You notice the centurion, the moment when he saw Jesus Christ, he said: you don't need to go to my house, I understand authority. Just say a command, and my child will be healed, if you just say be healed. Jesus said whoa, that's real faith. The understanding of spiritual authority requires faith, because we have got defiled in our thinking about authority by bad experiences.
The fifth thing is revelation. We do need to listen to the Holy Ghost. Jesus said in John, Chapter 5, Verse 19, He said the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; He does, the Son does the same, for the Father loves the Son, and shows Him everything He Himself does; and will show Him greater works than these. So Jesus' authority flowed not just out of knowing who He was, but out of also listening for direction. So many times He could have prayed, but He didn't, so that's interesting. He could have delivered, but He didn't, so why is that? Because personal sensitivity to what God was doing was more important than legal rights to Him, so although He legally could have prayed for everyone and healed them, prayed for everyone and delivered them, He placed listening to the Father, and listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit, the highest thing in His life. So sometimes people said: why don't You pray for him, why don't You go and see Lazarus, what's wrong, he's sick. Why don't You go and see him? He said no, there's something greater God has in mind, let's wait and we'll see something greater. So you see, we have to just constantly be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and get revelation on what to do.
And finally, the last two things are, you have to use your voice, so you'll notice whenever you read in the Bible of people exercising spiritual authority there were always strong verbal commands: rise up! See, He didn't speak to the dead man in a soft voice: Lazarus, come forth! Spoke to the wind, spoke to the waves. He spoke strongly to sicknesses and demons, He spoke to the winds, spoke to trees, spoke to dead people. He spoke and gave a command, expecting something to happen, see?
You notice in the way He spoke, He spoke with great boldness. Now one of the things you'll find when you're moving in the spirit, you've got to speak with boldness. Now that's not loud, it just is confidence that God is going to do something. So you think well, I don't feel confident. Boldness has got nothing to do with what you feel - you speak that way: In Jesus' name come out! I speak to that sickness, be gone in Jesus' name! You've got to speak strongly as a representative of God, and the last part is act of faith. I must expect that when I speak, something will happen. Now you'd be amazed how many times when you pray, nothing happens initially. You have to expect something to happen, and so in Mark 11:24, Jesus said: have the faith of God, for I tell you truthfully, whoever speaks to this mountain - be removed, be cast into the sea, does not doubt in his heart, but believes the things will come to pass, he will have whatever he says. So I say to you, when you pray, believe you receive them, and you'll have them.
So you notice that spiritual kingdoms are enforced by spirits that ride on them, so the kingdom of God, it's the Holy Spirit that advances that; demonic kingdoms, it's demonic spirits, and I must believe when I speak that something will happen, not doubt in my heart. Now if I have no confident expectation of God doing something, there will be a difficulty. There'll be nothing much happen. I have noticed when you start to pray for deliverance, many times nothing happens. You've just got to be persevering and persistent. I've found in praying to alter spiritual atmospheres, nothing seems to shift initially, so I keep my voice speaking into that situation, and eventually it yields. You've got to believe that your voice, and what you say, will come about. Notice what He says, how many times it says what you say, whoever says and doesn't doubt in his heart, whatever he says will happen, he will have what he says. So I've got to speak words, believing that this is the will of God, I insist that this command be carried out, and it's a challenge, because I've observed in working in deliverance, that demons resist people, and the tendency is when nothing happens the first time you do something is, to quit and give up, so in operating in the spirit, perseverance is a must.
Okay then, so summing it up then. In exercising spiritual authority, it has to do with positioning, knowing where I am in God, listening, having revelation, and then giving voice or speaking. This is what I want to share with you, some things I've done that have been a big help, and then show you what you could do, perhaps to be like that. God spoke to me when I was a young Christian. I had a classroom, a physics classroom. It was a very old classroom, and everything was a bit tatty in it, and the Lord spoke to me. He said every child that comes in here is under spiritual pressure, they're unsaved. He said what you can do is, you can go through the classroom every day, praying in tongues and lay hands on every seat. I want you to do this, I want you to forbid the operation of demonic spirits over every child, and I want you to decree blessing over them. See, resist the devil, and call forth the things of God.