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The New Kingdom.8

"Heed these words.

All about you, evil men and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of heaven ahead of you.

These have heard the call to life and have turned to God, while the pious and religious have heard the call and have deliberately turned away." --Jesus

Evil men and Prostitutes: why would they have a greater proclivity for turning to God than the pious and religious? Was Jesus just sharing an observation or a principle?

Hearing the call to life and turned to God.

Pious and Religious. What a contrast. Things aren't always what they seem.

What makes a man evil? Why do women become prostitutes?

Deliberate turning away from God.

The New Kingdom.7

"Beware of how you treat this message:

for all of the sins of humankind will be forgiven, along with all of their blasphemies.

But there is no reconciliation for those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

This transgression is eternal."

--Jesus

Years ago, while visiting with some neighborhood friends, their young daughter soberly confessed that she had "committed the unpardonable sin". I don't recall what she thought she'd done that created the genuine fear she expressed. But I do recall thinking, "that's weird...such a young child to think that way. I wonder where she got that notion from?" Wondering, of course, if her parents knew what weighty theological concepts their daughter was wrestling with, and even suspecting that maybe they weren't going to the "right" church.

What I failed to appreciate, however, was the child-like sensitivity to God's spirit and her earnest desire to be pleasing to Him!

What the human race fails to appreciate, by and large, is how much we need God in our lives! Especially in the lawless age we live, how desperately we need a sense of the holy, sacred, beautiful, good, righteous and divine to cleanse a vile, vulgar, and blasphemous generation.

He has surely made us capable of living outside a relationship with Him while still benefiting from His blessings. We can ignore, disregard and even live in open hostility to him.

Yet He loves and forgives and loves where He cannot yet forgive. For the only sin God cannot forgive is the sin we will not stop doing!

Blasphemy? We live in a world choking itself with blasphemy, for there is nothing sacred that cannot be poked fun at, criticized, or reviled, ala South Park, the Simpsons, and nearly every American so-called "comedy". (Comedy, it has been noted, is the doorway to bypass a person's natural defenses against the immoral, illicit and vile.) Add to that the unlimited pornographic images; the vulgar, unruly behavior presented as "normal" kid stuff; disrespectful and disruptive acts of violence in the classroom and school buses; appalling conversations regarding sex among the youngest of children. Therein is the recipe for a blasphemous generation.

There is a terrible price to pay when a blasphemous spirit takes hold of a person and, consequently, like a cancer spreading, takes hold of a society. MacDonald describes the fruit of that spirit:

When a blasphemous spirit denies truth, 

When a blasphemous spirit says there is no truth,
When a blasphemous spirit says that the truth you see is not true,
When a blasphemous spirit says that which is good is of Satan,
When a blasphemous spirit says that which is bad is of God...

When a blasphemous spirit consciously resists duty,

Then a man denies the Spirit of God, shuts out the Spirit of God, and he cannot be forgiven.

For with out the Spirit no forgiveness can enter the man to cast out the blasphemy.

Without the Spirit to witness with his spirit, no man could know himself either convicted of sin or forgiven of that sin, even if God appeared to him and said so."

(adapted from "It Shall Not Be Forgiven" by George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons II)

In essence, then, the blasphemy of the Spirit is when a man or woman so cuts themselves off from the redemptive work of God's Spirit that they cannot experience repentance, forgiveness and grace. This is, Jesus warned, an eternal, absolute, fixed condition of the relationship between human beings and their Triune Creator.

Clearly my young neighbor friend had nothing to worry about. But sometimes it's hard to see God's smile through the clouds of our own doubt!

The New Kingdom.6

"Have you ever heard this reading from the scriptures:

“The stone which the builders have rejected has become the honored cornerstone; this is the Lord’s doing, and marvelous in our eyes?”

Behold, the kingdom of God will be taken from you who listen and do nothing and be given to a people working to bring forth fruit in their lives."

--Jesus

The Builders

Who are the "builders" in society? Why would it matter whether they rejected or accepted a thing? The case can be made it is either A: those who insist on maintaining the status quo (like the Pharisees of Jesus' time using legalism to keep people in line.) B: the visionaries who "see" the way society could be shaped through the marketplace or government coercion.

Henry Ford, for example, was a visionary who saw

how the automobile could change the way people lived. By devising a way to mass produce them and make them affordable, he allowed the marketplace to drive societal change.

The issues surrounding Covid 19 Vaccine is another example of a coercive method to change society

driven by the “experts”(a significant arm of today’s “builders”) . The Mrna technology is a complicated science that seems to hold great promise for healing many human diseases. But, like any complicated technology, for example cell phones, rather than patiently educating the public and allowing the marketplace to drive the acceptance of the change in dealing with disease, Governments are using the power of the state to force people into compliance and dramatic changes in society.

The builders of any era are usually the wealthy and/or credentialed who, of course, consider themselves superior to the common man and, by their worldview, reject any infringement on their goals. Manipulating public opinion is always an important aspect of the work of the builders. While living in Gratiot County Michigan several years ago, we encountered a technique developed for that purpose. It is called “The Delta Technique.” We discovered that our county had made a great effort to develop what they called “The Gratiot Master Plan.” It contained Eight objectives ranging from recreational activities to downtown business development. In essence, it was a Communist style central planning effort for the communities of Gratiot County.

The meeting we attended to introduce the “Master Plan” utilized the Delta Technique to near perfection. A charismatic Moderator introduced The Master Plan to an audience of about 100 citizens. Then the audience was broken down into 8 small groups where a Facilitator armed with a marker, paper sheets and easel guided discussion in the groups. Unbeknownst to the group the facilitator was trained to marginalize ideas that distracted from their objective. The facilitator’s goal was to enthusiastically report to the main audience that their group had freely come up ideas to implement the plan! Ideas the group was unwittingly led to embrace!

Questions the builders of Jesus’ day posed to Jesus usually had to do with His authority to teach and act in the way He did, which most often exposed their own spiritual bankruptcy. Questions such as “why do your disciples not follow the traditions of the elders?”, rather than show their spiritual authority demonstrated an arrogant unwillingness to learn from the Lord of Life.

George MacDonald accurately describes these types of questions as distractions from the essential work of doing what God asks us to do:

“[they] spring from the passion for the fruit of the tree of knowledge, not the fruit of the tree of life.

• Men would understand; they do not care to obey;
• to understand where it is impossible they should understand except by obeying.
• They would search into the work of the Lord instead of doing their part in it—
• thus making it impossible both for the Lord to go on with His work,
• and for themselves to become capable of seeing and understanding what He does.
• Instead of immediately obeying the Lord of Life, 
• the one condition upon which he can help them, 
• and in itself the beginning of their deliverance, 
• they set themselves to question their unenlightened intellects as to His plans for their deliverance…”

It reminds me of a young man on my bus recently who was acting up. I told him to stop what he was doing. He responded with, “Why?” I immediately stopped, got out of my seat and walked to the back of the bus to have a little chat. I reminded him that he will always have people in his life telling him what to do, and for the most part, they want him to make a good go in life. "Rather than question why and deciding for yourself if you’ll do what’s asked, the proper response, and the one that will ensure a lifelong measure of success, is to just do what’s asked and learn to quickly and cheerfully figure the best way to do it!"

After all, it's really an attitude of the heart, isn’t it? Rather than people who chafe at and question everything he tells them to do, why wouldn’t the King of Glory want to populate His kingdom with people of the humble heart, demonstrated by their desire to quickly, cheerfully and completely obey the things that show they trust and love Him! 

It is the only way to know His heart, understand His purposes and help Him build a society truly worth living in! Let us then, always be mindful that every time we do what the Lord asks us to do, or not do what He tells us not to, we are helping Him build a world worthy of Life and Love!

The New Kingdom.5

"Let your children stand before you as your judges; they can settle this dispute, for if your children cast out devils by the breath of God, then the kingdom is indeed come to dwell among you." --Jesus

Casting Out Devils

The ultimate measure of the spiritual health of a culture can be found in the children. If parents have been feckless, indifferent and downright neglectful in protecting the next generation from true Satanic evil in the world, the evidence is in the behavior and attitudes of the children.

Measuring Manners 

In a recent conversation with my father in law about his Amish neighbors (whom he's never had a particularly high opinion of) I asked him to consider the fact that the Amish community still knows how to raise respectful, kind and hard working kids. I said you could make the case they are raising the kind of kids most Americans were like decades ago. "If you doubt me," I said, "walk through the halls of any public school or ride a school bus. You'd be appalled at the language and conversation of today's American children!"

Targeting youth has always been the aim of those who want to see generational change. Here are just a few quotes from the dark side of history:

"Give me just one generation of youth and I'll transform the whole world." Vladimir Lenin

"Give me your four year olds and in a generation I will build a socialist state." Lenin

“The whole function of education is to create a Nazi.”
Bernhard Rust, Nazi education minister, February 1938

“We begin with the child when he is three years old. As soon as he begins to think, he gets a little flag put into his hand. Then he follows the school, the Hitler Youth, the SA and military training. We don’t let him go. And then when adolescence is passed, then comes the Arbeitsfront, which takes him again and does not let him go until he dies, whether he likes it or not.”
Robert Ley, Nazi labour chief, 1938

“The children of today are the fighters of tomorrow. Their hardening and preparation is a task as important as that of the armaments industry.”
Schul-Rundkfunk education journal, January 1940

“My teaching is hard. Weakness has to be

knocked out of them. In my Ordensburgen, a youth will grow up before which the world will shrink back. A violently active, dominating, intrepid youth, that is what I am after. Youth must be all those things. It must be indifferent to pain. There must be no tenderness or weakness in it. I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam of pride and independence of the beast of prey. Strong and handsome will my men be… Then I shall have in front of me the pure and noble natural material. With that, I can create the new order.”
Adolf Hitler, quoted by Herman Rauschning, 1940

“Nazi schools are no place for weaklings. All children must, of course, finish primary school before they are ten but after that, the schools are proving grounds for the Party. Those who betray any weakness of body or have not the capacities for absolute obedience and submission must be expelled.”
Gregor Ziemer, American teacher, 1941

“[Hitlerjugend leader] Baldur von Schirach was guilty of far more than war crimes. His was the deadly evil of corrupting the young. He poisoned the minds of an entire German generation. He trained and schooled the SS men, the men of the gas vans, the men of Auschwitz and Majdanek.”
New Central European Observer, 1948

The Holy Spirit revealed to Paul 2,000 years ago that the end of the age would usher in an epidemic of demon-inspired disobedient children! The current influence of the Tic Toc app is a great example of combining an atmosphere of rebellion with a willing audience to achieve destructive ends. My 5th grade granddaughter has reported that the current trend on Tic Toc is to video yourself slapping a teacher! In a conversation with a local high school custodian, I learned that not a week goes by without the police being called in and escorting a student out of the building, often in handcuffs, for doing destructive things, imitating what they saw on Tic Toc and other social media!

Do these anecdotes prove we are in the period of time Paul described in II Timothy 3:1 as "perilous" characterized by, among many things, "disobedient children"? Or are we just living in a time period when technology magnifies the "outliers" creating another illusion that things are far worse than they actually are?

If God assured Elijah that 7,000 had not bowed the knee to Baal, we can be assured that Jesus' work of Righteous Redemption has born fruit in tens of (if not 100's of) millions of people world wide who choose light over darkness. But since darkness seems to be in charge of much of what is projected through media, Satan's message that "resistance is futile" will cause many to succumb to the relentless assault on righteousness as we approach the last of the last days.

As Satan as always done, he continues to target children. It's why, in my opinion, children were such an important focus of Jesus' teachings while on earth. In fact, He went so far as to say that unless you and I become like children we will never see his kingdom!

Settling Disputes

The argument the religious leaders put forward, that essentially deflected away from their own spiritual impotence, was that Jesus' ability to "cast out demons" came from Satan himself. Jesus, of course, exposed the folly of such an argument and demonstrated that it was an emotional attack designed to elicit shock from the public and undermine growing public confidence in Jesus' teachings and power. As He did on many occasions, Jesus used Children to illustrate eternal truth:

-When the disciples got embroiled in a dispute over

"kingdom standing", Jesus took a child to settle the dispute about true greatness.

-When Nicodemus questioned Jesus' authority, Jesus said understanding the work of God's Spirit requires a born again experience, essentially returning to a childlike state of grace and trust.

-He became indignant at any attempt to keep children from receiving His blessing and being near Him.

-He made it clear that receiving a child is indeed receiving His childlike, obedient nature, the truest picture of the Nature of God himself.

-If the childlike character of grace and truth can overcome and "cast out" the lies and deception of Satan, what does it say about the sorry state of religious legalism?

 There is a growing controversy in American culture over what many believe to be Satanically inspired school curriculum and parents who want to protect their own children from wrong influences. The moms and dads showing up at school board meetings to defend truth are the offspring of the baby boomer generation who have failed to protect our culture from the lies and deception of the evil one! May God help these children settle this dispute and restore childlike character to our culture!  

The New Kingdom.4

"One cannot be liberated from the kingdom of the evil one without first binding his power. If I cast out devils and perform signs and wonders as an ally of the devil, as some of you accuse me, then by what power do your children do the same?"

--Jesus

Klashing Kingdoms


Kingdom (definition):

• sovereignty,
  
• dominion,
• royal power;
• the territory or people over whom a king rules;
• the sphere of a King's rule;
• the sphere in which, at any given time, His rule is acknowledged."

"Jesus is a King because his business is to bear witness to the truth. What truth? All truth; all verity of relation throughout the universe--first of all, that his father is Good, perfectly good; and that the crown and joy of life is to desire and do the will of the eternal source of will, and of all life." -MacDonald

With a nod to comedian Flip Wilson, 

"The Devil made him do it!"

is always an easy way for accusers of the righteous to try to grab the moral high ground against their perceived enemies. The Chosen, a tv series on the life of Christ and the Twelve disciples, does a terrific job of depicting the egregious hostility by the religious overlords of the day toward the Son of God, often accusing him of being in collaboration with the devil!

What gets lost in the ensuing debate is that the devil is actually quite capable of enormous destruction in the lives of people. Matthew describes an especially violent encounter with two demoniacs in 8:28:

"And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.."

Pastor/author Rick Renner explains that the Greek word used to describe the demoniacs as "exceeding fierce" is chalepos and means danger, risk, hurt, hazard, and potential wounding, like wild, vicious, and uncontrollable animals. They were unpredictable and dangerous. In fact, they were potentially treacherous and hurtful to anyone who tried to pass by that way. As a result of their well-known, dangerous behaviors, people found this situation emotionally hard to bear. This is what the word chalepos conveys: harsh, harmful, cruel, ruthless, cutting and wounding that is unpredictable, dangerous and emotionally difficult.

Before Jesus liberated the demoniacs, they'd made a habit of charging out of the caves along the road that ran along the eastern side of the sea of Galilee, terrifying people who tried to pass by on the seaside road near their dwellings in the caves and tombs. These men presented a real danger which caused the people in that region to avoid this area and keep a distance between themselves and those demoniacs, aware that they were walking into a hazardous situation.

But, as was His practice, rather than avoid the area, Jesus met the danger head on! The result was liberation and peace not only for the demoniacs but the people of the area and travelers on the sea side road!

And yet, the overlords found reason to criticize...

What is the greater danger: exceedingly fierce demon possession or spiritual pride-induced blindness? If I recall correctly, it was the spiritually blind who eventually contrived to put Jesus to death. Perhaps the lesson to be learned is this: the demon possessed can be set free through the liberating power of the Holy Spirit; the demon-deceived are the ones who cause the real problems for the righteous!

Exceedingly fierce times are coming when all Hell will break loose on the earth! In fact, every measure points to the fact that we are the ones chosen to live in the perilous times Paul describes in II Timothy 3:1, where he uses the same Greek word, chalepos, to describe this time period--"when time has sailed to its last port and no more time remains for the journey." Like the demoniacs Jesus liberated, the time will be "exceeding fierce" characterized by harsh, harmful, cruel, ruthless, cutting and wounding that is emotionally difficult to bear.

Victors Not Victims

Jesus is our Example. What terrified others called Him to action. The same should be true of his Followers in today's volatile climate.

 

Others would have turned around, gotten back into their boat, and sailed away to get out of the area. But Jesus was called to that place at that time to bring deliverance to the demoniacs in the country of the Gadarenes. Had He run away from that Divine assignment, He would have missed the opportunity to set an entire region free. As "perilous" and "exceedingly fierce" as those demoniacs were, Jesus pressed forward in the power of the Spirit and with the weapons of God, and He transformed that dire situation with the glory of God!

Likewise, in these last days, we need to hear God's Spirit beckoning us to step forward with the authority of Jesus Christ to bring deliverance, freedom, and peace to people and places where the devil has tried [and will keep on escalating his attempts] to bring chaos, hazard, and hurt. People need us, and that makes this our greatest hour!

The New Kingdom.3

"Every kingdom that is divided against itself is doomed; and every city or house divided against itself will eventually fall. Likewise, if the evil one is fighting evil, he is divided against himself, and his kingdom will not last." -Jesus

How to keep your house united in two easy steps:

1. Love good

2. Hate evil.

Talking with a friend recently, we reflected on the TV
shows we grew up with in the 50's and 60's. Shows like "Donna Reed", "My Three Sons", "Bonanza", "Leave It To Beaver" and others. These dramatizations and the people who produced them reflected a deep cultural commitment to goodness. The focus of the stories was on individual character and the lessons one can glean from life to become a better person: more mature, respectful, a better leader, worker, parent, person. By focusing on the responsibility of the individual to grow and become a better member of society, society itself benefited.

Contrast that with modern sitcoms, music videos and

storylines, shows like Modern Family, Married...with Children, The Simpsons or All In The Family where the focus is most often on the ills of society and who is to blame for them. Characters are often rude, sarcastic, loud and vulgar. Men, in particular, are portrayed as belching-sexual pariahs, emasculated and irrelevant.

The advent of graphic media has provided rich opportunity to influence masses of people of which kings and tyrants throughout history could only have dreamed. Bypassing the natural filters of reason and truth, aiming at the emotional center, modern society has been led to accept increasingly more noxious ideas, behaviors and practices.

Walk through the halls of today's schools and see if you think the media hasn't had an impact on the attitudes, language, behavior and conversation of our youth. If you grew up on 50’s and 60’s tv ---and have been living under a rock-- prepare to be shocked!

Goodness builds. Evil destroys. 

There are two primary ways of looking at the world, the human race:

People who view the world through the lens of the Right (Right for Righteousness) tend to try to make the world a better place by being better people, i.e., kind, fair, forgiving, reasonable, generous, God-fearing and freedom-loving. 

People of the Modern (i.e., Marxist) Left try to circumvent the natural demand of ideals by demanding what people ought to believe and how to think and act. These influencers tend to be impertinent, bossy, unreasoning, unforgiving, unrealistic, and unholy.

In that sense, the world has always been divided. But Human beings are created for Oneness. First, with our Creator. Then with one another.

Here is a profound thought from friend George MacDonald: 

"There is more love in the world than anything else...but the best love and the individual in whom love is supreme are the rarest of all things." 

As humans, especially humans living in society together, we make many claims upon the attitudes and actions of others. These claims show themselves in a variety of ways including, but not limited to, family relations, community efforts, commercial advertising, social interaction, and governmental rules.

What is the strongest claim we have as humans upon those who invent, innovate, enervate, and usher in the future; whose skill level, job description, election or simple interest position them to best influence society? Is not our claim for them to put forward our highest and best ideals and behavior?

Unfortunately, the loudest and strongest demands of the present day (and, to be fair, most any day in human history) are not for the best of what we are capable of but rather the “common-ness, narrowest, low-levelled satisfaction of the age”. Today’s mantra: If it feels good it must be right, if its right it must be true,” (or as the late Charles Colson observed, “People would rather feel good than be good”) describes the governing philosophy that makes it possible for poor and ignoble ideas to gain a foothold and flourish.

If you were to “grade” humanity (at least from a higher perspective), it might look like this:

• Grade A - Exceptional: the childlike in faith, righteousness, humility, sincerity, lovingkindness and grace.
• Grade B - Acceptable: the reasonably mature, responsible and altruistic
• Grade C - Passable: the coarse and careless sprinkled with enough personality to make them harmless and friendly.
• Grade D - Deplorable: the immature, brash, arrogant, impertinent, greedy.
• Grade E - Incorrigible: malevolent, malicious, criminal
• Grade F - Abominable: the beastly vile.

Thus there is a "natural" division between the becoming righteous and the unrighteous. This division was first revealed at the moment Cain rose up to murder his brother Abel. 

"In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." 8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him." Genesis 4:3-8

 

"By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks." Hebrews 11:4

"We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous." 1 John 3:12

Dr. Jordan Petersen makes the case on the core motive of Cain's antagonism:

“The account of Cain and Abel is remarkable for its unique combination of brevity and depth. In a few short sentences, it outlines two diametrically opposed modes of being—both responses to the emergence of self-consciousness and the knowledge of good and evil detailed in the story of Adam and Eve. Cain’s mode of being – resentful, arrogant and murderous – arises because his sacrifices are rejected by God. This means that his attempts to give up something valuable in the present to ensure prosperity in the future are insufficient. He fails, in consequence, to thrive, as he believes he should, and becomes bitter, resentful and murderous. Abel’s mode of being is characterized, by contrast, by proper sacrifice – by the establishment of balance between present action and future benefit. This ensures his personal and social success, accruing over time. Unfortunately, it also makes him the target of Cain’s malevolence.”

-Jordan Petersen, Genesis lectures."

There is a natural antagonism between those who answer the redemptive call to a higher, rarer, truer humanity and those for whom "vulgarity, vile contentment, self-admiration and unbelief" give volume and cover to a more articulate and peremptory attack on the “common good uncommonly developed.”

The demand of the age is to accept that 

1. Some people are superior to others. (It is the "credentialed" vs the "common" man.)
2. No ideas are Superior to other ideas. (Except what the credentialed deem superior, thus Christianity, for example, is no better or worse as a lifestyle than Islam. But Global Climate Change places a demand on everyone's lifestyle.)

Is the gap widening between the Becoming Righteous and the Antagonists of Righteousness? Surely it must. But my theory is that since the days of Noah, when it literally grieved God that he had made man on the earth because "all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth," righteousness has been advancing in the race. From only one man's family found righteousness enough to preserve the race from the physical cleansing of humanity, to "7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal", to the sending of His only begotten son to cleanse the world of sin, to millions today who by faith in Jesus are fighting to preserve the ideals of the American experiment in faith and freedom, the human race is proving it is capable of choosing righteousness eternally! 

And as long as the kingdom of the evil one continues to devour itself through infighting and exposure of its lawlessness, we, the "becoming Righteous" can rest in hope for the return of the King and the glorious final chapter in Overcoming!

(adapted from a portion of George MacDonald's Donal Grant)