Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)
For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. (Malachi 3:6)
Charles Wesley wrote a hymn entitled, “A Charge to Keep.” There is a line in this hymn I want to examine in this entry:
It is hard to imagine a world where sin does not dominate. They that are of the world want to imagine their world as the song says, without religion, Heaven or Hell below us; but I want to imagine a world without sin. Charles Wesley uses the phrase ‘fit for the sky’, that is, for Heaven. What does this mean? The simplest thing to say is that Heaven is a place where there will be no sin. Everyone is doing the right things all the time. Absolute perfection devoid of any trace of rebellion. What would such a place be like? Perhaps we can contrast Heaven by looking at the world we live in. Nobody in their right mind will call this Heaven. There is pain and suffering. There is murder and hate. The list could go on and on. This is society under the influence of Satan. Our whole society with all of the madness is the product of free moral agents doing it ;Satan’s way’ thinking it is ‘their way’. This is what it is to reject ‘God’s way.’ How are we doing? I know the masses are blaming God for the consequences of their rebellion and that this will continue even to the point where men and women blaspheme God in the Revelation. Why does God allow this? God is sovereign in that He is in final control, but He has chosen to place in the hands of His creatures a powerful possibility; the power to tell Him ‘no!’ and to pattern their lives in a way different than He has prescribed. He has given men and angels a choice.
How is Heaven?
Jesus taught us to pray, thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. These words offer insight into the unalterable will of God. God is bringing His Kingdom upon this present evil world and in order for that to be a reality His will will have to be being done some place on earth, as it is in Heaven. What would that look like? Were going to examine that question. Keep in mind that this prayer will ultimately be realized at the Second Coming when Jesus Christ rules and reigns as King of Kings, but in this present time God has separated unto Himself a people where His will is done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Among true believers people in this world ought to experience a little Heaven while on earth; not in terms of golden streets and pearly gates, but in the reverence and obedience to God.
The old timers used to say that God could take an unholy man or woman from this unholy world, change them, put them back into this evil world and keep them holy. To do this He needs people that He can walk with in agreement (Amos 3:3). This means the person will have to seek to know and to do God’s will. This is what happens in Heaven. The elect angels obey God by choice. That is to say, when offered an opportunity to fall with Satan, they chose to remain faithfully obedient and loyal to God. Satan had some new ideas and wanted to sit in God’s place, but God had a remnant that saw the wisdom of God’s ways and agreed with Him. The world, under the influence of Satan and his angels, is constantly changing. Though there is nothing new under the sun, Satan seeks to repackage sin to a new generation to cause them to feel that they are breaking free from established patterns of the past. He makes people feel that they are doing their life ‘their way’ when reality they are doing it ‘his way’.
The world refreshes itself in wickedness continually. With each passing day the world seeks to expel the influence and authority of God from itself in order to establish a different kingdom (Satan’s). This kingdom is filled with individuals that agree with Sin and Satan and oppose God. They love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. This is why we are told that whosoever is a friend of this world is the enemy of God. (James 4:4) Satan knows that he can put people in front of us daily on TV and in magazines and movies that we sort-of ‘befriend’. Somebody like Oprah or some other popular figure and suddenly that likability is used to influence people with their secular and satanic beliefs. Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Our minds are renewed when we spend time learning about God through His Word.
The Prince of the Power of the Air
There is a personality that lies behind this present evil world that we need to know about. He says in his heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. (Isaiah 14:13, 14) Satan’s personality can be summed up by reversing what Jesus said and simply saying, “not Thy will, but mine be done.” He is the Prince of the Power of the Air and his is the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. (Ephesians 2)
Satan wants to sit enthroned as God, not just in this present evil world as the ‘god of this world’ that blinds the hearts of men and women (2 Corinthians 4:4), but works continually to infiltrate the churches of God. He seeks out individuals within Christendom that will listen to his lies so he can teach them to gain influence and ‘authority’. This is what Ananias and Sapphira had done in Acts 5. They lied in order to gain admiration in the eyes of the people. Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” They had become a surrogate for carrying Satan’s agenda into the churches. It was Satan’s way of finding a seam in a door (as it were) so he could get in and start influencing the churches of God. He was going to use Ananias and Sapphira as a beach-head. If he had been successful, he would have started moving the people in his will rather than what the Spirit is saying to the churches. He would do this by feeding mortal men ideas that tickled the ears or ‘made sense to the people’, but were NOT what God was saying.
Understand that Satan does not care if he dresses as a pope, rabbi, evangelical, or any other personage- so long as he in some way can make an attempt at sitting in the place of God to dictate to God’s people. Anytime he can find a person willing to want to dictate to God’s people he has the surrogate he needs. This is why we are warned over and over again not to allow the churches of God to be set up governmentally like this present world. Understand that Satan has been influencing and scheming towards getting the churches in a worldly design since the birth of the Church and will undoubtedly continue unto the very end. Very simply, he wants to be God. He wants to legislate his own will unto and into a people willing to believe and obey. He works continually within leaders within broader Christendom to shut down the hearing of the Head (Christ) so as to insert his veiled and cloaked self into God’s rightful place. He wants the voice of God eliminated so He can influence multitudes through as few leaders as he can- preferably one supreme leader. Keep this in mind. It may sound and look spiritual, but it is nothing more than Satan posing as an angel of light.
An Alternate Philosophy
The world is moving in the Devil’s governmental construct. To rule as easily as he can he sets up hierarchies. A hierarchy is a system or organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or authority. Jesus told us clearly that within the churches of God, it shall not be so among you. Jesus Christ, our Great High Priest, is in charge as KING of KINGS. All authority has been given unto Him in Heaven and in Earth. (Matthew 28;18) Typically people get excited when they hear this because they think it means that Satan, demons, addiction, sickness, and a host of other things now have to bow to Jesus; but this misses the point by a long margin. Because Jesus Christ has been exalted King of Kings that means that we (you and I) must utterly obey Christ. He is ruling and reigning in His kingdom as if He were in Heaven. He communicates His will to the churches of God, individually, by the Holy Spirit. This is utterly important to understand, because in our iniquity laden times, men are in the habit (in Old Testament language) of reaching up to touch the Ark of God. That is a way of saying that men, especially well intentioned men, are in the habit of trying to usurp God’s authority, not knowing that this is exactly what Satan desires to do. It is his philosophy of life. He is expert at making it look spiritual and making it ‘make sense’ pragmatically. But it is not God’s way.
Touching the Ark
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzza, and he smote him, because he put his hand to the ark: and there he died before God. (1 Chronicles 13:10)
This incident with Uzza is exemplary. It shows us forever God’s estimate of man putting his hand to God’s authority. God’s authority is God’s prerogative. The Ark of the Covenant represented the throne of God, His glory and authority. This throne is the place where Satan longs in his heart to sit. Because of that desire he was cast out of Heaven. It was an intrusion. God is King and beside Him there can be no others. Understand that the Kingdom of God is not a democratic society where politicians take polls to see how to better please the people. The King of King’s is not a president within a democracy that sits over generals, colonels, lieutenants, majors, captains, sergeants and privates; He is a KING and He rules the churches of God and the people of God directly and in His own will. He was not voted in and cannot be voted out. The angels don’t take and publish approval ratings. They don’t blog about their disagreements with God or put caricatures of Him in the funny paper. There is a reverence for God in Heaven that would stagger us to behold it. The angels do not pressure God to change.
As it is written, For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. (Malachi 3:6) His word does not change because His mind does not change. Why would it? It is already perfect and cannot be improved. His attitude is settled and cannot change. This is good because if God does not change His mind about sin then we don’t have to fear Him changing His mind about showing mercy. He is all knowing and knows what we need in every circumstance. He is the designer that understands everything that could be possibly known about all creation.
I recall as a young man believing I was too mechanically inclined to need instructions on how to put things together. After years of having to go back and take things back apart to put crucial parts in the right place I finally decided that reading the instructions would be my first task. The Bible is the instruction book. When we ignore it we mess our whole lives up. And when they are messed up only God can get us back on track. In Revelation 5 we have the Lamb with 7 eyes and 7 horns. He sees all and He has all power and authority. this means He is the only one qualified to speak into circumstances. Everything else is pretty much just men’s commentary.
A Serious Error
Any time we desire to speak to the churches of God because we want to exercise our own authority or because we think we see a problem, we are in gross error. The error is such that I have little doubt that the angels cover their faces when they see it; because they understand the seriousness of it. They have seen it before. Satan wanted to be great because of pride. He proudly wants to ascend unto the throne of God. Pride is a snare to any of us. We must humble ourselves and seek God for the answers of life. If we proudly thing we know the answer when the truth is we don’t even know all of the variables to the problem we are in danger of usurping God’s authority and fall into the snare and condemnation of the Devil. Jesus countered this with His own nature and said that the greatest among you will be your servant. If we are going to overcome this present evil world we are going to have to obeys Paul’s directive when he states, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:2-8 NKJV)
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