King Jesus

The “church” and the “Kingdom” are synonyms for the same institution, Scripturally speaking. Those today who refuse to accept, acknowledge, and respect the church of Christ (Romans 16:16), which is Christ’s Kingdom (Matt. 16:18-19), precisely as King Jesus established it through His apostles (John 14:15-23, Acts 2:1-4, 37-47, 2nd Peter 1:20-21, John 17:6-17) in Acts 2-Rev. 22, are rebelling against what King Jesus Himself decreed, and thus against His Kingship and complete authority (Matt. 28:18-20; Col. 1:11-23), and therefore, against the King Himself. (It is simply absurd to believe that it is possible to rebel outright against what any king has decreed, and still be considered as loyal to that king-see Daniel 3 & 6!) Their rejection of Christ’s Decrees and Authority is extremely similar to what God’s O.T. people desired in 1^st Samuel 8:4-19, and the end result for today’s rebellious children will be no less severe.

            While Israel ’s leadership (vs. 4) wanted to be like “…all the other nations…” (vs. 5) around them, instead of following God’s established pattern (thus honoring Him as God), today’s church of Christ leadership that wants to be like all the other churches around them with instrumental music, female leadership roles, salvation supposedly occurring before and/or even without baptism, and fellowshipping the Biblically unimmersed and unsaved instead of lovingly leading them to the Truth, have rejected Jesus Christ as their King just as surely as the Jews rejected God as their King (vs. 7). And all of them will suffer at the hands of the God they’ve rejected, in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine (vs. 18, also see 2^nd Peter 2, Hebrews 10:26-31).

            One of the key phrases utilized continually by today’s rebelling children, is how they “…just want to be followers of Jesus.”; a statement which they seemingly have absolutely no clue about how to implement in their lives. They want the head (which is Christ), without the body, which is His church (Ephesians 1:22-23); and a headless corpse is dead either way.

            Scripturally, to truly follow Christ, one must walk as He did: 1^st John 2:3-6. So, how did He walk?

-In obedience to God’s Commands (1 Jn. 2:3).

-In obedience to God’s Truth (1 Jn. 2:4; see also John 17:17).

-With God’s will as the 1 true sustenance, and most important consideration in His life (Jn. 4:31-34).

-Pleasing God instead of Himself (John 5:30).

-Doing God’s will (John 6:38) no matter what the cost (Matthew 26:36-44).

-Teaching only what God decreed (John 7:16-18, 8:28-29, 2^nd Peter 1:20-22, 2^nd Timothy 3:16-4:4)

-Exactly as God wanted (John 14:30-31).

            Scripturally, that is precisely, exactly, and exclusively what those who are truly following Jesus are to do: Matthew 7:21-23, 12:50, Luke 12:47, John 14:15-23. For anyone to claim to follow Jesus, and yet teach anything other than what God decreed in His Word, or worse still, to teach those things which counteract and/or contradict any part of it, are, according to God Himself, “hypocrites”, “liars”, and “hypocritical liars”-God’s words, not mine: Matthew 15:7-9, John 8:42-47, 1^st John 2:3-6, 1^st Timothy 4:1-3. And God says that their worship is in vain; Matthew 15:3-14.

            The questions we must answer are: Who’s our King? Who are we really following? Who will be King here in years to come? Who will our children be following when we’re gone?  We need to decide individually not only where we are, but where we’re going to be down the road. Will Jesus still be King here when we’re no longer around? We also need to decide whether or not we truly have the Christian love, strength, and concern for any of our ignorant or uninformed brethren who are being unwittingly led astray by their leadership, to seek to help them back onto the straight and narrow (Matt. 7:13-23) if possible; because if we don’t have, we’d better question our own convictions and obedience, and repent.

In the Love of God and His Eternal Truth, Douglas E. Dingley, evangelist