Matthew 6:10 “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
It would seem that one of the differences between church and kingdom thinking (although, I believe, they should be compatible) is that kingdom thinking will lead us more towards the challenges as well as problems in the cities, countries and not just our personal lives and well-being (although that is important).
For example, before the Civil War we see the church heavily involved in drafting some our most important documents, starting schools (including our Ivy League Universities) and placing godly leaders into places of prominence in government, judicial system, media and the market place. In other words, the church took the lead in cultural reform.
However, after the war a sense of hopelessness came into the scene and the focus of the church was not so much on the kingdom, but on the return of Christ and the rapture. After the Civil War there were several Great Awakenings, but then came WW1 and WW2 that again began to focus our attention on the return of Christ and the rapture.
Not that the return of Christ and the rapture are not important, but the result has been that the culture has been lost to the secularists who stepped in when the church withdrew. God’s people began to isolate themselves from the threats of Darwinism, Sigmund Freud and psychology and the different phases our culture was going through like the Industrial Revolution and now the Information Age where knowledge doubles every one or two years. But, according to some estimates, by 2020 knowledge will double every 72 days.
Because of this isolation we see signs of decay all around us, but especially in America and Western civilization. We see the breakdown of the family. In 1960, 72% of adults were married. Today it is about 50%. Today we are discussing and debating what marriage is. Is marriage the union between a man and a woman, or now, between two men or two women?
Our education from our primary schools to our elite universities, have been educating our children on relativistic, immoral and statist ideas. It is said that 75% of youth raised in Christian homes who attend secondary public schools lose their faith (about 25% who go to Christian schools lose their faith). And for Christians going to secular colleges, somewhere between 71 – 88% deny the faith by the time they graduate.
Stephen McDowell cofounder of the Providence Foundation and president of its Biblical Worldview University said: “The family is God’s chief instrument of Dominion. It is God’s primary tool for extending His kingdom – His government – in the Earth. Children are arrows or weapons that God gives the family to prepare to shoot into the culture for the good of our future. (Psalms 127:4) “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth.” If the family is faulty, the fulfillment of the mission wanes and the nation will decline.
Kingdom thinking sees this problem and will take action. It sees not just the salvation and repentance of an individual, but also the transformation and restoration in our culture and country. Can this be done? The answer is yes! We have seen it in the past and we can see it today.
Patrick of Ireland was about 58 years old when God sent him back to Ireland to fulfill his destiny and over the next 28 years brought about the great transformation in a nation that anyone has seen in his lifetime. Not only did he see the transformation of the nation but the fruit of his work not only transformed a nation, but a continent.
We look at a man like Wycliffe who translated the Bible into the English language in 1382 that brought a revival that was so great that up to half of the population of England became followers of Wycliffe’s teaching. We see the same thing with Martin Luther of the Reformation, as well as men like John Calvin, etc.
In the United States we can look back at the first great awakening spurred on by men like John Wesley, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards and many others.
Looking back at history we see that ‘now’ is the time in our Western Hemisphere to see another Great Awakening.
Frank Dietz – OM International – Minister at Large