Bible Beats

And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.  (Dan 2:44)

There is a phenomenal movement taking place within Christendom.  It has spread across denominational lines, and is comprised of many different churches. There are several names for what some of their religious philosophies are, and some terms to describe each of them by their activities. Not all of their new ideas are actually new, and some are sprung from positions that are the products of centuries old debates. Many commentators have analyzed and classified them, and complete categorizations of their various parts, while they are interesting and have made a valuable contribution, do not want for more elaboration here.  Those who have proven astute in their power of scrutiny and reliable in their dedication are trusted to continue in their work.  The most general classification to gather the lot of them is used here as a departure point so that a primary doctrinal flaw which characterizes most of them may herein be treated.

They are emerging, and they are diverging, and they are missional, and they are self-help, and they are prosperity; they preach new reformation, new community, renewed mission, positivism, and personal wealth. In all, they are doing every sort of thing that resembles less and less biblical Christianity with each passing day.  All of them, though, despite the differing frays and braids and tassels of tastes, have one dastardly common denominator: they are The Raiders of the Messianic Kingdom.

(part 5) - see parts: (1) (2) (3) (4)

The gospel of the kingdom being preached today is not the biblical one because it is being preached out of season. We are in the harvest, and true laborers be few (Mat 9:36-38).  The kingdom to come will be planted in the future.  The social gospel calling for a utopian kingdom to be set up that is preached by men today is one being proclaimed from a motive of obtaining power.  Satan wants his turn on the world stage to rule in a new kingdom of man, and this surging urging desire in reflected in false prophets.  These men are the evil trees Christ spoke of, and their chief followers are their evil fruit they bring forth (Mat 7:15-16).  The social gospel is a well received gospel because it does not find fault with the individual, but only with his surroundings.

The social gospel contains the message that mans problems stem from a deficiency in some resource or service that can be humanly provided, and the person of the king is represented as an impersonal concept of social justice.  Success of this gospel is measured by the redistribution of material goods and power, and its induction of people content to be religious and work to obtain for themselves meritorious salvation.

These have recently been defined as people of faith, a category created to remove Christ from Christianity, trade political clout for doctrinal conviction, and combine all religions into a single value.  Their willingness to accept the concept of inclusion that proclaims all are the children of God despite the biblical qualification that one is a child of God only by faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 3:26) is for them their necessary confession of faith. There is no room in this world for the exclusionary gospel of salvation.  This is part of the reason that a growing number of pastors are not maturing there congregations to include a diet of the meat of Bible doctrine (Heb 5:12-14), and are, as Marie Antoinette did, telling them to be filled with only pastries (q.v.).

Here, another connection can be made with circumstances surrounding the French Revolution.  This comparison is between the evil servants spoken of by Christ and the French rulers.

After telling the disciples His second coming would be in an hour that they would not expect (Mat 24:44), Jesus describes two types of servants he will encounter upon His return.  He puts it as a question and provides the answer: “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing” (Mat 24:45-46).  It is altogether a different fate that awaits the other servant who entertains in his heart that the Lord is delaying His coming and begins to “smite his fellowservants;” which could include sheep, and other pastors.

The evil servant will also begin to “eat and drink with the drunken” (Mat 24:49), and the word for drunken here is not merely used to denote intoxication; it is the same as the one used metaphorically to describe the whore in Revelation who is drunk with the blood of the saints (Rev17:6).  The evil servant, though, will not escape the coming King:

The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Mat 24:50-51)

This is a hard saying, and it is best taken at face value. There are going to be shepherds claiming to be servants of Christ, or pastors, who will not be feeding their flocks the meat of the word.  They may be deluded by the size of their followers, and the riches they have obtained by them, and the works they have done to build the kingdom, and they will present these to the King.

The Lord has said that the followers they will gather around them are but “thorns” and “thistles” (Mat 7:16), and as for their works:

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Mat 7:22-23).

The Raiders of the Messianic Kingdom have said in their hearts “My lord delayeth his coming” (Mat 24:48).  What is implied here is that they see no benefit in serving the Lord because He will likely not return until the better part of their lives are over, or even passed away. Intoxicated with the idea of residing in the pleats of royalty, evil servants begin to set their own tables with a king’s supper and start a banquet they can partake of now.

To provide for their tables they will be marshaling their flocks to perform service projects and pursue visions for establishing their place in a kingdom on earth. They will sup with unbelievers and form alliances with sinners for material and political gain. Eventually, they will even break bread with those who shed the blood of the saints.

Many of these raiders are now meeting with and inviting political candidates to speak to their congregations who are supporters of taking innocent life by the abortion of babies; at any time and for any reason whatsoever.  Is bringing such a man before a congregation to beat numb their conscious not the same as the smiting of fellowservants? We shall know them by their works.

And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.  (Dan 2:44)

There is a phenomenal movement taking place within Christendom.  It has spread across denominational lines, and is comprised of many different churches. There are several names for what some of their religious philosophies are, and some terms to describe each of them by their activities. Not all of their new ideas are actually new, and some are sprung from positions that are the products of centuries old debates. Many commentators have analyzed and classified them, and complete categorizations of their various parts, while they are interesting and have made a valuable contribution, do not want for more elaboration here.  Those who have proven astute in their power of scrutiny and reliable in their dedication are trusted to continue in their work.  The most general classification to gather the lot of them is used here as a departure point so that a primary doctrinal flaw which characterizes most of them may herein be treated.

They are emerging, and they are diverging, and they are missional, and they are self-help, and they are prosperity; they preach new reformation, new community, renewed mission, positivism, and personal wealth. In all, they are doing every sort of thing that resembles less and less biblical Christianity with each passing day.  All of them, though, despite the differing frays and braids and tassels of tastes, have one dastardly common denominator: they are The Raiders of the Messianic Kingdom.

(part 4) - see parts: (1) (2) (3) (5)

Touching now on this ministry of Paul provides an opportunity to correct a misconception that he is the Apostle that did preach the Gospel of the Kingdom later on in his ministry.  The misunderstanding comes from Paul’s exhortation and farewell to the elders of the church of Ephesus when he takes his leave of them, and is found in Acts chapter twenty.  Without laboring a verse by verse exposition here, the passages necessary for the context are verses twenty thru twenty-seven, and the key terms in their context will suffice to dispel the error.

Paul used the phrase “preaching the kingdom of God” (Acts 20: 25) to be synonymous with teaching all “that was profitable” (Acts 20:20), and for this emphasis: “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).  Indeed, Paul testifies just prior to declaring he taught all things contained in the kingdom of God that he specifically preached the “gospel of the grace of God” to the Jews and to the Greeks (Acts 20:24).  Paul’s ministry, given to him by God, was “to testify of the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).  This gospel was centered on “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21).  He did not preach the Gospel of the Kingdom, which would be the coming of the Messianic Kingdom, but the Gospel of Grace which is in the kingdom of God along with everything else attendant to it in God’s kingdom.  The book of Acts closes with Paul: “Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him” (Act 28:31).  It is on these two instances of pointing out that Paul preached the whole counsel of God that the singular massage of the Messianic Kingdom is mistakenly extracted as the gospel Paul preached.

The kingdom of God is not the same as the Messianic kingdom to be received by Christ Jesus and established on earth; the kingdom of God encompasses everything that there is including time and eternity and all the knowledge therein.  It is entered into by a new birth as it is spiritual, and “cometh not with observation” (Lk 17:20, 21).  As he was one of the stewards of the mysteries of God” (1Cor 4:1), Paul did not shun to declare to the whole counsel of God, though he had many occasions to scold saints for requiring remediation on the first precepts of the faith despite the amount of time spent on them, and by some of them (1Cor 3:1-2).  We find ourselves in similar striates today.

This discussion about the kingdoms and which gospel is the appropriate message for today is necessary precisely because of pastors and teachers like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels who are failing to declare the whole counsel of God.  It will not do, as many pastors mistakenly contend, to say that those in the pew, or the sheep, bare the sole responsibility for feeding themselves, and that the pastors are only required to provide them with, as megachruch pastor Hybels of Willow Creek Church put it, “whip cream.”¹ This statement bares an amazing resemblance to the one credited to Queen Marie Antoinette who responded to the peasants inability to feed them selves with “let them eat cake,” or pastries, and whether hers or not it was indicative of the attitude of the royalty that precipitated the French Revolution.

The parallels between the Raiders of the Messianic Kingdom and the supporters of the French Revolution continue in the comparison of the social gospel that was being preached at that time.  There was then, as there is now amongst the Raiders, the expectation of ushering in a new kingdom of righteousness on earth.  The social gospel for this kingdom emphasized the power of man in obtaining that kingdom.  There was also a popular sentiment in France, and in England, that a deposed monarchy in France would remove the last obstacle to the kingdom’s dawn.

Our contemporary revolutionaries are the Raiders of the Messianic Kingdom who have identified biblical Christianity as a despotic monarchy to be deposed.  They share the popular sentiment that biblical churches are the main obstacle to ushering in their new kingdom.  They not only oppose these churches, they seek out smaller or aging congregations to take over their churches from the inside with marketing strategies on church growth, and new church management programs like Warren’s Purpose Driven Church paradigm.  The idea of relying on the Holy Spirit is dispensed with, and is replaced with utilizing the power of psychology through personality profiles and temperament testing to induct individuals into vocational categories for servitude in the new kingdom.

As the Raiders depend on their own talents and power to usher in the kingdom, they de facto replace accountability to God with accountability to man.  It naturally follows that they instate this accountability to man in their organizations.  An example of this are the various covenants Warren has his church members and even his readers sign that make them accountable first to him and his organization before being accountable to God.

The French revolutionaries also focused on man as the ideal depository in which only the requisite qualities of enlightenment (gospel) and opportunity (vocation) must be placed to alleviate his plagued condition.  Man, in this gospel, becomes the measure of all hope, and the man thus perfected the manifestation of the redeemed spirit.

The leaders of the revolutionaries, as the perfecters, also demanded accountability to man rather than God.  This is what made the French Revolution different from the American Revolution.  General George Washington refused to be king after vanquishing King George, and so the fledgling new nation was off to a good start.  In the aftermath of the French revolution, the militants in France were competitors for a kingship, and they were ruthless in extinguishing those suspected of not being accountable to them. There, the idea of man being the center, and the measure, of all things resulted in consequences so bloody it is referred to as the Reign of Terror.

Where ever the Gospel of the Grace of God, with the purpose of salvation, is replaced with the Gospel of the Kingdom, which purpose is to announce the arrival of the king and the setting up of the Messianic Kingdom, the result is that the message inevitably turns into a social gospel.  This is because the Gospel of The Kingdom that becomes the social gospel does not contain in its message the salvation of the sinner, but the comfort of the sinner in sin. The social gospel is a substitute gospel, or another gospel when preached in Christendom.  It is the gospel of apostasy which perverts the gospel of Christ (Gal 1:6).  As works is its central component, it makes men the servants of men instead of servants of Christ.  Thus, the priesthood of believers is abolished, and a new royalty rules over the laity.

Notes:

The Christian Post, May 02, 2007. http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070502/27197_Bill_Hybels_Unveils_Willow_Creek%27s_Future_Vision_for_Multiplied_Impact.htm  

And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.  (Dan 2:44)

There is a phenomenal movement taking place within Christendom.  It has spread across denominational lines, and is comprised of many different churches. There are several names for what some of their religious philosophies are, and some terms to describe each of them by their activities. Not all of their new ideas are actually new, and some are sprung from positions that are the products of centuries old debates. Many commentators have analyzed and classified them, and complete categorizations of their various parts, while they are interesting and have made a valuable contribution, do not want for more elaboration here.  Those who have proven astute in their power of scrutiny and reliable in their dedication are trusted to continue in their work.  The most general classification to gather the lot of them is used here as a departure point so that a primary doctrinal flaw which characterizes most of them may herein be treated.

They are emerging, and they are diverging, and they are missional, and they are self-help, and they are prosperity; they preach new reformation, new community, renewed mission, positivism, and personal wealth. In all, they are doing every sort of thing that resembles less and less biblical Christianity with each passing day.  All of them, though, despite the differing frays and braids and tassels of tastes, have one dastardly common denominator: they are The Raiders of the Messianic Kingdom.

(part 3) - see parts: (1) (2) (4) (5)

This dichotomy in Christendom, Christians conforming to the image of Christ through the power of grace and Christ Followers imitating Jesus in the flesh through to power of works, could not be made if sermons from the word of God garnered more respect with pastors like Rick Warren.  The gospel would be preached, doctrine would be taught, and the congregation would be edified and grow spiritually (contrary to what Warren believes).  This is not to say that Warren does not preach a gospel, but he preaches, as all the Raiders of the Messianic Kingdom do, the wrong one; and it is from it that he deduces that Christians should have the same ministry that Jesus had. To make the point with clarity, it will be easier to take the two false assumptions in the order of, first, the ministry of Jesus, and then the message of Jesus in the days of His flesh.

With a few exceptions, notably the centurion with the sick servant who loved the Jews, and built them a synagogue (Luk 7:2-9), the Samaritan women at the well (Joh 4:5-42), and the Greek woman who besought Him for such crumbs that would fall to the dogs, of which Jesus likened her and the Gentiles (Mk 7:25-30); Christ’s ministry as recorded in scripture was exclusively to the Jews.  He himself told his disciples: “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mat 15:24).  It naturally follows that there was a purpose to it.  The reason for this selectivity can be found in Christ’s message of good news, or gospel.

Jesus the King of the Jews came to Israel to offer the Jews the Messianic Kingdom, but they rejected Messiah the King, and so the kingdom could not follow (Mat 21:33-43).  The gospel message He brought, and the one he sent his disciples out to declare to the Jews, was the Gospel of The Kingdom, and like His ministry, it was a Jewish gospel directed and delivered only to the Jews.

When Warren cites the example of Jesus sending out the disciples in Matthew chapter ten as justification for sending out his own army of humanitarian workers, for his kingdom-building program the P.E.A.C.E. plan,¹ he displays either a monumental ignorance for one called a pastor, or something much worse.  For in his selected proof text, the gospel is both identified as the gospel of the Messianic Kingdom, and instructed to be preached only to the Jews:

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. (Mat 10:5-7)

We know it was the Messianic Kingdom because it was “at hand,” it was as close to them as their King, and we also know that they did not accept the offer.

The acceptance demanded by God of Israel would have been evidenced by a nation repentance which did not take place (Mk 1:15).  That God’s foreknowledge suffers Him with no surprises, He provided, by Christ’s rejection by His own people, the means for the Gentiles to be saved.  The message of that comprises the details of new opportunity we refer to as The Gospel of Grace (Acts 20:24), and it comprises the gospel of salvation which is now preached to the whole world.  The subject to the gospel is Christ, the purpose for preaching it is salvation, and the message is Christ the rejected king died on the cross for our salvation.

With only one other exception, the Gospel of the Kingdom, announcing the time has come to set up the Kingdom,  is never again preached after the death and resurrection of Christ by any of the apostles.  That last offer of the kingdom was remarkably made by the apostle Peter in its, then, prophetically fulfilled entirety (being able to encompass the foretelling of Christ’s sufferings) as credential to his fellow Jews from Solomon’s porch (Acts 3:12-21).  They again failed a national repentance; and so the offer of ushering in the “times of refreshing,” where their “sins may be blotted out,” and God sending Jesus back to Israel with the Messianic Kingdom to accomplish all this was withdrawn (Acts 3:18-20).  So, after a process wherein God had to rebuke Peter to get him preach the gospel of salvation to the Gentiles, the first century church began to be populated with Gentiles (Acts 10), of whom we know that the Apostle Paul was inevitably sent.

Still, honest men of good intention mistakenly identify the gospel message for our present time and confuse others by doing so.  The error occurs when people turn to the book of Mathew, and look to a private briefing Jesus gave the apostles on eschatology.  There, they mistakenly cull the Gospel of the Kingdom from the end of an abstract which precedes detailed descriptions of end time events through the tribulation period, and culminating in Christ’s return to earth.  Specifically, the disciples asked Jesus when the temple, of which splendor they had just boasted, would be destroyed as He had just told them it would, and what would be the signs of His returning to earth and the end of the world (age).  The passage reads: “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come”(Mat 24:14).  It will be preached largely by saved Jews, and a special selection from amongst the twelve tribes of Israel, to the other nations of the world.  We know this because the Jews have never been numbered among the nations (Num 23:9).

Thus we see that the Gospel of the Kingdom is preached twice; the first time by Jews exclusively to Jews, and during and up to the close of the tribulation period it will be preached largely by Jews to all the nations. It will be a particularly unsavory message to Antichrist, and kings under him, as it announces the doom of Antichrist’s kingdom along with all of the little federated kingdoms.  It is the announcement that the Son David is coming to earth to set on the thrown of David as King (2Sam 7:10-16).  His Kingdom is the Millennial Kingdom, and it is the stone kingdom cut without hands which demolishes Antichrist’s kingdom, and which fills the whole earth for a thousand years (Dan 2:34-35; Rev 20:4).

In between preaching the Gospel of The Kingdom, the Lord instructed the Jews to preach to the nations the Gospel of Grace, and as people would be saved from out of those nations they were to begin preaching the same gospel:

And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luk 24:46-47)

This the Lord instructed the Apostles after first opening their eyes to the scriptures, to Moses and the prophets and the psalms, where it was originally written that Christ was to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day to make salvation possible to the Gentiles (Luk 24:44-46).  Later, Peter had to be sent to the house of Cornelius to give a sermon and witness the Holy Spirit fall on those present to fully grasp the revelation, and the Apostle Paul, writer of most to the New Testament, was made also an apostle to the Gentiles to establish churches.

Notes:

1. Russ Jones, “Rick Warren and 1,700 leaders launch Peace Coalition,” Chonicle, May 25, 2008.

http://www.thechronicleonline.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=821&Itemid=502