15Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”Revelation 11:15
This means the coming the Kingdom of God is taking over the world. Yes, the kingdom has come but the final outcome of Rev. 11:15 is not here, yet. So, the Kingdom is coming. And it is a war fought by Christ and through his people, Christians.
Now this militant language may make some of us uncomfortable, but it is the language of the bible, take the Armor of God for example. But this is the most unusual war. It is not fought with weapons or with any physical force of man. Jesus already accomplished the winning battle as he died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the death to give us new life. In this Jesus broke the power of sin and death so that they no longer hold us in slavery. The good news that Jesus save is ground zero for the Kingdom of God.
Everyone who is saved is someone who has switched from the kingdom of darkness and from the enemy, the devil to the Kingdom of God and become a servant of Christ. Everyone won over to the Kingdom of God is a great victory in God's battle for the world. For the two kingdoms are about who serve whom, not about land and buildings and the like. Everyone who becomes a Christian is freed from bondage to sin and the devil and to the fear of death. Christians have had their mind set free to see the world and the truth of God's word as God gives them. Christians have been given new desires and attitudes that strive for the truth of who God is and who he is to us.
It also means we are fighting for the truth. One way we do this is, we take every thought captive and bring them into submission to Christ. This has to do with speaking and teaching all the truth of the whole Bible. It also, has to do with reasoning from the truth of God's word the implications for our world. One example is that since there is a personal, all knowing, all wise and all good God who created all things, he is the standard of good and evil, right and wrong. His standard is absolute. Without such a God there are no absolutes and every morality is relative, one that those in power enforce. One consequence of this for the world is we have human rights because we have such a God. Otherwise there are no human right except those imposed by the powerful. So, we are to reason with the world, not just say words to the world. We are to strive for the truth in public through whatever means possible. Such reasoning and proclaiming take place in the academic level, personal sharing level and in editorial about what is the right way to treat women, babies and black lives. It is not, then, just religious talk.
We 2) We live transformation lives by ever conforming to the truth. God's Word is the standard for both of these. When our living and our reasoning / speaking both match God's Word, we have a powerful weapon for Christ. Transformation lives ever conforming to the truth are seeking to live more and more like Jesus did. This is not just about living personally moral lives. We do so by striving to the welfare and dignity of our fellow man. When Jesus came proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, he read from Isaiah 61:"1The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners," We are to do so as part of fighting for the truth. I encourage you to reflect more on Isaiah 6:1 in its context.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Mac