THE KINGDOM OF OUR
LORD GOD
BY J.FARRELL FISHER
1 Chronicles 29:11, “…Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and YOU are exalted as head over all.”
June, 2015
INTRODUCTION
It was the Pharaoh of Egypt who said to Moses and Aaron, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.” [Exodus 5:2].
In 2 Chronicles 32 Sennacherib, king of Assyria, had come and entered Judah, belittling the God of King Hezekiah, even as the rebellious, disbelieving, unfaithful men and women still do today! In verses14 and 15 Sennacherib said, “Who was there among all the gods of those nations that my fathers utterly destroyed that could deliver his people from my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you from my hand? Now therefore, do not let Hezekiah deceive you or persuade you like this, and do not believe him; for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people from my hand or the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you from my hand?”
You’ll find in 2 Chronicles 32:20-22, “Now because of this King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, prayed and cried out to heaven. Then the Lord sent an angel who cut down every mighty man of valor, leader, and captain in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned shamefaced to his own land. And when he had gone into the temple of his god, some of his own offspring struck him down with the sword there. Thus the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side.”
Yet, even with God’s deliverance, the unfaithful, unbelieving mass of Israel settled for ‘belief’ apart from behavior, profession apart from possession, and attendance to the ‘temple’ apart from surrender to His Lordship!
Are you aware of ‘kingly living’ apart from submission to the King of kings and Lord of lords? I’m sure this is why the beloved John wrote to the church of the Laodiceans in Revelation 3:17, “Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ – and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked -…”
And the ‘true messenger’ said later, in verse 19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.” The modern-day, rebellious, disobedient, compromising church-at-large, certainly professes sitting on a throne of religious devotion, but, sadly, apart from the throne of redemptive mercy, true reconciliation, and “raised up to be seated with Christ in heavenly places”! And God Almighty “dwells” where the Eternal Throne is!
It’s so vital that we examine carefully, thoroughly, and scripturally, the reality of “Kingdom Living” in a world where the King of kings was crucified, buried, rose again, ascended into Heaven, and forever sits on His throne!
Matthew Bridges, Godfrey Thring, and George J. Elvey, in the 1800’s, wrote the hymn, “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” It says: “Crown Him with many crowns, The Lamb upon His throne; Hark! How the heavenly anthem drowns All music but its own! Awake, my soul, and sing Of Him who died for thee, And hail Him as your matchless King through all eternity…
Crown Him the Son of God Before the worlds began, And you, who tread where He has trod, Crown Him the Son of man; Who every grief has known That wrings the human breast, And takes and bears them for His own, That all in Him may rest…
Crown Him the Lord of life, Who triumphed o’er the grave, And rose victorious in the strife For those He came to save; His glories now we sing Who died and rose on high, Who died, eternal life to being, And lives that death may die…
Crown Him the Lord of love! Behold His hands and side, Rich wounds, yet visible above, In beauty glorified; All hail, Redeemer, hail! For You have died for me; Your praise shall never, never fail Throughout eternity.” The eternal question? Have YOU crowned Him King of your heart and home?
BOOK OUTLINE
CHAPTER ONE: “KINDOM PREACHING – KINGDOM HARVEST”
CHAPTER TWO: “KINGDOM FATHER – KINGDOM KIDS”
CHAPTER THREE: “KINGDOM RULER – KINGLY OBEDIENCE”
CHAPTER FOUR: “KINGDOM HYPOCRISY OR KINGDOM HOLINESS”
CHAPTER FIVE: “KINGDOM TROUBLE OR KINGDOM TRIUMPH”
CHAPTER SIX: “KINGDOM DECEPTIONS OR KINGDOM REALITIES”
CHAPTER SEVEN: “KINGDOM SELFISHNESS OR KINGDOM SELFLESSNESS”
CHAPTER EIGHT: “KINGDOM UNHAPPINESS OR KINGDOM JOY”
CHAPTER NINE: “KINGDOM PRIDE OR KINGDOM BROKENNESS”
CHAPTER TEN: “KINGDOM APPEARANCE OR KINGDOM AUTHENTICITY”
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “KINGDOM FOREWARNINGS AND NEGLECT OR KINGDOM SUBMISSION”
CHAPTER TWELVE: “KINGDOM DOMAIN OR KINGDOM DOMINION”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: “KINGDOM EXITING OR KINGDOM ENTRANCE”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: “KINGDOM TEMPORARINESS OR KINGDOM ETERNALNESS”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: “KINGDOM TREASON OR KINGDOM PREVAILING TRUST”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: “KINGDOM MEANINGLESSNESS OR KINGDOM MINISTRY”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: “KINGDOM DENIED OR KINGDOM AFFIRMED”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: “KINGDOM CELL-BARS OR KINGDOM FREEDOM”
CHAPTER NINETEEN: “KINGDOM CLUELESSNESS OR KEEPER OF THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM”
CHAPTER TWENTY: “KINGDOM CALLING: READY FOR CHRIST’S UNVEILING”
CONCLUSION
CHAPTER ONE
“KINGDOM PREACHING – KINGDOM HARVEST”
You will remember I am sure that Matthew 4 tells us of Jesus being led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After forty days of fasting, and certainly being hungry, the devil came to confront Him: Verse 3, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But Jesus responded, Verse 4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
The devil tempted Jesus, and tempts us also, with the “lust of the flesh,” “the boastful pride of life,” and the “lust of the eyes.” Shortly after this encounter, we read in Matthew 4:17, From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” [or “drawn near!”].
In Mark 1 we learn that John had been put in prison and Verse 14 tells us, “Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.” He proclaimed that the “Kingdom of God” is a Spiritual Reality NOW!! Not some ‘far-off’, ‘hoped for event!’ Mark 1:15 says, Jesus speaking, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
Are you aware of the prophetic word Isaiah gave us as God spoke through him in Isaiah 52:7-10? “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’ Your watchmen shall lift up their voices, with their voices they shall sing together; for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord brings back Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem! For the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”
A question of eternal importance! As Jesus preached “the kingdom of God” and Isaiah prophetically said, “It begins in ‘the waste places of Jerusalem,’ are all born Jews now part of the kingdom of God?” NOT APART FROM REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD AND FAITH IN THE FINISHED WORK OF CHRIST AT THE CROSS! Didn’t Jesus tell us, “Repent, and believe the gospel,”? And the word ‘believe’ is far more than mental assent! It biblically means “believe, trust in, rely upon, adhere to”! Belief in part from true repentance? Belief in part from surrender to His Lordship? Belief in part from absolute surrender from self-control to His divine sovereignty and holy will? Are you aware that there are those who “believe” but only with mental assent yet no godly sorrow, no turning, no repentance, no resting truly in Calvary’s love, and no yielding to, daily, Jesus’ sovereign rule?
But Paul wrote to the Colossians, in Colossians 1:12-18, “giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins…
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For “by Him” all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him…
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that IN ALL THINGS HE MAY HAVE THE PREEMINENCE.” Paul spoke of Christ Jesus!
And, of course, I must ask: “Have YOU been delivered from the power of darkness AND conveyed INTO THE KINGDOM OF HIS LOVE? Are you aware that there are multitudes of “professing believers” who genuinely think the “kingdom” is future, and we’re to do our best to prepare for His reign someday?
In 1 Thessalonians 2 Paul majored on his personal conduct before the Thessalonians because of his love for them, but also he challenged them to “walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.” Does that sound ‘future’ to you? He challenged the Ephesus believers, in Ephesians 4:1, to “walk worthy of the calling with which you were called,” and I firmly believe our calling is worthy because we are, yes, earthly representatives of our Lord’s “kingdom and glory”! Yes, we do well to heed that in Christ we are lights shining in a dark place revealing the King and His Kingly rule in our hearts to a darkened world.
Do you remember Jesus teaching His young disciples to pray? You’ll find it in Matthew 6:9-13, but I’ll only share Verses 10 and 13: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” followed by, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” Future, or past, present, and future?
I find Acts 28:23 so interesting and often wonder how so many modern-day ministers still live in a “futures” mode of God’s faithfulness! It says: “So when they had appointed him a day [that’s Paul the apostle!], many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the prophets, from morning till evening.”
Then, beginning in Acts 28:28, Paul went on and on, “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!” And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had a great dispute among themselves. Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.”
Paul testified and explained the kingdom of God, he preached the kingdom of God, he persuaded them from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets – for things they’d have no appreciation for because it was all future? Give me a break! Do you know what Romans 14:17 says? “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, [on “Feast days”?], but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Is it humanly possible that some “believers” are so ‘heavenly-minded’ that they cannot be any “earthly-good”? Is it, yes, spiritually possible that some “faith-folks” cannot, do not, will not, see their present fleshly bodies, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, as extensions of His life, expressions of His love, and the proof of His power in taking the eternal, heavenly kingdom reign of Christ and loosing it
on earth through the very witness of God’s Holy Spirit in born-again hearts and lives?
In Psalm 24:7-11 inspired King David wrote a powerful song. It says: “Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory.”
But you don’t see Him establishing His kingdom-rule on earth? David later said in Psalm 27:13, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” You don’t believe that God has, in the past, is in the present, and will in the future, “establish His heavenly glory in the land of the living”? And you also sense that Jesus teaching His disciples to pray the kingdom down to the earth was futile unless they saw it as future only?
In Revelation 11:15-17 we read, “Then the seventh angel sounded; And there were loud voices in heaven, saying: ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!’ And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying: ‘We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned;” but you say, “That’s future.” Hear me! God has always reigned, always reigns, and will forever reign, with the question: ‘Will YOU be a part of His Kingdom-rule and His Kingdom expansion in the here and now?”
In Luke 6:20, [Don’t dare miss this!!], the Holy Word tells us, Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said: “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Matthew 5 says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, resurrected from the dead, and like Daniel and the “rock”- smashing of earthly kingdoms, 1 Corinthians 15:24-25 tells us, “Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom of God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign [in His Kingdom!] till He has put all enemies under His feet.”
I want you to come with me to Luke 4:42-5:11! The message in this first chapter is entitled “Kingdom Preaching – Kingdom Harvest”! Follow the Word, first, Luke 4:42-44! Now when it was day, He [Jesus] departed and went into a deserted place. And the crowd sought Him and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving; but He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent.” And He was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee [or Judea]. Luke 5:1-11,
So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets…
Then He [Jesus] got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”…
But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking…
So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”…
For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Jesus.”
Why was that? Because they understood from Jesus’ “Kingdom Preaching” that His followers were to be a part of “Kingdom Harvest”! Are you truly a servant of Christ but never seriously studied the Book of Acts? And in the first chapter, right before Jesus’ Ascension, he said to His new disciples, Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
New Testament disciples of Christ have been redeemed with a heavenly purpose, anointed with the Holy Spirit, commissioned by their Lord and Savior, praying for boldness in their walks: “Yes, Lord, by Your in-filling of the Holy Spirit, by stretching out Your hand to heal (through us), grant that with all boldness we may speak Your word, by [You] stretching out Your hand to heal (through us), that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.” Acts 4:31 says, “And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.”
Don’t dare miss Acts 4:33! “And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.” But from Acts 1 to Acts 8 students of the Word tell us about eight years have passed with only a few witnesses from the majority of our Lord’s spiritual army and family. And this is following the Godly influence of Stephen upon Saul of Tarsus, Saul consenting to Stephen’s death by stoning!
I have no doubt that, yes, Peter also was inspired by Stephen’s cruel execution by stoning! Later in Acts 8 Peter discerns “hearts not right in the sight of God,” with him calling on men to repent. Verse 25 of Acts 8 speaks of those testifying, and the Greek word for “testify” is martureos from which our word ‘martyr” comes from! Yes! Peter is now willing to die for the claims of Christ!
But Saul encounters the Risen Christ on the Damascus Road! Chapter 9 of Acts! “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Verse 5, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” Trembling and astonished Saul said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Saul was then filled with the Holy Spirit, spent several days with Jesus’ disciples, and Acts 9:20 says, “Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.” Glory! Glory, Hallelujah!
As you read through the Book of Acts you’ll find witnessing encounters and more witnessing encounters! At the same time you’ll find opposition after opposition as the ‘religious Jews’ and other unbelievers came against those who so openly were faithful to our Lord’s divine commission. After His Resurrection and before His Ascension, we read in Matthew 28:18-20, And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have COMMANDED YOU; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” AMEN! Or “so be it.”
“Kingdom Harvest” comes to fruition when one has received “Kingdom Preaching.” The result is eternal realities taking place because Jesus “opened their eyes,” their “hearts were opened,” Jesus “opened the Scriptures” to true seekers, their “minds erupted in holy awareness,” and they became “witnesses of these eternal things”, fully aware that the truth of Acts 4:12 is so valid for today’s church and army of disciples. It says, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” And that eternal redemptive name? It’s Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior, Emmanuel, or “God with us”!
Question! How is it that physical Israel never surrendered to the King of kings and Lord of lords? How is it that a promise made to Abraham, received by him through faith, though a “shadow” of One to come, was received by him but denied by fleshly Israel? “Shadows” were physical promises of later literal, spiritual, natural reality, with Jesus insisting over and over, “My kingdom is not of this world,” [John 18:36]. Why? Because our Lord and Savior declared in Luke 17:21, “the kingdom of God IS WITHIN YOU!” And your “saving faith” in Jesus Christ alone, though described as a “shadow” of faith and hope in the Old Testament, has become for you, for us, the “substance” of our Lord’s Sovereign Rule in us and through us by His resurrected life and eternal presence in us! “Christ in you the hope of glory!”
Yes, we who are those who have set our hope in Him alone, and identified as “crucified with Christ,” were truly “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit!” Isn’t that what God’s Word has forever declared from cover to cover through His Holy Word? The “Holy Temple” of God’s presence is YOUR REDEEMED LIFE which the writer of Hebrews described as “the true tabernacle”. Has it been revealed to you, happened in you, settled in you, that through true repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ alone at Calvary, your life has become the eternal dwelling of His Holy Presence, yes, the superiority of our Lord’s new home, Christ Jesus’ new world of Holy abiding, residing, presiding, and proclaiming through you His love for the world He was willing to die for!!
And, as a result of God’s grace and mercy, as a result of the conviction and convincing of the Holy Spirit, as a result of your heart-felt, mind-understanding, and obedient will, you confess Him as your Lord and Savior, offering your life as His dwelling place on earth, through which He declares His love through you for every needy sinner! He receives you, not as a sinner any longer, but the servant of your Lord and Master, and those of us who are of true-redemption-faith now say with Paul, 2 Corinthians 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Don K. Preston, in his new book, “Like Father, Like Son, On Clouds of Glory,” wrote: [p.195], “The old city, [Jerusalem], had not only served its purpose it had also become the enemy of God by holding onto the Old Covenant, and persecuting those who proclaimed the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises in Christ.”
In Romans 6:4 Paul wrote: “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” That’s Because of “Kingdom Preaching – Kingdom Harvest”! Rejoice in Jesus!
CHAPTER TWO
“KINGDOM FATHER – KINGDOM KIDS”
Do you remember Jesus teaching His disciples to pray in Matthew 6, and the very first statement of that prayer in Verse 9? “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name..”, closing the prayer at the end of Verse 13, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” Almighty God IS the heavenly Father, Jesus is the Son, and also there is the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit! But God Himself IS the Kingdom Father!
Does that mean that God is the Father of all men? I don’t think so, especially when in John 8:37-47, Jesus exposed “religious play-actors”! He was talking to ‘religious people, even leaders of Judaism’! Jesus said: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.”…
They answered and said to Jesus, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this…
You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father – God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word…
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources [could that be his hellish, devilish native language?], for he is a liar and the father of it…
But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s words, therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”
Jewish faith not of God or is it Jewish followers who reject their own Jewish faith that was the “shadow” of the coming Christ, and they were unwilling to bow before the eternal “substance” of the Living Jesus, crucified by Jews, buried by Jews, and resentful Jews witnessing the Lord’s resurrection, denying it was possible?
It reminds me of what I recently heard in a television show when a seriously mentally sick man said, “I dream of angels but live with demons.” What did Jesus say to the unbelieving Jews? “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.”
“Fatherhood” is a natural occurrence, but it doesn’t mean earthly fathers nurture their children in heavenly-based faith, duties, and callings. My earthly father was divorced from my mother when I was three years of age. My mother took me to her parents, my grandparents, until my mother married a second time when I was 12-13 years of age. I only occasionally saw my father at his parents’ home, or a few times when I rode a bus to the city where he lived and worked. He was never in my entire life ever in the home where I lived, never in his own church when I was occasionally invited to preach, didn’t attend my wedding to my wife, Sue, and never was in our home our entire marriage.
[But, I thank God for Godly men who were examples, encouragers, up-lifters of a child, a teenager who needed Godly influences!], and, yes, extended family members who went out of their way to be a blessing to me and encourage me in the faith! There are “Abrahams”, fathers, who “rejoiced to see Jesus’ day, saw it, and were glad,” men who sought to be Godly influences to lonely children!
Of course, you are aware that God Himself spoke of His one Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, but the Bible also clearly speaks of “the spirit of adoption”! Several verses I want you familiar with in Romans 8! Look at verses 12-17! “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors – not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh [old, fallen sin-nature!] you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live…
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the SPIRIT OF ADOPTION by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”…
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”
Adopted into the Holy Family of God? His, “if indeed we suffer with Him”? It was C.S. Lewis who once said, “God speaks quietly in our pleasures but He shouts to us in our pain.” And that’s Holy God, our Father, by whom, yes, we receive the Spirit of adoption! And because God is our Father, in 2 Timothy 1:7, Paul said to young Timothy, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
How many lonely children do you know who live lives filled with fear because of the absence of earthly fathers? But “adopted by God the Heavenly Father?” “Loved by God?” In I John 4:4 the beloved John wrote: “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them (that’s the spirits of the Antichrists!), because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit – one God with three personalities, three presences, three purposes, abides in you as an adopted child of faith, which is why John said in 1 John 4:9, “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” And then illumines us more in 1 John 4:17-19,…
“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.”
“First love,” fresh love, faithful love, fulfilling love, full love, free love, feeling love, forbidding love, familial love, forgiving love, forbidding love – (there are things God does say “NO!” to!), formidable love, foundational love – (how many do you know eternally changed because they learned: “God loves ME forever!”), freeing love that breaks the chains, the bondages, the demonic enslavements, the fleshly strongholds of self-indulgences! Do you understand “oneness in the family of God?”
Luke 15:11-32 is “the parable of the lost son,” but more importantly the constancy of “the Father’s love for wandering sons”! But as you read this, be aware: This story is not imaginative contemplation but eternal confrontation of Loving God for every “sinner” who wandered away from the Father’s love! God’s confrontation with us all is the Cross of Christ, Jesus’ death in our behalf, His burial and His Resurrection! It says:
Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood.’ And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want…
Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods (or husks) that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!…
I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him…
And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry;…
For this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.”
When you look upon the wandering, wayward, yes, wicked son, you understand sinful, sinister, self-seeking separation, a gathered ‘goner’, astray and away from the Father’s love! He went “dumpster-diving,” “pigging out,” “sitting and sinking into slop,” and, for awhile, treasured his trashy-living! But Luke 15:17 says, “But when he came to himself…”, he then arose and came to his father. Dare I ask? “Where are YOU today?
In Psalm 68:4 David wrote and sang about, “Sing to God, sing praises to His name; extol Him who rides on the clouds…” And if you search the Word carefully you’ll find that “clouds” more often than not represent “dark places”! Then, Verse 5 says, “A father of the fatherless…”. To be estranged from God, separated from Him, set out “on my own,” is to choose darkness over “the Light of the world,” fleshiness over Spirit-filled living, sinfulness over eternal Holiness, self-loathing over Calvary’s love, grace, and mercy, so God Himself, by His Spirit, comes to your dark life and offers you the Light of Eternal Life in Christ!
“Kingdom Father”? There is a powerful revelation in Malachi 1:6 as God spoke: “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am the Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My reverence? Says the Lord of hosts to you priests who despise My name. Yet you say, ‘In what way have we despised Your name?” Will YOU dare to contemplate in what way your present life despises God’s name? Will YOU dare to call upon His Name?
1 Peter 1:17-21 says, “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay [or ‘dwelling’] here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things [or perishable], like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times FOR YOU, who through Him believe [trust in, rely upon, adhere to, rest in] in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”
“Amazing Word, how sweet the sound, that raises us from the dead, and gives us His crown! Amazing Love, that washes away our sin, and fashions us in His presence, now, and again and again! Amazing Presence, from death to Life, Amazing Power, to overcome all strife, Amazing Gift, of grace, mercy, and love, with His abiding residence, Heaven’s peaceful “Dove”! The Day will come when earth begins to bow, when the Day comes and the aliens say: “Only Jesus Now!”
And that’s because we learn of the abiding greatness of God’s amazing love! The Fatherhood of God! Our son-ship through His mercy and grace! I love what Spurgeon said from his pulpit in England many, many years ago: [ Memorial Library, “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” Vol.5,p.103], “And so the little Christian is as much a child of God as the great one, and they are one in the family of God, and no one is ahead of the other. One may have more grace than another, but God does not love one more than another. One may be an older child than another, but he is not more a child; one may do more mighty works, and may bring more glory to his Father, but he whose name is least in the kingdom of heaven is as much the child of God as he who stands among the king’s mighty men. Let this cheer and comfort us, when we draw near to God and say, “Our Father which art in heaven.”
Let this ring in your ears and your hearts: Because of the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ Jesus and my faith for eternal salvation through His finished work, I am NOW, “A Child of the King!” It was the mid, late 1800’s or early 1900’s when Harriet E. Buell and John B. Sumner wrote this great hymn, “A Child of the King”! It says:
“My Father is rich in houses and lands, He holds the wealth of the world in His hands! Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold, His coffers are full, He has riches untold…
My Father’s own Son, the Savior of men, Once wandered on earth as the poorest of them; But now He is pleading our pardon on high, That we may be His when He comes by and by…
I once was an outcast stranger on earth, A sinner by choice, and an alien by birth; But I’ve been adopted, my name’s written down, An heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown…
A tent or a cottage, why should I care? They’re building a palace for me over there; Tho’ exiled from home, yet, still I may sing: All glory to God, I’m a child of the King.” Amen? Or you just don’t know?
A child of the King? What’s its significance for now? Do you comprehend or understand the ‘least’ child of a royal family? What’s the “best robe” put on the child of faith? What’s the “golden crown” placed on the King’s son’s head of faith? What’s your inheritance? Is there ever a need the Father cannot meet? And if I’m a child of the King, is it true that I’m an heir now and a joint-heir with Christ Jesus? What does “Crown Him With Many Crowns” mean to the least ‘child of faith’?
2 Corinthians 3:18 tells us, those having come to Christ through repentance toward God and true faith in the finished work of Christ at the cross, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed INTO THE SAME IMAGE from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” We were a part of the earthly, fleshly kingdom of men with darkened minds, blinded minds, lewd minds, imprisoned minds – but we came to Christ, receiving “the mind of Christ,” renewed, ruled, reigning, and, yes, released from the devil’s bondage and enslavement!
And, dare I even consider that Jesus says, not ‘my Father,’ but “Our Father!”? Dare I mention the Father’s sacred touch, not on the head of a toddler, but upon his/her heart and mind and dreams and hopes and spiritual desires? “Our Father”! Yes, WE KNOW! Do I dare ask YOU right now? Do YOU truly know God who is the Eternal Father? I tell you, it is more than intellectual awareness – it’s “I’ve been adopted, my name is written down, I’m the recipient of His love and His crown! I’ve been adopted, my sins all forgiven, Through Jesus’ shed blood I have arisen To my Lord’s precious residence! Tears are gone – there is no separation, I’ve been adopted, I have an eternal relation! He’s ‘my Father,’ I am His son, through the victory of His Cross we’re reconciled as one! No lonely nights, no scary frights, His Resurrection Presence is my forever delights – He’ll never leave me nor forsake me, because His promise is to forever hold me – In His strong arms I peacefully rest, By His Holy Word I’m forever blessed!”
In Christ, through saving grace and mercy, and knowing Calvary’s love, we don’t come to knock on the doors of strangers trying to find help for ourselves, No! We boldly enter the very throne-room of our Lord and Savior as the “King’s Kids” because we were birthed by the truthfulness of the Seed of His Word and the powerfulness of His Holy Spirit! God IS “Our Father,” and we’re the “King’s Kids”!!
Are you aware of God’s promise in Ezekial 36:26-27? It’s more than a promise to renew Israel! I believe the New Testament tells us: “All the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ Jesus!” Listen to the prophet’s words as God spoke through Ezekial: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
Yes! As the “King’s Kids”, we’ll walk in our world honoring our “Kingdom Father” and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, anointed and empowered in the fullness of His Holy Spirit!
CHAPTER THREE
“KINGDOM RULER – KINGLY OBEDIENCE”
There are several different verses I want to use in introducing this chapter I’ve entitled “KINGDOM RULER – KINGLY OBEDIENCE” The first is Psalm 33:8-9, “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”
The next verses are also Psalm 33 but verses 18-20, “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.”
And what about Psalm 34:3-7? “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them.”
What did Psalm 34:5 say? “They looked to Him [the Lord God Almighty!] and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed.” But there is a question to follow: “Have YOU ever sought the Lord, knowing He does hear you, and you’re able to declare: ‘Yes’ and He delivered me from all my fears?”
Psalm 33 relates to our Lord God as Sovereign and Savior and we learn to “stand in awe of Him” because we know He spoke and the worlds were framed, the universes were placed, the stars were hung – but YOU have no understanding of the “Kingdom Ruler” who desires “Kingly Obedience”?
I received my “Success” magazine this week, and as I opened it, there was a page entitled FEED YOUR BRAIN! I have no problems with that at all if one is the recipient by grace, mercy, and love of, Yes, THE MIND OF CHRIST! The sub-title was “Your one-stop personal- achievement resource!” But, is ‘personal achievement’ due to one’s recognition of God as the “Gift-Giver” and “Blesser” of one’s every endeavor? On page 82 of my magazine was the “Reading List” with a suggestion by Margaret Jaworski of a book entitled “Triggers” with a sub-title: “Creating Behavior Change That Lasts – Becoming The Person You Want To Be.” Do you understand that there is a world of people who settle for the “better” but know nothing of the “Best” God has to give them? Behavior change, ‘becoming the person you want to be’, without ever looking to the God “who makes all things new”?
Have you ever been gripped by God’s divine able-ness? Again, Psalm 33:8-9, says: “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” No doubt this is why Jesus said to the ‘religious’ Jews of His day, John 8:31-32, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
Tell me about your awareness of and declaration of YOUR “awe-struck wonder” of God’s ability to make all things new, including your heart, your mind, your purpose, and your God-given ordination as His earthly ambassador and point-man to touch His world with His grace, mercy, and love!
Is there even a question about His divine ability to be “Kingdom Ruler” of what He has created? Yet consider the Jewish nation that God Himself set aside to usher in the “Coming Messiah”, but you see this ‘religious nation’, led by the scribes and Pharisees, who crucified the King of kings and Lord of lords, even picturing for us today many in the “church” who wander, like Israel, into the wilderness of rebellion, deceit, and imitation-devotion to their “Kingdom-Ruler”! “Kingdom Obedience” was absent, and Peter was raised up by God to address those who “professed” obedience but killed the King! Look at Acts 2:22-24! Peter said,
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know – Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” Acts 2:36 amplifies God’s intent! “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” [The house of Israel?]. Yes!
And, praise God, at least a few of the Jews were deeply convicted and cried out: “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” In Acts 2:38 Peter challenged them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission [forgiveness] of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Are you aware of God’s judgment on Israel as a people He loved and longed for them to look to Him for their salvation through grace but who determined their acceptance by God should be on the basis of their “grit”? Psalm 14:2-3 the Holy Word tells us: “The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, No, not one.” What a sad commentary on a people that God wanted to richly bless!
I read a statement by Daniel Webster recently –he said: “If we work upon marble it will perish; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal souls, we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten all eternity.” But, of course, some immortal souls will enlighten some in Hell because they never considered Jesus to be their eternal Savior and Lord! David prayed in Psalm 17:15, “As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.” How about your likeness or resemblance? Jesus’ likeness or the “spittin” image of the devil himself? The “spittin” image crowd? Psalm 16:4 says, “Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god…”
Whether you know it or not, NOW you must wrestle in your own mind and heart concerning the reality of “Kingdom Ruler” and “Kingly Obedience” or self as ruler, and if ‘self’ is your call, then living a life of disobedience to the King of kings and Lord of lords, ushering in a sad state of eternal separation from the true Savior and Lord, bound and forever bruised eternally by the devil and his demons!
But what did David say in Psalm 34:4-6? “I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” There is no salvation, no deliverance, no freedom from Hell, the devil, and the demons, when one denies God’s saving mercy and deliverance in and through the Cross of Christ! Did Verse 5 say, “They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces were not ashamed”?
Are you a ‘child of earthly toil’ or a child of Christ-filled “rest”? Is your walk through this earthly life based on the temporal or the eternal? Is your spiritually ‘childish’ life based on “flesh” or the “new-born” life of the Spirit? No life based on “flesh”,( the old sin-nature, self-rule), ever knows God’s heart to eternally bless them! But when they hear Jesus speak, and they respond to Him, it’s a different story, different journey, different out-look, and different ending! In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus tells us, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
“Kingdom Ruler” – “Kingly Obedience”? The author of Hebrews, inspired by God, really delivers a healthy challenge. He wrote: Hebrews 12:3, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”
And as a true follower of Christ, even facing intense opposition from a pagan world and sin-sick society, do you believe if you look unto Him, the author and finisher of faith, that precious Jesus will not be able to give you a word of encouragement, an uplifting smile, a renewal of your spiritual strength, a fresh prescription of eternal hope and sustaining power to overcome “such hostility”?
Sometimes it’s not the world “out there”, but Holy God as Father exercising divine discipline, yes, to correct us from wrong paths, off-key steps, a dark choice with dire consequences – and because the “Kingdom Ruler” IS a loving and caring Father, He will exercise discipline! Hebrews 12:7 says, “If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?” Then in Verse 11 we read, “Now no chastening [discipline] seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
The “Kingdom Ruler” often finds an open door of opportunity in the life of an unbeliever who has had to endure unbridled hostility against himself by godless, worldly, enemies of God, and anyone making a move, a turn toward God, because they are so sin-sick, tired, and overcome by dark, destructive spiritual soul-diseases, and, yes, out of desperation turn to Christ Jesus, whom they’ve heard is the “Great Physician”, and in His presence they hear Jesus say, “Trust Me”! There are words of an old, old hymn that declare: “A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, into Christ’s arms I fall; He is my strength and righteousness, My Jesus and my all.”
To a young spiritual son, Timothy, Paul wrote to him in 2 Timothy 2:8-13, saying, “Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel, for which I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even to the point of chains; but the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect [or ‘chosen ones’], that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This is a faithful saying:…
For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” And “HIMSELF”, “Kingdom Ruler,” went to Calvary’s Cross to die for our sin, yes, even taking us with Him to the Cross to put to death the “old man, old Adam,” that we, through repentance toward God and faith in our Lord’s work on the Cross, might be raised up by the Father, as the Son, in Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope!
Paul then said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:19, “Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: “The Lord knows those who are His,” and “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” No doubt this is why Paul wrote Titus in Titus 1:9, “holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.” Do you affirm the Word or contradict it by your life choices?
“Kingdom Ruler” and “Kingly Obedience”? Are you aware of the deep resentment most followers of Christ face because submission to divine will is opposite of the heart and mind of a lost, alienated, separated from God world? And as they hate God, they’ll hate you! Mostly by ignoring you, isolating you, and cursing you! Jesus said to His new disciples in John 15:18-25, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you…
Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me…
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’” Did you notice, “If they kept My word…?”
In Mark 8:38 Jesus made an awesome and convincing and convicting statement of Heavenly Truth! “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of Him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
“Kingdom Ruler” and “Kingly Obedience”? In Luke 6:46-49 Jesus’ words ought to bring holy conviction and heavenly conversion to everyone who receives His word! “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like:…
He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against the house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock…
But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.”
Unbelief, disobedience, rebellion to the revealed Word of Holy God will always arouse opposition to Jesus and those who stand in His prophetic Word. Like Jesus, “religious unbelievers” will nail Him to the Cross and unmercifully even seek to kill or destroy His witnesses! Jeremiah 26:9 tells us of the priests, the prophets, and all the people of Israel who seized the prophet Jeremiah saying, “You will surely die,” and they said, “Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without an inhabitant’?” And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.” Oh, he didn’t die! God stood with His prophet!
Will God be “standing” with you because you not only call Him ‘Lord’, but you do what He says? True disciples do not neglect His claims or avoid His commands! The Law of God came because of transgressions and had an impact on many to turn hearts back to the Lord, but then even the Law of God was diluted by “the lying pen of the scribes”!!
It was Oswald Chambers who wrote in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p270], “We are apt to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we have had. If there is one standard in the New Testament revealed by the light of God and you do not come up to it, and do not feel inclined to come up to it, that is the beginning of backsliding, because it means your conscience does not answer to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you for going on as a more true disciple of Jesus Christ or for going back as a deserter.”
“Kingdom Ruler” AND “Kingly Obedience”? And if the “Kingdom Ruler” is the author of the divine spirit of heavenly truth with disciples, true disciples, committed to the holiness of that truth, then you find soldiers of the Cross who are fully surrendered to the King’s commands, always warring with the devil’s lies of heresy, compromise, deceit, false thrones of iniquity where most men are bowed down, claiming to be the Bride of Christ when the Holy Word speaks of apostasies and antichrists, exposing their deceptions!
There is an amazing word in Psalm 138:2 where David sang “I will worship toward Your holy temple, and praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your Truth; for You have magnified Your word above all Your name.” The question of this very moment is, What is most important to you? The glory of His name or the attempted blessing at honoring fleshly attempts at pleasing Him? A greater concern for the eternal than the temporal, the dwelling places of the heavenly or the foundation-less- houses of earth, your eternal soul or a dying, earthly body, that which is birthed in oneness with God or the best effort of human flesh?
“Kingly Obedience” always can be your eternal reality because you daily yield to the “Kingdom Ruler”! This is why YOU KNOW “the Lord WILL perfect that which concerns me!” Are you aware that “perfect” means basically to complete? That speaks of assurance, of confidence, of the delight in eternal mercy and grace to finish what He has started in birth, in growth, in maturing, in finishing, in crowning each born-again believer with the “Crown” of eternal blessing! Does the Word say, “His mercy endures forever?”
We who are of redemptive, saving faith, clearly understand that it is not merit but mercy, not self-determination but divine discipline, not the power of positive thinking but the grace of “the mind of Christ”! God never has, never will, choose the man who sincerely believes He doesn’t need God’s help to overcome in this world – he believes, “I am able” – and, as a result, he/she knows nothing of divine confidence and “blessed assurance”, nor “eternal rest” because he’s not ceased from his own efforts to be spiritual, nor lives with the heart-felt passion and desire to be the “fire-wood” in the hands of Heaven’s “Fire-Builder” – the Holy Spirit! He’s able! So who needs the “Kingdom Ruler”?
CHAPTER FOUR
“KINGDOM HYPOCRISY OR KINGLY HOLINESS?”
In Ephesians 5:1-7 Paul amplifies for us the “walks” of the “dear children of God” because of “cheap imitations”, fraudulent ‘mask-wearers’ who “profess” allegiance to Christ Jesus but are slaves of darkness, ‘star-quality’ actors and actresses who are motivated by the works of the flesh rather than true recipients of the fruit of the Spirit! Paul wrote:
“Therefore be imitators of God, as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;…
Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God…
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.”
Imitators of God walk as children of light but imitators of the world, the flesh, and the devil walk as children of darkness! In Ephesians 4:17-24 Paul delivers a strong challenge for both those in the flesh and those in the Spirit! “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart;…
Who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and HOLINESS.”
A nation, a government, universities, and schools, for the most part, even vast numbers of families and individuals, have come to the place where God is for a ‘sham’ show, not serious trust, devotion, and unveiling of a loving heart for our one true God and our Savior and Lord, led by the Holy Spirit!
Do you understand ‘outward show’ with the inward vacancy of Holy Presence? Have you considered in our modern-day in America that our government just prints more and more counterfeit dollars with nothing to back them up? It’s the 21st Century “Sham Show” of pretense, perversions, and governmental play-acting! In Luke 12:1-5 we read, In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He [Jesus] began to say to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy…
For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops…
And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!”
“BEWARE”! Counterfeit lives of profession without possession of our Lord’s Resurrection Life are rampant in these modern-days! “Weighed and Wanting” is the holy judgment of some! Empty lives because of lying lips, spiritually bankrupt because of false declarations-saying but never doing – proclaiming allegiance in the midst of tribulation without any effort of overcoming or fighting the good fight of faith, speck examination of others’ spiritual eyes but no removal of the planks in their own eyes!
“BEWARE”! Jesus said in Matthew 6:22-23, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. BUT IF YOUR EYE IS BAD, YOUR WHOLE BODY WILL BE FULL OF DARKNESS. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
“BEWARE”! Our Lord and Savior and Master-Teacher told us in Luke 12:15, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses,” yet, all around you are folks you know who brazenly say, “Yes, it is,” totally committed to mammon but not the Master!
“BEWARE”! It doesn’t matter where you live today – the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior in this earthly world is surrounded by the very realms of Satanic engagement with the devil’s intent of deluding, deceiving, destroying, deterring, defeating anything that stands under the Banner of the Cross and fights the good fight of faith for the honor and praise of King Jesus! One of the greatest battles any true believer wages in his earthly walk is the battle with deceiving spirits of the powers of darkness that want you dead, blinded to, absent from the powers of Holy God and King Jesus!
“BEWARE”! Do you know what “God saw” in the early days of man’s habitation in God’s created world? Genesis 6:5-8 says, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping things and birds of the air; for I am sorry that I have made them.” BUT NOAH FOUND GRACE IN THE EYES OF THE LORD!”
One man found grace, established his life on faith and obedience, saw himself instilled with the divine purpose of pleasing God! But you’ve never been aware that God can touch His world again through grace because He sees your witness?
But do you understand “hypocrites”? Hypocrites are true enemies of any man who truly stands in faith and obedience to Holy God! Hypocrites are superb “self-praisers” but, yes, enemies of any humble man who only wants to be a blessing to His Lord and Savior, and honor Holy God through his life – but the hypocrite demeans, denounces, declares Godly people the “trash-ers” of “the legitimate, sharp, wise people,” when that’s all “play-actors” ever do! Are you unaware of the garments of hypocrisy that these enemies of God so easily dress themselves up in? Hypocrites easily become “judges, juries, and executioners” of even the reputations, walks, and testimonies of humble, Godly, Christ-honoring men and women, including youth totally sold out to the Master!
I don’t think the percentages are of any significance in this matter, but remember, of the twelve disciples of Jesus initially, one of them, Judas Ischariot, “betrayed” not only Christ Jesus and sold out for a price, but dishonored the eleven young men who had become true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ! His outward cloak was a covering for his personal selfishness, ambition, and greed, finally revealing it as a personal garment of hypocrisy! Only for a time can one mask a deceived heart from His “friends” but never from Holy God! Hypocrisy is the absence of God’s eternal peace and the very evidence of a troubled soul!
Fanny Crosby, in the late 1800’s, wrote the hymn that says: “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood…”, but the off-key tune of the hypocrite says, “Troubled soul, I am my own! Tasting the sorrows of sin personally sown! Bought by the Devil, tragically entombed, dead in his deathliness, covered, named, declared by him his hypocrite son!”
Spurgeon once said: “The only way in which the hypocrite can play the hypocrite at all is by forgetting the existence of God.” Who, living in deceit, wants to know Holy God? Who, life’s academy of awards winner, star of “Hypocrisy”, wants his picture published on the front page of God’s “Holy News”? No, the convicted “hypocrite”, – let me pause here, change my declaration about some – yes, there are some, who want deliverance, healing, and true salvation freedom and release from the bondage and enslavement of the sickness of hypocrisy!
In 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 Paul wrote: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”
Do you believe now and understand that hypocrisy IS exalted against the knowledge of God? Do you believe NOW that in obedience to Christ Jesus that you personally can pull down that hypocritical stronghold in your life? I have no hesitation in saying to you that what is “normal” to a lot of natural men and women, separated from God in their own sin natures, is abnormal to Holy God, and only by His divine intervention is a hypocrite transformed into a holy, loving, “blesser” of others! Even the hypocritical mind can be “converted and birthed and trained” into the “mind of Christ” as they ‘lean not to their own understanding, but in all their ways, acknowledge Christ alone!’
“Kingdom Hypocrisy or Kingly Holiness”? In the ‘kingdom of earthly, fleshly men’, hypocrisy “appears” to be normal and natural, but when it comes to “The Lordship of Christ” in our lives, there is the call of God to “Kingly Holiness”! And I believe this is why we read in Luke 19:10, “for the Son of Man (Jesus Christ) has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Dare I say that ALL MEN across the entire world are “play-actors” if they choose to live apart from God’s holy intention: an extension of His life, an expression of His love, and the very proof of His power? And when men choose the opposite of His holy intention, we witness “unholy Hell” on earth, in homes and families, in the business world, government disgrace, university and school deception, personal animosity of the call of God in Holy Living!
And Christ Jesus still comes to seek us out and to save that which has been lost! Of course, there are enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ, enemies of the True and Living God, and enemies of the Holy Spirit! But in the call to “Kingly Holiness”, there are unveilings from God and His Word we all must receive!
No enemy of Jesus or God or the Holy Spirit ever wins – Jesus’ eternal purpose has been, forever is, and forever will be fulfilled! No enemy ever deters His eternal purpose and plan! No enemy of Christ Jesus can ever block His work of peace in the human heart, comfort to the troubled soul, or fulfillment of His divine plan in the lives of “the chosen”! No enemy can ‘sugar-coat’ His passionate warnings, His precious Word, or His powerful Resurrection! Lost men ‘in Adam’ become the “found” in Christ! Do you even grasp the Truth of ‘naked men’ clothed in the righteousness of Christ? ‘Prodigal’ sons through Christ discover “Heavenly Sonship”!
Are you aware of people you rub elbows with every day who don’t even know who they are, why they are in this world, or what their earthly existence is all about? Again, Spurgeon preached in England an awesome, convicting, life-transforming message! He said: [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.6,p.103], “Our Father Adam steered the ship awry and she split upon a rock, and she is filling even to her bulwarks now; and pump as philosophy may, it can never keep the waters of her depravity so low as to prevent the ship from sinking. Seeing that human nature is of itself lost, it has taken to the boat. She is a fair boat, called the boat of Good Endeavor, and in her you are striving to row with all your might, to reach shore; but your strength fails you.”
Oh, but please hear me! Jesus came “to seek and to save that which is lost”! Jesus came to “rescue the perishing”! Jesus came to redeem “hell-bound” souls and transform their lives into “Heaven-blessed” sons and daughters! The imprisoned in the cells of darkness? Jesus tore down the prison-bars to set the captives free! The “Great Physician” came to bring “healing grace” to the sin-sick souls! The ‘ungodly’ Jesus is able to “raise from the dead” into ever-living sons and daughters of the Most High God! But isn’t it sad that He has to say to some: “I came that you might be the recipient of My eternal life, but YOU were not willing!”
“Kingly Holiness”? Receive Ephesians 2:19-22!! Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple of the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
But you didn’t learn that “YOU” are the temple of God? Do you remember the woman at the well in John 4:19-26? The woman said to Jesus, “I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”…
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”…The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”
Have you missed or omitted or failed to understand what the Apostle Paul revealed to all true believers in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20? “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Individual representation, personal appropriation, heart-awareness and mind-meaning – “In Christ, I am His Temple!”
I was reading Acts again recently and was stopped in my ‘tracks’ when I read Acts 8:3, “As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.” I’m not in this moment speaking of “the collective church” which also is the Body of Christ and is not to be ignored or separated from – we are “members of His Body”, and certainly should not buy in to its unimportance! “Havoc of the church, entering every house,” but collectively we also gather! Havoc of the church by arresting, imprisoning one by one, house by house, Saul thinking before his own conversion: “I’ll take care of the Imitator’s Church one home at a time, one life at a time.”
And I thank God for those “churches” who are open to the ministry of our Redeeming Lord and Savior! Acts 2:47 tells us, “And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” Yet there are those “professing Christians” who are committed to their own spiritual development without a concern for the building up of “the Body of Christ” corporately! I hope and pray You see our Lord’s true church being built one stone, one life, one family at a time, with every new stone fitted and rested and cemented in on the “cornerstone of Christ” alone! And day by day, week by week, year by year, you personally witness the mighty work of God as He builds the temple of our Lord through surrendered hearts and lives and families, one stone at a time! Every stone in the true temple of Christ is a redeemed, born-again life, infilled with Holy, Resurrected Presence and the fullness of God’s Holy Spirit!
If you didn’t know, it’s a “mighty fortress”, you and Holy God! The church of Christ is a sacred union, a holy wedding, an eternal union, of repentant men and forgiving God! Sadly, the Muslims do not acknowledge “our Father”! And the thrilling truth that should inspire every seeker? Holy God, Caring Jesus, and the Fruitful Spirit is not at all interested in our fleshly abilities but our availability to ALL HE IS and wants to be in us! I really love what Ralph Waldo Emerson challenged us with many years ago in his writing, “Conduct of Life: Worship.” He said, “Fear God, and where you go men will think they walk in hallowed cathedrals,” all because you settled it in your Heart: “Christ in me the hope of glory!” And His glory radiates through YOU because of your full surrender to Him!
“Kingly Holiness”! I love what Helen Keller once said: [Doubleday &Company,Inc.], “If the blind [she was physically blind!] put their hand in God’s, they find their way more surely than those who see but have not faith or purpose.” Kingly Holiness is daily the exercise of faith and purpose, understanding through me the Lord Jesus desires to touch others like yourself with His grace, mercy, and love! Holy God envisions in YOU, even if you consider yourself unworthy, unstable, unfit, His opportunity to miraculously, through you and me, defeat the enemies of God and “build His Kingdom”! We’re a part of His faith, His purpose, and His passionate heart-beat to extend His eternal Kingdom from Heaven to all the earth! And if you didn’t know it, every step you take is the holy ground of divine opportunity in regenerating ‘dying earth’ and ushering in eternal righteousness with the establishment of Heaven’s Throne in human hearts!
I read a statement recently by a man of the past I never knew of – his name? Frederic D. Huntington. He said, “Holiness is religious principle put into action. – It is faith gone to work. It is love [God’s love] coined into conduct; devotion helping human suffering, and going up in intercession to the great source of all good.” That’s God Himself, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit! It doesn’t happen accidentally but purposeful overflow out of God’s Heart through human availability for God to do as He desires through us as we yield our lives to His divine sovereignty!
Dare I say to you that some, failing to understand they are His “temple”, leave “the church” after a Sunday morning gathering, and never consider that they are the “Body of Christ” wherever they are, that “they”, as born-again disciples, are a vital “stone” supporting, revealing, unveiling the Holy Temple of Christ, yes, the very dwelling place of God in the Spirit!
“Kingdom Hypocrisy or Kingly Holiness”? The very “disciple of Christ Jesus” is that man, that woman, that boy, that girl, one so with the Resurrected and Indwelling Christ Jesus, one so filled with the Spirit of God’s Presence, that in God’s eternal plan, there is, in earthly presence, lives redeemed by the blood of Christ Jesus, regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, divinely planned as our Lord’s earthly ‘home’ of Heavenly Presence for the world to see and be touched by, that Paul calls those of saving faith “the holy temple of the Lord…being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit”! [Ephesians 2:21-22].
In closing this chapter, receive Oswald Chambers insight from his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.233], “Have we recognized that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, though it is only a tiny bit of our personality, is to be regarded by us as a shrine of the Holy Ghost. He will look after the unconscious part that we know nothing of [or I would say, ‘refuse to acknowledge!]; but we must see that we guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.”
Do YOU deny any kingdom hypocrisy or, yes, painfully deal with it, doing so with clear understanding that we are responsible for kingly holiness?!?
CHAPTER FIVE
“KINGDOM TROUBLE OR KINGDOM TRIUMPH?”
There are two verses I want to introduce this chapter with: Job 5:6-7, “For affliction does not come from the dust, nor does trouble spring from the ground; Yet man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” It was Samuel Rutherford who said long ago, “Why should I tremble at the plough of my Lord, that makes deep furrows on my soul? I know He is no idle husbandman, He purposes a crop.”
In the deep “furrows” or “rows” of your soul, how many find rich “crops” that help to shape a man’s life and influence for himself and those around him, yes, even beginning at home with his “bride” and children, or his co-workers on the job, or his near or far-away ‘neighbors’?
Do you understand or grasp that “flood waters” are realities of life literally or figuratively, and men of redemptive faith clearly understand that life can bring on those flood waters but God plans the “ark of safety” when those flood waters (?) come to surround your life?
It’s so interesting that as James, Jesus’ brother, wrote his epistle, he began by saying, “…count it all joy when you fall into various trials [or troubles], knowing that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness or endurance. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect [or matured] and complete, lacking nothing…
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind…
For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; for he is a “double-minded man,” unstable in all his ways.”
And as I read that, I realized that God wants us, not to be overcome by adversities and troubles, but in and through Him to be “overcomers” of every trouble that comes our way!
But it is a reality of fallen human nature, that it is easier to “blame” God than to be “blessed” by eternal hope in His promises and provisions and power to sustain us when trouble would drain us! I love what William Shakespeare wrote in his “Henry VI, Part II, [Act11, sc.1,L.66], “Now, God be prais’d, that to believing souls Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!”
Are you aware that, yes, every “blessing” of even fallen humanity, has come through, oftentimes, the literal ‘body-pain’ of a mother giving birth to her baby, or athletic victories coming from well-trained athletes who “paid the price”, or the painful disciplines of well-trained soldiers who defend their country? And, it’s God, oftentimes, teaching us eternal lessons in everyday life!
It was Christina Georgina Rossetti, in her writing, “From House to House,” who wrote: “Although today He prunes my twigs with pain, Yet doth His blood nourish and warm my root; Tomorrow I shall put forth buds again and clothe myself with fruit.” Oh, how rich is that!?! Do you know anything about, or have ever experienced, “the dim unknown,” but in it, YOU found God Himself, “keeping watch above His own?” [James Russell Lowell: “The Present Crisis”].
When you first came as a true believer to John 12:27, what was your initial reaction when you heard Jesus say to His Father, “Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” And Jesus’ response as He wrestled with His “trouble”? “Father, glorify Your name.” Have you EVER seen your troubles as your divine opportunity to glorify God through what you’re having to go through and experience? Or were you overcome with “myths” that true believers never have to experience troubles or heartaches?
Do YOU find it strange what “the Spirit says to the churches” in Revelation 2:7 about “To him who overcomes…”? “You mean as a Christian I have to war, I have to fight, I have to overcome?” And, of course, if I’m at all familiar with the Holy Word, I hear Jesus say to me, in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will [or have] tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Trouble? In The Random House Collegiate Dictionary, it defines trouble as, “to disturb the mental calm and contentment of…worry, distress, agitate;…to cause bodily pain, discomfort, or disorder to; to annoy, vex, or bother; to disturb, agitate, harass,…something or someone that is a cause or source of disturbance, annoyance..”! And if Jesus overcame the troubles of world involvement, it’s your option in Him not to face it, fight it, faith it, as an opportunity to glorify Him on earth as He is glorified in Heaven? The one thing I hear Him saying in this moment is: “Don’t frustrate the very grace of God!”
Trouble? Are you personally, by God’s grace and your faith, the very heir of God who is a ‘joint-heir with Christ’, sharing in His calling, His ministry, and, yes, even His suffering? Did you hear our Lord say to all disciples, John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Did Paul tell young Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:12, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” And, thank God, for the holy revelation through David, in Psalm 34:19, when he wrote: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”
Trouble? Psalm 34:18 tells us, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” Are you aware of what our Lord and Savior experienced in His earthly walk? The author of Hebrews writes to us, every believer today, saying, Hebrews 12:3, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”
Trouble? Why would Paul say to the Galatian believers, in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” You’re not aware of “soul troubles” in a hostile world? And why would Paul say in Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”? Just how amazing do you find that word? Have you ever wondered why some fallen men resemble so clearly the wild animals of an African jungle, so willingly trying to tear to shreds a wife or even his children or closest friends?
Immorality is deadly, blasphemy is brutish, unbridled sin is cancerous with lascivious wretches the open-wide pictures of godless lives, infidels that are infectious, atheists who believe they are annihilators of true dependence upon Holy God, the demonized who give honor to Satan and don’t even know they’re tools in the hands of the “destroyer”, sinners who are the living presence of “door-keepers” to the abode of the devil himself, and even the “backsliding”, “professors of faith”, who have no shame, triumphantly diluting [they think!] holy grace and Calvary’s love, believing they’ll “save” their world around them if they deny the faith!
Your choice? The troubles of the world around you or the triumph of the Kingdom of God around you? Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
What does Ephesians 2:4-7? “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”
“Kingdom Troubles”? I know that in our Lord’s Kingdom trouble is assured, but I believe we must see the earthly kingdoms of fallen men that become constant without any assurance of overcoming! Are you familiar with the Psalms? In Psalm 2:1-5 we read, “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, AGAINST THE LORD and against HIS ANOINTED, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.’ He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure.” Is that clear to you?
And I have, I believe, a very serious question that must be answered: Are we, in the church, aware and conscious of those who are “pretenders” apart from possession of the Indwelling Christ through Godly sorrow, true repentance, and full surrender to Christ’s Lordship? Are there individuals determined in their own ‘self-effort righteousness’ to prove to God and the church-world around them that they are able in themselves to live godly lives apart from “sovereignly implanted righteousness” by God’s grace, mercy, and love?
In Matthew 23 Jesus delivered His “woeful message” to the scribes and Pharisees! In Matthew 23:13-15, 25, 27-28 the Lord Jesus pronounced His judgment, and not long after they crucified them! Receive His Word!
Matthew 23:13-15 says, Jesus speaking, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, “hypocrites,” [“play-actors”]! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe, to you, scribes and Pharisees, “hypocrites”! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”
Matthew 23:25, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.”
Matthew 23:27-28, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Outward appearance is the ruling factor in the majority of godless lives while the minority could care less about appearances as long as they choose to rule their lives by their own self-rule! I’m sure this is why Oswald Chambers said long ago: “Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love.” Another time Chambers said: “Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.”
In Luke 18:9 Jesus “spoke this parable to some ‘who trusted in themselves’ that they were righteous, and despised others. But the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me the sinner!’”
The true hero of saving faith is a man whose heart’s desire is to honor His Master and Lord and Savior through His awareness that Christ’s work of redemption is God’s willingness to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth through your repentant heart, becoming God’s gathering of born-again believers whose very lives become God’s Throne on earth!
But how many “earthly rulers” who trust only in themselves to destine their earthly existence, as they solely desire, do you witness across your world regularly who do not know of costly, priceless, free grace, forever love, enduring mercy, that is still available to the repentant heart?
Thank God for men like the Apostle Paul who witness faithfully to “young Timothys”! In 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Paul wrote out of the overflow of his redeemed heart and new-birthed mind:
“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus…
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, [King} immortal, [King] invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
And, thank God, for the “God-Man”, Emmanuel – “God in Flesh”, who came and faithfully upheld and stood for the faithfulness of God on the Cross, demonstrating God’s eternal faithfulness in His love for sinners such as us!
Please, please, grab hold of the Eternal Word of God! What does Hebrews 10:19 through Verse 23 tell us?
“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
“Hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience? How arrogant, yet ignorant you so-called Christians really are! Sorry for your poor self-images, but us “smart folks”, there is nothing in us that needs to be reconciled to your ‘holy god,’ and certainly we don’t need to be washed by Jesus’ blood! In fact, there is absolutely nothing in us unbelievers that needs “blood atonement”! YOU GO TO YOUR HELL while we celebrate our sinlessness!”
There is “trouble” in the earthly kingdoms of men, whether their own hearts, their own homes, their businesses, their communities, their schools – it’s so easy to be deceived in a world where men refuse to even listen to Holy God, it’s so easy to live a blinded life totally void of God’s Holy Word, it’s so easy to put ‘stoppers’ in one’s ears, refusing to listen to the proclaimers of Biblical Truth! Oswald Chambers said, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.256], “It is the things that are right and noble and good from the natural standpoint that keep us back from God’s best. To discern that natural virtues antagonize surrender to God, is to bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us debate with the sordid and evil and wrong, but we do debate with the good. It is the good that hates the best, and the higher up you get in the scale of the natural virtues, the more intense is the opposition to Jesus Christ. ‘They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh’ – it is going to cost the natural in you everything, not something. Jesus said, ‘If any man will be My disciple, let him deny ‘himself’, his right to himself, and a man has to realize WHO JESUS CHRIST is before he will do it.”
“Trouble in the kingdom, whether man’s fleshly kingdoms, or God’s Holy, triumphant Kingdom” – it’s as real as every breath that you take! But beyond the ‘trouble’, God’s Word amplifies His “Triumphant Kingdom”!
What did Paul say to the church in Rome, and the world-wide church then and now? Romans 8:35-39 says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ YET in all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Have you received that glorious Truth of “Victory In Jesus”? The beloved John wrote in 1 John 3:1-3, “BEHOLD what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
Have you been “born-again”? In 1 John 5:4-5 John inspires us: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And THIS IS THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMES THE WORLD – OUR FAITH. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] that Jesus IS the Son of God.” Glory!
CHAPTER SIX
“KINGDOM DECEPTIONS OR KINGDOM REALITIES?”
You do understand that there is the world of fallen mankind that collectively exhibits a “kingdom of deceptions” or THE “spiritual Kingdom of God” that unveils “Kingdom Realities”! It was John who saw “the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” That’s Revelation 21:3!
If I were to say to you, “There IS an ‘old Jerusalem’ and the “New Jerusalem”,” would you be surprised? Only if you never come to the Word of God, only if you receive, even in Genesis, “Did God really say that?”, only if your comfort level is truly deception that you can’t comprehend, only if symbolism is better for you than reality, only if ‘independence’ is better for you than true dependence upon THE eternal source of life outside yourself, only if ‘married to Christ’ is offensive to you, only if You’re able, at least for a time, to live with your separation from God, believing ‘you are able’ to sustain yourself with no Divine Life, no eternal presence, and certainly, for you, no eternal purpose or future!
You’re an ‘old Jerusalem’ kind of guy who has no desire to be God’s son, so Revelation 21:8 says, “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
‘Old Jerusalem’ is a kingdom of imitators, ‘old Jerusalem’ attitudes still exist filled with ‘cranky yankers’ who have no understanding or comprehension of submission and obedience to the one True God, which for them has produced a religious system of unbelief that is nothing more than cultural insanity flowing from unbelieving hearts and minds producing serious diseases of spiritual and physical and societal and national death with no trust of the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords! They ‘yanked’ Jesus and crucified Him!
In Jeremiah 7:23-28, and 32-34, we read prophetic words from Holy God! “But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’ [That means: no submission, no obedience, equals rebellion and a descent away from God Himself!]. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them. Yet they did not obey Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers. Therefore you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not obey you. You shall also call to them, but they will not answer you…
So you shall say to them, ‘This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God nor receive correction. Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth…Verses 32-34, Therefore behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when it will no more be called Tophet, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of slaughter, for they will bury in Tophet until there is no room. The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the heaven and for the beasts of the earth. And no one will frighten them away. Then I [Holy God!] will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. For the land shall be desolate.”
That is one side of the coin that explains ‘Old Jerusalem’, but the other side of that coin is “New Jerusalem”! Didn’t John have the vision of “New Jerusalem” in Revelation 21:3? “New Jerusalem” is not a physical, geographical location, but the spiritual destination of every true born-again believer, whether Jewish or Gentile! And look with me at the residents of those “at-one-ment” with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and have come out of the “great tribulation”!
Revelation 7:9-17 tells us: “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”…
Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, ‘Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?’ And I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ So he said to me, ‘These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them. They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Would you dare call the warfare for your soul “the great tribulation”? Would you even think to consider “whiteness” and the “robe” the robe of righteousness? Does allegiance to Christ Jesus stir up the world, the flesh, and the devil in a great warfare of faith? Do you understand the “washing” of your life in the Lamb’s Blood, blackened to the core but now washed white in the Blood of the Lamb? Are you even familiar with Jesus speaking of you in Him “being raised up to be seated with Christ in heavenly places,” even if some teach it as distant future? Are you aware of your position and presence before Him who sits on the throne, every hour of every day and every minute of every hour? Were you called out to be His servant day and night in His temple which is your redeemed body? We don’t hunger ! We don’t thirst! We serve a faithful Provider! The Lamb of God, Jesus, is in us – and the True Shepherd leads us day by day to the fountains of living water! Though we may be sad because of abuse from the world, God wipes our tears away, gives “Father-Hugs”, and lifts us up to the throne for us to see who we are in Him!
“Kingdom Deceptions or Kingdom Realities?” If we are “soldiers of the cross”, enlisted in the “army of the Lord,” under The Commanding Officer of Eternity, has the “church” in our time period of spiritual history ever seen “desertions” with spiritual criminals “tried” in God’s court? It would do you eternal good to read carefully 2 Chronicles 15:1-7. Azariah was Spirit-anointed and went in to Asa, king of Judah. Follow carefully this amazing word!
“Now the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Obed. And he went out to meet Asa, and said to him: ‘Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you. For a long time Israel has been without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law [or the Word!]; but when in their trouble they turned to the Lord God of Israel, and sought Him, He was found by them. And in those times there was no peace to the one who went out, nor to the one who came in, but great turmoil was on all the inhabitants of the lands. So nation was destroyed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every adversity. But you, be strong and do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.” And if you read the last verse of this chapter, Asa went 35 years without war! God’s peace reigned through Him! [And you live with “no peace” and wonder why?].
Dare we look at Jeremiah 8:4-12? Moreover you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord: Will they fall and not rise? Will one turn away and not return? Why has this people slidden back, Jerusalem, in a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they do not speak aright. No man repented of his wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turned to his own course, as the horse rushes into the battle…
Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment of the Lord. How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood…
The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; So what wisdom do they have? Therefore I will give their wives to others, and their fields to those who will inherit them; because from the least even to the greatest everyone is given to covetousness; from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely…
For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not ashamed at ashamed, nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; in the time of their punishment they shall be cast down,” says the Lord.
Do you see it? Jerusalem fell and didn’t rise up to God! Jerusalem slid back away from Holy God! Israel was in a perpetual backsliding! Deceit had captured them! They refused to turn back to God! Wickedness was rampant among God’s ‘chosen people’! They determined their own way which became disastrous! Every man chose his own course with no desire to know the will of God! Their scribes were guided by lying pens because of lying hearts and minds! Jerusalem rejected the Holy Word of God! They came to a new name: The covetous people! No peace, no joy, no blessing – only living under the curse they chose!
Are you aware of those who kick against God, even when they chose to be bound with Him, as God took the reins, and as ‘time marches on’, they get tired of those reins? Spurgeon preached: [Memorial Library, Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.6, p.74], “You may kick against Christ, but you cannot get away from His dominion; you may kick against Christ, but you cannot cast Him from His throne; you cannot drag Him out of heaven. You may kick against Him, but you cannot prevent His condemning you at last. You may laugh at Him, but you cannot laugh away the day of judgment. You may scoff at religion, but all your scoff cannot put it out. You may jeer at heaven, but all your jeers will not take one single note from the harps of the redeemed.”
The wise man of Proverbs wrote, Proverbs 16:6-7, “In mercy and truth atonement is provided for iniquity; and by the fear of the Lord one departs from evil. When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
“Kingdom Deceptions or Kingdom Realities”? Paul described both as he wrote to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3:12-13, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men AND ‘imposters’ will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
Of course, I’m sure you know, that “deceiving and being deceived” comes from the ‘master’ deceiver, Satan himself! What was it Peter said to those he dearly loved and cared for, concerning Satan? In 1 Peter 5:8-9 he wrote, “Be sober (serious-minded), be vigilant (alert); because YOUR adversary [enemy] the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.”
A ‘kingdom deception’? It was Cotton Mather, in his “A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World,” who said: “That there is a Devil is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil. For any to deny the being of a Devil must be from an ignorance or profaneness worse than diabolical.”
Yet, in this modern day, multitudes deny Satan because they willfully and glibly deny God’s Holy Word; people deny Satan because he assaults not only one’s mind and heart but their eyes – he wants them ‘blind’ to his devilish destructions; and, modern-day ‘scholars’, who have determined they are smarter than God Himself, also have ‘blinders’ on, but mostly covering their ‘hearts’ because there is no love there for God and His Word!
A ‘kingdom deception’? There are certainly different paths men of the world choose to “walk down” rather than “UP” to God’s glorious Highway of revealed Truth! It’s like “mental gymnastics” or “mental defiances” or, yes, “mental tyrannies”, which always produces personal imprisonment, because to deny God’s Truth is to invite natural and unnatural bondages, chains, and ‘prison bars’! Are you aware of how easy it is to even view professing ‘disciples’ of disillusionments, because divine truth rejected breeds ‘self-centeredness’, and they were never discipled to ‘war’ against “deliverance to the captives”?
A ‘kingdom deception’? A fleshly love for the world, the flesh, and the devil? A ‘kingdom deception’? “Believers can’t do anything but sin until they go to Heaven; relax in your sinfulness – God understands!” How phony is that? How opposite of the truth that we were crucified with Christ, with your sins and sin-natures nailed to the Cross, put to death with Him?
What did Paul, inspired by the Author of Truth, tell us in Romans 6:1-7? “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism (the suffering of ‘death’ on the Cross with Him!) into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life…
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died [on the Cross with Jesus!] has been freed from sin.” So Paul tells us in Romans 6:12, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts,” adding in Verse 14, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
A ‘kingdom deception’? Have you ever heard it? “Yes, I believe in Jesus – and I believe what He did on the Cross for me was to bring me to a place of not being ashamed of who I am – He forgives me in my sin.” And that means that Jesus’ work on the Cross had limitations because “we” can’t do anything but sin! Really?
What did Paul write in Ephesians 2:19-22? “Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
But the “compromisers”? “Relax; God understands; you can’t help but sin, even if you’ve invited Jesus in to your “temple of doom and degradation”, because you sincerely believe His Cross was insufficient, and could only deal with ‘presence’ of the sin nature but not its absence – but, “praise God, someday, out there, in “the sweet by and by”, He’ll truly set us free and invite us in to His sinless abode!” And, all I can say is, “Give me a break from the maddening crowds of unbelieving believers”!!
Do you not know His Blood cleanses, His Cross buries, His Resurrection Life overcomes, His Word births new life, new hope, new testimonies, new help? That help? His Holy, Sinless Presence in you, the Power of His Holy Spirit to maintain Him in you free from your past enslavements to sin and Satan?
Receive Ephesians 3:14-21! “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
But “Kingdom Realities”? “Kingdom Resources”? “”Kingdom Reign”? “Kingdom Residence”? What you see in ‘old covenant’ days was a ‘tabernacle,’ and then ‘a temple’ that, yes, was symbolic of Holy Presence, and God resided there. But in “new covenant” days God introduced “Holy Temple” living for His divine presence, and it was, is, forever will be in you, the man or woman of true redemptive faith and trust! YOU are intended to be the presence of the extending of His Life, the very supernatural presence of His overcoming power, and the very “expression” of His Holy Love in you and through you to a needy world!
Don’t ever forget or ignore or try to explain away in ‘untruth’ the reality that, as Paul said in Ephesians 2:20-22, “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom YOU ALSO ARE BEING BUILT TOGETHER FOR A DWELLING PLACE OF GOD IN THE SPIRIT.” Glory! And I tell you: you are not to be a defiled temple where Jesus comes to live! YOU ARE the Holy Temple, the residence of Divine Presence! “Christ in you the hope of glory!”
And the extravagance of ‘fleshly pride’ has no place in the Kingdom Temple of God, which you ARE, if repentance toward God and faith in the Resurrected Life of Jesus has chosen to live in and through YOU! But at the same time, there is, not only a world of Satanic opposition to who you are in Christ, but David reminds us, Psalm 2:1-2, “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His ANOINTED, saying, Verse 3, Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”
‘Kingdom opposition’ is nothing more than “Kingdom opportunity” to exercise “Victory In Jesus”! The world, the flesh, and the devil are corruptive influences upon children of saving faith, but “in Christ” we are more than conquerors through Him over all opposition! This is why Paul instructed the Corinthian churches, 1 Corinthians 15:57-58, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. THEREFORE, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
In Psalm 24:7-10 David sang! “Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and might, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.” The King of glory comes in, but He doesn’t have a kingdom?
Dare I tell you that through Christ Jesus you have become the very residence of the King of kings and Lord of lords? YOU, Yes, YOU, have become the very offspring of Holy God, with His intent that you be the “home” of His Son and our Savior, yes, the very “temple” of abiding presence, and spiritually armed to “fight the good fight of Faith,” as you Give Him His rightful place on and in the throne-room of your heart!
I really love what Spurgeon said in one of his powerful messages! [Memorial Library, Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.5, p.399], “Not only has Christ traveled the road, but He has slain your enemies. Do you dread sin? He nailed it to His cross. Do you dread death? He chose to be the death of Death. Are you afraid of hell? He has barred it against the advent of His children; they shall never see the gulf of perdition. Whatever foes may be before the Christian, they are all overcome. There are lions, but their teeth are broken; there are serpents, but their fangs are extracted; there are rivers, but they are bridged or fordable; there are flames, but we have upon us that matchless garment which renders us invulnerable to fire. The sword that has been forged against us is already blunted; the instruments of war which the enemy is preparing have already lost their point. God has taken away in the person of Christ all the power that anything can have to hurt us.”
“Kingdom Realities”! If divine Truth is your shield and buckler and God assigns angelic oversight over you to keep you in all your ways, if you’ve set your heart and mind on Him as Savior, Lord, Master of your life, and you know He says, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you”; if you know because of your holy fear of God that His mercy toward you is massive, and that when you cry out for Him when trouble comes that He brings you out of your distresses; because you know through God Almighty you will do valiant things, and in doing them you encounter enemies, that the God you serve will tread down Himself on your enemies, and that His power inspires you to be a volunteer – and as a result of God’s nature and character and the Presence of Christ in you, you come to the deep, deep awareness that you are surrounded in the strength of the Lord with a promise to never turn His face away from you and your family, you rise up with great declarations of the Glory of God, you sing the “Hallelujah Chorus” as if you wrote it yourself, and your life of faith becomes as a mighty erupting spiritual volcano of overflowing, unending, constant out-pourings of love and thanksgiving! AMEN?
CHAPTER SEVEN
“KINGDOM SELFISHNESS OR KINGDOM SELFLESSNESS?”
Does it ever dawn on you that much of the sadness, the sorrows, the fleshly sicknesses of a fallen society, come about because of the sin of self-indulgence? I have no doubt at all that the attitude of “Kingdom Selfishness” was being addressed to by Jesus when in John 12:35-36 He said: “This voice [the clear Voice of God Himself!] did not come because of Me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world (Satan) will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” This He said, signifying by what death He would die.”
And if you didn’t know, Jesus came to “set the captives free” from the bondages and chains of personal, kingdom selfishness, calling every man to “Kingdom Selflessness”! How thrilling is it for you when you read Colossians 1:13-14? “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
Did YOU receive the word of possible “conveyance” out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love? And someone asks, What is the kingdom of the Son of His love? We’re going to really grasp this before this chapter is completed, but I want you to read first very carefully about “Kingdom Selfishness”!
Romans 5:12 hammers home the unveiling of fallen humanity’s selfishness. It says: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…”
I am so impressed about how Oswald Chambers handled this word in his book, “My Utmost for His Highest,” [p.206]. He wrote: “The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin, but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one man, and that another Man took on Him the sin of the human race and put it away (Hebrews 9:26) – an infinitely profounder revelation. The disposition of sin is not immorality and wrong-doing, but the disposition of self-realization – I am my own god.”
If you were not aware of your spiritual condition before Holy God, it’s time you rest for awhile in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And the result of “every man’s willful choice”? In Romans 1:24-25 Paul tells us, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie [‘the lie?’ – “you can sin and not die”!], and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”
Even serving the creature (self) is idolatry, and in Ezekial 20:39, God said to Israel, His initial ‘chosen people’, “As for you, O house of Israel, thus says the Lord God: ‘Go, serve every one of you his idols – and hereafter – if you will not obey Me…”. And, if you didn’t know it, life without God is nothing more than the stench of death waiting to die!
So through Jeremiah the prophet God declared, Jeremiah 16:10-12, “And it shall be, when you show this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the Lord God pronounced all this great disaster against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God? Then you shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers have forsaken Me,’ says the Lord; they have walked after other gods and have served them and worshipped them, and have forsaken Me and not kept My law. And you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, each one follows the dictates of his own evil heart, so that no one listen to Me.” Deaf ears to Holy God’s Word, defiled hearts, darkened self-wills, and distinctive separation, because of the self-kingdom rule that shuts the door of one’s life to loving, merciful God!
In Isaiah 59:1-4 the prophet speaks to the “fallen-away”: “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidde3n His face from you, so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity.” And fallen mankind says, “No problem!”
And whether it is literal idolatry or symbolic idolatry, it is still “Kingdom Selfishness”, which is why Psalm 97:7 says, “Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols,” and be assured, modern-man is a master of shamelessness when it comes to the ‘idols’ he bows down to!
It was Robert R. Brown who once said: “It is part of our human nature but there is that within us which always wants to make self the center of its own universe and, in that selfish way, wants to tear God from His throne and deny his brother and advance his own ambition.”
“Lame in the brain and defiled in the heart” is about as clear as one can get when one considers those who close the door on Almighty, Holy, Loving, Merciful God, and go “doing it my way”! They are spiritually bound by the powers of darkness in self-deception! Self-impotence produces ungodly sinners who “trash” Christ, though daily they live in their own self-made “garbage dumps”! I must say that, after coming to Christ and becoming a new creation, I’m baffled that I led should a clueless life that God never intended me to live with, and indulged in unlimited extents of rebellion and disobedience He never desired that I walk in, but I did! And I sense now the “fearful punishments and a foul Hell” unrepentant sinners fully deserve, and I was one!
What did King David say in Psalm 19:12-14? “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.” Do you understand the seriousness of your errors against Holy God and even against yourself?
Have you ever dared to examine yourself, looked deep in God’s Word, searched out the end result of fellow sinners, wrestled with revealed Scriptural Truth about the end result of rebellion to God and His Word, given intense examination of what it means to “fall away” from God’s eternal intent for your life in and through Christ Jesus on the Cross? Are you aware of the destructive power of a sinner’s life and future forever, having your mind and heart fully aware of spiritual depravity, moral debasement, the deadliness of the hammer of lust and greed and the darkness of fleshly immorality, and the blackness of the entire sinfulness of your life without God? Do you understand spiritual corruption without God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit ruling over and in, guarding your life as if it were their own?
Some live in such brazen opposition to the will and Word of God, dammed up in rebellion and disobedience, that if their self-constructed dam of opposition to God broke, it would flood and drown a multitude around them! God said, “You shall not…,” but many “sinners” say, “Yes I will!” Are you aware that the “Ten Commandments” are there for our exposure to a mind and heart of “law-breaking” and the need of a Savior? “Kingdom Selfishness” is real, but…”Kingdom Selflessness” is Heaven’s pure example of sinlessness crucified by religious and devilish people and, yes, “fallen” men away from God and without hope in their “self-determined”, religious ways – they determined to execute Christ and save their city, their nation, their religion, their world!
I found years ago in an old ‘book house’ in Salt Lake City, Utah, a book of poetry written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, written between 1826 to 1844 entitled “The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” It was entitled “Idols”:
“How weak the gods of this world are – And weaker yet their worship made me! I have been an idolater of three – and three times they betrayed me!
My oldest worshipping was given To natural Beauty, aye residing In bowery earth and starry heaven, In ebbing sea, and river gliding.
But natural Beauty shuts her bosom To what natural feelings tell! Albeit I sighed, the trees would blossom – Albeit I smiled, the blossoms fell.
Then left I earthly sightings, to wander Amid a grove of name divine, Where bay-reflecting streams meander, And Moloch Fame has reared a shrine.
Not green, but black, is that reflection; On rocky beds those waters lie; That grove has chillness and dejection – How could I sing? I had to sigh.
Last, human Love, the Lares greeting, To rest and warmth I vowed for years, To rest? How wild my pulse is beating! To warmth? Ah me! My burning tears.
Ay, ‘they’ may burn – though you be frozen By death, and changes wint’ring on! Fame! – Beauty! – idols madly chosen – Were yet of gold; but ‘you’ are STONE!
Crumble like stone! My voice no longer Shall wail their names, who silent be: There is a voice that sounds stronger – “My daughter, give your heart to Me.”
Lord! Take my heart! Oh first and fairest, Whom all creation’s ends shall hear; Who deathless love in death declares! None is beauteous – famous – dear!”
What an amazing journey of the lady whose poetry often spoke of so many present day lives, searching, floundering, failing, then finding God – not the gods of falsehood, imitation, deceit, and deathly trickery! Why not truly examine your heart and the very holiness of God’s amazing love for you, and let Him transform the phony with the Eternal Love of Calvary’s Cross and His Son and our Savior?
Please! Right now, rest yourself in John 3:16-21! Christ Jesus speaks to YOU and your family and friends! “For God so loved the world THAT He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved…
He who believes in [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed [trusted] in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil…
For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Do you remember as John began his public ministry? And after that first day, John 1:29 tells us, The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John had preached a day earlier and in John 1:16-18 said: “And of His fullness we have all received, grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
In 2 Timothy 1:8-12 Paul strengthened the faith of his spiritual son, Timothy, by writing to him, saying, “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus BEFORE TIME BEGAN, but has now been reve4aled by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.”
You and I were truly deserving of the judgment of death for our sins and our old sin nature, but on the Cross Christ Jesus took our place – the sinless Savior taking my sin and yours and the sin of the whole world, being the sinless substitute that God planned, accepted, and executed even before the world of fallen men came into being – Jesus WAS the Lamb of God, slain BEFORE the foundation of the earth! This is why Paul wrote in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” followed by verse 9, “Much more then, having been justified by His [Jesus’] blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him!” Why?
Romans 5:10 says, “For, if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, MUCH MORE, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life.” Glory!
“KINGDOM SELFLESSNESS” is ALL wrapped up in the eternal Truth of Christ Jesus’ sinless substitution for us on Calvary’s Cross! There is no other way! JESUS IS “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, and no man comes to Father-God but through Him alone! Religions are not men’s redemption – it’s only the blood of the innocent Lamb of God, Jesus! In 1 Timothy 1:14-15 the apostle testifies, “And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus…
This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Can you say: “Whether me first or the billionth number, I thank God for mercy, because Jesus Christ came, suffered, and died in my behalf as the chiefest of sinners, and I am forgiven, indwelt by Him, Spirit-anointed, and sent out as His divine representative in a perishing world!” Amen?
And the walk of redemptive faith can be difficult at times when one knows there is a huge war between “flesh” and Spirit, between enemies of God and servants of God, between devotees to the sinful world around and the very Kingdom of God – but we also have been taught through Romans 8:28, “And WE KNOW that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
Divine transformation is continuous in our journeys of faith and obedience to our Lord and Savior! In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul challenges us, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Glory! And I believe as I read that passage that my walk of faith in Him is a constant “being changed, being transformed” from the old man to the “new creation” in Christ Jesus!
In 1 John 1:7 we read, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Follow Oswald Chambers in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.268]: “If I walk in the light as God is in the light, NOT IN THE LIGHT OF MY CONSCIENCE, but in the light of God – if I walk there, with nothing folded up, then there comes the amazing revelation, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sin so that God Almighty can see nothing to censure in me. In my consciousness it works with a keen poignant knowledge of what sin is. The love of God at work in me makes me hate with the hatred of the Holy Ghost all that is not in keeping with God’s holiness. To walk in the light means that everything that is of the darkness drives me closer into the center of the light.” Amen?
“KINGDOM SELFLESSNESS”? Redemptive faith is the personal finishing of your former life of sinfulness by your co-crucifixion with Christ on the Cross, as Paul inspires and informs us all in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Verse 21, I do not set aside the grace of God…”
Paul said in another place, “I take the sentence of death daily that the Resurrection Life of Christ may be manifested in my mortal flesh!” Amen? That’s Redemptive Faith! Faith in what Jesus has done in my behalf whether I consented to His Cross or not! My Redemption is His voluntary carrying of our sins and sin debt, writing our debt off by His shed blood, and being the eternal sacrifice for sin out of the very mind and heart of God Himself!
Jesus’ eternal purpose? “I didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give My life a ransom for many.” What did Jesus say in John 13:14? “if I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” [That’s the Example of His Servant heart!]. In John 14:27 He said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you,” yes, a peace that passes all understanding! John 10:30, Jesus said, “I and My Father are one.” Eternally One, Forever One, Before, during His earthly mission, and forever, God the Father and Jesus the Son are forever One, with the Holy Spirit!
Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Yes, rest in the Lord, our Selfless Sacrifice for sin!
CHAPTER EIGHT
“KINGDOM UNHAPPINESS OR KINGDOM JOY?”
Have you ever heard someone say, “Happiness is so fickle while ‘blessed of God’ is so eternal!” And I believe that without any hesitation at all, happiness being for the independent one absent of faith and trust in the God of the Cross, absent of eternal purpose, and void of Holy Presence. Happiness is so circumstantial, as long as the sun shines over one, but “blessed” is there whether the sun shines or not!
Are you not aware of some around you who are so convinced they just need to travel on the Highway of Happiness, and as they do, they end up in the desert sands of unhappiness? But the true traveler of faith and hope and the peace of God knows “Kingdom Joy” wherever they are! Seekers after ‘happiness’ are usually those who are out in the “market-places” of life trying to buy ‘happiness’ at any price, and need to learn that it’s “blessedness” that is theirs in the vast Kingdom of God through the Light and Brightness of Holy Presence and His Kingdom of ministry-service!
In Psalm 40 King David was a man of clear understanding, a blessed mind, and a fulfilled heart. He said in Verse 4, “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, and does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies,” and then in Verse 8 said, “I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is in my heart.”
When you consider all of mankind in their vast differences of searches for “something” they think will make them “happy”, usually without any consideration of God’s state of “blessedness,” it usually is ‘stacked’ with only natural affinities and void of even any thoughts about the supernatural presence, provisions, or peace of the Almighty through the Servant-Heart of Christ Jesus!
And, for the most part of God-less searches for happiness, it is lives void of any humility but overcome in fleshly pride, not really any purity of heart, and certainly no desire to honor and uplift Holy God in their journeys of ‘fleshliness’!
I was reading Oswald Chambers again, as I do regularly, after fifty years at least of possessing his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.175], where he had been discussing Jesus’ words about “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you,” saying, “Are you painfully disturbed just now, distracted by the waves and billows of God’s providential permission, and having, as it were, turned over the boulders of your belief, are you still finding no well of peace or joy or comfort; is all barren?” And Chambers’ very next discussion? John 12:35! “Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you.”!
Are you familiar with what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16-17? “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” And with that Holy Word in mind, I want you to come with me to Jeremiah 6:10 where God spoke through the prophet to the people:
“To whom shall I speak and give warning, that they may hear? Indeed their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.” And God’s judgment came!
Then, in Jeremiah 6:13-15, God explains! “Because from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness; and from [even] the prophet even to the priest, [head pastor], everyone deals falsely. They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time I punish them, they shall be cast down,” says the Lord.
And cast down? No doubt cast down means there is, by fleshly, sinful choices and ‘character’ or a lack of it, a state of despair, despondency, even personal degradation, with then final judgment before Holy God at His judgment seat, which is His throne, and every individual, past, present, and future, will stand before Him to then hear that ‘cast down’, because of one’s indifference to His grace, mercy, and love, a seat in Hell forever before the devil himself who so violated those of unbelief and rejection of God’s love!
Jeremiah then quoted the Lord in Jeremiah 6:16, Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”
Ungodly influences have a profound and perverse impact on the journeys of individuals and families in our world today! Just consider the pilot recently who took the plane down into the mountain-tops, killing 197 (?) passengers! Yet, how many are there all around you who are tragically and adversely influenced by godless witnesses, buying the “lies” and not Eternal Truth? Ungodly men and women who are blinded to eternal realities put counterfeit prices on their souls, and cheaply sell their very beings for a few moments of Hell’s “matinees” of life’s self-indulgent performances!
“Kingdom Unhappiness”? Or do the fallen call it for themselves: “I am one who is truly rich in the world’s goods and pleasures,” knowing nothing of eternal richness, and blinded to their own nakedness, deluded and deceived by their own spiritual poverty, and void of Holy Presence in their lives!
Do you understand about faulty foundations or no foundations to one’s “super-structures” of life- choices? Did Jesus Himself teach about some who build the foundations of their lives on “shifting sands”, and when the powerful storms come, their foundations, as cheap as they are, cannot withstand that destructive storm?
But “Kingdom Joy” is, not only stabilized, but totally sound, “a sure foundation,” because the Lord Jesus tells us in Luke 6:47-48, “Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against the house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.”
Moses said in Deuteronomy 32:3-4, “For I proclaim the name of the Lord: Ascribe greatness to our God. HE IS THE ROCK, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of Truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He.” Is YOUR life founded on the Solid Rock of Christ Jesus?
Earlier, in Exodus 33:13-16, Moses spoke to God, “Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.” And God said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then Moses said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So, we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”
Dare I tell you that God is glorified in you on earth with a promise in Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave you nor forsake you”? In fact, in Hebrews 12:28, His holy, authoritative Word tells us, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”
How does that holy word stroke you – with grace, with reverence, with godly fear? Are you aware that the end result of, sadly, many “professors of faith” who openly proclaim allegiance to Christ, do so while compromising their “testimonies,” diluting the Holy Truth, calling themselves friends of the family of faith and the God of faithfulness, while at the same time celebrating the corruptions of fallen mankind?
“Kingdom Unhappiness”? It’s that man who “professes” allegiance to Christ, but daily chooses to walk down the avenue of presumption or pretense with the pseudonym of ‘follower of Christ the Light’, when within he’s a captive of darkness. If it pleases God to reveal Jesus in us, how does God react to the false prophet of the fatal spirit of false imitation?
What did Jesus say in Matthew 7:15-23? “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn-bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them…
Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
If you personally tried to define sin, what would be your definition? “Easy request! Sin is immoral behavior, sin is choosing wrong over right, sin is dressed up and covered over with one’s choice of decent morality from one’s own personal view, and at the same time dreadful immorality that comes out of the same mind, heart, and selfish will! I’ve determined I live by my own rules!” And what do you read into that? How many around you see it, bottom-line, being the foundation of one’s life his/her own self-dependence, self-rule, self-realization, with God left out in the coldness that surrounds their defiant heart and spirit!
Have you ever heard when decision time is before you, but you neglect, you forget, or you put off decision-making time related to your eternal life, and “the day comes”, the door is shut in your face, and you cry out, but the Voice responds, “Too late! Too late! Your opportunity has passed”? And judgment comes! And what do you think about a life under the judgment of Holy God that is crying out at the same time it is being crushed to smithereens, but it cannot die, will not die, but in its brokenness, the rejected life meets Satan, and he says, “Welcome to my place!”
Do you understand how sad it is to see multitudes look into the Holy Word of God briefly, and decide they want nothing to do with the godliness and spirituality of even just the Ten Commandments, given by God to expose us all as ‘law-breakers,’ or to have unveiled before them the absolute eternal glory of God in Christ’s Blood Atonement, or the absolute Amazing Grace of God in one’s justification or “acceptance just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned!”, or the eternal glory of God’s sanctification of men of faith, which is sanctified or “set apart to His glory only,” or even for a fraction of a moment of awareness of being made “one with Christ”?
There are some who settle for their brilliance of a fleshly mind that is so opposed to the grace of God! There are some who have no awareness at all of the gross unbelief of attempting to appropriate some of God’s “precious truth” with their true commitment to their own pagan philosophies and brain-dead intellectualism!
But others have no basis of common sense or even human decency but are perfectly at ease in their “sow-mud” and their “chicken-litter” and their “cow-droppings”, as they choose to wallow in their dark worldliness and hellish depravities, truly bound up in devilish and damnable delusions, or their iniquitous perditions, or trapped in their utter indifference to revealed Eternal Truth, even bound by and given over to strong delusions that all they can believe in are lies out of the Pit of Hell itself!
My New King James Bible gives us a great translation of Psalm 1 entitled “The Way of the Righteous and the End of the Ungodly.” Receive it: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful;…
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper…
The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”
And, if you know God’s Word, you know the way of the ungodly is in the way of death that will not die – it’s a forever distress and ongoing deep displeasure – there is no comfortable moment ever in Hell!
But, what about “KINGDOM JOY” rather than “KINGDOM UNHAPPINESS”? In Acts 20, beginning at verse 20, Paul was explaining to the Ephesian elders that when he came to them that he held back nothing that was profitable to them, and then in verses 21-24 he said: “testifying to Jews and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me. But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with “joy”, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of God.”
Finishing our races of faith with “joy”? If you carefully examine the very life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, you’ll find that “the joy of the Lord God was His strength!” Paul was getting toward the end of his public ministry as he wrote his letter to the believers in Rome, and in his letter in Romans 15:32, he said: “that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you.”
Heaven’s ‘refreshment’ of true earthly disciples is “the joy of the Lord!” In John 15:11 Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” What an awesome desire for Jesus for the disciples that had become true followers! He told them in John 16:24, “Until now you have asked nothing [of God] in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
Remember my introductory statement of this chapter? “Have you ever heard someone say, ‘happiness is so fickle, while ‘blessed of God’ is so eternal?’” Are you truly aware that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin”, and you have doubts rather than celebrating the eternal blessing?
I pray that you truly possess clear understanding of men around you, that either there is the dark shadow of judgment and the curse because of a man’s Godlessness or I pray you’ve come under the light of God’s mercy, and by repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross, you know that, yes, you are the “blessed of the Lord.”
The author of Hebrews laid out for us a powerful warning in Hebrews 3:12-14, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end…”
“Partakers of Christ Jesus” and dependent and determined because you know the difference between kingdom unhappiness and Kingdom of God blessing! “Partakers of Christ Jesus” because with Paul, (Romans 15:17-19), “Therefore I have reason to glory in Christ Jesus in the things which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient – in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”
“Partakers of Christ Jesus” because our Lord and Savior blessed men and gave the guarantee of every man’s future blessing who leans not in his own understanding but is determined our Lord’s promise of abundant living in and through Him will never fall short! Do you remember the Parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15? The Father faithfully looked for the return of his wayward son, and when he came home, Luke 15:22-24 tells us, But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.’
And do you remember the older son who heard the party from the field, so he called a servant and asked what was going on. He then learned of his brother’s return, his father’s response, and the word says: “he was angry and would not go in.” The father went out “and pleaded with him.” Verse 31 says the father spoke: “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was RIGHT that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.” Did you receive it? “Son, you [because of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross] are ever with me, and all that I have is yours!”
“Partakers of Christ Jesus”! Paul said to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 1:18-22, “But as God is faithful, our word to you was not Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us – by me, Silvanus, and Timothy – was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes. For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, gifted in and through the Word of God, resurrected to eternal hope, birthed into the Body of Christ called the Church, and Josiah Strong said it ‘strongly’ years ago: “There are many in the Church as well as out of it who need to learn that Christianity is neither a creed nor a ceremonial, but a life vitally connected with a loving Christ.”
In Ephesians 2:14-18 we read, “For He Himself [Christ Jesus] is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”
And, please hear me, far too many believers in the church, putting too much emphasis on what they believe to be the true orthodoxy of the church in vocal words and phrases have blocked the greater proclamation of, yes, the “laid-down life of Christ” in personal ministry to others by His compassion, His transforming character, and the very ‘touch’ of the Master’s hands, through you, touching others for His glory, honor, and praise!
I’m sure this is why Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in “Content in Service”, was inspired to write: “I was too ambitious in my deed, And thought to distance all men in success, Till God came to me, marked the place, and said,…
“Ill doer, henceforth keep within this line, attempting less than others” – and I stand and work among Christ’s little ones, content.”
Do you think it might be why Frances Ridley Havergal wrote these words in one of his hymns: “Take my life, and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee.. Take my hands and let them move At the impulse of Your love”?
Are you a true believer, led by the Holy Spirit, to lay your life down, so that He picks it up and honors Himself through your availability to all He IS?
And, no doubt, this is why Jesus said in Matthew 18:3-4, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” And, dare I tell you? That’s the kingdom of heaven that, on earth, has always been?
When men, sent by God, failed to interpret God’s kingdom to others, God sent His Son so we might visualize the kingdom of God from heaven to earth come down!
The kingdom of God came, and sadly, most men were told that the kingdom is future tense, but when a man opens the door of his heart to the Father, declares his allegiance, God reigns! You and I are called upon by God to enter the wide-opened door to His kingdom, and yield our hearts and lives to extend His kingdom-rule in the hearts of other men!
And that yielded life and spirit in the human heart is not to produce “Kingdom Unhappiness” but “Kingdom Joy”! Amen?
CHAPTER NINE
“KINGDOM PRIDE OR KINGDOM BROKENNESS”?
Proverbs 16:18 clearly says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” And if it’s true, and it is, where does that lead even the very nations of pride, aside from an individual’s pride?
It was Dr. Elton Trueblood who once taught, “Though the Bible urges us on to perfection it gives no encouragement to suppose that perfection is achieved…”A man who thinks he is righteous is not righteous –“ for the reason, primarily, that he is full of spiritual pride, the most deadly form that sin can take.”
And Peter was very clear when he wrote in 1 Peter 5:5, “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’”
Have you ever known a “siren’s” song that is so pride-filled in performance, and yet is nothing more than words and comfortable notes that leads one on the sea of life to the very submerged boulders of prideful presumption and evil self-pride, finally leading one’s ‘ship of life’ stranded, shattered, and submerging in the treacherous waves and batterings of ‘stony’, spiritual death-blows? Are you aware of those professing their ‘richness of life’ when in actuality they are bankrupt?
How familiar are you with God’s Ten Commandments in Exodus 20? But let me point you to Exodus 20:4 where God declared: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image – any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
Then in Exodus 34:12, God said, “Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst.” Do you realize how nationally a people can so easily establish covenants and snares that totally alienate and ban God Himself from their political affairs? And people just say, “OK”, even if it bans God from their nation’s affairs? This is why Samuel said to Saul, in 1 Samuel 15:23, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king,” with the 35th verse saying “the Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel.”
I often wonder, with the spiritual condition our nation is in across America, when does the heavy hand of God fall on our nation? It was Martin Luther, in “Table Talk,” who once said: “We easily fall into idolatry, for we are inclined thereunto by nature, and coming to us by inheritance, it seems pleasant.” And do you understand “seeming pleasantries” becoming “death nails” in a nation’s being?
“Kingdom Pride”? In Matthew 23:27-28 Christ Jesus pointedly called the scribes and Pharisees “hypocrites” or “play-actors” when he said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! [Is that Jesus Himself out to ‘win friends and influence people?’]. For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Channing Pollock wrote: “The hypocrite was a man who stole the livery [or stable] of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.” Oh, and then it was Shakespeare, in his “The Merchant of Venice”, [Act 1, sc.3,l.99], who wrote: “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart: O what a goodly outside falsehood has!”
That’s the “peace, peace” crowd when there is no peace! That’s the “kingdom pride” of self-determining that “bitter is sweet” and “sweet is bitter”, the pride of determining ‘what IS’ better than God Himself! Do you remember Jesus’ words about the ones who “sowed their seeds and they fell among thorns”? In Luke 8:14 Jesus described as follows ‘those seeds’: “Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity.” That’s describing ‘fruitless, faithless, ‘full of self’ lives,’ determining better than God what is a fulfilled life!
“Don’t bother me, Preacher; don’t bother me, servant of Christ; I’ve settled in to what gives me pleasure and a degree of peace; I don’t need to be evangelized!” And you wonder: “What will be their attitude when they personally stand before the Judgment Bar of God to give an account of their faithless, rebellious, self-pride-life?”
Do you even know what Jesus had to say about one’s sin and blasphemy being forgiven but only for sin against Jesus, but the sin of rejecting the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven? In Matthew 12:31-32 we read, Jesus speaking, “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the [Holy] Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”
Have you ever sensed, by God’s Word and the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, that a ‘pastor-preacher’ has been a ‘mask-wearer’ and something is just not right in his spirit-world and personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you ever crossed paths with “professing believers” whose countenances, decisions, friendships, relationships, revolve around mutual appreciation of ‘self-indulgence’? What is birthed within you when highly respected ‘religious leaders’ undress themselves figuratively with immoral, indecent, shadowy, worldly, fleshly sinfulness, evidencing blindness of Spirit-Truth, evidence of ‘no shame’, evidence of even disenchantment of love and devotion of Jesus, and more in love with themselves and the laughs and back-slapping of their unbelieving friends of his, really – Godless surroundings, though he may be in church every Sunday?
“Kingdom Pride”? That’s no need of Christ’s promise of the Coming Holy Spirit because He (Jesus) bodily, after His Resurrection, would ascend to the Father and be seated beside Him, yes, God the Father’s eternal throne! But the Holy Spirit would come to stay with you and in you – and He will convict us all of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come. But the fleshly believer? “Who needs a Holy Spirit? I’m my own teacher, my own learner!”
Thus, the determination of the Lord Jesus? John 2:24-25! “But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”
“Kingdom Pride”? That’s defiance easily illumined by the spirit of self-determination, self-will, self-pleasure, self-indulgence, over-ridden by a hanging black cloud of manifested darkness and displeasure of anything related to Christ Jesus that touches both mind and heart with a loose disposition to sin, outwardly glorying in his own deathly spiritual status, and unsure why a Paul can speak of “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Dare I say that I personally will never understand why any man will choose to live in his own ‘kingdom’ apart from Christ Jesus who IS “King of kings and Lord of lords”! Only when I come to God’s Holy Word does the Loving Father God reveal to me again and again that degenerating, diseased nature of sin, with Romans 5:12 revealing to me, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned,”with the deadly attitude, “I’m ‘god’ unto myself!”
Receive Oswald Chambers’ words in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.206], “Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. ‘And this is the judgment.’ (the critical moment), “that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.” Chambers entitled these words, “The Bias of Degeneration”!
“Kingdom Pride”? It was William Congreve, in his writing, “The Mourning Bride,” [Act 111, sc.1] who wrote: “What do damned endure, but to despair,” and I somewhat agree, except that there are many whose attitude is, “I could care less”!! The fleshly ‘pride-full’ are often seen as people overcome, surrendered, yielded to an attitude of obstinacy, and as I read about ‘obstinacy’ in the Random House Collegiate Dictionary, I couldn’t help but smile when one line of ‘definition’ was “the obstinate growth of weeds”, reminding me of seed sown with the “tares”! That’s like “Ephraim…joined to idols, leave him alone”!
Even more illuminating is God’s discussion in Exodus 11 about the difference between the Egyptians and Israel! Examine carefully Exodus 11:4-7, Then Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharoah who sits on the throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the animals…
Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again. But against none of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.”
Is there a ‘great cry’ awaiting you or a heavenly ‘celebration’? 2 Peter 2:9 tells us, “then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment;” but, oh, look at verses 10-11, “and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.”
Peter went on to describe, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, even many modern-day Americans, when he wrote in verse 14, “having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls.” OH, how easy to be entrapped by an attitude of self-indulgence, then blinded by the practice of being disillusioned with anything truly spiritual in nature, especially abandonment of the ‘old man’ and choosing death to that sin nature! Shallowness becomes the calling card identifying one who has no desire to be ‘one with God’!
But then I come to God’s Holy Word, and I see “the door of opportunity” to be free from the law of sin and death; I see, rather than bondage, divine liberty and eternal freedom; I see what Paul said to the Galatians and all mankind, Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage,” with Hebrews 10:19-23 telling us,
“Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
But if I wrestle and war in myself with God about ‘my journey’ and have no true understanding of what [or Who] puts me in a right standing with Him, I’ll substitute my stubbornness and independence for His loving sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, my ‘halo’ for His Holy blood sacrifice, my seemingly intellectual genius for His eternal Atonement! It happens daily across our modern world that is extremely ‘proud’ of itself!
Hebrews 9:22 clearly says, “…and without shedding of blood there is no remission” for our sins. Whose blood? I John 1:7 declares, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST GOD’S SON cleanses us from all sin.” And there is an amazing truth in 1 John 2:2 where John, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote: “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” Sin and sin’s penalty has been removed by our Lord’s sacrificial death on the Cross. Does that mean then that all are saved? Absolutely not, but the unbelieving, though forgiven for sin, have no relationship with Christ because they determine for themselves they are savior, and lord, and god over their own lives, independent of God and His family – they in unbelief decide they and theirs are under the fallen father’s administration!
“Christ alone is the eternal Savior, Christ alone births heavenly behavior. Men in sin are sadly bound in an identity in which God is not found; but repentant hearts from sin gladly departs, when Jesus alone from their sins atone, comes to live within in the heart of the man who knows his sin has been truly banned, and life in Christ now is his calling, no more the penalty of sinfully falling, away from God, but feet firmly planted on Heavenly sod, through the life of Jesus resurrected from the dead, with blessing after blessing just ahead.”
It was Thomas Carlyle, in “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches”, [Vol.5, Pt.10} who said: “Blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord.”
And, I tell you, valiant living in the Lord comes to be an eternal reality and forever testimony because one experiences “Kingdom Brokenness”! Stand before the Cross of Christ Jesus, watch and reflect upon the Truth He’s there for you, but you have no tears, you have no regrets over your state of sinfulness?
In Galatians 6:14 Paul wrote: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” The cross of Christ is your salvation, your redemption which means you were bought with the price of His shed blood, your sanctification which means through Christ you’ve been “set apart” to the glory of God, and filled to overflowing with God’s glory! You, in Christ, have been justified freely by God’s amazing grace! Bestowed grace is your assurance of blessed victory, and His bestowed grace is not in vain but the very work of God Almighty in you and through you forever and ever!
“Kingdom Brokenness”? Because the true Christian faith had its beginning with those around the Cross as they witnessed the Son of God willingly paying the price of their sin on that Cross as He suffered, bled, and died! Kingdom Brokenness? Because true Christians understand the Royal Savior willing to shed His own blood in their behalf, because they heard Him say, “I didn’t come to be served but to serve, and to give My life a ransom for many,” because they witnessed the King of kings washing feet, they witnessed the Eternal Emperor humble, broken, selfless, but living to honor God the Father with submission to His eternal will – the reconciliation of sinful man by the earthly humiliation of death on the Cross! Kingdom Brokenness? “Jesus wept!” Jesus obeyed the Father! Jesus perfectly was, is, forever will be the very image of Holy God willingly loving the world by His Son’s willingness to please and honor His Father, our God!
Kingdom Brokenness? It was John Wesley, in his writing, “Christian Perfection,” who said: “The holiest of men still need Christ as their Prophet, as “the light of the world.” For He does not give them light but from moment to moment; the instant He withdraws, all is darkness. They still need Christ as their King, for God does not give them a stock of holiness. But unless they receive a supply every moment, nothing but unholiness would remain. They still need Christ as their Priest, to make atonement for their holy things. Even perfect holiness is acceptable to God only through Jesus Christ.” And I pray that brings YOU to Kingdom Brokenness!
Have you been broken by Christ Jesus, “the suffering servant”? Does “Emmanuel”, “God with us,” bleeding and dying on the Cross just for you, bring tons of tears in your inner man? Is “Christ crucified” to you, like the Jews, a stumblingblock, and the Greeks foolishness, or do you see the King of Glory humbling Himself, shedding His blood on that cruel Cross, that YOU might be reconciled to God?
Paul said to the church at Colossae, Colossians 3:3-6, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, IN WHICH YOU YOURSELVES ONCE WALKED WHEN YOU LIVED IN THEM,” but NO MORE! Jesus lives IN the redeemed, His Resurrection Life indwelling us in His fullness, and, beyond our understanding, we’re crowned with His glory, His honor, and His praise, with a new heart of eternal thanksgiving! Amen?
CHAPTER TEN
“KINGDOM APPEARANCE OR KINGDOM AUTHENTICITY?”
Have you ever heard someone say, “Well, that may be the way it appears to you but is not necessarily the way things really are;” or maybe, “Appearances are so deceiving;” and in the religious world is it possible that family, friends, or foes can profess allegiance to God Himself, yet know nothing of “Kingdom Authenticity”?
That’s really what I want us to examine in this chapter, and especially because of the broken heart of Paul for the Israelite nation after he had met the Master on the road to Damascus. In Romans 10:1-3 we read of a passionate man concerned about his own people who were the ‘religious folks’ who denied Christ’s authenticity and rallied together to crucify Him! It says:
“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”
Are you aware of the reality of a world of people and world religions created ‘by people’ who certainly have not submitted to God’s righteousness, but are seeking, on their own, to establish their own righteousness, which is on their terms, totally void of God’s eternal desire of reconciliation?
This is why we hear from Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:20-21, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” And “becoming” is not by human determination but Divine intervention and provision, which is: “Christ in you the hope of glory”!
The unveiling in God’s Holy Word is not Jesus Himself making His life available for human, fleshly, earthly sinfulness, but coming to take our sinful natures in Himself and on the Cross, dying, and as Chambers said, “God made His own Son to be sin that He might make the sinner a saint,” with Jesus revealing in His bodily flesh on the Cross the great and awesome and never-ending love for God for those of us who know we’re sinners and want to be forgiven and reconciled to God Himself through Christ’s shedding of His own blood on the Cross! There, He bought us at a great and awesome price!
And, “Kingdom Appearance” IS NOT “Kingdom Authenticity”! To the church at Corinth, 1 Corinthians 14:20, Paul really challenges us all in spiritual maturity, when he wrote: “Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature.” What did our Lord and Savior challenge us with in Matthew 5:48? “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”
Without a doubt, “Kingdom Appearance” is as immature as a “professing believer” can ever achieve! Most “imitators” of the Living Christ are captives of their own natural inclinations, and without true understanding of “crucified with Christ”, they really have no supreme loyalty to the Resurrected, Reigning Christ, but are devoted to their “appearances”!
A “kingdom appearance devotee” Jesus challenged in Matthew 7:21-23 when He said: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
It’s so interesting and so convicting when one reads Isaiah 46:9, and he realizes: ‘It’s true – there is no other; only one true God, and none like Him,” though there are even those who want to assume God’s place!
It was Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her “Poetical Works” of sometime between 1826-1849, who wrote: “The Image of God”! It says:
“Thou! Are you like to God? (I asked this question of the glorious sun) You high unwearied one, Whose course in heat, and light, and life is run?
Eagles may view your face – clouds can assuage Your fiery wrath – the sage can mete your stature – you shall fade with age, You are not like to God.
You! Are you like to God? (I asked this question of the bounteous earth) Oh you, who give birth To forms of beauty and to sounds of mirth?
In all your glory works the worm decay – Your golden harvests stay For seed and toil – your power shall pass away. You are not like to God.
You! Are you like to God? (I asked this question of my deathless soul) Oh you, whose musings roll Above the thunder, over creation’s whole?
You are not. Sin, and shame, and agony Within your deepness lie; They utter forth their voice in you, and cry ‘You are not like to God.’
Then are YOU like to God; You who did bear the sin, and shame, and woe – O YOU, whose sweat did flow – Whose tears did gush – whose brow was dead and low!
No grief is like Your grief; no heart can prove Love like unto Your love; And none, save only You, – below, above, – O God, is like to God!”
Just how to the point was Jesus when He confronted ‘pretenders’? In Matthew 25:41-46 the Lord Jesus spoke to those “kingdom-appearance-pretenders”: “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’…
Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You? Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Are you aware of how clearly our Lord and Savior spoke when in Luke 16:24-25 He said to His disciples then, and us now: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let Him deny Himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
Do you understand how easy it is for a person to live independently of God, denying Christ, and upholding “my right to rule myself”? Individuality is the calling of the devil and his defeated armies! Individuality is the “mask-wearing” of fallen men who really desire to counterfeit God like criminals try to counterfeit hundred dollar bills!
“Kingdom Appearance”? Paul made this observation under the anointing of the Holy Spirit when in Romans 9:1-8 he reveals the clear distinction between physical Israel and spiritual Israel: “I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises;…
Of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen. But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’ That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.”
Are you clearly understanding that there are those “professors of faith” who are intensely committed to their ‘religious way’ that are faithful in their ‘phoniness’? That’s those who have no legitimate understanding of Christ who IS “the way, the truth, and the life,” and they are just as devoted to their ‘deathly ways’ as Jesus was to the Cross, which is “The way of the Cross that Leads home to God!” Didn’t Paul say that they had a zeal for God but not according to knowledge? They were zealously wrong!”
What did the Lord Jesus say in John 16:1-3? “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them.”
Are YOU aware of a defiant spirit that resists eternal truth even in our day by religious leaders worldwide who, to keep devotion to their religion, would be just as brutal today as were the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who cried out, “Crucify Him!”
Are you familiar at all with Charles Haddon Spurgeon who preached in England for a long, long time, and was so faithful to Biblical Truth? He said, “It is easier to get a sinner out of his sin than a self-righteous man out of his self-righteousness.” [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.17, p.165]. Did Paul say in our beginning passage of scripture in this chapter, “for they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God”?
God’s righteousness hates sin, but man’s self-determined righteousness embraces and defends sin. God’s righteousness hates sexual indulgences while fallen men and ‘professing believers’ support and excuse it. God’s righteousness IS the fruit of the vine of the Spirit while self-made men choose fig leaf coverings for their state of sinfulness.
Do you understand or comprehend man’s religious foolishness so deeply entrenched in his mind and heart that he denies Christ Jesus and the Cross and goes about fantasizing his own imagined, unrestrained mental image of his position before God, never realizing his self-condemnation in rebellion to “the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world”? Hear me! Your eternal salvation has nothing to do with what you choose to do, but is solely determined by what Jesus did because of who He is!
What did John say when he first saw Jesus coming toward him? John 1:29, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
“Kingdom Authenticity”! Kingdom Reality! Kingdom Blessing! Kingdom Eternal! Kingdom Miracles! Kingdom Provisions! Kingdom Empowerment! Kingdom Presence! “Christ in YOU the hope of glory!”
Do you truly understand “freedom in Christ”? Romans 8:1-2 declares to us, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh [that’s one’s old sin nature, the First Adam debacle!], but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” “Kingdom Authenticity?” “Freedom in Christ”? “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Did Paul say: “now no condemnation”? What did John record as to Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John 3:16-18? “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in [trusts, relies upon, adheres to] Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
We’ve seen together “Kingdom Appearance” through “pretense” through “performance” or ‘play-acting’ on life’s religious stage or ‘self-determination’ or ‘fleshly grit’, but “Kingdom Authenticity” is “graced,” or “position” in the finished work of Christ at the Cross and the reality of His Resurrection Life in us because we understand “dying with Him on the Cross” and through repentance and faith we stand in Him forgiven, indwelt, and resided and reigning over us as our Savior, our King, our Master, and our Lord!
This is why the Holy Spirit inspired Paul’s words in Romans 5:17-21! “For if by the one man’s offense [Adam] death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ…. Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life….
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
“Kingdom Authenticity”? Grace reigns! Kingdom Authenticity? Grace reigns through righteousness! Kingdom Authenticity? It is through righteousness To, yes, the gift of eternal life in and through Christ Jesus! Kingdom Authenticity? I pray you receive and begin to praise with me because of what you’re going to read in Romans 6:5-7! “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.” Glory! “Free from sin, free from its penalty, free from its destructive power, free from sin’s destiny, free from its dominion and rule over your daily life, free from its author whose name is Satan, and because of His Living Presence in us through His Spirit we understand we are “mystically-married” to Heaven’s Groom, and we share, not a building destroyed in Jerusalem, but a life indwelt by our Lord and Savior with Him telling us we ARE His holy temple!
“Kingdom Authenticity?” We’ve been clothed in His robe of righteousness! We’re His true worshippers because we worship Him in spirit and in truth! We’re His bold and shining lights because He lives within us and His glory radiates through us! We’re His ‘poured-out drink offerings’! We’re His “Spirit-anointed, Spirit-empowered, Spirit-filled sons and daughters! We’re His royal ambassadors and Kingdom messengers! We’re the Family of God, sons and daughters of the Most High God! We’re His vine through which He births Heaven’s Fruit! Yes, we’re Kingdom citizens under the King’s authority and His anointing!
“Kingdom Authenticity?” New Birth, New Life, New Nature, New Heart, New Identity, New Beginning, New Destiny, New Aim, New Calling, New Purpose, New Aspirations, New Way, New Ruler –
But you have no reason to lay your old life down and worship the King? Franz Joseph Hayden and Robert Grant, in the late 1700’s to early 1800’s, wrote the hymn entitled “O Worship the King.” Hear it with your heart!
“O worship the King, all glorious above, And gratefully sing His power and His love; Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days, Pavilioned in splendor, and girded with praise.
O tell of His might, O sing of His grace, Whose robe is the light, Whose canopy space; His chariots of wrath the deep thunder-clouds form, And dark is His paths on the wings of the storm.
Your bountiful care what tongue can recite? It breathes in the air, it shines in the light, It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, And sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, In You do we trust, nor find You to fail; Your mercies how tender, how firm to the end! Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer and Friend.” Amen?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“KINGDOM FOREWARNINGS AND NEGLECT OR KINGDOM SUBMISSION?”
Hebrews 12:3-11 is a powerful word of warning that true sons of Faith will receive while unbelievers will personally reject. It says: “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:…
‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’…
If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons…
Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
It is a reality: some who began the journey turned and walked away! In John 6:66-69 we read, From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
David said in Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” But what if my ‘delight’ or ‘delights’ is fleshly desires of the old sin-nature? Is that what God was saying? I don’t think so!
I want you to come with me to 1 Samuel 2 and follow the word in Verses 26-32! And the child Samuel grew in stature, and in favor with the Lord and with men. Then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Did I not clearly reveal Myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharoah’s house? Did I not choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer upon My altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod before Me?…
And did I not give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?…
Therefore the Lord God of Israel says: “I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.’ But now the Lord says: ‘Far be it from Me; for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed….
Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, so that there will not be an old man in your house. And you will see an enemy in My dwelling place, despite all the good which God does for Israel. And there shall not be an old man in your house forever.”
Do you understand “kicking at God’s sacrifice and God’s offering which He commanded in His dwelling place”, but you siphoned it for yourself? Do you understand how ‘earthlings” can become so enamored in themselves and “pump” flesh rather than crucifying it daily as Paul instructs us? Are you aware of how a lot of men give more honor to their fleshly sons than they do to Holy God? And are you aware of those who “despise God” and you recognize that fact because they only lightly esteem Him, if any esteem at all!
“Kingdom Forewarnings and Neglect”? Didn’t David, in Psalm 2, talk about the ‘ungodly’ , even giving warnings? Verses 4-6 tells us, “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”
Willful rebellion before Holy God always has weighty results, wounded spirits, warped walks, and eternally weary results! Ungodly souls, disbelieving hearts and minds, ‘paid’ workers of iniquity, deceitful tongues, ‘walled in wickedness’, shameless participants in world-wide disobedience to God and His Holy Word, enemies of Truth, ‘weak’ towers of resistance to His will and His Way, dry lands of indifference to caring compassionate God, stubborn and rebellious generations, defiling nations of eternal truths, stubborn hearts and minds to divine will, haters of God who truly pretend obedience, personal and national depravities, covenants with the demonic, secret sins, captivity and human hopelessness apart from God – should I just list more of our fallen humanity’s desperation? I don’t think so!
BUT!!…In Exodus 20:5-6 Holy God speaks, “For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but “showing mercy” to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
“Kingdom Forewarnings and Neglect”? Jeremiah was an exposing prophet of those who turned away from God. In Jeremiah 2:11 he wrote: “Has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods? But My people have changed their Glory for what does not profit.” In Verse 4 God spoke also to the house of Jacob and all the families of the house of Israel, “What injustice have your fathers found in Me, that they have gone far from Me, have followed idols, and have become idolaters?”
It’s such dangerous and unsure ground one walks on when personally he has no consideration of a convicted conscience from Holy God. Not only is that dangerous and unsure ground, but when one voids the voice of conscience from God, he/she opens the door to perilous events with eternal consequences!
Paul the Apostle was even warning believers in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 when he said, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?” And if you didn’t know, carnality is fulfilling the lusts of one’s crucified, poisonous, self-blessing ‘old man’!
Oh, and then, in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, the Apostle alerts us all and gives a warning: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” “Defiles the temple of God? Which temple you are? And God will destroy the defiler of His temple?”
Do you remember Jesus weeping over the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants? It is divine sorrow over the reliance of pretense, the reality of a strange god that Oswald Chambers called “the pride of Pharisaism” – and Jesus calling them “whited sepulchers”! Often, Jesus also mentioned their pharisaism as darkness, deception, and delight in their ‘religious superiority’ over other peoples!
Also, to the church at Corinth, in 1 Corinthians15:33-34, Paul wrote: “Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits.’ Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.”
“Kingdom Forewarnings and Neglect”? The early disciples of Jesus were worried about “greatness” in the Kingdom of God, and they came to Jesus asking Him, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” In Matthew 18:2-4 Jesus responded, after calling a little child to Himself, and set the child right in the midst of the disciples, and then said, “Assuredly,I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
No doubt this is why many adults “grow up” and have no desire to be a “kingdom-child”! A child? Birthed by another. A child? Raised, disciplined, trained, corrected by another. A child? For a good long time has to have diapers changed because it still makes messes. It’s a process of continual growing, but sadly, some never do – just the same in the spiritual world!
But beyond “Kingdom Forewarnings and Neglect”, are YOU aware of “Kingdom Submission”? I may have mentioned the Verse I’m going to share earlier, but it is so vital to understanding how one comes to walk in submission to the King of kings and Lord of lords; it’s found in Luke 6:46, Jesus asking, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?”
Are YOU aware that the evidence of true discipleship is submission and obedience to His Will, His Word, and His Way? And are you aware of birth, babyhood, children of faith, yes, teen-agers of faith, young adult, maturing adult, senior adult with lives, minds, hearts tuned to the Voice of the Master?
It is so evident in the Word that our understanding of the Holy Spirit’s ministry in our lives is of eternal importance. In 1 Corinthians 2:9-14 Paul said, But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit…
For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him. Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God…
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
Do you remember the Samaritan woman in John 4 that Jesus met at the well? In Verses 23-24 Jesus told her, “..the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.” Natural man has never truly worshipped God in spirit and truth, even though they may have been “religious”! And because they are ‘natural’ and not “Spirit-birthed”, they are blinded to “new birth” and, sadly, have no sense of the need to be born again without the Holy Spirit’s divine intervention in their lives!
But the Holy Spirit comes to convict our world, and individual lives in particular, of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come, unveiling God’s remedy for man in the sacrificial death and powerful resurrection of Christ Jesus! The Holy Spirit is Heaven’s, God’s, the Son’s divine intervention, of grace and mercy, personally convicting one of sins he knows and the state of sinfulness he has not understood until the Holy Spirit unveiled one’s sin-nature, his enormous sin list, and even surfaces his desperate need of the Savior!
Oh, and then, from conviction, apart from conversion, the Holy Spirit enters our lives to insure “Kingdom Submission” and kingly honoring of the Son of God in your new vessel of Holy Presence!
Follow the words of Oswald Chambers in his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.255]: “The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man’s respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, Who produces these agonies, begins the formation of God in the life. The new life will manifest itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way about. The bedrock of Christianity [and JFF says true Christianity!] is repentance. Strictly speaking, a man cannot repent when he chooses; repentance is a gift of God.”
Conviction and conversion leads a repentant heart and life in experiencing also “the forgiveness of God in the forgiveness of his sins”! Didn’t Jesus tell us in John 16:8 “And when He [the Holy Spirit] has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment…”! And how many have you encountered whose only consideration is, “I’m not going to Hell someday,” without the blessing of reconciled to Holy God, becoming, by His grace and mercy, the bodily extension of His life in us and through us! Praise God for His forgiveness right now and for choosing you to be a life in which He expresses His love, grace, and mercy!
“Kingdom Submission”? In 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 there is another amazing revelation! It says: “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For God made Christ Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
There are two things I want to amplify out of these two verses. First, what Jesus did on the Cross, became ‘sin for us,’ and second, having reconciled us to God, He did so ‘that we might become the righteousness of God in Him!’ A new relationship is formed by Christ Jesus: as Oswald Chambers taught, “It is not Christ “for” me unless I am determined to have Christ formed “in” me.” So true!
And when Paul said, “Now then…,” there is God’s ultimate intention as He viewed a lost and dying world, and through redeemed sons and daughters, He longed to raise us up as His “ambassadors,” His representatives, His witnesses of amazing love and grace! In Christ, new-born disciples and followers becoming the seed-scatter-ers in the soil of men’s needy hearts and lives, yes, the need of “you must be born again”.
How did Peter so motivate and challenge his new followers of Christ? In 2 Peter 1:2-4 he wrote “to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ”:
“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power ‘has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,’ through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
“The corruption that is in the world through lust”? Are you truly aware of that, and has God revealed to you His strategy to touch your world with grace and mercy through you? In Alfred Lord Tennyson’s writing entitled “The Sisters,” [l.223], he wrote: “My God, I would not live Save that I think this gross, hard-seeming world Is our misshaping vision of the Powers behind the world, that make our griefs our gains.” And when in the midst of one’s “grief” for the world he “gains” vision for its redemption, his life is totally changed because he/she becomes one with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in touching the world with grace, mercy, and love, in and through the Blessed Name of the Lord Jesus Christ who IS its Savior and Lord!
And, yet, like Shakespeare wrote, how many are you confronted with daily who “sells eternity to get a toy”? [“The Rape of Lucrece, l. 144]. Are you a part of a world in desperate need of God’s salvation? Are you a part of God’s extension of His Life that He through you might touch your needy world with His divine grace?
I love Nathaniel Hawthorne’s comment decades ago: “Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. – Standing without, you can see no glory, nor can imagine any, but standing within every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors.”
Would you, right now, every moment of every day, “put on the new man”, that those around you become witnesses of one who is totally committed to “Kingdom Submission” to the glory of God? An anonymous writer wrote the hymn, “Lord, I Believe”. It says:
“When sorrows and storms are besetting my track, And Satan is whispering ‘You’d better turn back,’ How oft I have proved it, tho’ dark be the way, A little believing drives clouds all away.
How easy when sailing the sea in a calm, To trust in the strength of Jehovah’s great arm; But somehow I find when the waves swamp the boat, It takes some believing to keep thins afloat.
And others there are full of courage and zeal, Who go to the battle like warriors of steel; But right in the heat of the conflict with sin, Instead of believing they faint and give in.
Then let us remember in running this race, That faith is not feeling, and trust is not trace; And when all around us seems dark as the night, We’ll keep on believing, and win in the fight.” Are you a warrior in the fight of faith?
CHAPTER TWELVE
“KINGDOM DOMAIN OR KINGDOM DOMINION?”
In Matthew 19:23-24 Jesus spoke challenging, convicting, revealing words about the ‘destiny’ of “domain-rulers” who have no understanding of “Kingdom Dominion”! He said, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” WOW!
In the Random House Collegiate Dictionary “domain” is defined as “the territory governed by a single ruler or government; realm…a field of action, knowledge, influence, etc.” And, of course, one man can determine ‘his domain’ and rule fairly or unfairly, worthy or unworthy, right or wrong, selfishly or unselfishly. If God Himself is out of the equation by a man’s self-determination that ‘he’ is god unto himself and all around him, you see and sense a realm of selfishness that heightens both sin and darkness, you realize what a serious circumstance and consequence has been created. But, “Kingdom Dominion” is totally opposite, without any heavy-handedness or brutality, and is superintended by “divine love, mercy, and grace”, highlighted by the awareness of the servant spirit and servant heart!
I don’t believe that you’d quarrel with me that if a man, in and of himself, vows that he is ‘sinless’ and has no need of the Savior, has become and now is a man whose inner spiritual volcano is about to erupt in a huge demonstration of sin and death for a person’s physical view of Hell’s domination within him! In Jeremiah 2:13 God spoke: “For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
Later, in Jeremiah 17:9-10,13, the truth of ‘fallen men’ is spoken about from God Himself: “The heart [of man] is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. Verse 13, “..
Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.”
Out of compassion for unbelieving mankind, “the fallen away,” or those who attempt to turn deaf ears and blind eyes to Holy God, Jesus spoke in John 3: 18-20 saying, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
Condemned already, and because one loves darkness rather than light, loves devilish activities more than heavenly delights, loves fleshly ‘trash’ more than the spiritually divine truths and treasures of God, he ignores the Cross and Empty Tomb of Jesus, denies the Ruling Throne of God, and goes on his ‘self-indulging’ journey of human degradation! One’s resolution of ‘self-indulgence’ is not a humorous, laughing matter that Hollywood so easily and sinfully portrays – ‘self-indulgence’ is totally reckless with serious, sick, and deadly results!
As Jesus confronted His sin-sick society several thousand years ago, He said in Matthew 16:24, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” “Deny myself? Why, God made me!” Oh, God created humankind, but humans chose death over life, sin over God’s honor, and self-willfulness over the Divine will of God!
As a result, Oswald Chambers gives us great insight to denying yourself and yielding your life to Christ: [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.257], “Individuality is the husk of the personal life. Individuality is all elbows, it separates and isolates. It is the characteristic of the child and rightly so; but if we mistake individuality for the personal life, we will remain isolated. The shell of individuality is God’s created natural covering for the protection of the personal life; but individuality must go in order that the personal life may come out and be brought into fellowship with God. Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself; individuality debases human nature for itself.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote “The Soul’s Expression” in the time period of 1826-1844. She said: “With stammering lips and insufficient sound, I strive and struggle to deliver right That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling, interwound: And only answering all the senses round With octaves of a mystic depth and height,
Which step out grandly to the infinite From the dark edges of the sensual ground! This song of soul I struggle to outbear Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
And utter all myself into the air: But if I did it, – as the thunder-roll Breaks its own cloud, – my flesh would perish there Before that dread apocalypse of soul.”
How have your wrestling matches been lately between “soul” and “Spirit”? Everything ‘inter-wound’ or “Heavenly bound”? “Dark edges of sensual ground” or “the Bright Light of Christ’s Holy Presence”? “Perishing ‘flesh’ or “Perfecting Holy Spirit?”
Oh, I’m aware of those who are the vilest of sinners who are so far gone into the darkest and deepest ‘man-hole’ covers of depravity that you wonder if they’ll ever be pulled out, but among those great concerns are the ‘respectable’, ruined with the nature of sin and can’t even fathom their separation from Holy God! There are others that one who belongs to Christ are burdened heavily for because they look upon that sinful soul, and yet in common good surpass a lot of professing believers in their good deeds – which they and a lot of so-called believers think that should be enough to satisfy holy God, when ‘good deeds’ have nothing to do with uniting men to God or even the lack of them separating them from God!
Do you recall the young man who said to Jesus, “All these things, why, they’ve been a part of my whole life since I was a teen-ager!” That may keep one from enslavement to certain fleshly activities, but it doesn’t reconcile himself to God by what he does! One, doing – and, “been done”, are two totally different things! There is a vast difference between convenient avoidance of certain fleshly patterns and the conviction of Godly provision for reconciliation by the blood of Christ!
Do you remember the rich young ruler in Mark 10? He had asked Jesus in Verse 17, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?’’ His view of salvation or redemption was on what he did! Our Lord quoted the Ten Commandments with the young ruler telling Jesus he’d kept them all! Then Jesus responded in Mark 10:21, “One thing you lack; go your way, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and [then] come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”
The young man was ‘moral’ but a slave to what he viewed as ‘heavenly living’ – so he was a young man who bowed down to the bondage of his riches! And Mark 10: 22 says, “But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” And did he become “shipwrecked” in his life by the false, fleshly men and demons who laughed at him because of his sorrow for ‘self’ loving wealth more than loving God and His perfect will for his life?
You do understand that because Jesus loves us He will expose our hypocrisy or self-righteous masks or religious ‘mask-wearing’, and He knows and understands why ‘sinners’ do what they do as a way of life for them. Do you remember the chief priests, the captain of the temple, and the elders coming out against Jesus to arrest Him? In Luke 22:52-53 Jesus said, “Have you come out, as against a robber, with swords and clubs? When I was with you daily in the temple, you did not try to seize Me. BUT THIS IS YOUR HOUR, AND THE POWER OF DARKNESS.” Are you aware of who and what we just read in opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ? Their claim to fame? They resist Jesus, they arrest Jesus, they brutalize Jesus, and believe it was “to honor God” through their upholding of false devotion, false interpretation of His prophetic Word, false claims of their devotion to God! After arresting Jesus they took Him to the high priest’s house!
Jesus said to His enemies, “this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” Tell me about ‘your hour’ and the hour of demonic release through you to oppose the Lord Jesus Christ!
There is a word of powerful testimony from Paul the Apostle when he walked under the law of God, not under His grace. It explains so clearly how, yes, religious leaders can believe they are honoring God when all they were doing was twisting the law to excuse their sinfulness. Paul wrote in Romans 7:7-25 the following: “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good…
Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me…
I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! “
I often wonder if unbelievers ever consider the radical life of sin as the result of the sin nature within them that “calls the shots” in their lives – or, they just don’t know that “sin is death”! Are they aware of the vastness of the devil’s influence over them, and, do they really know what the violation of rebellion to God is on their lives and the vast limitlessness sin carries them to? Are they really aware of how debased and how depraved and how darkened their inner man is really capable of?
What did Jesus say, again, to His enemies? “This is your hour, and the power of darkness”! So you agree with Jesus’ enemies? “It’s my hour, and I’ll do as I please, even if the power of darkness overwhelms me – it’s my life!” That’s “Kingdom Domain” over and in a man’s life and heart under demonic, devilish, worldly, and fleshly rule!
But “Kingdom Dominion” is the Holy Presence of the Resurrected Christ and Reigning God and the Powerful Holy Spirit indwelling, overseeing, washing a man’s mind and heart in the Blood of the Lamb, and directing His steps in spiritual development by the Eternal Word of God! For instance, to the church at Colossae, Paul wrote the following in Colossians 2:8-10, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”
Further, in Colossians 2:13-15, Paul added in such a Truth-full and Eternal Word the following: “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, HAVING FORGIVEN YOU ALL TRESPASSES, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them in it.”
In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; in Christ God declares you a “completed work”; in Christ, though we experienced spiritual death because of our sin, we were raised up from spiritual death, being seated with Him in the heavenly places; through Christ’s shed blood all of our sins were forgiven; and by His shed blood on the Cross, by His death and Resurrection, Jesus disarmed the devil and his strong army of principalities and powers, making us, in Him, “more than conquerors”!
We know that Jesus told us about the coming of the Holy Spirit in John 16:13-14 when He said: “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.”
Thank God for the “coming of the Holy Spirit”! Thank God for His conviction and convincing of ‘our sin’ against Holy God! Thank God that the Holy Spirit unveils for our understanding the price paid for the forgiveness of sin through Jesus’ shed blood on the Cross! Thank God the Holy Spirit unveils our new identity in Christ as He “sanctifies” us or “sets us apart” for the glory and honor of our Savior and Lord! Thank God the Holy Spirit unveils for us divine truth that sets us apart to the purpose of, “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God!”
And, beyond forgiveness through Christ, beyond the awesome ministry of God’s provision of His mighty Holy Spirit in you, thank God that “Kingdom Dominion” is God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son, cooperating together in even the provision of earthly, pastoral leadership of those like Paul who said in Galatians 4:19, “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you…”!
Receive Oswald Chambers’ words from his famous writing, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.268], “Have I allowed my personal human life to become a “Bethlehem” for the Son of God? I cannot enter into the realm of the Kingdom of God unless I am born from above by a birth totally unlike natural birth. “You must be born again.” This is not a command, it is a foundation fact. The characteristic of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that Christ is formed in me. Immediately Christ is formed in me, His nature begins to work through me.”
“Kingdom Dominion”? Romans 3:24 clearly tells us, “being justified freely by His grace [God’s grace!] through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…”, and then follows in Romans 5:1-2, telling us, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
I pray you have a deep, deep awareness of the very eternal nature of “Kingdom Dominion” in that it is a clear expression of God’s abiding, accessible, and atoning love of Almighty God for YOU individually as if YOU were the only human being to ever live, and living in your sin, but God’s Kingdom Dominion is His surrounding love, sacrificial love, to draw you back to Him!
Follow Romans 5:8-11! “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be [being] saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life.” Glory! Glory Hallelujah!
Yes, kingdom dominion is amazing grace; kingdom dominion is Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice; kingdom dominion is the covering, washing, and cleansing of the very blood of the Lamb of God; kingdom dominion is the free gift of God of eternal life in and through Jesus only, understanding the free gift is reconciliation to God and the “much more” of having been reconciled, NOW AND FOREVER I AM BEING SAVED BY HIS INDWELLING PRESENCE IN ME!
“Kingdom Dominion”? 2 Corinthians 5:21 instructs us, inspires us, encourages us, and gives us freely the eternal hope: “For He (God) made Him (Christ Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
The reality has been that we “were outcasts on earth, sinners by choice, and aliens by birth”, but in and through the blood of Christ Jesus only, in Him we’ve “been adopted, our names written down, and now ‘heirs’ to His mansion, a robe and a crown!”
I don’t even remember who wrote it, but the words are so challenging informative, and instructing: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?” And I believe with all my heart that “Kingdom Dominion” IS: “Heaven comes down, and Glory fills our souls”! Amen?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“KINGDOM EXITING OR KINGDOM ENTRANCE?”
How would you personally view “Kingdom Exiting” if you were confronted by Christ Himself when He has asked and still asks, “Will you also go away?” The one thing you must clearly understand as I begin this chapter is that kingdom of God exposure is not “Kingdom Entrance”!
Jesus Himself said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” For some it’s not even a consideration – they have no desire, don’t want any desire, and certainly they are determined that the kingdom of God is not for them; others will certainly seek, even evaluating or searching out whether or not they want to enter God’s kingdom; and, there are ‘true seekers’ who are passionate in their search, and when they understand it, they’ll fully surrender their allegiance to the King and His kingdom!
There is an interesting scripture that reveals the Lord Jesus Christ as, yes, the discerner of the thoughts and intents of men’s hearts. It’s John 3:23-25. “Now when He [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many ‘believed’ in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”
And the Lord Jesus Christ knows the difference between ‘cultural Christianity’, world religions, and “Christ-given re-birth”! And ‘natural man, natural religions’, birthed out of natural men’s minds, “do not receive the things of the Spirit of God.” That’s 1 Corinthians 2:14!
But then what did Paul write in 1 Corinthians 3:18-23? “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness’; and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.’ Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours [or at least potentially can be]: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come – all are yours. And YOU are Christ’s, and Christ is God.”
Do you truly understand that “Kingdom Exiting” comes because of kingdom of God appearances and personal arrogance, not out of “Kingdom Entrance”! To explain, ‘spiritual arrogance’ is a disease that points to deathly ways in many “professing believers” who believe they are God’s greatest gifts to “that fallen world out there,” never realizing they haven’t even entered the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior.
In 1 Corinthians 4:8-13 Paul is dealing with spiritual arrogance in a church! He said: “You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us – and indeed I COULD WISH THAT YOU DID REIGN, that we also might reign with you! For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men…
We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.”
Oh, but now? “Kingdom Exiting” begins to flow when the “Christians” (?) “Hall of Fame” must be enlarged!” Really? And Paul told the church at Corinth that he was sending Timothy who would “remind you of my ways in Christ,” even of his ways of warning those who needed to be warned!
But even if a ‘believer’ lives apart from spiritual warfare what does that tell you? “There’s nothing to overcome because I’m a ‘winner’?” If so, then why, in Revelation 2 & 3 did John have to write “To him who overcomes”? And that was over and over and over – with the ‘angel’ saying in Revelation 3:19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”
Warfare of the soul is both natural and spiritual – and your Enemy is not unarmed!
Didn’t Jeremiah say in Jeremiah 50:22, “A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction”? Consider spiritual warfare, consider the devil in multiple disguises, consider your old flesh nature – do these raise their ugly heads in opposition to one who wants to honor God? I’ll guarantee you, battles and destruction are ever in Satan’s mind and plans for you and me! He wants “Kingdom Exiting” for us, not “Kingdom Entrance” and self-abandonment to the glory of Christ!
Are you aware of how “the powers of darkness” feed the brain and heart the passions for sin, for the ‘pleasures’ of the world, for diabolical sins of self-interest only, without the “old man” in you even alerted to those sins of self-aggrandizements in greater dimensions and, yes, a greater degree of rebellion to Holy God and His Word?
I’m not sure how many will read what I’m about to share and have any ‘inkling’ at all about ‘men’ whose lives are given over to their fleshly pleasures and sins, but I’ll share it anyway – maybe someone will see the darkness of their own soul and repent! Revelation 16:10-11 says, “Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores, and did not repent of their deeds.”
Is there out before you a “world” of deep rebellion to Holy God? Are there multitudinous lives ‘out there’ unrenewed, unregenerate, and because of unbelief refuse to look to the Savior and Lord and allow Him to transform their devilish image into the very likeness of Christ? It’s sad, so very, very sad, when people refuse to open the doors of their minds and hearts to the True Lover of their sin-sick souls and be healed and delivered and transformed from a son of the devil into a Son of God!
Moses was called of God to be an instrument in God’s hand of seeking to turn God’s ‘chosen people’, Israel, back to Him. In Deuteronomy 32:28-29, Moses sang: “For they are a nation void of counsel, nor is there any understanding in them. Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!”
Spurgeon used this Verse of Scripture to preach on “Remember Death”, and I’m sure it was not simply physical death but spiritual death that was his major concern. After he had preached on the Deuteronomy passage, and hearing the awesome response to it, he said: “Its solemn warnings have been, in the hand of God, the means of alarming and convincing many careless ones; it has had the high honor of bringing poor procrastinating souls to decision.” And it is decision time right now in all our hearts: Will God has His way in our minds and hearts or will we “exit” the kingdom of God before us?
And did Moses sing out, “Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this…”!?! Understood what? Their latter, eternal destiny with God or without Him! The one thing I want to assure you of in this very moment is: God didn’t create you to die and go to Hell under the Devil’s domination! But “the wages of sin is death” and is a death that will not die, if you choose “Kingdom Exiting”! Death is a strong wind of fierce power that never ceases coming against the ‘kingdom-exit-er’; yes, spiritual death, because of no surrender to the Lordship of Christ and His saving grace and mercy, is never-ending death that refuses to die; but one thing that remains, I believe, and that is the forsaken memory of opportunity that the unbeliever never exercised in repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ at the Cross; in that memory of opportunity he refused!
Understand? I tell you, I understand ‘blessed memories’; I understand true family riches of faith with my wife, my three sons and a daughter, and now three sons’ wives, nine grandchildren, five grandkids now married and two great grandkids and more on the way!
I understand the eternal richness of the spiritual family of God over my lifetime, childhood blessed memories growing up through the church, schools, work, the call to preach, university and seminary training, pastorates of superb blessings, 25 years of ministry overseas, whether South America, Asian posts of outreach, or Africa – eternal memories of being a part of equipping and training and encouraging His people in touching their worlds with His grace!
But there are those, I know, who shut the very windows of their needy souls, stuffed their ears with the determination not to hear, rejected their gracious Redeemer, and entered the door of tragic unbelief, the door of spiritual poverty and bankruptcy forever and ever, and slammed the door in Jesus’ face, entering the habitation of godlessness, everlasting spiritual poverty, eternal shame and constant woes!
Unbelievers, enemies of the Cross and Christ Jesus their ‘suffering Servant’ they refused to receive, foreign armies of Satan himself, corruptness without measure, infidelity even to one’s own self, family, and lost friends, no comfort for the spiritually crippled, no healing for the sin-sickness disease, no comforting for the sorrowing and grief-stricken, no “home” but Hell, and all around, the unbeliever can’t even find a degree of peace with his “tattooed” cell-mates! I don’t remember who I heard say it, but I haven’t forgotten it: “There are no atheists in foxholes!”
But, I hear wise-men saying everywhere I go, “I know that My Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.” Glory!
Oh, out of the depths of my heart, and through the strong living and abiding Word of God, I want you to know that there is “Kingdom Entrance”! In John 14:1-6 Jesus said to His young disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you…
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Did Jesus say, I AM, I AM THE WAY, I AM THE TRUTH, AND, I AM THE LIFE? That’s the very Life of God, the Eternal Life of God in human flesh, the Promised Messiah, Emmanuel: “God With Us”! For a purpose! Jesus was accused of blasphemy by the religious leaders in Judaism because He declared “I and My Father are one,” “I am the Son of God,” “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
“Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” The King of kings and Lord of lords – and He washes the feet of His disciples! The king of kings and Lord of lords came to reveal the very heart of God, who is love, and desires to be the Servant of mankind! And His coming purpose besides revealing the true nature and character of Holy God?
In Ephesians 1:7-12 Paul gives us Heavenly insight: “In Him (in Christ Jesus) we HAVE REDEMPTION THROUGH HIS BLOOD, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him….
In Him also WE HAVE OBTAINED AN INHERITANCE, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ SHOULD BE TO THE PRAISE OF HIS GLORY!”
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, forgiven of sins by His shed blood, made rich in the Father’s grace, understanding of the mystery of His will, gathered as One in Christ, obtained an inheritance, purpose-filled TO BE TO THE PRAISE OF GOD’S GLORY!!
And yet, Jude 4 tells us of “ungodly men, who turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Are YOU an affirmer of the grace of God in Christ or one who denies Him?
Though we were dead, spiritually dead, in our trespasses and sins, because of true repentance and faith in our Lord’s “finished work” At The Cross, “were baptized into His death,” Paul tells us in Romans 6:4-11,
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that JUST AS Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should “walk in newness of life.” For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, KNOWING THIS, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin…
For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we should also live with Him, knowing that Christ died, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him…
For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. LIKEWISE, YOU ALSO, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in [and through] Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The Eternal Cross of Christ and His Empty Tomb, the Voice and drawing power of the Holy Spirit, the Never-Dying Word of God, and the Preaching and Witnessing of that Eternal Word, reveals to us all, personally, that Jesus’ shed blood redeems us, we’re “called by His grace and mercy,” made alive by Resurrection Power, set apart for His glory, honor, and praise alone, declared “righteous,” sealed in the Lamb’s Book of Life – AND WE STAND VICTORIOUS ON EVERY PROMISE OF THE WORD OF GOD!
In this book I’m presently writing, and others already published in India, you’ll find I’m deeply impacted by Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s writings! In his seventh volume of “Spurgeon’s Sermons,” [p.69], Spurgeon wrote: “I think God to be gracious, when I see others saved. I know he is, because he has saved me – that wayward, willful boy, who scoffed a mother’s love, and would not be melted by all her prayers; who only wished to know a sin, in order to perpetrate it. Is he standing here to preach the gospel of the grace of God to you today? Yes. Then there is no sinner out of hell that has sinned too much for grace to save. That love which can reach to me, can reach to you. Now I know the riches of God’s grace, because I hope I prove it, and feel it in my own inmost heart, my dear hearer, and may you know it too, and then you will join with our poet, who says – “Then loudest of the crowd I’ll sing, While heaven’s resounding mansions ring With shouts of sovereign grace.”
Reconciliation with Holy God? Is it by a man’s performance or His “position” in Christ? Is it by one who is selfishly ‘gritted’ or by God’s selfless grace? Is it by “all star status” or a sinner humbled by God’s grace, mercy, and love?
Receive the powerful, convicting, releasing Word of God in Romans 5:17-18! “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more THOSE WHO RECEIVE ABUNDANCE OF GRACE AND OF THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL REIGN IN LIFE through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act “the free gift” came to all men, resulting in justification of life.” Justification? That’s God’s acceptance of me the sinner “just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned”!
Do you understand and receive the reality of God’s revelation of our being clothed in Christ when without Him we were ‘spiritually naked’ before Holy God? In 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 Paul alerts and informs and inspires us about God’s gracious clothing of the new men in Christ! He said, “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.”
Guaranteed in Christ, through His blood, I’ve been forgiven. Guaranteed in Christ, through His victory at the Cross, I’ve been released from the bondage of spiritual guilt, forgiven, and becoming the very residence of His Holy Presence. Guaranteed in Christ of an earthly assignment as His ambassador. Guaranteed in Christ of the richness of His gift in me of Holy Spirit abiding and anointing. Guaranteed in Christ of “more than conqueror status.”
In Christ, we’re not those who’ve determined for themselves “reformation” by self-effort – we’re regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit! In Christ we’re not “attempters” of best efforts to find approval from God – we’re “accepted in the Beloved” –through Christ alone!
Have you never heard that “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”? Are you aware of the gift of “peace that passes all understanding”? Do you receive the “open door to God’s Holy Presence”? Consider with me, the “sting of death has been removed”! Yes, and consider that “in Christ” Heaven’s door remains ever open for those in faith and rest in Jesus Only!
“Kingdom Entrance”! Yes, All Glory To God Alone! I receive His gift through Christ and plead no fleshly hope or self-determination, but my Lord’s faithful work at the Cross in my behalf! Glory to Jesus, my Lord and Savior, the Master over my life, and the King enthroned on the heart of my life!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“KINGDOM TEMPORARINESS OR KINGDOM ETERNALNESS?”
Don’t you find it interesting when you come toward the end of Christ’s earthly ministry that in Matthew 24:4-5 He said to His disciples, “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many”?
And then, in Verses 11- 13 He said, “Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end will be saved.”
We’ve already seen where there were some disciples who decided to no more follow Jesus, with Jesus asking the Twelve, “Will you also go away?” It’s sadly evident that many start a walk with the Lord Jesus, but they end up distressed, disappointed, disillusioned, and they ‘detour’ and fall away because they didn’t know or understand about “failing” or “falling” or “faltering”, then getting up – or they stop short of the eternal goal-line rather than persevering and pressing in! They just didn’t know or understand about “counting the cost,” or failing to see a cross in the walk before the manifestation of resurrection power!
In Revelation 2:10-11 we read “the angel” telling the church in Smyrna, and us, “Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”
I’m not really sure how many ‘church-folk’ really understand “faithful until death” or even “fighting the good fight of faith”! And there is even a “call” to overcome? You’ve heard it: “That sounds like salvation by works to me,” without even considering, having been saved opens the door of extreme opposition from both the devil and his demon-forces plus the opposition that can be even ‘deadly’ in its intent from unbelievers who oppose anything or anyone who trusts in the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ!
And sometimes “Kingdom Temporariness” is because inexperienced “climbers” climb ‘high pinnacles’ and experience at times ‘fast falls.’ Others who profess and begin the journey have no awareness of the “slippery slopes” or the “muddy ditches” that they sometimes find themselves going through. And are you aware that there are those who swear allegiance, carrying their flags of devotion, but when the spiritual battles are raging, they’re looking for a place to hide as they take down their flags? Then, do you dare consider that some have birthed within them a rotting devotion and passion similar to a spiritual cancer, and they don’t know the “cure” or the skill of the Great Physician!
But in 1 Corinthians 15:55-58 Paul wrote: “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
But how about ineptness rather than steadfastness, pliability rather than immovable, or abounding in compromise, disobedience, easily tempted and more adept at obeying the powers of darkness than King Jesus Himself! If Jesus says, and He did, “By their fruits you shall know them,” if it’s one producing constant fruit of the flesh rather than the fruit of the Spirit, what is your conclusion?
Is it possible that in the spiritual realm, related to genuineness of faith or the lack of it, that absence of the “fruit of the Spirit” is overcome by the fruit of the flesh or one’s old sin nature still vibrantly alive and impacting one’s walk in the spirit realm? As I’ve said before, I’ll say again, many walk with ‘open profession’ but “open possession” is absent! If the Lord Jesus is made unto us “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, what conclusion would you draw if a “professing man” says one thing and does another? “I’m a Christian, I’m a disciple of Christ, I belong to God,” but he’s unwise, unrighteous, unholy, and in bondage to his sin, and what would you conclude?
Do you realize that many speak of a sacrificial lifestyle to honor Jesus yet never find an altar of sacrifice or service to place themselves on? Do you ever sense a very vocal individual, loud about his ‘profession of faith in Christ,’ easily patting himself on his own back about his spiritual wisdom, and, you wonder: “Is this genuine or an imitation? Is he truly born again or a very vocal unregenerate man filled with religious pride concerning himself? Are you ever brought to wonder about even a small group of isolated folks who appear at least religious but you’re unsure if they are of the “True Faith in Christ Alone” or are unmitigated hypocrites? Did Jesus say, “By their fruits you shall know them”? Is the Holy Spirit being honored in them as they yield to the Holy Spirit to glorify Christ through them, or are they out to make a ‘name’ for themselves?
Should I dare ask if “pretense” is highly active in some you know with no genuine “fruit of the Spirit” hanging from the trees of their lives? Is it religiously possible that some church attenders are motivated by “common religious sense” and know nothing of the Indwelling Christ or anointing of the Holy Spirit? Are you aware that it is pretty typical for religious folks to experience a religious spasm every now and then? [That’s Spurgeon again!].
In Hebrews 10:38-39 the Spirit of God tells us, “Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” Oh, and then Peter, in 2 Peter 2:20-22, informs us of the latter end of false teachers: “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: ‘A dog returns to his own vomit,’ and, ‘a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.’” Those, my friends, are strong, powerful, convicting words, that often are explained away, at least for themselves, by the “brain and heart” spiritually dead!
Later, in 2 Peter 3:16-18, Peter wrote about Paul saying, “…as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, BEWARE lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; [could that be, “you can sin and not die?”], but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.”
It is a huge, strong, alerting word from Paul when in Galatians 5:7 he said, “You ran well.. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?” Did Paul challenge the Corinthian believers? In 1 Corinthians 10:12 he wrote, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
We have enemies of the faith whose aim is blinding and blocking as many as they can from entering the kingdom of God! John spoke about the world, the flesh, and the devil, intent on blocking, ridiculing, intimidating, blinding, any man, woman, youth or child from trying to enter God’s eternal kingdom. There are “enemies of the Cross of Christ” who promote total disinterest in any consideration of His shed blood on Calvary’s Cross! They will even say, “Why should I even give a thought about ‘my sin’ on His Cross? I like ‘my sin’, and I believe I’ll just keep my waywardness, disobedience, and unbelief. I’m a ‘happy’ man!”
But it is not just outspoken ‘enemies of the faith’, not just vocal opponents to any ‘religious activity,’ there are those who’ve never heard Gospel Truth of God’s great love for them, proven at Calvary – and when they hear, many are absolutely broken, because for the first time ever, they learn: “It was MY sin that crucified Christ Jesus,” and they humble themselves, crying out to God for His mercy, grace, and love poured out on them!
I will never forget being in India in the 1980’s for what I had scheduled as a ‘pastors’ gathering for an “In The Word” conference. I was shocked by the numbers of pastors, their wives, but many, many more who came without a church or pastor relationship at all. I basically was preaching and teaching initially on the “Crucified Life of Christ,” and an explosion of brokenness, repentance, and tears, overflowed that meeting hall as many, many men and women fell prostrate on the hall floor without any encouragement from me! They wanted to be “washed in the Blood of the Lamb”!
There was nothing about “Kingdom Temporariness” that occurred that day, but “Kingdom Eternalness” erupted! In Matthew 25:46 Jesus spoke of the “imitators”, saying of them, “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Our Lord and Savior said in John 5:28-29, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth – those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” Every man has the choice: the resurrection of life or the resurrection of condemnation. Every man chooses: the harsh reality of the spirit of darkness or “the light of life” in and through Christ Jesus only.
Jesus knew the hour was coming when, especially the religious crowd of His day, would crucify Him, bury Him, but He knew He would be Resurrected because of Father-God! In John 8:19-26 we read, Then they said to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come…
Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will He kill Himself, because He says, ‘Where I go you cannot come’? And He said to them,…
“You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for is you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” Then they said to Him, “Who are you?” And Jesus said to them,…
“Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him.” Are YOU listening to His Words?
“Kingdom Eternalness”! Do you remember Jesus being taken before Pilate’s court? In John 18:33-38 we read, Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered him, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?”…
Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”…
Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are you a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”
Did you know that Holy God, author of His eternal Word, said in Isaiah 44:18, speaking of idolatrous Israel, “They do not know nor understand; For He has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.”
But “opened hearts and minds” to “Kingdom Eternalness”? Spiritual ‘lies’ are powerful and extremely destructive, plus they alienate one from Holy God, but “Truth” IS CHRIST JESUS! Do you just dwell on ‘the wages of sin is death,’ or “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”?
Jesus was praying to Father-God in John 17, and in verses 1- 3, Jesus prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And THIS IS ETERNAL LIFE, THAT THEY MAY KNOW YOU, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Truth – Eternal Life! Because that’s WHO the Triune God IS!! And that’s who you are in Christ Jesus because in You dwells Christ, Eternal Life, and your “hope of glory”!
Even “death” has no power and authority over Him or over the Christ in you! Didn’t Paul tell us, “Death no longer has dominion over Him” who, Yes, is the conqueror over death – and He lives in you?
“Kingdom Eternalness”? In Romans 6:5-11 we read: “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, [DO YOU?], that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who died has been freed from sin… Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. LIKEWISE you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Do you see “Co-Sharers” in our Lord’s Life within us by repentance and faith and full surrender and yieldedness to His Lordship and Holy Presence? It’s not His ‘philosophy’ we supposedly are to be interested in, but His abiding presence, His fullness of the Godhead bodily, His Everlasting Being and Blessings of His sharing of His Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope, every minute of every day forever and ever!
In Colossians 2:6-7 & 9-10 we read, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving…
Verses 9-10, For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”
“Kingdom Eternalness”? My best effort? My self-determination? My copying of my own interpretation of what He is up to in my life? My idea of spiritual allegiance to God and man? Am I guided by man’s interpretation of the best of humanity or guided by Jesus’ declaration of man’s holiness through Him? Do I profess freedom to be me as I see myself or have I taken Christ’s yoke of yieldingness to learn only of His ways? And if I’m truly His, when trouble comes, do I cast my burdens on the Lord, or just simply deny, “What troubles? Do you not know how spiritual I am?”
“Kingdom Eternalness?” There’s a verse of Scripture in 1 John 3:9 that really calls us to personal evaluation of where or in whom we stand. It says: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” Oh, really? I hear over and over from many “church-folk”, “Christians do not stop sinning until they get to Heaven someday!” And I wonder, “Lord, where have we come to as Your people? Is it true we can’t do anything but sin until we die and go to Heaven?” But I hear Him say, “Go on in sin, die, and go to Hell, because you never knew what I did for you at the Cross!” “Sin no more!”
But in “Kingdom Eternalness” is there a forsaking when we sin or does our Lord care enough about us in sin that He will discipline us? Come to Hebrews 12:3-11! This is where the writer really challenges us about our sin as a believer!
“For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:…
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”…
If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons…
Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?…
For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Amazing truths of, yes, discipline from the Lord God because He truly loves us, desiring of us to be “in subjection to the Father of spirits” and live victoriously, rather than a sin-drenched, soul-destroying, pattern of life that disgraces the very name of our Lord and Savior!
We’ll not ‘despise’ His chastening, we’ll not be discouraged when He rebukes us – no, we understand the True Father’s care of us! – and we know, when Godly discipline has been exercised, we realize the depth of His great love for us! Respecting an earthly father’s discipline is a strong step in receiving from God His corrective measures! And daily? We subject ourselves to the Father of spirits to know “the blessed life”!
Shallow walks of “faith” give only a small wave of reality in the spiritual realm. But when the passion of one’s life is to glorify God in their earthly walks, if discipline is needed, “Bring it on!!” In 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 Paul wrote: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”
I tell you, Oswald Chambers hit a “grand-slam” homerun when he wrote: “True earnestness is found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that is born of an undisciplined human nature.” [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.186].
“Kingdom Eternalness”? If I am baptized into Christ, and I understand, baptized into His death on the Cross, and I sense, “buried with Him,” is it really true, eternally true, that “raised from the dead with Him also,” my body becomes His Holy, earthly dwelling place, and my very being becomes the New Tabernacle of His Holy Presence? IF YOU BELIEVE THE WORD! IF YOU STAND IN HIS REVELATION! In 2 Corinthians 6:16 the Word declares: “YOU ARE THE TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD!” Amen? Then live out the eternalness of His Kingdom Rule!
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“KINGDOM TREASON OR KINGDOM PREVAILING TRUST?”
There are interesting Verses I want to begin this chapter with, and they’re found in 1 Corinthians 1: 18-25 when Paul wrote: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ [Prudent? Maybe cautious? Maybe leery about that in which they have no understanding?]
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”
And from these verses do you discern the reality of, yes, the foolishness of men’s minds, alienated and separated from Holy God? And so many say, “Here we are in this world God has made, believing we’d need Him – but as “bright” as we are, and so illumined in worldly wisdom, who needs God?”
But it is not only ‘unbelievers’ who have no prevailing Kingdom trust – there are those who’ve been His representatives who rebel and fall into the darkness of the reality of treasonous ways! In Ezekial 17 we learn about King Zedekiah and his disloyalty and irresponsibility toward God. In Ezekial 17:19-20 we read, Therefore thus says the Lord God: “As I live, surely My oath which He despised, and My covenant which he broke, I will recompense on his own head. I will spread My net over him, and he shall be taken in My snare. I will bring him to Babylon and try him there FOR THE TREASON which He committed against Me.”
God Almighty said later through Ezekial, Ezekial 20:38, “I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”
Oh, but aren’t you glad because the Lord of the New Testament is nothing like the God of the Old Testament, Right? But I wonder why it was that Paul the Apostle so challenged the “Ephesus” believers through his Epistle? Follow carefully what Paul wrote to the Ephesians and us:
Ephesians 4:14-15, “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ -…
Ephesians 4:17-20, “This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have [willfully] given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But YOU have no so learned Christ,” unless YOU never really KNEW HIM!
Ephesians 4:26-31, “Be angry, and do not sin”: [If you never considered anger, you need to discover anger against your ‘old man,’ your old sin nature, your tendency to sin rather than yield to the Holy Spirit – Yes, go to war against that in you that shames and defames the Lord Jesus through your selfish spirit!]. “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil..
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers…
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.”
Ephesians 5:3-7, “But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, [is that fully absorbed in worldly chatter of defiance against God’s Holy Revelation?], nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For THIS YOU KNOW [Do YOU know?], that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.”
And all that you’ve just read in these chapters in Ephesians concerns “pretenders” who are so “treasonous” against the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Bride and Body called the church? I remind you of what Paul wrote in Romans 14:17 when he said: “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Are you aware of those who profess allegiance to Christ Jesus but are brainless in the Word, immoral in their walks, and motivated by the demonic world interested in only satisfying “the flesh” or one’s old sin nature at the same time they profess loyalty to Christ?
If you are unaware of opposition to Divine Truth, it may be because, though not a part of His Holy Family Of Faith, you’ve been a silenced voice by choice of those who do radically oppose Him, His Son, His Spirit, His Word, and His Redeemed Body – “Let me alone, that’s not my concern nor my business!” Unbelieving men often choose isolation, unconcern, with no voice at all for the eternal concerns of God or man.
Consider the reality of “darkness” though every day, mostly, you see the sun rise. But what some fail to consider is the reality of “spiritual darkness” or the eternal reality of the ever-present “Light of the world”! In John 3:19-21 Jesus said to Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men [fallen men, away from God!] loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For EVERYONE PRACTICING EVIL HATES THE LIGHT and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
I pray that you sense, side with, and are sacrificed on God’s altar because you understand “coming to the light” and you have no desire for living any longer loving darkness, practicing evil, or hating the Light, but you come in repentance toward God and faith in Christ alone, so that the world around you will see and take notice of a life re-born to and in the True Light – Jesus Himself!
You saw in the very first paragraph of this chapter, 1 Corinthians 1:18, Paul telling us, “For the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Isn’t that so very obvious when men, nations, governments, schools, universities, and a general unredeemed public will oppose any mention of Eternal God, the Loving Savior and Lord, or His Eternal Word called Truth?
But I choose to stand with the Resurrected King of kings and Lord of lords; I choose to stand with Paul the Apostle; I choose to stand with “Faith-full” men of every nation who honor Christ; I choose to stand with the churches of saving grace, divine life, and supernatural presence and power, saying, even if it were to cost me my life: “Jesus IS Lord and Savior to the glory of God Almighty”!
Again, in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, Paul tells us: “For YOU SEE YOUR CALLING, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many might, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”
How agreeable or resentful are you to “God’s calling”? To me, it is awe-inspiring! “Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble, but ‘foolish things,’ ‘weak things,’ ‘base things,’ ‘the things despised by fleshly men,’ ‘the things which are not,’ because God has no desire for ‘fallen flesh’ glorying in His presence!
But, in these ‘modern-days’ of man’s determination that he wants to be a leader of God’s people, are you aware that many are “elitists” who desire to lord over God’s people? Thank God though that “servants arise,” “foot-washers” step up, men willing to die for the Truth step to the plate!
There are those set aside for the “Kingdom Prevailing Trust”! And there is King Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith! And the “city” that we’ve become a part of through Him has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.” And the question of this very moment? “Who or what is YOUR Light?” And in what kingdom have you rested your life in? I pray not the kingdom of fleshly treason but the “KINGDOM OF PREVAILING TRUST!”
FIRST, PLEASE EXAMINE WITH ME IN THE “KINGDOM OF PREVAILING TRUST” THE SAVING TRUST IN THE BLOOD ATONEMENT THAT WASHES OUR SIN AWAY!
And I pray you understand that your old sin nature was crucified with Christ on the Cross, and that you’ve been freed from your captivity, chains, and fleshly prison bars of sin, and given a new nature, yes, the very nature, character, and resurrected presence of Christ in you, the very hope of God’s glory!
It was prior to His crucifixion, and Matthew 26:26-29 tells us, “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW COVENANT, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
The Father’s Kingdom was in place, but the Son’s blood had not yet been shed, but after the shedding of His blood at Calvary, there would be a gathered time when His family would celebrate, worship, and bow down before the Lamb of God, understanding the “blood atonement washed their sins and ours away into the very sea of God’s forgetfulness!
In 1 Corinthians 5:7 Paul wrote: “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” In 1 Corinthians 10:16 Paul told the church then and the church now, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?”
There are several things I want to highlight for you as we look at our saving trust in the blood atonement that our sins are washed away!
- Through the blood of Christ Jesus we receive “Forgiveness”: Ephesians 1:7 is Heaven’s Truth! “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His Grace!”
- Through the blood of Christ Jesus we have a new standing! Romans 5:9 says, “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be [being] saved from wrath through Him…” This was prophesied in the Old Testament where in Exodus 12:13 we read: “Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I {God] see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.”
- Through the blood of Christ we have our access to the very throne of God! Ephesians 2:13 says, “But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ,” which is why we learn in Hebrews 10:19, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
- Through the blood of Christ we have victory over the powers of darkness! In Revelation 12:11 we read, “And they overcame him (the accuser of the brethren, yes, the devil and his demons) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”
- Through the blood of Christ we have eternal peace! And that can be, often is, in the very midst of wars, trials, battles, troubles, beyond measure! In Colossians 1:19-20 we read, “For it pleased the Father that in Him [in Christ Jesus] all the fullness of God should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, HAVING MADE PEACE THROUGH THE BLOOD OF HIS CROSS.” Glory!
- Through the blood of Christ we have God’s everlasting promise! In Hebrews 13:20-21 we’re told, “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
SECOND, IN “THE KINGDOM OF PREVAILING TRUST” LET’S EXAMINE THE CONQUERING TRUST IN HIS POWER AND PROMISES TO PREVAIL FOR US!
I do not know about you, but I am awed every time I look into, examine, and feed on Romans 8:31-39! “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? …
Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us…
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’…
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
THIRD, IN “THE KINGDOM OF PREVAILING TRUST” LET’S LOOK AT THE WISE TRUST IN THE SHADOW OF HIS ALMIGHTY WINGS TO PROTECT US! Have you ever considered why Jesus taught His disciples to pray “deliver us from evil,” if there is no evil surrounding you, or if there is, you’re capable of fighting your own wars, battles, temptations, or even inter-personal disagreements? I’m firmly convinced our Lord loved us more than we can fully comprehend and He understood, yes, we did, do, and forever will need His standing strong in the very shadows of our lives with the widespread wing-span of His Almighty wings to protect us!
It’s clear that we face three powerful enemies as a child of God: the world, the flesh, and the devil. The world IS “sick” with infectious sin diseases, the ‘flesh’ is overcome by godlessness, and Satan, though there is nothing Almighty about him, is cunning, cruel, crafty, cursed, and knows how to corner individuals, assuring them they have no way of escape from him, they might as well give up!
Have you searched out for yourself, found, evaluated the Word about God’s “able-ness” to surround us, protect us, fight our battles, come against our enemies in our behalf, and exercise the “blood-bought victory” of the Cross of Christ Jesus? Do you understand that a true believer’s extremity of weakness becomes Heaven’s opportunity to clearly reveal God’s ability to take care of His own? If the Lord Jesus were to ask you, “Do you believe I am able to take care of you?”, what would be your answer?
In Philippians 3:20-21 Paul encourages us with holy words of divine ability: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to THE WORKING BY WHICH HE IS ABLE EVEN TO SUBDUE ALL THINGS TO HIMSELF.” [And there’s not a “Glory” in your vocabulary?]
FOURTH, IN “THE KINGDOM OF PREVAILING TRUST”, LOOK AT THE LOVING TRUST IN THE BEAUTY OF HIS HEART THAT CONTINUALLY EMBRACES US IN THE ARMS OF HIS LOVE, WORLD WITHOUT END. Remember, “God so loved the world…”, but that doesn’t compute with you?
Dare I tell you, that what Jesus Christ did on the Cross over 2000 years ago, if He re-made the world and did it just for you, if He birthed the freedom of choice about allegiance of you to Him, and you fell away from Him, remember, you are the only one to ever live and “fall away”, but what He did for the whole world, He’d do it again just for you!
In John 15:13 Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for His friends.” Jesus laid down His life for you and for me on Mt. Calvary as they nailed Him on the Cross!
It’s no different than what took place in Mark 1:40-42! Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him, and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.”
I’d call that “Desperation”, but be assured, leprosy, sin-nature sickness, self-righteousness, poverty-stricken whether monetarily, emotionally, mentally, imprisoned fleshly in demonic slavery, submerging in a sea of depravity, iniquity, false dreams and aspirations that have no hope of ever being a reality, sad, forlorn, indifference to the things of God, in love with the ways of the world, bound by the wages of iniquity, ungodly lusts, loathsome alliances, idolaters, backbiters, even friends with the enemies of God, yet, when it comes to you and Jesus, you’d be happy if he met your need, at least for a time, but with the agreement that you could continue in your chosen lifestyle!
The Lord Jesus has no desire for you to remain in that fallen state, even if He meets your physical, emotional, mental need at the moment! Spurgeon said, “A life in which we have shunned the cross of Christ will lead to a state in which we shall miss the crown of glory.” [Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol.19,p.41, Memorial Library]. That’s not the Lord’s intent, but He said in Matthew 10:38-39, “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life [for himself!] will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”
I don’t know who wrote the following poem, but it came from Spurgeon, [ Spurgeon’s Sermons, Memorial Library, Vol.8,p.217]. It says: “I heard the voice of Jesus say, Come unto Me and rest; Lay down, you weary one – lay down Your head upon my breast…
I came to Jesus as I was, Weary, and worn, and sad; I found Him in a resting-place, And he has made me glad!…
I heard the voice of Jesus say, Behold, I freely give The living water – thirsty one, Stoop down and drink, and live!…
I came to Jesus, and I drank Of that life-giving stream; My thirst was quenched, my soul revived, And now I live in Him…
I heard the voice of Jesus say, I Am this dark world’s light; Look unto Me – your morn shall rise, And all your days be bright!…
I looked to Jesus, and I found in Him my star, my sun; And in that light I’ll walk, Till traveling days are done.”
Didn’t the Lord Jesus Christ come into the world “to save sinners”? I was one, but praise God, I’ve been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, reconciled to Holy God, filled with His Holy Spirit, commissioned to touch our world with the blessing, freedom, and eternal purpose of the “blood-bought” sharing the faith with those who need “Amazing Grace” through Jesus only!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“KINGDOM MEANINGLESSNESS OR KINGDOM MINISTRY?”
“So? Who cares about God’s eternal kingdom? I’m busy building my own kingdom!” “Godly sorrow over my sin? That not only sounds rare to me – it’s ridiculous!” “Going after Christ? Following Him? Denying myself? I am who I am, and I like ME! No feelings of God’s necessary presence in my life at all!” “Jesus may be King of kings of your earthly kingdom, but I choose to be the ruler of my own kingdom!”
Reading Oswald Chambers recently, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.263], I was stirred by what he wrote: “If a man cannot get through to God it is because there is a secret thing he does not intend to give up – ‘I will admit I have done wrong, but I no more intend to give up that thing than fly’.” And he then commented about how impossible it is to deal sympathetically with a case like that.
All through human history most men are, yes, astounded as to the very awesomeness of a “Thus says the Lord,” or to go back to review Genesis, and are humbled by Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” I’m convinced, because many men want to be ‘god unto themselves’, that most unbelievers want to ignore, not only His Word, but even His works in the natural realm, because if they did consider them, they’d have to say, Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.”
It was Spurgeon who said, [“Spurgeon’s Sermons,” Memorial Library, Vol.8,p.55], “His word, which created, shall also destroy; but until that word be spoken every atom of this world is imperishable.”
That brings us all to a question: “Does Kingdom Meaninglessness in one’s life open the door to divine judgment?” And, of course, the answer is “Yes”! Psalm 19 told us not only of God’s Word that creates AND destroys; Psalm 19:9 says, “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
“Judgments of the Lord?” And understand, whether one accepts the Truth or not, all will stand before the Judgment Seat of God to give an account of his life, his walk, his explanation of acceptance of Christ or rejection of Him! In Revelation 20:11-15 we read:
“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books…
The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And ANYONE NOT FOUND WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIFE was cast into the lake of fire.”
When it comes to “Kingdom Meaninglessness”, I believe it’s of utmost importance of seeking out from the Word of God what it is that holds a man back from full surrender to the King of kings!
In 1 Thessalonians 4:5 there is a phrase or short sentence I want you to see because it, at least, lays a foundation of discovery of what captures one’s life, omitting God! It says, “like the Gentiles who do not know God..”. It was Paul, to the Galatians, who in Galatians 4:8, wrote: “But then, indeed, when you did not know God, you served those which by nature are not gods,” and of course he was confronting those who bowed before their stone idols!
To the church at Ephesus, in Ephesians 2:12, Paul reminded them , “that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, HAVING NO HOPE AND WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD.”
Do you remember Moses and Aaron, in Exodus 5:1 going in to the throne-room of Pharoah of Egypt, saying to him, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’” Pharoah responded, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice to let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go.” And, sadly, multitudes are just like Pharoah, “I don’t know who your Lord is, don’t want to know, and certainly I’ll not obey His voice for whatever reason – I’m my own man!”
And then, how straightforward is God saying of “pretender-Israel” in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.” Did we just read, “destroyed for a lack of knowledge?” Here’s the interesting thing that really should wake some folks up! In Isaiah 5:13, “Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.” And the result? Isiah 5:14 then says, God speaking, “Therefore Sheol has enlarged itself and opened its mouth beyond measure; their glory and their multitude and their pomp, and he who is jubilant, shall descend into it.”
“Kingdom Meaninglessness”? No knowledge – or what they had, they rejected. God’s law they’ve thrown into the sea of forgetfulness. Do you understand “futile thoughts”, “foolish hearts,” “darkened souls,” “lustful hearts,” “loving lies rather than the Truth of God”, “vile passions,” with Romans 1:28-32 unveiling for all the dangerous grounds which fleshly men choose to walk in:
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.”
If what you’ve just read is your personal ‘religion,’ your ‘faith,’ your ‘characteristics’, your outlook for enjoyable living, be assured, you are a devil-enslaved citizen of his kingdom of darkness! And Paul tells us, in Romans 2:2, “But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.”
Are you aware of Paul’s reminder of what the Ephesus citizens were living in before they came to Christ Jesus? In Ephesians 2:1-3, Paul said, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath.”
Do you remember Zacharias learning of the birth of John the Baptist? In Luke 1:17, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, to tell him of John’s ministry right before the birth of Jesus Christ. The angel said: Verse 17, “He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, AND THE DISOBEDIENT TO THE WISDOM OF THE JUST, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
“Kingdom Meaninglessness?” You just read about “the disobedient”, and you must understand that “disobedience” was introduced by one man, Adam, and Romans 5:19 instructs us, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”
Are you aware of the fleshly disease called “self-indulgence”? Can I tell you that the eternal spiritual victory over self, over sin, and over the devil, and his world dominion, will not come with an attitude, “Well, there’s a few things in me that ought to be reduced,” NO! The message of the death of kingdom meaninglessness in us is, “crucified with Christ!” That’s not simply your worst, but, yes, your best! Your best is far short of His Resurrection Presence in your life! It ALL was crucified with Christ, your old man and “your best man” dead and buried with Him, then raised to walk in “the newness of Jesus’ Life!” In Romans 6:16-18 we read about ‘slavery’ – and I’m not really sure how many today understand ‘spiritual slavery’ after our nation had physical slavery for a long time in its early days. But Paul said, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sins, you became slaves of righteousness.”
“Kingdom Meaninglessness OR Kingdom Ministry?” With all my heart I pray that you have heavenly insight to our Lord’s earthly mission in His Resurrection Presence in you and through you! For example, do YOU truly know the Father and what He is up to through Christ and what He desires for you and through YOU?
Jesus said to the Pharisees of His day in John 8:19, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” Are there ‘religious leaders’ today who have no understanding at all of His Kingdom-Mission? Are there ‘church-folk’ who, sadly, are spiritually blind to His eternal intent through them? Most are satisfied that Jesus forgives their sins without any desire to know why He prepares them for “Kingdom-Service”!
In Matthew 20:23-28, having dealt with who would sit on the right of His throne in Heaven, with them responding, “We are able,” Jesus responded, “but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those whom it is prepared by My Father.”…
And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them…
Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, BUT TO SERVE, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Do you remember, in John 13, Jesus washing the disciples’ feet? And Peter responded, “Lord, You shall never wash my feet!” And in Verse 8 Jesus said to Peter, and us, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Then in Verses 12-17 we read: So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, “a servant is not greater than his master”; nor is he who sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
“Lord?” “Teacher?” “Master?” But the “King of kings and Lord of lords” is a “foot-washer”? Our Creator, Redeemer, Savior, Teacher, Missionary, Master, Lord, King of our hearts, came to reveal Holy God, His Father, and both are “servants”? Look at the Cross as Jesus Christ, Emmanuel or “God With Us”, revealed His Kingdom is the kingdom of a servant, caring, “laying-down-your-life kind of people”? And you are shocked? Do you know, understand, comprehend, that Jesus calls us to Himself that we might be His sons, daughters of faith, who understand that “As He is so are we in this world,” and if He’s a servant, then is that our calling as His sons and daughters of faith? We’re not above our Teacher, Lord, and Master!
Oswald Chambers said, [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.197], “The disciple is not above his Master.” The same things will happen to us on our way to our Jerusalem. There will be the works of God manifested through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude and the rest will show gross ingratitude, but nothing must deflect us from going up to our Jerusalem. “There they crucified Him.” That is what happened when Our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that happening is the gateway to our salvation. The saints do not end in crucifixion: by the Lord’s grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword is – I, too, go up to Jerusalem.”
Has the “calling” of God come upon your life? To be born again is to know God called YOU to His Son through the Holy Spirit and godly witnesses or examples! And when it comes, and you know it, like Paul, 1 Corinthians 9:16, who said: “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, WOE IS ME IF I DO NOT PREACH THE GOSPEL!” It’s a very sad day when most of the ‘church-at-large’ looks upon “preaching” as a ministerial responsibility that has nothing to do with the ‘lay people’ of a church – and, when I hear that, I just want to “puke”! Preaching, teaching, sharing, telling, witnessing, proclaiming, exalting the Name of Christ Jesus IS “THE OVERFLOW OF HIS INDWELLING LIFE!”
Did you not know that the Holy Word of God speaks of born-again disciples of Christ Jesus being ‘broken bread’ and ‘poured out wine’? And yet, again sadly, too many ‘disciples’ totally frustrate the grace of God when it comes to touching the world around us with His mercy, grace, and love! The call of God comes: “You shall be My witnesses,” “Go, and teach the nations,” “Preach the Gospel,” Exalt in witnessing the Crucified, Buried, Resurrected, Ascended, Reigning, Savior and Lord! Tell the world!” And evangelism for most churches today is the sad, sick, lonely dog, hiding under the church flooring with an occasional ‘barking’!
But the Apostle Paul? In 1 Corinthians 9:22 he said, “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some,” and then said in the next verse, “Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be a partaker of it with you.” And when did “Go and teach all nations” become an option for any church or any true disciple of Christ Jesus?
“Kingdom Ministry”? Reconciliation with Holy God through Christ alone! Romans 5:10, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life.”
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb with the divine intent of Victorious, Reigning, Conquering, and Overcoming Living to the Glory of God! In Romans 5:17 Paul said, “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will REIGN in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
But hear me, the redeemed life living in continuous victory is not because of our devoted self-effort but because of our full dependence and trust in our Lord and Savior’s sacrificial death and resurrection and His abiding presence in us and through us! In 2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Paul gave us the true eternal dimension of a disciple’s life: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us…”
You do understand that far too many ‘professing Christians’ (?) have no awareness or understanding of “co-crucifixion” with Christ! “Me? Crucified, hung on the Cross, suffering, bleeding, dying there with Him, because my old man without Him had to be put to death?” Galatians 2:20 declares, Paul speaking, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God…”!
“Co-crucifixion” is God’s determination of you and me, without Him, declaring our self-independence without Him had to die! And yet there is a world of people around you who do not know or understand the depth of God’s love for them, and they continue living the independent life-style that already has the sentence of death on it. I remember someone teaching about “pious fraud” – and I’ve never forgotten those words! And that is what rebellion against Christ’s death on the Cross is all about!
This is why Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:20-21, “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For God made Christ Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” What an awesome word!
Do you remember the “shepherds” in Luke 2 “keeping watch over their flocks by night” when the angels came to announce to them and us, “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Verse 13-14 then says, And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, as we look around our world today, we’re so moved, deeply moved, that somehow the true Body of Christ has failed to understand its eternal mission to touch our world with His message of redemption and reconciliation and reaching out to touch more and more of our world with Heavenly Truth to earth coming down!
“Peace on earth, goodwill toward men?” And that doesn’t mean simply that we ought to better educate our societies or world surroundings – No, we’re commissioned by our Lord to be “ambassadors of Christ Jesus”, yes, royal ambassadors of the King of kings and Lord of lords! Dare I tell you that there is absolutely no advancement of ‘world peace’ apart from Christ Jesus? Dare I tell you that even though you probably believe Jesus Christ presently reigns with the Father in Heaven, I fear that you, me, Christendom world-wide, has no sense of world-redemption now through us? Do you think that just may be true?
“Kingdom Ministry” Now? “Kingdom Ministry” Now through every single disciple of Christ Jesus world-wide? “Kingdom Ministry” Now when every true “church,” “Body of Christ,” and the “born-again-men and women of God” celebrate, initiate, embrace, dedicate themselves as earthly representatives of His Majesty: “King Jesus”, Savior of the lost, rebellious, unbelieving world around us. And, WE ARE HIS WITNESSES!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“KINGDOM DENIED OR KINGDOM AFFIRMED?”
If I said to you that there are multitudes of people so willing to see their interpretations of a ‘kingdom’ established, but their idea of a kingdom’s establishment would be on the basis of ‘cheap tin’ but not of “costly gold”, would you understand a life, a family, a people, even a nation that tries to live with ‘cheap imitations’ of “fleshly, sinful, corrupt domination” but not the eternal blessing Of God’s Sovereign rule over them to the glory of His Kingdom Affirmation?
In Psalm 103:19 David said, “The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.” Oh, and then in Psalm 145:10-13, I call this “the inevitable heart-cry of the transformed or the redeemed” because certainly the unredeemed give God no credit at all for Who He Is and What He has done! Again, King David said, “All Your works shall praise You, O Lord, and Your saints shall bless You. They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom and talk of Your power, to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations.”
But you do understand that in spite of the eternal, divine revelation of Holy God, His Kingdom is denied by unbelieving, fallen, sinful, ‘smarter-than-God’ people! In Jeremiah 18:7-10 God spoke through the prophet, “The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. And the instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it does evil in My sight so that it does not obey My voice, then I will relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit it.”
And the interesting thing? “Kingdom Denied” brings on serious consequences and sad judgment individually, a family, or a nation! In Jeremiah 18:15-17 God declares that judgment! You understand, all nations, governments, families, individuals are accountable to Holy God! God said:
“Because My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense to worthless idols, and they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, from the ancient ways, from the ancient paths, to walk in pathways and not on a highway, To make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; everyone who passes by it will be astonished and shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face in the day of their calamity.”
But “Kingdom Denied” is not only because there are those who “have forgotten Me,” it is also because of “cold, dark, even serious manifestations of what they believe about God” which is a ‘brain-dead, diseased heart, strong self-centeredness” and no desire to even hear Gospel Truth because they are so perverted by a sin-centered, rebellious, determination to satisfy the sin-nature of a lost soul.
I’m sure this is why Horatius Bonar made two strong statements about those who are a part of “Kingdom Denied”: 1) “All unbelief is the belief of a lie,” and 2) “In all unbelief there are these two things: a good opinion of one’s self, and a bad opinion of God.”
In “The Cry of the Human,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: “There is no God,” the foolish say, But none, “There is no sorrow”; And nature often the cry of faith In bitter need will borrow…Eyes, which the preacher could not school, By wayside graves are raised; And lips say, “God be pitiful,” Who never said, “God be praised.”
I cannot comprehend or even begin to fathom how a man even begins down the path of unbelief except the deep-seeded condition of spiritual barrenness, void of even any desire to see if the God of Creation who started us all or seeded us all has any purpose or plan for his/her life! Narrowness of mind concerning eternal matters is the disease of superficial thinking with no desire to hear from God Himself! Tryon Edwards once said, “Agnostic” is but the Greek for “ignoramus”!
And that’s the disease of darkness, the disease of distrust, and the disease of destruction! Faithlessness is fatal! Unbelief is even, for some, a sick, inherited gene from a godless father or mother or both!
“Kingdom Denied” is because “workers of iniquity” are void of spiritual or Biblical knowledge, and they will not call on God because they sense they know more about themselves than the God who birthed humanity with eternal purpose – and they sure have no interest in what God desires in and through them! And I’ve witnessed in my 79 years of life that there are those, strong in unbelief, groaning as a prisoner suffering a life sentence as if there were prison bars surrounding them continually, but they refuse to turn to the God of Calvary’s Eternal love and grace and mercy!
“Kingdom Denied” also rules in many lives because “pride in self” is a demonic, selfish, indulgent worship of the “flesh” or fallen sin nature, alienated and separated from Holy God, and they love their darkened, maimed, sick self!
And because they are so in love with their self-indulgent flesh or old sin nature, and because the Word of God exposes what they are without Him, and because they have no desire for the unveiling of a blackened heart, they will ignore the preaching and teaching of the Word of God – and, in fact, many become vocal enemies of anything that has to do with Kingdom Truths!
“Kingdom Denied” is a “birthed” and “well-trained” scorner of divine truth that was “caged” in the prison of self-interest, made “personal lord” of his own ambition to rule ‘his kingdom’ (?) according to the dictates of his inner, enslaved human will, and, yes, even haunted at times by one’s awareness of the extent he’s fallen in his denial of the need of repentance toward God and faith in the finished work of Christ!
Are you at all aware of the depths of even depression that can swamp unbelievers at times, especially when they hear “Gospel Truth” and know in their hearts and minds that they willfully rejected God’s love and grace? It was A.G. Lawson who once said, “Usually he is most empty who is most full of himself.” Oh, how ill-intent and ill-intended is the man who has no need of “saving grace and mercy”!
I so want you to grasp “Kingdom Denial” because of what lies ahead for the one who rebels against Christ’s sacrifice for him. Sir Walter Scott, in his “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” [V1], wrote: “The wretch concentrated all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.” Oh, but the devil and the demons will celebrate – and they, through their madness, their maligned spirits, and their meanness and maliciousness will congratulate every unbeliever who joins their ‘eternal death-trap’ that never dies! And eternal punishment begins!
“Kingdom Denied” is that willful rejection of God’s love, mercy, and grace, but also it is the open door to the very wrath of God, which most unbelievers, and even some believers, would like to deny that it exists! Are you even aware that in John 3:36 that John, who had been exalting Christ Jesus, also said, “He who believes [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] in the Son has everlasting life; AND HE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE THE SON shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him”?
In Colossians 3:5-7 Paul wrote: “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.”
Do you understand that the fabric of most men’s lives without God is fashioned with “the sins of the flesh”? Sadly, even after conversion, some are pulled in and out, back and forth, and they struggle without choosing daily crucifixion of the “old man.” They were never truly discipled with Paul, “I die daily,” “I take the sentence of death daily that the resurrection life of the Lord Jesus may be manifested in my mortal flesh!” I’m convinced, right now, that, yes, ALL should trust the Word, even daily, “I am crucified with Christ; it is no longer who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God…” [Galatians 2:20-21a].
Which leads us to “Kingdom Affirmed”! This book is not about a “kingdom” of God out in the future someday, in the “sweet by and by”! I pray you understand that “Kingdom of God” establishment is with whoever allows Him to be Lord in and through their lives, wherever they live and breathe and bow before the King of their hearts and homes!
“God reigns”, but you believe that’s only a heavenly rule? In Mark 10:13-16 we read: Then they brought little children to Jesus, that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.”
If Jesus Himself says, as He did in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you,” then, first, is it only a hoped for, future event without “Kingdom blessings in the here and now?” You just tolerate life now with the hope that someday His kingdom will come! And I call that, “Phony bologna”!
Did Jesus say in John 3:3 “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God”? Spiritually blinded eyes never have, never will, see the Kingdom of God apart from “new birth”, and if that is true, and I believe that it is, where does that leave “futurists” concerning His Kingdom-Rule? In John 3:5-6 Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water [the water of the Word] and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
But “born of the Spirit” has qualified us to BE the very citizens of the Kingdom of God, and through us God Almighty is enlarging His Kingdom with “new born” citizens!
I’m sincerely afraid that many ‘believers’, sadly, misinterpret John 18:36 when Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” Does that mean if His kingdom is not from here, then it’s not here? I tell you: IT IS HERE BUT IT IS NOT A PART OF THIS FLESHLY, UNBELIEVING KINGDOM OF MEN AND THE DEVIL IN A FLESHLY WORLD DOMAIN!
They then asked Jesus, “Are You a king then?” And Jesus told them, John 18:37, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” And everyone hearing the Truth, believing the Truth, receiving the Truth, HAS ENTERED THE KINGDOM OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR!
Receive Oswald Chambers’ words in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.167], “Do I seek for signs of the Kingdom, or do I perceive God’s rule? The new birth gives a new power of vision whereby I begin to discern God’s rule. His rule was there all the time, but true to His nature; now that I have received His nature I can see His rule.” And if you didn’t know: That’s God’s Kingdom rule”!
‘Kingdom Affirmed”? That’s “Christ in you the hope of glory!” That’s divine purpose in your very body that was crucified with Christ, resurrected, invaded by Holy Presence through your repentance and faith and you offering your life as a living sacrifice to the glory of the Lord! Life purpose of God for me is my availability to all Jesus is and desires to be through me. The “faith” is not my choosing of what I want God to do in me, but God’s choice of me as Jesus’ earthly residence, and Him doing through me whatever He eternally desires to do to the glory of God!
If, as a believer in Christ Jesus, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then all old experiences of “human potential” goes out the door of your life, and in comes Jesus and the Holy Spirit to glorify Father-God through you by their divine and willful pleasure, not yours!
But, indwelt by the Resurrected Christ, and living in a world that doesn’t embrace His eternal Kingdom and eternal rule, as true believers in a world of fleshly darkness, guided by the Holy Word and the Holy Spirit, WE KNOW, WE DISCERN, WE CELEBRATE the heavenly rays of God’s Light and God’s Hope and God’s Faithfulness, even with spiritual wars and devilish opposition and sufferings, we know “God Is Able,” and He WILL through us touch our world with grace and mercy! In Christ, we are the Father’s to do with as He pleases, even our own cross and pain and troubles, because “Through It all” we’ve learned to trust Him!
Receive James H. Robinson’s words from his “Tomorrow Is Today”! He wrote: “It is among the profound convictions of a free society that the last word is never left with evil, that God never gets in a blind alley, and that even from the conspiracies of malevolence some good may be drawn, because importunity wins its consent even against the most reluctant.”
For some it’s not reluctance but folks overwhelmed by the insincerity of their own hearts and minds concerning spiritual matters and void of any desire or hunger, yes, for eternal truth! There can come a time when rebellion hardens hearts to the point they have no desire to hear from God! For others life failures have been so numerous that they have no conception that God “cares” and “loves” them and has a marvelous, eternal, blessed plan for their lives.
Yet many have no understanding of eternal destiny with or without God! There can be a countenance of soul-life dramatically radiant with Jesus’ Eternal Life and Light, transformed by His shed blood and the power of His Holy Spirit – but there can be a “dark cloud” that hovers over and in the soul of an unbeliever whose heart and life has determined “Kingdom Denial” – no desire for God’s Way so they travel the devil’s path!
William Ernest Henley wrote the following words: “Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishment the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”
Are you familiar with the words of Jesus in Matthew 16:26? “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” What’s YOUR answer?
“Kingdom Denial Or Kingdom Affirmed”? Felice de Giardini, in the 1700’s wrote the words to this great Hymn entitled “Come, Thou Almighty King.” It says:
“Come, Thou Almighty King, Help us Your name to sing, Help us to praise: Father, all glorious, O’er all victorious, Come, and reign over us, Ancient of Days.
Come, Thou Incarnate Word, Gird on Your mighty sword, Our prayer attend; Come, and Your people bless, And give Your word success; Spirit of holiness, On us descend.
Come, Holy Comforter, Your sacred witness bear In this glad hour; You who almighty art, Now rule in every heart, And never from us depart, Spirit of power.
To the great One in Three Eternal praises be Hence evermore. His sovereign majesty, May we in glory see, And to eternity Love and adore.”
YES! Praise God, YES! And myself and the readers of this book will celebrate forever the King of kings and Lord of lords! Yes, His “Kingdom Affirmed!!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“KINGDOM CELL-BARS OR KINGDOM FREEDOM?”
In 1Peter 5:6-11 Peter reveals the possibility of every believer and disciple of Christ experiencing “kingdom cell-bars” figuratively or literally! He said: “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you…
Be sober [“serious-minded”], be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing THAT THE SAME SUFFERINGS ARE EXPERIENCED BY YOUR BROTHERHOOD IN THE WORLD…
But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, AFTER YOU HAVE SUFFERED A WHILE, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
“Sufferings? Sufferings experienced by your brotherhood in the world?” Sad to say, but many “professing believers” rebuff any preaching, teaching, explaining scriptures that let us know, “A sold-out disciple of Christ will even be ‘imprisoned’ figuratively or literally by the judgments of unbelievers and, yes, enemies of the True Faith!”
Do you remember Stephen, in Acts 6:8, “full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people”? And the result? Verse 12 says, “And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council.” They even set up false witnesses against Stephen. In Acts 7, with Saul of Tarsus who became Paul the Apostle consenting to Stephen’s stoning, Verses 57-60 tell us of the “stoning,” Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.” He DIED for his faith in Christ Jesus!
Saul of Tarsus had not yet become Paul the Apostle, and Acts 8:3 tells us, “As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.”
Oh, and then in Acts 9:1-2, still before his Damascus Road encounter with the Resurrected Christ, the Word tells us, Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest [of Judaism] and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Then, in Acts 9:3-6, we read, As Saul journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” Then the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads” So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
From “Kingdom Cell-Bars” Saul of Tarsus, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and our Lord’s Resurrection Life, became Paul the Apostle of “Kingdom Freedom” fame! But multitudes have no awareness that their enslavement spiritually without God the Father and His spiritual freedom are as real today as they were for the former Saul of Tarsus!
Are you aware of “depreciation”? All men, women, boys, girls, without Christ as Lord and Savior, have no eternal value in and of themselves – they are ‘depreciated’! It’s not because of “wear and tear” but the absence of the Living Christ who IS the Way, the Truth, and the Life! And faithlessness’ reward? “Kingdom Cell-Bars” trapping them behind the high walls of unbelief that breeds despair, destruction, and a death that will not die!
Isaiah 5 is one of the most enlightening and convicting passages you’ll ever read because it highlights God’s coming judgment of His people who “have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge,” (Verse 13); and then in Verses 18-24 we read God’s “Woes” on the ‘sin-imprisoned’! His Word says:
Verse 18,“Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as if with a cart rope…Verses 20-24 God says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!…
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent [or a personal regard for one’s own interests only – certainly not what God knows they need!] in their own sight!…
Woe to men mighty at drinking wine, Woe to men valiant for mixing intoxicating drink, Who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away justice from the righteous man!…
Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will ascend like dust; because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”
Woefulness is a way of life for those who have no desire to walk in God’s Way! Every life on the face of the earth, save One, was birthed into this world with the very nature of sin, which was birthed in opposition to God, not endorsing Him, embracing Him, or being ‘enlightened’ by Him – we were birthed into “darkness”, and apart from God seeking us out and revealing our need of His saving grace, mercy, and love, we’d still be a part of the sin-infested society, blinded to God’s ultimate intention for our lives.
Most of our world today has no understanding of the seriousness of being birthed in society today with Adam’s sin nature, no understanding of even the limitless extent of rebellion to God and the soul, heart, and mind damage birthed in every son or daughter of fallen mankind, and certainly no grasp of the penalty of sin that follows a man every day of his unbelief, rebellion, and disobedience to Holy God! David said in Psalm 19:12, “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults.” Errors? I have no problem with that because being a high school baseball player I heard often about my “runs, hits, and errors,” but that relates to the ‘playing field,’ with us understanding, apart from Christ in us, we create life as a “playing field,” not the journey of knowing God, honoring God, being a blessing to Him in our journey – but “runs, hits, and errors”? It could tell an extremely sad story.
How about the ‘error’ of iniquity? Do you know about the ‘error’ of unbelief, followed by the ‘error’ of rebellion and disobedience, followed by the raging stream of the ‘wild river’ in a man’s soul, intent on satisfying every fleshly impulse? If there is [and there is!] the righteousness of God, what’s the thermometer telling you about the temperature of your unrighteousness? Is it even possible that ‘fleshly good’, for all intents and purposes, was and is nothing more than personal back-slapping, impressed by what I did for me alone?
Are you aware of the very bondage of sin that floods fallen men as sins of commission and sins of omissions? Do you understand the depth of your fall away from God, even aware yourself of how depraved you feel they are, but you have an inkling in your mind that it’s worse than you’ve given yourself credit for, or maybe I should say debited to your account before Him? Fallen humanity is a mountainous mass of misguided sin and corruption! And God, so gracious and kind and merciful, awesome God filled with eternal love and heavenly compassion, I believe He’ll hide the whole of our blackened, sinful, rebellious hearts, and just give us a small insight into our shame-filled hearts, because He loves us far more than we could ever love ourselves!
In Luke 18:13 we read, “And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ Jesus then said, Verse 14, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other man (who was overjoyed for Jesus because Jesus got to be with him!); for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” In whose shoes do you stand in as a sinner who needs to be forgiven – the Pharisee or the tax collector? I ask you, “Do you know the poisonous venom of sin that flows through your veins separating you from Holy God?”
Are you fully aware of what John 3:36 says, and does it put into your mind and heart an awesome fear of God, reverential awe, amazing awakening factor, that brings you to true repentance and faith in Christ’s finished work at the Cross in your behalf? John said: “He who believes in [trusts in, relies upon, adheres to] in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
The ‘wrath of God’? Paul said to the church at Colossae in Colossians 3:5-6 the awakening Truth of God for us all! “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. BECAUSE OF THESE THINGS THE WRATH OF GOD IS COMING UPON THE SONS OF DISOBEDIENCE, in which you yourselves once walked when you “lived” in them.”
That means that your life, your walk in the midst of a sinful world of which you are truly a part, YOU’LL FACE THE WRATH OF GOD whether you believe in Him or not! 2 Peter 3:7 warns us, yes, you included, “But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word [the word of God Himself], are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
What does Romans 5:12 tell us? “Therefore just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”
Read carefully Oswald Chambers’ statement in “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.206], “Sin is a thing I am born with and I cannot touch it; God touches sin in Redemption. In the Cross of Jesus Christ God redeemed the whole human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a man responsible for having the heredity of sin. The condemnation is not that I am born with a heredity of sin, but if when I realize Jesus Christ came to deliver me from it, I refuse to let Him do so, from that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. “And this is the judgment,” (the critical moment), “that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.”
How is your ‘love affair’ going with your old sin nature? How satisfied and content are you that the devil and the demons hold open the gates of Hell for you for eternity because you love your sin more than the salvation Jesus has provided? The devil’s ‘kingdom cell-doors’ are wide open for any who reject the love, the light, and the Lordship of Jesus Christ!
And, praise God, there is “Kingdom Freedom” for any who hear Jesus calling and they repentantly and willingly and gladly bow before the King of kings, and repent, and put their hearts, minds, and spirits into His hands, and surrender to His Lordship!
In John 8:31-36 we read: Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall now the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free?’…
Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” If a man is a slave to sin and his sin nature, there is nothing, no one, who can set him free from his bondage and enslavement except the shed blood of the Lamb of God whose name is Christ Jesus!
This is why Paul informs “sinners” in Ephesians 1:7-12, “In Him [Christ Jesus, the Beloved Son of God] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth – in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.”
Question! Is your daily life lived to “the praise of His glory”? Thank God for the forgiveness of our sins, but without purpose, without our return to His divine intent of mankind in Creation? Thank God for the forgiveness of our sins through Christ’s Cross, which is indescribable, amazing love and grace, but did God have purpose ‘in Christ’ beyond the Cross and His burial? Was Jesus’ Resurrection Life filled with eternal purpose through blood-bought, repentant sinners, whose very lives were to become residences, work-places of His Abiding Presence? And does there ever come a time, like Jesus, when we say to the Father, “I have glorified You on earth. I have finished the work which You have given ME to do.”
To the church in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 10:31-33, Paul wrote: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.”
Question! As a disciple of Christ Jesus, yes, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, yes, purchased by His shed blood, yes, activating purposefully repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s work at the Cross, “new-born,” what lies before you related to divine intent?
In Galatians 6:14 Paul said, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” If “The Way of the Cross Leads Home,” then what is the daily discipline of the believer?
Are you aware that much of “religious life” and “church attendance” is void of our Lord’s Resurrected Presence and Eternal Purpose through the “professors of faith”? Did Paul say, “by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world”? But much of ‘religious devotion’ today is the counterfeit of outward allegiance and faithfulness to a man-made system apart from true desire to be one with God in His heart-beat of world redemption! And it’s in a man’s mind and heart to decide if he is or is not even interested in His “game-plan”, whether or not he is at all interested in the eternal things of God, whether or not his own life is an open door to God in ministry and service to a lost and needy world, whether or not he chooses “I am crucified with Christ daily” for God’s purposes or I live deliberately to indulge myself, which is why Paul said, “I take the sentence of death to myself, daily, that the resurrection life of Christ may be manifested in my mortal flesh!” Have you?
“Kingdom Freedom”! I came across a statement by someone named Hartley Coleridge in his “Liberty” writing who said, “But what is freedom? Rightly understood, A universal license to be good,” and I was shocked! But then I had to deal with the reality of ‘fallen mankind’ who’d rather be ‘good’ than Godly! Then, at the same time, I had to consider or think about the masses of mankind who believe in and of themselves service to God is possible, without understanding their ‘religious service’ voids the omnipotence of Holy God!
In Galatians 5:1 Paul wrote: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” But without Christ Jesus as one’s liberator, no man is free who is enslaved to his/her old sin nature, no man/woman is free who, yes, is burdened by the ‘yoke of bondage’ to his old, sinful, fallen Adamic sin nature – never free when chained to his ‘religious opinions’ rather than truly freed by God’s Eternal Truth!
“Kingdom Freedom” is not something human flesh works for, slaves for, or fights for – spiritual freedom is that purchased by Jesus Himself with “the pearl of great price,” His own blood shed at Calvary’s crucifixion 2000 years ago! I’m telling you, true freedom’s holy light is “Jesus! The Light of the world!”
Have you never realized that “Kingdom Freedom” is not by men’s fleshly determination, or a social invention, or a political or financial breakthrough in men’s minds, but the grace of God liberating men out of their cells with a divine freedom that cannot be silenced, cannot be chained up, cannot be taped over the mind, the eyes, the ears, or the mouth of man redeemed and freed by the blood of the Lamb? Have YOU heard it? “Free at last! Praise God Almighty, I’m free at last!” And that’s far more than freedom from political bondage!
Paul the Apostle wrote to the “church in Rome” the following in Romans 15:29-33, “But I know that when I come to you, I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. Now I beg you, brethren, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God, and may be refreshed together with you. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.”
“Kingdom Freedom”? How about “Dead to sin, alive to God”? In Romans 6:1-7, 15-18, read it carefully and prayerfully! “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?…
Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin…
Verses 15-18, What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. AND HAVING BEEN SET FREE FROM SIN, YOU BECAME SLAVES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.” And that’s the righteousness of Christ Himself, not one’s cheap imitation of it!
The testimony of Paul the Apostle is the unveiling for EVERY disciple of God’s eternal plan to reveal His Son to the world for which Jesus sacrificed His life in order that through those of Atoning Faith, Mercy, Grace, and Love, a lost world would be found, delivered, saved, redeemed by His precious blood. Paul said in Galatians 1:15-16, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me…” AND YOU?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“KINGDOM CLUELESSNESS OR KEEPER OF THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM?”
If there is “cluelessness” about “kingdom ministry or service”, where does that come from? When one is described as ‘clueless’, in the midst of one’s desired service to be of benefit to God or the Lord Jesus and His kingdom honor and glory, how does it come to a spiritual state of futility or even despair? A ‘clue’ should be a guide, a directing awareness, a clear ‘sign’ of “This is the way, walk in it,” but if there is no spiritual sense of peace and assurance in the walk, one may be walking in the wrong direction or under the guidance of a false supervisor!
In Isaiah 40:25-26 God Himself speaks to us in the midst of ‘our’ spiritual journey with a holy word of divine guidance: “To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing.”
Stars, planets, galaxies? And they are firmly fixed, and He knows them all by name, and He guides their shining glow? But the sad truth about many, many lives? They are ‘clueless’ about God the Father or Jesus the Son, or the Mighty Holy Spirit, about to take their lives in death and attempt to bring forth resurrection life, or to attempt to guide their every step, even holding “the keys” to their own kingdom honor and glory, because one determines, “I can handle my spiritual destiny” – and they miss the Kingdom of God blessings, intents, and purposes!
I challenge you to seriously consider this chapter intent as you carefully read Isaiah 40:28-31! “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength…
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
“Kingdom Cluelessness”? Fleshly, mental, spiritual dreams and aspirations, always end on the ‘flesh’s’ refuse pile when self-effort and self-centered imaginations rule or guide one’s own determination to be ‘pleasing to God’, when that spirit and attitude was “crucified with Christ”!
There’s a Verse in Isaiah 26:3 I want you clearly aware of as we begin “Kingdom Cluelessness Or Keeper Of The Keys Of The Kingdom?” It says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” I’m sure that you have seen and sensed the difference between ‘kept’ or ‘clueless’! Folks in the ‘flesh’ easily quit while those in the Spirit are being ‘quickened’; the ‘flesh’ always ‘zeroes’ concerning spiritual relationships while in the Spirit they are ‘zoned in;’ the ‘flesh’ forgets God so easily while in the Spirit there is constant ‘remembrance’.
Consider the evidences of “Kingdom Cluelessness”: First, do you not discern spiritual blindness? In 2 Corinthians 3:12-15, Paul spoke of Israel’s blindness to God’s perfect will for them ‘in Christ’, but they refused to look upon WHO Jesus Christ was, and they crucified Him! It says, “Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech – unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. BUT THEIR MINDS WERE BLINDED. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.” And it relates not only to blinded “Israel” but every man in the world without Christ!
Second, “Kingdom Cluelessness” is also evidenced by the ‘de-sensitized’ to anything having to do with God Almighty, Jesus the Son, or the Holy Spirit! And I believe I can tell you that ‘de-sensitization’ is a cruel and evil spirit out of the very gates of Hell itself! Bitter thoughts, bitter spirits and actions, result as one, especially, wants nothing to do with God, nothing to do with His Holy Word, and nothing to do with His people!
Many become very cynical concerning holy things because of, yes, the hardness of their hearts, wounds in the mind, even actions from ‘professing believers’ that were nothing more than stumbling blocks to those they possibly wounded!
And, I mean, wounds from ‘believers’ on the unbelievers! Sadly, it does happen. I’ll tell you one thing here, “God is not interested in ‘believers’ witnessing if it is not based on the fruit of the Holy Spirit!’ Or if it is in a bragging mode that points to self and not to the Savior!
At the same time, I do not want anyone thinking I don’t really know the unsaved or what their eternal needs are – but my concern for the ‘de-sensitized’ is the hard shell their, yes, “self-indulgence” can build up. What this means is, I’m convinced faithful, heart-felt prayerful intercession must prepare the heart of the witnesses for a Spirit-anointed sharing with the ‘de-sensitized’!
Third, “Kingdom Cluelessness” occurs when unbelievers are indoctrinated by fellow unbelievers who exemplify one of two extremes: I just mentioned wounds from ‘believers on unbelievers’ that carry over and become a woeful witness of true grace and mercy, and especially bruising even the very name of Christ Jesus!
But, you are aware that “the heart” apart from the saving grace of Christ has serious problems! In Jeremiah 17:9-10 God speaks, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”
And if an unbeliever has, does, is indoctrinated by another unbeliever, do you think, do you believe, are you aware that a marred life witnessing to a marred life is not going to be giving the true picture of the awfulness of sin and separation from Holy God and our Savior and Lord? Or, yes, not even sharing “crucified with Christ”!
Fourth, “Kingdom Cluelessness” is illuminated for us by those who share the grace of God in vain and those who witness of it in vain and even those who receive the witness in vain! Sorry – but it does happen! That’s why Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:1, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”
Is that clear to you? The grace of God “in vain” is when one likes the idea of reconciliation without the cost of true discipleship being received! What did Paul say in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10? “But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: [can YOU commend yourself as a true disciple of Christ?], ‘commend ourselves’ in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”
Fifth, “Kingdom Cluelessness” occurs so easily when one professes a desire for “light” but chooses to remain in “darkness”. You do know that Christ Jesus IS the “True Light”! In John 12:35-36 Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.
Hidden from them? I thought Jesus came to save them! But John 3: 19-20 explains: “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”
Did Jesus say, ‘If you’re walking in darkness, you do not know where you’re going?’ But you’re not sure what ‘walking in darkness’ really means? Consider darkness as disobedience when we hear Jesus say to many, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ but you do not do what I say?” Is ‘darkness’ the denial of His saving grace and mercy? Could it be defected to the point one is now at peace with his/her defectiveness and is comfortable in his/her sins and sin nature? Could it be that one has become so drawn downward by the devil and demon powers that he/she has interest no more in Christ’s shed blood on the Cross but only interest in the dark spirit of worldliness and indecency?
But Paul came to a place in his life where not even ‘religious activity’ satisfied the pull to sin, or its power of compromise, or its persuasive personal fallen man that He learned did not measure up to ‘God-like-ness’ – he was empty, drained, and weighted down with ‘self’, ‘religious self,’ and no peace, assurance, or confidence!
Then one day Paul met the Master! In Galatians 6:14-15 he later wrote: “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.”
Follow the words of Oswald Chambers from his book, “My Utmost For His Highest,” [p.266], “Do I want to be identified with His death, to be killed right out to all interest in sin, in worldliness, in self – to be so identified with Jesus that I am spoilt for everything else but Him? The great privilege of discipleship is that I can sign on under His Cross, and that means death to sin. Get alone with Jesus and either tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you; or else tell Him that at all costs you want to be identified with His death. Immediately you transact in confident faith in what our Lord did on the Cross, a supernatural identification with His death takes place, and you will know with a knowledge that passes knowledge that your “old man” is crucified with Christ. The proof that your old man is crucified with Christ is the amazing ease with which the life of God in you enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ.”
I do not know about you – but what you’ve just read from Oswald Chambers has done a work of grace in me similar to the work of the power of God’s Holy Word! I understand more and more, better and better that, yes, my life is hidden with Christ in God!
And, WHAT ABOUT “THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM”? Is there an answer for me there concerning, yes, my victorious Life in and through Christ Jesus?
In Psalm 22:28, yes, Jesus, the Promised Messiah, said of Holy God, His Father and ours, of redeeming faith, “For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations.” And if the ‘kingdom is the Lord’s’, and it is, where does that leave us, or what is involved in our desire to be reconciled to Him?
It was Will Durant who said many years ago, “The greatest question of our time is not communism versus individualism, not Europe versus America, not even the East versus the West: it is whether man can bear to live without God.” But, of course, there are multitudes who without hesitation will say, “I don’t NEED God – I can live without Him, if He exists.”
Yet Emmanuel, “God in Flesh,” Christ Jesus the Lord God, said in John 10:10, “The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Yes, man’s ‘sin’ and ‘sin nature’ brought “death” because God declares “The wages of sin IS death,” but the love of God as expressed in Christ Jesus through the Cross brings forgiveness, reconciliation, redemption, eternal purpose restored, the blessing of the Indwelling and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, and the King of kings (the Lord Jesus Christ) says in Matthew 16:19 to Peter, a new disciple, “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Have YOU been ‘binding and loosing’ lately with your Christ-given kingdom keys and authority? T.Z. Koo once wrote: “The kingdom of God does not exist because of your effort or mine. It exists because God reigns. Our part is to enter this kingdom and bring our life under His sovereign will.” And can I tell you, having willfully entered the eternal kingdom of God through repentance toward Him and faith in Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross through His shed blood, and “born of the Spirit” into a child of the King, our King Jesus gives us His Kingdom authority to take the “keys” and touch our world with His grace, mercy, and love, putting the keys of repentance toward God and the keys of faith in Christ’s finished work, unlocking men’s prisons of sin and selfish living, and opening the doors of their minds to “Kingdom Living” to the glory of Almighty God!
And no doubt this is why Martin Luther was inspired to write the words to a great old hymn: “A mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Our Helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.” And because our Lord reigns, and because He has assigned us as His soldiers of the Cross to invade our sin-sick world, and because we were commissioned as His ambassadors, we ought to rejoice, celebrate, rest ourselves completely under His sovereign care, receive the anointing of His Holy Spirit, and go tell the world how to be “born again” into everlasting life in Christ alone!
It was George Washington who wrote long, long ago these words: “It is impossible to govern the world without God. He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligation.” He said that because of responsibility as President of our nation, but consider that YOU IN CHRIST are His assigned witness of “keepers of the keys to the very entrance to the kingdom of Almighty God!” And are YOU confronted about “Eternal obligation” as it relates to unredeemed souls?
Can you say with freedom and deep conviction: “Lord, I know you redeemed me by Christ’s shed blood; And I know your heart beats heavy for those in sin like a destructive flood. You‘ re my strength in the day of my calling, to give myself as a faithful witness, sharing my faith and keep men from falling, Falling away from You and bound to Hell, What a story of mercy and grace we have to tell!…
In the world around me, my joy and my fame, is a humble servant who exalts My Savior’s Name! My crown of rejoicing, my blessed inspiration, is knowing my Jesus in my eternal destination – saved by His grace, and never to be severed, Joy is the voice of God within me, Having shed His blood so willingly to free me….
Called to respond to His gracious invitation, guiltless blood for a sinful man’s visitation, from darkness to light, deliverance from fright, deeply rooted in Him who is Light! From Heaven to earth our Savior came down, No more to weep with a ‘hellish’ frown, Uplifted by grace, meeting God face to face, we all come to be a part of His new-blessed race!…
With Heaven’s massive choir, it’s so distinct, ‘God Says, “This is your hour!”’ Washed of your sin, no longer a burden, grace was released and we were certain, He valued our souls, and by His ‘tolls’ Jesus paid for our souls!…
The Kingdom of Christ Jesus is God’s eternal reason to bless in the middle of God’s harvest season, those repentant souls so boldly bold, thought to be sold in sin’s market-place, Jesus intervened and purchased our lives, no more to be those who sinfully strive…
Blood-bought saints now servants of Him, who faithfully showed Heaven’s Servant to them; of ‘foot-washing’ fame He magnified God’s Name, and gave the way for every disciple the same, servants of men as Jesus was then, a glorious name of pure grace and mercy, Truth-Worthy His fame and forever the same; like Paul the Apostle we willingly came, not willing to rest in men’s fleshly shame, but totally committed to honor our Savior’s Name!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“KINGDOM CALLING : READY FOR CHRIST’S UNVEILING!”
I know it’s a long passage but I sense that it is imperative for the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth to do the same as I open this chapter about “Ready for Christ’s Unveiling!” It says, 1 Peter 1:3-13, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,…
To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time…
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,…
Whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith – the salvation of your souls. Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow…
To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things which angels desire to look into…
Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
I’m sure you’ll remember Paul’s word in Romans 10:3 where he wrote about Israel, zealous but void of true redemptive faith – most of Israel was glad He was crucified! Paul said, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” Oh, and then in Verse 4 Paul wrote, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes [who trusts in, relies upon, adheres to]!”
I want us to dissect carefully Peter’s words to us all in June, 2015! Let’s notice, First, Our Lord’s Abundant Mercy Birthing Us To A Living Hope Through The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ From The Dead! That’s 1 Peter 1:3!
Dare YOU to notice: “Jesus Christ…dead”? And dare you to even reflect that it was “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” who was the Master-Planner of it all to reconcile us to Himself? And Peter still says, even today, “Blessed be our God”!
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”! Does that not compute with your ‘modern-day’ computerized brain? Whether you come to Christ Jesus or not in repentance and faith, Revelation 13:8 declares, “All [that’s all of the devil’s army and deceived who worship ‘the beast and the dragon’] who dwell on the earth will worship will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” The “calling” is real! The devil and his devotees or God and His disciples? Worship of the devil or the true, eternal worship of the Lamb of God slain in the heart of God before the world even came into reality?
In 1 Peter 2:24 Peter declared, concerning Christ Jesus’ death on the Cross, “who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed.” And then Verse 25 challenges us all, “For you WERE like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” Is that true of you?
Have YOU in your earthly pilgrimage ever considered “Our Lord’s Abundant Mercy?” To the church at Ephesus Paul wrote: Ephesians 2:4-10, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Did you ‘fly over’ or ‘land’ on “God…rich in mercy’?
William R. Newell and Daniel B. Towner wrote the hymn entitled “At Calvary.” The fourth verse says: “Oh, the love that drew salvation’s plan! Oh, the grace that brought it down to man! Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary…
Mercy there was great, and grace was free; Pardon there was multiplied to me; There my burdened soul found liberty, At Calvary.”
And this, no doubt, is why Paul wrote in Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” And if you are boasting about anything that relates to the very agony of God Himself in the redemption of our world through the sacrificial death of Christ on that Cross, other than the unconditional love of God, you are then still an alien and know nothing about being ‘reconciled to God!’
Second, Notice Our Lord’s Gracious Gift of “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you…” I don’t know how it is with you, but when, by His grace and mercy, by the shed blood of the Lamb of God, I am reconciled to Holy God with an eternal relationship with Him, I don’t know of anything else I need, but God Himself has said that I am the recipient of “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled”!
But Paul said in Ephesians 1:11, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined…” Oh, it’s a done deal! One thing is sure: Peter said in 1 Peter 1:4, “to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you…”
Beyond our “Salvation,” I cannot even begin to comprehend what God has in store for His “joint-heirs” in Christ, but I promise you the world and all the universes we know about cannot match even just one child of God’s inheritance because of God’s love, mercy, and grace! Get ready!
Third, Are You AWARE of “kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time?” How serious does it get to be when a “professing believer” looks inward to his fleshly determination to become what God desires him to be without any help from God at all? Please tell me if that’s your ‘spiritual mind-set’: “Where does that come from?” And I have to say not from God’s Holy Word!
In fact, in 2 Corinthians 2:14, Paul wrote: “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” Finite capabilities spiritually are always short-circuited as one seeks to become what only God Himself can create, in-breathe, sustain, empower, and fill with His Holy Spirit in honoring His Son through an available vessel to all God is and able to do! As disciples of the Lord Jesus, we are not spiritual victors on our own – it’s the “power of God through us” that reveals the Triumphant Christ, yes, even over death!
God IS our “Commander-in-Chief”, and we’re under His marching orders as the army of Christ Jesus! Are we not “more than conquerors through Him who loved us”? In fact, in Romans 5:10 Paul said, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be [being] saved by His life.” How strong is that for you as you climb Faith’s mountain dependent on Christ alone and your faith in His finishing work in your walk? I love Oswald Chambers’ statement: “The salvation of God does not stand on human logic, it stands on the sacrificial Death of Jesus. We can be born again because of the Atonement of our Lord.” [“My Utmost For His Highest,” p.223].
Fourth, Are You “Greatly Rejoicing”, though troubled in your walk of Faith, and, yes, tested by God Himself, Will Be Found To Praise, Honor, and Glory At the Unveiling of Christ Jesus In YOU? Redemptive Faith through the shed blood of Christ is not an ‘off-the-wall’ concept of deceived people’s minds, but an unveiling of eternal Truth!
I ‘greatly rejoice’ in the precious shed blood of the Lamb of God because it was, and still is, foreordained by God even before the foundation of the world!
Jesus willingly laid down His life on the Cross for our sins, and Holy God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice in our behalf, and God Himself raised His Son out of the grave and gave Him glory – so that now our faith and hope is in God!
This is why Paul said in Galatians 6:14, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” And that brings all of us who are earthlings to the crossroads of life: Will we voluntarily bow down at the Cross AND the empty tomb, and yield our lives to the Lordship of Christ, or are we too much in love with the “old-sinful self” and settle for it rather than Jesus?
Fifth, Have YOU Died? Do YOU see yourself “crucified with Christ”? In Colossians 3:1-3 Paul told the church at Colossae, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. For YOU DIED [on the Cross with Jesus!], and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
What an amazing revelation! Hidden with Christ in God! Holy security! Divine ownership! Delivered from sin and its penalty and resting in Jesus’ finished work at the Cross! Indwelt with Holy Presence! “God with us, God in us, God around us, God above us!” Justified, sanctified, glorified! And God’s work of grace continues!
And what did Paul tell us in 1 Corinthians 2:12? “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”
Dare I ask you? Have YOU received the Spirit who is from God, and do you know what He’s freely given you?
CONCLUSION
“The Kingdom of Our Lord God!” It’s been an interesting journey as we have discovered, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven!” And certainly that word of prayer from Jesus was and is so challenging as He taught us to pray, Kingdom of God? Come on earth as it is in Heaven!”
But most of us were in-grained with God’s Kingdom as something future! And then the Spirit of God within us teaches us through God’s Holy Word: God always has been King of His Kingdom, always is, and always will be!
Are YOU a citizen of the Kingdom of God and are you reaching out to the kingdom of darkness to call people to the Light?
Peter said in 1 Peter 1:2, “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.” Amen?
James Farrell Fisher