In my 46 years of ministry on two continents, (Africa and North America) I’ve been confronted by Christian after Christian lamenting “… (they) can’t get their church ministers to take a stand or even comment at times, much less act upon, societal issues.” Pro-lifers wonder why ministers don’t challenge the status quo of the ongoing genocide of the ongoing abortion holocaust.
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Homeschoolers ask why their church ministers don’t support homeschooling. Others stand in wonderment concerning the silence of the pulpits about the ongoing debauchery of pornography, blasphemy and sex trafficking. Universally, Christians are shocked when their pastors deny the scientific truthfulness of Creation, Noah’s universal Flood, the Miracles of Christ, until the challenges to the integrity of Scripture ultimately thread their way to challenging the gospel and the atoning work of Jesus Christ. We won’t even discuss the ongoing attack upon the law of the lord, other than to note the tragedy of the church’s failure to recognize that their Apostle Paul in the last verse of Chapter 7 of Romans states “With my mind I serve the law of God.” And in contrast follows that statement with “With my flesh the law of sin.” And in the very next chapter (8:7) the Apostle Paul states unequivocally that the carnal mind….is not subject to the law of God and neither can be.” Put bluntly, carnality is defined as despising the Law of God.
Two Kingdoms
The crippling blow to the churches is the almost universal teaching of the theory of “two kingdoms” taught in almost every major seminary in the country. (I say “almost” because I am hoping there is at least one that teaches the proper view of the Kingdom of God).
“Two Kingdoms” theory says there are, just that, two kingdoms: God’s Kingdom where we preach the Gospel to get to heaven ONLY (well, some morality is thrown in for good measure) and Satan’s Kingdom is the one we are not expected to defeat… until Jesus comes… and ONLY “when Jesus comes”.
We hear excuses made: “It is idolatrous to favor some political party,” or it is “sin to distract people from preaching the gospel.” In other words, in the world of Satan, issues like government, economics, medicine, the arts, business, the sciences… are not areas we should expect to see recovered by the Word of the Lord through the preaching of the Cross. Or should we? What happened to “every thought CAPTIVE to Jesus Christ?”
Let me ask the question from a different vantage point: Do you believe people can SIN in the areas of “government, economics, medicine, the arts, business, the sciences”? If the answer to that question is (obviously) YES… it is the duty of the Christian to call people from sin unto repentance from sin in Jesus Christ. After all a person can be ruined by bad economics or corrupt government every bit as easily as they can through say, fornication, for example.
But none of these are the real starting point for the discussion as to whether we are to step into Satan’s kingdom to disciple those out of the captivity of Satan unto the Righteousness of Jesus Christ (cf. Ephesians 4). Now we are getting closer to the real starting point ALWAYS avoided by 2 kingdom theorists. While they juggle their accusations about leaving Satan’s kingdom to Satan in this era of “common grace” the real issue is avoided. Here it is.
A Word Needing “Revival” in the Church Vocabulary
The word that needs to be “revived” in the vocabulary of the Christian Church is the real starting point for all issues. That word is… Righteousness (cf. Jeremiah 23:6; 33:15; 33:16; ) Righteousness is the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is that which is at issue when dealing with the “Two Kingdoms”.
- Righteousness is the character of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Triune God of Scripture.
- Righteousness is the nature of the inspired record we call the Scriptures
- Righteousness is that which Christ imputes to the individual saved by a justifying faith in Jesus Christ (Gospel)
- Righteousness is that which the heart believes on unto salvation (cf. Romans 10:10)
- Righteousness and peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit is the Kingdom of God (cf. Romans 14:17)
- Righteousness is life in the Spirit of God according to Romans 8:10
- Righteousness of the Law of the Lord is what the Holy Spirit matures in us (cf. Romans 8:4)
- Righteousness is the opposite state of the heart to those who are slaves to sin (cf. Romans 6:20)
- Righteousness constitutes the walk of the Christian who has no fellowship with darkness and thereby avoids being unequally yoked. (cf. II Corinthians 6:14)
- Righteousness is the miraculous fruit of the Law of the Lord as a Workmanship of Christ bears fruitfulness in the heart of the Christian. (cf. Psalm 119:18)
- And it is the breastplate of Righteousness that protects the Christian as he advances against Satan’s kingdom and its authorities (cf. Ephesian 6:10-18, note verse 14)
- It is Righteousness, according to Psalm 149:4 that beautifies the humble with salvation, leads the God’s people to be joyful in glory (v 5), lets them sing aloud upon their beds (v 5), lets them praise the Lord (v6), gives them a two-edged sword in their hand (v6), compels them to obey God’s command to execute God’s holy vengeance and to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron (vs 6,7,8,9)
Two Kingdoms’ theory fails to confront Satan’s Kingdom FOR THE RIGHTEOUSNESS of our KING JESUS CHRIST. (cf. Ephesians 4:8 ff). That is its fallacy, leading ministers to believe their only charge is to lead their people beside quiet waters and preach the gospel. But it is equally their task to “tear the sheepskin off wolves” and to expose, condemn and call for God’s strength against the wicked… especially wicked rulers that vex their people.
Then Why Wicked Rulers?
Psalm 94:20 says God will have no fellowship with the throne of iniquity. Neither should we as His Body. But what does that mean? Two Kingdom theorists hurl back at us, “that’s anarchy.” Why might I ask must we jump from condemning wicked rulers to anarchy? Government is a gift of God, but not all who rule in government are gifts of God, nor are we to support any Hitler wanna-be’s. But our alternative is not anarchy. My only alternative to having an unbelieving neighbor is not that I jump to some sort of anarchy against him as my response. The same is my response to government. I testify concerning sin, righteousness and judgment, which is exactly what the Holy Spirit is sent to do according to John 16:8. I testify to my neighbor- out of love for him or her- of the danger of their sin, of the Righteousness of our Lord they need in salvation and of God’s impending judgments. Two Kingdom theorists always end up defending wicked government. Perhaps they don’t mean to do so… but in the rise of Hitler and his Nazi’s the tragedy was that the church first allowed that Scoundrel to deceive Germany that he was some sort of a Christian, and secondly, having compromised on that point, treated him like some sort of a brother, when in fact, he was a known Luciferian (spiritist, Satanist). Two Kingdom theorists invariably neutralize the church, neutering any opposition to wicked government because “that’s not our calling.” That is, they say, how we preserve the gospel.
No… that is how we preserve the abortion holocaust, the holocaust against the Jews before WWII, the rise of “politicians” that compromise every aspect of our Constitutional Heritage. A variation of “Two Kingdoms” confused ministers throughout Europe and America, (as it does today) allowing the tragedy of slavery to continue. However, William Wilberforce did not believe in Two Kingdoms and by the Power of the Holy Spirit, he reached into, as it were, Satan’s Kingdom so as to destroy that institution throughout the British Empire. “Two Kingdoms” theory invariably neutralized the church’s resolve to fight the Devil and refuses to consider the Biblical teaching that we are called to replace SIN with RIGHTEOUSNESS. God’s Kingdom is IN US, Jesus said and according to the Word of God (cf. Daniel 2:31 ff) it has yet to reach the pinnacle whereby that Kingdom towers over all the earth.
Share this with your minister- he won’t like it, so pray before you do. God bless you.
