The Spiritual Authority of Pastors — Dr. John Kleinig

Machine-generated transcript; may contain errors.

Okay, let's go on. The spiritual authority of pastors. Have we finish at six, am I right? Six and one. 6 o'clock. OK. Now, authority, authority, authority is a key to work in this area. Now, to put it as simply as possible Satan is the arch politician. He's the super power merchant. He's into power, not crude power, not physical power, not even political or psychological or cultural power, he is into spiritual power. Okay? He has misappropriated God, power from God, and his way of working is to exercise spiritual power. Now, it doesn't belong to him. He's stolen it from God. He's misappropriated, then he steals it from human beings. Satan steals it from his fellow demons. You know, if I want to be powerful politician, I'm always powerful at other people's expense.

Power is always a limited thing. Let's say I'm an Obama, I'm a president. If anybody comes close to me and threatens my power, I knock them down, I take their power away from them. You have power by robbing others of power. That's the way Satan works. He disempowers others in order to gain power for himself. And he exercises power in a way that he terrorizes people. He works through fear. So he's the power merchant. And that's another key insight. Now, the danger is that we fall into the trap, when we are involved in spiritual deliverance ministry, of trying to oppose his power with power. Go into that game, what's gonna happen? You're going to fall flat in your face. So, however, there is another kind of power besides that, and that is authorized power.

God is not into the exercise of naked power, but he's into authorizing his creation and his creatures, to exercise power under him. He gives his power away. And he authorizes people, and empowers people to work together with him and work for him. And that means that within God's domain you can only exercise authority if you are under authority. You only have spiritual power, positive spiritual power as long as you remain under authority. Under authority. Jesus is under the authority of the Father, we are under the authority of Jesus. And that's the basic, and only as long as we are under the authority of Jesus and his word, can we exercise spiritual power the power of the Holy Spirit. As soon as we get out from that umbrella the power is cut off.

God cuts it off so that we don't do damage to ourselves and others. OK, that's the big picture. Now, I want to unpack that. I don't know whether you've noticed that how when Jesus speaks about his own ministry, and he authorizes, or he calls apostles and evangelists, to do work with him. He doesn't speak about power, but he speaks about authority. Number one, most generally. Okay, what is the ministry of Jesus from one point of view? The whole ministry of Jesus, from his conception, through his birth, through his baptism, his whole life, according to John is Jesus is casting out Satan from this world. So just before holy week, Jesus says, now has the prince of this world been cast out. Now, that's exorcism language.

He comes to perform the great exorcism. When does that occur? At his death and resurrection. That's, he's been authorized by his father to do the will, the work of his father, to perform the super exorcism. That's done. Satan now stands condemned. His role is, he's been disempowered spiritually. And it's because Jesus is under the authority of his father, that he has the authority and power over the demons. So notice how when the passage that we had a look at Mark chapter 1, Jesus taught how, with authority, not as the scribes and Pharisees. That goes all the way through the gospels. So Jesus doesn't just minister with power that's the Pentecostal emphasis, but he ministers with authority, the power that comes because he is under the authority of his father.

He does nothing by himself, except what the Father gives him to do. He says nothing of his own except what the Father gives him to do. He does not do his own work, he does the father's work. Everything is done under the authority of his father. And he then commissions the apostles with his own authority and power to work with him in casting out demons. Now, just I want to make a distinction. That's a very fine distinction, but very important distinction. Jesus has not called you, or Jesus did not call the apostles, the evangelists you to work for him, but to work together with him. It means under him. I was gonna say, you aren't just working for him, as if he's absent. You know, you're by yourself, you know that Protestant picture of Jesus, but you'll work together with Jesus.

And he gives you the authority to work together with him. And he gives you his own authority and his power to work together with him. So, whose work are you doing in your ministry? The work of Jesus, which is the work of the heavenly Father. And you're not doing it by yourself. You're doing it together with Jesus, who's doing it together with the heavenly Father, who's doing it by the power of the Holy Spirit. So it's Trinitarian in its operation. And notice then how often, the commission of the apostles is connected with two things, it's connected with preaching. The casting out demons, as if there are two sides of the same. He commissioned his apostles to preach and to do what? And to cast out demons.

They're not 2 different things. Preaching is casting out demons. And you cast out demons by preaching the kingdom. Now this is fundamental to the early Christian understanding of deliverance ministry, and it's fundamental to our Lutheran understanding of deliverance ministry. How do you deliver people every Sunday? From the demons and Satan by preaching the gospel. So, preaching, casting out demons, not two different things, but they are two sides to the same coin. And secondly, quite often in the gospels casting out demons is connected with healing or curing. So he sent the disciples to cast out demons and to heal them, or to heal those who are demonized. So, the ministry of healing is also the ministry of deliverance.

Those 3 sides go together. Very, very deeply. So healing, casting out demons preaching. Yeah, let's go to a very important passage, which is Luke chapter 10. I'm particularly interested in verse 19 but it's important that we see this in context. How many of you celebrated St. Michael and All Angels are… This is the gospel solicit Michael Law. By the way, more than, at any time in our history, we need to celebrate that every year. St Michael and All Angels. This is the occasion on which you'll be able to deal with a lot of this stuff that I'm doing. Okay, go to Luke, this is the gospel for St. Michael and All Angels, which was a couple of weeks ago, Luke chapter 10, 17 through to 20, please.

Could somebody read that to just to spare my voice? Remember, Jesus sends out the 70 or 72 evangelist. There some question about them. There to go out and proclaim the kingdom of God. And, okay, this is what the story comes when they come back. 17 through 20. Could somebody read, please? Then the 70 returned with joy, saying Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. Just stop there. That's a most unfortunate mistranslation. Whatever I… Subject to us is a power term. The Greek is, they are subordinate to us. See, it's the difference here. It's a question of order. OK? They are in order under us, in your name. So, they are under Jesus, and, so, you have Jesus, you have the 70 evangelists, and you have the demons in their proper place.

They are subordinate to us. So they are given authority to overcome the power of the enemy, the enemy being Sato. And now comes the most wonderful sentence of all. Well, I'm not sure where we start, but I know, a 2nd wordpound, verse 19. They're not being shot by any means. Okay, look at that. Nothing shall buy any means to underline that. Know that off by heart. Nothing can or will hurt you, have you damage? Then what's Jesus, then go on? Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to subliman to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. Jesus is not saying it's wrong for them to rejoice, but the greater joy is not that the greatest joy is not that the demons are subordinates, but the greatest joy is that their names are written in heaven, which means if their names are written, they have in heaven, that they are sons of the heavenly Father, together with Jesus, the Son.

They are enrolled in our, the heavenly city, the royal city as part of God's royal family. And they exercise not just divine authority, but royal authority. So, Jesus doesn't just give his authority, he knows it's his authority, to the tour of apostles, or people say the 11, but he gives it authority to the 70 or 72 evangelists, who are prototypes of the ministry of word and sacrifice. That this is where we come in. We have that authority. And that authority is not just given to pastors, but it's given to every Christian. Now, so you have the ministry of deliverance is very prominent in the early church, and you can see that in the book of Acts. Just a number of cases of this, we don't have time to look at them all view immediately after Pentecost.

Peter himself exercises the ministry of deliverance. The whole number, yeah, before that. Remember the parting words of Jesus in Mark chapter 16. In my name, you will do what? As he commissioned the apostles, your cast out, demons. And then Peter goes and he casts out demons. That's in Acts 15. And it's not just the apostles, because the evangelist, Philip does it too, in Samaria. And then Paul in Philippi, cast out the demon from that fortune telling, all the girl who had a python spirit, a snake spirit, which enabled her to tell fortunes, and she made a fortune for her owners by telling her shows. How about that? I'd like to. Yeah, I would like to have her, but… I remember that occasion.

And then lastly, then in Ephesus, you get a funny incident where people even got handkerchiefs and other things that had Paul in touch and even the shadow Paul sent the demons away from Ephesus, which was, by the way, a very old city, full of demons and all that kind of stuff. Now comes Adam. They are important and uniquely Lutheran emphasis. Okay? So we've been given the authority of Jesus to deliver people. We have the authority of Jesus as pastors to deliver people. And that's given to us in the office of the Keys. Now, how do we exercise the opposite the keys? Now, the office of the keys is not just confession and absolution. The keys means it opens or shuts the door into the father's house.

That's the picture. So there's a difference between the keys and the office of the keys. As there's a difference between government and the presidency. Who exercises government? Obama? No, so there's the office of the keys. This is one area where we need to reclaim Apple Lutheran heritage. Can I just give you the broad thing? How do I exercise the keys? Number one, I exercise the keys by baptizing or withholding baptism. Number two, I exercise the keys by absolving or withholding a solution. It always has 2 sides. You open or you close. So, baptizing withholding baptism, forgiving sins, or withholding. Every time I preach, I'm exercising the keys. I'm using the law to whole people accountable to bind them to their responsibilities, but also exercise the gospel, to release people from, to every sermon is the exercise of the keys.

Most, obviously, every time you admit or exclude somebody from the Lord's table you're exercising the case. But also, then, all of that is connected with binding and losing, in connection with, Satan. So, as pastors we're called them to bind demons. And how do we buy demons? By sending them packing, using God's law, God's word, to send them away from people. How do we use the loosing keys? By releasing them from Satan. Just as you can declare an absolution, you can declare somebody in Christ's name free from Satan. Now, that's the old Lutheran understanding. Can I repeat that again, and this has been forgotten? Just as you, as a pastor, have the authority to release people from sins to absolve people from sins.

So you have the authority to release a person who's repentant, who believes from the power of Satan. You have the authority to deliver them from saying. Remember, Jesus said to the crippled woman, briefly from your affliction priest. I also hold, and there has been some debate on this in a whole different tradition, but I hope that whenever you give a blessing, not a blessing within the order of creation, but a blessing within the order of redemption, blessing which is given the Holy Spirit and one of the gifts of the Spirit, a spiritual gift to people, or withhold a blessing, then you are also exercising the keys. So exercise the keys by giving a blessing and withformed by withholding a blessing within the order of creation.

But I'm not interested in that. Yeah. I'm interested in. The exercise of the keys to, bind, The demons, the demons and the packing, but also the keys then, more and more, lead to free people from the, binding losing. I've given you the passages connected with our deliverance. Hey, now to draw this to it. We, yes, as pastors, we are called to act authority, and to exercise authority as those who are under authority. And as such, we have power, we have limited power, not our own power, but we have the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit, which is not our possession, but we receive from Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit that's thou art used in connection with the ministry of the world.

The ministry of the word is the ministry of the spirit. The ministry of the word in law and gospel is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in law and gospel. So we have authorized power. Now, in contrast to that demonic power, as I said, is unauthorized spiritual power. What's my basic argument against the ordination of women, is that we have no authority to ordain women, and therefore any woman in the office is in a dangerous place because they are exercising unauthorized spiritual power. But that's another story. It means then that we don't possess the power of the spirit. We don't possess spiritual power. In fact, it's the opposite. If we look at ourselves in a way, we have no power whatsoever.

That's part of our Christian life, or questions are in that situation, but we pastors most of all. We have no power. The power belongs not to us, but to Christ and His Spirit. We receive that power. We never possess that power. And we only do that as long as we remain under the authority of Christ and his word. That's important because if I'm honest the biggest temptation that I faced is in 2 directions. It's not the problem of sex or of success or failure in ministry. It is, the biggest temptation I've had to face is the temptation to power. Spiritual power, and most of all, to glory. Not worldly glory, but spiritual glory. I want people to look up and admire the great John Klein. It's done it again.

Not that crude, of course. I'm much too subtle. I want the kingdom and power and glory for myself. Not forgot. And so if you want to see your spiritual vulnerability, follow the glory trial, who gets the glory? Now, there's a rule in policing where it comes to rule difficult policing, not your ordinary cribs, but the big shots at the top, you find what follow the money trial. Follow the money trail, and you'll discover the crime, and you'll discover the crime course. Follow the glory trial, and you'll find what? The sinners and particularly sinners in ministry. Follow the glory trial, and you'll follow and see, at the point of the tack, and the point of fight at the up. Now, this is not a diagnostic tool for others, but it's for yourself.

Follow the glory trial, and you'll discover where you are operating outside of Christ's authority and the power that Christ provides for you, operating outside of the authority, the word. Lastly, most importantly, in ministry and in the ministry of deliverance, we have not only the authority of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, which comes from Christ, prays for us. Any prays for our protection. Just listen. To the prayer of Jesus. Jesus is going to believe his disciples at least from an earthly point of view he's leaving them. And they are awfully vulnerable. Now they've got to face the enemy, at least from human point of view, by themselves. He's about to die. They're going to face the full force of the world that hates them because they hated Jesus, and for no other reason.

By the way, that's becoming obvious everywhere in the Western world, the hatred of the world, for the church hatred of Jesus, and then hatred for pastors and faithful Christians. I think it's here again, America, that he said. It's palpable in Australia, that sense of hatred towards orthodox Christians and faithful pastors, the church. And how does Jesus protect them in this awfully vulnerable situation, where they have no power for themselves, where they are under authority, and they are under the authority of somebody who the world does not recognize. What does Jesus do? He prays for them. Just listen to his prayer. Holy Father. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world into the same place, but that you protect them from the evil one.

Sanctify them in your truth, your word is truth, three things together. He prays for them. He gives them his holy word, and he prays that God will sanctify them. And if God sanctifies them through his sanctifying word, Then what does that make them? That makes them sense. What does it make them in the battle? If I am holy, and if I am made holy by Christ and His word, if I am covered with the holiness of Jesus, what does that mean? What? What? That means, I'm not negatively, I'm protected, positively, of a victory. They can't touch me, and I needn't be afraid of what they throw at me. Spiritually, they can't touch me, and whenever I go, I bring the victory of God with me. The presence of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. So Jesus protects us by praying for us and sanctifying us with the word of God not just once, but he does that over and over again, every day of our lives. But, yeah, I won't start at this stage the next section. Each question has been given authority in their station and vocation. Okay, Lutheran teaching is so wonderful. All the teaching station and vacation basically has to do with spiritual warfare. I don't know what you realize it. So I've been given, let's say I'm not a pastor. What's my authority? I've been given authority in my own marriage. What's my authority spiritually? Over mine? Wife, I'm the head of my wife, which means not that I boss her, but that I pray for her.

That I protect her from attack. And I don't just do it for my wife, and I do it for my children and grandchildren and I exercise spiritual authority in that area, as a pastor. I mean, as a father, as a husband, as a father, and as a grandfather, and, you know, broadly, in a family. But I'm not just, don't just have my station and vocation there. I've also got my station and location within the church. And let's say I'm an elder in the church. I've got authority in the church that as an elder. I'm not a pastor. But I have authority and spiritual authority, that's not all. Every member has authority, as a baptized member, even an infant, one day old, who's been baptized, on the 1st day, has spiritual authority.

It exercises spiritual authority within the church. In a way that we human beings don't see. So, you exercise in the church, and then thirdly, you exercise spiritual authority out there in the, well, now, how do you do that? It's not, you don't have authority over the whole of the world. Which part of the world do you have authority, and you're called to exercise authority, in your station and in your vocation? So who do you have, where do you exercise authority and with whom? Oh, shit, no, this your good Lutheran pastors? Where you work with who? The people you work with. And how do you exercise spiritual authority of your boss, workmates? Most of them are not Christians. The people you associate with, your friends, and people in the sporting club and all that kind of stuff.

By praying for them. The most obvious way that we exercise spiritual authority is not by preaching the word or administering the sacraments. The baseline is we exercise authority in prayer. That's the base, if you like, exercise of authority. How does Jesus exercises, authority, just before he's crucified? Sure, Jesus gives them a long sermon, but that sermon culminates in his prayer, in which he prays for them and prays for their protection and praise for their sanctification. Now, there's other aspects to it, but yeah, one of the problems that we have in the church is that we are flat now everything, and we generalize, so everything's the same for everybody. Instead of seeing that we don't aren't all caught, what would happen if everyone was given the same authority in the same place to do the same things?

Well, that's the practical side of it, and there'll be people fighting to stand on the same place. So be opening the door to Satan, but what would be the bigger problem? Well, not so much chaos, but nothing nothing, but get done. Jesus puts us in different places so that we can do his work in different places. And it's wonderful because I'm not called to be responsible spiritually for everybody and everything in the world. I don't have to get worried about all the problems over in Africa and Asia, although I have my concern for them, but primarily I'm called to exercise my spiritual authority. In my family, in my congregation, in my church, with the people that I work with and associate with.

Now that's doable. The other is not doable. Now, very important and wonderful Lutheran teaching we've got here. The Christian doctrine of vocation station and vocation, has its and lutherous way of thinking, and I could think I could demonstrate this from the New Testament, has, as its primary focus spiritual warfare. Not so much, delivering people, but protecting people, from attack. So, for example, if I am working in a business, okay, I'm the only Christian what am I bringing for the benefit of every single person who's working in that place? Protection from what? From Satan and the demons. Not total protection, but a measure protection. Just the fact that I'm there are changes the whole spiritual climate of that workplace.

Now, that was the conviction of Christians in the early church, very, very powerfully. Yeah, I did not go down that moon too far. Yes, yes. Oh, back there, 1st of all, this year 10? I just have a question about, like, Mark 9, where the disciples are not able to cast out a demon, and Jesus does cast out the demon, but says this one could only come out by prayer or some translation say pastor. Is that a power authority issue for the disciples there? Why were they not able to cast out that demon? I don't know. Jesus knew. And he hasn't told me. Why? But look, you know, this has helped, you know, we, My problem that I get onto these speculative questions. Why? Doesn't mean that fasting is always necessary.

All I can say is that there's some circumstances. Well, I don't know of any circumstance where you cast out demons. Let's just use that term. It's a very crude term, and people have the wrong understand. That doesn't involve prayer. So all ministry of deliverance is at bottom line prayer. Prayer, prayer. Okay? Secondly, it's never individual prayer, or can be individual prayer, but most obviously, and commonly, it's corporate prayer. It's the prayer of the congregation, the prayer of the church. Thirdly, there are some situations where fasting is what's called for. How do you know when that is? It's not according to some rule book, but how do you know? Why has Jesus said this to the apostles here?

This kind can only be driven out by fasting and prayer. And in Christ, but now… Just, just, just say that now. Okay, go on. It'll be common. When you try against one hour, and it doesn't need that you need to pass. Then, then, you don't need to fast, but then it might be a good thing too. Don't turn, don't turn gospel into law. Don't turn gospel into law. If, if, different. Okay, stand up and stand loud. It's in there because if you're trying to cast out a view and even doesn't leave then you… That means you get to that. He's a quick learn. It learns the rhetoric, even on the… This is just another result. And in a lot of cases, and I can't emphasize this. Remember, I said you'll receive things not on a need to minister basis.

Remember, right at the beginning, I said you receive the knowledge or the power not in advance, but on a need to minister basis. But what we can be sure, since we have the authority price, there's no situation where we won't be given the means to deal with it. Maybe not initially, but very often it's trial and error. Here's in this stuff. And that's very important, in ministry generally, not just here. Have you noticed in your own ministry? If something doesn't work, then what you do, you don't give up. It's not, I never just try again, but I go before I try again. I pray about it. And I don't try again until I've got some clear sense of what I'm called to do, and call to do under the Word of God, and guided by the Word of God, and then I do it.

So every, let's say, I can say failure but that's wrong. Every lack of success then drives us back to prayer and the word. And then that leads us to try something different. And if that doesn't work then what do we do? Go back again. What we need in this area. It's given to us on a need to minister basis, and it's very often a matter of trial and error. Error is a little bit wrong. It doesn't mean that we did do something wrong. Satan will try and make us feel guilty. I thought something wrong with me spiritually. So I've got to be super spiritual. How do I become super spiritual by fasting for 7 weeks or something like that? Now, that's not the way it works. It's somebody else's history.

Yes, I'm interested in this concept of blessing as being part of the world. Not a concept of blessing. A reality. It's something. The concept to me right now. The Romans and the Orthodox seem to have a very strong sense of the house blessing. I'm talking the sense of hauntings. And, with your doctor's office example and so forth. That was his realm of authority, in a sense. And yet, calling in, the pastor seems to be needed. Can you tie that together? I don't want to speculate, but I just have, normally speaking, okay, how do you protect your house, not just your family from evil? From the evil, from the state and the defense? Okay? Out there, how do you protect your house your household, your family from the demons?

Word and prayer, okay? I'd like to remind you that Luther doesn't speak about in the large part of the catechism about morning and evening prayer, but he talks about morning and evening blessings. Mistranslation again, because people have forgotten what Luther was talking about. So how do you normally protect that? That's normal. Okay, with extraordinary circumstance then who's helped you require? Not just under your own authority, the father doing it, or the mother doing it if she's by herself, don't you bring in the extra source of the congregation? So, wherever I've done house blessings I've never done by myself, I've always with the whole family, and then some representatives of the congregation.

I think in your new agenda, you got a order for the blessing of households. Please make that known and offer people that it's a valuable resource. It's going to be needed more and more as we've confronted with the situation more and more. It's absolutely essential in the 3rd world. Spent quite a lot of time in Malaysia where there's a lovely little Lutheran Church, and one of the pastor was attending, quite frankly, that the most important thing that they do in ministry is home visitation. They visit houses. They never go by themselves. There's always at least 2 others, maybe sometimes three. They go to visit every house to pray for that household and to bless that household, against that pagan context there, to protect them from the pagan environment, the unclean environment.

I don't know if that answers your question. Who knows? We do the same with graves now in our agenda. Okay, yes, yes, and that's very important for aboriginal people and for African Christians. I want to explain why that is, but that's very, very important in Africa. And for our aboriginal people. Yes? You expounded that, perhaps, a little bit decided, 2 by 2. You just imagine that, what am I doing this, is the two together? Even within our studies, it's a value of having another pastor. Okay, because we don't operate as long ranges, we operate corporately, always community. Remember, Jesus didn't send the evangelists out one by one, but two by two. And when they came to the household, they blessed them.

They put the peace of the Lord on, and if they were rejected, then they withdrew the blessing from them. Now, in practical terms, I saw this operate practically, and this is not a dogmatic requirement, but just simple practicalities. What's the value of 2 people going to visit a household? Well, I'll tell you the way it works. And I was the 3rd wheel because I was just observing. The person who did the talking was not the person who did the prey. Okay, one person would question, and the questions that were being asked was to discover not how things were going, but what to pray for. Now, what can the other person who's merely listening and looking pick up that you can't do when you're making conversation?

Right. Yep. What will you pick up? Not the words, but the, the body language and the things that are being are communicated, but are not vocalized. You get the unspoken agenda, and you pick it up. So the person who listens is the person who prays, whether it's a pastor or an elder, sometimes it's past and his wife and then the pastor gives a blessing. So in practical terms, they bring the church with them, they bring the community with them, and it has that added advantage.