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My Vision of the Future

Every writer has his own bias or point of view that depends upon who or what he advocates. Personally, my bias is the Kingdom of God and its King, Jesus Christ. In my view Jesus has the divine right of kings to rule the world. Others deny His right and advocate instead the rule of man (democracy) or the right of certain men to rule, based upon other factors.

With the rise of secular democracies in the world, the right of God to rule His own creation has been disputed, even by Christians. The problem has been made worse by the fact that the Church abused its authority for so long in the past 2000 years. Secular democracies really represent the world's rejection of King Saul's reign. And to that extent, I can sympathize with the world, because I too can see the fallacies of King Saul.

But in studying the divine plan, I see that the rule of the corrupt Church was all prophesied much earlier in the story of King Saul's reign of rebellion. (In other words, the corrupt Church did not take God by surprise.) Both Saul and later the Church started out well, but degenerated after that. Saul was fully disqualified in his 18th year, and the Church was fully disqualified in its 18th Jubilee (900's A.D.). Church historians will immediately understand this, for they call that time period "the golden age of pornocracy" (i.e., rule by immoral behavior).

By the time Saul concluded his reign, he was consulting the witch of En-dor (1 Sam. 28:77). The seeds of his witchcraft were laid earlier when he rebelled against God, because "rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft" (1 Sam. 15:23). These seeds of rebellion produced ripe fruit by the end of his reign, even though he himself had persecuted the witches during his entire reign (1 Sam. 28:3). He had a spirit of religion, but did not realize that the spirit of witchcraft was in his own soul.

The world reacted against the corrupt rule of the Church, but they blamed God for the misdeeds of the Church. For this reason, they advocated secular democracies, in which men ruled apart from God. Men made their own laws and determined their own moral standards according to their own culture.

As long as these secular democracies still were influenced by a biblical sense of morality, they were able to set forth a fairly workable system of government. But with no established biblical standard of morality that was accountable to God, men continually pushed back the moral boundaries in the interest of "freedom.' Without the desire to please God, men served the flesh and degenerated into the new Sodom and the new Gomorrah.

This is the bitter fruit of secular democracy which is near ripe today. God usually waits until the fruit can be tasted and known for what it is before cutting down the evil trees.

We stand now at the end of an age and the start of the next one. The Pentecostal Age has run its course, even as the Passover Age before it. We are at the crossroads of the Tabernacles Age, wherein the glory of God will be seen in the overcomers.

Without proper leadership, no system of government will be successful in the end. Look at the example of Israel. God gave them a perfect Law, as David said in Ps. 19:7, "The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." They did fairly well as long as Moses and Joshua were their leaders. But Israel's downfall was on account of two factors: (1) the carnality of the people, which they inherited from Adam; and (2) inadequate or corrupt leadership.

Today as we enter the Tabernacles Age, God is starting to address the problem of leadership. This is seen in the transfer of authority from Pentecostal leadership to Tabernacles leadership. At some point in all of this, the overcomers from the past will be raised up to join the current overcomers as one body to "reign with Him (Christ) a thousand years" (Rev. 20:6).

Of course, not all believers will be raised in this "first resurrection." This is a limited resurrection, for "the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished" (Rev. 20:5). We are not living in the time of the general resurrection. That general resurrection is the one Jesus mentioned in John 5:28, 29, where we find "ALL who are in the graves" coming forth, including both believers and unbelievers.

Hence, the general resurrection is not limited to unbelievers. If believers are raised at that time a thousand years from now, then it is clear that the first resurrection includes only the overcomers who are called to "reign" in the Age to come.

Based upon this, it is my view that at the present time God is raising up overcomers, a company of Davids, who are being given authority to rule the Kingdom in the Age to come. This resolves the problem of leadership, but it does not fully address the problem of Adamic carnality that is found among the people. Even the Christian "citizens of the Kingdom" will remain unperfected in the Age to come, although life will be greatly improved by the new Kingdom leaders who will rule according to the Laws of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Right now, we are still working our way through the transition of the ages. The "stone" of Daniel 2:35 has already struck the Babylonian image on its feet and is currently grinding up the entire image to powder. When this is completed, the "stone" (kingdom) will grow until it fills the whole earth. Daniel 2:44 says of this time:

"And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever."

This is the kingdom of heaven, represented as a stone. It will start perhaps with a single nation and grow from there into a federation of nations wanting to be ruled by Jesus Christ and His body of overcomers. The Kingdom of Heaven will have one King and one Law for all people. The blessings of God will cause many nations to desire Christ as their King.

Even so, this growth will not be complete by the end of the thousand years, for Jesus said there would be "outer darkness" (Matt. 25:30), where people would dwell outside of the Kingdom of Light. Likewise, at the end of that age, "Gog and Magog" are said to rise up again in the vain attempt to overthrow Christ's Kingdom (Rev. 20:7-10).

Yet in spite of the partial nature of the Kingdom in the coming age, many will desire to learn of God's ways (Isaiah 2:3). They will have a visible and prominent example to see how righteousness can be established in the earth, complete with a righteous King and righteous overcomers who know His Laws and the intent of those Laws. All the failures of Israel and the Church in the previous ages will be corrected by perfect leadership. The Kingdom of Heaven will not yet have perfect citizens, but they will all be believers and will live in conformity to the righteous Laws of God as they are led by the Spirit.

This is my vision of the future. As long as the stone continues to grind, we will see some rough days ahead, but the good news is that this grinding process is designed to set the earth free from the corruption of human governments and carnally-minded leaders. The earth will not be destroyed, but redeemed from the world's oppressive systems of government. This is a long-term plan, but we are privileged to live in a very crucial point in the history of the Kingdom. If we know and understand this divine plan, we will be better equipped as advocates of His Kingdom and to support the winning side.