actually have experienced, have been participants in the
revivals of the past and however valid the
revivals are today, Reggie mentioned last night that
they don't seem to endure they dissipate away,
and so occasionally we hear that the problem
is the necessity of a wineskin that will
hold the new wine and I thought for
myself that that must be some kind of
a structure maybe the problem is that we
are, our Christianity is too institutional and we
need a more apostolic community setting and that
would hold the wine but I want to
suggest this morning that I'm shifting gears that
the wineskin that will hold the new wine
is not a structure so much as a
mindset, a mode of understanding an apostolic view,
and that that view is necessarily the view
of the kingdom of God so probably as
many men as approach that subject will speak
of it differently it's that variable and that
large, so I want to ask the Lord's
blessing again that he'll give the thrust of
this as it pleases him who is himself
the king the kingdom of God is remarkably
absent from our consciousness and if we allude
to it, usually it's in some kind of
subjective or personal sense that the kingdom of
God is within, or that it's some kind
of sense of principles by which the church
conducts itself, and all those things are true
but the sense in which I want to
communicate it this morning is theocratic the political
structure of God for the nations and for
the world it's that view of the kingdom
that has been lost and it has been
lost in exact proportion as we have lost
the centrality of Israel the two are inextricably
joined so if there's the restoration of the
one, there's necessarily the restoration of the other
because Israel's calling is the kingdom of God
and the kingdom is necessarily the kingdom of
David, it's a Davidic kingdom God has made
a promise to David that on his throne
will be a descendant who will rule over
Israel forever and to rule over Israel is
to rule over the nations because Israel is
the most obdurate and rebellious and when God
says in Ezekiel 20, I will rule over
you it's a kind of a note of
vehemence remembering that the last official statement in
the record book was we will not have
this man to rule over us so when
God will rule Israel, we'll have all nations
but this is the first and the foremost
nation and in coming into its kingdom inheritance,
it will no longer be the tail but
the head and so we're not going to
see peace in the world until nations will
be rightly related to that nation that God
intended as the centerpiece of his kingdom and
that there's a necessity for the fulfillment of
what is spoken both in Isaiah and in
Micah, exactly the same words and I don't
think that either copied from the other the
spirit of God gave it to them independently
but identically that the law must go forth
out of Zion and the word of God
out of Jerusalem so when we say thy
kingdom come, this is what we're saying and
the great opposition against Israel is to prevent
that fulfillment if Israel could be obliterated as
a nation actually removed from the earth, then
there's no prospect of the fulfillment because there's
necessarily a land, an epicenter a focal point,
a locus, L-O-C-U-S for
the kingdom of God and it's Zion but
Zion, like the phrase kingdom of God has
been very largely spiritualized by the church over
the ages and that's how we have been
robbed of the specific content that would have
changed everything the church is flabby and its
ship is loose because there's only one dynamic,
one understanding that would have affected a tightening
of the whole thing and a direction, it's
the understanding of the kingdom of God literally
to have this dynamic, this understanding that we're
moving toward some very large fulfillment and that
it would have to do with the rule
of God over his creation the kingdom of
God, the theocratic rule of God would have
greatly affected the church in its every department
every aspect of the church its composition, its
relationship, the role of the Holy Spirit the
gifts of the Spirit, the structure, the offices
everything comes into another focus when the kingdom
of God is reinserted as central to the
church's whole understanding of what it is about
in the purposes of God so Lord, we
ask for your view as the high priest
and the apostle of our confession you're the
soon coming king you're the son of David,
you're the root and the offspring and you're
the one intended, my God, for the occupancy
of Zion to dwell there, for it to
be your sanctuary and the locus of your
rule so instruct us, my God, and inflame
our hearts and create a desire for the
kingdom that when we sing or say, thy
kingdom come it's not some airy and intangible
thing that we're referring to or a subjective
thing, though it has that aspect but we're
talking about the clear rule of God over
the nations the rebellious pockets of resistance the
defiance of the nations to come under your
authority that is resolved when Israel itself will
come and out of that Zion will go
forth your law so instruct us, Lord, and
lead us through the scripture and affect our
understanding and obtain our participation we thank and
give you praise for so great a theme
so central to the faith, so long neglected
and now hopefully to be restored in Jesus'
name we pray, Amen well we know that
John the Baptist and then Jesus had at
the heart of their proclamation the kingdom of
God or the kingdom of heaven is at
hand that was the motif in the note
that was struck and you don't read anywhere
where any of their hearers questioned them as
to what they meant by that it was
something so understood in the anticipation of Israel
that all that was waiting was the announcement
not the definition and that kind of sense
of expectation of the kingdom has been lost
to us as the church so lost that
the church historically and even presently thinks that
it itself is the kingdom and that is
a piece of presumption and the kind of
conceit against which Paul warned Jesus performed the
signs of the kingdom what do you say
at one point if I by the finger
of God cast out these demons then has
the kingdom come among you so the evidence
of his power and his authority particularly against
the powers of darkness was the most vital
and significant sign that the kingdom was at
hand he was giving a preview of what
will be the reality when in fact the
kingdom is totally established he was exhibiting the
credentials of the king in his mastery over
the powers of darkness his ability to heal
this was the fulfillment that Israel was expecting
deliverance, healing, restoration and he was giving the
signs of that through the authority that he
had as himself being that son of David
now it's just interesting to trace some of
these things in scripture I love the angelic
pronouncements about the birth of Jesus because what
is angelically spoken is perhaps the purest expression
from God without admixture it doesn't pass through
a human vessel that it would be in
any way tinctured this is divine pronouncement so
even the angelic pronouncement of the birth of
Jesus in Luke chapter 1 to Mary, verse
32 has this statement he will be great,
he will be called the son of the
most high and the Lord God will give
to him the throne of his ancestor David
and he will reign over the house of
Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will
be no end so it's remarkable that of
all the things that could have been said
to introduce the advent of the Lord the
thing that the angel fingers is his identity
with the kingdom of God the fulfillment, the
long awaited fulfillment of the promise made to
David that from his seed and ancestry that
one would come who would reign over his
house forever and also reflecting the statement in
Isaiah chapter 9 of the very same phenomenon
for unto us a child is born and
unto us a son is given from verse
6 I don't like my translation, it says
authority rests upon his shoulder what do you
have in yours?
the government shall be upon his shoulder I
love that, it's specific and explicit and the
word government, I don't know about you but
when I hear it I wince it's almost
like an instantaneous recoil because the word government
has been so traduced and corrupted in our
time when you hear the word government you
think of men lining their pockets with gain,
greed, manipulation smoke filled back rooms where plots
are hatched but the government of God is
the antithesis of human government this is not
corruption or men seeking things for themselves this
is the most objective, dispassionate equitable, just rule
of God over his creation this is righteousness
itself spelled out as it affects the conduct
of men and of nations he will rule
with equity and with justice he will arbitrate
between nations you know that the resolutions that
will come from God will be unquestionably perfect
so the government will be upon his shoulder
and we don't think of the Lord in
these terms that somehow we're a bit repelled
we may think that it's somehow incompatible to
think of government, order, the exercise of authority
actual political rule with the Lord we'd rather
think of things spiritual ethereal, lofty but that
the practical rule is somehow incompatible with God
and with his nature, quite the contrary it's
perfectly compatible and we ought to be yearning
for it so the government shall rest upon
his shoulders and he shall be called Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father Prince of Peace
and of his, you have it in yours,
verse 7 of his okay there shall be
no end upon the throne of David here's
again that specific reference and his kingdom he
will establish and uphold it with justice and
with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore
and the zeal of the Lord of hosts
will perform this and the statement of Peter
on the day of Pentecost these references again
occur but before we turn to them maybe
just as long as we're going to the
book of Acts to be reminded of what
Jesus spoke to his disciples in the 40
days in which he was with them before
he ascended of all the things that could
have been said to set the church forth
with a right perception of what its role
and function would be what are the issues
that are incumbent upon the church it says
in chapter 1, after his suffering in verse
3 he presented himself alive to them by
many convincing proofs, appearing to them during 40
days and speaking about the kingdom of God
isn't that remarkable?
of all the subjects there was only one
subject because that one subject is the all
-inclusive subject and the central subject and so
he didn't mince words and he didn't misuse
the occasion but he addressed them on this
subject alone and you wonder how much can
be said on this subject that would occupy
40 days but that's how rich it is
and so there's little wonder that at the
conclusion they asked him when they had come
together in verse 6, Lord is this the
time when you will restore the kingdom to
Israel you would have thought what an opportunity
for Jesus once and for all to shoot
that down that this is a lingering kind
of nationalism Jews that still want to be
exalted and have their nation freed from Roman
conquest and all these other kinds of things
such a petty nationalistic concern so out of
keeping with their apostolic call but there's not
even a hint, not a scintilla that in
any way Jesus was displeased with this question
he answers it in a way so as
to imply that the question itself is not
invalid only the issue of its timing is
something that needs to be considered, the question
itself is totally valid totally Hebraic, totally Jewish,
totally Biblical it was absolutely right and valid
for these men to ask that question after
all they had been instructed in the kingdom,
is this the time now then to expect
its fulfillment and he implied it's not for
you to know the times or periods that
the father has set by his own authority
but you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you you'll be my witnesses
and so on so you can see from
the way that Jesus and John the Baptist
began the kingdom of God is at hand
the announcement of the angel to Mary that
this one who will be born who is
great is to occupy the throne of David
and he will rule over the kingdom of
God forever and over Israel, the mentality of
the disciples, the apostles kingdom conscious, knowing that
this is the fulfillment, this is that son
of David who will rule is it time
now then to establish this kingdom the kingdom
of God was foremost in the consideration of
the church from its inception and that consciousness
affected its whole myth its whole conduct and
so it ought and for the absence of
this same consciousness we have been going off
in all directions we have revivals that are
not in any way kingdom related, we have
a church that is entirely subjective, everything is
in terms of how it itself is affected,
will they be blessed will they be revived
but it's not a revival that points to
a fulfillment of this central thing something is
absent, profoundly absent that has brought the church
in my opinion to its beggarly condition and
that one thing is this kingdom so that
when I was in East Germany as mentioned
last night I saw two pastors in one
day whom I had known 15 or more
years ago when they were still under communist
rule, in fact I had counseled the wife
of one who was pregnant to go ahead
and have that child though the doctors had
told her that her life was threatened and
it would be born deformed they wanted an
abortion and my sense was no, believe the
Lord and you'll have a healthy birth and
she did and she had a healthy birth
this was my first time back in 20
years and as I came to the house
there was a guy outside of it about
that age with spiked hair and tinted, what
do you call it, staining up I don't
know if he had an earring or a
nose ring but I think he was capable
of it and maybe he puts it on
when he's out of the sight, this was
the son that had been prayed for 20
years later, is now completely unrelated to church,
doesn't attend services has no consideration for God,
goes to the discotheque and he's a rapper
and so when we had our cup of
coffee I asked this pastor the same question
that I asked the other one earlier in
the day what has replaced the tension under
which you were living and serving during the
communist time then you were an outpost of
God under siege the other pastor was actually
threatened with imprisonment for speaking about Israel just
bringing up the subject, so these were men
who were harassed by atheistic communist officials they
lived with a degree of threat and risk
and it gave to their church life and
to their own ministry a certain texture and
a certain tension a certain heightened significance that
made their days very real, their prayers very
earnest the people who would come to a
fellowship under siege and being noticed and recognized
as believers in an atheistic society are people
who put themselves consciously in a place of
peril, so the fellowship with the saints and
hearing the word of God when you come
together was altogether critical for them now, communism
has gone out the window the wall is
down, they're one with western Germany I can
see the physical improvements everywhere, the buildings the
buildings had always been deteriorated when you crossed
the border from west to east Germany it
was like coming into another land where the
clock had been turned back to the 1930s
and nothing had changed nor improved since that
time.
To go from west Berlin to east Berlin
was like to enter a time machine you
went from the hotspot, the showpiece of western
Germany, Berlin into east Berlin on the subway
the elevated train, and when you came across
the border and came down the steps and
into east Berlin it was like entering another
world I remember I came down the steps
and there was a bus with people in
it, and I'm looking at that bus what
is it that's so strange, and I realized
what it was they were all holding straps,
but they were absolutely lifeless, there wasn't a
smile, there wasn't a conversation on that bus,
they were going listlessly to their work or
coming home from it there was no life
in the land, I can't tell you how
dead now the wall is down and there's
only one Germany which I'm not happy for
and so there's been a material improvement or
else where would this kid go with the
discotheques so I said to these pastors what
has replaced this oppression that you had served
under that brought a dynamic of an earnest
and urgent kind into your whole church life
and the answer was nothing in fact we're
just drifting, we're just marking time we're treading
water, there's nothing that gives to our life
I'm just paraphrasing, anything that would compare to
the urgency that we knew when we were
under the gun I said well, what do
you think about the kingdom of God, I
had not thought about it myself, it had
not been a subject for me for years
and they gave me the traditional answers, well
the kingdom of God is within it's something
subjective, it's something personal, but they had no
concept of the kingdom of God as being
theocratic as having to do with actual rule
over God's creation and I became conscious that
it's the absence of that understanding of the
kingdom that very much explains their present condition
and that their present condition would never be
remedied until the kingdom of God in it's
theocratic sense would come into their consciousness and
be first and foremost in their every consideration
and from that time on I believe that
the Lord has been stirring me to consider
again, the kingdom in that sense there are
many references in the Psalms, the prophets as
we just read in Isaiah that hint that
or actually speak literally of a time when
God would rule over all nations that Israel
was God's instrumentality for his rule through them
to the nations, it was an expectation and
one that grew out of their own covenantal
relationship with God, that what they experienced in
the governance of their own life through covenant
was a first installment of a much larger
intention of God through government for all nations
so you can see it in some of
the Psalms you can look at the Psalms
and we can't extensively go through it, but
even Psalm 22 I just noticed him the
other day it has to do with the
suffering servant, the suffering Lord where you would
not think that that would be an occasion
where such a reference would be made actually
concludes with it begins with my God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me but it
ends with verse 27 all the ends of
the earth shall remember and turn to the
Lord and all the families of the nations
shall worship before him, for dominion belongs to
the Lord and he rules over the nations
if God is God, if the God of
Israel is God this is a necessary and
inevitable conclusion, he cannot be God and be
the creator and not have also the right
and the authority to rule over his creation
it's the divine logic, but more than that
and as well as that, the references to
his eventual rule were all through the whole
texture of Israel's understanding of God and of
the eschatological future Israel had a sense of
future and destiny that affects all nations so
that it even goes back to the time
of Abraham and the promise made to him
the covenantal promise, the first of God with
that people who would descend from him in
Genesis 12 that out of your seed will
come those that will bless all the families
of the earth and the sense of bless
was not some kind of superficial pat on
the back but something that would issue from
the descendants of Abraham that would affect all
nations for their betterment I'm trying to, a
thought has just eluded me and that thing
could be found being expressed through the prophets
and elsewhere for example, Amos chapter 9 where
it talks about, in one final chapter is
a summary of Israel's judgment when God will
sift Israel through the nations but it speaks
in the same chapter right after that of
the tabernacle of David being restored that that
which had fallen down would again be raised
up and we, sappy charismatics have construed that
reference to mean a restoration of Davidic worship
which I don't want to knock, I like
that Hebraic flavor but this is something much
more profound because when you follow out the
text it says, and Edom shall come under
that rule, and all the nations which know
God so this is more than an issue
of technique or a form of worship that
is called the tabernacle of David the tabernacle
of David is the kingdom of David that
is restored and the government, the Davidic government
of God from the throne of David and
out of Zion that will affect Edom and
all nations this is lost to our consciousness
but so enormously significant to understand the whole
format of what God is about and how
the age concludes Psalm 149 is another cogent
expression of Israel's expectation for its own role
in how the age ends as it affects
nations praise the Lord, sing to the Lord
a new song let Israel be glad in
its maker let the children of Zion rejoice
in their king these references to king are
not, what would we call them poetic poetic,
yeah it has a lovely valence to it
when they used it, it was both poetic
and actual the word king always resonated the
word rule and only this can dignify God
only this was compatible with his eternal dignity
that he deserves to rule because he is
also creator and that Israel is the first
nation to come under his authority but of
the increase of his rule of his government
and of his peace there shall be no
end we read in Isaiah chapter 9 so
what begins with Israel is to extend to
all nations and that Israel itself would be
an instrument to the nations in the rule
of God and so also the church as
Jesus made that veiled reference to Nathaniel who
was impressed that he saw him under the
tree and he said you are the Messiah
you are the king of Israel and Jesus
when he heard that was blessed he said
I have not found one in Israel so
without guile and you are impressed that I
saw you under the tree you recognize my
qualification and my credential I'll show you a
greater thing angels ascending and descending upon the
Son of Man no explanation of what that
means but in my own sense this is
the destiny of the church of those guileless
ones of Israel who are not necessarily Jewish
who will be ascending and descending upon the
Son of Man that is to say will
rule and reign with him not from the
earthly place Israel will be performing that from
the earthly place of the restored nation but
the church will be operating in its glorified
body that's why it will receive a glorified
body not that we should be freed from
the aches and pains of our earthly bodies
but that we will have a vehicle appropriate
to our call we need to be able
to penetrate time and space in the same
way that Jesus walked through closed doors and
he would ascend and descend we also shall
in the operation of the governmental privilege that
will be given to us in proportion to
our coming of age in this life that's
why it says some will rule over 5
cities and some over 10 this is totally
absent from the consideration of saints we don't
know what our eternal reward is and we
don't know eternity so eternity is absent from
our consideration because we have lost the whole
eschatological framework that was understood by Israel and
gave it a hope for its future that's
why Abraham we read in Hebrews was in
the land as a stranger he was in
the land of promise but he was in
it as a stranger because it was not
yet the time when that land would come
under the kingdom rule of God that is
the millennial and eternal dispensation and at that
time of no more be strange it will
be his reward and it's our reward also
and our rewards are proportionate to our labors
some of us maybe will not even be
fit for the government of God at all
because in this life there was very little
government we couldn't so to speak fight our
way out of a paper bag we couldn't
bring our own households into the order of
God our own fellowships and churches were disordered
we were not faced with questions of a
kind that called for Solomonic wisdom in arbitrating
issues of a significant kind that affected the
life of the church the only decisions we
had to make were exchanging the carpet or
inviting the speaker so this life is to
present us if the church is authentic with
that kind of challenge and experience that would
affect what our eternal destiny will be because
the ability to rule in the spirit of
the Lord is not something that is going
to come to us magically but will be
the expression of what has been obtained in
this life so in Psalm 149 where the
children of Zion rejoice in their king I
would just say that the children of Zion
is not every Jew, not all Israel is
Israel this is the elect of God the
prepared vessels of God those who have suffered
for his name in this life and rightly
can look forward to the privilege and the
honor of ruling with him they rejoice in
their king let them praise his name with
dancing make melody to him with tambourine and
lyre for the Lord takes pleasure in his
people he adorns the humble with victory let
the faithful exult in glory let them sing
for joy in their couches let the high
praises of God be in their throats and
two-edged swords in their hands to execute
vengeance on the nations to bring retribution because
the nations have been in a rebellious state
since the time of the Tower of Babel
they were not even in the right place
physically they should not have been on the
plains of Shinar they should not have been
in the place where they could have conspired
to compete with God by building a tower
as high as the heavens you can see
the chutzpah, the arrogance of nations wanting to
do their own thing and to equal or
to exceed God that he had to bring
down by confusing their language but they were
not in the government of God and I
believe that that's visible in the history of
nations to this day where nations are located
what their histories have revealed shows the deep
inveterate rebellion of nations against God and Paul
speaks of this in Acts 17 when he
addresses the Greeks at Athens because Athens was
not just a city it was a city
-state and it was the supreme statement of
civilization of man in that generation and yet
he tells them that they're going to be
accountable and that God has appointed a day
in which he will judge all men by
that man whom he has raised from the
dead and that the bounds of the nations
and their habitations were given them, not that
it should be a playground or that nations
should do with it what they will but
that they might seek God in order to
understand the reason for which their nationhood was
given them but what nation has consulted God?
Every nation has acted autonomously independently, has done
its own thing has had its own ambitions
and the bloodshed the rivers of blood that
have issued historically are the evidence of greed,
vanity, pride World War I is the outgrowth
of German chancellors and Prussian generals and admirals
in the navy with their tin soldiers and
toys on chessboards on great tables like this
plotting strategy so that their national pride could
have a grand fulfillment when they would defeat
France or Great Britain and what were France
and Great Britain doing?
Exactly the same.
They're playing games a gamesmanship that has to
do with pride, esteem national dignity but the
end of it is unbelievable, a holocaust of
life and among my experiences is to go
to Verdun, one of the great battlefields of
World War I that was maybe 10-20
acres, the whole thing but there was a
seesaw thing back and forth between France and
Germany, taking some ground losing it, in trenches
that an entire generation of German and French
youth were entirely wiped out in those few
acres, so that today when you go there
they have an ossuary, a building built to
contain the bones of those who died on
that battlefield and it is as big as
5 football fields, filled with the bones of
an entire generation.
I can say having lived as long as
I have that the America of today bears
little correspondence to that America that I knew
prior to World War II.
Something happened with World War II, with massive
bombings with destruction of cities, with V-bombs
falling on England and armadas of planes wiping
out Leipzig and what's the city in Germany
that produced China?
Dresden, China They say that there were 5
or 6 days of successive fire bombings with
British planes that so sucked the air out
of the city that people died of asphyxiation
as well as burning, that the heat was
so intense that their feet were stuck in
the melted asphalt and they perished by the
tens of thousands.
There's no return from that, there's no return
from the Holocaust There's no return from bloodletting
from genocidal death where nations are no longer
content merely to fight soldiers against soldiers but
involve civilian populations and to win a war
not only by the destruction of civilian populations
but by the terrorizing of them You can't
end the war and then go back to
life as normal Something has happened in the
moral universe that is irredeemable, irretrievable You'll never
make that ground up again So when I
look at my early years as a kid
in Brooklyn before 1941, it was like what
shall I say, a paradise, the air was
clean poor as we were if I had
to borrow a nickel, which was a substantial
sum of money, I would say to this
kid I promise to pay you back, I
give you my word of honour Okay, here
it is that someone talking like that was
understood and received, it meant something that kids
in the street could talk about their word
of honour Where does anyone speak like that
today, even as an adult, let alone as
a child We have children today that are
monsters that are the candidates to be the
Nazis of a soon coming time and they
will be destructive of the church and of
humanity and will be without pity and without
natural affection.
All of that is the residue and the
ultimate logic of what was set in motion
by the two great world wars, which were
set in motion by imperialist ambition and nationalistic
rivalries and people in an industrial age that
had now cannons and tanks and great battleships
wanting to use their toys because they had
never sought the Lord to ask What is
the purpose for which you have given us
the bounds of our habitation and what Paul
is saying is God is going to judge
all nations for that failure.
We need to understand this that the world
is a rebellion against God.
There is an enmity against God in the
world and the nations in their nationhood and
in their independence are thumbing their nose at
the living God.
I don't care that their sessions of Congress
begin with prayer or any of the other
soporific amenities that men perform religiously.
That's whitewash that's nothing.
The reality of the matter is God is
not taken into their consideration He's not consulted,
He's not considered Can you imagine Clinton calling
a day of fasting or saying that our
national problems or the murders in our high
schools are of a kind that there's been
a deterioration in the whole moral atmosphere of
the nation and nothing that we can do
as a program is going to arrest it
We need to seek God and repent that
these things, these symptoms are breaking forth that
show godlessness even in a pseudo religious country.
Can you imagine a man that would ruin
his, any president who would speak like that
would be dismissed as some wild, radical, I
mean he has no sense, he's dooming his
political career because common sense and practicality and
political wit and wisdom is predicated upon not
the inclusion of God but His exclusion So
we need to understand how God sees this.
He has been shunted to the sidelines.
The God who created the earth and the
nations is not entitled and invited in to
their consideration and he's watching the bloodbath, he's
watching Kosovo and Bosnia and all of the
other eruptions the mass rapes as a military
policy and the helplessness of parents to protect
their own daughters It's savage and all of
that is the evidence of nations that have
not consulted God.
We ought to know that deeply and our
cry is come Lord Jesus not to take
us out of this but come as king.
Come and establish righteousness.
Come and establish equity in your rule.
Mediate between the nations and I believe that
when the Lord will come, we're not going
to see the proliferation of nations as we
have them today.
What is it?
Over 200?
Every little language group Here in Yugoslavia is
a perfect example.
Ethnically and racially it's the same people.
They're all Slavs but religiously and culturally and
nationally they have different histories and that one
difference is enough to exacerbate the difference and
to bring one against the other as an
ethnic cleansing though they are genetically made of
the same stuff.
And so what's their answer?
There's got to be a Serbia.
There's got to be a Croatia There's got
to be a Bosnia.
A Herzegovina What were the people Albanians There
are many nations now as there are minorities.
There's a multiplicity of nations and of course
the greater the number the greater the opportunity
for incendiary differences that will flare up and
eventuate in conflict and violence and death I
believe that when the Lord comes and Israel
is at the center, we're not going to
see that great number but we'll see the
number that God intended from the first and
they'll all be related to the nation that
he intends as the head and not the
tail and his word will go out of
Zion and the law out of Zion, the
word will go out of Jerusalem How do
you know that?
Because Isaiah chapter 2, known by every Jew
in its religious experience and knowledge of the
prophet says that the law shall go forth
out of Zion and that because of that
nations shall study war no more and they'll
turn their swords into plowshares and their spears
into prunicles There's going to be a radical
alteration of the purposes of nations that will
no longer require armaments Can you imagine what
that releases for mankind?
The untold wealth of nations that has been
spewed out in weapons What that 40 some
odd days of bombings in Yugoslavia cost this
nation is inestimable One of these guided bombs
or what do they call them, smart bombs
some of them are close to a million
dollars even the most ordinary aspects of their
arsenal ran to tens and hundreds of thousands
of dollars let alone the planes these stealth
bombers and so on and so forth and
the whole technology of warfare is an enormous
drain on the wealth of nations so the
one thing that and there'll be many things
but if God did not affect anything else
but nations studying war no more and turning
their resources from death to life it would
be a change universally that would be to
the betterment and happiness of millions but who
can affect this?
what philanthropist or man of of ideals is
going to affect this?
only God himself when he has his own
rule in the one place that he has
designated the Zion of God, the holy hill
of Zion and the throne of David this
is the explicit choosing of God and he'll
not have his government in any other place
therefore the issue of God's rule and God's
government is the issue of Israel's restoration and
that's why if we have dismissed the consideration
of Israel we have taken the ground out
for any possibility of theocratic government it has
got to be through them according to the
many scriptures shall we take a look at
Isaiah?
chapter 2 instead of paraphrasing it yes in
the last days the mountain of the Lord's
house shall be established in the top of
the mountains and shall be exalted above the
hills and all nations shall flow unto it
focus on that, all nations shall stream to
it that's either poetry that we can idly
dismiss as having a nice sound to it
or it's God's explicit intention that affects everything
if this is his design and this is
his way of resolving dispute and crisis between
nations and the way of establishing his peace
because of the increase of his government and
of his peace there shall be no end,
then this should be crucial for our consideration
and make very clear that except that this
government comes to the nation that he's appointed
it shall not come at all if you
want other confirmations, Ezekiel 37 if you can
turn to that a little further into the
prophets I was looking at that this morning
we read about the valley of dry bones
but we don't read the whole chapter through
what happens after those bones come together and
are restored and come to life again from
verse 15 on we get the conclusion of
the matter the reuniting of Judah and of
Ephraim making of Israel one people and then
in verse 21 then say to them, thus
says the Lord God I will take the
people of Israel from the nations among which
they have gone and will bring them from
every quarter and bring them to their own
land I will make them one nation in
the land on the mountains of Israel and
one king shall be king over them all
never again shall there be two nations or
be divided into kingdoms, never again defile themselves
I will save them from their apostasies cleanse
them from their sin into which they have
fallen they shall be my people, I will
be their God this is the great climax
of the age as it pertains to Israel's
restoration and it's solely and exclusively the work
of God Israel has no part in it,
it's not their accomplishment it's their gift, it's
the purest grace of their restoration that glorifies
God and until that happens, the rest of
it does not follow, but when it happens
my servant David shall be king over them
and they shall have one shepherd, they shall
follow my ordinances be careful to observe my
statutes and then further down in verse 25
they shall live there forever and my servant
David shall be their prince forever I will
make a covenant of peace with them, it
shall be an everlasting covenant with them I
will bless them and multiply them and will
set my sanctuary among them forevermore God is
going to dwell in their midst present Jerusalem
is not a fit habitation for the king
I chafe if I have to go to
Israel and walk the streets of Jerusalem I
don't like the grass coming out of the
cracks I don't like the jerry built houses
I don't like the cheap sleazy atmosphere I
don't like the moral thing that I sense
and feel it's got to be a city
for the king and it will not be
that until it's first reduced to rubble and
ruin and then rebuilt as unto the Lord
but it will be his internal abode God
is actually going to dwell in the earth
and in the piece of earth that he
himself has designated there he will establish a
sanctuary and he would not be comfortable nor
desire it except the people themselves will restore
it and of a character and of a
kind appropriate to their king that's why Israel
has got to go through this devastation and
death in order to come up as the
redeemed of the Lord as a people appropriate
to their king and his city my dwelling
place shall be with them and I will
be their God, they shall be my people
then the nation shall know that I the
Lord sanctify Israel when my sanctuary is among
them forevermore just his very presence is an
endorsement of Israel's restoration that the nation that
had been scandalous and had done so much
to threaten the well-being of the world
or the Middle East is now sanctified and
that God's dwelling among them establishes for the
nations the truth of Israel's restoration there's two
words that go hand in hand eschatological we've
already mentioned that the things that pertain to
the end, the consummation of all things but
what precedes it and is part of it
is apocalyptic, judgment, destruction devastation, exile, expulsion and
then return and restoration so we'll turn in
a moment to the Pentecostal message of Peter
quoting from Joel this is that which was
spoken in Joel about the coming of the
Holy Spirit but the cry of the people,
what must we do men and brethren and
come out of this untoward and perverse generation
was the expectation that the last judgment was
about to fall and after that judgment and
coincident with it is the giving of the
Holy Spirit to the remnant that would survive
that judgment because they called upon the name
of the Lord and would receive the enablement
by the Spirit of God to be the
people who would be in the nation that
could receive the Lord in his sanctuary and
from which the rule of God would go
forth the only thing wrong with this expectation
was the issue of timing they didn't understand
that there was going to be an historical
parenthesis before the fulfillment that the Holy Spirit
was given to set in motion and give
enablement to a church that had purposes to
fulfill that would bring that final consummation but
I think like Paul, they expected a sooner
consummation and those Jews, the devout Jews of
every nation that had come up to Jerusalem
for one of the three occasions of Pentecost
knew these things they had both a millennial
eschatological expectation of the time when their nation
would be restored but they knew also that
what preceded it was devastation and judgment that's
why Peter says, come out from them come
out of this perverse generation doesn't mean generation
in the sense these are people who have
lived 40 years generation in the sense, come
out from this kind who have been rebellious,
who will not repent and for which reason
God's judgment is coming and out of which
only a remnant will be returned we read
from Isaiah chapter 9 that unto us a
child is born but do you know what
exactly precedes that in verse 4, for the
yoke of their burden and the bar across
their shoulders the rod of their oppressors you
have broken on the day of Midian for
all the boots of the tramping warriors and
all the garments rolled in blood shall be
burned as fuel for the fire it's a
picture of apocalyptic judgment of burning, of blood,
of devastation of oppression and this is repeated
in many of the prophets that there is
a time of judgment chastening for Israel a
sifting out of which only a remnant survives
who go on to be in the restored
nation out of which the rule of God
will come and when Peter spoke this in
Acts if we understand that, his statement takes
on another flavor when the spirit of God
fell and they were speaking with other tongues
and they said these men are filled with
new wine says Peter standing with the eleven,
isn't that beautiful only one spoke but they
stood together in agreement, explained to the devout
men who had come running who were assembled
in Jerusalem at that time what this phenomenon
meant, and it begins by quoting in the
last days, verse 17 of chapter 2 of
Acts that I will pour out my spirit
on all flesh we've thought of that as
full gospel businessmen as if what we have
seen in our charismatic time is that but
when Paul speaks of it, he speaks of
the spirit that we have received as a
token there's another word that he uses, like
token a force by say a pledge, a
down payment of what?
of the larger fulfillment that is intended not
for the church, but for Israel why?
because Israel has a theocratic destiny, it's going
to rule from the earthly plane, it's going
to address nations nations are going to come
to it the gentiles of ten nations will
clutch the skirt of a Jew and say
take us to your God for you know
him this spirit is given for that purpose
and so this is the first installment the
first down payment, but the greater fulfillment of
it is yet future, after the devastation and
ruin that comes with the final chastisement of
God, the spirit is poured out after the
moon is darkened and the sun is turned
to blood it comes together in the context
of Joel and also in Amos that there's
a cataclysmic occurrence that even affects the stars
and the sun and the moon and a
violence, but out of that comes a restored
remnant to whom the spirit of God is
given, that they might function theocratically in their
restored nation where the Lord himself is in
the sanctuary of their city.
Verse 20 speaks about verse 19 that
great day is the day of the Lord's
judgment first for Israel and then also for
the nations then everyone who calls on the
name of the Lord shall be saved not
saved in the sense that we have been
employing it saved out of sin, saved out
of hell, though that's true, but saved out
of destruction saved out of apocalyptic devastation that's
going to fall on the nation.
These Jews were tuned in, the signs of
the times were everywhere about them, moral decay
there'd been no profit in the land for
four centuries the nation was occupied by a
foreign power all of the kinds of signs
that indicated that it was coming to the
end of its tenure.
These were already judgments and now a final
judgment was to come and now with the
giving of the Holy Spirit, this alerted them
that what Joel spoke of and what Amos
spoke of and what Isaiah spoke of is
just about to take place but if you'll
call on the name of the Lord you'll
be saved out of that devastation.
That's why there was such a note of
urgency what must we do, men and brethren?
And just interesting to read Peter's whole statement
about the Lord being crucified and how David
spoke of him in verse 25 I saw
the Lord always before me and that the
Holy One should not suffer corruption so that
it's not David that's being addressed but an
ancestor of David in verse 29 who both
died and was buried in his tomb David's
tomb is with us today and since he
was a prophet he knew that God had
sworn to the north that he would put
one of his descendants on his throne foreseeing
this David spoke of the resurrection of the
Messiah saying he was not abandoned to Hades
nor did his flesh experience corruption.
This Jesus God raised up of which we
are witnesses being therefore exalted at the right
hand of God that's where Stephen saw him
remember the first martyr?
I see the Lord at the right hand
of power and when those who were opposing
him heard that they put their fingers in
their ears and ran upon him and gnashed
upon him with their teeth and stoned him
to death they could not conceive that this
criminal who was executed with criminals outside the
city in the dung keep was now at
the right hand of power that he was
exalted having suffered the humiliation of death as
a criminal and that he was the one
of whom David spoke and that his exaltation
has to do with his being in the
place of political authority and rule from the
right hand of power and that for this
reason you received from the Father the promise
of the Holy Spirit and therefore in verse
36 let the entire house of Israel know
with certainty that God has made him both
Lord and Messiah this Jesus whom you crucified
the word Messiah means anointed King he's Lord
and King, this is the one and maybe
that generation had a notion of Messiah that
had to do with personal deliverance or the
removal of sin and had not the fullest
understanding of the issue of Messiah as a
son of David and the throne of David
and the rule of God through a David
that is restored but this statement of Peter
brings all those things into focus for his
hearers and that's why they were stricken they
did not realize, they were ambivalent and conflicting
notions of what the word Messiah implied and
now Peter is setting it forth it has
to do with this David who was promised
as a descendant of that one whose tomb
is with us now who would rule from
that throne over Israel forever he is both
Messiah and King and the evidence is that
he was resurrected out of that death and
ascended from it and he's now at the
right hand of Paul I was thinking this
morning how Jesus responded to a blind man
from, was it Jericho?
he was moving through a crowd and this
blind man cried out and they couldn't shut
him up Jesus thou son of David and
the Lord stopped and the disciples tried to
shut this man up but he wouldn't he
kept recalling Jesus according to that title and
according to that designation and it's a real
judgment on Israel that those who could see
were blind and that he who was blind
could see who Jesus was as the son
of David he called him according to his
messianic title and had all the implication of
rule and for that Jesus stopped and turned
to him and ministered to him so maybe
we're blind we've not understood who the Lord
is, what he represents what he was fulfilling,
what the whole of Israel was anticipating the
centrality of the kingdom and one who would
occupy the throne of David in the holy
city of Zion from the place city of
Jerusalem was altogether in the expectation of the
nation which of course is lost to the
consideration of present day Jews and Israelis but
it should not be lost to the church
and my repeated assertion is that until this
is restored to our consciousness, until we have
a wineskin, an apostolic framework of understanding of
what we are about in God what the
issue of Israel represents why it is that
the powers of darkness will seek their annihilation
because the powers of darkness are the ones
who are effectually ruling the nations of our
time, they are the gods of this present
world and their rule is uncontested, the only
thing that will upset it and end it
is when the actual and the true rule
of God takes place from the throne of
David and in the city of Zion in
conjunction with the nation that is restored for
the purpose of that rule and to whom
the Holy Spirit shall be poured out without
measure, the powers of darkness know better than
we, what is at stake here and why
the Jews hate it not because of any
spirituality but because of their destiny even a
remnant of them so if you don't know
who the remnant is that will be the
redeemed of Israel the safest thing is to
wipe out anyone and everyone who is Jewish
and that's what we are going to see
in our time that's what Hitler sought to
do by the same invective of the same
vile spirit of darkness in Europe and succeeded
in annihilating one third of world Jewry almost
totally eliminating Polish Jewry and European Jewry and
had the war not ended as it did
he would have succeeded had they won the
war there wouldn't have been an American Jew
that would have been safe remember the man
who shot up the Jewish community center he
boasted he turned himself in and he said
I've done this to ring the alarm to
alert the nation that Jews have got to
be killed that that is the spirit of
hell that's darkness that has taken possession of
the vessel but expressing its mind it hates
the Jews because the Jews are the threat
to its uncontested political rule over the nations
they are effectually and presently the gods of
this present world and it's interesting that the
church has no more comprehension of this the
reality of the principalities and powers over the
issue of rule than it does over the
issue of Israel's restoration or of the kingdom
of God itself because the whole thing is
indivisible it has no scene that to know
and understand the one is to be brought
to the understanding of the other but to
omit the kingdom of God is to lose
the definitive defining principle that opens the understanding
of the whole drama so maybe if we
can take a look before the break at
Psalm 2 the issue of rule is all
we need to understand that and for that
men will kill and they'll be ruthless what
do we see in just even ordinary politicians
look at what's going on even now the
vying and striving of who's going to be
the candidate for this party or that or
to remain in office once having obtained it
you can't even dislodge these men they have
such privileges they receive such benefit they want
to go on endlessly this guy that bird
from Virginia what is he 80 or 90
still in office and he's been in unbroken
office for 40 years or more so there's
something about political power that men refuse to
cede or give up how much more the
principalities and powers who are effectually ruling through
the ambition of these men and are gratifying
themselves with the lust of this power that
can manipulate and jerk nations and even precipitate
the acts of violence and chaos that destroys
what is made by God and is in
God's image the powers of darkness exalted in
Verdun they loved no man's land they loved
a generation being wiped out and its blood
being spilled in Germany and France how many
potential Beethoven's and who's the great mathematician who
became the believer of the French Pascal how
many geniuses died in that bloodletting the powers
of darkness are the antithesis of God they
celebrate death God is order they are chaos
God is peace and righteousness they are for
violence and hatred they want to rule they
want to express what is innately their nature
and up till now they have been getting
away with it and will continue to do
so the only reason the whole world has
not been more fully plunged into sexual violence
is the restraint of God but what we're
watching now is that restraint being progressively released
and now we're seeing kids act in ways
that can never be imagined parents killing their
own children children blowing the brains out of
their parents because they couldn't get the keys
to their car I mean acts of violence
are absolutely senseless that have not to do
with robbery or theft or just violence for
its own sake at a scale of the
kind we've never seen as the Lord lifts
his restraint men are showing themselves what they
are under the influence of the powers of
darkness because they either have one Lord or
another and in Psalm 2 we see the
most graphic statement of this opposition to God
in the nations why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain this
is all nations and I was astonished to
learn that Japan has the highest rate of
the production of anti-semitic literature of any
nation in the world it exceeds Poland and
Germany what does Japan have to do with
Jews is there a handful of Jews or
businessmen in Japan why this vitriolic hatred that
Japan is the publishing center of anti-semitic
literature in the world it's for this reason
it's not because of the number of Jews
in the land it's because Japan is ruled
by a principality that hates them and is
using them in its full access to produce
those things that will foment a hatred unto
annihilation of that people we need to understand
this these are the realities so when we
talk about kingdom of God we're not talking
about the kingdom of God is within you
we'll praise God for that I'd love to
live by kingdom principles and have the presence
of the king but I don't want that
to exclude or eclipse the sense of kingdom
in its ultimate meaning because that brings, again
I'm saying to our faith the parameters of
dimension and reality and earnestness that makes the
faith the faith and the church the church
it is for this reason our identification with
Jews at a time when they're going to
be pursued unto death that puts our own
lives at jeopardy that the persecution of the
church will have everything to do with our
identification with the Jew and with Israel not
because we're sentimental about it but because we
know it's the issue of God's glory that
their return and their restoration is his release
from heaven to be their king and to
occupy that sanctuary and to be the prince
that rules over them forever it's the issue
of his world rule and that's why we're
related to Israel because in the ultimate sense
it's the issue of pertaining to God's glory
God's kingdom is his glory his rule is
his glory so notice that the kings of
the earth set themselves and the rulers take
counsel together is this some play on words
some unnecessary verbiage what do they call it,
redundancy kings and rulers the kings are the
visible magistrates on the earth the rulers in
my opinion are the invisible principalities and powers
that manipulate and operate through them I can
go off into a whole dissertation on the
principalities and powers that the Lord revealed to
me by the happenstance of a fractured kneecap
where I took a terrible spill having baptized
about 12 Lutherans in a YMCA pool in
Austin, Minnesota and on my way to the
locker my feet shoot out from me and
I'm in a moment of time frozen I'm
in the air with my bat in my
hand and I said what are you doing
here cats and boom, I came down on
my knee with such a crunch that I
thought faith, you know, I'll believe God's made
of faith and power, but the next day
my knee was like a football and the
brothers insisted I go to a hospital and
I had a Jewish orthopedic surgeon looking at
the x-rays he said you haven't just
fractured your knee, he said you have smashed
it, it needs an operation, it's got to
be wired together I said well, go do
it he said well we can't do it
until Thursday I said no, Wednesday I've got
to be up north the Lord is giving
us a property he said who?
Jewish man and as he had his hand
on my knee his eyes grew large and
he felt he said I'm feeling the pieces
are coming into place he said if I
could just put your knee in a cast
you wouldn't need an operation I said do
it, so there I was that evening with
my foot in a cast, in bed, I
had to stay overnight elevated, and the nurse
coming in with a hypodermic ready to give
me a sedative and I said uh-uh,
I don't need that I don't want any
drug I'm not in such intense pain that
I can't bear this this is only an
inconvenience and so she stormed out indignantly and
came back with a pill I said you
don't understand, I'm not afraid of needles I've
been in the U.S. Army, both my
arms were punctured as we walked through a
cordon of men lined up with bent needles
and let us have it from both sides,
I've watched men fall over and have metals
on their chest in a dead faint at
the sight of needles I'm not afraid of
being pricked, you don't understand I don't want
to take a drug that's going to stupefy
my senses I can bear this minor pain
she was furious and the last thing I
remember, two nurses and two doctors in my
doorway foaming at the mouth, fulminating over my
refusal to receive a sedative to be sedated,
and I realized that I was unconsciously touching
a great principle by which the world lives
its life namely, the avoidance of pain and
the pursuit of pleasure this is one of
the premises by which the world lives is
the fearful flight from pain and from suffering
and that I could bear this modicum of
pain, it wasn't all that grievous but I
had touched something in the medical fraternity what
I had touched was a premise by which
the principalities and powers that inhabit institutions actually
rule and bring their influence it was a
challenge to them of an uncommon kind and
they could not bear it then the Lord
began to open to me and to see
that in all institutions that primarily in institutions
of government of society, of industry commerce, trade,
culture, religion these powers of darkness have their
principal sway and that's where they become the
rulers of this present age and they take
counsel together against the Lord and against his
anointed they do not want to submit to
that authority they don't want to lose their
privileged and uncontested place which will be a
loss the moment that the government of God
is established in the place that he has
chosen through the nation that he will restore
through the church that will aid and facilitate
that restoration, even at sacrifice and the willingness
in itself to bear the sacrifice and the
suffering and maybe even the martyrdom, the loss
of life and in that willingness itself is
exhibiting another wisdom that defeats the powers the
issue of Israel the restoration of Israel is
the whole contest between darkness and light between
two princes, two forms of rule two authorities,
two wisdoms that's why in Ephesians 3.10
we're told that God has created all things
in order that through the church the manifold
wisdom of God might be demonstrated through the
church, what is that wisdom?
it's the wisdom that's willing to suffer pain
it's willing to bear even the loss of
its own life in the fulfillment of purposes
that are greater than itself that which has
to do with the glory of an invisible
God that will enable him through that sacrifice
and Israel's restoration to take his rightful throne
and rule over his own creation that the
knowledge of God might cover the earth as
the waters cover the seas and the glory
of the Lord will be known to all
nations and that the historic rebellion will once
and for all be ended and his righteousness
will prevail in the earth that's a wisdom
that the powers of the air despise, that
the church has got to exhibit but will
not unless it understands what is at stake
here when we say thy kingdom come we're
talking about much more than just some personal
subjective inward thing or even something in our
own immediate fellowship we're talking about the large
issue of the restoration of the establishment of
the rule of God through the nation and
people whom he has chosen and its principal
city because he has made a promise to
David in 2 Samuel 7 a covenantal promise
that is an echo of that which was
spoken to Abraham of whom Paul says in
Romans 4 that Abraham was called to be
the heir of the world h-e-i
-r that he would bless all the families
of the earth, makes him the heir of
the world that there was a significance to
Abraham's call as it touches all nations all
the families of the earth it's not only
an issue that God must win an end
that he must obtain but the means to
that end has got to be in keeping
with the character of God and the thing
that he chooses because the issue is ultimately
a cosmic struggle between powers of darkness and
light that is being waged at a moral
level that's why the issue of Jerusalem is
critical not because it's a great center or
the hill of Zion that we read here
I've set my king on my holy hill
or why that?
Because that hill is a pimple it's really
not more than a hill why not some
Olympian mount that is 30,000 feet up
and is unscalable and really in keeping with
the prestige and honor of a God who
will set his kingdom, the locus of it
on the highest mount to be found anywhere
the mountain of the Lord in Isaiah chapter
2 that will exceed all other mountains and
hills is not illustrious because of its height
but because of its character it's exalted above
the hills but because it's chosen there's a
reason why this is a shoestring operation why
we're not a glass cathedral there's something that's
requisite even about physical facilities that have to
be in keeping with the character of God
Jesus born in a stable the Davidic army
raised up in a cave the locus of
God's eternal rule from a pimple of a
hill in a city of Jerusalem that you
wouldn't look twice at rather than Geneva or
New York or some other illustrious place you
have to understand the moral content of this
struggle because the powers can only be defeated
on a moral ground contrary to themselves that's
why if you turn to Psalm 8 you'll
see where we come in, in verse 2
beginning from the beginning see how the Psalms
always have the largest context for God the
earth, the nations the earth is the Lord's
and the nations they love are those that
dwell in them the Psalmist always understood the
great sovereignty of God the large sense of
things out of the mouths you have set
your glory above the heavens out of the
mouths of babes and infants you have founded
it says here, a bulwark because of your
foes to silence the enemy and the avenger
somebody read that out of the mouth of
babes and infants you have ordained strength because
of your enemies that you may silence the
enemy and the avenger he's going to stop
the mouth of the enemy because you know
what the enemy says?
only prestige, only power, only credentials do you
realize we have a whole system in society
that is predicated upon credentials you know what
I had to do to get this master's
degree sweat and agonize and be confronted and
humiliated and stretched out that there was some
issue over this piece of paper and when
I came to the graduation ceremony I began
to understand how central that whole thing was
with institutions why men will labor for four
years, six years to obtain a degree, a
doctorate the initials after their names, it's the
name of the game you're not going to
succeed, you're not going to make a livelihood
you're not going to have a security, an
affluence and a comfort unless you've got the
credentials unless you've got the diploma, you've got
to serve your time you've got to take
the subjects that are nonsensical because it's a
system predicated on credentials awards, prestige what do
they call it in the middle ages?
the craft guilds, there's a guild the academicians
are not going to let you into their
guild unless they approve your thesis, unless you're
one of the boys it's a whole directive
thing that in the end is a conspiracy
against life notice that the government of God
is not predicated on credentials religious systems, yes
you have a title and it's on your
door you're the bishop or whatever you're the
president, secretary general but in the kingdom of
God, in the church it's not the credential
that counts but the anointing it's the authority
that is the expression of something internal wrought
in God that has to do with a
personal history and a relationship and something tested
and evident to God's people it's not because
a man has passed through a seminary that
he's authorized, see what I mean?
the system of God is not predicated on
credentials religious systems, yes you have a title
and it's on your door you're the bishop
or whatever you're the president, secretary general but
in the kingdom of God, in the church
it's not the credential that counts but the
anointing it's the authority that is the expression
of something internal wrought in God that has
to do with a personal history and a
relationship and something tested and evident to God's
people it's not because a man has passed
through a seminary that he's authorized, see what
I mean?
the system of God rests on the spirit
the system of men on credentials and on
requirements that have to do with prestige and
accomplishment based on power that's why God says
through the mouths of infants and sucklings I
have perfected praise to stop the mouth of
the avenger and the enemy because his wisdom
is contrary to that he says this is
not going to work, your church is a
farce your church is a bunch of slapdash
characters who are the dregs of society who
have no credential, no qualification and they're going
to be the instruments of the bringing in
of the kingdom there's something here that's a
great issue it's a moral issue and it's
the issue of kingdoms in contention and value
systems and a great cosmic drama and that's
what we're involved in the same reason that
he has chosen us because we're foolish because
we're weak, because we have no distinction because
for all effects and purposes we're his children
what did the prophets say when they were
called?
I'm a child, I cannot speak, that's why
you were called if you were eloquent and
had credentials I would not have chosen you
and Paul who had eloquence said I will
not condescend to it I don't want your
faith won on the basis of my eloquence
but on the basis of God and so
I'm forfeiting it, I'm not operating out of
it I'll stutter and stammer but let it
be the spirit of God speaking that you
might be won and not some human exercise
this is a great issue Israel is chosen
not for its stature not for its prestige,
not for its accomplishment but because of its
weakness and even the elevation of his son
to occupy the throne of David on the
holy hill of Zion had to wait for
the humbling of his son through death at
the cross and says this day I have
declared the decree thou art my son, now
you're qualified to rule and reign with me
what day was that?
it's not the day of his birth, it
was the day of his resurrection when he
had submitted to the humiliation of God and
had gone down God raised him up all
the way to the right hand of Paul
and so is our authority also predicated on
exactly the same thing we have it only
in the measure that we have been willing
to go down then God will exalt us
to the place of authority and rule and
reign with him so let's take a little
break let me breathe a little prayer for
the spirit of the kingdom this is more
than nuts and bolts issue of authority and
rule, it is that but it's rule in
keeping with the wisdom and the spirit of
God the emphasis on that which is weak
has nothing in itself that is distinctive and
that even the presentation about the kingdom has
got to come in weakness that's why I've
been up since 3 o'clock this morning
that I should not succeed on the basis
of having all my marbles together and my
wits clear but rather in weakness and in
emptiness the Lord himself must bring forth the
spirit, the reality and the truth of it
because this is absolutely critical for the church
of the last days, it's the wineskin it's
the mindset, it's the framework of understanding that
will affect everything so Lord, we thank you
that the last thing that was spoken and
sung in our prayer this morning was thy
kingdom come on earth as it is in
heaven and we thank you for your kingdom
Lord that it's not an airy theoretical abstraction
but a viable, real, cogent issue of rule
which is sanity, which is health which is
the preservation of life, it's the end of
violence and rape and madness it's justice and
equity if only you can perform it because
you have no vested interest to serve you're
not ambitious for yourself, you're beside yourself for
their sake so Lord thy kingdom come, may
it come first with us if it doesn't
come with us, how shall there be an
increase of your peace and of your government
if it doesn't begin with us and so
Lord, search us, is our government upon your
shoulder are we here because you have directed
us or our own curiosity so your kingdom
come my God we bless you for the
anticipation of it the very anticipation is itself
one of the viable elements that brings to
our faith a structure, a dynamic, an expectancy
that affects everything oh precious God, perform something
today through the setting forth of this great
theme for ourselves and those who are beyond
us through these tapes we'll hear of it
also, let that faith come my God through
that hearing that will facilitate expedite, bring that
kingdom to pass we thank you and give
you praise for the privilege of our participation
in Yeshua's holy name, amen what would have
escaped us have been only practical matters but
when you see through the lens of the
kingdom every issue has a heightened significance and
calls for a response and a behavior that
the world would look upon as being utterly
foolish and contradictory against your own self-interest
but it's that very ability to decide against
your own self-interest that glorifies God and
defeats the powers of the very locality where
that issue is and I was just thinking
to offer as another illustration an episode that
I had some years ago that pertained to
this school two brothers wanted to come from
Africa one black, one white and the American
consulate official would not give them a visa
and contended against them and called me up
5 o'clock in the morning to say
that he thought that they would use the
occasion to remain in this country though that
was not their intention, no and I was
too tired to argue, oh really Aaron?
okay, well then don't give it to them,
and I hung up and afterwards the Lord
began to just challenge me that this man
was going beyond the legal and moral right
that he had as an official in government,
that there was an issue of government here
that was going beyond the parameters that God
would consider moral and legal, and so I
sat down I wrote him a letter, I
said you're going beyond I recognize government and
I respect government and I respect authority, but
you are exceeding what God has prescribed for
being morally and legally right, you're no longer
acting officially, you're acting officiously and it means
to be officious it's to take the occasion
of your office and to exceed it in
some personal way without justification and I said
you are opposing the movement of God's servants
to be in the place of his intention
by being officious not acting righteously in your
office and I sent that letter, I first
sent it to the brothers to give to
him because I knew that it would infuriate
him and in the break here I learned
of another instance where the powers of the
air acting through men over an issue of
breastfeeding were furious whenever you see fury and
anger you know that the powers of darkness
are being gored that's the way that they
will express themselves and indeed I said to
these brothers, if you give him this letter
you'll be permanently shot down, you've got to
take that risk but there's an issue here
of righteousness and rule that needs to come
to his attention so I'll leave it to
you for what you're willing to do they
brought him the letter and they said there
was a Christian woman the secretary of the
office and the man exploded with anger and
fury that I was speaking in the authority
as a believer and saying that you're exceeding
the province that is right for you and
going beyond it and therefore offending against the
God who has established government, you're impeding the
God who has established limits for government and
though he burst into a fury the next
thing that happened was they got their visas
and they came, and their coming at least
for one of those two brothers, is instrumental
to this day he's a significant man in
Zambia in his own country, seeking to establish
a kingdom reality and community, so his coming
was very critical and it was released by
what we were really talking to was not
the official so much as the rulers as
well as the magistrate to say you're going
beyond God's limitation and this is unrighteous and
not moral and we are asserting the reality
of God's intention for rule and saying you
must not exceed it as a believer acting
in that authority and that brought the release
so once you put on these glasses it's
remarkable how issues that would otherwise be passed
over take on a remarkable significance and need
to be addressed in the light of the
reality that underlies reality that is not known
by men who are just operating at the
surface of the technical or secular level there's
an ultimate issue behind all issues and it's
the issue of rule, the issue of the
kingdom the issue of righteousness, and we have
a right and authority to act on that
basis and call men to be observant of
it even when they are not believers and
God will honor that with the authority which
is his and bring about release so Reggie
has to leave at 11 I think that
I have shot my bolt and got out
what I felt needed to be expressed this
morning, we can kind of glean through that
any issues or thoughts that come up that
we want to go back and examine, the
scriptures were sometimes hurriedly touched, I want just
to take a few minutes to finish on
Psalm 2 I have declared the decree not
to pass over Psalm 2 lightly because it's
one of the most profound statements of the
vehement bitterness and opposition of the powers of
darkness exercised through government and nations against God
against his anointed, let us burst their bonds
of sunder and cast their courts from us
they despise the rule of God, even though
they will allow some kind of nominal condescension
to opening sessions of congress with prayer they
do not want God's rule but he who
sits in the heavens laughs and the Lord
holds them in derision he will speak to
them in his wrath and terrify them in
his fury his own response to their rebellion
is not light and he's going to judge
the nations in that anger, and it's going
to be a fearful judgment, and then the
statement I've set my king on Zion, my
holy hill and then the king himself seems
to be speaking from verse 7, I will
tell of the decree of the Lord, he
said to me, you are my son today
I have begotten you, ask of me and
I will make the nations your heritage and
the ends of the earth your possession, you
shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them to pieces like a potter's
vessel now therefore kings be wise and be
warned the rulers of the earth serve the
Lord with fear and so on so evidently
the issue of sonship is the issue of
authority but what is the issue of sonship
before that authority is bestowed by God by
decree, God has made an announcement and the
son is asserting that decree as the authorization
of his authority to sit on that holy
hill in Zion what is the day, today,
the Lord has said he's established a decree,
thou art my son what day was that,
what day is that not only for Jesus,
but for any of us if we are
going to move in kingdom or authority as
sons, in what day will we hear the
decree for ourselves, see there's a pattern here
that's what I don't want us to miss,
this is not just however profound in its
meaning for Jesus, but in its application for
all of us as the sons of God,
who are given the right to exercise the
authority of the father in the province and
area where he's called us to be influential
and to exercise it even here on the
earth in our localities how does the issue
of sonship and authority become established, this day
today I've declared the decree, has it come
for you when will it come, what will
be the issue by which it comes what
was the issue for Jesus by which it
came so I would direct you to Romans
chapter 1, where I believe God answers that
question in the very first verses after Paul
introduces himself as a servant of Jesus Christ
called the apostle, according concerning his son who
was descended from David notice the mentality of
the apostle it's the very same as the
prophets as Isaiah, it's the very same as
the psalmist of who Jesus is as the
son of David according to the flesh and
by the way, do you notice how the
detractors today try to negate this they talk
about Zion in a derogatory way as if
it's only a spiritual marker it has only
a spiritual sense God is not interested in
real estate God is not interested in any
piece of earth, any hill that's only a
metaphor, that's only a designation it's the spiritual
significance that counts God is interested in the
specificity of the earth that he has chosen
or there'll be no kingdom come yes it's
spiritual, but it's spiritual because it's practical because
it's natural, because there's a place that God
has designated, that he has chosen the issue
of God who chooses is the issue of
God and every bit as much as he
has chosen a nation a very literal physical
nation natural with a national destiny so also
has he chosen a piece of earth Jerusalem
and the holy hill of Zion and if
his son does not rule from that place,
he does not rule his kingdom will not
come, there'll be no divine rule except that
it issues from that place because God has
chosen it so one of the early heresies
of the church was a Gnosticism that was
offended by physical limitations and requirements it wanted
to just carry on a kind of a
pseudo-ethereal spirituality in that kind of spectral
realm and disliked the scandal of God's specificity
you better not dislike that scandal but embrace
it because we are part of that scandal
that he has chosen us, specifically in our
natural and earthly reality that God is the
God who is clothed by that and that
he inhabits and dwells in such sanctuaries and
that in fact if he has not that
earthly tabernacle which we are, his glory is
not revealed he doesn't occupy space, he occupies
tabernacles of an earthly kind we have this
treasure in our what's the word, in our
earthen vessel God is not impervious to the
earth he's the creator of it and that
the glory of God cannot be seen outside
of that context once you remove it, it
becomes ethereal and without definition, it loses its
value it's just a verbal trip, it becomes
significant only in the earthly context there's a
very literal Zion, a very literal Israel a
very literal piece of earth a very literal
son who comes of age and the decree
is made that authorizes him to occupy that
throne and then has given him the nations
and the heathen for his inheritance only on
the day that God has declared the decree
this is remarkable back to Romans chapter 1
of Jesus, the gospel of his son, descended
from David according to flesh who was declared
to be the son of God a decree
came, Jesus was declared and that declaration is
the authorization to occupy the holy hill of
Zion as God's appointed king whom he has
set on that throne he was declared to
be the son of God with power with
authority that is according to the spirit of
holiness by the resurrection from the dead the
key to the decree and the day of
the decree was the day of the resurrection
of Jesus from the dead his sonship was
established in his what's the opposite of humiliation
his exaltation from the death to which he
had voluntarily given himself what does he say
to his disciples in his resurrection body all
authority is given unto me in heaven and
in earth he never said that before, he
said it in his ascended resurrection body, go
ye therefore into all the earth and preach
this gospel to every creature now you can
go, I'm authorizing you in the authority that
has been invested in me because the father
has declared the decree that my resurrection was
the statement of the father's approval of my
sacrifice of myself unto death it was not
only my vindication it is my authorization and
now I can occupy the throne and now
I authorize you and now you can go
and proclaim this message with all authority the
issue of sonship is the issue of resurrection
and the issue of resurrection is the issue
of a willingness to suffer a humiliation unto
death, probably not once but as many times
as the Lord will require it and remember
I said before, the world's authority rests on
titles and credentials but the authority of the
kingdom rests on anointing and on the maturity
of sons in exact proportion as they have
been willing to suffer the deaths to which
God will submit them where do we find
authority in the body I've seen many men
who posture to be apostles and they play
they speak a good game, but I'm not
impressed I don't get the corresponding sense of
weight, of authority of density, of reality of
God because they are men who have not
submitted themselves to death, but have skirted around
it the very fact that they flaunt their
apostolic title in your face and expect you
to be impressed with it is the avoidance
of death itself and shows that there's a
life very much ambitious unto itself and for
itself that's playing at the game of apostolicity
but has not the real and evident credential,
God has not declared the decree and yet
they're playing at it and they know how
to play at it, they know how to
quote Paul and how to extrapolate verses from
Paul and apply them to church situations in
crisis and need as if they are the
real thing so the false apostles is one
of the phenomena of the last days how
do we tell the difference between one who
seems to have the vocabulary and throws his
weight around and has a seeming kind of
authority I remember one such guy came to
us here in Ben Israel some years ago,
he was already being touted as an apostle
and one of our youngest brothers shot him
down, it wasn't in some insulting way, but
just in a question or two or a
comment, it became clear that this young brother
had more on the ball spiritually speaking than
this man who professed to be apostolic and
his the contrast between the two was clear,
the air went out of the man he
fizzled, the thing shriveled up and blew away
because this young brother, wherever he was in
God was in the place of authenticity and
the presumer had not authenticity and the contrast
alone let the air out of this balloon.
Authority is a great question, particularly in the
battle against the powers of the air, and
so how was that obtained, the way Jesus
obtained it he was declared a son, wasn't
he a son from the beginning but in
the Hebrew concept of adoption that even a
son who is genetically born from a father
is not yet a son who has received
his inheritance until he has come of age
and has displayed a character in keeping with
the responsibility to represent the father and to
serve the father without usurping or taking for
himself any aspect of the father's kingdom, Jesus
displayed that, and only death can obtain it
where are we safe from the ambition and
usurping from God in the offices that we
are given and to which we are called,
except that the axe has really been laid
to the root, who of us will not
presume and usurp and take some advantage and
some liberty from the office that we have
to advance ourselves or to bring some kind
of personal satisfaction so long as there's even
an iota of such possibility we've not come
to the place of adoption and the father
knows when that place has come and it
comes through death unto resurrection this day I've
declared the decree, now you're safe to represent
me I know that you'll never use your
office in any way of self-aggrandizement the
way men do in the world now I
know that your interest for me is your
only interest and your absolute interest that when
I give you the heathen for your inheritance
it will not be for your self-aggrandizement
but for my glory as the father whose
kingdom this is resurrection out of death is
the key both for sonship and apostolic and
prophetic authority in the kingdom of God you
know that there's a three year interval when
the Lord closed down Ben Israel after the
first ten years of our life at a
time when we were beginning to see daylight
after much struggle and difficulty in community that's
when the Lord shut us down, not when
we were failing, when we were succeeding when
we thought by every reckoning now the Lord
would bless and endorse and we go on
is the very time the Lord required for
an abdication from the property we had to
leave the property to vandals and to the
elements for any, God did not say three
years it turned to prove to be that
but it could have been indefinitely and we
might not ever have gotten it back we
had to relinquish and let go I remember
once in Israel we were at a fellowship
that had Jewish and Arab believers and they
were fighting over the issue of a menorah
the seven branched Jewish candlestick that was on
the platform the Arab believers were bitterly opposed
to it they saw it as a Jewish
symbol the Jewish believers were vehemently in support
of it because they saw it as a
symbolic biblical symbol and they were threatening to
come apart over this menorah and so we
listened to them we came out to the
bus and we were going to go on
and one of our tour members, a lady
said she said the Lord gave me a
word over the situation I said what is
it?
She said relinquish relinquish, let go we had
to relinquish Ben Israel whatever it was, whatever
investment we had in it spiritually, emotionally, had
to be let go unto death and we
had to actually leave the property and abandon
it and our IRS recognition and everything that
pertained to it equally, without any assurance that
would ever be a return as dear as
it had become and for the sacrifice that
had been invested as it happened three years
later, I was among the first maybe the
first to be brought back none of the
other members of the community except a Mexican
-American couple and we, for a year and
a half in the house lived together and
the primary purpose was intercession five o'clock
every morning earlier if the Lord would waken
us for the restoration of Ben Israel well
in that period the buildings were beginning to
suffer loss they had not been attended, the
roofs were giving way you'll see if you
walk the property, there's a skeleton of one
trailer that only the basement remains it had
so deteriorated because of the roofing being neglected
that we finally had to tear it down
when we did return well there's a young
guy that was living in the neighborhood in
a shack, with a pig and two dogs
and he had been divorced and I'd been
warned by people you don't want to touch
this guy, he's a real character well, I
needed someone to watch over the buildings and
I could give him a place to live
a few bucks to keep body and soul
together help pay his child support payments and
I wanted to give him a chance to
have a better opportunity so we took this
guy in and over the course of the
next year and a half we acquired seven
horses and leather, what do you call it,
implements bridles and things for horses to do
agricultural work in anticipation of a time when
you cannot buy nor sell and you have
to resort to God's way of agriculture and
so we were accumulating some very valuable things
well the day came when this brother became
more and more difficult, problematical and the Lord
had allowed me after many months of sabbatical
silence to open my mouth again and to
speak I was away in Chicago on a
ministry trip and this brother called me long
distance I'm ready to leave, what shall I
take?
I didn't know what to tell him, I
thought, well, take half you've labored, but I
paid every financial requirement for the horses and
all the equipment and the brother who was
with me said let him take what he
thinks is right I said, well, take what
you think is right, I thought to myself
if he takes half, that would be very
generous I came back after the trip he
had taken all seven horses he took the
oak boards upon which the horses stood and
urinated he took the rope out of the
barn that was there years before he ever
came in which the bales of hay were
lifted up he took every screw, nut, bolt
he took every screwdriver, hammer and nail he
stripped the place and he was helped by
a Christian brother whom I know who never
asked the question of, aren't you going too
far?
and helped him to cart off a vehicle,
the horses, the equipment everything, I came back
to a stripped place and naturally when I
saw the degree to which this guy had
gone the resentment began to rise up and
the Lord said, uh-uh, that's a no
-no take your stripping with all joy so
we had to taste this reality I don't
think it'll be the last time either if
we're not stripped materially, we'll be stripped in
one way or another but our attitude to
the stripping is the critical question and the
powers of the earth are looking to see
what our disposition and our response is so
I think we can rightly anticipate well, what
will save us from resentment and bitterness against
those who are unfairly and unjustly taking their
advantage against us Paul says, they took their
stripping joyfully knowing that they had a greater
recompense in heaven they were eternally minded and
they knew that in the principles of the
kingdom there would be a recompense not just
of an equal kind, but of a greater
kind and of a kind that will not
fade away long after these harnesses and leather
things will deteriorate what God will give as
an equivalent will be eternal in its reward
and the knowing of that, the real knowing
of that though it's invisible, distant, and beyond
this life enables us to function in this
life according to the mode of the kingdom
of God that demonstrates another wisdom to the
powers of the earth who were already enjoying
and delight that, that, that, that, that, that,
that, we really got you now you've been
emptied out and all that you've invested and
struggled on is lost, but when they see
the joyous receiving of the stripping they are
the defeated ones so the next time you
pray, thy kingdom come you had better know
that what you're saying is thy resurrection come
and if you're saying that, what you're saying
is, thy death come you want to be
a son of the kingdom I can't think
of anything that is more offensive to God
than vacuous, meaningless prayers that are insincere, that
talk about the kingdom come as if it's
some magical thing that will come as a
luxury to pray thy kingdom come, or to
pray for the peace of Jerusalem is to
pray your death and maybe for that reason
the kingdom is not coming and it's got
to come progressively for of the increase of
his rule of his government and of his
peace, there's no end that increase has got
to begin with us and it comes to
the degree that we say thy kingdom come
because it not only has an eschatological expectancy
it has an apocalyptic expectancy it knows that
there's a judgment a devastation, both to Israel
and to nations before that king comes or
as he comes, he comes in judgment God
has appointed a day in which he will
judge the world so to pray for his
kingdom is to welcome that judgment however painful,
and wherever it's needful well, is there anything
that any of us here possesses that we're
unwilling to relinquish?
not only in terms of material things homes
and possessions, but name honor, reputation, hope for
the future hope for future employment, hope for
ministry is there anything that you're unwilling to
let go?
that's the issue of the kingdom you know
what I think would be a fit conclusion
for this morning?
how singing the prayer our Father which art
in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy will
be done thy kingdom come, in earth this
earth, this piece of earth this locale, as
in heaven may the Lord have a church
that really believes that desires that, willing for
that and to know to pray that kingdom
come means our death and our resurrection so
you think on that what is there that
you might be unwilling to relinquish?
anything marriage, family, children, possession fame, name, God's
waiting for sons the issue of the kingdom
is the issue of sons thank you Lord
our Father