Although we are all different, Christians are also supposed to be fitly framed together and grow into a holy temple in the Lord. I’m talking here about the universal church, the bridegroom of Christ. But by reason of heredity and environment you simply can’t say we are all the same. However, the perversity of human nature is such that we like to think we are. In any case, our differences shouldn’t be an excuse for unseemly behavior. Deportment, even dress must be appropriate to keep us from obscuring the light of truth that shines forth from you—or should I say flickers forth from you?

What’s popular today is to emphasize our differences, even though we are more alike than different, by propping up the cultural diversity of the day, where we’re encouraged to ‘feel good about ourselves’ or ‘do our own thing’. What makes us more alike to one another than anything is the fact that when we would do good, evil is present with us, ever wise in our own conceits, or estimation of self. Nobody ever does anything he really thinks is wrong. Hitler is a prime example.

All true Christians are duty bound to bear the good news, the message of the gospel of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, and devote our talents to this end. These instructions weren’t meant for the disciples alone. Everything we do must be subordinated to this end. Traditional Christianity has come to concentrate more on a moral, social and personal message. Did Christ preach the social gospel? You have to ask, but isn’t the social gospel—secular humanism—a delusion? Let me suggest there are enough people preaching the social gospel which assumes that there’s a solution to every human problem. In a secular society medicine takes the place of religion: today access to the ‘ high priest’ must not be denied. Care should be free—a right. Psychiatric care, prenatal and neonatal care, health care of every sort—and we’re engaged in genetic engineering in an attempt to free mankind from various ills. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but don’t we finally learn that there are human problems that we simply cannot solve? The message of hope to a dying world is that of a kingdom to come with all the blessings that pertain to it, when the redeemed of the Lord will be blessed and Jerusalem becomes a city sought out and not forsaken.

What is the gospel we Christians should preach? Take a look at 1Cor 15. 12 – 26 . Here we read of the power of the resurrection, forgiveness of sins, and hope in Christ, all linked to Christ’s return to establish God’s kingdom here on earth. The second advent is irrevocably linked to the destiny of natural and spiritual Israel. This is the gospel in a nutshell.

The gospel promise is so much greater—infinitely greater than the doctrines we often hear preached. If you take the long view and see yourself as not only one of 5 billion, but of billions and billions of lives that have come and gone before you on the earth, does it make any great difference whether you live 50 years? Or 80 years? Of course it does. But nothing can compare to the kingdom’s promise of everlasting life. Now if you think all roads lead to the Big Apple, it would be wise to consult a road map, without a guide you might end up in Canada. The same principle applies in your search for the kingdom that God says He will establish in Israel, and Jerusalem, the city of God. The Bible is our roadmap to this end. Don’t discard this book, this roadmap—it’s your lifeline. The truth is in it; one Lord, one faith, one gospel, a truth you cannot lose faith in.

How do you find yourself? Have you put your hand to the plow and keep looking back? Uneven furrows will hamper your progress. You may not make it to the end. Do you begin to doubt, to think that maybe what you believe is different? Well, of course it is. The difference is important. You say to yourself, how can the rest of the world be wrong, about the nature of man, and a literal, earthly kingdom? Well, let me say this. The difference is crucial. The majority is almost always wrong. This is seen in what’s gone wrong with America. We’ve got a government run by polls and not by principles in the hands of wise rulers. Do we have everything right? Probably not. Who can be that bold? But we have the promise that if we seek truth that we can find it. Are you a truth seeker?

Why must the truth be so complicated? Why can’t it be simple? But it is simple. There is nothing simpler. We’ve been 2,000 years battling the precepts of man, i. e., immortality of the soul, the triune God, man spiritualizing the kingdom of God. In this contest we see God’s truth interpreted by philosophers, theologians, even scholars in the same way a federal government of limited powers interprets the constitution. It has increasingly become a political and philosophical—even theological—entity, no longer recognizable by the founding fathers. In religion, as in the law, when the leaders don’t like the answers that the Bible or the Constitution give, they change the answers by perverting the underlying fact(s). But through the prophet Isaiah and others, God has spoken and given us His promise that the gospel message will come to fruition in His own good time.

For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace’ And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, Until the righteousness thereof Go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof As a lamp that burns. (Isaiah 62. 1)

Christians would do well to be ever watchful, and start each day with the prayer

Thy Kingdom Come