Greetings again my Brethren. Wow where is the year going? You hear as you grow older time flies by faster the older you get and my dear friend it is true, but it is also true time is not mine it is God’s and He is not keeping it as we do. This month we will finish up the sixth section to “The LORD’s Call.” What a tremendous section of truth we covered. So much heartfelt information and if we would embrace it with all of heart we would be further down the line in coming to know God and His ways. We will end up looking at Luke 9:62 and what our response to God MUST be. “And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62) What we are looking at here is that our response to the LORD have it be yes or no, MUST be made in an unhesitating act of finality springing from an irrevocable decision. We always automatically assume when God speaks to us we always respond in a way in what God wants us to do. Well my friend I must be honest I have not always responded yes to the LORD, but have said no. Sadly I confess this, but I want to be honest to you, myself, and God already knows if I am honest to Him. Sometimes we do not have it within us to answer the call or we think we do not have it within us, but guess what my friend we always do. God would not have called or even stirred us to action if we did not have the ability to do that which He wants us to do. He knows us, He knows our frame, He knows our strength, and better yet He knows our weaknesses. And here is the key He knows we know where to go to get what we do not have. You know a man cannot give you what he does not have, but in the things of God the man who does not have can go to the LORD and get what they lack. There in Luke 9:62, the man has what he needs to plough the ground, what God wants him to do, but what does he do? He looks back or changes his mind and heart not to do what God wants him to do. If we look back (maybe as Lot’s wife did) then we are not able or as Luke says “fit” or joined together to make complete. Paul said the same thing in Colossians. “And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.” (Colossians 2:19) See if we do not have it that is okay we can go and get it. But if we do not have it and we know where to get it and we do not, then that is not okay. Here in Luke the person was not knit together because he started maybe walking with the LORD, but stopped and went their own way. Many Christians in the Church and even some Believers in the Body of Christ (which is not the church) is full of such people. Now at this time it is important to look at the kingdom of God. What Jesus was talking about and what Paul was talking about was two different things, two different kingdoms of God. Most Christians when they read the Gospels where Jesus talks about the kingdom of God they think Jesus is talking about heaven or some kingdom on earth, but oh no my friend Jesus is talking about the Millennial Reign when He sets up His earthly kingdom for a 1,000 years. After the Resurrection when Jesus comes back to earth to collect His bride in what some call the rapture and after the seven years of tribulation or “Jacob’s Troubles” as described in Jeremiah 30:7 and in many other places in the Scriptures. After all of this Jesus will set up His kingdom on earth to rule and reign 1,000 years and this man who puts his hand to the plough and stops, turns back, falls away like many today in the church will not be “fit” to rule and reign with Jesus during the Millennial Reign. Did you know it was God’s original intention for the Jewish people to accept Jesus as their Messiah (the Son of God the Christ, and the Lamb of God) during His earthly ministry and if they did then God would have brought in the tribulation then the Millennial Reign. In Matthew we read, “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” (Matthew 4:23) Not the gospel of grace. You can also look at Matthew 9:35, Mark 1:4, Luke 8:1. Even Phillip in Acts 8:12 was preaching the things of the “kingdom of God” and not the message of salvation saved by grace through faith the way we are saved. Since the Jewish people did not accept Jesus as their Messiah God did something different, not a plan B, but changed His plan to see the salvation of ALL man happen. What is God’s plan and will for man? Whatsoever God wants it to be. He can change it at any time He is God. All throughout the Scriptures God changes His plan (in the Garden, Noah and the flood, the Tower of Babel on and on) to accommodate His purposes. Why was Jesus so troubled in the garden and prayed, “Not my will He prayed, but thy be done.” Maybe Jesus had another plan? I do not know, but I do know Jesus was slay before the foundations of the world as the Old Testament prophets prophesied a suffering Messiah. What love!! You know the Old Testament prophets knew of the suffering Messiah and the Millennial Reign just read Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Psalms, and more, but they could never put them together. Why? God hid it from them as He hid the mystery of the Gospel from the world until Paul shared it. They never understood how Jesus could come and die for our sin, be raised from the dead, go back to heaven, come back for the Resurrection (rapture), then after the tribulation, come back and establish His kingdom (the Millennial Reign) on earth. I think Jesus in His divinity knew this from the start. He often told the disciples He was going to be killed, but they did not get it. (see Luke 20:9-16) Of course then God pushed His time line out 2,000 years and counting for the “Church Age.” My friend God grinds slow, but very fine. I believe after the Church Age which ends with the Resurrection God will pick up His original plan: the Tribulation, Millennial Reign, and Kingdom Age. Now Paul’s usage of the “kingdom of God” is quite different not talking about the Millennial Reign, but of what is to be in side of us. In Romans Paul writes, “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” (Romans 14:7) Today if we never come into the “kingdom of God” (Paul’s) we will probably never make it to the kingdom of Heaven which is a third kingdom of God. So the man in Luke 9:62 who turns his back or turns away from the LORD is not worthy of the attributes of the Holy Spirit coming to live within us. They will not have the “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” which is God’s intention for us.
Next month we will start looking at a new section The LORD’s Visits. Do you hear Him calling? Please know God is calling. Walter Beuttler said if you build God a temple He will inhabit it. Have you built God a temple? If you do He will abide and wait for you. Written by David Stahl
