Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about what is a kingdom Christian? Imagine that one day you're taking a walk out in the country. It's a beautiful day, the sun is shining, and the birds are singing. It's mid-spring, and the trees are beginning to leaf out. The fruit trees are past their flowering, and they're in the early stages of fruit production. As you continue walking, you suddenly come upon a high wall, and there's a heavy wooden gate that you can't see through.
But you notice that there's a sign on the gate that says," Welcome. Please enter." You look at your watch and you notice that it's three o'clock in the afternoon. Hmm, you say to yourself," Well, I guess I have a little time to look around before I start back to my house." So you enter through the gate and begin looking around. Right away, you're amazed at what you see because you notice that all of the trees are fully leafed.
Whereas on the other side of the wall, where you just were, they were just barely beginning to leaf out. Even more amazing, many of the fruit trees already have a mature crop of fruit. You wander through the fields and woods, marveling at the difference between the vegetation on this side of the wall and what was on the other side of the wall. You're delighted to see the sunflowers in full bloom, plants that don't normally bloom until summer.
In fact, before long, you realize that all of the plants are at their mid-summer maturity. As you walk, you realize that it seems like quite a bit of time has passed since you entered in through this gate. Yet when you look up at the sky, the sun is still showing that it's mid-afternoon. You check your watch, and you notice that the hands haven't moved at all since you passed through the gate. It's still saying three o'clock in the afternoon.
You tap it to see if you can get it working, but no, it just stays right there. Well finally, you get concerned about the time, so you head back to the gate. When you open it and look out over the meadows and woods where you were originally walking, you notice that the sun is already going down on that side of the wall. But here on the side where you're standing, it's still sunny. It's still mid-afternoon. You start thinking a moment, and then you slowly realize that you have just stepped into eternity.
What I've just told you is not a fantasy story. It's something that happens every day. This is what happens when a person enters the kingdom of God. No, everything around you doesn't suddenly stop. Life goes on. The world continues to change even after you enter the kingdom. My point is that once you enter the kingdom of God, you have stepped into eternity. For one thing, you now come under a whole new set of laws, eternal laws.
You have a whole new way of looking at things, a whole new way of relating to people, and a whole new way to live. You also have something new that you are seeking first in your life. Jesus told the citizens of His kingdom," Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things." So money is no longer what you seek first, or thrills, or politics, or fashion, or popularity.
What you seek first is the kingdom of God and its King, Jesus Christ. One of my favorite Christian writers, William Law, who lived in the 1700s, said this," If you have not chosen the kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead." For a kingdom Christian, there is not a second option. The kingdom of God is what comes first in your life.
Now, I'm not saying that kingdom Christians don't have to concern themselves about money, about jobs, about things that are happening around them. I'm not saying that they can't have fun. But those aren't the things that are at the top of their list. For one thing, when you become a citizen of the kingdom, you have a new job to do. And that job is promoting the Kingdom of God.
Now, I'm going to be making a follow-up message to this one entitled," Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for the Kingdom of God." And in that message, I'm going to be talking about things that we can do to seek the kingdom first in our lives and to carry out this job that Jesus has entrusted to us. So do all of these things that I've been talking about, do these happen to every professing Christian? Well, in New Testament times, they did, except perhaps for a few false Christians.
This was the normative experience for most Christians during the first 300 years of Christianity. But then the church became more focused on creating a Christian world than in promoting the kingdom of God. Or perhaps I should say, they imagined that they were working on behalf of God's kingdom by trying to establish Christian nations. In the end, they didn't Christianize society around them, although they did have an enormous impact on Western culture. No, but in the end, the world sucked them in.
And they lost sight of the fact that as Christians, they were supposed to be citizens of a different kingdom, a kingdom that could never be part of this world, that could never be joined with any earthly country. But as a result of trying to Christianize the world around them, professing Christians began killing one another, torturing one another, forming permanent class distinctions between rich and poor Christians.
They began persecuting Jews, swearing oaths, and in general, ignoring most of Jesus' kingdom commandments. But not all Christians went down this blind path. There were tens of thousands of Christians who still saw the kingdom of God, who made a decision to live by the kingdom teachings of Jesus. These were men and women who were not part of this world because they were citizens of God's kingdom. And I call these people kingdom Christians.
Now, some of these Christians left the institutionalized church and formed their own churches. Others worked within the established church. Up until the Reformation, the typical pattern for kingdom Christians was that they tried to work within the church. However, often they were forced out of it. The Waldensians were one example. They wanted to work as a reform movement within the Roman Catholic Church. However, the church ordered them to quit preaching.
And when they refused to do this, well, they were forced out of the church by persecution, and they had to become an underground movement. Many of them still attended the Roman Catholic Church on Sundays. Others didn't. Some formed their own fellowships. But they continued on with the kingdom vision in spite of the persecution.
Now, once the Reformation came and the Roman Catholic Church lost its exclusive hold on Western Europe, Kingdom Christians typically left the established churches and met as independent Christians. The Anabaptists are one example of kingdom Christians who did this. But even they tried to work within the institutional church there in Zurich, Switzerland. But they soon found that the institutional church, the state church, was not willing to make any reforms beyond what the state would allow it.
And so they saw that if they were going to follow the kingdom of God with free consciences, they couldn't do it within the state church. Now, other movements after them that likewise left the established churches were the brethren, known today as the German Baptist, the Apostolic Christian Church, the Moravians, and there were many other smaller ones. There were also the Quakers who focused on Jesus' kingdom teachings, even though they put more emphasis on the so-called inner light than they did on the Scriptures.
And as a result of that wrong emphasis, most Quakers today have strayed pretty far from biblical Christianity. But what distinguishes kingdom Christians from just conventional churchgoers? For one thing, kingdom Christians have a different understanding of what it means to be a Christian. A kingdom Christian looks at the gospel of Jesus versus the gospel about Jesus. Now you might be saying," Huh?" Would you say that again? Okay, it's the gospel of Jesus versus the gospel about Jesus. Let me explain.
The gospel of Jesus is the gospel that Jesus preached. What did He tell us to do? What did He preach about? The gospel about Jesus is the good news about who Jesus is and what He did for us. Now, the gospel of Jesus includes all of that. Part of His gospel was explaining who He was and what He was going to do on our behalf. But His gospel included so much more than that. The gospel that is typically preached today is the gospel about Jesus, that He loves you.
He came to earth and died to give His life as a ransom for us. And if we believe in Him, we can have eternal life. Every one of those things is true. And those are important truths that we all must embrace. But that's just the beginning. The gospel of Jesus was so much more than that. You see, the gospel of today, and the gospel really that's been preached since the early fourth century, puts its primary emphasis on theology. Get your theology right, and that's how you're going to please God.
That is what is going to get you into heaven in the end. But Jesus' gospel primarily emphasized how we live. He said very little about theology. And so for a kingdom Christian, the kingdom life is at the center of his Christianity. He doesn't try to separate the king, Jesus Christ, from the teachings of the king. I'll quote William Law again. He said," Christianity is not ours until we live by it, until it is the center of our thoughts, words, and actions.
Until it goes with us into every place, until it sits uppermost on every occasion, and until it forms and governs our hopes, our fears, our cares, and our pleasures. This and this alone is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world, but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of holiness and devotion to God.
We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another. When I use the term conventional churchgoers, I'm not talking about liberal professing Christians or nominal Christians. I'm talking about the typical conservative so-called Bible-believing Christian. And one way that kingdom Christians differ from conventional church-goers is that their focus goes beyond just getting saved.
Their focus is on serving their king and living by his teachings through the power that he gives us. In contrast, the focus of conventional churchgoers is getting saved. That's the theme of most of their sermons, their testimonies, and the message that they present to the world. The problem is that their focus is in the wrong place. Getting saved is obviously essential, but it's just the beginning. It's not what Christianity is all about.
The popular message that is preached today by conventional churchgoers oversimplifies Christianity, and it minimizes the kingdom of God. In fact, the popular presentation of Christianity today never even mentions the kingdom of God. Now let me say this. I'm not making any pronouncements as to where these Christians will stand on Judgment Day. That's between them and Jesus. I'm just saying that their gospel is deficient. So that's one major difference between kingdom Christians and conventional Christians.
A second difference is how these two groups look for truth within the Scriptures. On any given subject, kingdom Christians look first at what Jesus taught. They want to get it straight what Jesus said about any particular subject. Then they look at the totality of the other New Testament passages. But they will never interpret the epistles in such a way that they contradict what Jesus has plainly said on that subject. That's why they start out with what Jesus said.
And then finally, they never look to the Old Testament as the final statement on how we are to live today. They recognize that Jesus' teachings surpass those of the Old Testament law. In contrast, conventional churchgoers go to the epistles for their doctrines. They make Paul's letter to the Romans the central writing of Christianity. And if Jesus seems to contradict Paul, at least their interpretation of Paul, then they interpret Jesus in such a way that he doesn't contradict Paul.
An ordained pastor who's a friend of mine told me that in the seminary he went to, the professors told the students that we go to the epistles for doctrine, meaning theology, not to the gospels. You see, that's Christianity turned upside down. When the early Christians wanted to explain Christianity to the pagans, they pointed pagans to the Sermon on the Mount, not to the Book of Romans. That's because they were kingdom Christians.
And when they instructed other Christians how they should live, they again went to the teachings of Jesus. They didn't go to the Old Testament unless the teachings in the Old Testament fit perfectly with Jesus' teachings as well. You may be wondering," Well, David, what difference does this make in real life? Whether you start with Romans or whether you start with the Sermon on the Mount, don't you still end up in the same place?" The answer is no. Historically, people have not ended up in the same place.
Let me give you some examples. The first is the doctrine of the two kingdoms. You need to understand that being a citizen of God's kingdom is not easy. What makes it especially difficult is that, unlike all other earthly kingdoms, God's kingdom doesn't have exclusive occupation of any geographic area. So its citizens will always be living under two governments, the kingdom of God and one of the kingdoms of this world. But which government are Christians to obey?
Well, when Jesus was asked about whether we should pay taxes to the earthly government, his answer was this:" Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Paul reiterates this principle in Romans 13, saying that we as Christians must pay our taxes and obey the laws of the land to be in subjection to the earthly governments. The situation is not that different from a citizen of another country who lives and works, for example, in the United States as a legal alien.
Let's say he's from Ireland. We'll call him Sean. Now, if he lives and works here in the United States, he has to pay taxes. He has to obey the laws here. He can't say," Hey, I'm a citizen of Ireland, so I can drive whatever speed I want. I don't have to pay any taxes. I don't have to obey the various laws concerning operating a business," things like that. No, he has to obey all of our laws. And in return, he gets police protection, the same as a citizen does. He gets the protection of the courts.
Yet because he's an alien, he can't vote because this isn't his country. He's just a guest here in the United States, and he can't run for public office. Well, it's the same way for a citizen of God's kingdom. We live in the various countries of this world only as aliens. Like any alien, we have to obey the laws of the land where we live. But as aliens, we don't get involved in the politics and governments of the countries that we live in.
Now the big issue is what happens when Caesar isn't content with Caesar's things, but wants God's things as well. Let's go back to Jesus' words. He said," Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Now, interestingly, the Pharisees hadn't asked Jesus about God. They'd only asked about paying taxes. But by bringing God into the equation, Jesus demonstrated that the Pharisees had too narrow of a focus.
Their hearts were fixated on just issues of this world, not on matters of eternity. Yes, as Jesus explained, they were to pay taxes to Caesar. Why? Because it was his image on their coins. He's the one who made the coins. God didn't mint the denarius, Caesar did. So give him back what belongs to him. But what about us humans? Whose image is stamped on us? Caesar's? Hardly, God created us in His image. We belong to Him. As a result, God has the ultimate call on our lives.
Caesar has rights only to the things that He has created, and He has created neither our bodies nor our souls. So He has no right to either one. As I've mentioned in Romans 13, Paul told us to subject ourselves to the higher powers or governing authorities, but he then goes on to delineate the areas of subjection of which he's speaking.
He says," Render therefore to all their due, taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor, owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law." Please notice that Paul lists only earthly things when he talks about the things we render to Caesar. He says taxes, customs, that is, duties that are levied on transported goods, fear and honor. All of these things are in the sphere of Caesar.
Quite noticeably, Paul didn't list military service as one of the things owed to the governing authorities. But as I've previously mentioned, most earthly governments aren't content to have merely Caesar's things. They want God's things as well. They believe they are entitled to the absolute unqualified allegiance of all their citizens. They even imagine that they own the lives of their citizens, and to a large degree, their souls.
But as Sterling asked," What will be God's if all things are Caesar's?" Indeed, what do most professing Christians have left to give to God? They've typically risked their lives and given their money, their youth, their souls, and their unqualified allegiance to Caesar. What do they have left to give to God's kingdom? Nothing but some leftover crumbs, their tithes, and a few hours a week of their time. And then they imagine that this will be acceptable to Jesus.
So what are we to do if the laws of Caesar and the laws of God conflict? Well, let's go back to our illustration of Sean. Suppose that the United States and the country of Ireland get into a war. And let's further suppose that the United States drafts Sean into the United States Army. You may not realize it, but under the laws of the United States, aliens who are living here are subject to military conscription. At least males are.
Well, now what if Sean accepts this service and he joins the United States Army in this war against Ireland? Well, he's going to be considered a traitor by the rest of the Irish, and he's going to lose his Irish citizenship. And if somehow Ireland prevailed in the war, not very likely against a country as large as the United States, but for the sake of the illustration, let's suppose that Ireland prevails and that Sean is captured by the Irish. Well, he would probably be hung as a traitor.
Well, it's the same for Christians. If we're willing to kill our fellow Christians over an earthly conflict between two earthly countries, then we're saying that the kingdom that has our ultimate allegiance is the country we live in, the United States or Ireland or Germany or whoever. We're saying," I'm sorry, Jesus, but your kingdom is not what comes first in my life. It does not have my ultimate allegiance. My earthly country does.
And I'll kill some of your kingdom citizens if that's what my country tells me to do. In other words, we expect Jesus to be content to have His rulership relegated to a second place behind Caesar's rulership. What an insult! What a slap in the face! And please don't think I'm exaggerating.
In nearly every war, conventional so-called Bible-believing preachers have not only told Christian men that it's alright to go out and kill other Christians, they've actually encouraged them to do so and denounced those Christian men who didn't go to war. For example, Billy Sunday was a marvelous preacher who led tens of thousands of people to make decisions for Christ. But he was a conventional churchgoer preacher. He had no understanding of the kingdom of God whatsoever.
When the United States entered World War I, Billy Sunday told men that they could be saved by dying in battle fighting the Germans, nearly all of whom were professing Christians themselves. He said," The man who breaks all the rules but at last dies fighting in the trenches is better than you God forsaken mutts who won't enlist." End quote. Well, the God-forsaken mutts he was talking about were kingdom Christians.
Lyman Abbott, a well-known congregationalist preacher, promoted World War I saying," Every Christian church should be a recruiting office for the kingdom of God." What he meant by that was a recruiting office for the American army. The kingdom of God? Is America the Kingdom of God? All I can say is that most conventional preachers are clueless when it comes to understanding the kingdom of God.
In essence, what conventional churchgoers are saying is," I love you, Jesus, but what you mean to me doesn't quite rank up there with what my country means to me." Do we honestly think that that is acceptable to Jesus? And it's not just a matter of not killing or fighting against our fellow kingdom citizens. Jesus commanded us to love all of our enemies or opponents. He didn't limit it to just our fellow kingdom citizens.
He said in the Sermon on the Mount," You have heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you not to resist an evil person, but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him too. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you, do not turn away.
You have heard that it was said," You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say," to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore, you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. You know, it's a little hard to say that you love your enemy if you're out there trying to kill him. And so from the very beginning, Christians realized, well, we can't go to war. We are supposed to be loving our enemies, not killing them. Not only that, Jesus calls on us to do more than just not resisting evil.
He said in the same Sermon on the Mount," Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." That's similar to the expression he used in telling us to love our enemies so that we would be like our Father in heaven. So being a peacemaker, loving our enemies, helps to make us a Son of God. So if we're a war maker instead of a peacemaker, who are we a son of? Well, all of this was clear to Christians until the fourth century, when the church began to work closely with the state.
And in doing so, they lost sight of the kingdom of God because their kingdom, their primary kingdom, came to be the empire of Rome, and they wanted to protect Rome, and also to protect various emperors who favored Christians versus those who persecuted Christians. So before long, Christians were taking up the sword to fight against their enemies.
At first, they fought just against pagans or maybe against heretics, but it took only a few decades before Christians were killing each other, slaughtering their enemies in the name of God, having totally lost sight of Jesus' kingdom teachings about loving our enemies. Something else in the Sermon on the Mount was that Jesus prohibited the citizens of His kingdom from taking oaths. He said," You have heard that it was said to those of old,' You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oath to the Lord.
But I say to you, do not swear at all. Neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Nor shall you swear by your head because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your yes be yes and your no no. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. Now, this commandment doesn't create the dramatic test on Christians today that it did in Jesus' time and throughout most of Christian history.
I say that because in the United States and in many Western nations today, a person typically can be excused from giving an oath if he objects to doing so on religious grounds. So often it's enough to just simply affirm that you're telling the truth. But throughout most of history, people thought that human society and government would break down without oaths. That's because most people were dishonest and they couldn't be believed unless they swore an oath in God's name.
And even then, they may not be necessarily telling the truth, but most people were a little hesitant to swear an oath in God's name if they were lying. Well, and the institutional churches quickly compromised on this commandment once church and state joined together in the fourth century. Theologians began coming up with ways to get around Jesus' teachings because the rulers wanted oaths and the church was afraid to stand up to the rulers.
So theologians like Augustine said," Well, Jesus was only saying that we shouldn't have to give oaths, but if the state requires it, then we should go along with the state." Really? Is that what he said in the Sermon on the Mount? It's not what he said in the Sermon on the Mount that I read.
He said," Don't swear oaths, period." He didn't say," Unless the state requires you to do so." Well, since kingdom Christians have followed Jesus as their ultimate authority, they all came to the same conclusion over the centuries that Christians cannot swear oaths. The early Christians believed this, the Waldensians, the Anabaptists, the brethren, the Quakers, and all of the other groups of kingdom Christians. Even though often they had no connection with each other, Jesus' commandment is plain.
It's right there in the Bible, and so they obey it. In contrast, conventional churchgoers are typically happy to accept some theologian's rationalization as to why the Bible doesn't mean what it clearly states. And so through the centuries, kingdom Christians would refuse to take oath. Conventional Christians or conventional churchgoers would freely give us. In ushering in His kingdom, Jesus also introduced a new attitude toward wealth and class.
He said," Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." He went on to say," No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. Yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
They neither toil nor spin. And yet, I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? O you of little faith? Therefore, do not worry, saying," What shall we eat or what should we drink or what shall we wear?" For after all these things, the Gentiles seek.
For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Now, in contrast to these words of Jesus, in parts of the Old Testament, wealth is looked upon as a blessing from God. This was particularly true in the times of the patriarchs.
God blessed Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, and Joseph, all of them with wealth. But in the kingdom of God, wealth is no longer seen as a blessing.
In fact, Jesus said this," Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Again, I say to you," It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Passage says when his disciples heard it, they were greatly astonished, saying," Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said to them," With men, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible." So he said it would be hard to enter the kingdom of God
if you were wealthy.
Not impossible, but it's going to be a hindrance. It's going to make it very difficult. A totally different look at things from the way things appeared in the days of Abraham and Job and the other patriarchs. And kingdom Christians recognize this difference between the age of the patriarchs and the kingdom age. Conventional churchgoers tend to not see any difference.
They continually point to the wealth of Abraham or Job and say," See, God blesses those who are serving him." But in the kingdom, wealth is a hindrance, not a blessing. If we are wealthy, then Jesus calls on us to use our resources on behalf of the kingdom. We don't use it to live in palaces and to spend our time on frivolous pursuits and pleasures. We use our money to help the needy and to further the kingdom of God wherever we can. And we don't make the accumulation of earthly wealth our life's pursuit.
Instead, we're pursuing storing up treasures in heaven. That is by sharing what we have with the poor and the needy, bringing the gospel to those who haven't heard it. Doing these things we store up wealth in heaven. Not only that, Jesus also forbids class distinctions in his kingdom. He said this about the scribes and Pharisees." They love the best places at feast, the best seats in the synagogues, greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men rabbi, rabbi. But you do not be called rabbi.
For one is your teacher, the Christ, and you are all brothers. Do not call anyone on earth your Father. For one is your Father, he who is in heaven. And do not be called teachers. For one is your teacher, the Christ. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled. And he who humbles himself will be exalted. So in His kingdom, we become great by serving others, and we let Jesus exalt us in His time.
But once Christians lost sight of the Kingdom of God in the fourth century, when the church and state joined together, well, Jesus' teachings in this matter were largely ignored. In fact, the state churches invariably gave special favors and treatment to the wealthy. The church winked at the adultery commonly practiced by the wealthy. Rarely, if ever, disciplined any of the kings or queens or nobility for having mistresses and lovers and things like that.
The state church has also accepted and even fostered class distinctions between the wealthy and the poor, between the nobility and the commoners. The wealthy had special places to sit in the churches. They could pay the church to say masses for their dead loved ones or for their own souls, where they could commit wickedness, and yet the church would be praying for their forgiveness. During the Middle Ages, most of the bishops in the Roman Catholic Church, they came from the nobility.
Now, some of the bishops were just common people who were godly and rose through the ranks to become bishops. And some of the nobility who became bishops were also godly men. But in general, the bishops came from the nobility, and they weren't appointed bishops because of their godliness. The first son was usually given the lands of his father, and so the other sons, one of them, would typically go into the" service of the church," would find a career in the church, and that would usually be being named a bishop.
And the bishops received an enormous income. The poor of the land, they were taxed by the church. And most of this, some of it went to building buildings and you know genuine needs, but so much of it went to the bishops and archbishops so that they could live in luxury. In fact, many of the bishops and archbishops lived in palaces. King Henry VIII of England was upset because the Archbishop of Canterbury lived in a larger palace than did the king.
What a contrast to Jesus and his apostles who generally didn't even own houses, who were as poor as anyone could possibly be. But in kingdom churches, the wealthy don't get special favors because they're wealthy. If they're hoarding their wealth, then they're likely to be disciplined or rebuked by kingdom churches. Even if they're doing the godly thing with their resources and helping the poor and helping the spread of the gospel, this doesn't entitle them to special favors in the church.
They don't have pews up at the front or special boxes where they can sit and not have to mingle with the lowly in the church. No, there are no class distinctions among kingdom Christians. Another key difference between kingdom Christians and conventional churchgoers is the exercise of church discipline. Kingdom Christians see the kingdom of God as a real government with real authority. And every real government exercises some form of discipline for breaking its laws. Otherwise, its laws become mere suggestions.
Well, it's no different in God's kingdom. Now, God's kingdom is not the same thing as the church, but the church is an essential part of God's kingdom. It's the one place on earth where Christ's kingly authority is recognized, or at least it should be recognized. And so Jesus invested his church with authority to implement church discipline. Not only that, he commanded them to practice church discipline. Let me read to you his words from Matthew 18.
He said," If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let Him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.
Assuredly, I say to you," Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them. Now, as you can see, this is not a mere suggestion. It's a commandment from Jesus of how His church is supposed to operate.
And Paul reiterated what Jesus had said when he wrote to the Corinthians. This is in 1 Corinthians 5. He said," In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together along with my Spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Now, he's talking about a man who had taken his father's wife, either in an adulterous relationship or perhaps he married her, it's not clear.
But he says that person should be put out of the church until he repents. He continues in the letter," But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. But what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges.
Therefore, put away from yourselves the evil person." Now, sometimes church discipline has been abused. Paul lists there the various types of people who should be put out of the church that they should not fellowship with or enjoy a meal with. Churches who practice church discipline have had the tendency to want to expand that to other things beyond what Paul actually says. But that's no reason to do away with church discipline entirely because some have abused it.
Now, Paul's commandment and more importantly Jesus' commandment were originally followed by the church. For the first 300 years, you read quite a lot of references of people being put out of the church or banned from communion for various serious sins.
But after the church and the state became one, over time, these commandments about church discipline were so ignored by the state churches that when the first Anabaptists drew up articles of faith to define who were part of this kingdom movement, and I'm talking about the Schleitheim confession, one of the things they included in it was the practice of church discipline as instructed by Jesus Christ. And the reason they had to put that in there is because the state churches were not disciplining people for sin.
You could come there and receive communion even though you were a gross sinner. About the only people the state churches disciplined were those who disagreed with the state church on a theological matter and dared to contradict the church. I mean, people like the Anabaptists, they got disciplined. They got persecuted and put to death. But people who were committing real sins were generally ignored. And today, this is still a defining point between kingdom Christians and conventional churchgoers.
Most conventional churches will not discipline their members for sin unless it's something extremely notorious. But they will tell people to leave the church if they're teaching something contrary to the pastor. They'll put you out for theological errors or disagreeing theologically, but very rarely for sin. In my illustration at the beginning, I mentioned that when we step into the kingdom of God, when we become citizens of Christ's kingdom, we step into eternity.
One of the reasons I say that is because Christ's commandments are unchanging commandments, at least in this life. They don't change with the seasons. They don't change as society changes its views of what is right and wrong. They don't change with the culture of a country. They don't change with what is politically correct or not correct. God's kingdom is eternal.
That's why we read in Hebrews 13:8," Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." That's also why in his parable of the vineyard, Jesus said, I'm reading now from Matthew 21, beginning with verse 34. He said," Now, when vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the vine dressers that they might receive its fruit. And the vine dressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first, and they did likewise to them.
Then, last of all, He sent His Son to them, saying," They will respect my son." But when the vine dressers saw the son, they said among themselves," This is the heir. Come let us kill him and seize his inheritance." So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Well, I think we all understand the parable that the servants that were sent first were the various prophets, got beaten and stoned and left dead, that sort of thing. And then last of all, God sent His own Son.
There would be no new teachers, no new lawgivers after Jesus. It's for that very reason that Jesus told His disciples that none of them should be given the title of Teacher or Rabbi or Father, because He was their teacher. They were the students. It's also why Jesus told His apostles," Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light, and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops." The apostles were commissioned to preach what Jesus had taught them, not to be teachers in their own right.
However, many, if not the majority of conventional churches today teach that Jesus' commandments are not binding on Christians today. Some of them say that his teachings applied to the Jews during his lifetime. But when the Jews rejected him as king, then God ushered in the church age, the dispensation under which we live today under this theory. So they say Jesus' teachings don't apply during the church age.
These same churches will often say that Jesus' teachings will apply in the kingdom age after he returns, but they don't apply today. Now, they might be good standards, good recommendations, but they are not commandments on us. All I can say is that this has to be one of the worst heresies professing Christians have ever taught. Even the Roman Catholic Church, with the many mistakes it has made, has never taught anything that heretical, that Jesus' commandments do not apply to us.
The Sermon on the Mount is not addressed to Christians. The early Christians would have been in utter disbelief that anyone could even imagine such a thing. That the Sermon on the Mount doesn't apply to Christians? That those are only teachings for a future age or past age that ended with Jesus' death? In contrast, kingdom Christians recognize that Jesus' teachings apply to all disciples of Jesus from His day through the present.
They realize that Jesus' commandments and the commandments delivered by the apostles, they don't change with the times. And as a result of this difference in their view of the authority of the gospels, the difference between kingdom Christians and conventional churchgoers, it keeps growing. Today, we're dealing with all sorts of matters that historically were not at issue between kingdom Christians and conventional ones. They all believe the things that I'm going to be talking about.
I'm going to give you three examples, the biblical teaching on divorce, on the head covering, and on modest dress. These weren't the issues that separated the Waldensians from the Roman Catholics or other groups of kingdom Christians. But they are today. Let's start with divorce. Notice what Jesus said about it in Mark 10.
The Pharisees came and asked him," Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife, testing him?" And he answered and said to them," What did Moses command you?" They said," Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and to dismiss her." And Jesus answered and said to them," Because of the hardness of your heart, He wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.
For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate." It continues," In the house, his disciples also asked him again about the same matter." So he said to them," Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
Well, for 19th centuries, conventional Christians upheld Jesus' teachings on divorce. Most of the time, there was no difference between what kingdom Christians practiced on divorce and what conventional churchgoers practiced. It was one and the same. However, today we live in a culture that does not recognize the permanence of marriage. As a result, most conventional churches have compromise on this issue, and they allow divorce despite such strong and very clear words from Jesus Christ.
The result is that now one of the biggest differences between kingdom churches and conventional ones is whether or not they allow divorce. Another example of a matter that historically was not an issue but is today is the New Testament teaching on the head covering. Paul wrote," Imitate me just as I also imitate Christ. Now, I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.
But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head. For that is one and the same as if her head were shaved. For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered.
Now, this is the only place in the New Testament where the Christian practice on head coverings is discussed. And that practice was for men not to cover their heads when praying or prophesying and women to cover their heads when doing so. That this was the practice of Christians everywhere in the known world of that day is well attested to by various early Christian writers like Tertullian.
And through most of Christian history, it was not one of the issues that separated kingdom Christians from conventional churchgoers. All Christian women practiced it until sometime in the 1800s. Even then, it remained the practice in most churches until the 1960s or later. But then it became politically incorrect, and women decided not to obey this commandment.
And the ministers of conventional churches went right along with this, being too afraid to take a biblical stand on it, even though they still expected men to uncover their heads when praying. And so suddenly this has now become another practice that separates kingdom Christians from conventional Christians or conventional churchgoers. Simply because kingdom Christians know that Christ's commandments don't change with the times or with what is politically correct or not.
So they keep following them whether they're in season or out of season. I mentioned a few minutes ago that not swearing oaths is not that big of an issue today, at least not in the United States, but in the Middle Ages, it was a huge issue. Conversely, for a woman to wear a head covering wasn't even remotely an issue in the Middle Ages, but it's a huge issue today. It's not because Christ has changed, but because the world keeps changing and most conventional churches change right along with the world.
Now perhaps you're thinking," But David, Jesus never said anything about the head covering. This is just a commandment coming from Paul." My answer to that is," Oh, no, it's not." If it was just something Paul was promoting, then why were the Christian women in Alexandria, Egypt, and in Carthage practicing it? There's no evidence that Paul ever preached in those places. Furthermore, Paul himself anticipated this objection.
That's why further on down in his letter, he rhetorically asked the Corinthians," Did the Word of God come originally from you, or was it you only that it reached?" In other words, get on board with what the rest of the church is doing in practicing the teachings of Jesus. Then he declares and take notice of this.
He says," If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord." So Paul didn't invent the teaching on the head covering. He says that it and the other politically incorrect things he was insisting on there in his letter to the Corinthians were the commandments of the Lord, not the commandments of Paul, but of Jesus.
No doubt, that's why just before he mentions the head covering, he states," Imitate me just as I also imitate Christ." And then he said," Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and notice this, keep the traditions just as I deliver them to you." I know sometimes we think of traditions as something bad, and they can be bad if they are man-made traditions. But the word" tradition" means something that is handed down.
And so things that were handed down by the apostles, either directly from things that Jesus taught them or things the Holy Spirit inspired them to write, are likewise traditions. And Paul is saying that the head covering is one of these traditions, not that he initiated, but rather he says something that I delivered to you. In other words, it didn't originate with Paul. It was a tradition, a teaching handed down, I think personally from Jesus Himself, but if not, from the apostles who were inspired by Jesus Christ.
Now, not that any of this should make a difference for Bible-believing Christians, for we view the entire Bible as inspired by God and inerrant. But it is still good to know that Paul didn't invent this teaching on the head covering. Now let's talk about modest dress. Today, the biblical commandments concerning modest dress are treated very similarly to the commandment on the head covering.
I think all of us are aware of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, where He said," You have heard that it was said to those of old,' You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5. Now, interestingly, that part of the New Testament is still preached today. Conventional Christians are still very outspoken against pornography.
Lust is still preached against, and that's all good. I think Jesus made it quite clear what a deadly sin it is for a man to lust after a woman. But there are two parts to this issue. One is for men not to look at other women in any way that could lead to lust. The other part, however, is for women to dress and adorn themselves in a manner that will not invite attention.
Paul wrote," In like manner also, I desire that the women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing." It's 1 Timothy 2:9. Now, it's this second part of the lust issue that has been almost entirely forgotten today in conventional churches. And that's because it's politically incorrect today to teach modest dress.
Yet through the centuries, this was not particularly an issue that distinguished kingdom Christians from conventional Christians, at least not as to the modesty part of the commandment. Now, on the part about gold and costly clothing, most of the institutional churches looked the other way when it came to the rich, whereas the kingdom churches did not.
Nevertheless, when you look at paintings through the centuries, you see that most Christian women dressed modestly, at least in the sense of wearing dresses that covered themselves. The main exception to that is the many wealthy women who wore evening gowns that were low-cut. But today, women who profess to be Christians dress in a way that would have offended non-believers just 75 years ago. And the conventional churches say absolutely nothing about it.
And so this too has now become a defining point between kingdom Christians and conventional churchgoers, even though it was not particularly a defining point throughout Christian history. And that's simply because conventional churches treat Jesus' commandments as though they change with the times, and kingdom Christians recognize that Jesus is the same today, yesterday, and forever. In conclusion, what is a kingdom Christian?
Well, as we talked about, it's a Christian who one, recognizes the kingdom of God as the primary authority in his life. Two, he seeks first the kingdom of God and its king, Jesus Christ. Three, a kingdom Christian recognizes that the kingdom of God cannot be combined with any of the kingdoms of this world. Therefore, he or she avoids entanglements with the governments of this world and their politics and wars.
A kingdom Christian is, first of all, a citizen of God's kingdom and only secondarily a citizen of the earthly nation in which he lives. His fellow countrymen are all of the other citizens of God's kingdom around the world. He or she recognizes Jesus as their ultimate lawgiver and His Sermon on the Mount as their primary constitution. Kingdom Christians will not violate Jesus' teachings, even if their earthly governments command them to, and will even put them to death if they don't comply with the government.
They would rather die than to violate Jesus' teachings. Finally, a kingdom Christian recognizes that the commandments given by Jesus and His apostles don't ever become outdated or irrelevant. They are binding on each generation of Christians in every age until Jesus returns. And I want to close this message by asking you the question," Are you a kingdom Christian?" If not, let me extend our king's invitation to join us. Enter into eternity with us.
Just think, you'll be joining the kingdom that will someday rule this entire universe.