Leon Fontaine - God Given Authority
I wanna talk to you today about something that everybody is gonna go, "Yeah, I know that". But I wanna mention in my introduction the greatest enemy to the miraculous, the greatest enemy to faith is mental assent. Mental assent is assent. "I agree. Yeah, I know that. Yeah, that's cool. Good one, Leon. Another good one. That's great, Leon. Praise the Lord". And I'll look at people and I'll think, "I don't know if you've even got that message because it's not changing anything in your life". And mental assent actually brings doubt and unbelief in, if you're not careful. Because you'll hear the Word, you won't let it penetrate your heart and change your life and make the changes.
So you feel better for knowing it for a while. But then knowing it, it just brings frustration because you can't get the results. God never designed you to go through life hearing the Words, so you just feel better about staying in your mess. He didn't design this world so that when you pray things don't move, they don't change. But today, Christianity, I mean, it becomes this religion where we're just good at, just being patient with life knowing that God is usually silent. So let's just get through this and know that one day in the sweet by and by things are gonna be better. And I just refused to buy into that, because I know from looking at God's Word that massive change is available to us all the time.
Now, there's a story in the Bible that I wanna start with, about an older man named Zacharias. Zacharias and his wife didn't have any children. Now, he was a priest. And one day, as he was in doing his turn for duties in the temple an angel appears to him. And so, I'm gonna just read a couple of verses in Luke 1:18. And so, here's this angel and this priest Zacharias. He says to the angel. Oh, I'm sorry. I tell you a little bit. He tells him that his gonna have a son. And that his wife hasn't had a baby yet but she's gonna be pregnant and they're gonna have a son. So Zacharias says to the angel, "How will I know this for certain"?
Okay, when was the last time an angel appeared to you? When's the last time it happened while you were in the temple? "So how will I know this for certain? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years". The angel answered and said to him, "I am Gabriel". He didn't just get an angel. He got like the head angel, of the messenger angels. "Who stands in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time".
It's quite a story as you read through this chapter of how God knew that John the Baptist was gonna come and that he was going to herald the way for Jesus. So he appears, an angel appears to him and then tells him this and he still questioning it. Now, I've never had an angel appeared to me, but I guarantee you if an angel did appear to me and said something. I think I'd be pretty much convinced as you would be you'd think because how and when's the last time an angel appeared to you. So, but the one thing I wanna talk about today that we need to understand because the body of Christ for some reason is still lock in old covenant. He made him go silent. He made him silent until the birth of that baby.
Now, you've only got one or two choices looking at this. God was mad at him and wanted to punish him or his mouth could have hurt this miracle. Or his mouth could have hurt this miracle. Every word that you say, every word that comes out of your mouth has consequences. Our problem is they're usually delayed. But every word that you speak, the Bible says you'll be justified and condemned. And people take that verse and think that when you stand before God one day that He's gonna look through all your words. No, no, no. It's already a self-evident thing. Whatever you are saying, okay. You are convincing your heart of and whatever you are saying, you are causing to be released into your world, your future, into the three worlds. Because there is spirit, soul, and body. There's the physical realm. There's the mental realm. There's a spiritual realm. Every word you speak is having an impact on them.
And we've gotta go back and see all through the Word the power of words. And then, you need to speak up about what words, what kind of a life do you want. A lot of people wonder, "What do you pray about when you pray, Leon"? They'll say, "How do you pray? What do you do when you pray"? What I do when I pray is I take the promises of God related to the thing that I'm praying about and I speak those promises or I pray the promises. I just pray them. I declare them. And when you do, the Bible teaches us that you are numb 'cause two things that you do when you confess, or you speak God's Word, pray God's Word, is that you establish your heart. And then when your heart is established in grace which is this new covenant. Then the words that you speak have the power to move mountains, change things, cause the right things to be attracted, the wrong things to be repelled.
One of the reasons that the confession of God's Word hasn't been continued by people, is because if you confess God's Word and you think that when you speak you're causing things to change, but your heart hasn't changed. You feel weird. You feel like you're lying. You feel like, "Well, I'm declaring right now the prosperity and blessing is on my life in the name of Jesus. And Leon, I'm telling you right now. It's getting worse". So well, fine. Did you keep confessing the Word? "No, because it's just, you know, it's just felt". The first thing speaking the Word, praying the Word, confessing the Word does, is establish your heart in the Word of God. You have to guard your heart. You have to establish your heart. It is your heart that is made to release the miraculous. Your heart is the womb of your future. It is your heart giving birth to the future and to your life. But Satan wants to trick us into thinking that, you know, it's the devil that is messing with this or that God is holding it back.
Today, everywhere I go in Pentecostalism spirit-filled churches they're still praying, "Oh, Lord send the power just now. Oh, Lord, release your Spirit. Lord, release your power. Lord, we pray that You would move in the mulberry trees. I hear the rustle in the mulberry trees. And I know, I know, the move is on". All of this Old Testament stuff not realizing that He's given us all things that pertain to life. He's given us all things that pertain to godliness. So we must pray differently. We must speak up. We must speak out. We must speak at. Your words are the most powerful thing in your life. "Oh, no Leon. God's the most powerful". No, I'm sorry. He's not, because He's limited by your words. And so as we get into this lesson today, I want you to understand that for you to get the truth of God's Word, John 8:32 says, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth you know will set you free".
Well, you've got to know it from the heart. Now, your heart is filled with stuff and if you've followed me for any amount of time you'll know your heart has beliefs that have been established there by others growing up children, etcetera. And when you begin to speak the Word, recognize the first thing you're doing is guarding your heart, planting the Word in your heart, and if you'll keep that Word there. Now, when Satan sees you on purpose beginning to go, "I want to go there". Therefore, my hearts gotta go there first. And this is the kind of harvest I want. I must deal with the Word and the seed planted in my heart first. I must get the Word in my heart. And so you begin to speak the Word. When you're praying, you're speaking the Word. When you're walking, and your fear begins to push at you. You begin to speak back. You begin to speak out. You begin to speak, too. You begin to speak up.
If you don't start speaking, you're gonna sit there trying to be believing. You can't believe without speaking. You can't control your believing without speaking. Speaking is absolutely important. In fact, I firmly believe that when God was in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve in the cool of day. I don't believe they communicated through verbal communication. I believe they converse spirit to spirit. And that the words that He spoke were used as a form of power, as a form of release, as a form of authority. Now, I'm sure they can speak. That's fine if they wanted to. But when you study all of God's creation, elephants have their power and skunks have their stink and tigers have their claws and horses have their speed. Man had nothing, dull teeth, no fur, no hair, you know, just this wimpy little thing standing there with no real power over any of the animal kingdom.
So where would the power be? It will be in the authority given him to by God. Where would he exercise that authority? The way God did. If there's one thing Satan wants you to do is to shut up, shut down, stop speaking, start complaining, start talking about your worries, your woes, and oh, woes this. And then, you know, it's amazing to me how many people get up in the morning, "Ah, I just feel little yuck today". They just want to say some-, they want to say something negative. Talk somebody in the afternoon, "How is it going"? "Oh, you know". And before they go to bed, "Well, you know". And there is this massive desire to verbalize the negative. It makes the best conversations, you know. What's negative happening? "Oh, I can up that one. Man, this is what happen to me. Who? You. Listen to what happened to me".
And we, if we do not get our tongues under control. If we do not recognize that life and death are in the power of the tongue and begin to recognize speak the Word of God, pray the Word of God every day, every time something pushes at you. That doesn't mean that we don't help the people around us. If you're talking to a doctor for a check-up make sure and list every ache, every pain, every symptom. Of course, you'd wanna do that. Then why even see the doctor? We're not talking about a play on words. We're just talking about when you pray speak the Word, pray the Word. It affects your heart first and it begins to establish your heart in grace. The New Testament is, it talks about God's grace. It's your righteousness. It is God's favor in your life. And if you're not careful, you're gonna go back to the way you were taught in all your old praying. "Oh, Lord". And it's like we had to release the Holy Spirit.
You know in Genesis 1:1-2, it talks about that there in the beginning it talks about it was God. And then it says, and the Spirit of God was moving on the waters. And in the Amplified it says, hovering, brooding over the face of the waters. And the next verse says, "And God said," And when God said, this incubating, this brooding that was going on by Holy Spirit. It's the word that you'd use for a mother hen, brooding over the eggs. Why? Those eggs are about to hatch. They're gonna give birth to new life. Did you know that where Holy Spirit is moving and brooding, that when you speak the Word, that the power of God goes in. And you can't just have Holy Spirit doing it. There's gotta be the spoken Word. How did God release His power? He spoke it.
When Jesus came to the earth, God with us. Jesus is God with us. When He represented God, how did He release His power? Did He wave His hands like Moses or the rod? No, He spoke it over storms, spoke it over sickness, spoke it over disease. The enemy wants you to shut up. The enemy wants you to feel weird praying the Word. He wants you to feel different so that you'll back off and just put up with the circumstances of life. We need to pray the Word to establish our own hearts in the truth of God's Word. And then, as you speak, the Bible says mountains were moved. The Bible says things will change. You see, when you are confessing the Word, you are prophesying. Why? Because you are declaring what you want in your future. You're declaring what God's will is for your future. You're declaring it.
So the Word of God needs to come out of your mouth. The Word of God needs to be spoken to establish your heart. If you are a believer who had previous miracles in your life take place and now things aren't happening and you're wondering why. Where did this time of miracles go that I used to have and now that I don't have? I would tell you that God's not changed. God's not withdrawn. God is not limiting your prosperity, if it's a business issue. He's not limiting your healing, if it's a healing issue. But your heart, if you do not guard your heart and the three gateways to your heart, or what you're looking at, what you're listening to, and what you're saying with your mouth.
If you don't guard your heart from doubt and unbelief and all of the enemy would pour at you. You will find yourself as a Christian not being able to have the inheritance that's already been given to you. You won't be accessing it. You will not be enjoying it. And the enemy would love for you to back down. There's so many of you listening to me right now who are in the middle crisis. You need a financial breakthrough, a relationship breakthrough. You need a breakthrough somewhere. And you've been taught the Word and you've been here now for years and you've kind of, have just kind of drifted into mental assent. You think because you know it. It's worth points. It's not worth points just knowing it. It's worth points declaring it, establishing your heart in it, and speaking to mountains and rising up and will not backdown because I know who I am, and I know who's I am. I know what my God's given me and I know my authority and I will not backdown on this.
It's crucial for us to recognize. As in the days of creation with the Spirit of God was moving and brooding on the waters and God spoke. The Holy Spirit has been lost in this day and age, in this last days which that period of time started when Jesus rose from the dead. The Day of Pentecost, Holy Spirit was released. Where was He released? To all mankind. But we still got people interceding and praying to get the move of God. We just need God to move. We need God to move in Canada. People so passionate, so passionately wrong. We need to get establish in the Word. It says God once winked at our ignorance. The Word, the inheritance, the authority, the power, has all been given to us and we're still acting like it hasn't been.
So we are literally praying in doubt. We're praying in unbelief. We're handing to God, what He's handed to us. We're saying to God move. And God said, "You move. I already moved that, finish it". Jesus said, "It's finished". Then Peter said: You've been given all things that pertain to life and godliness. He's showing us that you and I must establish our hearts in grace. Begin to confess God's Word. Begin to speak God's Word. If there's something I could just get in to your heart today, is today stop declaring and talking things with your mouth that are just negative. Stop cursing your body. Stop giving pain, disease, sickness, poverty, barely get by. Stop giving it the right to stay by always talking about it. Stop allowing other people into your world who get upset when you're positive, when you have hope.
Hope is positive expectation for the future. All right. And faith is absolutely persuaded. But people will come at your hope. And I believe there's a demonic agenda from the enemy to attack your hope because faith can only be where hope has already been. Hope is expecting. Hope is things are gonna get better. Things are gonna change. That God is on my side. The promises of God are on my side. And this hope filled atmosphere needs to be there so that when something arise you need to speak to mountains. You are absolutely persuaded. But the people you're hanging around with, people in business in the same area that you are, people who are being with you when it comes to relationships.
You just notice the enemy. Because the Bible says in Mark chapter 4 that once you begin to get your heart planted with God's Word and the seed goes into the soil, Satan comes immediately to steal the Word. He's not stupid. He's been watching for an eternity. He watched the world being created. He was alive. He watched Adam and Eve. He went into the garden. Thousands of years he's been tempting people out of their victory, tempting them out. You are no hope to outthink him. You can't just sit passively around waiting for God to move. He's already moved. He sent His Son to die on the cross. So you and I need to get up and start speaking the Word. Don't you ever stop for the rest of the days of your life. Every time you think about something you begin to declare God's Word. That's praying. That's declaring. That's speaking. Where the world is going, your world is going. And if you don't speak up, if you don't speak out, if you don't speak at, then you're no different than the world. You've been given all the authority, all the power, and you're just not using it.
So my challenge to you today is, start today. Don't be a person that has to be bottle-fed. But get a hold to your Bible again. Get in to the Word and decide what kind of life you want. God did not decide who would prosper and who wouldn't. God did not decide who would be healed and who wouldn't. God did not decide who would be happy and who wouldn't. God did not decide you get a miracle and you don't. He's already decided yes for everyone, blessings for everyone. His will is, His goodness is for everyone. You and I need to decide what am I gonna say?
The Bible says He hath said that I might say. As you begin to understand grace, begin to speak, begin to declare what God is doing in your family, your home. If you're not, who is? Well, I believe in people are praying for me. People can pray for you but what they're praying for you, is for you to have a revelation to speak to your own life. Even an unsaved person, you can't get him save till they speak themselves to God and invite Him in and declare and ask Him to forgive. So these words must come out of our mouth. If you get lulled into a season of none productivity, it will be because you stopped declaring that what is done is done and its mine. You have an inheritance. It is done. It is yours. I'm challenging you today. Get up and begin to pray, begin to believe.