The Kingdom of God!

Part 11

 

Last week I shared with you the following,

 

Our God is a God of law because of His integrity. Numbers 23:19 says,

 

"God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: has he said, and shall he not do it? Or has he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"

 

Jer. 1:12,

 

"You have seen well: for I will hasten my word to perform it." 

 

"The Kingdom of God is a kingdom of law and order. The reason for this, is that when God, who is all powerful, speaks and declares, His word becomes law.

 

Jesus told Peter in Matt. 16:18-19,

 

"And I say also unto you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

 

Jesus also said to His disciples in Matt. 18:18-20,

 

Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say unto you, "That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

 

Remember, Matthew uses the term, Kingdom of Heaven and Mark uses the term, Kingdom of God. Is there a difference between these two terms or are they the same? Technically there is; however, for the purpose of our discussion I am going to use the term, Kingdom of God. The difference is that the Kingdom of God indicates His universal Kingdom and the term, Kingdom of Heaven indicates His Kingdom of the specific place called Heaven.

 

In this study, I want to discuss what the Kingdom of God is and where it is located. There is confusion in the religious world about the Kingdom of God. On the one hand it is taught that the Kingdom of God is here now and when Jesus returns again, he will set up His Kingdom here on this earth

 

What does all this mean? The Kingdom of God is not a physical kingdom! It is a spiritual kingdom where God is supreme. Paul said in Heb. 8:10-13,

 

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people."! 

 

Jesus told His disciples in Lk. 17:20-21,

 

"The Kingdom of God comes not with observation: Neither shall they say, "Lo here! Or, lo there! For, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you."

 

The Kingdom of God is the pattern for all kingdoms that desire freedom. The Kingdom of God has a Judicial system with laws and procedures of etiquette. The court of Grace is the court that all Christians have access to, however, to be successful, there are rules and regulations we must observe. In this court, we have a great advantage over Satan. When we come into this court, we must first have a repentive heart. John said in 1 John 1:5,

 

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

 

By confessing our sins and repenting from them, we are cleansed by the blood of Jesus and our God no longer has any record of our sins! We become righteous in God's eyes because of our faith in what Jesus did for us! Therefore, we can stand before God with boldness and Satan has no grounds to bring accusations in the Court of Grace against us!

 

One of the reasons that a lot of our prayers are unanswered is because we refuse to forgive others! Jesus said in Mark 11:25-26,

 

"And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have something against anyone: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses."  

 

Therefore, the first order of coming before the Throne of Grace is to repent. Repent of any known sin and any unknown sin and also repent for any sins that may have occurred in our bloodline. If we do this, we have an insurmountable advantage over our accuser.

 

I shared with you in my article, "The United States of America, Part 4", the two main evil spirits that Satan has released in our great nation in an attempt to stop the glorious light of the Gospel from spreading through out the world. These two main spirits are the spirit that empowered Jezebel and Ahab.

 

This Jezebel spirit has come out of hiding and is possessing most of the Democratic Party, especially, it's leaders. This spirit has, in an attempt to cause our president to fear, used intimidation, by threatening, by lying, by twisting his words, by making up false accusations, by attacking those he has appointed to office, by smear tactics, by blackmail, by attacking his family and etc. This spirit, and those she controls, will not stop short of doing anything they think might work to put Trump out of office and not just out of office but to fix it so he may never hold any office in our nation again.

 

Truth means nothing to the Jezebel spirit. She is one of Satan's chief spirits. Jesus said in John 8:24,

 

"You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

These spirits behind them realized that if Trump was elected, it would do great harm to their effort to destroy this great nation.

 

This is a modern-day example of why, that when we come before the Court of Grace, we must stand boldly before the Lord and repent of all our sins. When we do this, the devil can accuse us all he wants to because our Father has no record of any of our sins. Also, we have an advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ, to stand before God on our behalf. John said in 1 John 2:1-2, (NIV)

 

"My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father"Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."

 

Paul quoted the Lord when He said in Heb. 8:12,

 

"I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."

The keys to the Kingdom of God are the ability we have been given to bind and loose! We have the right to go before the Court of Grace and petition God for a restraining order against the forces of evil. The gates of hell cannot prevail against us in the Court of Grace, if we will abide by the proper procedures of the court.

Jesus defeated the devil on the cross, however, we, as the body of Christ, the Church, must learn to go before the courts of heaven and remind God of His word and come into agreement with what the word says in order to release the Lord's will for our nation and all the nations of the earth. By doing so we give the Lord the legal authority to fulfill His purpose on this earth. God is a judge and will only operate His will under legal terms. This is so Satan can have no accusations against Him or us in the courts of Heaven.

Satan has the right to come before the courts of heaven and make his accusations against us. In the book of Job we see the sons of God coming before the courts of heaven to present themselves and Satan came with them!

 

When God gave Adam the authority over the earth it set a legal precedent that prevented the Lord from overriding the authority He gave to Adam. It also put Adam under a Restraining Order. The Restraining Order was that Adam could not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When Adam obeyed Satan and defiled the Restraining Order of the Lord, he subjected himself and all of his posterity to the rule of Sin. When he did this, sin entered the world and all of mankind was subjected to the rule of Sin!

 

Paul said in Rom. 5:12-14,

 

"Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so, death passed upon all men, for all have sinned: (For until the law, sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him (Jesus) that was to come."

 

Like Adam, Jesus was also under a Restraining Order! Jesus said in Lk. 12:49-50, (NIV)

 

"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!"

 

 

He was under a Restraining Order from His Father until He went to the cross. The restraining order was that He could not use His authority as God's Son to do anything! He said in John 5:19,

 

"Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

 

Satan tried his best to get Jesus to use His authority on earth and thus obey him like the first Adam did in the beginning. If he could have had Jesus obey him like Adam did, he would have defeated God's purpose for Jesus.

 

We, as Christians, have the right to go before the Court of Grace and get Restraining Orders against Satan. Paul said in Heb. 4:14-16, (NIV)

 

"Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are; yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

 

What then is a Restraining Order? A Restraining rder can cover a lot of different things. Basically, a Restraining Order issued by the Courts of Heaven is to protect a person of destiny, a business, a nation, or kingdom citizens in a situation involving clear and present danger to the ordained purposes of God.

 

Sometimes, divine Restraining Order are also put in place by the Courts of Heaven to give a child of God time to get their act together. If you have been a Christian very long, you have experienced the grace of God giving you time to get your act together!

 

It is said of Jesus in Lk. 2:52,

 

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."

 

The problem in the Body of Christ is that we have lots of people who are anointed but they don't have spiritual stature with God and man. When we grow in stature with God and man, it means that we have a legal standing before the Throne of Grace. If we have stature and favor before man, it means that God will allow people to be naturally drawn to us.

 

In 1977, I started New Life Christian Center and we rented a church building on Roseland Avenue in Parkersburg. I talked to the owner about renting the building and he said that the building was currently being rented. So, I told him to let me know if it ever becomes available. He called me a week later and told me that the pastor left the key on the pulpit and move out.

 

Shortly, after that, I got a call from a man who said he was looking for a church and ask me if he could attend our church. He had asked a friend of his at one of the Christian stores, where there was a Full Gospel Church and he turned to the bulletin board where there were lots of business cards and selected my Electrical Contracting cards and told him to call me. He did and he brought several of his employees with him to Church. He and his family has been a dear friend of mine ever since.

 

I could write a book about the way the Lord has drawn people to my ministry. The Lord impressed me at the very beginning of my Christian life, to humble myself and be a servant to His people. May I encourage you to allow the Lord to open doors for you to walk through. Wherever you go to Church, get involved in what the Lord, is doing there.

 

Even though we are all children of God, it is time that we mature and become sons of God. Many of God's children have not learn to discern the voice of the Lord and have not learned to discern the anointing of the Spirit. Do you know that the Holy Spirit dwells within you? Everything you receive from the Lord is by faith. When I was seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I would pray and seek the Lord for this and nothing was happening. I was reading a book about this and the writer said that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was received by faith. So, I begin to declare that I had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and guess what? I was sitting on top of a two-story apartment building tying in an electrical service and I begin to praise the Lord and suddenly realized that I was speaking in tongues.

 

I shared this with you so that you will realize that every gift of the Lord is received by faith. Paul said in Rom. 1:17,

 

"For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, "The just shall live by faith." 

 

So, if you have not experienced the Lord's anointing or His Spirit speaking through you, begin to thank Him that you have an ear to hear and begin expecting Him to speak to you. In the spirit world communication is different than in the physical. Inspiration comes in the form of knowing. For example, you are having a problem with something and you ask the Lord for the answer and as you meditate on the problem you come up with the answer. Do you ever thank the Lord for that answer? Remember, we are to walk by faith! Paul said in Thess. 5:18,

 

"In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

 

We are so prone to think that all of our wisdom is coming because we are so smart! You can talk with the Lord whenever you desire and when you do be sure to listen to what He says back to you. I know that a lot of you will say to me, "Well, the Lord has never spoken to me!" Jesus said in Luke 8:8,

 

"Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear."

 

He also said in John 10:3-4,

 

"The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice."