Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”
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Jesus Came to earth 2000 years ago not to set up His Kingdom but that the world through Him might be saved. Saved from the wrath of God. For God is angry with the wicked everyday. God displays his wrath against the wicked in many ways in scripture. As the letter of Jude explains " As Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire"...2 Peter chapter 3 the apostle writes.
In Jude "And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;" Sodom and Gomorrah a type on earth of what eternity will consist of for the unrepentant without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit; that inward circumsion of the heart in the spirit.
As Jesus proclaimed to a ruler of the jews, a pharisee named Nicodemus...."“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Rom. 2:28-29; John 3:5-8)
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The Apostle Paul in writing to the Corinthian church told them,"Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators,(the sexually immoral--any sexual contact outside the marriage bond of a male and female) ) nor idolaters,(image worship or devine honor paid to any created object) nor adulterers, nor homosexuals {catamites, those submitting to homosexuals; effeminate persons-self-polluters, who submit to unnatural lusts.} , nor sodomites {abusers of themselves with mankind}, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. Then Paul adds "And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." (Jude 1:7; 2Peter2:6; 1 Cor. 6:9-11)
To other churches Paul said, You have been bought at a price. Honor God with your body and your spirit which are God's....For if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, All things have become new....James told the church "do not merely listen to the word and so decieve yourselfess. Do what it says...." Paul again stressed, " Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving." (1 Cor. 6:20; 2 Cor. 5:17;James 1:22; Col. 2:6-8)
For the word of God is living and active....the word enlightens a follower of Christ....the word shows us the way...the word guides and teaches us in all things related to God and the walk and life of His chosen people. The word of God contains our game plan for living on the earth and among its fallen inhabitants, who are influenced by the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience and are by nature children of God's wrath. As also all God's people were at one time, fulfilling the lust of the flesh and of the mind. But now you have been born again not of perishable seed but imperishable seed through the living and enduring word of God. Jesus Christ came that we may have life, abundant life now and everlasting life, a citizenship in heaven and a place in the new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells.
God has been pleased to open your heart to the truth by grace through faith and not of yourselves. For no one can come to Christ unless the Father who sent Him draws therm. Salvation is a gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast. (Gal. 2:8-10) For God has called you from spiritual darkness into His marvelous light, you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (2 Peter 2:9) For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. (Col. 1:12-13)
That dominion of darkness was/is that broad road traveled on by the majority of those in this fallen world. Those born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, are those who travel on the narrow road that leads to everlasting life. Where they will glorify God and enjoy Him forever. But those who are on the broad road travel down a path where all hope is extinquished forever. A place where we're told a rich man begged for relief from the agony of the flames. And asked that his five brothers might be warned not to come to the place of torment. What is this place so called. It is the dreaded doctrine of Hell. Not a subject that many want to discuss. It is a topic shunned by many as a doctrine created that many refuse to believe. God in fact would never have such a place where He sends the wicked. Yet the very Son of God. Jesus the Christ spoke more above Hell than any other prophet or apostle in the scriptures.
Some of His descriptions of Hell are downright scary and loathsome to many a disbelieving conscience. It just doesn't seem fair to many. So discussion of it is to be avoided. Yet God's One and Only Son Jesus, referred to Hell more than anyone else in scripture. He defined it in a number of ways. It is a place of weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Some call this a symbolic expression and anguish and regret of those who reject Him and are separted from God forever. It is a warning about the consequences of rejecting Christ and not having faith in Him.
Other times Jesus calls Hell A flaming furnace....an eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.... (NOTE: the fallen angels who follow satan in his disobedience and rebellion toward God. His messengers are those who love and practice a lie) Hell is the place where the body and soul are punished after death and are absent from the presence of God and glory of God's power....(2 Thess. 1:7-10) It is the hell of fire.....the lake of fire in which a human being is thrown if their name is not written in the book of life....and where the torment of those with the mark of the beast goes on forever and ever. (Rev. 14:11;20:15) It is Sodom and Gomorrah, indulging in perverted carnality, all those who practice sexually immoral practices, pursing unnatural desires and serve us as an example, a type of what happens to those who are defiant to God's command by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)
It is an outer darkness, shame and everlasting contempt, the second death for the unredeemed...for the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). But for those who have done good, to believe, trust and obey to the resurrection of life everlasting. But for those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:29) For there is no one righteous....No not One but Jesus Christ. Who came to rescue His people from the dominion of spiritual blindness that plagues the entire human race. For there is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 14:12)
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.(Gal 5:19-21) Sin enslaves us to the lust of the flesh. To drop our guard and indulge in lowly carnal pleasures that corrupt and destroy the soul. Where a heart is finally hardened and insensative to the ways of a Holy, Righeous and Perfect God.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom. 10:9)
Saved from the Hell of wrath....from the fire that is not quenched which scripture says is eternal conscious punishment. Jesus said if anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. (John 15:6) To confess Christ Jesus as your savior and Lord and be born from above is to throw off the shackles of slavery to sin to a new life where you are washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.( 1 Cor 6:9-10) Jesus answered the people, "My kingdom is not of this world."—The answer of Jesus is two-fold, declaring (1) in this verse, that He is not a King in the political sense; and (2) in John 18:37, that He is a King in the moral sense. (ellicotts) His kingdom is not of a worldly nature, nor is it established by worldly means. Had it been so, Jesus said my servants would have striven to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews.(espositors)
The word for ‘servants’ here is the same as is rendered ‘officers’ in John 18:3; John 18:12; John 18:18; John 18:33, John 7:32; John 7:45-46 which contains an allusion to the officials of the Jewish hierarchy. In Luke 1:2, the only other place in the Gospels where the word is used of Christians, it is rendered ‘ministers,’ as also in 1 Corinthians 4:1, the only place where the word occurs in the Epistles. (Cambridge Bible)
They charged him with attempting to set up an earthly kingdom, and of exciting sedition against Caesar. Jesus did claim to be a king, but not in the sense in which the Jews understood it.The kingdoms of the world are defended by arms; they maintain armies and engage in wars.
If the kingdom of Jesus had been of this kind, he would have excited the multitudes that followed him to prepare for battle. He would not have been alone and unarmed in the garden of Gethsemane. His dominion was over the heart, subduing evil passions and corrupt desires, and bringing the soul to the love of peace and unity.(Barnes) So far as Christ is King, his royal power and state are not furnished by earthly force, or fleshly ordinances, or physical energies, or material wealth, or imperial armies.The dominion that he will wield will be one over hearts and lives. He must reign, and he alone. This kingdom is not "from," "out of," this world's methods or resources; (Pulpit commentary)
He is a king anointed by his Father from everlasting; prophesied of in the Old Testament; declared by the angel, both when he brought the news of his conception, and of his birth; His Kingdom is more spiritual, not of this world; the subjects of Christ's kingdom are not of the world, they are chosen and called out of it; it will not fail, when this world does, and the kingdoms thereof. Every thing that is carnal, sensual, and worldly, must be removed from our conceptions of Christ's kingdom, it does not rise out of, nor proceed upon, nor is it supported by worldly principles,
Christ affirms his spiritual kingdom, but rejects a worldly one. It's as John the Apostle said, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh (craving of sinful man), the lust of the eyes, (as with Eve who saw the fruit ws pleasing to the eye, though God warned her not to eat of it or she would surely die) and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.(1 John 2:15-17)
It seems that some in the church believe their church will remain (it's building that is) at the second coming of Christ. I even knew a Christian who believed things wouldn't change too much in the new heavens and earth. Scripture debunks that premise with the apostles telling us that this whole world be be laid bare...burned up....that even the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat. That all will be disolved. That Jesus will return in flamming fire taking vengence on those who do not know God or obey Him....Rev 21 explains that the first heaven and earth will pass away and there will be a new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells. The old order of things will pass away. And he who is seated on the throne proclaims, "I am making everything new." For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. We will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. (1 Cor 15:50-58)
What there is now in this world will will day be wiped from existence. God will establish a New Heaven and New Earth where righteousness dwells. All God's chosen people will rise up in new glorified bodies at the resurrection of the dead at Jesus second coming. For the eternal life we will spend in the presence of God and the glory of His power. The only way to secure that eternity is in the One who came down from heaven, The Son of God/the Son of man--For Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, He died, was buried and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For the believer in God's One and Only Son will then in eternity glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
But for those who reject the Way, the Truth and the Life, the only name under heaven by which anyone is saved...."Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices a lie." What awaits the wicked unbelieving, in the only name by which one is saved, is only a certain fearful expection of judgement and the perdition of the ungodly. For it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, who is a consuming fire.
But for those born again, born from above by grace through faith a new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells, they are invited into the holy city, New Jerusalem. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
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