“Jesse” Leon Rodgers is building City Elders, an organization that is dedicated to protecting life, defending liberty, exalting Christ, and helping families to flourish. Their goal is to guard the gates of the city by developing leaders from the three primary spheres of God ordained authority; the Church, Civil Government and Business. How is praying for those in authority connected to evangelism? We answer that question and more in today’s podcast.

Questions for “Jesse” Leon Rodgers: 

What are the “Gates of the City”?

Who is guarding the Gates of the City?

What are the City Elders? City Elders embodies the Biblical Model of City Governance. The crisis in our government has sounded an alarm. The Kingdom is calling Spiritual Elders from the three primary spheres of God ordained authority; the Church, Civil Government and Business, to govern at the gates of the city.

What does City Elders endeavor to do?

1. Establish righteousness in government; spiritual, civil, and economic systems.

2. Draft civil laws which reflect Biblical values and Judeo-Christian ethics.

3. Protect those vulnerable, innocent, disenfranchised.

4. Promote the principles and protocols of God’s Kingdom.

5. Glorify God through the Lordship of His Son, Jesus Christ.

What are the three primary spheres of God ordained authority? They are the Church, Civil Government and Business. All three of these institutions were designed for the express purpose of protecting and providing for the family.

1. Shepherds: These are God’s servants ordained to feed, lead, protect and nurture the people of God.

2. Servants: These are God’s civil servants, called, anointed and appointed to administer justice, judgment, equity and protection.

3. Stewards: These are God’s kingdom entrepreneurs to create wealth and employment opportunities.

What values do you think Christians need to defend?

During the presidency of Donald Trump, some people accused Christians of compromising their values by voting for a man who has been divorced several times and who has been known to speak crassly. Do you think that Christians are hypocrites for claiming to be “values voters” and then to vote for someone who does not reflect their Christian values?

Joe Biden often emphasizes that he is a “devout Catholic” yet he is for abortion, homosexual marriage, and for transgenderism. What response should Christians have to his presidency?

Atheists have complained about “Christian Nationalism” and they say it is important to keep the church out of the government, what would you say in response to their accusations?

This is an Evangelism Podcast, so our focus is evangelism. What role do you think these gatekeepers in the church, business, and civic realms have in protecting our right to evangelize and to practice our religious beliefs? We need to pray for those in authority that all men might be saved. Key Scripture: 1 Timothy 2:1-4 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Key Quotes: Wherever there is a municipality, there is a principality.

The Lion of Judea should wind up with the lion’s share of the souls.

Website: https://cityelders.com/

This is The Evangelism Podcast Hosted by Daniel King The Evangelism Coach

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:01):
Jesse Leon Rogers is building city elders in organization that is dedicated to protecting life defending Liberty exalting Christ and helping families to flourish. Their goal is to guard the Gates of the city by developing leaders from the three primary spheres of God, ordained authority, the church, civil government, and business. How is praying for those in authority connected to evangelism? We answer that question and more in today’s podcast…

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:30):
Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King we’re Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host missionary and evangelist Daniel King.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:05):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. We have a special guest. Jesse Rogers is leading city elders and the goal of city elders is to embody the biblical model of city governance. And so brother, Jesse, thank you so much for being with me today, Daniel. My pleasure. Good to be with you. So tell me a little bit about city elders and what city elders is called to do.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (01:37):
Well, city elders is really a restoration of a biblical form of city governance in the old Testament the ancient cities of Israel, those that had walled cities, they were guarded by and protected by elders in the gate. So they had Watchman on the wall. There would be kind of a picture of the prophetic. And then they had elders in the gate and, and they were the first line of defense of the city against intruders or attackers. And so it was, it was a way of protecting the city.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:09):
And so your organization is, is called city elders. And on your website, you say that the crisis and our government has sounded in alarm. The kingdom is calling spiritual elders from the church, the business in civic, arenas of life, to Gover an ad, the Gates of the city. Talk to me about the importance of these three different areas. The church arena, the business arena, and then civic leaders.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (02:40):
Well, there’s, there’s a divine design and a God, God designed culture. He designed government and these are components and actually expressions of his person. God’s a governor, the government rests upon his shoulders. And so God has a, he’s designed a way of protecting, protecting the family, protecting the city. And also it means a protection of the kingdom of God. So those are the three expressions of a divine design. The family is protected by a husband, wife, a covenant blood covenant covering. And so the Bible says in Malakai, God hates divorce because he’s looking for godly seed. And so that godly seed, he is primarily protected and provided by this covenantal covering well, there’s also a divinely designed covenantal covering for the city. And that’s the LOC of the church. The church was designed by God to be a protection. And so we have the civic of the church component and then the civil government, civil government is also ordained of God.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (03:49):
Civil government is a part of the kingdom of God. It’s, it’s a divine design. So a lot of people shy back from civil governments and the last of the devil, you know, that’s dirty, that’s politics, but God’s designed is that we pray for and get godly people into government because if a godly person is like in the old Testament, when a godly King arose, the whole nation could transform. So if you had the King fearing God, and you had the ministry or the priesthood Aaron’s family, if they were fearing God and walking, you have the elements of potential reformation revival could break out. If it was an ungodly King, the nation would quickly turn away from God. So the laws and the spiritual influence of the civil government arena plays a large part and the spiritual atmosphere of, of the nation or the city.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:45):
Talk to me about these, these two arms of God, the church arm, and then the government arm, how are they supposed to work together and interact?

Jesse Leon Rodgers (04:56):
That’s a great question. And, and when you think about the nature of God and him being in government, he is the government, the government rests upon Christ’s shoulders. And so the civil government, I call it the right hand of God. It’s like in the right hand of God, you have a sword and civil government. Paul said to the Roman church, they are the ministers of the Lord ministers of righteousness. They bear the sword, not in vain, there for justice and judgment and equity and public civility. The purpose of civil government is to keep the peace and to keep justice. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy and joy. Yes, yes. Amen. And so, so if there’s injustice, if there’s ungodly leadership in civil government, Solomon told us the people will groan when the righteous rule, the people rejoice, there’s joy, but when the wicked rule, there’s groaning, there’s moaning because of the injustice and the inequities.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (06:01):
And so God, the right hand is the civil government. And God’s left hand is the church, the, the spirits. We don’t typically think of church in government, but it’s spiritual government. The ekklesia the word that Jesus used it, that was a governmental gathering when the church came or when the sin of the citizens of a Greek city state came out in public and they gathered as a result of the call to gathering. That was the ekklesia. And when they came together, they governed, they could declare war conscript soldiers they could make public policy. The ekklesia was the governing component of a Greek city state. And so Jesus said, I’m going to build my accuracy. It’s going to be a spiritual government. And when they gather they can govern when they gather there’s a, there’s a deposit of God’s governmental authority in the spiritual dimension that allows them to rule. So that’s the two components the right hand and the left hand of God in government.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:04):
So let’s connect these important principles of city elders to evangelism. This is the evangelism podcast. We love talking about evangelism and reaching people for Jesus. And these are actually connected. You you’d be surprised. And so there, there’s a passage that you mentioned a little bit ago in first Timothy one. Could, could you read that passage and show how these connect?

Jesse Leon Rodgers (07:34):
Certainly I was kind of, I was astounded that Paul would tell Timothy, I exhort, therefore, first of all, of utmost importance, supplications prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men, for Kings, for those that are in authority so that we can live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our savior, who will have all men to be saved, to come to the knowledge of the truth. So in that passage, Paul is saying, it’s, it’s critical. It, matter of fact, he said, this is top priority. This is number UNO here, pray for everybody, but especially Kings. And those that are in governmental authority, because God would have all men to be safe. The spiritual climate that is, is largely determined by two elements, civil government, and the church society is, is largely made of there other elements, but largely those two components, the laws, the justice system, the police system how you keep peace. And the other element of course is the church. So you’re, you’re right, Daniel and, and, and I had not made it in those terms. When you spoke earlier, there is a direct connection between the state of the civil government and the effectiveness of evangelism one affects the other.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:03):
Yeah. And we’ve seen this in a lot of the different countries that we’ve gone to. If there is peace in the nation, if there is righteousness and justice in the nation, then it is possible to preach the gospel. And it is possible for revival to happen for people to start being saved. But if the government is, has a lot of corruption, if there are issues with religious freedom where the government cuts off religious freedom, then it becomes very difficult to preach the gospel and for people to be saved. And so if we’re going to go out and minister to people first, we need to pray for our leaders, those who are in the government, those who are in authority, so that we can have peace in the society. And so that we can lift up Christian values what are, what are some of the values that you feel that are important for city elders to defend?

Jesse Leon Rodgers (10:03):
Well, we feel the primary target of, of the adversary is the family. We see this in the, in the wicked influence of those that are attempting to and confound those that have gotten empower in, in the United States government, the, what are they targeting? The family, the identity of children, the sexual orientation, Satan wants to bind people. And one of the easiest ways to target and snare a soul is to confuse and bind them in their sexuality. And so the, the civil government has targeted the family. We know that socialism and the atheism, they, they target children even from first grade and even preschool, they wanna confuse their, their origins, you know, make them think, Hey, I’m the product of an evolutionary process. If they can’t get them at their origins, then they get them in their identity, you know, confuse it, make them think there’s a potential of 52 different sexual modes, you know, that you can be in or you can transition from one to the other and back and forth rather than as God’s design male and female gender.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (11:14):
And so civil government holds such powerful keys legislatively. This is something that the Lord just recently brought to my attention. The reason Paul told Timothy pray, first of all, for these government officials is because civil government holds the key to a law. They can make your life a living. Haiti’s just by making laws, they can tax you into oblivion. They also hold the power of the key of opening and closing spiritual doors. A godly leader can sign one law and stop money’s flowing for aborting children, or he can turn that around and flow all kinds of money and influence and power. So the reason civil government is so critical is, is because they hold the key to legislation. They hold the power of the pin. They open and close spiritual doors, demonic influence when, when an ungodly leader rises to power, they can open up the entire nation to demonic influence, or they can close that door simply by the positions they take legislatively. So yeah, the civil government has a direct bearing. So back to your original question, we want to protect the family. We want to protect life. We want to protect marriage. And it, isn’t an interesting that that ungodly civil government attacks all three of those life marriage, sexual identity and orientation. And so it’s, it’s the adversary can work powerfully either through godly government or ungodly covenant.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:55):
And then I would say also it’s important to protect Liberty. Yes, because without Liberty, we can’t practice our religion without Liberty. We don’t have the ability to, to speak freely. And in our nation, this is, this is an issue right now, especially first amendment issues, where, where there are certain things that are being forbidden to be said, yes, and you can’t say them. And people talk about the first amendment and they say that only applies to the government. But what we’re seeing is on social media, liberal companies that control social media companies are shutting down the voices of Christians and shutting down the voices of people that would uphold righteousness in our nation. I read a article just yesterday about how focus on the family, which is a great organization, was just removed their rights to post on Twitter. Because something they said about transgender that was involved in the government, and this is a serious issue. And if we don’t stand up as a nation and say, we refuse to allow our rights to be taken away from us, then we will lose.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (14:15):
Yes, yes. The the critical component of the gospel is your voice. It is preaching the gospel. And so if the, if the voice and the vote are altered and people are stifled and, and we have canceled culture trying to take the voice of the church awake, closed the church down, isn’t that amazing in America the, the liquor stores open the marijuana stores open, but the church we cannot we cannot allow it to be open. And, and what’s amazing is, and this is how critical spiritual component is in terms of Liberty. Even if you could go to church in California, they said, you cannot sing. You know, you can go to church, but you cannot sing. I mean, this is like Exodus 13 being played out all over again. They said, we’re going to worship. And Pharaoh says, no, you’re not going to worship.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (15:11):
You’re not going to worship in Egypt. You know? And so there’s this battle going on because worship releases the power of the spirit worship creates the spiritual atmosphere needed for evangelism Liberty in voice, Liberty, protecting your Liberty. Protecting our liberties is also protecting the gospel because civil Liberty and religious Liberty are the two, two parallel tracks that freedom run on. If you lose religious Liberty, your civil liberties are soon behind. If you lose civil liberties, your religious liberties are shouldn’t behind. So we’ve got to protect religious Liberty and civil Liberty because there are two pair they’re the right hand and left hand of God,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:55):
Both needed. Yeah. Freedom of speech is so vital right now, especially for the evangelist. The evangelist is one who speaks and, and calls people to Jesus. And the problem is if they can remove the freedom of speech from somebody powerful, like Donald Trump, by taking away his Twitter feed, then they can remove you. They can remove me. They can remove anyone for any reason that they want. And so I think one of the key issues we have to stand up for is freedom of speech in our nation that not just freedom on the sidewalk, but freedom in what has become the public square of our nation, the social media companies, because that’s where our nation goes to fellowship. That’s where we go to debate ideas to talk, to encourage one another. And especially during these times of COVID people, aren’t meeting together face to face as much as they did previously. And so the place for them to interact is on social media. And so we have to stand up for the right of people to be able to say what they want to say and for the Christian, right. To be able to say, this is right, this is wrong. This action is on biblical. This is what we,

Jesse Leon Rodgers (17:17):
Yes, yes. Amen. Yeah. The law of the Lord civil law, God, God intends for there to be peace. And the civil arena, civil government is such a critical component of evangelism. As you know, I know we’ve traveled to many nations in the nations where there’s not religious freedom. There are spiritual and the civil government component plays such a critical role in that. We were talking about earlier, before we came on the program that when Satan tempted Jesus he didn’t offer him the soles of the earth. He offered him the kingdoms, the domains of authority, the spheres of authority. He showed him the kingdoms of the earth in a moment’s time and said, I’ll give you all of these. If you’ll just bow down and worship me. Now, we know that Jesus was coming for souls. He came to seek and to save that, which was lost.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (18:15):
He came for the harvest. That’s the reason he came is to redeem. So why is Satan offering him these spheres of authority? These Basileus is the Greek word, the kingdoms of the earth. And the reason is whoever controls, the kingdoms gets the souls. If you control civil government, you have the, the, the ability to manipulate and to influence and to legislate. And so civil government is isn’t is a fundamental element in releasing the harvest. And that’s what this ministry of, of Daniel King is all about releasing the harvest of the earth, putting the sickle into the souls of the earth. And so we’ve got to engage in civil government to maintain the freedom, to preach the gospel.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:03):
I’ll ask you two controversial questions. One is about Donald Trump and one is about Joe Biden. Okay. So during the presidency of Donald Trump, some people accused Christians of compromising their values by voting for a man who had been divorced several times, and who has been known to speak crassly on occasion. Do you think that Christians are hypocrites for claiming to be values voters and then to vote for someone who doesn’t reflect Christian values? What would you say

Jesse Leon Rodgers (19:37):
Optimally? Every Christian would want someone to vote for and to be in office who expressed that not just the values of Christians, but the spirit of nature the testimony, the the lifestyle. And so Donald Trump is an enigma. His past life, you know, the way he lived w large and loose was such a contrast to where he would govern. It shocked everyone, everyone, even the conservative Ted Cruz governor from Arkansas

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:19):
Huckaby, Huckaby,

Jesse Leon Rodgers (20:19):
Governor Huckabee, they are all shocked at how conservatively Donald Trump is governing. So in terms of a president, I want a president who stands from my values, even if he personally doesn’t demonstrate those in his personal life. Now there for us as Christians, that’s a contrast, and there’s a discrepancy there because what we S the truth we stand on, it should be the truth we live, but Donald Trump has governed more conservatively than anyone ever imagined. He’s been the most bold president for life and defending life than any president in our history, even, even stronger than Reagan president Trump’s first act as the new setting president was to sign an executive order to cut off the funding for abortion around the world. He cut that money off. Incidentally. The first thing that Joe Biden did was re-enact and release that money for abortions. Americans are not only going to be paying for abortions here in our nation. Americans are paying for abortions around the world because of our tax man,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:28):
Which is a tragedy. It is okay. Here’s the second controversial question. Joe Biden often emphasizes that he is a devout Catholic yet just in this first little week of his presidency. We’ve seen that he’s for abortion. He’s for homosexual marriage. He’s for transgenderism, that, that people who are born men can turn into women and vice versa. So what response should Christians have to his presidency?

Jesse Leon Rodgers (22:01):
Well, as you know, this is the most chaotic time. One of the most chaotic times in American history probably equal to, you know, the atmosphere before the civil war. There is such a, there is such a polarization in our nation right now. And Joe Biden obviously does not carry the values of the Catholic church. He cares the names. Matter of fact, the New York times said that Joe Biden is the most religious president in history. Well being religious and being a Christian are two as we know, are two different things. And so the majority of the executive orders, which is such a Joe Biden, is trying to govern by Fiat by executive order. It’s almost like attempting to be a King. The most of executive orders in the first two weeks of any presidency, previous to Biden has been five.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (22:56):
Joe Biden’s signed 32 executive orders his first week. And so he’s trying to govern by bypassing the both houses of Congress and trying to govern by, by legislative Fiat, attempting to legislate from the executive branch of the government. And so he’s out of control and, and the old, the anchor that we have right now that will preserve the nation is the fact that we have five conservatives on the court. That’s the only anchor we have because they have basically both houses of Congress, the executive branch. And so they’re going to try to pass every kind of wicked legislation that they could possibly get through. HB. One is ungodly HB five targets, the church and religious freedom will put people in jail for preaching against homosexuality, the way the Scandinavian countries have gone. And Canada has gone and has virtually made it a hate crime to even speak out against homosexuality over the next couple of years, we’re going to find out that this administration, the Biden administration is, is not only targeting churches, but targeting pastors specifically to try to close their mouth and keep them from speaking the truth.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:11):
So this is a time I think we really need to pray for the president, for the members of Congress, for the Senate, for the judicial system. We need prayers right now, because even if they come in with the intention of doing something that’s on biblical, I pray that God would turn their hearts towards God and that they would stand up for righteousness. Even if that wasn’t their first intention you and I have a mutual fan, a friend, Jason Rapport, who is a Senator in Arkansas and a great man of God, and also believes strongly in the importance of, of, of Christians being involved in government. And he’s been attacked a lot by atheists. They’ve sued him for various reasons, and they’ve really been attacking him. And so I’ve been watching what the atheists have been saying about him. And so atheists they’re complaining about Christian nationalism, Christian nationalists, and that’s their term for people like you and me who would think that Christians should have a voice in government. And they say it’s important to keep the church out of government to keep a separation between church and state. And so what response would you have to atheists who would say that you have no place to say anything about government?

Jesse Leon Rodgers (25:39):
Well, the institutional church itself organizationally does, does not have the biblical or constitutional right to enforce its dictates upon civil government, but the, the atheist don’t just want the church out of government. They want God out of government. They want to keep anyone that’s in government from exercising, their rights speaking, their their mind or speaking biblical principle as you and I both know this nation was founded not only on godly principles, many of the founding documents the original documents, even before the constitution or the declaration of independence, the governments that were being established in the colonies were primarily influenced by the pastors. It was the preaching of the pastors. And so our declaration of independence acknowledges God, five times that we have been created. Not that we evolved that, that these rights are civil liberties come from God, not from man.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (26:48):
And so the, the radical atheists, they want to excise God completely out of government. They want to completely sterile government. As a matter of fact, when they call they call it progressive or secular progressives, the word secular means without religion or without God. And so they want a godless government and everyone knows or should know when you take God out of government and government becomes God, you’re looking at tyranny. You’re looking at persecution. So what part of city elders role is to see to it that God does not get excised out of government to put God back into government. And so the, the, the government that does not acknowledge God attempts to become God. And so Jason our, our brother in Arkansas who started the national association of Christian legislators leaders. Yes. that what an incredible organization. And we need to see that organization going across the nation, as well as city elders.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:55):
Let’s, let’s, let’s talk about city elders from a practical viewpoint. Give me your vision for what city elders could become. I know you’ve been meeting with key leaders here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and now you’ve been setting up city elders and various counties across Oklahoma and it’s been growing. So, so tell me what that looks like in, in, in the years to come, what you see elder city elders becoming

Jesse Leon Rodgers (28:25):
What we want the city elders is a component of a civil government leaders, the church or church leaders and business leaders, the three, three components of eldership in a city. And what we do is we go in and try to identify who are some of the key gatekeepers who acknowledged God, who loved the Lord, who do try to govern their life by biblical principles, identify those key people. What we talk about a core for if, if in a County seat, we can identify four leaders who are anointed, who are experienced men that have walked with God for some time and have tenure. If we can identify some key leaders in that County seat, bring them together, have them begin to pray together and then identify people in the civil government component. Is there a civil government leader, a mayor a justice, a an attorney maybe even the someone on the city council who loves God and then bring them together at the table to, to become the spiritual governing council of the city. Not just the church, not just the but there, there is. And you made reference to this while ago, in terms of civil government, there is a spiritual component to civil government.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:51):
Yeah. I heard you say that wherever there’s a municipality, there is a principality. What does that mean?

Jesse Leon Rodgers (29:56):
Well, wherever you’re going to find spirit, a civil government, there’s going to be spiritual influences behind it, trying to control it. So civil government is either going to be controlled by spiritual leaders who acknowledged God will, which will be backed up by the angelic and the spiritual kingdom of light, or they will be civil government will be controlled by the godless. And if their country, if civil governments controlled by the godless, you’re going to have demonic influence. You’re going to have a and liberties taken and freedoms excised. And so, yes, we’re wherever there’s a municipality, there’s going to be a principle. There’s going to be spiritual influences behind that person trying to bring the people into.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:44):
So if someone wants to get involved with city elders and start a group like this in, in their municipality or their County seat, where could they find more information about you? What’s your website

Jesse Leon Rodgers (30:59):
City elders.com. And they can also contact us directly@cityeldersatgmail.com. And so that’s how they can touch base with us.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:10):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me today on the evangelism podcast. Thank you, Daniel.

Jesse Leon Rodgers (31:15):
And God bless your efforts around the world.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:18):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast today. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. And what we found is that as we go to different nations of the world, it takes us an average of about $1 for every person we’re able to reach with the gospel. And so some countries are more expensive. Some countries are a little bit less expensive, but on average, we’ve invested about $1 for every person we’re able to lead to Jesus. So today I’m asking you to go to my website, King ministries.com and give $1, $2, $5, become a monthly partner, help us to lead people to Jesus. Imagine you can start a party in heaven with just $1. Also go to Apple iTunes, leave us a review for the evangelism podcast with Daniel King. So lots of people can find this evangelism podcast. God bless you

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:13):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit King ministries.com. Again, that’s King ministries.com.