CHAPTER 6
What Jesus taught
One subject stands out in the Gospel above all others, the Kingdom-of-God. It is mentioned over one-hundred-and-forty times. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus expands on the meaning of love in thirty-one verses, but he takes one-hundred-and-sixteen verses to explain the Kingdom-of-God. He came into the synagogues of Galilee, His opening introduction to His ministry, announces the Kingdom-of-God has arrived. Then, moving to the mountain top, he proclaims the same message to the common folk in parables. Then, after his resurrection, Jesus spent forty-days, with his disciples, expanding on the Kingdom-of-God, those things he was not free to expand before his resurrection.173
Whenever Jesus was asked a question, he would refer back to the Old-Testament as His base. This is where God laid out the purpose for everything, which is, the expansion of His kingdom into the material realm. Hebrew doctrine developed between Genesis and Jesus, but not always correctly. Israel had been commissioned in Genesis to set up communities under Kingdom-of-God principles. These were to show the world the advantages of Kingdom-of-God rule. By the time Jesus arrives in history, the emphasis has moved away from demonstrating to the world, (as His ambassadors), what the Kingdom-of-God looks like in practice. By the time Jesus came, Jewish leaders teaching on the Kingdom, was limited to the hope that, one day soon, time will end and Messiah will come in power to conquer the whole world. He will sit on David’s throne in Jerusalem, and the whole earth would submit to His rule. But the concepts as to how this would be achieved were based on World-Kingdom methods. It would be achieved by power. Instead of obeying the commission, they had handed the whole thing back to God, while the nation’s committees got on with its political debates.
Over a three-year ministry on earth, Jesus preached one sermon, with three points : The Kingdom is coming, so, repent and believe the good news; The Kingdom is here so get your ‘citizenship papers’ from the king now; and The Kingdom will come to all earth, and that will be the time, when all nations and all people will be sorted and judged. Citizens who join the Kingdom-of-God renew the commission from Genesis, ‘Multiply and spread out all over the world’. The new form of words are: ‘Go into all the world and announce, Good-News, the Kingdom-of-God is here’!
If the gospel means, ‘good news’, question-one is: Has church shortened its mission to, ‘preach the good-news’, or is the church fulfilling the Commission to, ‘Preach the good news of the Kingdom-of-God’. Whenever the disciples were sent out, he tells them to say one thing.
Announce as you go. The Kingdom of God is coming!174
Once again, we return to the original mission of God for setting up His Kingdom on earth. It was announced in Genesis, where the means of setting up a kingdom on earth was to plant a community, to bless all creation and extend the kingdom-of-God over all the earth. Shortening the mission statement, leads to shortening the scope of the mission. The good news is not limited to the cross and resurrection. It is not limited to forgiven sins. These are essential for entering the Kingdom, because the gate is singular and narrow, but to stop there is to stand in the gateway and admire. Very often that approach just blocks the doorway for others to enter. The commission is to enter the Kingdom-of-God and live in its fullness.
The Gossip in the Gospels
We sometimes forget that John was not the first to announce the ‘good-news’. First came an entourage bearing three gifts. It came in response to the announcement by a heavenly body. A new star, plopping into the Eastern sky, announced it to a group of diligent, Israeli Sages, in Babylon. They announced it to King Herod and his body of advisors. The star stopped over the fields of Bethlehem, to light the night sky enough for the shepherds to see the angels. They were next to gossip the Good News. Then, two devout volunteers, working in the temple, spotted it and announced it with a public blessing, in Jerusalem’s new Temple. Before that, The Holy-Spirit could not contain Himself, when Mary and Elizabeth met before His birth. Finally, John announces, ‘the Kingdom of God is nearly here, get ready!’. The same sermon of hope had been preached week after week, in every synagogue, at Sabbath meetings, ever since they were in Babylon.
Gossip was well rehearsed, among the Hebrew people. ‘Elijah, had not died, but had been taken by God directly to heaven in a chariot of fire. He would return to earth prior to the appearance of Messiah’. Some enthusiastic synagogue preachers added, Enoch, (who walked with God and was not175), would also come immediately before Messiah. Some Rabbis connected these two together from Zechariah's prophesy.176 Common folk, were happy that John was announcing the Messiah was coming very soon, and as far as they were concerned, Messiah, was coming after John. But, as with all scholars, it had to be debated and discussed by the hierarchy of the church before He could come. Pharisees had to send out another investigation team to kick the report into long grass. They asked John, was he actually Elijah in disguise?177 After all, John might be Enoch, that suited them better because Jesus could then be Elijah in line with their doctrines. Many decided Jesus was the second prophet Elijah, and reject Jesus as the promised Messiah, and still explain the miracles. What a tangled web we weave when our intellect covers our eyes.
But circumstances so often colour the promise. We are paralleling the time of king Saul, only it was not Philistines but Romans that needed conquering this time. They wanted a Champion. John preached his message at Jordan. Jordan was the last barrier before they had entered the land all those years before. The mission at that time was to enter the land, Spread out in communities, set up a kingdom, and demonstrate to the world what the kingdom-of-Heaven would be like under the Kingship of Messiah. John’s message was limited at first to: ‘Repent, the kingdom is coming’. But one day, as he saw Jesus coming toward him, it changed to, ‘Behold the Lamb of God’. Jesus began his ministry by declaring, ‘The Kingdom of God has arrived’.178
The Kingdom has come… it is here… but not yet.
Jesus announces the objective, the tactics, and the culmination of the Kingdom. The flag has been staked, the objective declared, and the first battalion has arrived. Without understanding this, the message becomes confusing. The statement, ‘Has come… not yet’, has been a battleground in the church since Jesus departed.
Genesis records, in the beginning, ‘God Said’. Have you ever wondered where the Word, went, when ‘God Said’. It went into the future! Now John declares it has arrived at its destination. President John F. Kennedy, on May-twenty-five, nineteen-sixty-one, said. ‘Let us go to the Moon’ . Where did his word go? It went into the future when Commander Neil Armstrong staked the flag July-twenty nineteen-sixty-nine. The moon is not yet colonized, but will be one day.
Before the world began, the Word was there. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word made everything and It was made for Him. The Word is life, the Word gave life to the world. The Word illuminates to all people, the purposes for life like a light shinning in the darkness. The darkness will try to put the light out but cannot.179
Progression of Hebrew kingdom doctrine
During the gap of time from Genesis to Jesus, people had conceptualized the project in World-Kingdom terms. They were looking for a Messiah to stake the flag, they were looking for a Messiah to kick the Romans out and establish an army big enough to conquer the world. They had cut out large chunks of the prophets referring to a servant king because it did not fit the final triumphant conquering king. Messiah was coming to bring an end to History.180
The highest focus of Jewish hope for a future kingdom, centred around the Kingdom-of-David. It was projected into the future and idealized. The prophets coined the term, ‘The Day of the Lord’. But this included, ‘The day of Judgement of the world.’ But again, Judgement of the nations was preached while judgement on Israel itself was dropped. The theology became, we have been judged and punished in exile, so the final fulfilment will be the Judgement of other nations. Not us, they thought, we will have salvation and our land will be restored when Messiah comes. All this would occur within History.
During the four-hundred years between Testaments, the hope was kept alive, but modified. They had given up on God doing anything in history. So the doctrine was modified to: Messiah would come to end History. This new term, ‘This age and the age to come’, were introduced in this interim. This age is an evil age, it is Satan’s age. The age to come will be the powerful act of God, He will roll up the present world and usher in the new Kingdom-of-God.
The Kingdom-of-God has come
It is into this kind of teaching that John the Baptist enters, and Jesus proclaims his Kingdom. At the arrest of John-Baptist, Jesus left waters edge ministry and went into the synagogues to start a radically new message. Jesus’ message returns the message back, straight back to Isaiah where, not a conquering King, but a suffering servant will come.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.… Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing181.
Jesus Stopped halfway through a sentence. He missed out :
and the day of vengeance of our God;182
The day when God would roll up time, judge the final judgement, and usher in the kingdom, was still future. But the suffering servant period has now come. The flag has been staked, and the battle is about to begin. Jesus is led into the wilderness. In the wilderness he confronts Satan. The Kingdom of God has come.
Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” 183
Jesus is talking to Pharisees, he would not say to them, the kingdom is ‘within you’184, but ‘in your midst’, it is already active all around you, but you are blinded by your doctrine, and you cannot see it. When John the Baptiser, had a period of doubt after his arrest, he asked Jesus if He was the one bringing about the new kingdom. Jesus did not answer directly, but pointed him back to the prophesy of Isaiah.
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.185
In other words, the kingdom is in your midst because you see me do these things.
In the mission of Jesus, the most significant point in setting up the Kingdom is the battle between the Satan and Himself. There can be little doubt as to who is whom in this next text.
No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless a stronger man first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. 186
Satan is the strong man and Jesus, the stronger, has just cast out a demon from the house. The Pharisees, could not see by what power, the stronger man, had cast out the demon, and so could not see the Kingdom-of-God was present. The kingdom at hand is when the disciples, and later the church, heal and cast out demons. ‘By whom will your children cast out demons’?
The Kingdom-of-God is at hand.
This phrase is still about reign not realm, it is not about the kingdom as a place but about an ambassadorial right to behave with power and protection, outside of recognized territory. It is not where is your kingdom, but where can I see what your kingdom is like. When he sent the seventy out, two-by-two, he specifically commanded, ‘Preach the Kingdom-of-God has come’. When he said heal the sick and restore the blind, he is saying, ‘This is what the Kingdom-of-God is like, see it demonstrated here and now’.
The Kingdom-of-God is not yet.
When asked, on another occasion, when he would take the throne, he answered, ‘Not Yet’. There is clearly another event to come. ‘Be ready for you do not know the day or hour when the King will come’, refers to the half of the sentence Jesus left out in the Synagogue. ‘Thy Kingdom Come’, refers to that final state when it is completed. But for now, the kingdom is among you, it is already a reality because you can see examples of it here. One parable in particular describes the transitional period between, ‘is here’, and, ‘not yet’. The Parable of the wheat and tares.
A man sowed good seed in his field, and his enemy sowed weeds among them. A servant said, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds? He said to them, an enemy has done this. The servant said, ‘shall we go and pluck them up? The master replied, No, lest you root up wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn. 187
The first time the Satan sowed weeds, this was in the Garden of Eden. The second time was in Cain. The fruit is growing in the person, and it will finally reveal itself, then judgement will be made. We have seen this throughout the scriptures. God very often delayed punishment on the principle the fruit of sin was not fully grown. We can go right through scripture to see this underlying principle, until the fruit is ripe, a choice of repentance remains. Nineveh delayed destruction for one-hundred-years until sin rose again to become fully grown.188
Your desire grows inside you until it results in sin. Then the sin grows bigger and bigger and finally ends in death.189
And He said, “What do you see, Amos?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, “ The fruit is ripe, the end has come for My people Israel. I will not spare them any longer.190
Justice or Mercy, is a character choice in God and demonstrated by phrases like, ‘By fruit you will know them’. You cannot tell by the seed, it has to grow.
Changing the metaphor, God asked Jeremiah, while he watched a potter squash and reshape a beautiful vase to a chamber-pot, ‘Which is at fault, the potter or the clay’? The answer was this: The Potter has the perfect idea, but if the clay does not respond in his hands, the result is the fault of the clay’.
You can see how this principle works in individuals. Joseph, God planted a seed in him in a dream, ‘Your brothers will bow down before you’. At first the seed grew in poor soil, it started growing as arrogance, it tainted the soil of his brothers soil and the started growing hatred and revenge. Joseph had to be replanted and God used the jealousy and lies of his brothers to transplant him into the soil of the Egyptian Kingdom. It took years in that kingdom to change the arrogance and self-assertion in him, producing a humble, forgiving, and upright man, suitable for God’s purpose. Plucked up before the final fruits were formed, he could not have fulfilled his purpose of saving many lives, and bringing his brothers to repentance. Other lives you might like to scrutinize for this principle are: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, indeed, most bible characters. This law applies in the Kingdom-of-God. This is the law that is often stated in Scripture as: ‘And when the time had fully come’. Delayed transition does not mean, ‘we must interfere because God has not yet fulfilled’. Abraham tried that, see the Arab / Jewish conflict today. No! Delayed transition means wait, get on with the commission, because the commission itself will give fruit to present itself. Then will Judgement come.
Entering The Kingdom
If the Commission of Jesus, is to demonstrate Kingdom-of-God living in communities, so the world can see what Kingdom-of-God in their midst is like, then the doorway into the Kingdom-of-God needs a signpost. To be blunt, The reason the Kingdom-of-God cannot be equated with ‘The Church’, must be obvious here. ‘Church’191, like the Children-of Israel, does not demonstrate the Kingdom-of-God. Many communities within the church do try, but ‘The Church’, means no more to the world, than any other confusing, irrelevant, religion. Like the Children-of Israel it has set up its political structures in the style of World-Kingdoms and not affected heart motivation in line with the Kingdom-of-God values in the least.
John-Baptist, narrowed a wide road, to signpost an even narrower entrance into the Kingdom. He went out among the people in preparation declaring, Repent! Repent changes the focus to see the door, It does not enter it. Many, even Pharisees, repented and were baptised under John-Baptist, but rejected Jesus. I would not be a bit surprised if Nicodemus had been baptised by John, judging by the conversation. Jesus tells Nicodemus: The door into this kingdom is via water. The door into the Kingdom-of-God is via Spirit.
The only life people get from their human parents is physical. But life that the Spirit gives a person is spiritual.192
John-Baptist himself knew there was more
I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!193
Baptism in the Spirit of God, or being born of the Spirit of God is the entrance into the Kingdom. When Jesus said, ‘I Am the door’ or ‘I Am the gate’, He was saying, when you pass through the door, you become renewed by my Spirit, My values, My objectives and My purposes. I refer you back to chapter-one, where we discussed how the Spirit is the motivator. To enter the Church does not equate to this principle. John Bunyan describes many motivating spirits who journey through the church. Pliable, Worldly-wise, Legality, Goodwill, Simple, Sloth, Formalist, Hypocrisy, Talkative, Giant-Despair, Ignorance, Feeble-Mind, All these and more travel in the Church. All these are motivated by the spirit of their name. Entering the Church is not the same as entering the Kingdom-of-God. Entering the Kingdom can only pass through Jesus the Christ, to come out the other side in His Spirit. Motivation of His Spirit is the identity-card Jesus speaks of when he says, ‘My sheep know my voice’. If the Church presumes the Spirit is there to give gifts, it misses the point. Many the gifted evangelist who portrays the gift but not the motivation. Many are the members who demonstrate gifts but carry them out with a legalistic spirit. Many the false teacher, many the cult that has arisen. No! The Church today is no different to the tribes of Israel who claimed to be God’s chosen people while motivated by foreign gods. God loves the Church but if it enters the Kingdom-of-God as it is, it will destroy it. One thing is for sure, Mission statements or visions will never change a human heart or unite a community. Communities, nations, organizations or any other grouping, can only be united by culture because culture is the demonstration of a spiritual bond and motivation held by everyone in the group.
Only God's Spirit gives Kingdom new life. How can this be? You are a leader and a teacher, and you really do not know about these things? 194
Everywhere Jesus went, He described what it was like inside that Kingdom. Jesus described himself as the entrance into that Kingdom. His message was this:
‘You were created to live in the Kingdom-of-God, but you surrendered it to the Prince of this world. I have won it back. Now take your inheritance that was prepared for you since the creation of the world. I have reclaimed it for you’.
"Then the king will say to the godly people on his right, 'Come, my Father has great blessings for you. The kingdom he promised is now yours. It has been prepared for you since the world was made.195
Living in the Not Yet
The New-Testament, is a tension between the already and not yet. It is probably the biggest headache for anyone trying to live by Kingdom-of-God laws and norms while living in World-Kingdoms. Living at the time of Jesus was an even greater headache because Jews were taught that they would not know if they were justified enough to get into heaven until the final day and Judgement. To the kingdom, here is the cause of relief and tension. These were a people who were living under law and law is always telling you how far wrong you are. ‘The kingdom is here, enter in’, means there is therefore no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus196. What does In Christ Jesus mean? Those that have passed through the narrow gate into the other kingdom. But the problem remains, How to live as an ambassador of one king in another kingdom. The answer is never an absolute. It is not abandoning laws, it is by keeping and applying them to the laws. It is applying Kingdom hierarchy of laws to life. This is made clear in Acts:
But Peter and the apostles answered and said, We must obey God rather than men.197
It is something the disciples had been taught by Jesus and tried to make clear to the church.
Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For authority is ordained by God, everything created, exist under a law established by God.198
The key saying of Jesus, from which we can make sense of this is:
And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. 200
Jesus is not talking ‘paying taxes’, he is talking Tolkien. It is a principle not a yarn. The passage has been used to teach all sorts of things from ‘Go fishing if you cannot afford to pay taxes’, to ‘Money is the root of all evil’. (I have heard both). No! Jesus is succinctly stating the principle of an ambassador in a foreign land. Respect the authority of the domain, but represent the authority of your Kingdom. Submitting to Pilot, Jesus states the doctrine behind the principle:
You ,would have no authority over me at all, unless it was given to you from above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you is guilty of greater sin. 201
That was why he was delighted when a Roman Centurion got it:
And I am certainly not worthy to come to you. Just say the word, and my servant will get well. I have officers who give orders to me, and I have soldiers who take orders from me. I can say to one of them, 'Go!' and he goes. I can say to another, 'Come!' and he comes. I can say to my servant, 'Do this!' and he will do it. When Jesus heard this, he was so surprised that he turned and said to the crowd following him, In all of Israel I've never found anyone with this much faith!202
Perhaps his name was, Centurion Barker? He had certainly recognized the spiritual root of authority. The centurion’s faith was possible because he got the principle. Examine again the kingdom structures of figure-nine. If this is a model of the structure of the Kingdom-of-God, then we should be able to see the principles and tactics in the Gospels.
What we need to say here is God intended the earth to be part of his kingdom. He did not create a kingdom as a halfway house, from which we can escape to the Kingdom-of-Heaven. The creation story tells how he created a domain then created a human-being to suit that physical realm and be his ambassador in it. Jesus prays:
While I was with them, I kept them safe by the power you have given me. I don't ask you to take them out of the world, but keep them safe from the evil one.203
Then again Jesus has not settled for a place in heaven, he has gone there for a ‘little while’, but fully intends to return.
Jesus has been taken to heaven. But he will come back in the same way that you have seen him go."204
The whole of creation, (including humans), is in an interim state of transition:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.205
As to if Jesus’ return, and the birth of the new heaven and new earth coincide, is a matter of speculation. But that both are to yet to come, is indisputable as far as Scripture is concerned. A fully formed Kingdom-of-God will one day be on earth, be it, in its corruptible form, or in its new incorruptible form. If we go to be with him in the mean-time, it will only be until we return with him when he returns.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had disappeared. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It was prepared like a bride dressed for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne. It said, "At Last, God's home is with people. He will live with them. They will be his people. God himself will reign in the midst them as their God”.206
Brothers and sisters, we want you to know about those who have died. We don't want you to be sad like people with no hope. We believe that Jesus died, and he rose again. So we believe that God raised them also, to life through Jesus. Any who have died will come with him when he comes. Those of us who are still living when the Lord comes again will also join him. When the Lord himself comes with a loud command, the people who have died and were in Christ will rise first. Then, we who are still alive at that time will be gathered with them. Encourage each other with these words.207
Ethics and Behaviour
The ethics of the Kingdom is part of :‘now / not yet’, dilemma. I am not yet what I am going to be, but I am becoming what I am going to be, and I am already what I am going to be. The jargon for this dilemma is, ‘Imputed’. It means:
God has accepted me, not on the grounds what I am or do, but on the promise of what I will be when He has finished in me208
Because it is a promise of God spoken over me, it must be. God cannot break a promise.
Words in the kingdom
As a child, language was confusing to me. Aunts could exclaim. ‘Auh Bless ‘im’! But I was scolded for saying, ‘That blessèd bike!’, when I fell off it. I came home from school one day, singing a new song, ‘blessèd be your name’, to told to go to my room. Young Hebrew children had a similar dilemma when they spoke of God. They were taught not to say God in case they inadvertently misused the name. To this day devout Jews write G-d in place of God. Shock and Horror struck one day when my friend from Bristol used ‘bum’ and not ‘bottom’ in our home. He was a bad influence, for using common Bristolian words in the East-end of London. But then, Jesus takes his listeners to task for saying, ‘You fool’, in Matthew-five-twenty after using the phrase twice himself in Luke-twenty-twenty. Much of the New-Testament is about watching the tongue, ‘because it is a small rudder that steers a big ship’. But the crux of the matter lies in the spiritual realm. We have already seen the principle, words spoken, carry the authority, emotion, desires, and wishes, of the person speaking. In the Kingdom-of-God, one word from God brought the physical realm into being209. Jesus went about saying, ‘Be healed’, and people were, much to the annoyance of Pharisees. Jesus simply said something, and it became. That is the power! Here is the principle:
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.210
The words you speak out, start in your spirit. Here comes another principle: Where your heart is, there lies your treasure and authority. If you want to know where a person’s authority lies, look for their treasure, you will find it carried on their words. You will hear it when you listen to his or her conversation.
World-Kingdom organizations, have their visions established from the top-down, Mission statements come from top-down. They are enforced by the power of inclusion or exclusion, but judged by outward cooperation. If the heart within is elsewhere, humans become very adapt at disguising it, especially when the boss is around. Jesus pronounces two statements about fruit:
"Not everyone who calls out to me, 'Lord! Lord!' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who bear out the will of my Father in heaven will enter. 211
And why call you me, Lord, Lord, and bear not the things which I say?212
Kingdom-of-God mission statements come from the heart outward. They are implanted at the new-birth by the spirit who gives new-birth. A changed motivation shows a changed life through a changed attitude to the task in hand. Changed lives, change behaviour from the inside-out. They motivate whether the boss is about or not. World-Kingdom methods are designed to change behaviour fast. The quickest way to change behaviour is at the point of a sword. Most religions have used this method to build a kingdom, including church. If this is the method, it is not the Kingdom-of-God driving it. It is the Satan’s recruitment method. World-Kingdoms are good at this method.
Words have no power of themselves except to move the air in waves to the ears of a listener. Any spirit, piggybacked on those sound wave has incredible power. The spirit of resentment, hatred, murder, adultery, lust, ad infinitum, carried on words, reveal the spirit dwelling within the heart.
I told you before, and I am telling you again, Idol worship, witchcraft, hate, jealousy, anger, and selfishness. Envy, drunkenness, lewd party goers, and the like, do not come from the Spirit you received when you entered the Kingdom of God, and will not get into the Kingdom of God . God's Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. There is no law against behaving in any of these ways. And because we belong to Christ Jesus, those other things will die within us.213
James in particular understands the power of words. In chapter-three, some Bibles head this taming the tongue. But it should be checking the human spirit. The tongue has the power to build up or destroy. But it has that capacity because it can carry or penetrate the spirit.
The tongue, is a small part of the body, but it can boast about doing great things. A big forest fire can be started with only a little flame. Nobody can tame the tongue.214
Kingdom-of-God citizens, are citizens because God has chosen to make them citizens by the word of truth.215 Therefore, the citizen of the Kingdom-of-God should bear the family resemblance. In World-Kingdoms the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, may part company to travel three separate ways. When the belt of truth slips, trousers fall down. Part-truths and incomplete-truths, display a spiritual motivation that is not a Kingdom-of-God truth.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. … So they are without excuse. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. For this reason, because they gave up truth for a lie God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.216
All this list is a product of lies and not truth. The tongue reveals more about us than we care to admit. It reveals the heart, not necessarily in the words themselves but in the motivation and expression driving them.
World-Kingdom citizens, applying for Kingdom-of-God citizenship have to go through the narrow gate of the one who said, ‘I Am the Way the Truth and the Life’, expecting to come out the other side praying, ‘Clean my heart O God and make a new heart within me’217.
Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be ,has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 218
173 Acts 1:3
174 Matthew 3: 2 , 10: 3 11: 11-12 ; Luke 9: 2 , 9:60 ; among others
175 Genesis 25: 24
176 Zechariah 2:13-4:7
177 John 1: 19-24
178 John 6: 66
179 John 1:1 -5
180 Remember , the Hebrew concept of time was the process ruled time not time ruled the process.
181 Luke 4:18-21
182 Isaiah 61 : 2
183 Luke 17:20
184 Some versions use within you, because the Greek can be either, but for reasons stated, I see ‘In your midst’ as Jesus is standing in their midsts to answer their question.
185 Matthew 11: 4ff
186 Mark 3:27
187 Mat 13:25 ff
188 First he sent Jonah and they repented, 100 years later he sent another prophet but it was too late
189 James 1:15
190 Amos 8: 2
191 I speak in broad terms, many communities live under this umbrella term but to the world, the worst examples are the concept they carry.
192 John 3:6
193 Mark 1:8
194 John 3:8
195 Mat 25:34
196 Jesus said, I Am the gate, and again, I Am the door. In both cases meaning No body can get into the Kingdom to see the King, but by me.
197 Acts 5:29
198 Romans 13:1,
200 Mark_12:17
201 John 19:1-11
202 Luke 7:7 - 9
203 John 17:12
204 Act 1:11
205 Romans 8: 22
206 Revelation 21:1-3
207 1Thessolonians 4:13 -18
208 Tales to tell my grandchildren : Brian E R Limmer.
209 Genesis 1: 3
210 John 6:63
211 Matthew 7: 21
212 Luke 13:25-27
213 Gal 5:22 - 24
214 James 3:5 , 8
215 James 1: 18
216 Romans 1:18 ff
217 Psalm 51: 10
218 1 John 3:2