A New Frame of Reference

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Every once in a while there comes a forward move in God’s plan of salvation. The prior forward move had to do with the baptism with the Holy Spirit accompanied by speaking in tongues. The present move has to do with the Gospel of the Kingdom.

(10/30/2005) I realize that most Christian ministers will claim they always have preached the Gospel of the Kingdom. This same kind of phenomenon occurred when God poured out His Spirit in the last century. The Christian ministry often claimed that they already had the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues was only for the first century.

The truth is, we have not been preaching the original Gospel of the Kingdom set forth by Joh the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, and the early Apostles. We have been preaching the Gospel of Heaven. We are saved to go to Heaven when we die. Am I correct in this?

There is no passage of Scripture, Old Testament or New, that informs us to be saved means we are eligible to escape Hell and go to Heaven when we die; at least no passage of which I am aware.

It is true that to be saved means to be saved from the Divine wrath that will be poured upon mankind in the closing days of the Church Age; and then to not be thrown into the Lake Fire at the last judgment. The lost are those who will be denied citizenship on the new earth when it comes down from Heaven.

But the goal of our salvation is more than escape from the Divine wrath, it is entrance into the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is the subject of the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New Testament.

The Kingdom of God has both an internal aspect and an external aspect. The external aspect will be a consequence of the internal aspect.

The previous century was that of the spiritual fulfilment of the feast of Pentecost. It was the Pentecostal century.

The feast that follows Pentecost is the Blowing of Trumpets. The Blowing of Trumpets announces the coming of the King. The seven trumpets of the Book of Revelation describe the kingdom-wide fulfilment of the Blowing of Trumpets.

But the concern now is the personal fulfilment of the Blowing of Trumpets.

The Lord Jesus, the Lord of Armies, of Hosts, is standing before His churches in this hour. He is ready to wage war against His enemies who dwell in us. If we are an experienced Christian we may note that various unrighteous, unholy impulses are beginning to surface in our personality. This is because the Spirit of God is calling them forth.

How do we respond when unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred, rage, lying, adultery, fornication, addiction, trust in money instead of in the Lord, begin to rear up in us?

If we say we have been saved by grace and so it doesn’t matter what we do, we cannot enter the internal Kingdom of God. If we blame other people or our circumstances for our ungodly behaviour, we cannot enter the internal Kingdom of God.

What then are we to do?

We are to fiercely, diligently confess these enemies to the Lord so He can destroy our sinful nature. Such judgment and deliverance is not accomplished in a moment but takes place over a period of time as we follow the Lord Jesus.

The Kingdom of God is actual righteousness, actual peace, actual joy in the Holy Spirit. Numerous enemies will conspire to prevent us from behaving righteously; from having peace; from having a deeply settled joy during our present circumstances.

It is a fight, a prolonged battle. But this is how we inherit the inner Kingdom of God. No form of sinful behaviour is permitted to enter the Kingdom of God.

The preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God includes the external Kingdom. The external Kingdom will come to the earth as soon as the Lord Jesus has a company of saints who have battled through until the internal Kingdom has been developed in them.

We are in a paradigm shift, a change of our frame of reference. We no longer are looking for residence in the spirit world. We do not know what residence in the spirit world will be like. Our traditions picture a sort of fairyland in which we will enjoy visiting with our deceased loved ones. No such fairyland is set forth in the Old or New Testaments.

What actually is set forth is the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth, the doing of God’s will in the earth. Then the little children will be able to play safely in the Paradise of God. Heaven is coming to the earth, so to speak. This is a superior vision to that of eternal residence in the spirit world with the angels and cherubim. Our home is the earth. This is where we were created, and this is what we shall inherit. The Lord Jesus Christ shall inherit the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth, and we are coheirs with Him.

When I first became a Christian I was taught by the Navigators that I was to study and meditate continually in God’s Word, and that if I did so I would make a success of the Christian discipleship. This I have done. But when I returned from military service, where I was converted, I found that the churches were not adhering to God’s Word but to their traditions.

An age of moral and physical horrors is upon us. We cannot stand on our traditions, for they shall fail us. Our hope for our survival and that of our loved ones must be based solidly on the written Word of God. No matter what we think may be true, it is what God has said that will stand in the day of trouble.

Don’t you agree? I think we need to return to the Bible and find out what it actually says.

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