The Clash of Kingdoms
The church is the kingdom of God. On earth, the church of Christ Jesus is a gathering place for pilgrims to be refreshed spiritually and readied for the glory to come. The church is militant, wielding the Sword of the spirit (Eph 6:17), the Word of God, with two objectives: first, the Word preached is the means by which God imparts faith into the His elect, regenerated people (Rom 10:17; Heb 12:2); second, the Word is the sword of judgment proclaimed against the world (Heb 4:12).
The kingdom of this world does not appreciate the kingdom of God declaring whose king is King of kings (1 Tim 6:15). In proclaiming King Jesus Christ, the church declares His victory over the world of sin and death (2 Cor 2:14; 1 Jn 5:4). No one wants to be identified with the losing team, but if a person does not have the Spirit of the Son of God in him, then he is on the team doomed to eternal defeat (Rom 8:9).
The church and the world make their claims to superior team identification, benefits, and glory. The world exalts man, who is promised prosperity for vigorous effort for performance. His hope remains in achieving “god-like” status for allegiance to the ways of the ruler of this world (Gen 3:5; Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). Self is deified and expects material entitlements for carnal gratification. An army of self-serving god-wannabes and their incessant labors is reported on the nightly news and recorded in world history books.
The world is the domain of darkness (Col 1:13), in which blind men lead blind men into the pit of sinful addictions (Jn 3:19), and consequently, the pit of eternal hell (Mt 25:41, 46; Jude 7; Rev 20:14–15). Every competition of men is a spectacle of a man and his neighbor striving to be gods (Eccl 4:4). The pride of positions of glory — making a name for oneself — and the power to control other people becomes a drug for the businessman, the athlete, the politician, and even overbearing parents.
God sets the rules for His kingdom and gives His Spirit for compliance-sake (Ex 20; Dt 5; Jn 14:26; 15:26; Gal 5:16, 25). Grace abounds for the humble slave (Jas 4:6), who has the mind of her master, King Jesus (1 Cor 2:16). Dying to self is conquering one’s own flesh. Christians must never underestimate the power of one’s flesh, sin, and Satan.
The world allures with pulchritudinous pleasantries to pursue, but the end of these are dungeons of mental illness, occupied by legions of demons. Bodies that sought sexual pleasures are teeming with sexually transmitted diseases, and the flesh is weak to the point of contagion in notoriously promiscuous principalities.
The church calls sin, “lawlessness (1 Jn 3:4),” and the indwelling Holy Spirit convicts the world of its rebellion and enmity against God, the Holy One (Jn 16:8). The response is hostility against the sons of righteousness (Jn 15:18-25). The devil retorts with a diet of accusing and excusing to fit his fancy (Rom 2:15). Man cannot win the game designed for him by Satan, but nevertheless, the devil spurs him on to lust and prideful works (1 Jn 2:15–17).
The church has the armor of God to do battle with demons and their false doctrines (Eph 6:10–20), but the victory of faith is granted by the Holy Spirit (Gal 3:22; 5:22; Eph 2:8–9; Phil 1:9), who grows and strengthens the kingdom, employing the Word (Jn 17:17). The Spirit, who is the Lord, is adding to the church (1 Cor 12:13), by filling preachers of King Jesus (2 Tim 2:15; 4:2), inspiring them to go into all the world and herald news of this glorious kingdom (Mt 24:14; Mk 16:15; Acts 1:8).
Exposing the kingdom of this world (Eph 5:11), as a fraud and a lie, is the ticket to persecution in the midst of vanity fair. The brighter the light of Christ (Mt 5:16), coming from the church of Christ the King (Mt 5:14), the more incensed the kings of the earth become against King Jesus and His citizens, outcasts on their former slave plantation.
The clash of kingdoms, the church and the world, will rage until the day of resolution, when Christ the King has gathered every last one of His chosen people. The church will remain an offense, and the world will do what it can to infiltrate, divide, and control the church, as men quest to be lord and king and pope of God’s people. The church victorious in heaven rejoices (rev 5:9; 7:9), while the church militant on earth presses on in battle, a battle that belongs to the Lord (1 Sam 17:47; Prv 21:31).
David Norczyk
Missoula, Montana
March 19, 2022
