This past Sunday (8/13/17) I heard a sermon on Luke 9:57-62. Verses 59-60 are important for the following discussion:

As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”

Jesus was not saying that a man should not take care of his father’s funeral arrangements if, in fact, his father had died. There were those who took care of Jesus’ burial, and they did it quickly. He was buried the day He died. All four gospels report that on the evening of the crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea requested Jesus body from Pilate. After Pilate granted the request, Jesus was wrapped in a linen cloth and placed in the tomb.

It seems that the man who was asking for a temporal reprieve from following Jesus was more attached to his past than what Jesus was offering for the future by following Him:

The form of the petition may mean either (1) that his father was then actually dead, and that the disciple asked leave to remain and pay the last honours to his remains, or (2) that he asked to remain with his father till his death. The latter seems by far the most probable. In the East burial followed so immediately on death that the former would hardly have involved more than the delay of a few hours. In the latter case the request was, in fact, a plea for indefinite postponement. This at least fits in best with the apparent severity of our Lord’s answer.

The lesson here is that God’s kingdom comes before everything else. It doesn’t mean that everything else is ignored; it just means that everything else pales in comparison. And I can assure you that the political kingdoms of the Left and Right (Alt-left and Alt-right included) are of little consequence when it comes to God’s kingdom since all other kingdoms (and they are kingdoms) are Kingdom usurpers.

I believe we are living in God’s kingdom, a kingdom that John the Baptist said was “near” and requires repentance (Matt. 3:2). We are called to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (6:10). This is not a prayer of waiting for a kingdom to come; it’s a prayer about doing God’s will now! We must move on beyond the basics as the writer to the Hebrews pointed out:

Concerning [the high priest Melechizadeck who was a type of Jesus] we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. And this we will do, if God permits.  (Heb. 5:11-6:1-3).

Some people don’t want to grow. They’re content with theological and political immaturity.

These monuments don’t mean a thing to me and they shouldn’t mean a thing to you. Having said this, Democrats, spineless Republicans, and the media are using this issue to advance a counter kingdom that is designed to be purely ideological and political built around the religion of humanism. The goal is to overthrow the existing order that has already been slipping from our grasp. It’s not that the other side is so strong; it’s that we don’t have a clear this-world objective.

Millions of Christians have their “rapture” bags packed ready to be beamed up to heaven. Their take on what is going on is believed to be prima facie evidence that we are living in the last days with a solar eclipse passing across the United States on August 21, talk of war from North Korea, economic uncertainty, moral degradation, and other seemingly “end of the world” signs. It’s because of the constant barrage of prophetic speculation that I wrote Wars and Rumors of Wars.

Available at the end of August

Wake up! End-time speculation has a long-time failed history. Multiple times in every generation prophetic prognosticators arise and proclaim, “This is it. This time is different. It’s really happening. Jesus is coming soon. The earth is a sinking Titanic. You don’t polish brass or rearrange the deck chairs on a sinking ship.”

And while millions of Christians fall for the speculation, our enemies build their kingdom in plain sight right under our noses. It’s time we abandon lost causes and press on to the future by taking control of our lives by distancing ourselves from political gods who promise us a utopia that they cannot deliver. It will mean saying no to the government in places that are a relic of the past like the public (government) school system. If we aren’t willing to do this, then we deserve to have our freedoms and liberties eclipsed.

If you really want to make America Great Again, abandoning government indoctrination is the place to start.