The New Kingdom Place and Constitution

And looking at that in the light of historic Christianity. And I added this one today. I was looking through the notes and looking, OK, what have I covered and what am I looking, leaving out? And I saw a big hole in actually talking about the passages in the New Testament that actually discuss our, the way we're to behave, the way we're to think about the two kingdoms in the New Covenant.

So I added this one and I'm going to make a special attention to the changing of the kingdom of God from a local geographic area to the global church that we have today and in that. So we'll finish today in the lesson and then I'm going to take a two week break. Next week, we're going to have I go here to give a special session.

And so and then we're going to take a break in the first two weeks of June is when I'll be picking up and finishing with this, if that sounds good. So let's get into this. I'll do a little bit of a review and then go.

But let's start with a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we want to say we love you this morning and we invite your presence here. It is our desire not to do anything but to give glory to you, not to lift up a people, a theology or anything, Lord.

It is our desire to to lift you up. And so, dear God, I pray that you would give us wisdom today to look into the scriptures and to see what your heart is for the church in the midst of a world that's in chaos, in the midst of a world that's in war, in the midst of a war that a world that needs your cure for humanity. So, Lord, I ask you, please, to enlighten your word as you promised you would and help me, Father, to to present only what you want that to be presented.

We bring this all to you in Jesus name. Amen. OK, so let's look at this.

So here's the session again. We started with the testimony we last week. We talked about the kind of the understanding, the kingdom, Christianity and and then.

So today, the new kingdom, place and constitution, then on the coming in the first two weeks of June, the first I'll be looking at the place of human government. And then finally, what happens when you mix that up? That's the real sparky one. We'll save that for the last.

So in review a little bit. So we talked about the idea last week about from the very beginning, we see some of the ideas of the tree of life and that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that when man chose evil, it took a certain kind of government, a certain kind of way to to govern the earth to to in a life of sin instead of living in grace and faith in Jesus Christ. We also talked about the idea that through the old covenant and into the new we're going to see today, God has a special purpose for the people of God and that we lessen or we give up.

We certainly lessen that purpose when we get involved into the to the other kingdom, the different politics we I took you through the parable in Judges chapter nine, and that where the trees were asking the olive tree and the fig tree and the you know, for you be king. And they would not give up their special purpose and special calling to be king. And it's a beautiful parable in Judges nine.

We then went through how in both Jesus at the end times, excuse me, at the end of his ministry, when he was just ascended to heaven, he spoke of the things of this coming of the kingdom of God. We saw how Paul at the end of acts is there preaching through the old covenant and through the prophets and showing how the kingdom of God is through all of this. And that's what we're trying to do in these in these teachings as well.

We saw this beautiful portrayal or the beautiful example, the beautiful where a beautiful thing where Jesus is standing there before Pilate and Pilate hits it on this idea. Are you a king then? And Jesus proclaimed very powerfully, yes, for this cause, I was born this concept of Jesus as king. You think of today, Jesus is president.

The idea of Jesus is Lord and what that means in their setting is very pertinent for us today. As we look at two kingdom theology, we looked at through the prophets and how the prophets spoke of a time when there would be a king that would be born. And it said, if you recall, of the increase of his government, this is that Messiah, this is the child that should be born of the increase of his government and peace.

There shall be no end. And we talked about that and the coming into that. And then in that passage, in Isaiah, chapter nine, we saw that Matthew made a very particular point of saying that these prophecies have been fulfilled.

He quoted directly from Isaiah, chapter nine, even mentioned Zebulun and Naphtali and how the Gentiles had received a great light and then finally brought it in that this is the beginning of Jesus's ministry. And he said, from this time on, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And this is beginning of that increase of that government and peace.

So when that kingdom preaching and all that started, something really important happened in the new covenant in relation to that kingdom. And that is the kingdom extended from a specific geographic location in Israel to a global one. And this is no minor point.

It's actually a very important point. The change in location. Now watch this now.

The change in location from the kingdom, the change of location of the kingdom is fundamentally significant. And a lot of times we just kind of gloss over this and I'm going to hit it home pretty strong here. And remember, Jesus was a woman at the well and she was saying when he was confronting her with her sin and she ended up asking him a theological question.

Yeah, my people say we're supposed to worship on this mountain. She was a Samaritan. And you Jews say we should worship in the temple.

And Jesus corrected her, said salvation is of the Jews. He said, but Jesus said to her, woman, believe me. The hour is coming when you will neither worship on this mountain nor in Jerusalem where you worship the father.

And so he is giving us the idea that it's going to no longer be. Don't miss this in a local place that the new covenant goes around the entire earth now. And this is very significant.

As John Piper puts it, this is a quote from his book. He says this was a change from a come see religion of the Old Testament to a go and tell religion of the New Testament. And this is significant.

It comes into all different ways. It affects our salvation theology, our soteriology. It affects our missiology of where, how we it kind of rebukes us when we want to just cloister in our own little world and say, well, just everybody can come see me and see that's not New Testament Christianity.

Watch out, Jesus said, even in the new covenant, watch the in the in the in the great commission, he says, and Jesus came and spoke to them. This is, you know, at the very end, he's given that he's about to, you know, this is the very end. And he's given the end of Matthew.

He's about to send into heaven. And he's given these different promises. And he says, Jesus came and spoke to them, saying all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

He makes it clear all authority, both in heaven and all this earthly authority has been given to me. And then what's his word after that? Go. That's profound.

It's no longer come to Israel. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And he gives us this promise and lo, I'll be with you always, even into the ends of the earth.

It's interesting, the lo I'll be with you is sort of attached to go into all the nations. Don't miss that. It's another sermon.

All right. Do you understand the significance of the kingdom changing from a geographic location to a global one? I'm going to go a little deeper because I think we typically miss this. Most evangelical Christians, most of us to miss this.

All right. The place of a God ordained nationalism in the old covenant should not be overlooked or glossed over a nationalism over the country, over the nation of Israel. It affected.

I want to say everything and I change it in there to my notes to a lot, a lot. It changed who could be the elect, who could come to God. It affected a lot of things.

The preeminence of the nation of Israel, actual geographic location is one of the most prominent things in the Old Testament. Israel was not just to be an example, it was that you should be a light to the to the whole world through you, all the nations would be blessed. It was meant to be an example to the whole world, but it was more than that.

It was unapologetically chosen to be a very special geographic location on the map. You get that? Not just a spiritual thing on the map, complete with national superiority. Protection, national blessings, preferences and national responsibilities.

God chose to glorify himself, excuse me, in a specific location. I'm going to keep hitting home with this because you've got to take this deeper. This is fundamental and how we understand when you gloss this stuff, you mess up the Old Testament and you mess up the new.

Now, here's the thing. So the description of Israel coming into the promised land, coming into Canaan is sometimes given, we just sort of skip over it. We don't talk about it.

We don't face the implications of what's being said there. And we turn it even, I've heard it in debates that I've been a part of or different things into some kind of kind of bizarre, half just war theory. It's not that.

It's not that at all. It's closer to more of a judgment of God, sort of closer to the Noah's Ark type of thing. It's very severe.

So look at the way, like, for instance, the promises that when God told Israel to come into this promised land. He specifically mentioned seven nations that would be destroyed for this happening. He said, when the excuse me, somebody get a water, excuse me, when the Lord, your God brings you into the land which you go to possess and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perseusites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you.

Thank you very much. And when the Lord, your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them, nor show them mercy to them.

So let's not turn this into something that it's not. It's it's very clear. God is willing to bring some kind of a judgment on these people.

It's a it's a whole different topic, but it's it's not any kind of just war theory or something that we can kind of halfway apply to our applications today. It's very clear a call of God for a specific purpose. I'm hitting this straight on because it's very important.

So you say, so so wait, people say, so OK, so where's the idea of a just war theory in the Bible? And that's the point. It does not exist. The closest thing we can get, if you were to go on on Google today and you were to Google, where's the just war theory in the Bible? I can't quite find that I did it last night just to see what I would come up with.

And sure enough, it does that, it says it doesn't explicitly state anywhere in the Bible any kind of a just war theory, but we get something hinted towards it in Deuteronomy chapter 20. But then later on in 400, guys like Augustine come up with this just war theory. Here's the bottom line.

And you have to understand this to understand proper to kingdom Christianity. There's no just war theory in the Old Testament, none, there's no just war theory in the New Testament, there's no just war theory in the early church. You don't pick up a concept of a theological just war theory and to the four hundreds when the when the nations have been brought together through with the church, through Constantine.

This is significant. We don't need to try to turn the old covenant wars into something they're not, nor do we need to explain them away. I one of the things that struggled, I struggled with and when I came to start studying biblical non-resistance was a lot of the liberal pacifists would kind of explain away the Old Testament wars like, well, that really didn't happen.

Or we see through Jesus that we have to reinterpret the Old Testament and maybe they were just stories, maybe they were fantasies or I don't know, whatever they say, you kind of dismiss the Old Testament. I think it's a really bad idea because the whole word of God is what we have to stick to, right? The whole word of God. But let's also not make the mistake of turning it into some kind of pseudo just war theory.

It's not that either. And so we have to see what is God telling us about how he addressed the nation in the old covenant and how we're supposed to live out this, uh, the life of a kingdom Christian and the new covenant. So that Deuteronomy 20, it's interesting that, uh, which is now, even when I was doing a debate in Boston, they would kind of hint about Deuteronomy 20 is, well, that kind of gives us some rules for war.

If you were to look up rules for war on the internet, um, where's the Bible, it would take you to Deuteronomy 20. It gives some ideas of trying to be merciful when you come into one of the other countries other than those seven, but then it explicitly states when it gets to those seven, you shall utterly destroy them and show no mercy as it word. But of the cities of these people, which the Lord God doth give thee as an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes it in literal.

So why am I bringing out something so graphic and so disturbing? I'll tell you, I want us to be really honest with the word of God, really honest with the old Testament so that we're really honest with the new Testament and not try to turn it into something that it's not. I, I think this is a righteous judgment that God gave on the earth. I don't understand it.

I don't, we don't know what these people, there's many books you can go about describing the taking of Canaan and all those, and there's very good books written on this and, and discussing that. But one thing it's not, it's not some pseudo evangelical country trying to have justification to go pick on another country because of some just war theory. That's not it.

It's a, it's God calling on the nation of Israel to do a specific task that he's, that they're commanded to do and actually get in trouble when they don't. So I don't want us to gloss over it and turn it into something that it's not. There was a judgment of God, not a just war theory.

Now in my life, since I've studied, when I was growing up in the eighties and the early nineties, kind of the trend in those days was a kind of evangelical theology called dispensationalism. Okay. I'll explain that word.

It basically meant that these teachings of Jesus were for a different dispensation. Many preachers would say it's for, you know, uh, it's for a millennial reign or it's for something in heaven or something. And, and you could then go through the new Testament and actually have a new Testament where you literally took those new Testament teachings of Jesus and say, well, all that's for another time.

I think I read once by, uh, who was the person? I would actually say that Matthew is the last book of the old Testament, literally said by a preacher. I have been, I have been blessed over the, over the years. I've seen, although I have many problems with neo-reformed theology, one thing I have been blessed is they've gotten away with dispensationalism.

And I see these guys being face to face with the new Testament. So I see guys like John Piper, Francis Chan, David Platt, Dave Harvey, um, Tim Mackey, I wouldn't put in neo-Calvinist, but still there's a, there's a trend that I think is refreshing that I've enjoyed of people at least facing the teachings of more than they did when I was, when I was coming up with dispensationalism. And I think it's refreshing.

Matter of fact, if you scan that little, uh, QR code, it's a surprisingly strong argument from John Piper when the, uh, college president from Liberty University, um, during a one time was encouraging his students to bring weapons to, to, uh, to campus in case the Muslims would happen to come into the campus, we'll show them and you can be packing heat and show them. John Piper wrote a scathing article in Christianity Today. And that's the article there that I have a QR code.

And it was surprisingly good. His, he has some of the strongest views of, of against divorce and remarriage. Why? Because if at least we can meet at Jesus, I think it's, it's very, it's a very, uh, good, uh, good thing to do.

And then let me show you how this affects everything. One of my favorite missionary books, missiology books, books on, you know, how you describe missions or how we should think of missions. John Piper wrote, uh, let the nations be glad.

And I want you to catch how John Piper gets this difference of the change of location and the change of the covenant. Here's how John Piper says it. It's, it's excellently worded.

He says, one of the main differences between these two eras is that in the old Testament, God glorified himself largely by blessing Israel so that the nations could see and know that the Lord is God. Israel was not yet on a great commission to gather the nations. Rather, she was glorified.

She was glorified so that the nations would see her greatness and come to her. Difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. In other words, the pattern in the old Testament is a come see, come see me religion.

There is a geographic center of the people of God. There is a physical temple, an earthly king, a political regime, an ethnic identity, an army to fight God's earthly battles and a band of priests to make animal sacrifices for sins. And then he says with this, with the coming of Christ, all of this changed.

Are you getting the kingdom theology now? Is it beginning to get a light bulb? He goes on significant now in the new covenant, there is no geographic center for Christianity. Jesus has replaced the temple, the priest and the sacrifices. There is no Christian political regime because Christ's kingdom is not of this world.

He goes on and we do not fight earthly battles with chariots and horses or bombs and bullets, but spiritual ones with the word and the spirit. All of this supports the great change in mission. The new Testament does not present a come see religion, but a go tell religion.

Now, that's an ouch to us if there's one big error that I would say Anabaptism typically gets branded with. And for good reasons is that we cloister and we don't take the gospel out. Right.

And so this is not, we're not living. That's old covenant thinking. If we're saying, well, everybody should just see me and then come become a Christian.

That's not new covenant, but it's also affects everything. I'm not everything, a lot of things. He goes on.

The implications of this are huge for the way we live and the way we think about money and lifestyle. One of the main implications is that we are sojourners and exiles on the earth. We do not use this world as though it were our primary home.

Our citizenship is in heaven. And from it, we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. This leads to a wartime lifestyle.

I love that. But A.W. Tozer has a sermon in a book called This World, Playground or Battlefield. It's amazing.

It's excellently worded. So don't preach a gospel that ignores this shift from a come see religion in the Old Testament to a go tell religion in the New Testament. Does that light about, does that kind of get you understanding of the idea of even how the significance of that is? So like I said from the very beginning on the last sermon, my job isn't just to talk you out of going voting and getting involved in politics.

It's part of that, but that's not, there's not like there's a directly sin. My hope is that somehow you can understand this fundamentally and that it would just seem like nonsense for us to get involved with the politics of this world. And hopefully we'll see that more and more come out.

So let's get into this now. Where this has been confused, and this is going to be the next message, I think it has been some of the worst things that have ever marred the image of Christ. The Crusades was a mixing of these two things, the misunderstanding.

When Charlemagne ran and massacred people, he quoted from the Old Covenant. When they screamed, this is the will of God, this is the will of God, they were innocent, the second gave the first crusade. These things are the confusing of this point.

And why I was so direct with talking about the Old Covenant and what it was there is because these guys applied those passages to their situation. And guess what? It happens again and again if we don't change the theology. All right.

So we come to the covenant. The New Covenant. And the focus is on Jesus.

Our salvation is not just a theology. It is a theology and the theology describes it. But our salvation is the person of Jesus Christ.

Everything about him, his death, resurrection, the blood of Jesus for our sins, but also his teaching, his example, his presence. So the focus then on our understanding of the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, is focused on him and how he interprets it. Hebrews chapter one opens, the book of Hebrews opens like this.

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in the past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these, what's the word, these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the world, who being the brightness of his glory and the expressed image of his person. When we see Jesus, we see the father. And we don't go reinterpret the Old Testament and say, well, then none of that happened because Jesus wouldn't be.

No, we, but we see this manifest presence of God through today and how he wants this to be in the New Covenant through Jesus. We see Jesus then manifested as king, like we brought up last week, king. And on his cross was Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews.

This is significant. And the way he was inaugurated was significant. He wasn't inaugurated the way King David was.

He wasn't inaugurated the way Augustus Caesar was. He was there on the cross, giving us an example of an upside down kingdom that's going to be practiced now in a different way. God did not change.

God's the same God of the Old Covenant as he is in the New Covenant. What changed was the way we fight, the way we go to battle, the way we have now not been a local area, but a global area. That's what's changed.

So when, when Jesus then came and open up the scriptures of Isaiah and, and, uh, Isaiah chapter four, excuse me, uh, and Luke chapter four, one of my favorite scenes, you know, it, Jesus is coming into the synagogue and they hand him the scrolls. It's one of the scenes if I would, I would just love to watch. And Jesus came up and took the scroll and they would have been a, you know, a liturgical reading.

They would have had that day's reading. And apparently that day was reading from Isaiah. And so he opens it up and he quotes it.

And he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has appointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recover of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. The Jubilee that we had that was totally ignored by Israel at the time.

Then he closed the book and he gave it back to the attendant and sat down. I love this. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And he began to say, today, the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. That's amazing stuff. It's a king fulfilling this, but it's a, notice how the language of this is different.

So how do we live out? This is the constitution part, the place in the constitution. So Jesus gave us the Sermon on the Mount. So I was trying to say, and the Sermon on the Mount can't be taken lightly.

I can't believe how many, when I was getting in study, you know, I was reading through an entire thousand page, you know, systematic theology books and something. It's amazing how at the very end they try to kind of put back in a little bit of Jesus's teachings. No, Jesus can't be separated from his teaching.

He doesn't get up like you and me do to try to give a message. It comes from who he is. And so it's fundamental.

The teachings of Jesus, when Jesus stood on a mountain and gave us the new constitution for the new covenant, it's not a side issue. Let's not worry about all those side issues. People like to tell us, let's not worry about those things.

No, these, this is God talking, pay attention. This is what he wants. And he gave us, oops, the Sermon on the Mount.

And it is interesting in that he did not do away with the law. He says, I am not abolishing the law, but I am what? I'm fulfilling it. But then he tells us how that's going to be fulfilled.

And six times in the middle of that Sermon on the Mount, he said, I know that in the old, in other words, the old covenant, we said this, I know in the days of old, we said that, but now I say. And so there was a change in the way of, of the way we apply those, the, the teachings, the way we do that. And then he gave us these beautiful teachings.

And these aren't side issues. He told us that marriage is permanent and gave us some very strong words on that. He told us that lawsuits were wrong.

He took us and he's told us about radical use of money, which created some very interesting applications in the early church. As we recall, he then told us that we should love our enemies. This really gets into that the two kingdoms concept.

Now, most people say, well, if I do this, I'm not loving my neighbor. Okay. We're not just talking about loving our neighbor.

We're talking about loving our enemies. He said, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be the sons of your father who was in heaven for he makes his son to rise on the evil and on the good and since rain on the just and the unjust, he said, blessed are you and others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

And he gives us this kind of a ethic to live in. He tells us we should seek first the kingdom of God. And he, even in, if you take the sermon on the Mount, I got this from the Bible project.

It's an excellent point. If you take the sermon on the Mount and you were to divide it into different sections and then go to the very center, the very center is the Lord's prayer. And then right up there at the beginning of the Lord's prayer, we get this emphasis on this kingdom.

And after this manner, pray ye our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, your name to be holy, thy kingdom come. Now watch, thy will be done on earth like it is in heaven. And this is the way that Jesus is wanting us now to usher this in.

Now, let me ask you. This is what Tonya and I had to deal with. And we were, when we were facing these scriptures, do we think Jesus meant those things? Because really, if you take those teachings and do directly the opposite, you're kind of end up with the modern American church.

And that's a problem. And I'm not saying we've arrived at all the perfect fulfillment of Jesus teachings either. I certainly haven't, but I know that he meant what he said.

And if there's anything that I felt from the spirit of God, when I was trying to deal with them, I just felt this thing like, yeah, I mean that. Put them into practice. And that's the calling for the kingdom, for us to walk out these things.

We have been a different way that we are to practice this kingdom spreading. You remember the place in Luke 9 when the sons of thunder cry out and they say, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as Elijah did when they didn't want them to, when he was traveling through Samaria and they saw that, oh, they're heading to Jerusalem, don't receive them. And, you know, his disciples asked him to call down fire.

Jesus said, he turned to him and rebuked him and said, you don't know what manner of spirit you are, or you are of. But the son of man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.

He told us in the way that this kingdom, very different, same God, same passion, he cannot change, but different application of how we're to live out that calling. Instead of that conquering like Canaan, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. And he says, therefore, because I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, be wise as serpents.

But harmless as doves, but beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in the synagogues, you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. He said, now brother will deliver up brother to death and a father, his child and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death and you will be hated by all for my namesake, but he who endures to the end shall be saved. It's a powerful stuff.

Romans, Paul picked up the same thing, the same theme. He was obviously a disciple of Jesus and gave us this beautiful Romans chapter 12. And in that he shows us how this kingdom.

Application is going to be within this world, and we're going to talk about the next chapter, Romans 13 at the next message. But in Romans 12, he said, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all, if possible, so far as depends on you live peaceably with all. Yeah, but things are going to happen.

Well, then what do we do? Beloved, never avenge yourself, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. For so doing, he will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

That's the application that we're supposed to overcome evil with good. He tells us and one of my favorite what I call the Christian atomic bomb. Well, we're no theology is good unless it comes to an application.

So, OK, so what happens if someone breaks into your house? What happens if something happens? What happens if Islam gets out of control? What happens if Democrats win the presidency? Terrible things like this. OK, what would happen is what shouldn't we fight during those times? People would kind of, you know, say, sorry about the sarcasm. He says.

I love this passage, he says, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? And then he lists some who's going to be able to take that away from you, shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? He says, for it is written. And this is your encouragement of how you're going to live out the kingdom. It is written for your sake.

We were killed all day long. You are you are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Oh, thanks.

That's not that conquering a way that they wanted in the old covenant had a specific purpose. This is the way we fight in the new covenant. Yeah, but watch now what happens yet in all these things, we are more than conquerors through what things famine, nakedness, peril, sword, but in all and being considered a sheep for the slaughter and all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

And I love this for I am persuaded. That neither life nor death. Nor are angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor things to come, nor height, nor death, nor any other creature shall be neither other creative thing in this version shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.

So basically anything, anything high, anything low, anything angelic, anything earthly, nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. And we live this life out in that way. And this worked.

And it has continued to work when we look at the history, when we look into the early church, when we consider that, we see that just a paraphrase or a loose translation of Tertullian's passage there over and over again, they kill us. But then in the midst of that persecution, a church grows up and we see this, the martyr's mirror is full of this. The seed, the blood of the martyr is seed of the church.

Why? Why? Because this is the way of Christ. You know, the cross, the Bible says, the cross, think of that, the theology of martyrdom, the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing. But to us who are saved, it is the what? Power of God.

That theology of martyrdom can't be killed. Imagine if you had a bunch of soldiers and you could send them out into the battle and you could say, guess what? You can't die. Just go.

Be a powerful, be a powerful thing. That's what we're given in Christ. We will never die.

And we can live boldly in that. But here's the thing. This is where we fall and many people get confused with this.

It's not passive. Last section here, then I'll end. It's not passive and it gets confusing when we do treat it as passive.

The Bible says in Exodus 15, the Lord is a man of war. The Lord is his name. Now, can God change? Do we believe in a different God of the old covenant as a different God as a new covenant? No, if God is a man of war in Exodus 15 3, God is a man of war today.

He cannot change. What changes, though, is the orders of how we fight that battle. Now, I was in the army.

If you were to say, OK, in the last war, we were given these orders to go fight this battle. And this new battle, we're going to say you've got different orders. But you're like, no, I like the old one better.

No, you're going to get shot for being disobeying orders. The orders that we were given to fight in this battle is now the cross. That's the way the command of Jesus.

And so he also, remember, he did say, do not think that I have come to bring peace, but I have bring a sword. And he explains that. I'm not just trying to make everybody happy.

I'm not just trying to live peace somewhere. I have something to say. And we as the church should have something prophetic to speak to this world about.

And that's going to cause division. So going on the kingdom offensive, let's not just be passive. Here's the second Corinthians 10, three through five.

It says, for though we walk in the flesh, you know, we're here every day. We're not just some phantom. For though we walk in the flesh, watch now.

We do not war according to the flesh. Well, that should be obvious right there. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are what? Mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high things that exalt itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into the captivity of the obedience of Christ.

Ephesians 6, 12 says, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood. There's not a there's not a period after four. We wrestle not.

I'm afraid too many times. That's what we got into. We just want to make everybody happy.

We wrestle not. No, it says we wrestle not against flesh and blood. We don't go to war and flesh and blood, but we do wrestle against principalities, against powers, against rulers of this darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places where I think that it gets confusing is when we can just set and enjoy all the benefits of war and people say, well, then why are you just going to sit there and do nothing? Well, then shame on us.

We deserve the accusation that this is inconsistent. But if we are actively prospering the kingdom, if we're actively going into places where we're bringing in the kingdom of God and peace, if we're part of that, that's not passive. That's actively living out the kingdom command of go to all the nations.

People break into your house. Don't just sit there. So what are you just going to sit there and do nothing? No, you put yourself in harm's way.

Do something about it. I'll even turn over a table or two as Jesus did. It's not just sitting there and being passive and making everybody happy.

Kingdom activity is what we should be called to do. Just a few more quotes and I'm done. They gave this the early church led this out.

I'll give you some next week, next time to origin they gave. So what are you saying, origin? Are you just going to let the government do your dirty work? There was an early book written by a man by the name of Celsus, who was writing one of the first books against Christians. Origin said, you can read the whole quote.

I just paraphrased it for time to this. Our answer that we do give help to Kings when needed, but this is so to speak, a divine help putting on the whole armor of God. Our prayers defeat all demons who stir up war.

Those demons also lead persons to violate their oaths and to disturb the peace. Accordingly, in this way, we are much more help to the Kings than those who go into the fields to fight for them. And we do not take our part.

And we do take our part in public affairs when we join self-denying exercises to our righteous prayers and meditations. Other words like fasting, which teach us to despise pleasures and not be led away by them. So none fight better for the king than we do.

Indeed, we do not fight under him even if he demands it. Yet we fight on his behalf. Forming, I love this, a special army, an army of godliness by offering our prayers to God.

And not just in so it's not just a passive, but an active and also being in the place. And then my one of my favorite quotes from Tertullian. He says, all zeal in the pursuit of glory and honor is dead in us.

Speaking political in the quote here. So we have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings, nor is there anything more entirely foreign to us than the affairs of the state. Can you say that today? There's nothing more entirely foreign to us than the affairs of the state.

That's how consumed they were with this kingdom of God advancing. We acknowledge one all embracing commonwealth, the world. And then right up into the book of Revelation, when the Antichrist is coming and we see the world just falling completely apart or what seems to be.

They say, and they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives to the death. So.

The points that I want you to gather to this coming from the first lesson, the kingdom has been part of God's plan from the beginning. The prophet spoke of it. Christ ushered it in and he gave us a way to live in the new covenant.

We are still at battle. Our God is still a warrior, but we fight differently in the New Testament. We live out this life as little cities of this kingdom of God.

And very importantly, to understand when we understand the difference of the old covenant and the new covenant, as John Piper brought out, that the difference between a come and see religion to a go and tell religion, the difference between a geographic center to the kingdom of God to everywhere affects so much of this. All right. So next week we'll look at our next time we'll work, talk to about, well, then what do you do with Romans chapter 13? What do you do with these earthly kings? What do you do with those Old Testament kings? How does that play into all this? We'll look at that at the next session.

I think it's also very important. So, all right. Thank you very much.