Kingdom Come – Ecclesia!

by Patrick Holloran

Matthew 16:13 – 20

“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.”

Walk us, Lord, down this path of new ways of thinking and to step into a realm of revelation that causes us to lift You higher. Remove the paradigms that hinder us, and show us how to adapt to what You are doing in this hour. Amen!

Pat Holloran with his wife Valeria

Jesus was waiting for the right time to deliver this news to the apostles. It was not casual in any way, but serious. It is the first time you will find this word “church” in the Word. He was serious in that He was saying, “I will build My Kingdom.”

I would like to define this: What is Kingdom or Kingdom of heaven? The Kingdom is the realm or dominion of a king that he rules. The Kingdom of God, the realm that He rules, is everything. Everything that there is in under the earth, in the earth, over the earth, is the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of God!  That means also the entire universe. The Bible says, He rules over all. God does give freedom to follow Him, and one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess; but for now, there is a free choice.

When God expanded His Kingdom, He made earth. But why? It was to make for Himself a family. In Genesis, the King of the Kingdom added to His Kingdom a family, and gave a command to His family to subdue the earth and have dominion. He then said to be fruitful and multiply. That meant that God was telling his family, I want a bigger family. Fill the earth with sons and daughters. That is what this is all about; God wanted a family, and He made a place for them. He also gave them an assignment to steward/rule the earth. He used words like; Kabosh, Radaw, Mashal, Shamar –  words that in Hebrew mean to manage, steward, have dominion. He was telling them that this is My earth, but I want you to take care of it. God was telling man that, it’s still My Kingdom; but you get to rule, to steward or manage according to My principles, guidelines, My laws on this part of the Kingdom.

Psalm 115:16 “16 The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man.”

That word “given” that is mentioned there is not an ownership word. It is Na-tan – to give an assignment. So this scripture should read, “the heavens are the heavens of the King, He’ll take care of all that. The earth He has assigned to you.” That is why the heavens are still working well. Everything up above is in order. The universe didn’t fall. The curse is about what man had charge or dominion of.

So God gave two commandments/mandates there:

1. Give me a family and

2. Manage or govern the home under My principles, the principles of heaven.

We know about Satan leading rebellion on this planet just like in heaven. But one day the King will come and deal with this rebellion and set this part of the Kingdom back into order with the rest of it. This is why Jesus Christ came along and started preaching “the good news.” It was the gospel of the Kingdom.

Matthew 4:23  Jesus ministers to great crowds.

“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.”

Matthew 9:35 The harvest Is plentiful, the laborers few.

“And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.”

Matthew 24:14

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

The Gospel has become something like, “Ask Jesus to come into your life so you do not go to hell; repeat this prayer of salvation, and you can go to heaven.” But it is not the “good news.” The good news is that the King is coming from the Kingdom headquarters to deliver us from darkness. We get to come into the Kingdom of Light. That’s the good news! The good news is that we have already been delivered from this tyrannical rule of darkness and destroy its works.

Now back to Matthew 16. When Jesus announced that He was going to build His church and give them authority of this planet, He was including us again in His plan to rebuild and reacquaint this earth to His Kingdom.  Now lets look at Matthew 16 where it says, “Build.” Sometimes we seem to miss the smallest of words and then one day we decide to say, “Hey! What’s up with that choice of the Lord’s word?”  That word “build” actually means “Oikos”, (Oikodomeo) – It does not mean to just build something, but primarily it was used to build a family or household. It actually means a lineage or descendants. So he is not just saying I’m going to build something. He is saying “I have come to get back the family!” I will build these people into My family and My nature again, and I will teach them to build the Kingdom here on earth. Jesus is actually saying, “I have come to regain the family.”

You see, Jesus Christ has given us two commissions. In Mark 16, it reads, “And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

He says, “Go get the family back.” That is Oikos. And He means that we are to do this with the “good news.” Did you know that while being in heaven is good news, it is not what Jesus Christ preached or taught? The good news is where Jesus Christ is re-forming things back to a time of significant breakthrough.

And Mark 16 tells us that this is really a revival of sorts that He is talking about. When Jesus said “church” he didn’t mean what we have today. He didn’t mean that they would be saved humans. He said these people who join will be an ecclesia.

There is a word in Greek that was used to define the building that is called a church. It is the word “Kuricon.” This comes from the Greek word “Kurios,” which means Lord. Kuricon means belonging to the Lord or the Lord’s. Kuricon actually means the Lord’s house. This Greek word is where we get the word “church.”

Ecclesia is from 500 BC. It means 1. called out. 2. an assembly of the congress. 3. Government. In small cities, they would call the people out to the city gates, and if you were a legal citizen, you had a right to vote for your local city. Ecclesia is a legislature. The Romans did this with a governing body led by an apostle (admiral or general). They were to reshape the people’s thinking and give them a new identity of being Roman. Ecclesia is a restatement of the dominion orders. Our assignment is to bring a change in people’s thinking to where they think like the Kingdom of heaven.

Mark 16 gets them saved, but  Matthew 28 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” commands us to disciple nations (go and make them think like heaven). When they come into the family, get them to think like Jesus Christ, and get Kingdom principles again.

The reason we don’t translate in Mark 16 – I will be my family and my congress for government – is because of King James. He did not like the concept of an ecclesia. That’s not too hard to understand that a natural king would not like this. So he took the word “Kuricon,” and he told the translators that ever time they came to the word “ecclesia,” they were to change it to “church.” He did not like an idea of a Heaven government on earth. It would take away his controlling the people. However, the culture of heaven is a Kingdom government.

Because of our mindset of discipling individuals, we have missed discipling nations. In ten years we will see the discipling of nations, make no mistake about it. There are leaders today who are being asked to come to governments and tell them what to do with God’s plan for them.

What has happened to the church today is that we have held on to the 1970’s for over 40 years about getting people saved and going to heaven. We were getting people saved, awakened, and in church. But there were others who were taking the commissioning of Matthew 28 and making disciples of nations. But they were not born again.

In 1988, 38 homosexual men met to discuss how to make their Homosexual manifesto, and they decided to disciple the nation. This is how we will pay for it, educate the people, and make the way of life accepted. If you were to tell people in the 1980’s that the homosexuals would start even in kindergartens to train children, we would not of believed it. This is the ecclesia of darkness.

While we were getting people saved and getting them ready for heaven, the darkness has instead thought of taking over the government of this nation, and they have reformed this nation. If you would have been told that even on television there would be same sex kisses, we would have said, “No way!”

Back then, we were more concerned about the book Late Great Planet Earth, the song, “I Wish We’d all Been Ready,” and the #1 Christian movie, A Thief in the Night. We surrendered our authority for culture. We drifted from the scriptural foundations, and gave it all away to the world.

We are now desiring to bring a new culture to the world. We have our work cut out for us; and, yes, we are so far behind. Some people actually think it is an impossibility to get the culture of heaven on this earth since we have allowed the wrong people to rule this world. That is because we have allowed the kingdom/ecclesia of darkness to rule this world while we had a mentality of just getting people saved and nothing more.

But now it is our time to change a nation. I refuse to believe that 38 demonized individuals and their darkness led by demons can set an agenda that sweeps the world and convinces people to accept them. How much greater can we be if, with God’s Spirit, we decide to change the world and make Kingdom principles come into this world. Then God’s dominion, which will always bring signs and wonders, will have people arriving from all over. If you want to just think of going to heaven, then you will only preach the gospel of heaven, but if you want to change the earth, then that will be the gospel of the Kingdom.

Did you know that if you put the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of light together in one place, the gospel of the Kingdom will win every time. But it has to have active saints, people who are blood bought and full of God’s power, willing to come out of hiding and into ruling and reigning now instead of in eternity.

We are to move from being the oikos to the ecclesia: from the gospel of the church to the gospel of the kingdom. Did you ever notice that Jesus Christ never said , “We have an unshakeable church or ecclesia”. It says in Hebrews 12:28, “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.”  We have a Kingdom. That is the “good news.”

The New Testament does not say that He has given us the keys of the church. He has given us the keys of the Kingdom. It does not say that signs follow the gospel of the church. It is all about Kingdom!