The New Testament begins with an amazing book called Matthew, written by a renegade Jew who became a publican. People in those days when referring to sinners would say, “publicans and sinners,” because a publican was an appointee of the Roman government to collect taxes. You must picture the deep, intense loyalty that existed, almost to a point of fanaticism, in the Jewish community since the days of Judas Maccabeus. They would glorify anyone who would rise up like a George Washington to throw off the yoke of tyranny from them; this is what Judas Maccabeus had done. Consequently, even among the early disciples that were chosen, two were named Judas. Today to name a child Judas would not be like naming him after George Washington: people would remember Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Lord.
The intense patriotism of the Jewish people caused the Pharisees and the scribes to be at one end of society while the harlots and the publicans were at the other end. You must realize there were not many harlots in those days because the morals of the Jews were much higher than most people realize, far higher than the morals of today. When they spoke of the harlots and the publicans, they were speaking of the lowest level of their society. Yet Jesus said that the harlots and the publicans come into the Kingdom ahead of everyone else (Matthew 21:31).
Read the book of Galatians along with the book of Matthew, for together they contain much revelation. It is significant that the New Testament begins with a book by Matthew, and that Matthew, a renegade of the Jews who turned to become a Christian, quoted more of the Old Testament Scriptures in his Gospel than any other Gospel writer.
Matthew was concerned about showing the Jewish people who had the Old Testament Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. It is strange that a man who was rejected by Jewish society was the man God moved upon to bring the gospel of the Kingdom to its full emphasis in the New Testament, but that is the way the Lord moves. “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first” (Matthew 19:30). In order to have a beautiful herald of His Kingdom, God uses the man who is last to come and proclaim the word first.
We are in the first stage of the remnant of the sons of God coming forth to preach the gospel of the Kingdom to the ends of the world. Nevertheless, it appears as if God made a big mistake because we are, in a sense, rejects from formal and organized Christianity; we do nothing the way they think it should be done, yet how effective we are. God brings in the outcasts, and after awhile they are pastoring churches. While other churches are closing down, we will be opening new churches. These things cannot be explained without the realization that the Lord is taking those who were last and making them first. It is this period of reversals which shows us that indeed the day of the Kingdom has come. We accept it wholeheartedly and stand and prophesy the word of the Lord with all that is within us.
The Sermon on the Mount, as it has been termed in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, presents a beautiful picture of the principles of the Kingdom, the spiritual laws of the kingdom. As you read it, you become aware that none of the teaching seems to be practical.
Jesus taught in Matthew 5 that if anyone wants to borrow from you, you are to lend to him not even expecting its return; and if someone persecutes you, you are to jump up and down for joy. If a man strikes you on one cheek, you are to turn the other cheek; and if he takes away your coat, you are to give him your cloak also.
These things do not seem to be practical but remember that nothing in the Kingdom seems to be very practical. The man who is living by the principles of the Kingdom must be sure that none of his responses are the human responses of the law of the jungle. Rather, they must all be the divine responses of the Kingdom of God. You must walk without responding to the low human level of the law of the jungle.
Many are the people who say, “Fight back. It is dog eat dog; have no mercy. Look out for number one. God helps those who help themselves.”
When you come to the Kingdom, you realize what a lie that is. That is how people on the human level survive: not to live, but just to exist. We are not interested in existing. We want to live gloriously and have abundance of life. Jesus did not come to destroy our lives nor to put us into a narrow groove. He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). God intends for us to reach into the flow of life that belongs to the sons of the Kingdom. In the Gospel of Matthew, He laid down principles of the Kingdom that we are to walk in. Why is God now emphasizing the principles of the Kingdom? We used to stress other things, such as New Testament order, but now we are emphasizing the principles of the Kingdom because we will not survive otherwise.
Matthew 7:24–29: “Therefore every one who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words Of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall.” The result was that when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
In other words, Jesus was saying, “I am giving you the principles of the Kingdom, the laws of the Kingdom of God. If you do not obey these laws, you will be swept away.” In the time of testing, we will fall flat on our face. Tremendous inventions and changes will take place. The person who has feet standing upon the rock is the person who has been doing the will of God.
The issue is not just your actions. Many churches are busy, and many people outside of churches are busy doing good works. However, when you are taught these principles, and you endeavor to walk in them; God will not leave you alone. You might sometimes feel as if there is no mercy, for as long as there is one area where you keep responding in the wrong way, the Lord will hold you down until you get rid of it. The old flesh must go. God will deal with you until you are walking as a son of God, not as a human being.
With God’s grace, He shall increase and we shall decrease (John 3:30). The key of this is in becoming so dedicated to see the divine, spiritual nature come forth, and the human nature with its reactions end, that we refuse to react with the anger, the selfishness, the vindictiveness and the ego of the human being. We must lay the flesh with its affections, lusts, propensities, and instincts before the Lord to be crucified.
The Kingdom’s rule is not one of self-preservation; it is one of self-crucifixion. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it. Matthew 16:25. It is a complete reversal. We are in the days of the Kingdom, and many things are very different in Kingdom thinking.
If you want to survive, you cannot think any other way than the way God’s Word says to think. The floods are coming. The rains are descending. We will be tested on every Word God gives us until it is written on our heart, and we will respond with the divine nature in all that we do and say. Will you be one who will stand, one who will come through? You will if you walk His way. There is no other way for you to live.
When you read the Word, ask the Lord to grant you the favor to make you one who thinks and reacts like God, one who is a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust (II Peter 1:4). All the corruption that is in the world has its force on you because of your flesh nature, so you must break loose of that. If you become strictly a spiritual person, and you walk in the Spirit, you will not (never in the Greek) fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).
In John 17, Jesus asked the Father to let His disciples be in the world, but not of the world. An immunity can be built up from within in us, so that the forces and the corruption of the world do not reach you, but they will if you walk after the flesh. You are constantly beset by the force and the power of the flesh and all that is in the world. You have within you that which reaches out and absorbs the contamination. However, if you walk in the Spirit, you have an immunity that has the authority to start throwing it off in the name of the Lord!
We still do not understand the contaminating, evil stench of the satanic forces of the world and what they want to bring against us. When a person begins to receive the gift of discernment, there is a sign that comes in the nose because of the abomination and stench of the things of the world. It is significant that the sense of smell is made most sensitive to correspond to the realm of the Spirit. How we want God to deliver us from the things of the flesh!
Matthew 7:15–23 tells us, “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not every one who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven (not every one who says, “Lord, Lord,” but the one who does the will of God). Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ ”
The lawlessness and rebellion of the age is mingled in many of those who say they prophesied in His name and did many mighty works. God will bring them into judgment. We are in the days of the Kingdom, and no one will enter the Kingdom simply because they says, “Lord, Lord,” or prophesies and does a few miracles. God is concerned about the one who does the will of the Father.
To do the will of the Father, you must first become the will of the Father. In the realm of the Kingdom, you cannot do something until you become something. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit (it is impossible), nor can a rotten tree produce good fruit. Not every one who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.” For you, not to do it is lawlessness, and rebellion is in your heart. It does not make any difference how good the imitation is that you produce. Your dedication is to do the will of the Lord, then your actions please the Master. You must not think that the Lord will be pleased by the number of hours you are working for Him. The Lord will be pleased by the quality of your spirit first, and then by the hours you work. You must enter into the spiritual battle which God allows, because unconsecrated hands cannot build. Only humble people dedicated to the Lord will build. Your dedication to the Lord comes first, then your works are acceptable.
If you want to do the will of the Lord, you first must become the will of the Lord. It must be within you. You can do many things, yet He might say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” He wants you to have a personal relationship with Himself. This is what the Kingdom of God is. The kingdom of God is a family, it is not the number of churches; nor is it a matter of a certain amount of activities, money, or organization. God forbid that we ever have that kind of standard.
For instance, a Sunday School attendance record is not an evidence of what is being accomplished in God. In many cases, Sunday School may only be police action for an hour until the children are returned to their parents. That is not doing the work of the Kingdom of God. That is an abomination to Him. It is better not to number the children, but rather to minister something to each child’s spirit, loving him and talking to him about the Lord.
What you are in your spirit counts first; then your actions have significance. All your works are as nothing if you do not first become the will of God, an expression of His very nature, and love Him with all your heart.
This is why God deals with you as He does. This is why you succeed and why He blesses you. For every time you are urged to volunteer a few hours of work, many more times you are urged by the word to open your heart and walk with a right spirit before the Lord. The man or woman who does this is entering into the Kingdom.
Jesus said to the Scribes and Pharisees, … the publicans and harlots are getting into the kingdom of God before you. Matthew 21:31. This was because they came first for a change of heart, and then their service flowed. The Pharisee had no change of heart. In his self-righteous flesh, he presented himself with his actions as though God would accept them, but God rejected them.
We want to react just the way God says to in the Word. Each of us has a few points to work on. Our previous ways of living before we knew the Lord recorded in our physical brain gets triggered and keeps coming back and we react on a human plane, so we ask the Lord for deliverance.
We are beginning to think of ourselves as sons of the Kingdom. We thought of ourselves as “citizens” before, but in the Kingdom, we have been born into His family and household as children of the King. We are a royal family; brothers and sisters, and sons of His love.
It is a great and beautiful Kingdom; ALL things are New, ALL relationships are new, and every effort is dignified because we are laboring in His will. The expression and outflow of His very nature and power within us is reaching out into every area. What a beautiful day this is in our walk with God! What a precious, significant hour we are in right now!
When we partake of the Communion, we must remember what He is trying to tell us in it. He said, “Unless you eat of Me, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). It is not what we are on the human level; it is what we are participating in through His very life. His body and His blood are coursing through us, and we assimilate Him. We partake of His nature. His words become the food by which we live, and His very teachings are the law of our lives. Our steps are ordered in His counsel and His will. We open our hearts, and whatever our need it is found in Him. All of our times and all of our needs are met in Him. We are partakers of that unfailing and only source of life and strength.
How we glorify and exalt our only Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. Blessed be His name forever. Blessed be our hearts together as we are knit into one. Let there be nothing of discouragement upon us.