I hate both of your political parties. I have a better kingdom to tell you about, but first I want you to hate the kingdoms of this world as much as I do. I don't think you're really ready to hear about the Kingdom of Christ if you're still looking for a political party to save you.
I'm not impressed with the biblical quotations and allusions to the gospel that a politician makes in his speech. Don't you know the pharisees knew how to make a great speech and to quote scripture? Don't you think Satan himself does too? Jesus said "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." I say with John: "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." I'm not impressed by a politician's speech, until he starts walking his talk. Speaking is what they do. It's what they're good at. It's designed to make you love them, and to make you believe that all the things wrong are someone else's fault; and oh I can see it's working. I won't love them or praise them until they start holding rich and powerful perverts accountable for employing Jeffrey Epstein; until they start standing up against genocide in Gaza; until they stop oppressing the poor with debt and inflation; until they stop getting us involved in continuous wars; until they start criminalizing abortion at all stages and holding all responsible parties accountable for it. Now as much as ever is Isaiah's prophecy relevant:
"Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
“Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them."
These political parties are just kingdoms of this world. They are motivated by their lusts for power and fame and will say what they need to get it. We are called to a better Kingdom, one that is not of this world. This is where I hold my most valued citizenship and where I want to spend my energy growing. One of the beautiful things about the Primitive Baptists is that we make a clear distinction between the Church and the World. Almost every other denomination mixes the two together and it absolutely spoils the Church. Thankfully (but sadly) by withdrawing from worldly movements originating from the Church, the Primitive Baptists have kept the Kingdom that Christ established and preserves in the earth.
A key doctrine that keeps this distinction is the difference between the triumphant kingdom and the militant kingdom. This is ultimately the same Kingdom, but it's a distinction in when the Kingdom will be manifest as such (now in time or later in eternity). The triumphant kingdom is everyone that Jesus loves and saved, all of whom will enjoy His glory in loving communion for eternity. This kingdom is filled with a people that no man can number, that are redeemed out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. The triumphant kingdom includes all the seed promised in Abraham which are more than the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea. (It's clearly a large number but not universal in that God sovereignly did not love some and left them to their own reprobate nature to reap what they sow for eternity). The militant kingdom is a remnant of the faithful. Those that repent of their sinful mindsets and lifestyles. This is a small number of people. "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence." "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." These last quotations deal with the militant kingdom and refer to the Primitive Baptists. It's important to note that we do not believe that heaven will be limited to those in the militant kingdom of God, but other denominations, try as they might to expand the borders of their church to include the whole world cannot, and end up with a much too small view of heaven because they only see people with their shared religious values as being included in the triumphant kingdom.
Another way we know these manifestations are distinct is in the way the Kingdom is entered. In Colossians 1, we read of being translated (passive) into the Kingdom of his dear Son. In Luke 16 Jesus says that since John the Kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth (active) into. Clearly this is distinct domains if one is entered into passively and the other is entered into actively. In John 3, Jesus said except a man be born (passive) again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. He compares that Spiritual birth to the way wind blows--thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is EVERY ONE that is born of the Spirit. This Spiritual birth cannot be what is done by faith in the gospel because it is like the wind and not carried or directed through the agency of man. The entry to the triumphant kingdom is a circumcision of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
If you've been born again, and circumcised in your heart, you hate the world too and are probably already tired of it. 1 John 2:16-17 "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." Don't you want to come home to the Kingdom now and enjoy the earnest of your inheritance? I wish every one of God's born again would come home and leave the world behind them. Entering this domain, the visible or militant Kingdom, the Church; requires taking up a cross, crucifying the flesh, following the Lord through the watery grave, and living for Christ. What we gain by joining ourselves to the body of Christ, the Primitive Baptist Church, is worth way more than everything we lose.
