JESUS IS COMING AGAIN IN ? (2)

2012-02-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

The children of God who are worthy to partake of this kingdom shall be richly rewarded. This kingdom of heaven on earth shall begin at the sound of the seventh trumpet according to Revelation 11:15:

‘And the seventh angel sounded: and there were great voices in heaven, saying THE KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD HAVE BECOME THE KINGDOMS OF OUR LORD AND OF HIS CHRIST: AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER.

However, the kingdom, of heaven on earth shall come to an end according to I Corinthians 15:24-25 when Christ shall have brought all enemies under his feet and then hand over all things including himself under the authority of God the Father, “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father; When He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power for He must reign, till he has put all enemies under his feet.

It is after these events, that the heavens and the earth shall pass away and the new heavens and the new earth shall be created wherein, God’s children shall spend eternity.

(2). GOD’S TREATMENT OF ETERNAL LIFE:

God treats eternal life as a gift. Romans 6:23 says; “ The wages of sin is death: but the gift of God is eternal life Through Jesus Christ our Lord ‘’

A gift is something we do not work for. Hence all we need to do to have eternal life is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.

On the other hand God does not treat the Kingdom of heaven as a gift but as a reward.

A reward is something you work for. It is not for free. In Mathew 7:21 Jesus Himself said: “ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven ‘’

That means entering the Kingdom of heaven is a reward for doing the will of the Father.

Who are the people who call Jesus, Lord, Lord ? In 1 Corinthians 12:3, we read: “ Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed and that no man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. ‘’

This shows that the people who call Jesus, Lord, Lord are people who have had an experience with the Holy Ghost; and if any one has ever had any experience with the Holy Ghost; the first experience he would receive is to be made a child of God. It was therefore not to unbelievers that Jesus was speaking but to children of God. Mathew 7:21 is part of the Sermon on the Mount and this sermon begins from Mathew chapter 5. In Mathew 5:1-2 we see the kind of people Jesus was speaking to. It reads: “ And seeing the multitudes, He went up unto a mountain; and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him. And He opened his mouth and taught them saying. ‘’ You can see that Jesus was not preaching the Sermon on the Mount to the multitude who could include unbelievers. He preached it to only His disciples and no one can be a disciple of Christ without first being a child of God. Moreover in Mathew 5:48, Jesus actually referred to these disciples as the children of God. He said to them: “ Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. ‘’

This was a very revolutionary statement. Remember all those disciples were Jews and in the Jewish tradition, to say that God is your Father was a crime punishable by death.

They were even ready to stone Jesus for calling God His Father. In John 5:17-18, we read: “ But Jeseus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal to God ‘’. To the Jewish mind, a man brings forth a man and an animal brings forth an animal. Therefore if God also has as a child, then the child must be God. And since they cannot accept that a man can be God, anyone who called himself a child of God was seen as a blasphemer who must be killed. That was why the Jews never called themselves the children of God. They called themselves the children of Israel. It was among such people that Jesus referred to His disciples as God’s children. He credited the sonship of the disciples to them even before His death and resurrection. Yet to these same children of God He said, “ Not everyone that calls me Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven ‘’ . This clearly shows that the fact that you are a child of God, by virtue of the fact that you have received eternal life through faith in Christ is no guarantee that you will enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is because the Kingdom of heaven is not a gift. It is a reward for the children of God who do the will of their Father in heaven. That was why the pardoned thief who died on the right side of Jesus on the cross could not be promised the Kingdom even though that was what he asked for. Jesus could only promise him paradise, which is different from the Kingdom of heaven. In Luke 23:42-43 we read: “ And he said unto Jesus, Lord remember me when thou cometh into thy Kingdom. And Jesus saith unto him, truly I say unto thee, today shall thou be with me in paradise ‘’ .

Paradise is just a transitional place for the righteous dead until the return of Jesus to reward his servants. The thief was saved at the last minute. He received eternal life but was not qualified to enter into the kingdom of heaven because he had never done any work for God. This must be a warning to people who think they can cheat God by living in worldliness almost all their life and then escape by giving their lives to Christ a few weeks or days before they die Apart from the fact that you can die suddenly without having the chance to give your life to Christ; you will miss the kingdom of heaven even if you receive Christ and for that matter eternal life, just before you die. The reason is clear. The kingdom of heaven is not a gift, but a reward for the works you have done according to the will of your Father in heaven.

(3) MAN’S METHOD:

Man’s method of receiving eternal life is Faith. John 6:47 reads: “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that beliveth on me hath everlasting life ‘’ . On the other hand, man’s method for entering into the Kingdom of heaven is works. Mathew 7:21, Jesus said it is those who do the will of his Father in heaven that will enter into the Kingdom. Again in Mathew 5:20, Jesus said: “ For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven ‘’.

Remember the righteousness of the Pharisees was not imputed righteousness, which comes by faith. It was the righteousness of works. Christ comes to live in us to express His life through us to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law. Thus he never leaves us to the exercise of our own strength to fulfill the law as the Scribes and Pharisees did. Christ outside us is the lawgiver but Christ in us is the law keeper. If however we have Christ in us but do not allow him to express His life through us to fulfill the law, then we have ourselves to blame. It is for this reason that Philippians 2:12-13 says: “ Wherefore my beloved, as ye have always obeyed not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure “”

No one is called to work for his own salvation. Jesus has already worked for our salvation for us. This salvation is His life that is imparted into our spirit. However, it is our responsibility to work out (not work for ) our salvation, which God has worked in us. That means, we must allow the life of Christ in us to be expressed through us. This is something we must do with fear and trembling. Today’s Christians think once you are a child of God, there is nothing to tremble about so some choose to live anyhow. But 1 Peter 4:17-18 warns saying: “ For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ? ‘’ We must always understand that when Christ returns, His judgment will begin at God’s own house which is the Church. The New Testament reveals a hundred and fifteen times, where the word “ believe is used that, salavation comes only through believing, Where the word “ faith is used, the NewTestament reveals rhirty-five times that salvation comes only through faith. But this is salvation in terms of eternal life as distinct from salvation in terms of entering the kingdom of heaven. For example in Ephisians 2:8-9, the Apostle Paul says : “ For by grace are ye saved. Through, faith, and that not of your self, it is the gift of God : Not of works. Lest any man should boast ‘’. Yet in James 2:14 the Apostle James says: “ What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man says he hath faith and hath not work ? Can faith save him ? ‘’ The obvious answer the Apostle James was expecting was a “no” . Now if you do not know the difference between eternal life and the Kingdom of heaven, you may think that the two Apostles are contradicting themselves in the scriptures. But there is no contradiction at all in the scriptures if we allow the Holy spirit to shed light on them. The truth is that the two Apostles are talking about entirely different things. While Paul is talking about salvation in terms of eternal life, James is talking about salvation in terms of the Kingdom of heaven. While Faith alone is required for one to receive eternal life, faith alone is not enough for one to enter into the kingdom. To enter into the Kingdom, one must add works to his faith. This is the position of James and never contradicts Paul’s position. They complement each other.

(4) MAN’S ATTITUDE:

(5) Concerning eternal life, Jesus never tells his disciples, to seek for it or strive for it. The children of God already have eternal life. That is what makes them children of God in the first place. Hence they do not have to seek, and pray and strive for what they already have. But concerning the kingdom of heaven, Jesus urges his disciples to pray for it, seek for it and strive for it. In Mathew 6:9-10, Jesus says, “ After this manner therefore pray: “ Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come’’. In Mathew 6:33 He says: “ But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness: Then in Luke 13:23 He says: “ Strive to enter in at the straight gate: for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ‘’.

Again in Mathew 11:12 He says: “And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force ‘’.

All four quotations regarding the Kingdom of heaven call for a prayerful, seeking, striving and forceful attitude on our part. None of this is required when it comes to eternal life or else eternal life also ceases to be a gift but becomes a reward. A comparison between eternal life and the Kingdom of heaven can be likened to the following story. The Government of Ghana grants scholarships to all Northern students in Ghana so that they can enjoy Secondary School education free of charge. This policy was adopted to bridge the gap between the North and the South in Education.

However, the fact that Northern students enjoy free secondary education does not mean that they can also receive their graduation certificates without working for it.

Before they can graduate from the School, they must work hard and pass their exams successfully. Eternal life is like entering the School on scholarship without any requirement of paying fees. It is free. But the Kingdom of heaven is like receiving a successful graduation certificate. It is something one must work hard in order to attain to.

(6) RANKS :

In eternal life, which shall be fully manifested in the New Jerusalem, there will be no differences in ranks amongst God’s children. But in the Kingdom of heaven, there is going to be differences in ranks among God’s children. Some will reign over ten cities and others will reign over five cities, according to Luke 19:17-19. Some will shine like the sun, others like the moon and others like the stars according to 1 Corinthians 15:41-42 and Daniel 12:1-3.

(6)

MAN’S WORTHINESS:

We do not receive eternal life because we are worthy. It is a gift of grace received only by faith. But to enter into the Kingdom of depends on our worthiness. In 2 Thessalonians 1:5, we read: “ Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgement of God that ye may be counted worthy of the Kingdom of God, for which also ye suffer? ‘’ In Luke 20:35, Jesus says: “ But they, which shall be counted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage ‘’.

The resurrection Jesus speaks about here is not the general resurrection unto life that every child of God who dies shall enjoy. This is a special resurrection, which is for only those children of God that will inherit the Kingdom of heaven, and it is a resurrection that we must strive to attain to. The Apostle Paul speaks of this in Philippians 3: 10-11 when he said: “ That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death: If by any means, I might ATTAIN unto THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD ‘’.

(7) SONSHIP AND SERVANTHOOD.

We enter into eternal life just because we are sons of God but we cannot enter into the Kingdom of heaven only because we are sons of God but also because we are faithful servants of His. ( Mathew 25:14-30). No one can become a servant of God in the New Testament except he is a son of God but sonship alone does not qualify one to inherit the Kingdom except it is manifested in faithful servanthood.

(7) GRACE AND RACE

Eternal life is a gift received by faith through faith through grace but the Kingdom of heaven is a crown received only after winning a race. Concerning eternal life, Ephesians 2:8 says: “ For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God ‘’. But concerning the Kingdom of heaven which is a Prize to be won, the Apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 9:24-27. “ Know ye not that they which run in a race ran all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible. I therefore so fun, not as uncertainly: so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. ‘’ Like an Olympic athlete who desires to win a prize, entering the Kingdom of heaven is a prize that requires rigorous selfdiscipline and growth towards perfection. Even the Apostle Paul acknowledged that if he did not keep his body under control and exercise self-discipline, he could miss the prize by being cast away. This does not mean that he would lose his eternal life but that he would lose his reward, which is the Kingdom. The subject here is not eternal life at all because eternal life is not a prize. It is a gift. A prize is a reward which is won and that refers to the Kingdom of heaven.

Dear reader, you have just finished reading about eight Solid differences between eternal life and the Kingdom of heaven. You are one of the blessed few that have come to this knowledge. This however does not answer all your questions? For example, you may want to know where the children of God who do not enter the Kingdom will be during the thousand years reign of Christ on earth. Questions like this are the reason why Berea Christian Fellowship exists to provide answers for you. You will agree with us that if we have to five answers to all your questions in this little write-up, then we shall need to write volumes. But the Bible is very clear that there is going to be a prison during the kingdom age where the children of God who are not doing His will shall be kept. They will serve prison sentences after which they shall be released. I am sure you will like to know the truth concerning all these. Jesus says: “ You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. ‘’ We invite you to join us at Berea Christian Fellowship, to search the scriptures to find the answers to all these questions that will be of eternal benefit to your spirit, soul and body. If you receive the truth about the Kingdom of heaven and begin to walk in these truths, all your needs shall be met. This is the promise of the Lord Jesus Himself.

But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness: and all these things shall be added unto you ‘’ ( Mathew 6:33)

Beloved reader, let no one deceive you. Your prosperity and well-being are in the Kingdom. There are so many counterfeit prosperity messages in the system, which do not place the Kingdom of heaven before you. This is a diabolical trick and deception of the devil. Let not the enemy trap you. True prosperity comes only by means of walking in Kingdom truths.

COME LET’S PREPARE FOR THE KINGDOM !!!

JESUS IS COMING AGAIN IN THE NEXT ....? (1)

2010-05-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

Image Source: End Time Ticking

Dear cherished reader,

You are most welcomed to benoplex3.com where we try to study, teach and discuss the word of God by revelation and not by our intellect or academic qualifications.

Do not skip to read this wonderful message as it would help you regarding your life on this planet earth. You see our

MOTTO : IS MAKING POWERFUL DISCIPLES

BENOPLEX IS A CHRISTIAN PLATFORM OR SITE which also believes in the Back to the Bible teachings like the Berea Academy. We re-examine the doctrines of contemporary theology and by the help of the Holy spirit throw more light on what the Bible teaches with the primary aim of getting the souls of God’s children saved and making them qualified for the Kingdom of heaven.

The end of a matter is better than its beginning that is why we are more concerned about the end. Where will you be after death? Death is some thing that is just inevitable. Man was not created to live for ever on this our planet called earth. A man who knows his destination can not be said to be lost that is why it is very necessary for us to know where we shall be after death. You see most of us have not been thinking about this. Primarily, there is a difference between eternal life and the kingdom of heaven

And also a difference between salvation of the spirit and salvation of the soul. .Unfortunately contemporary theology which is the basis of the contemporary church, does not show these differences. Hence born again Christians who have eternal life think they are also going to enter the kingdom of heaven automatically but this is a great deception.

Likewise born again Christians whose spirits are saved think their souls too are automatically saved which is another great deception. In this tract, the differences between salvation of the spirit and salvation of the soul are revealed.

TIME: Eternal Life as the term implies is for eternity. Eternity as our experience will be consummated after this earth and the heaven have passed away and a new earth and a new heaven are created, All born again children of God shall spend eternity in the New Jerusalem. (Rev 21:10).

On the other hand, the kingdom of heaven refers to a one thousand year reign of Christ on this same earth. It will be a reign of peace and prosperity for Satan shall be bound in a bottomless pit for those years. ( Rev. 20:1-3)

Continue Reading Part two

Endtime sermons and the Kingdom of God

JESUS IS COMING AGAIN IN ? (2)

JESUS IS COMING AGAIN IN THE NEXT ....? (1)