Not a Political Body

What the Church has now is spiritual authority, not political power. We will have political power in the future, but we must wait for God to deliver the Kingdom to us first. He will deliver the Kingdom to us at a specific time in history.

Then [after the time of the Antichrist] the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under Heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His Kingdom will be an everlasting Kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him (Daniel 7:27).

Who are those rulers? Us! In the meantime, until God hands the Kingdom over to us, the Church should not attempt to grab power, authority, or government for ourselves.

The Church now is not a political body. We don’t have a seat at the United Nations General Assembly. What we have is a Kingdom. And we will rule the World in God's time. But the Kingdom in which we will rule is not of this World.

Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this World. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my Kingdom is from another place (John 18:36).

We are not a part of the current system we see around us. The current system is led by the Devil--the Prince of this World as Jesus called him (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). We do not have authority over the Devil now. We have to wait for God to crush him under our feet--something that happens after the Millennium!

The God of Peace will soon crush Satan under your feet (Romans 16:20).

One Church, One Faith

There is only One Church. Jesus has only one Bride. She is One Body with One Hope, the Kingdom--a Kingdom which is not of this World system.

There are not a thousand churches competing for who can be the biggest. There are not 100 denominations, each one seeking to be on top. That's the mistaken megachurch goal: being the biggest and the most popular. It's a worldly goal.

That goal produces fanaticism and devotion to men (the leaders of the churches) rather than God. It does not generate love for the brethren. Be careful!

The One Church clings to basic doctrines, the One Faith. Here are some of the tenets of the Faith that belong to the True Church:

1. Jesus came in the flesh--the human nature of sin.

2. There is only One God, the Father.

3. You must be baptized to be saved.

Do you know of any megachurch that teaches these Truths? We don't. Name one if you can. They don't exist.

You can’t name a megachurch that preaches the One Hope of the Kingdom. But the message of God's Kingdom is the very Gospel itself. There is no other message!

We live in a time with many groups that call themselves "churches" which don't have the Faith--and they don't even have the Gospel! Can a congregation belong to Christ if it does not believe the Gospel--the Good News of the Kingdom? Of course not.

The Millennium

The World will suddenly get a new King when Jesus returns in glory. No elections will take place. He'll just simply come to us. He's already been chosen by God. And then we will rule with Jesus for 1000 years—a period called the Millennium. That 1000-year time period is known by other names too:

• the World to Come

• Sabbath Rest

• the Renewal of all Things

• Times of Refreshing

• the Period of Restoration of All Things

Are you looking forward to the Millennium? If so, then you have the Kingdom Hope in your heart. Congratulations, you know something very important about the Hope if you know that there will be a Millennium. Look at how it's described in the Bible:

[an angel]… seized… Satan, and bound him for a thousand years… to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge… They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the First Resurrection… they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years (Revelation 20:2-6).

It is not to angels that he has subjected the World to Come about which we are speaking (Hebrews 2:5).

... a Sabbath Rest remains for the people of God. For the one who has entered into his rest has also himself rested from his works, just as God did from his own works. Therefore, let us make every effort to enter into that Rest, in order that no one may fall in the same pattern of disobedience (Hebrews 4:9-11; LEB).

Truly I tell you, at the Renewal of all Things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious Throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones… And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much… (Matthew 19:28-29)

… repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that Times of Refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that he may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom Heaven must receive until the Period of Restoration of All Things, about which God spoke by the mouths of His holy prophets from ancient times (Acts 3:19-21; NASB).

Can you believe how much the Bible speaks of the Millennial reign of Christ?

But what exactly will this Millenium be like? Can you imagine it? If you cannot imagine it and if you have no concept of what it will be like, then how can you hope in it? How can it become your One Hope, unless you can latch on to some of the specific details about it?

Here’s a specific detail: Did you know that at the end of the Millennium, while we conclude with our roles of authority around the planet, opposition will rise up? Yes, mortal human beings will rebel against Christ's reign during the Millennium. That opposition will come from Gog and Magog, who will organize a rebellion against our Lord Jesus Christ.

Interesting detail, isn't it? How many chapters of the Bible are dedicated to describing this rebellion? Two complete chapters (Ezekiel 38-39)! And the rebellion of Gog and Magog is described for us in the New Testament too.

When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the Earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle.

In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the Earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from Heaven and devoured them (Revelation 20:7-9).

The Cheapening of the Gospel

So many preachers have cheapened the Hope Jesus gave us. They have reduced it to positive thinking. They have turned it into a psychological message. They have demoted themselves from the Christian ministry and become nothing more than motivational speakers.

Why aren’t these preachers busy preaching the Blessed Hope, the Return of Christ? Why do they not announce Jesus’ Return? What about his plan to establish God’s Kingdom on Earth? Will God's people learn nothing about the Eternal Kingdom?

In great measure, these men will not preach the Kingdom because they’re too busy building their own empires. Their vision is to be megachurches, not to inherit the Earth. The essence of their error is that instead of preaching the Kingdom, they preach their church. They have replaced the Gospel of the Kingdom with their own church "vision."

Roman Catholicism

Read your history books. Another human institution has already attempted what today's megachurch pastors are trying: the Roman Catholic Church. It already made an effort to be the premier Christian political institution in the World. Is that what it became?

During the Crusades, the Catholic Church had armies. Today it owns countless institutions: universities, seminaries, schools, monasteries, convents, social welfare programs, soup kitchens and daycare centers, architectural wonders, museums, Vatican City, bank accounts, and tens of thousands of properties.

But does the Roman Catholic Church please God? Does God approve of the veneration of statues and lighting candles to them? Does he approve of the processions with images and idols raised up high? Do great cathedrals please God? They are the pride of the Catholic Church but how does God feel about them?

Is God pleased with infant baptism? Does God want to hear repetitive prayers, or prayers addressed to Mary? Are the doctrines passed down from the Catholics conducive to sound doctrine? The Immaculate Conception, the Trinity, Purgatory, transubstantiation, confession to a priest, extreme unction. I don’t want to have anything to do with any of them! They’re lies.

Missions-Minded Churches

It’s relatively easy to dismiss Catholic doctrine and practice. However, the Evangelical megachurch movement is more difficult to argue against. Some congregations have awoken to the reality that the megachurch trend is not from God.

Some of those Evangelical churches, in place of the megachurch style (which is what some people call outreach-oriented and "seeker-friendly"), preach missions. They treat missions like the maximum level of obedience to God. Missions? Yes, the sending and supporting of missionaries is their message.

Among the churches of the pro-missions movement are many conservative Baptist churches like the one pastored by John Piper (Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota) or John MacArthur (Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California). Most Southern Baptist Churches also are missionary-sending churches. These churches focus on sending out missionaries around the World, and they call for tithes and offerings to support missionaries financially.

You’ll often hear the pastors of these churches reciting the Great Commission ‘Go ye therefore and make disciples of all the nations’ (Matthew 28:19). They often point out that they are hastening the Return of Christ with their missions work, reminding us that Jesus promised that the End would come only when worldwide evangelism has been completed.

… this Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole World as a testimony to all nations, and then the End will come (Matthew 24:14).

These missions-focused congregations are “getting warmer.” That is, they are closer to preaching the Kingdom than the megachurches. And they’re miles closer than the Roman Catholics! The missions-focused pastors orient their people towards the Return of Christ because (as they say) the completion of World evangelism must precede it. However, they still fall short of the task Christ assigned us—to preach the Kingdom.

They are not preaching the government of Christ--the Kingdom!

Kingdom-Minded

Would you vote for a man to be president if his only campaign efforts were asking people to vote for him? Of course not. We need to know the character, the policies, the plan, the goals, the strategy, and the means by which a man—if he will be elected president—will carry out his work. Some people run for office but say nothing about the work they’ll do.

Don’t vote for those candidates.

Jesus has already made his intentions (and some of his Kingdom projects) very clear to us—he’ll establish his government on the Earth through us. His capital city will be Jerusalem. Worship of the One True God from the New Jerusalem Temple will be the cornerstone of the new government of Israel, and the Temple will become the focal point of pilgrimage for all people everywhere.

Almost no preachers expound on what the government of Christ will look like when he comes back. They do not proclaim the World to Come. And why not? Are they embarrassed by the graciousness of God? Does his generosity make them blush?

Concealing the Kingdom Through Psychology

Something we addressed in Post #24 is that Evangelical pastors also conceal the Kingdom through psychology. Pastors play to the desperate family and social crises of their hearers. Because of this crises-focused distortion of the Christian Hope, they have robbed the term hope of its original New Testament meaning.

Following the lead of their pastors, Evangelicals will normally use the term hope only with desperate sinners who are reaching out to God for the first time. Pastors use the term hope in their pastoral counselling (with the divorced, drug addicts, and suicidals) and in their ministries to the disenfranchised (the unemployed, the homeless, and the poor). Thus the modern Church has robbed the word Hope of its original meaning.

What is biblical Hope supposed to mean, then? It’s supposed to mean the One Hope of the Kingdom.

But the Church will not attain the level of hope God is demanding of us until we have pastors and teachers who have become disciples in the Kingdom of Heaven—men who know how to extract the secrets of the Kingdom from the Scriptures. We need men who can go to the Old Testament and the New and pull out the treasures—precious jewels from the Scriptures—that will enrich our lives with the Hope!

…every teacher of the Law who has become a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old (Matthew 13:52).