04/25/18 DASH-CAM MESSAGE...
MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD (John 18:36)
God has given the State and the Church different responsibilities. Jesus kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. It is a spiritual kingdom. Christians are not called to or allowed to kill. Otherwise there would be no worldwide persecution of Christians today. If the Church (Christians) had been allowed to use deadly force or violence, the blood letting religions and governments of this world would be under the rule of God. Only perverted Christianity has allowed and promoted "Christians" taking arms or the sword of steel against its enemies.
NOTES
So much is persecution of Christians is happening around the world that you almost have to be omniscient and omnipresent to keep up with it all. However, we get a good idea that things are not going well around the world. The suffering of Christians around the world is not just widespread, it is indescribably violent and relentless.
The Bible says clearly that God gave the sword of steel to protect the righteous and punish the wicked. God told us in Romans 13 that everyone must obey legitimate authority. This includes political leaders, rulers, kings, governments, nations. Anyone who fails to follow Divinely established rule is an enemy of God. Not everyone submits. Very few actually do submit. Still, God requires it and He will hold people accountable for not obeying Him.
God gave the sword of steel to the State to protect the righteous and punish the wicked. THIS IS what the Bible says and THIS IS what God meant when He said it. It is equally true that God did not give the sword of steel to believers, Christians, His Church, His children, His bride.
People are confused on this issue of the God's plan for the State and God's plan for the Church, just as there is a difference between Israel and the Church. God has given directives to the State, which are no given to His Church, which are not required of the Church, which are not permitted by the Church. Likewise God has given directives to the Church, which are not applicable or observable to the State.
The power of the sword of steel is not to be taken lightly. The State bears the sword with God's blessing. This makes the State answerable for the safe keeping of the citizens. Believers have a right to expect the State to protect them and to punish the wicked, since this is God's revelation. It does not necessarily follow that believers are obligated to take up weapons to do the job of the State. In fact, reading the New Testament makes it clear that Christians are called to Peacemaking and forbidden to execute fleshly war, killing.
As a believer, I am obligated to love my enemy, do good to those who persecute me and pray for those who oppose me. In fact the weapons of my warfare are not carnal, they are not fleshly, instead they are spiritual. My enemy is not flesh and blood, not human. My enemy is a spiritual enemy.
We have the Biblical directive for the State to use the sword, but people say that Christians also have the responsibility to kill or use violence in order to survive, to defend self or defend State interests. NOT SO. The New Testament does teach believers to stand, even if it means personal suffering, or to run in order to escape physical harm. Running can be a Christians option. We cannot take up arms vengeance against persecutors.
Jesus, before the birth of the Church on the Day of Pentecost, before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, gave a principle concerning the response of the Church, the response of believers should have to persecution. While Jesus was being interrogated by Pilate, prior to the crucifixion, Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight... but my kingdom is not from this world" (Jn. 18:36). This is a revelation, a directive, a principle given by Jesus Christ, and then combined with the other things He taught and the other revelations of the Holy Spirit through the New Testament prophets and apostles, the writings in the New Testament, forms the foundation of Christian non-violence, which was the standard and practice of the New Testament believers and the early Church for hundreds of years and ultimately for all generations of Bible believers. BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS. Personal non violence is the Christian response to self defense and national defense. This is why God gave the sword to the State. Biblical nonviolence, Biblical Peacemaking does not resist or demonstrate against the State having military or police, since that is God's directive and plan for civil order. But God's people are not under marching order to take up the sword of steel, but rather the Sword of the Spirit and to be clothed in spiritual armor of the Gospel. We go out as soldiers of the cross, combating spiritual darkness, willing to have our own blood spilled and refusing to shed the blood of our enemy. THAT IS THE WAY IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN FOR THE CHURCH.
But you say it is not that way now. Your view depends on where you live in this world. Westernized and Roman-ized and Modernized views of Christianity reject the clear revelation that Christians do not kill. These errant view teach that Christians are suppose to take up weapons and use lethal force for self defense and national defense. But that IS NOT New Testament. The New Testament directives, commands, rebukes, examples, teaching is NON VIOLENCE FOR BELIEVERS.
Consider what Jesus said to soldiers of His day. First, we need to realize that those who are in the "army" or the military are not always fighting forces dedicated to kill. Today we have the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, part of the Department of Defense and answerable to the U.S. Army, but their job is to do engineering work, such as dredge out the inlets and other waterways. This benefits the military and the civilian needs. Likewise, the Roman military was the Road Builders of their day, building the greatest network of roadways in history and subsequently providing the way for carrying the gospel throughout the western world in those day. Military is not always violent, though that is its primary function. When soldiers came to Jesus, asking what they should do, in answer to His message that the old was about to be replaced with the new, Jesus told soldiers in His day to DO NO VIOLENCE (Lk. 3:14). Do whatever you choose with this directive. I choose to accept it without changing it, because it agrees with the rest of the New Testament concerning Christians and nonviolence.
Since Christians would not kill in the early Church, the Christian presence in the Roman military disappeared. Soldiers did not want to be marching along with other soldiers who would not kill. As a result, the first three hundred years of the Church created a military without Christians. It was not until Constantine used the Christian sign of the cross to promote his own violent agenda that people started seeing Christians as soldiers. This was followed by the Roman Catholic religion, which taught, in accord with other doctrines of demons (1 Tm. 4:1-3) that Christians should fight for the "Church of Rome." This was followed by men like Luther and Calvin and the Church of England (who killed people in the name of Christ) and has been interwoven with the Bible until people confuse doctrines of demons with the truth of God. BUT JESUS SAID, MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD, IF IT WERE, MY SERVANTS WOULD FIGHT. God's servants, children, people do not take up arms and kill other people
THINK ABOUT THIS... The persecution of Christians, the violating of Christians, the torture of Christians, the killing of Christians in the world today would not exist if the Church had always believed in using violence to protect itself or promote itself, THERE WOULD BE NO MUSLIM ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS OR PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS. Christians would have stopped it at the beginning. Christians would have pulled together to end the persecution and resistance of false religions and oppressive governments, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE CHURCH PERIOD. But they did not use violence in the beginning because it was against God's word. The numbers and the zeal of Christianity would have conquered all of its enemies with the sword of steel. But the Church, at large, has always understood that we are to love our enemies and to give life rather than take life.
THE FACT that persecution goes on and is so horrendous is proof that the Church has been nonviolent from the beginning.
The fact that there are people and groups and religions that teach Christian violence does not make it Biblical. The only place in the New Testament where a Christian used violence against another was before the crucifixion when Peter cut off the ear of Malchus. Even then Jesus reproved, confronted, corrected Peter, condemning "Christian violence," and Jesus healed Malchus.
God has appointed the State to protect the righteous and punish the wicked. Governments today could take steps to end the terrorism and persecution around the world, but the State has chosen not to obey God. The State's disobedience to God does not justify the Church's disobedience to God. Christians are not directed to or allowed to take up the sword of steel and kill other people. We are not to trust in hoses, chariots, or the arm of flesh, but rather TRUST IN THE LORD. He is our shield, He is our sword, He is our fortress.
This sounds crazy and irresponsible to worldly people. But believers know that it is consistent with the New Testament, with faith. It is not consistent with the New Testament, with faith to take human life.
Remember, "My kingdom is not of this world, if it were of this world, then would my servants fight." His kingdom is righteousness, peace and joy. He is the Prince of Peace. His kingdom is a kingdom of love and self sacrifice, not physical violence.
