Читать книгу Principles of the Kingdom of God - Kenneth B. Alexander BSL JD Deacon - Страница 5

Convincing you on a human level that God is real is not only impossible but if you could be convinced you could be just as easily unconvinced just by looking around you and living in this world of hardships. There is really nothing that you can see or sense with your human senses that would in any way indicate that there is a God. You look around the world and see wars, starvation, death for no apparent reason, a dire economic situation worldwide, sexual perversity and senseless crime everywhere. You would likely see the failure of the majority of your dreams and aspirations. Most of us accept this as life the way it is and we continue to “live life on life’s terms” as best we can. You ask and rightly so “If there is a God why does he allow the conditions to exist as they are?” And “What kind of God could sit by and do nothing in the face of such human suffering?” There is no way any man can defend God and the way He works, what He allows and doesn’t allow. Perhaps the following pages will convince you He has something better if you just accept it. The following pages are not derived from someone’s imagination but are from personal experience and revelation from God.

Do you ever ask “Why me?”. “Why do I have to go through all the troubles of life where it seems everything is chaos?” The Bible tells a story of a man called Job who was an upright and righteous man, even in God’s eyes. God had made him fabulously wealthy. He had 12 sons and daughters for whom he prayed every day. As the story goes Satan approached God in heaven and challenged God by saying that Job was serving God because of all the things God was doing for him in blessing him so. Satan proposed giving Job some adversity in his life to test Job’s loyalty to God. God accepted the challenge and gave Satan permission to do anything to him except take his life. So Satan set about to destroy everything Job had and even afflicted his health. Satan killed all Job’s livestock (his wealth) and killed all of his children and servants. He afflicted Job with boils from head to feet so at the end Job just sat on an ash heap and bemoaned his reversal of fortunes. Things were so bad that Job’s wife told Job just to curse God and die, which Job wouldn’t do. He told her “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?”

But Job, in his present condition, did and said everything but curse God as he complained about his condition. He essentially prayed to die so great was his torment. He said: “Let the day perish on which I was to be born, And the night which said, ‘A boy is conceived.’ “May that day be darkness; Let not God above care for it, Nor light shine on it” (see Job 1:1 through chapter 34 for the complete story). Job was accompanied by four friends (comforters) who all reasoned that Job must have sinned or God would not have afflicted him as he had. Most of the remainder of the book is composed of Job justifying himself as undeserving of all that had befallen him, not realizing God was allowing it.

Finally God appeared to Job in his agony. He essentially rebuked Job for trying to justifying himself before the almighty God who does what he wants and is the creator of everything. “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this that  darkens counsel By words without knowledge? [In other words what right do you have in telling Me, God, what is right and wrong?] “Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me! “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? “On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together And all the  sons of God shouted for joy? “Or who enclosed the sea with doors When, bursting forth, it went out from the womb; When I made a cloud its garment And thick darkness its swaddling band, And I  placed boundaries on it And set a bolt and doors, And I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, but no farther; And here shall your proud waves stop’?”(Job 38:1-11).

God goes on for pages further calling up Job short on his knowledge of God and creation. All the while He was afflicting Job he was trying to do good for him but Job couldn’t see it. In the end He restored Job a double portion of what he had lost because he had been faithful and did not curse God as Satan had wanted.

Many times we, like Job, do not understand God and what he is doing. This is the answer for why the evil seem to be blessed while the majority of us are treated like castoffs. We don’t understand God or His ways. God said: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:7-9). So with such a gap seemingly existing between us and God what do we do? Are we to be at the mercy of a creature so far away we can never communicate with Him or ever know Him?

Actually the opposite is true. God wants us to be able to reach Him and to be as close to Him as our breath. He wants us to “Know Him” as a husband knows his wife. He says: “I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord” (Hosea 2:19-20). And: “So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the  rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth” (Hosea 6:3).

Really knowing the Lord is something we do individually. It is not necessarily the church you go to, seeing His acts, being a Bible scholar nor is it a matter of education about the Lord. It is knowing in your own heart that He is real because He reveals Himself to you through Revelation. Revelation is colloquially defined as: “the act of revealing or disclosing; disclosure; something revealed or disclosed, especially a striking disclosure, as of something not before realized. God's disclosure of Himself and His will to His creatures” (Dictionary.com). The point is He is able to make Himself known to His created; He is able to speak to those who desire it—anybody.

He can go further than just providing what seems like a miracle to get you out of a tight spot, although He can do that if He wants. But that is not knowing God. Psalm 103:7 says: “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel”. Moses, the great prophet who led the children of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. He knew the miracles of God, but he also knew the Lord Himself. The remainder of the Israelites in the wilderness after the Exodus witnessed the great acts of God-the ten plagues, parting of the sea, water from a rock, the pillar of fire and the cloud by day, the manna--but they did not know His love and ultimate plan for the Israelite nation. Moses not only saw the acts of God he knew how to do them and it was God through him who did the magnificent miracles because of that magnificent knowledge.

Jesus knew the Father. He and the Father were one (John 10:30). Their oneness was so great that to see one was to see the other (John 14:9). So we too should be so one with the Father and the Son as to be inseparable. John said in his gospel: “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). That is knowing the Lord when you are so inseparable that His ways and His thinking become part of your very DNA and you actually are the Father and the Son.

How do obtain this intimate knowledge of the Father and the Son? First there must be a hunger in your heart for it. Jesus said: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). And: “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied” (Luke 6:21). As an example of real hunger after God consider this: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul  thirsts for God, for the  living God; When shall I come and  appear before God?” My tears have been my food day and night, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:1-3).

Second we ask. “Ask,[and keep asking] and it will be given to you; seek, [keep seeking] and you will find; knock, [keep knocking] and it will be opened to you. “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. “Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? “Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:7-11). And James says:“But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. (James 1:5-). Any of us is capable of asking aren’t we? It is one of the simplest principles that is available but for some reason people who are confused about anything fail to exercise the principle and ask God for wisdom.

There must be persistence in our asking if we really want to know. Jesus gives an applicable parable on persistence. “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to him at midnight and says to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and from inside his friend answers and says, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been shut and my children and I are in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ “I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence [also translated shamelessness] he will get up and give him as much as he needs” (Luke 11:5-8). Many times God seems unwilling to answer your prayers or requests but this is just a smokescreen. He is willing to give you what you want but he tests you to see how bad you want it. Persistence is also translated “shamelessness. Sometimes in your persistence in asking you can’t worry about how it looks to others (some guy screaming in the streets for bread at midnight) but if you want something so badly you don’t care what it looks like to others.

Another parable on persistence. “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. “There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent.’ “For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out [one translation says “hit me under the eye”] (Luke 18:25). God sometimes works on the same principle. Sometimes you have to “hit Him under the eye” to get Him to respond. It’s not that He is unwilling--He wants to draw the violence out of your spirit and teach you something about His ways, which as we said, are higher than ours.

Sometimes it takes an intense violence in spirit (not physical violence) for God to respond. Jesus said: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and men violent [in spirit] to take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). The Lord is like a landowner with sons who are to inherit the land when the Father dies. He will drive those sons relentlessly so that they are prepared to be responsible for the land like he was. He is not just going to hand it over to irresponsible sons who would drag it into ruin. To those called of God, or those who wish to participate with Him, are going to inherit all that He has one day and we must be prepared.

We have an inheritance to receive from the Father. “Then the King [Lord] will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). When Jesus died and was resurrected the Father put Him in charge of all things in heaven and earth. “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in  the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed  heir of all things, through whom also He made the world” (Hebrews 1:1-2). “The Lord Jesus is exalted to the right hand of the Father, has all power both in heaven and in earth, and is head over all things to the church, notwithstanding the restless endeavors of his enemies to hinder his advancement” ( Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Psalm 2:1, 3). We too are to receive a similar inheritance: “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:16–18). The sufferings spoken about are the intense training we must undergo so that we too can be prepared to reign with Christ in His Kingdom.

You may say these are words on a paper, written by men, without any scientific proof and therefore without any value in your life. However the spiritual person, who you can become, does not regard them this way. Jesus said: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). God’s words are not mere words but they are spirit and life. Rather than imparting understanding and inspiration as other books do, His words impart life to your being through your spirit. The Apostle Paul said this about the spirit: “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one” (1 Corinthians 2:12-15).

This book will examine these and other laws and principles applicable to the realm of the Spirit, heaven if you will, where God lives. God is real. You can communicate with Him. His presence is weaved throughout creation. He is omnipresent (everywhere at once). Only our lack of understanding prevents us from seeing Him like He is. As Paul says, the slight inconvenience of what we have to go through to see Him clearly is not to be compared to the unlimited quality of His Kingdom which will someday soon cover the whole earth. As Paul also said: “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus…. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12, 14).