and then he began to pray for them. He began to pray, Oh God, help them to understand the power that is inherently theirs through the work of Christ. And dear God, help me today as I preach that I might be an instrument to help the people of God to understand this.

Now listen to what Paul said. He said, Wherefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, they were saved and they loved one another, but he's not satisfied. He said, I cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. Well, would you like to eavesdrop on his prayer? Would you like to find out what he prayed for when he prayed for those saints at Ephesus? That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. I want you to have wisdom, revelation, and knowledge about your Savior. That's what he's saying. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power.

Underscore that. Oh, he said, Help them to understand the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward, not just power, but power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, 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, under Jesus' 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." Now, whether you understand it or not, what he's talking about there is the kingdom authority that belongs to the children of God. And if you're a child of God, I want to tell you something, friend. You have incredible authority and power.

Whether you've discovered it, whether you've split the spiritual atom or not, it's there inherently. Did you know the Bible says that God has made us kings and priests? Look to the person to your right, the person to your left. There's a king and there's a priest if they're saved.

Go home and look in the mirror. And if you're saved, if you're a child of God, looking back at you will be a king and a priest. God has made us a kingdom of priests.

That's wonderful. Former pastor of this church, Dr. Robert G. Lee, tells a story I used to love to hear him tell about how he got on a train one time, and he was tired. He'd been talking to so many people. He just wanted to be quiet.

He didn't want to talk to anybody. But he said, I sat down next to a man who was wearing clerical robes, you know, the black suit and the white turnaround collar and so forth. But he said, I really was not in the mood for conversation. But he said, that man turned to me and said, who are you and what do you do? Dr. Lee said, I looked back at him and said, I'm a king. He said, well, he said, you don't look like a king. He said, I'm also a priest. He said, well, you're not dressed like a priest.

And then Dr. Lee said, you know, he was wearing his collar backward. He said, that's all right if he wants to do that. He said, it's all right if a man wants to walk into his collar when I back into mine. He said, that's fine.

However, he wants to dress. But he said, I am a king and a priest. And then that man said, oh, I know who you are. You're a Baptist preacher. And friend, you don't have to be a Baptist preacher, however, to be a king and a priest or a queen and a priest if you know the Lord because God has given to all of his children kingdom authority. That's what we're going to be looking at, and that's what we're going to be studying today. And basically, this is just the foundational message, and I pray that God the Holy Spirit will write three truths upon your heart today.

Now, here's the first thing I want you to learn. That kingdom authority was gloriously given to Adam, gloriously given or graciously given to Adam. Now, put in your margin there, Ephesians 1, Genesis 1, verse 26. And it tells how God created the first man and the first woman and put them in the Garden of Eden.

And Genesis 1, verse 26, speaks of the Holy Trinity in counsel, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And God said, let us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, make man in our image. Let us make man in our image and our likeness, and let them have dominion. Underscore the word dominion. That means rule.

Let us make man in our image. Does God rule? Does he reign? Of course he does. Does God have dominion?

Yes. God says, I want a creature like me. I want someone to rule and to reign. I want him to have dominion on this earth. Let's make man in our image and let them have dominion. So Adam was given dominion over the earth, Adam and Eve, to be king and queen, to sit at the place of authority.

The word dominion means to rule over, to tread down. The things of this earth were to be under his feet. You know, King David, who wrote the Psalms by divine inspiration when I was looking up at the stars, that candelabra in the heavens, and he said, oh, when I consider the heavens the work of your hands, when I look out into the vast nether reaches of space, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the Son of man, that thou visiteth him, what is man? And then he said, divine inspiration, what man is? In verse 6, thou madest him, that is, man, to have dominion over the works of thy hands, and thou hast put all things under his feet. That's how God made Adam. God gave the first man dominion. But as we're going to see, he lost it. Look around today. You don't see the sons of men ruling and reigning and having dominion over this earth as God gave spiritual dominion. Something has gone wrong.

Consult this morning's newspaper. Read about the death, the disease, the hate, the war, the crime, the lust, the sorrow, the disappointment, the despair that's everywhere. And think about a little boy who was sitting on the front steps of the schoolhouse crying, the janitor son crying there. He said, what's wrong, son? Well, the little boy was to bring his birth certificate to school, and his mother told him, be very careful, son.

That's an important document. Don't lose it. And he lost it.

The janitor said, what's wrong, son? He said, I lost my excuse for being born. Now, that's what Adam did.

Adam lost the reason that God created him. God made him to have dominion. It was graciously, gloriously given. Now, okay, now here's the second thing I want you to understand.

Not only was it graciously and gloriously given, but it was legally lost, not just lost, legally lost. Adam took that dominion that God had given to him, and Adam gave that dominion to Satan. Now, obviously Satan deceived him. Obviously, Satan, the artist, deceived Adam, but nonetheless, Adam, faithless, unbelieving, disobedient Adam, yielded to Satan and became Satan's slave. That's what the third chapter of Genesis is all about, how that serpent crawled his slimy, corroding path into the pages of history and deceived the first man and the first woman.

The word serpent literally means shining one. God created. He was created a holy angel.

There was no sin in him. God did not create a devil. God created a holy angel with the power of choice, and that angel rebelled against Almighty God, and Lucifer, the son of the morning, became Satan, the father of the night, and he was banished from heaven. No sooner had he unsheathed his sword of rebellion than the thunders of his righteous judgment spoke, and Jesus said, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven, but he's cast out to the earth. And now Satan begins a battle on this earth. He attempts to achieve on earth what he failed to achieve in heaven. Now he wants to enthrone himself on earth, and who now has dominion on earth?

Adam does. Satan wants to usurp that dominion. Satan wants that authority. So he comes to Adam, and through an adroit move he gets Adam to obey him, and Adam yields himself to Satan.

He doesn't understand what is going on now. Satan says to Adam, you will be as God. Adam did not become God. He became Satan's slave. Romans chapter 6 is a very important verse right here, and I want you to jot this down in your margin.

Don't turn to it. I'll read it to you, but Romans chapter 6 verse 16, the apostle Paul explains it this way. Don't you know that to whom you yield yourselves servants or slaves to obey, his servant or his slave you are?

The King James gives his servant, but the Greek word is slave. Adam became, he yielded to Satan. He became a slave of Satan. His kingdom authority was gone. He lost his legal right to rule. Now, when Satan tempted Jesus, this is a key verse right now.

Don't miss it. When Satan tempted Jesus, he tempted Jesus to worship him, to worship Satan, but here's how he tempted Jesus. He showed him all of the kingdoms of this world, the glory, the power, the splendor of those kingdoms, and then this is what Satan had the audacity to say to the Son of God. And the devil said unto him, all this power will I give thee and the glory of them, for that is delivered unto me and to whosoever I will give it. Jesus did not contradict him.

Jesus did not remonstrate against what he had said. He said, Jesus, if you'll worship me, I will give you the power, the glory, the authority of this world, because he said it has been delivered to me. It was delivered to him. God gave it to Adam. Adam delivered it to Satan, and Satan said, I will give it to you, Jesus, if you'll just worship me. It was graciously given. It was legally lost.

Satan says it has been given to me. And man now is spiritually dead and spiritually dethroned. He, legally, he has lost the authority, the kingdom authority that was given to him. Therefore, continue to read in Ephesians chapter 2 now, verse 1, and you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Adam, who was given life, now is dead, and the sons of Adam are dead.

Adam, who was given authority, is now dispossessed and dethroned. Now notice, wherein in time past ye walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. What is that spirit that now works in the children of disobedience? That's the spirit of the devil. Now, the Bible calls him in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 4, the god of this world. Paul later on in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12 says, for we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against the authorities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.

There's a dark prince who rules in this world, who has authority in this world because Adam delivered it over to Satan. It was gloriously given. It was legally lost.

Now we're going to tighten the focus a little bit. Now you're going to see why Jesus Christ came. It was legally lost. It must be righteously regained. The question comes, if Satan has done all of this, and Satan has all of this power, this malevolent influence, why doesn't God just step in? Why doesn't God just kill the devil, obliterate, evaporate him, kill him, banish him, put him in the lowest hell, whatever he wants to do, and just take that authority and give it back to Adam? If God were to do that, it would be a farce of divine judgment. God would be fixing it, but he wouldn't be fixing it right.

God owes Satan nothing, but God owes much to his own sense of righteousness, holiness, and justice. It was legally lost. It must be legally regained. Now, where was it given? It was given to a man. How was it lost? It was lost by man. How must it be regained?

It must be regained by a man, by a man. God could destroy Satan as God. He's Jehovah God. He owes the devil nothing. Satan has absolutely no power over Almighty God in one word.

He could be completely destroyed, but God is going to be true to his own righteousness, his own holiness, his own justice, and by a man, he's going to destroy the power of Satan. Now, let me give you some verses that back this up. God's plan must center in a man. I Corinthians chapter 15, verses 21 and 22. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Only two men really who've ever lived, Adam and Jesus. And either you're in Adam or you're in Christ. In Adam all die. If you are in Adam, what pertains to Adam pertains to you.

That's a sinful nature. Judgment, death, and hell in Adam all die. If you're in Christ, what pertains to Christ pertains to you, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection from the dead.

There had to be a man who would undo what the first man did. Put this verse down. Hebrews 2, verse 14. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood. The children, he's talking about us. The children of God. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself, when it says he also himself, it's talking about Jesus, he also himself took part of the same. Of the same what? The same flesh and blood. That through death, he might destroy him that had the power, the authority of death, that is the devil.

Have you got that? You see, it was lost by man. He had to become flesh and blood. Adam's sin deserved judgment. The wages of sin is death. Jesus had to take flesh and blood, a body, so he could die. And by death, pay sin's penalty, be raised from the dead. And what Adam had legally lost, God will righteously regain by God becoming a man. Put this verse down. Galatians 4 verses 3 through 5. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage.

Okay? Before we're saved, we're in bondage. We are slaves of Satan. You see, a son of a slave is a slave.

Understand that? A daughter of a slave is a slave. Adam was sold into slavery. He gave that dominion, that rule to Satan.

It was delivered to him. And now all of Adam's progeny are slaves. We are under dominion. You say, well, I'm not a slave of Satan. Oh, yes, you are if you're not saved. You say, well, I'm free to do whatever I want.

That's true, but you're not free to do as you ought. You're Satan's slave. You're in bondage. You're in bondage to lust and pride and arrogance and disobedience. Even so, when we were children, we were in bondage under the elements of this world. But, thank God for that but, but when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law. That is, to redeem these slaves, to buy these slaves back. These were in bondage. God sent forth his son made of a woman.

Now, catch this very carefully. He had to be a man, but had he been a son of Adam, he would have had the sinful nature of Adam, a son of a slave is a slave and a slave can redeem no other slave. Got it? But on the other hand, he had to be a man. It was lost by a man, legally lost. It must be righteously regained. That, my friend, is the reason for the virgin birth.

Hmm? Listen, that's the reason for the virgin birth. That little baby in Mary's womb was a man, but he was not a son of Adam. He was the son of God. He was not the son of a slave, but he was made of a woman. As much man as if he were not God at all, as much God as if he were not man at all, he was very God of very God and very man as very man, but he did not defeat Satan as a God.

He defeated Satan as a perfect man. And coming up tomorrow, we'll hear part two of this important message, but maybe today you have questions regarding your faith in Jesus. We'd love to offer you an insightful resource on the website. It's our Discover Jesus page. You'll find answers there you may need about your faith.

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