A tale of two Kingdoms…

It’s a couple of weeks since my last Blog and this one is a bit longer than usual Even so, it will only take you about 8 minutes to read. It is a message I gave last week and I hope you find it helpful and encouraging.

I want to look at the fact that there are two kingdoms operating on this earth. We’ll look at the differences between those kingdoms, and then I want to look at what the future holds.

Colossians 1 v 13 says “He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness, and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son” It is clear from scripture, that there are two kingdoms. We know this because we have experienced living in both.  We used to live in that kingdom of darkness, under its influence and rule. Now we live in a different kingdom!

[Why is the world in this situation? Why are there two kingdoms? Put simply, God’s plan was that He would rule in the Heavens, and that men and women would (under His authority) rule the earth. At the Fall, Man had two options placed in front of him – the choice of obeying either God or Satan. There was no middle way. No opportunity to have “a bit of this and a bit of that”. What fellowship can Light have with Darkness? Man made a bad choice and obeyed Satan. In doing that, he made himself and all his descendants subject to Satan’s kingdom. The rest, as they say, is history.]

1 John 5 v 19 says “The Whole world lies in the power of the evil one”

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, Satan said to Him, “I will give you all the kingdoms of the world, if you kneel down and worship me”. Jesus didn’t argue the point. He knew that the kingdoms of the world were in Satan’s power. It is fair to say, that until Jesus began his earthly ministry, Satan’s kingdom’s influence on earth had little opposition.

Jesus began His ministry by announcing that from now on things were going to be different. “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. In other words, ‘I am announcing a new Kingdom. It is at hand, close enough to reach out for. It starts here and now. From now on there is an alternative kingdom which operates in a completely different way. The increase of this kingdom will know no end (Isa 9 v 7).

A quick look at the history of the church from Day 1 shows how this new Kingdom expands and grows:

We start with the birth of the church in Acts. Explosive stuff. Rapid growth, harsh opposition, and more rapid growth. After 300 years, by which time Christianity had comfortably spread and established itself across the known world, it became the ‘official religion’ of Rome. (There is a huge difference between being an explosive life-changing faith known as “The Way” and being and ‘official religion’). The Church settled. Buildings became the norm as a place to meet formally, rather than informally in houses. Priests were introduced and that was the end of ‘every member ministry’.

Leap forward 1200 years (I told you this was a quick look at history!) and we have the Reformation in 1517. This introduced the birth of the Protestant movement, a return to belief in salvation through faith in the Grace of God and the finished work of Jesus on the Cross. Then came the printing of the bible in the languages of the ordinary people. 

I particularly want you to notice that there is an acceleration of events taking place from now on. 

New movements sprang up. In Europe through the 1600’s there were the Anabaptists, the Baptists, the Hutterites, Mennonites and the Amish and more. All were looking for a genuine way to live their faith out in a bible based way. In UK we had the preaching of the Wesleys and Whitefield and the Wesleyan Revival in the 1740’s . In the North we had the Primitive Methodist Revival in the 1830’s.

In the USA there was ‘The Great Awakening’ led by men like Jonathan Edwards in the 1780’s followed by a resurgence in the 1830’s with Charles Finney etc.

Then came the Azusa Street outpouring of the Holy Spirit in 1906 and the birth of Pentecostalism. In the UK there was the Welsh Revival in 1904 and the Hebridean Revival in 1949. Do you sense the acceleration?

In the 1940’s and 50’s there was a healing revival in the USA (Charles Allen, Oral Roberts etc) and then Evangelistic ministries like Billy Graham’s had an enormous impact globally.

In the 60’s and 70’s in the UK and the US we had church renewal where the Holy Spirit, His presence and gifts, became part of mainstream church life. This produced friction, and the birth of the ‘New Churches’ as people wanted to be free to pursue what God was doing. 

Fast forward to the present. My feeling is that many of the New Churches which held such promise for the nation, have largely settled.

I am reminded of Abraham who set out from Ur with a clear mandate to go to the promised land. Half way through the journey, he settled in Haran for a number of years before God gave him a gentle shake!

I am also reminded of Smith Wigglesworth who prophesied the Healing revival, the renewal of the churches and the birth of the New Church movement. He prophesied that the New Churches would wane (that’s where we are now?) and then there would come a revival based on the Word and the Spirit together; the supernatural, signs and wonders, but all based firmly on solid bible teaching.

So, you see the acceleration taking place? That explains the acceleration of evil that we see also. Satan responds to what God is doing, he does not creatively initiate. He knows his time is short.

There are two Kingdoms, they are in a battle and we are involved. Much of the Church needs to wake up to this.

 Isaiah 60 gives us a principle. Light will increase but darkness will increase also. In the last days more and more people will be selfish, greedy, boastful, follow demonic teachings, be proud and unholy etc. Men will call evil good, and good evil (Isa 5 v 20)

But never forget, light is always more powerful! You don’t go into a lighted room and switch on the darkness to make the light disappear. But you can go into a pitch black room with a tiny candle and make the darkness disappear.

There are two Kingdoms, one Light, one Dark. But Darkness can never defeat light. It is important that we understand the times we live in. The challenge for the Church is to be bold, have faith, perseverance and courage. The days ahead will not be easy but if we respond correctly they will be the best and most fruitful days of our lives. God is on the move and His foot is on the accelerator pedal!

What will the coming revival look like for the Church? I believe it will be fast moving

and require us to be flexible. Part of that flexibility will be that we make sure that we are not limited by logistics ie buildings, equipment, location or distances.

Church buildings have been the norm for centuries and if we get a number of people saved then we instinctively start to look for “a place big enough to meet that will accommodate future growth”. The next logical step is to buy premises. The early church was more flexible. They met in homes very often. The church in Ephesus was apparently about 50,000 in number, but they didn’t rent amphitheatres. They met in homes, about 12 to 20 people at a time. All those groups made up “the Church in Ephesus”.

 In every country where the church is expanding rapidly, church based in the home is the norm. The icing on the cake is to be able to come together in larger numbers to celebrate and worship together, but the spiritual growth and the growth in numbers is based around the home church.

I think we need to train and release people to share the gospel and move in the supernatural wherever they find themselves to be – at work, at home, shopping, down the street, in the park – basically wherever the lost people are. The days are probably over where we can attract people in large numbers to a church to hear about Jesus. We need to take Jesus (and His healing and miracle working power) to them. The fact is that when approached the right way and with love, many, many people are interested in a God who loves them and does miracles too! That’s a whole different ball game from an invite to ‘come to church’.

Finally, as I said, there will be difficulties ahead for us. There is a kingdom set against us. We will be ridiculed at times. There will be pressure on us to conform, to be silent, to not say certain things. We will be excluded at times, marginalized and even told that we are dangerous to the greater good of society.

Light always triumphs over darkness. It’s time for courage, boldness, perseverance and the greatest adventure of our lives.