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Recently a young friend of mine sent me an article he was disturbed about.  A man, who no doubt is a sincere believer, was saying Christians should not be involved in government because, as he said, “God’s kingdom isn’t here on earth”.  He went on to put forth the idea that our work as Christians is to share the Gospel with the lost, not to lobby in government.  This is a common mistake I hear believers make.  They divide life into the “spiritual” and the “secular” parts.  In their thinking, neither is supposed to affect the other.

Is God’s kingdom only in heaven?  If that were true, why did God say in Genesis 1:26 that the reason He made us was so we would be “in His image, after His likeness, and have dominion over…all the earth”?  If we were made to look like God, live like God, and rule like God, as this verse teaches, whose kingdom did He desire to be on this earth?

Perhaps you’re thinking, but that was before man sinned in the Garden.  Is it still the will of God for us to rule with His authority in this present world?  Then also answer this:  Why did Jesus teach us to pray, after the fall of man into sin,

“Father…Your kingdom come, Your will be done in earth as it is [being done] in heaven”?

(Matthew 6:10)

Did Jesus not say, “The kingdom of God is within you?” (Luke 17:21)

It has always been the will of God to live inside believers and rule through them in this world.  He desires first to rule through us over our own fleshly desires.  This is internal self-government.  It is achieved as we submit to His indwelling Holy Spirit and believe that Christ took to the Cross all that was against His will.  Others see the dominion of the King of heaven in us as we live this way.  Literally, it is “Christ in us, the hope of glory”, (Colossians 1:27) ruling us internally and living His life through us in this present world.  Christ’s kingdom is shown through us now, on this earth!

If Christ can live through an individual and rule that individuals’ life, why could He not live through two individuals, a husband and a wife, and rule a family’s life.  If He could live through one family’s life, why couldn’t He live through a group of families?  Thus, the kingdom of God would be coming on this earth through those families.  We’re not saying those individuals in those families would be perfect, but we are saying the general course of their lives would show the indwelling rule of Christ.  If Christ could live through a group of families, wouldn’t that be a community allowing Christ to express His life through them?  What kind of education, economic, and governmental systems would that community have?  Wouldn’t the kingdom of God be being expressed through the institutions of their culture?  Would their education system teach the Gospel and it principles in all subjects of their schools?  Wouldn’t the civil government protect that kind of education system?

Ladies and Gentlemen, that’s exactly what our Pilgrim forefathers did when they came to this country in 1620.  Later, our Founding Fathers codified into law a national government which would protect that vision by civil law.  That is what makes this nation unique among all the nations of the world!

Samuel Adams, the Father of the American Revolution, stood up after the Declaration of Independence had just been signed and declared,

“This day we have restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient.  And from the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come!”

(579. Adams, Samuel. 1776, statement made while the Declaration of Independence was being signed. Charles E. Kistler, This Nation Under God (Boston: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, 1924), p. 71. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (NJ: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1977), p. 309.)

Don’t be deceived into leaving God’s kingdom in heaven!  Americans never thought that way until the 1920’s when liberalism began to steal from us the belief that God is Sovereign in this present world.  Don’t leave God in heaven- you’ll only miss out!  He will show up in somebody else’s life and change this world.  He is Lord of all!

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson; this has been Think About It.