Remember roger this is to a fundo audience, and one is quoting so much Scripture one feels like John of Kingdom Talk. The exercise is to sow some seeds of thought in their rigid belief sytem that may eventually break through into the clear light of God's Day. Perhaps roger if I posted your intent, I would be kicked off and no profit would come of it.

If any have the patience here is some more on the same subject.........



I agree RAP it does not say the Kingdom IN Heaven but the Kingdom OF Heaven. You know I am not trying to be clever, or wiser than anyone here, I just want the Truth and I am my own greatest critic. May the Hammer of the Lord crash down on me if my hand departs from the truth. Not that I can do anything against the truth, "For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the Truth" [2 Cor.13:8]]Truth just IS, it is self evident and needs none of us including JND to expound it. Truth is always instantly recognisable to an honest heart.

So why does one bother? Because so many do not have the truth, truth needs no defence BUT I WILL TELL YOU FOR A CERTAINTY FALSEHOOD NEEDS DEFENCE...... constant defence and you have to constantly shift their boundary fences, for they are all built on shifting sand.

When I was in Exclusive Brethren they constantly maintained they had the truth, they even put out a book called: "The Recovery and Maintenance of the Truth." by AJGardiner. Their truth was constantly changing around establishing the authority of whoever was the Leader at the time. They proclaimed the heavenly nature of the Body of Christ but at the same time had this idea THEY would rule over the earth in the millennium not Israel, they were beginning to lose having their mind on heavenly things above. So they were instructed to do well in business, make lots of money, they had confused the Gospel of the Kingdom with the heavenly truth of the Assembly.

The Gospel of Mark starts with "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" that was preached to all those in Israel, [and strictly instructed by Christ not to go to the samaritans Math.10:5]]this Gospel is only found to differ, in Mark 16:15 where they are told to preach to the whole creation, but there is a serious problem here as the paragraph of Mark 16:9-20 are missing in the two earliest codices of the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus but turns up in the later Alexandricus codice.I may add that the commission of Christ before His ascent from the Mt. Olivet to the Apostles was to preach to "the uttermost part of the earth" and should be translated " to the utmost parts of the Land/Palestine" [Acts1:8]

It is impossible to lose truth and impossible to find it. Why? Because the carnal mind which "is at enmity with God" [Rom.8:7] cannot find Truth in the first place to lose it! What ever can be remembered can also be forgotten. Truth can never be forgotten and never remembered, for it is not written in the brain but the "fleshy tablets of the heart."[2Cor.3:3]

Truth is not some commodity, for there is no commodity on earth to compare it with, no material yardstick in this universe to measure it by. Why are there 40,000 sects in Christendom if there be one truth.......let me tell you there are 40,000 falsehoods. And they are all blaspemously seeking to maintain falsehood in the holy name of Truth.

"Does not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice" [Prov.8:1] "She crieth at the gates" [Prov.8:3 ]She wisdom/truth is never found within a man made religious establishment, only at her gates "at the entry into the city." So how do we find truth? Alas, not in all the dead words of men from all ages, for it is always fresh manna "present truth" [2Pet.1:12.] Alas in our own wisdom we too often seize the words of other persons idea of truth as our own. Especially if they are charismatic, influential and of popular reputation in the circle they may move in. Even if we can clothe them in a better robe of words, of our own highest ideals, one is still drinking secondhand from stagnant waters; and no matter how much we add our own exotic flavours, it is forever dead for it is not from The Holy Spirit direct...nor from that state of mind where we "lead every thought captive to Christ" [2 Cor.10:5] and only in that "Mind of Christ" [ 1Cor.2:16] will you "find a well of water springing up into eternal life" [John4:14.]

Alas so many bed their newly found truth, as if she/truth was a virgin of highest ideals, but find her ultimately frigid, a phantom with nothing but cold feet. Especially when divorce comes, or their children run amuck. Yet a man still clings to her, as she in turn clings to him, demanding back from such what he sought to endow her with from the beginning. Such truths protest too much, underneath their painted masks lie's the face of a harlot. Give me truth she cries, give me life, you who created me as truth, so that I may shine before the world!

Thus a man is ever dissatisfied as he lies beside her, while his life is ebbing out all the way to the grave, she sucks him dry. Ever pregnant she is. Ever does she spawn falsehoods. Overrun is this man's house, until haggard, weak kneed, he finally totters and staggers under her bewitchments. Such were the Galatians with their corrupted Gospel.

How many Christian mystics do you know? Not many. The true role of a Christian mystic is to challenge and disrupt the very comfortable living zone you have made for yourself. Why? So you will start to "examine yourself"[ 2Cor.13:5], to look deeper than you ever have before into yourself. Stop looking and judging others,[Rom.2:1] what sort of Christian are you, what sort employer or employee are you, husband, son........how really diligent are you in your spiritual growth? Are you self satisfied and complacent? Are you an authority on your self? Or are you just an authority on others? Just how healthy is this Temple of God your body? Is it full of rusty pipes that need replacing? Is it congested and full of garbage? And are we really living off that garbage analysing it and declaring it to be our truth?

You know the world itself cannot contain the things that could be written about our Master[John 21:25], just over three years. What motivates me and drives me on like one horsewhipped is the glory of this evangel of Christ...."the unsearchable riches of Christ."[Eph.3:8] "blest with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ " [Eph.1:3]

It is far greater than fine wine, it's healing far greater than any medicant could give, it's intoxicating beauty greater than all the fairest daughters of men. Daily I am filled with this intoxicating "not of this world" [John 17:4] elixir, that enables me to live in this chaotic world, a world constructed out of the nightmare of an individual identity separate from Christ.

Sorry for being longwinded just explaining what the Gospel of the unsearchable riches of Christ, means to me.

O.K. back on track as RAP said this is not the Kingdom in heaven. Indeed every verse in Matthew refers to this Kingdom as OF heaven. So this Kingdom is on earth.....indeed to be correct in the Land/Palestine. Jerusalem over which most of the world travails at the moment afflicted with terrorism worldwide, yet out out of this travail is seen the Divine hand that will birth the City of the Book of Revelations 21 that rules over the nations of men. But it will have a heavenly Government and a heavenly Kingship....this time purposed, determined and planned in heaven and not of earth.

Having said that the Kingdom of the heavens is not to be confused with the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom of Heaven is mentioned some 30 times and always in relation to the Kingdom of heaven ON EARTH or what some may call the millennial Kingdom of Israel.

The Kingdom of God, on the other hand, is not a Kingdom we would ordinarily think of in human terms but rather God's extended family as Paul puts it "the Father of every family on heaven and earth." [Eph3:15 ]Whatever dispensation, whatever administration from Adam to the end of the ages. So the Kingdom of God is really about dominion and how extensive that dominion is to quote RAP "four kinds of ground, wheat and darnell (tares), drag net, & e", and from the point of view of relationship a family of God. Of course some translators have ignored the original Greek words and confused these two kingdoms. So the kingdom of God takes in much broader group of people, and includes the kingdom of the heavens.

Let me tell you Darby and the early brethren was onto something big, about the Assembly Of Christ. So big a problem it created for the God of this world, the "spiritual wickedness in high places" [Eph.6:12] these "rulers of darkness" [Eph.6:12]did their utmost to wipe it out in the leaders that followed, through constant division and arrogant spiritual pride. Yet there we are still a remnant left in Exclusive brethren to keep the faith once delivered to the saints, like my Grandfather who never tried to make a name for himself. Of course if he had he would have been withdrawn from like his brother. The only ministry he followed was J.B.Stoney.

Now this ministry of the Body of Christ is really the kernel of Paul's Gospel, it is the secret administration of our dispensation by which I mean that delivered to Paul [Col.1:25] During this administration[ which I prefer to dispensation] of Divine Grace, blindness has fallen upon a part of God's Kingdom the Israelites, UNTIL the Fullness of the Gentiles are complete.[Rom.11:25] This is a spiritual Kingdom[Eph.3:5 Concordant Translation] we are in now, when many are receiving "spiritual bodies" [1 Cor.15:44] like unto Christ, who are in this world but not of it. In fact kingdom is not the correct word to use, it is the Administration of the Headship of Christ, who has "raised us up and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ." [Eph.2:6]

The outer man is there but this outer man is being CHANGED as the inner man Christ renews itself day by day [2 Cor.4:16]. Paul said "I die daily" [1 Cor.15:31] this is a constant experience of dying, so one can be changed in an instant, in every moment through Divine Grace.

To refer back again to the parable of the drag net taking a sample, would be perhaps carrying the symbology of a parable too far, just as the Great Tree that fills all the earth would not be able to contain all the birds of the earth. John 10 is just as much a parable as an allegory, that is really semantics, allegory or parable both mean stories with a religious significance. As for John 20 it is strange that those so close to Him first beheld his glory in the resurrection as a gardiner. [John 20:15]

It seems to one that John's Gospel is breaking though to the spiritual side, what is beyond the natural senses, the Divine Sonship of Christ that not even those on the way to Emaus [Luke 24:13] could behold UNTIL He made Himself known to them in a shared meal. It seems to one the Gospels are full of Mystery....the mystery of God manifest in flesh.

John later in his life produced the Book of Revelations [The Unveiling of Christ] takes on the great theme of the Mystery of God and it's completion on earth and it is all about Israel again taking her rightful place amongst the nations. The nations the gentiles are able to walk in it's light [they are saved] but they are without the city....and this City the New Jerusalem has 12 gates containing the names of the 12 tribes of Israel and the foundations the 12 names of the apostles of the Lamb......it is entirely Jewish or of Israel.[See Rev.20]

Paul was not one of the 12 apostles of the Lamb whilst He was on earth. His Apostleship was of the Nations/Gentiles.[Gal.2:8] His commission was from a Man in the Glory of Heaven, that so blinded him on earth.[Acts9:3] Paul's Gospel goes beyond the Gospel of the Kingdom. Why? Because the Gospel of the Kingdom was well known, prior to Paul's receiving a Gospel from Jesus Christ directly in Arabia by revelation.[Gal.1:12] As it says : " By revelation he made known unto me the mystery; as I wrote afore in a few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men" [Eph.3:3-4.]

Now to reveal this mystery of Christ one will have to give the exact rendering of the Greek which almost all translators have failed to do on this passage [that is the influence of Rome which is dedicated to subverting all Scriptural truth] ""in SPIRIT the nations are to be joint enjoyers of an allotment, and a joint body, and joint partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the GOSPEL OF WHICH I BECAME A DISPENSER, in accord with the gratuity of God's Grace. "[ Eph.3:6-7] "I became a dispenser, in accord with the stewardship of God, which was granted me for you, to complete the word of God." [Col.1:25]

Let us not remain in our confinement, as those burdened Israelites who sat by the streams of Babylon and whose harps hung high on willows songless, giving up all hope of being in Canaan again. Heaven is NOW. It is the Divine Presence......"Christ in you the hope of glory."[Col1:27]

Edited 1 time by inseeing 04/23/10 4:47.