Articles

The Government of God by Roger Armbruster

We live in a world where there is increasingly a lack of respect and honour for constituted authority, or for human, earthly authority structures. This is bringing the church as we have known it to a place of crisis that is on the one hand perilous and dangerous, but on the other hand is exciting and opening up the doors to unprecedented opportunity and increase in the Kingdom of God. To seize the unprecedented opportunities and potential breakthroughs that God will put in our pathway in the coming days is going to require steps of obedience, steps of faith into the unfamiliar and untested ground of the future.

The temptation to just preserve the status quo, and to remain with the familiar, and with past ways of doing things is certainly there. The past is where we feel safe and comfortable. Stepping out in faith makes us feel exposed to danger and vulnerable, and what if we make a mistake? Yet, the reality is, in the world in which you and I live, change is inevitable, but growth and how we respond to change is optional.

There have been revolutions in nations and reformations in the church that try to impose change from the outside. Those movements have invariably come up short, because they bypass the heart of people, and in the church they by-pass the priesthood of all believers. So there is a huge shift, transition and change from one of reformation to one of transformation, which is a new covenant term, whereby the government of God begins in the heart, and works outwardly from there. Transformation is not established by outside in changes to mechanisms of external control, policies, laws, rules and regulations. I am not against that, because without external rules and policies, our society would end in anarchy and chaos.

But God has a different way of government, and it is government that comes by way, not of reformation, but by way of transformation, from the inside out, where the laws of God are being written on the table of our hearts, through a submission to the Spirit of God who brings liberty, and frees us from the inside out to be who He created and designed us to be, and not somebody else. It also frees us to release others to be who God has created and designed them to be, without resorting to defensiveness, accusation, manipulation or intimidation to get others to do what we want.

Transformation leads to a form of government that refuses to by-pass the heart. It is a process, because it takes time to hear the heart, and to give people a choice. Really hearing the heart of one another is a huge and time consuming process, and this is why a one-man system of government cannot do it. It is going to take a multiplicity of trained disciples who have become secure enough in who they are that they can also release others to be who God has called them to be, and to be who they are in Christ.

Institution vs. Spirit

All institutions are being torn apart by tension between two groups: those who want to reassert familiar and tested leadership patterns — including top-down control, uniformity and bureaucracy, and those who want to welcome untested but promising patterns of the emerging era in the present generation — grass-roots empowerment, diversity and relational networks. It is not a divide between conservatives and liberals; rather, it is a divide between institution and spirit. And throughout all of church history, the Spirit of God has a way of breaking out outside of the walls of institutions. This is something that David Duplesis noted during the charismatic renewal during the 1960s and 1970s, and now the life of the Spirit is breaking out once again, even outside of the walls of some of our, for want of a better term, “charismatic churches.”

It is vitally important to gain an understanding as to why the church must become more inter-generational in leadership, and why the rising and emerging generations must be empowered to be a part of today’s church with the blessing of the older generations. Today, baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) dominate the pastorate, holding 61% of all senior pastor positions in the nation, and yet constitute only four out of every ten adults. Those born between 1965 and 1983 constitute about one-third of the adult population today, but currently hold just 7% of the pastorates in the nation. Many have simply left the church.

It is not uncommon for a youth pastor to want to break off from the senior pastor to start his own congregation, but many of them drop out of the ministry altogether. 80% of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave within the first five years. 70% felt God called them to pastoral ministry before their ministry began, but after three years of ministry, only 50% still felt called.

If the senior pastor entrenches himself in his position, often people will leave. For those pastors who do not want to polarize people around themselves, to keep people from leaving, more often than not they will leave, and relationships that are meant to be permanent and ongoing are severed while both pastor and congregation seek for a new root system to start over with, only to go through same cycle one more time. It has become accepted wisdom that the average stay of a senior pastor of a smaller congregation of under 200 members is three to five years, and for larger churches, the average increases to five to eight years. Yet more and more in the younger generation are asking, “Is this normal Christianity?”

God in the Old Testament seems so reluctant to establish authority structures in Israel, so careful to limit the ones He does establish, and so ready to overturn human assumptions about who should be in authority. What God was really after was family, and inter-generational father-son and parent-child relationships that would see the Kingdom of God increase and multiply inter-generationally.

Something that came in with the Fall was that authority began to be exercised outside of strongly bonded relationships that are based on a relationship with the Father, and being in the Father’s family. With the Fall, there came in the top-down, impersonal, non-relational, bureaucratic, chain-of-command forms of authority structure, all of which people can function under without the need for a personal and a growing relationship with Christ.

In the Old Testament, God seemed to postpone the forming of human governments beyond the family unit, and the extended family unit, for as long as He could, until evil became so prolific, and injustice became so rampant, that there had to be some form of external control to restrain evil to some extent, and to enforce consequences for those who violate the human rights of their fellowman. Even the worst form of human government based on coercion is better than no government, because without any government, the earth would quickly descend into chaos and anarchy. And those nations on the earth today that are overthrowing their governments by revolutionary force and violent protests, that is what they are coming to. They are coming to chaos and anarchy.

So by Genesis 10 and 11, God began to allow human governments beyond the family unit to be established, and Nimrod set up his world empire, but as all governments do where man and not Christ is king, this government soon led to the horrific abuse of authority, and to callous injustice.

By the time we get to Genesis 12, we find a man who lived in Ur of the Chaldees that lived under a religious system of government that required rampant child sacrifice and temple prostitution. Injustice was officially sanctioned by decree. Women and children were horrifically abused, and it was so built into the culture and the system of government that anybody who opposed it was strongly persecuted. Tradition tells us that this is what happened to Abraham as a child, that he was persecuted for refusing to worship idols, as these idols empowered leaders to exercise a horrific abuse of authority.

The Faith Journey of Abraham

Even in ancient civilizations such as the first Babylonian Empire that was under Nimrod, there was an awareness of the promise of the seed of the woman that would crush the head, or the headship, and the authority structure of the serpent, and so Nimrod was totally threatened and insecure as the first world emperor. Tradition tells us that some of his psychics, and fortune-tellers told him that a baby was born in Ur of the Chaldees that would be a threat to his kingdom. Consequently, the tradition says that Nimrod had 70,000 babies in Ur of the Chaldees killed, but Nimrod missed Abraham, just like Pharaoh missed Moses, and Herod missed Jesus. It was a war between the top-down systems of this world, and the relational family government of God’s Kingdom. It was a war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

At some point, Abraham made the decision that he could not worship the idolatrous gods of his father. Joshua 24:2 states, “Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham…dwelt on the other side of the Euphrates River in old times, and they served other gods.” The gods of Terah, Abraham’s father, were gods that totally disrespected family values, and equality, and women and children were ritually abused with child sacrifice and temple prostitution. If we think that our culture is any different from the Babylonian culture of Abraham’s day, all that we have to look at are the social issues of abortion and the growing epidemic of the trafficking of women and children as sex slaves. We have a problem, and what are we going to do about it?

In the midst of this culture, God saw in Abraham a man of whom he could say, “I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, that they will keep the way of the LORD, and do righteousness, and do justice” (Genesis 18:18). God saw in Abraham a man through whom He could initiate change, not through another statist, coercive or “top down” form a government. The promise to Abraham was that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Abraham’s seed would bless all of the families, not all of the political regimes that are on the face of the earth. That is where God’s type of government was founded, upon family and relational values, not upon the values of the oppressive Babylonian system in Ur of the Chaldees.

It was against such a backdrop that Stephen, standing before the Sanhedrin, the religious/political authority structure of his nation, that he referred them to the real Head of the government of all nations—the God of glory. The glory of God is when the invisible God becomes visible within His creation, so that the peoples on earth can see for themselves who the real Ruler is. So Stephen boldly declared before the Sanhedrin, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and from your father’s house and come to a land that I will show you” (Acts 7:2, 3).

Hebrews 11:8 tells us that “Abraham, when he was called, obeyed, to go out to a place that he would afterward receive as an inheritance.” And then we read these amazing words, “And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”

That sounds a little bit like the leadership at Maranatha over the past couple of years, doesn’t it? We have started out on a journey, not knowing where we are going, except that we have heard God say, “Get out of the place you are in, to a place of greater freedom and blessing that I will show you.” So if anybody asks you where the present leadership at Maranatha is going, tell them, that they are trying to follow in the faith of Abraham, who was willing to take a step of faith in beginning a journey where revelation would be progressive—step by step, and from faith to faith.

Did you know that the New Testament actually teaches that we are to have the same type of faith that Abraham had, and that this is the faith that saves us? Romans 4:13 and 16 teaches so clearly, that “the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith…Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.”

Romans 4 goes on to describe Abraham as more than the father of the Jewish nation, but that he is “the father of many nations” through the promised Seed of Christ. This faith is so much more than going to heaven after we die, but then continuing to live in this world according to the ways of this world system. It is a faith that believes in a God who gives life to the dead, and calls those things which are not manifest as though they are manifest. Romans 4:17.

Do you know that just because we do not see Christ as King or the government of God yet fully manifest does not change the fact that Jesus is the Lord of all nations today, and He is the Head of the Church today. We need to declare that prophetically, and birth that in prayerful intercession and in faith in order to see those things that are not manifest as though they are manifest! This is why Jesus taught us to pray in this manner, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” (Matthew 6:10) so that we can birth God’s Kingdom purposes in faith, and in prayerful intercession.

Abraham was “not weak in faith” and “He did not stagger or waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, being fully convinced that what God had promised, He was able also to perform and to fulfill.” This is the faith that was accounted to him for righteousness. (Romans 4:19-22).

This faith of Abraham was not a one-time event, a one-time experience, a one-time step of faith. It was a faith that was progressive. It was a journey, a pilgrimage. As we follow in the faith of Abraham, we, too are called to a journey, a race, or a pilgrimage according to Hebrews 11:8, 9, 13; 12:1. Abraham died in faith before he saw the fulfillment of everything that God had promised him. But he saw a day coming. He saw a day when the government of God would be established on the earth. He saw a day when his descendants would rule and reign over the nations, but it was not going to be like the governments of this world or this world system that by-pass human freewill, and that by-pass the heart.

This government would be founded upon true, personal, heart-to-heart family relationships where every member has a growing sphere of authority, and a sphere of influence that is honored and valued by the other family members. Relationships are meant to be eternal, and broken relationships are meant to be healed, unlike institutions which are only temporary, and when people break off from institutions, their hurts usually go unhealed and undealt with. We just run away from one organization to another through revolving doors.

Abraham looked for a city that was permanent, a city with enduring foundations, a city that was eternal, a city that was based on eternal, permanent relationships, a city whose Builder and Maker is God. Hebrews 11:10. In the meantime, he lived by faith, and walked a journey of faith, believing that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. He judged Him faithful who had promised.

Hebrews 11:13 states that even though he died before receiving this eternal inheritance, yet he saw those promises a far off. He saw a day coming when the government of God would be established. By faith he saw a city, the New Jerusalem, where heaven and earth would come together, and where God’s Throne in heaven would be established on the earth, even as we pray in every church service and family altar where we pray the Lord’s prayer.

In the meantime, Abraham saw himself as a foreigner, a pilgrim, a resident alien on this earth. The church, as well, represents a different type of government that is alien to this earth, because it is the only form of government that does not by-pass the heart, that does not by-pass freewill, and even though we live in this world, we are not of it. We , too, like Abraham, are resident aliens. We presently live on an earth where most governments are alien to heaven, but we still anticipate a day when heaven is coming to earth in greater fullness!

Psalm 105 tells us how that God cut a covenant with Abraham, a covenant that he confirmed inter-generationally to his son Isaac and to his son Jacob, and even though “they were few in number, indeed very few, and strangers in the land,” surrounded by enemies and kings and governments that could have wiped them out in minutes, and yet “when they went from one nation to another, and from one kingdom to another people, God permitted no one to do harm or to wrong to them. He even rebuked kings for their sakes, saying, “Do not touch My anointed ones, and do My prophets no harm.” Psalm 105:12-15. In Genesis 35:5, it says that “as they journeyed, the terror of fear of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.”

So God protected Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and even rebuked kings for their sake, as they continued the journey, looking for a city that has foundations, a city where the heavenly and the earthly would come together, where God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven, recognizing that heaven has every intention of invading the earth, not by top-down, coercive governments, but through relational family networks where Christ, not man, is King.

The Faith Journey Continues in the Book of Acts

The governments of this earth are horribly intimidated, and feel totally threatened by the government of God, because where God rules, there will be no more outside in control or oppression, but the Spirit of God will be ruling and reigning from within the hearts of His children, ruling through those who have welcomed the government of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ into their lives. This rulership of God in and through His children is not a rulership over the freewill of others, but over the principalities and powers of the air that have kept humans in bondage and in darkness, with a veil over their eyes, that prevents them from seeing the glory of God.

Everywhere the apostles travelled on their journeys in the Book of Acts, they ministered out of weakness, not out of human power, in order that the strength of God might be manifested through their weaknesses, and yet there was also this constant clash with human governments and religious systems wherever they went. The authority structures of this world were so threatened by a kingdom where the humble are exalted, and the meek inherit the earth, that they tried to stamp it out by force in a way that might be likened to trying to crack a peanut with a sledgehammer, or going after a sparrow with a machine gun.

If we will humble ourselves as a child of God, and if we as men and fathers become more relational with our wives and children, and begin in our own households, to proclaim our personal choice with Joshua that “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15), we have nothing to fear from the government of God. It has nothing to do with “a special elitist group of people.” We all have a sphere of government, a sphere of authority, beginning with ourselves, and with our families, and God extends our sphere of influence from there to our community, and to our nation, and to the nations as we continually yield our lives to Christ at an ever deeper relational level.

The Nimrods and the Pharaohs and the Herods of history have dreaded the coming reign of God through His people, but the people who have the faith of Abraham do not dread it. Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ and the coming rule of God through His descendants who believe in God’s promise of an eternal inheritance. He rejoiced to see the coming government of God, and he was glad and was happy about it, giving glory to God. John 8:56-58; Romans 4:10, 21.

We can apply this message by allowing the government of Christ, and the message of the Cross, to penetrate into those areas of our heart where we have not yet allowed Christ to enter—areas of defensiveness, of retaliation, of bitterness, of offence, or areas where the self rules. The unsurrendered self is a false god, and yet today we tend to base human rights on the autonomous self. It’s an idol.

We can apply this message to our families by building deeper, personal relationships with one another under Christ. Even when we do not get our own way, we submit to one another under Christ, knowing that of the Lord we will receive the reward of the inheritance, and a place of spiritual rulership within the sphere that He has entrusted to us, and that He wants to increasingly entrust to us from the inside out.

Applying This to the Next Step of Church Government at Maranatha

Here are a few pertinent points that it is vital to understand and to comprehend.

1.The revelation of the government of God is not abrupt or instant, but progressive. The revelation of how we play this out is from faith to faith, from grace to grace and from glory to glory, beginning right where we are at today. The important thing is not whether we are all at the same point on our journey of faith, but that we all want to move in this same direction, beginning where we are at, and by faith take steps of obedience to move towards the government of God. This will happen through a series of episodes, not one abrupt change, so that change can continually be confirmed and established before we move on to the next step.

2. Church government is not hierarchical or positional, but relational and spiritual. Spiritual authority is an authority that comes from heaven, and when God graces people to govern, that authority is not to be used to control people, but to release them into their sphere of ministry, and to empower them to takes steps of obedience and faith on their own faith journey, and to equip the saints into the work of the ministry. This can only happen where we know somebody well enough that we know something of the specific and unique deposit of Christ that He has placed in them, and we encourage them along on their faith journey to be whom Christ, not us, has graced them to be.

3. God does not entrust His complete Kingdom authority in any one locality to any one, single individual, but to each of the fivefold ministry gifts, He has given a measure of His Spirit, a sphere of influence and of anointing with which they are to equip others into the work of the ministry. Because God has just given to every ministry only a sphere, no one individual can be the lightning rod, or centre of gravity for everybody in the congregation. It is our desire and our prayer that there will be enough diverse spheres of anointings and giftings in the congregation that are recognized that everybody will be able to find somebody that they can relate to personally without having to go from church to church to church in order to be fed.

New Testament word “Metron”: a sphere of influence or authority, a portion or degree of governmental authority, a measure.

“For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring (metreo) themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. We, however, will not boast beyond our measure (metron), but within the sphere (metron) of the rule which God has distributed to us, a sphere (metron) which especially includes you.

“For we are not overextending ourselves as though our measure (metron) did not extend to you, for it was to you that we came with the gospel of Christ, not boasting of things beyond our measure (metron), that is, in other men’s labors, but having hope, that as your faith is increased, we shall be greatly enlarged by you in our sphere, to preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man’s rule or sphere of accomplishment, but ‘he who glories, let him glory in the LORD’” (II Corinthians 10:12-17).

“But to each of us grace was given according to the measure (metron) of Christ’s gift…for the equipping of the saints into the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure (metron) of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:7, 12, 13).

These different graces are “to speak the truth in love that the Body may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ, from whom the whole Body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure (metron) of every part, causes growth in the Body unto the edifying and building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:15, 16).

Notice that when each “metron” or “sphere of influence” in the rule of God is fully released, the Body as a whole matures to grow up into the full stature of Christ. Of Jesus, it was said, “God gives not the Spirit by measure (metron) unto him” (John 3:34). Jesus was apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, pastoral and instructive all in one. Each one of us have been distributed just a measure, a metron, of those graces to function, labouring together with others, until the Body grows up to the full measure (metron) of the stature of Christ. Then, the church will reveal the Father in a greater fullness, even as Jesus the fullness of the Godhead upon the earth.

“I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planted anything, neither he that waters, but God that gives the increase. Now he that plants and he that waters are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor.

“For we are labourers together with God. You are God’s field. You are God’s building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds thereon. But let each man take heed how he builds thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 3:6-11).

4. The government of God does not and cannot by-pass being processed through the hearts of the children of God. You are not going to hear an abrupt announcement on some Sunday morning, announcing a governance team without giving the opportunity to process this through the congregation in a way that is honoring to Christ in one another.

What we long for, and what we desire is to see is the glory of the Lord come to Maranatha (the Lord is coming in His glory!) in a much greater way. The glory of the Lord requires us to walk in the light, with openness and transparency among ourselves, and with openness and transparency between leaders and congregation.

When king David wanted to bring the glory of God back to Israel, he knew that he could not do it independently of the people, but the people had to be given the opportunity to flow with him in moving in this new direction.

“Then David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader. And David said to all of the assembly of Israel, ‘If it seems good to you, and if it is of the LORD our God, let us send out to our brethren everywhere who are left in all the land of Israel...that they may gather together with us, and let us bring the Ark of our God back to us, for we have no inquired of it since the days of Saul. Then all of the assembly said that they would do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.” (I Chron. 13:1-4).

5. The authority that Christ gives to those who minister in His Kingdom is not a political or a coercive authority, but it is a spiritual, relational authority that can only be exercised as it is recognized in the spirit, not out of position or title. If you do not recognize somebody’s sphere of ministry or authority, they have no spiritual authority over you at all. You are free to be covered relationally wherever you recognize true spiritual authority. This is an authority that comes from the spirit realm that equips the church to address the principalities and powers and authority structures that have kept us blinded, and in darkness, not an authority to control anybody’s freewill.

6. I believe that coming into this Fall season, we will come into a time of more clearly being able to individuate some of the metrons that God already has and is raising up among us, with the prayer that each metron will increase and keep expanding, that each will grow and not stay static. This is important, because to know our place, there needs to be a discriminating of the individual from the generic group, and we understand our function in a way that is recognized and honoured, but within the context of the larger Body. Already, people within this congregation are beginning to rise up, and to take steps of faith, following in the steps of father Abraham, to be true to the grace and the passion that God has put inside of them. We want to walk this journey out wisely, and to see emerging ministries properly fathered and covered during this process.

7. Even as we individuate ministries relationally, we are not trying to stereotype one another into a rigid mould as to how others are to function. This is a unity of diversity and variety, not a “unity” of conformity or of uniformity. The government of God is where creativity and unity, freedom and order, the internal and the external come together and into oneness.

There is not only a diversity between apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, but there is also diversity within each ministry gift. That is why it takes time to really get to know one another from the inside so that we don’t stereotype one another, and start putting people into categories or boxes where their heart is not at. The more that we grow into Christ, the more we see that this is not about ourselves, or our own individual ministries, but it is about serving the Body out of love. We never outgrow the need to serve, to undergird, to seek to be Jesus with skin on to people wherever they are at through the open doors that He gives us.

Even though I may be more apostolic (and get this, I am only apostolic to those who recognize me as such, and who have developed a level of trust in whatever degree of spiritual authority that Christ has given to me). But just because I am apostolic to some, this does not mean that all of my ministry will be in travelling or outside and beyond Maranatha, or that I should have no part in hospital visitation, house visitation, or house fellowships. Some of you may be aware that I am a part of a house fellowship with Mrs. Braun, and some of the senior citizens of Niverville Place, where we seek to have Bible study and fellowship every second week. This gives me an opportunity to share regularly with people from several congregations in Niverville.

And just because Peter is more evangelistic and pastoral, perhaps a cross between the two, does not mean that he does only visitation or house fellowships. He also has a recognized sphere of influence beyond Maranatha in our local community and ministerial.

I Cor. 12:4-6 teaches us that there are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. There are different activities but it is the same God who works in all.

Notice the word "different" here is used three times. To love others, we have to let them be different. Not in the sense of sin, but of style and function. We must appreciate that others are different in their gifts, callings and ways of expressing themselves. It is the differences between us that make us interesting and beautiful when working together.

There is a quote from A. W. Tozer that our church receptionist and secretary uses at the end of everyone of her e-mails. It states, “One hundred religious persons knit into unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always." The church is first and foremost an organism, but we clearly recognize the need for organization on the earth if the heavenly and the earthly, the spiritual and the natural are to come together. We are only saying that the organization needs to serve the organism, and structure needs to serve function, not the other way around.

In his book, Leading With a Limp, Dan B. Allender writes:

“We think of leaders as occupying formal positions that influence the shape and direction of a church or organization. When asked to talk about what enables a leader to lead, we often use words such as authority, power, confidence, or charisma. A leader has power that sets him above others and gives him the right to make decisions that shape the way an organization will function.

“But savvy connoisseurs of leadership know that good leaders don’t rely on power. They don’t impose their will on a group as a fiat. Instead, the process of exercising authority is far more complex—more consensual and interactive, but after all the fluff is stripped away and the group processes of discussion and receiving input and feedback come to a close, someone must decide. Leadership will always require one person to stand closest to the edge and say, ‘Let’s jump.’”

Let’s hear your heart on this as we pray upon this over the summer, ever seeking God for more light. As Rick Ridings, a co-founder of 24 hour Worship and Prayer in Jerusalem has said in December of 2011:

“If transition was a key word for what we were facing in 2011, I believe ripening is a key word for the much longer season into which we are entering in 2012. I believe certain cities and nations will ripen into a state of great anarchy and confusion. In these, the spirit of lawlessness is rapidly growing as it is steadily being fed. In stark contrast, other cities and nations will experience the godly fruit of walking increasingly in the ways of the kingdom of God.

“I believe 2012 will be a significant year for the revealing of a new breed of leaders who are truly functioning as ‘spiritual fathers and mothers,’ and not ‘professional pastors.’ Many who are now ‘spiritual fathers and mothers’ will become ‘spiritual grandfathers and grandmothers’ as their ‘spiritual sons and daughters’ walk in revealed maturity and the godliness of intergenerational respect.”

Twelve is the number of government, and 2012 is a year when God’s Kingdom order and government will begin to emerge out of the chaos, even as the Spirit of God brought order out of the chaos and light out of the darkness in creation. Gen. 1:2, 3. In November of 2011, Gerald Derstine of Christian Retreat in Strawberry Lake, Minnesota and in Florida wrote:

“This year, the prophetic word came over and over that the year 2011 would produce much stirring, shifting, and shaking, while 2012 will reveal victories and many positive changes for the better. In the natural, our world appears to be in a dismal condition, while we are spiritually aware that though we are in this world, our confidence is in the realm of the Kingdom of God.”