kingdom

A long time ago I posted an article on George Mueller’s “strategy for showing God”. Unfortunately, due to a malfunction somewhere in the system, it was not updated and I lost three months’ worth of posts. Ouch. That hurt. Mueller, as you may know, is famous for the orphanages he ran, though he actually did a lot more besides. John Piper wrote a wonderful article on Mueller, which I linked to at the time and here I link again. I insist that you read it, for if you don’t, I’m convinced that your Christian journey will be stunted forever. (My goodness, I am treating my readers like my children. “Eat your vegetables or you’ll go blind.”)

Mueller’s reason for opening the orphanages was not merely to change the world for the better on a humanistic scale. In his own words, he gave as his main reasons for doing so:

1. That God may be glorified, should He be pleased to furnish me with the means, in its being seen that it is not a vain thing to trust in Him; and that thus the faith of His children may be strengthened. 2. The spiritual welfare of fatherless and motherless children. 3. Their temporal welfare.

So in my unlearnedness in such matters, I decided to post my thoughts on a private forum to see what I might glean from others who have trodden the path of public service before me. So far only one person has responded, but perhaps others will join in. I posted my query because I am tired of straddling the fence on mission projects and causes. There are so many public service projects going on, and half of them I think are as rooted in humanism as anything else even though they have the banner “Christian” over them. In fact, the world has come to expect that the church is there to serve its “felt needs”. While I sympathize with the world in its plight, I do not want to be sucked into slavery trying to save it from itself.

When I was younger I was very interested in many relief projects but my interest was shot down by others on the grounds that 1) to do practical things for people was not going in the “power of the spirit”, i.e., miracles, and 2) it was based on pure humanism.

As to the first, I was thinking the other day about when Jesus told His disciples they would do greater miracles than He did. Jesus couldn’t do miracles in some places because the people lacked faith. But the ones He did the greatest miracles in didn’t believe in Him. When He was sought out by people who wanted to do His works, He told them that the work of the Father was that they should believe on Him. He also said, “Blessed is he who has not seen and yet believes.” Most of the people who have believed in Jesus have died without ever witnessing a true miracle. When you consider how many converts have been made without seeing a miracle, that has to be a great miracle out of the “power of God”. Ironic.

The e-letter that I mentioned by John Fenn in the previous post made me reconsider point number two. He was addressing universalism. He made a very good case concerning God’s provision for those living without knowledge of either the spiritual law or of the specific knowledge of Jesus Christ. He spoke of these “lovers of the truth” who instinctively obey the law written in their hearts as those who will flow into the truth when they hear it and be born again into the kingdom. Paris Reidhead (“Ten Shekels and a Shirt“) made an equally valid point about those living in darkness who knew more about God than he ever imagined, who knew all about the judgment of God and didn’t care — “monsters of iniquity” he called them. It must have been daunting to learn that he went to Africa to help people who didn’t want to be helped. Living in the ungrateful society we inhabit in the West, it is easy to fear that the people we serve may all be of the second variety, but what if many are also of the first kind?

Bruce Olson discovered the first kind among the Motilone Indians of Colombia. How else could it be that they had any idea they needed to know the way back to God? How could they have had a true prophecy among their people that one day God would send them a yellow-haired prophet to show them the way? They already involved God in the affairs of their everyday lives. They just didn’t know who He was exactly. When Olson showed up, they were ready to believe.

If Fenn is correct about how God operates among lovers of the truth who have not yet heard or understood Jesus Christ, it changes the paradigm completely of who we think we are serving in the “dark” world. We know, of course, that we ought to do good until all people in a general sense and that we ought to do good in particular to the brethren.

Gal 6:10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all [men], especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Too often this thinking degenerates into helping only those members of the same “club” which some call “church”. In that “church” are often people as dysfunctional and liable to suck us away as those unwashed masses in the world. Then you have to wonder who are you helping and to what end? It’s not always an easy answer, in any case.

Here I have to bring up the Sermon on the Mount. It is the favorite for religious modern liberal activists. They tend to see this as THE gospel of Christ and very often it is a Cross-less gospel. The point, according to them, is to make the world a better place by making people care for one another. They have no problem loving their neighbor, and in fact, lift love of neighbor ahead of loving God, which is backwards of the commandments. Often they try to enforce love of neighbor through politics according to their own understanding about how to fix others. But Jesus was not talking about a matter of enforcement or changing society. He was talking about a personal choice as He addressed a select group of people — mainly those of the household of Israel.

On the other hand, there is some practical good in teaching the unbelieving to look on one another’s best interests. It won’t make them righteous, but it does make the world a bit more liveable. It brings to mind where Paul talked about praying for those in authority:

1Ti 2:2 For kings, and [for] all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

It wasn’t for the sake of society at large, but so the saints could function well. Society enjoys the positive fallout of the peace of the saints. Reidhead noted that the happiness of mankind is a byproduct and not a prime product of the kingdom of God. God’s purposes always come first and society-at-large reaps the benefit.

This knowledge that there are many seekers of the truth scattered in among those who love darkness shines a whole new light on what good we do as we engage in helping the world materially and socially. By this, I certainly don’t mean to imply that we involve ourselves in a sort of spiritual blackmail that the world must convert if we are to help it. But I do mean to say that our efforts are assuredly not in vain if we keep in mind George Mueller’s points of strategy. It is essentially the same strategy that applies to our helping ourselves.

Keeping these things in mind, it’s much easier to consider the Sermon on the Mount in its proper place, as secondary to loving God. I am convinced that the Sermon on the Mount is about the Lord of the work and not about the work of the Lord. Those who live out of its spirit, bring the kingdom of God near to the nations in the most mundane things.

I went back to the root in order to know my place in the Body. Beginning with the early Jewish church, I hit a snag. Ephesians 2:15 says that God made of Jews and Gentiles “one new man”. I mentioned in the last post my acquaintance who converted to Messianic Judaism. It does happen sometimes but not usually. He keeps many of the Jewish laws because he lives in Israel where doing so has relevance. But Paul tells us that God has made two stalks of humanity into one new man in Christ.

This made great sense when I realized that I could not be what I am not — a Jew. However, I could learn from the intersection of the Jewish-Gentile church. The Jewish believers kept the Law; the Gentile believers did not. There’s our answer: We should not strive to be what we are not. God never secreted His things away from the world even when He entrusted the sacred to the Jewish people. The sacred things were revealed in their lives in order that the world might know God.

It took some sorting through random bits of evidence before it hit me over the head why today’s house churches still don’t approximate the early church. It is true that when we meet with other believers for any reason we are “the Church”. However, this simple minded approach lacks any purpose or objective. My mind went into overtime when I realized that the intentional simple churchers I knew were essentially Protestant/Evangelical/Charismatic but in a home instead of a structure. Not much is different. They have the usual pot luck, worship and praise, sharing and prayer — it’s all rather predictable. I can walk into most any group and know exactly what’s going to happen even if I’ve never met these people in my life.

Then we have the really simple house churchers. They have no services and no objective other than to show up and share the Lord as He happens to intrude on everyday conversation. They are no less sincere or unlikely to pursue God than the others. These decry such distinctions as “sacred” vs. “profane”. Every affair of life is holy — but on the other hand, they have also lost the sense of worship in community. Sometimes I’m not sure whether the profane becomes sacred or the sacred becomes profane. They regard the Lord’s Supper as an ordinary part of a meal, though they do take it seriously, making appropriate remarks as the need arises. There is a certain value in learning some propriety, which I think they miss — it teaches us respect for others and for special moments set aside in community. The original Lord’s Table was not part of everyday life — it was part of a Passover Feast and the Lord did a new thing on that occasion. He used the wine and bread to institute a new covenant.

I have known groups that did their best to eradicate culture, believing it to be divisive. I think it a mistake. Groups that dispense with culture end up creating a new culture and becoming unnecessarily weird so that they have relevance to no one. Culture is good and necessary. It is the means by which we pass down the narrative of who we are and what we value.

Still, we cannot impose our culture on other groups. It has often been a practice of the institutional church to kill its message by this means. When Bruce Olson went to Colombia to work with the Motilone Indians, he found other Christian groups had also been there to no success. They wanted to force new believers into ways of relating that made no sense to them — strict programs and buildings that were square. The Motilones have round buildings and they give thanks to God whenever they pull up a root — hence, no need to say grace at meals as they have already said it. That, to me, is a lesson to embrace culture but never to put people in a cultural strait jacket.

Having said this mouthful about culture, it brings me to what I really want to drive home in the next post — something long, long neglected. And that is the very wonderful and beautiful role of culture in the Church. Far from being a hindrance to the Gospel of the Kingdom, it ought to be a furtherance. I will lay out in the next post what I believe will support that conclusion. I hope to turn the heart of the children back to the heart of the fathers. Hopefully, you will see the beauty of intentional community worship as well as the personal freedom it allows when living, breathing, playing, worshiping as “the Church”. We should begin to see some authenticity when we recognize our real “Fathers of the Faith”.

Last night I ran across Lifestream Teaching Ministries, a site with an excellent primer, “Kingdom of God Series”. Art Nelson, the author of the series, writes: “The Church is made up of individuals built together as the family of God while the kingdom is made up of families built together as the society of God under the government of Jesus.”

That’s it! The kingdom is not just a loose collection of people who believe a certain thing. It’s an entire society, a culture. It is literal — not figurative and not an affinity group within the larger cultures of the world.

We have focused all of our attention on the Church and neglected completely any aspect of the Kingdom that might vary from our understanding of the Church. While Jesus referred to the Kingdom about a hundred times, He spoke of the Church only three times and two of those were in the same scripture. So, we have Jesus speaking about the Kingdom of God in about 100 scriptures and speaking of the Church in only 2 scriptures. This, in itself, should tell us about the relative importance and priority of each. [Lesson 9: "The Kingdom and the Church", p. 2]

Nelson illustrates the absurdity of confusing the church for the kingdom in his following explanation.

If the Church and the Kingdom were truly synonymous then we could substitute “church” for “kingdom” in the scriptures without changing the meaning. Does it makes sense if we do that in these verses [the only change I have made is “church” for “kingdom”]:

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the church of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:1-2 NKJV)

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the church of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17 NKJV)

In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your church come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9-10 NKJV)

And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the church and the power and the glory forever. Amen. (Matthew 6:13 NKJV)

But the sons of the church will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:12 NKJV)

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the church prepared for you from the foundation of the world: (Matthew 25:34 NKJV)

Jesus answered, “My church is not of this world. If My church were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My church is not from here.” (John 18:36 NKJV)

. . . strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, “We must through many tribulations enter the church of God.” (Acts 14:22 NKJV)

Well, you get the picture. Doesn’t make sense does it? [Ibid., pp. 3-4]

No, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Go take a look at the site.

A growing trend in the churches of the Western World deeply troubles me. Call it apostasy, call it “doctrines of demons”, call it humanism and it is all one and the same boiling cauldron of lawlessness. The worldly church loves with an unholy love stripped of all righteousness and justice and calls it “the love of God”. They teach their fellows that there is no difference between the repentant and the [willful] sinner, that all may participate in the celebratory victory of Jesus Christ.

To that, I raise the question: How can you enter resurrection if you’ve never passed through death? How can you have forgiveness if you’ve never had repentance? For if you don’t have those things first, you have no right to drink of the cup of Christ. “But, but, but…..,” protest the rising voices. “You are unloving.” But I reflect on this:

Jhn 13:35 By this shall all [men] know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

“One to another” in the context here does not refer to everyone in the world, but to disciples. And my objection is that these love everyone except the Lord’s disciples. Nor can they love the disciples unless they first subvert them into lovers of the world. In fact, they persecute the disciples, wearing them down if possible to bring them into submission to their humanistic gospel.

There is a naive idea that we ought to fellowship with any and all believers, even if they bring uncleanness into the equation. This is spiritual harlotry. The spirit is seductive and will suck the unaware into academic circular discussions and spiritual filth that will militate against their own souls. How can light have fellowship with darkness, righteousness with unrighteousness? Some, bless their hearts, want to dialogue with these firebrands, in hopes of bringing them back.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all [men], apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; [2 Tim 2:24-25]

If, on the other hand, we are dealing with those who think themselves to be mature teachers and will not regard sound doctrine, we have advice from the first century church:

…but if the teacher himself turn and teach another doctrine with a view to subvert you, hearken not to him; [The Didache, 11:2]

Timothy continues in this vein:

…in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves … Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. [2 Tim 3:1-7]

We are there. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have tasted and handled. I believe we are living in the days of a ripened humanism.

…humanism is a philosophical statement that declares the end of all being is the happiness of man. The reason for existence is man’s happiness. Now according to humanism, salvation is simply a matter of getting all the happiness you can out of life. [Paris Reidhead, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt", sermon]

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth [John16:13]. Not one person I have ever heard argue for the humanistic gospel has testified of being apprehended by God, brought to his knees in repentance, and radically transformed from a state of death and sin into a state of life. They read books, gather speakers and teachers; they swim in suppositions about things that may or may not be and declare them as fact. They posture and they strut, but not one ever speaks of the ongoing reality of the Cross or the power of the blood of Jesus in his own soul! Nor do they open the way that others may access the Door of the Kingdom.

I’m afraid that it’s become so subtle that it goes everywhere. What is it? In essence it’s this! That this philosophical postulate that the end of all being is the happiness of man, has been sort of covered over with evangelical terms and Biblical doctrine until God reigns in heaven for the happiness of man, Jesus Christ was incarnate for the happiness of man, all the angels exist in the…, Everything is for the happiness of man! AND I SUBMIT TO YOU THAT THIS IS UNCHRISTIAN !!! Isn’t man happy? Didn’t God intend to make man happy? Yes. But as a by-product and not a prime-product! [Reidhead]

The humanistic gospel is the most self-righteous and self-serving gospel I have ever heard. It is the gospel of “niceness” rather than love and salvation. Its adherents compass land and sea to make one proselyte and then make him twice the child of hell as themselves [Mat. 23:15]. The worst humanists are the ones who call themselves believers. Flee this pollution!

No, I have not finished the book I told everyone I was working on. It’s still on a back burner and I may add to it a little here and a little there. Who knows what may become a book one day? It might be other things than what we planned. But this is real life, huh? I started a blog that was to become something polished and now it turns into a personal what-is-going-on-in-my-world. Maybe that is what God wanted…

Meanwhile, I had a most interesting exchange with someone who was thinking of holding a conference to discuss the kingdom of God [KOG] and what it is. He asked what I would think of holding such a conference and I had to give it a bit of thought. We have had numerous discussions with others on what the kingdom is, but I have not been satisfied. Here is what I told him:

…I’m struck that there is a wrong foundation that many are building on…too much “I think” and not enough “listening”. Even the [comments] aimed at what God thinks are too much about “what I think that God thinks.”

I was [considering] the power of prayer, mulling over some of it. I think there is room for discussion on the KOG, but it’s so easy for people to think they can hammer it all out by some consensus. The best that could be done is to make people aware that there is far more to the KOG than they may have thought.

I asked God about His kingdom one time and He gave me the Lord’s prayer to pray. I’m getting stupider and more simplistic in my old age. I used to have ideas about how to pray and now all I can think of is, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I see this as the kingdom operating in our midst.

I do not know what things need fixing in this world, as our friend [name omitted] does. (I really don’t mean to pick on him, honest.) But when you make some people not suffer, they just take their comfort in their lust to feel good and give God no honor. And when you crack other people over the head to make them straighten up and behave (as I have done too much in the past), it doesn’t work and just hardens them. I don’t know what people need in this world. Only God does. I can’t even see His hand most of the time until after some fact.

Someone else mentioned what the kingdom is built on — certain behaviors, I think it was. No, I think it is all built on Jesus. Everything of the kingdom breathes Jesus into us and all around us. We don’t even have to blab His name constantly or draw fish symbols on everything to prove this. You feel Jesus seeping out of things when they are built on Him.

I am actually grieved reading some of the stuff some people write. It’s easy to defend the kingdom by getting caught up in explanations about it all. But then people ask, “How do you really know what you know? Isn’t it just your own opinion?” And then we are caught up in a merry chase to explain God to people who imagine what He must like and can’t actually hear Him. You and I do not need to reason this stuff out. I think we both sense Him. We only get off track when we try to explain…

The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy [in the Holy Spirit]. Some don’t want to hear this. They think it’s about living in “right relationship” or fixing things. But you can’t have right relationship or fix anything without righteousness, peace and joy. And you can’t force feed those things into people. Let the righteous be righteous and the filthy remain filthy. You and I have better things to do, but I give you an “A” for the good old college try.

Jesus said to be happy because He has already overcome the world. I got a little bitty taste of that in my mother’s death, seeing what He did through this woman I disagreed with about so many things. I used to see only the struggles of existence, but then I saw God’s plan in all the struggles. Never would have seen that before.

Paul talked about having finished the course, and I always saw this perfect Renaissance man who had no more imperfections (as I understood them) or gave offense in any way. But now I don’t see it that way. I see God using fallen little creatures in spite of themselves. They may not look “right” to others, and yet we overcome in the ways He has called us to, after His own purpose and nobody else’s (not even our own).

We prove God by living Him. We prove the kingdom by walking in it. I may be limited in my thinking, but it occurred to me that prayer is really the key. No one who has ever “finished the course” was well thought of according to human logic. Why are we wasting our time picking up dead things? (I speak to myself as much as to you.) If I am mistaken, I hope you’ll enlighten me. I see no other way out of this.