Book 2 of Musings Creating and Inheriting

God through Jesus Christ created all things, but in order to inherit the nations and the earth, Christ had to become a human and make an atonement for our sin. So it is true that God has given various abilities to people, such as musical and artistic gifts. But if the gifted ones are wicked they will not inherit the products of their efforts. However, the victorious saints shall inherit everything.

The second Psalm used to puzzle me, where God invited the Word to ask for the nations as His inheritance and the farthest reaches of the earth as His possession.

The Word, now known as the Lord Jesus Christ, created the nations and the earth, as the Father worked through Him. Why should He then pray to inherit them?

In our country, developers hire carpenters and other skilled workers to construct houses. The carpenters and the workers do not inherit or possess the houses they build. Other people buy them and possess them. These people may die and pass the houses on to their children as an inheritance. Then the children inherit and possess the houses.

In order to inherit the nations and possess the farthest reaches of the earth, the Word had to become flesh, and then die on the cross to make an atonement for the people of the world.

Being a pianist and a lover of classical music, I was troubled over the fact that some of the composers lived ungodly lives. I can't think of any whom we would regard as a genuine, cross-carrying disciple of Jesus, although it appears Johann Sebastian Bach was a believer in the Gospel accounts and a devout person.

Do I want to be playing the music of someone who was wicked?

Then I began to think about the difference between creating and inheriting.

God has given various gifts to people, such as artistic and musical ability, an unusual ability to work with mathematics, and other professional and vocational aptitudes. These different kinds of expression are gifts from the Lord. They do not belong to the individual.

It's just like the carpenter who builds a house but doesn't possess it. Someone else paid him to construct it. In this instance, the Lord gave the gift; but this doesn't means the person inherits it.

If the gifted person lives a life that is righteous in God's sight, he probably will find himself busily employed in the next life at the task that is second nature to him, that which he enjoys. Think of what Beethoven, for example, could produce if he had forever to compose symphonies, sonatas, and string quartets! He has created beauty and he will inherit the beauty he has created. The beauty of the Ninth Symphony is his, if his life on earth pleased the Lord.

If the gifted person lives a wicked life, he will be sent to the fires that give no light. He has lost the soul that God gave him. Another will inherit his talent as well as that which he has accomplished.

According to the Bible, those who live a victorious life in Christ, who overcome the forces that sought to separate them from God's will, shall inherit all that is worthy to be part of the new heaven and earth reign of Christ and His saints.

This means I do not have to worry about the fact that I enjoy listening to and performing classical music. I do not have to study the biographies of the composers to find out who lived a godly life and who lived an ungodly life.

Because of the task assigned me by the Lord Jesus, that of communicating an understanding of the Scriptures, I do not have time to practice the piano or to listen to classical music. This may seem strange to the reader, but the pressure that is on me at this time leaves no time or strength for anything but writing and preaching.

It very well may be true that the pressure will lift before I die and I then will be able to spend an hour or two a day warming up my skills and learning some new pieces. If the release comes, I will know it. But in the meantime I hear of such doctrinal error and confusion that I know the Lord wants me to keep explaining the Kingdom of God.

Recently a minister said, on television, that the Kingdom of Heaven is a place to which we go, while the Kingdom of God is the blessings we enjoy going there. At least, this is what was reported to me.

I have no doubt this was taught. I have heard worse!

I know how such unscriptural teaching and thinking come into being. The preachers listen to each other. Error is compounded on error. Few ministers, it appears, are finding their own truth from the Bible and expounding the Scriptures to the believers.

Matthew refers to the parable of the sower as a parable of the Kingdom of Heaven. The other Gospel accounts refer to the same parable as a parable of the Kingdom of God. How, then, is the Kingdom of Heaven different from the Kingdom of God? The parables of Jesus are about the Kingdom (singular). There is but one Kingdom. It is the rule of God through Jesus through the saints over the nations of saved people on the earth. The Kingdom is in Heaven at the present time and will come down to the earth from Heaven.

The Kingdom is the government of God.

Therefore it is the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God.

This is but one example of the confusion that exists in more than one place, unfortunately.

I love to explain about the Kingdom; about the Servant of the Lord; about the many tasks and roles of the Kingdom; about our being conformed to the image of Christ and brought into perfect rest in God's will; about the army of the Lord; about the Bride of the Lamb; about the living Temple of God; about the fact that our inward nature has been born of God and our outward form will be adopted in the Day of Resurrection; about the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish Day of Atonement that is beginning now, and the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles into which we shall enter as we are prepared by the Spirit of God; about the fact that the only valid proof of salvation is righteous behavior; about the rest of God.

I especially enjoy telling how Paul was pressing toward the first resurrection from the dead, the resurrection that will take place when the Lord next appears. We do not often hear that the first resurrection is reserved for those who, like the Apostle Paul, have laid all else aside that they might win Christ. It is vital that the difference between the two principal resurrections be made clear to the Lord's flock.

The prevailing grace-rapture-Heaven error is carrying the day. It is time now to emphasize a return to what the Scripture states about the return of the Lord, because God's people are not prepared for the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

I love to tell about these areas that I think the Lord has made clear to me. So there is no time at this point to spend a joyful hour or two mastering Chopin's Preludes, or Beethoven's Sonatas. I believe the Lord would like to move His people forward to a fuller grasp on His salvation, and so I feel obligated to do what I can to help.

And I don't have to worry about the private life of Chopin or Beethoven.

If I continue to press forward, forgetting what is behind, not looking to the right or left, keeping all my treasures in Heaven, there will come a time, whether during this life or in the next, when I will be released to spend time on classical music.

Perhaps the Lord in His kindness will furnish me with a Steinway grand piano and some music to study. Maybe even one of the classic masters to teach me. Wouldn't that be marvelous?

Why don't you come along with me on the path that leads to the inheritance of all that God makes new in Christ.

So then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours, Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future-all are yours, And you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)