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Kingdom Stewardship - The Path of Life, Part 32

The Lord Jesus said that we could not be trusted with the true riches of the
kingdom until we learned to handle earthly riches. It has been estimated that
from one-third to one-half of the biblical teachings on righteousness have to do
with stewardship. Obviously, managing well what has been entrusted to us is
what the Lord considers fundamental to righteousness. Not doing this is why one
was called “wicked, lazy slave” in the Parable of the Talents (see Matthew 25:26).
Doing this well got the other commended with “Well done, good and faithful
servant! You have been faithful with a few things: I will put you in charge of
many things” (Matthew 25:21 NIV). Stewardship is vital for us to learn if we are
to be trusted with much.

It would be wonderful to be trusted with the resources to buy five thousand
poor a meal every day. It would be better to have the authority to multiply one
hamburger into enough to feed five thousand every day, which is the kingdom
authority that the Lord demonstrated when He fed the five thousand from one
little boy’s lunch. That is the difference between earthly wealth and kingdom
wealth. However, we must manage the earthly wealth right to be trusted with
kingdom authority.

We are living in a time when most of the power and most of the problems
are economic. Many of the teachings in churches today seem to revolve around
economic issues. This is not necessarily wrong, but a reflection of the times in
which we live (JOSH.5:12) and the need to address the pressing issues of most
people. Even so, we could use a drastic change of perspective about where the
real power is, where the real wealth is, and what is really important.

Let’s start with the natural first. Because of the Hubble telescope and other
brilliant inventions, we now know that the physical universe is many times bigger
than we perceived just a few years ago. As big and impressive as it is, the entire
physical universe is but a shadow of the spiritual realm and has about as much

substance compared to it as your shadow does to you. Our God is big! When the
greatest miracles were done on the earth such as Moses parting the Red Sea, the
angels were yawning. They have seen much greater things than anything ever
done on the earth—they saw the heavens stretched out like a tent curtain as we
are told in Psalms.

Compared to the physical universe, the earth is hardly a speck of dust.
Compared to the spiritual universe, it could not even register as a speck of dust.
However, it has infinite importance and value because the Son of God came to
the earth and gave His own life for our redemption. Then we are told that God
will come to the earth to dwell among men! This is a profound statement that size
may not have anything to do with value. This is why angels would rather have an
assignment to the earth than over galaxies. It is on the earth that the Lord is
calling those who will be His own sons and daughters. This is the highest calling in
the universe, physical or spiritual.

I often hear people saying that only one-third of the angels fell so the good
still outnumber the bad two to one. That is very far from the case. Angels are only
one spiritual species, and there are millions more. We have been given a glimpse
of this in Scripture with the cherubs, cherubim, “Ezekiel’s wheels,” and others.
Only one-third of one type of spiritual being fell, and none of the rest did. Angels
are the messengers, and they are outnumbered many, many times over by all of
God’s other spiritual beings.

As the devil and the angels that rebelled have been cast down to the earth,
all of the evil in the universe is now confined to earth. As C.S. Lewis once wrote,
heaven is so big that if all of the evil in existence were fashioned into a ball and
hurled at a single little bird in heaven, it would not even have enough power to
register as a thought to that bird. The point is that on earth we are so evil-centric
and sin-centric because it is dominant here now, but the more we enter into the
kingdom, the smaller it will become to us. With the tiniest move of God’s little
finger, all evil could be eradicated for all time, and ultimately this will be done.
The kingdom is certainly coming to the earth.

From a political, economic, social, and religious perspective, it may look like
evil is prevailing at this time. Evil will have one final rage upon the earth, but this
is hardly even a speck on the radar screen of all that God is doing. All of the evil in
the world is the result of mankind thinking we could run this world without
God, and at the end, we will learn for all time what a bad idea that was. Every
human problem is getting beyond human remedy, but there is an answer to every
one of them—return to God.

As we see in Isaiah 60:1-5, when darkness is covering the earth and deep
darkness the people, the Lord’s glory will appear on His people, and the nations
will come to the light. The light is going to win, and it is not even a fair fight. All of
the evil in the universe will ultimately be blown out like a match in a hurricane. As
much as it may look like for a time that evil is winning, it does not have a chance.

The U.S. debt is scheduled to surpass $16 trillion soon. The blessing of a
nation that fears the Lord is that it will lend to many nations and not borrow. We
were the greatest creditor nation in history when we feared the Lord. When the
U.S. started turning from the Lord, we started coming under the curse that is
promised to come upon nations that turn from Him—slavery, as the debtor is the
creditor’s slave. Now the U.S. is the biggest debtor nation in history, and we are
sinking faster each day.

To those who understand economics, our $16 trillion dollar debt is a
deceitful number. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided to do a study
on what is the real U.S. debt, which included our future obligations such as
entitlements. The IMF determined that our real debt was over $200 trillion
dollars. They concluded that all Americans could be taxed at the 100% rate
forever, and it would not even come close to meeting these obligations. This is
beyond human remedy, like many of our other problems now, but it is not
beyond God’s remedy.

The whole world is upside down economically, and the consequences of this
are both growing and hitting us more each year. There is no human way out, but
the resources of the kingdom are so great that if all world debt were paid off at
once, no one in the kingdom would even realize anything was missing. All world

debt would not even register as a penny in the kingdom bank. The Lord is actually
going to do this.

Turning to God in Repentance Brings Hope -
The Path of Life
Last week I wrote that I would share the two things we must do to
have the Lord pay off the entire world’s debt. The first is to simply turn
to Him in repentance for thinking we did not need Him, asking Him to
help us. The second is to let Him help us. It is that simple.

Will the world do this? Yes. As we see in Isaiah 60:3-5, after
darkness has covered the earth and deep darkness the people, the
glory of the Lord will appear upon His people, and the nations will turn
to the light of the Lord that is upon them. The nations will come to the
light. The darkness that they have gone through will convince the world
for all time not to ever try to live without God again.

Jesus has already paid our debts, and this includes the world’s
financial debt. The Lord could easily snap His fingers and pay off the
entire world’s debt today. Heaven would not even know anything had
gone out of its vast treasury. The reason He does not do this is because
we would be right back in the same debt, or worse, if we do not learn
what leads us into such bondage. So the Lord is first waiting for us to
understand this, and turn from our evil ways, which is repentance,
before He forgives our debt. This is true for us personally, nationally,
and for the whole world.

The world will come to the light as we see in Isaiah 60:3. However,
right now it would be great to see the church coming to His light. Have
the dark times already been enough to have us repent of our rebellion
and return to Him so that we do not have to experience anything
worse? Obviously it has not. We are told that judgment begins with the
household of God because He must set His own people free before we
can be used to set the nations free. The Lord prefers mercy over
judgment, and even His judgment is discipline for those whom He loves
so that we will learn to not keep doing the things that are hurting us.

All of the financial shaking the world is going through is a parallel
of the judgments that came upon Egypt in order to set God’s people
free. Once Israel got free and was established in the Promised Land,
they were called to be a light to lead other nations out of bondage. This
is still the calling on God’s people—to get free of the bondage of this
world, go through the discipline of the wilderness to learn God’s ways,
and then possess our promises so that we can help the world out of its
bondage.

The signs of another Great Awakening are now appearing. There
is increasing evidence of a pushback against the great darkness of our
times, and a great turning back to God is imminent. This is most
encouraging, but it does not mean that the troubles are over. Through
the darkness we will soon begin to see God’s glory appearing on His
people. People will begin coming to the light until ultimately the
nations come to it.

In Acts 14:22, it says the Apostle Paul went about “strengthening
the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith,
and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of
God.” At present, it is hard to find Christians who do not close their ears
to such “strengthening and encouraging” because they have fallen to
the delusion we were also warned about for these times—that they
would only want to “have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for
themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires” (II Timothy
4:3). However, to the mature in Christ, they get excited when they hear
of coming troubles because they know, like Paul, that in every trial
there is a doorway to the kingdom.

For this reason, the mature have learned as James said to
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials”
(James 1:2). When we learn that in every trial there is a gateway to the
kingdom, we do start to get excited by the trial. We all want a big
victory, but we cannot have a big victory without a big battle. The
bigger the trial, the bigger the victory, and the bigger the door to the
kingdom will be. Likewise, the entire world is going to enter the
kingdom through the “great tribulation.”

The escape from every trial is the same—turn to God and resolve
to obey Him. Every human problem is the result of mankind turning
away from God, and the answer to every human problem is to turn
back to Him. When the world turns back to God, all debt in the world

will be resolved. As we read at the end of the Book of Revelation, it is
even better than that:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the
tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and
they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them,

And He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there
shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or
crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all
things new”

(See Revelation 21:3-5).

The prophet Isaiah also spoke of how the earth would be returned
to the paradise it was originally intended to be, as we see in Isaiah11:6-
9:

And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie
down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling
together, and a little boy will lead them.

Also the cow and the bear will graze; their young will lie down
together, and the lion will eat

straw like the ox.

And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and
the weaned child will put his hand on

the viper's den.

They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the
earth will be full of the knowledge of

the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

The kingdom is surely coming, and we have the greatest message
of hope the world has ever heard that must be preached before it can
come. The first sign we must see is this hope rising in God’s people.

From Babylon to Abraham
And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them
thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for
mortar.

And they said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower
whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a
name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."

And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons
of men had built.

And the LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the
same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing
which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.

"Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may
not understand one another's speech."

So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the
whole earth; and they stopped building the city.

Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused
the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered
them abroad over the face of the whole earth (Genesis 11:3-9).

In the Garden, two seeds were prophesied to come from man. One was
the seed of the serpent whose nature was implanted in man when they
listened to his voice and obeyed him. The other was the seed that was
prophesied to come from the woman that would crush the serpent's
head, which was Christ. With the first two sons born, we see the
beginning of the nature of each of these seeds. The Bible is the history
of the development of these two seeds in men, and God's dealings with
them. One brings forth Christ, and the other, when it is fully matured,
brings forth the antichrist. This story of the Tower of Babel is a
profound revelation of the seed that will bring forth the antichrist. This
is the root of that which becomes "Mystery Babylon" in the Book of
Revelation.

We tend to think of the serpent only in its most blatantly evil nature.
However, the tree whose fruit brings death is the knowledge of both
good and evil. The good side of the Tree of Knowledge is just as deadly
as the evil side, and far more deceptive. Satan's most deceptive guise is
when he comes as "an angel of light" (see II Corinthians 11:14), or what
could have been translated, "a messenger of truth." Satan has always
been able to do more damage to the truth when he works through
religious men, which is why the most religious men of the time were
the greatest opposers of Christ. However, the true nature of such

religious men can usually be discerned as those who tried to build the
Tower of Babel.

The goal of these men seems to be a noble one, to build a tower to
heaven. However, their nature is revealed by two basic issues. The first
is their reason for building the tower. It was not to get closer to God,
but to make a name for themselves, and to have a project that men
could gather around. The second way that their nature is revealed is
their means for building it, which is their own wisdom and strength.
This is the continuing presumption that men can gain the heavenly
nature by their own wisdom and strength. But as the Lord said in
Zechariah 4:6, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit."

What the men of Babel vainly sought was what the Lord wants to give
to man. He wants us to dwell with Him in the heavenly places, and He
wants to gather us together. However, we cannot do it with selfish
motives, or our own strength. This may seem like a foolish thing for
men to try to do, but it seems that men have not quit trying to build
just such a tower. Christians have been just as prone to do it as anyone
else. How many of the huge projects that Christians have built, from
cathedrals to even some evangelistic outreaches, have been just an
attempt by some to make a name for themselves, or to have a project
that will gather and motivate men? Many even do these things in an
attempt to reach God, or to be acceptable to Him. However, a true
ministry does not come in order to reach God, but from a place of
having been reached by God through the cross. A true ministry does

not come as an attempt to be accepted by Him, but from a position of
being accepted by Him through the cross.

The Lord's response to the Tower was to scatter men's languages so
that they could not go on building. The result of the project was the
opposite of what they were seeking. What are the results of many of
the spiritual projects we have tried to devise as Christians? Are they not
the same? Now the church is divided into more than 10,000 different
denominations and movements, or "languages." It does not matter how
much we attach God's name to something, if the motives are rooted in
selfish ambition, or an attempt to gather around anything but the Lord
Jesus Himself, the ultimate end will only be further division. The only
way into heaven, or to gather men, is to be gathered to Christ Jesus
Himself. He sits in the heavenly places above all rule and authority and
power. If we abide in Him, that is where we, too, will dwell.

After the story of the Tower of Babel we come to Abraham, who was
God's antitheses to the folly of Babel.

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, and from
your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will
show you;

And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your
name great; and so you shall be a blessing;

And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will
curse. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis
12:1-3).

By faith, Abraham gained the very things that the men of Babel had
vainly sought to accomplish by their own strength and wisdom—a
name that would be esteemed by every generation, and a place in the
city of God that would one day gather all men together again. In the
following text from Hebrews 11:8-10, we see how he did this:

By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place
which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not
knowing where he was going.

By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land
dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same
promise;

for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect
and builder is God.

Abraham may not have known where he was going, but he knew what
he was looking for. Abraham's faith was demonstrated by the fact that

when he was called, he obeyed. In contrast to the men of Babel,
Abraham did not build anything. He became very wealthy and could
have easily built a city, but he lived in tents all the days of his life. He
was not seeking an earthly city, but a heavenly one. He knew that his
earthly dwelling was temporary, so he was not overly concerned about
living in a tent.

There is a saying that "you can be so heavenly minded that you are not
any earthly good." This sounds cute, but the reverse is actually true. If
we are too earthly minded, we will not be any good for heaven or the
earth. Abraham was an alien and stranger on the earth. The goal of his
life was to have a place in what God was building, not men. Because his
focus was on God instead of men, he became a blessing to every family
on the face of the earth. Those who will likewise give themselves to the
eternal purposes of God will accomplish far more for those who are on
the earth as well.

In John 8:39 there is an interesting dispute between the Pharisees and
Jesus: "They answered and said to Him, 'Abraham is our father.' Jesus
said to them, 'If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of
Abraham.'" Paul the Apostle, also elaborates on this in Galatians 3:6-7,
"Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as
righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who
are sons of Abraham." We are not the heirs of faith because we know
that we must live by faith, but we become the heirs of faith by actually
having faith, by doing the same deeds that Abraham did. We must

devote ourselves to finding what the Lord is building and sacrifice
whatever is required to be a part of it.

Abraham was apparently from a noble family in what was then the
greatest culture on the earth. They had science and technology that
surpassed any other culture of the time. The Chaldeans were the
custodians of the great wonders of the world, but something burned in
Abraham's heart to be a part of something much greater than anything
men could build. He believed God by being willing to leave everything
that he had known, the greatest life available at that time, to seek the
Lord's will in unknown places. Faith sees far beyond what others can
see. Faith sees with the eyes of the heart, and walks more by what is
seen by the heart than what is seen by physical eyes.

Why is faith so important to God? Why doesn't He just reveal Himself
and make it clear what He expects of us? Because He is seeking sons
and daughters who will be joint heirs with His Son. It was doubting God
that brought about the Fall of man, and it will be by believing Him that
we are restored. True faith rises from the heart, not just the head.

Satan dwelt in the very throne room of God, saw all of His glory, and
still fell. Just seeing the Lord will not keep us from falling. As His joint
heirs, He is going to trust us with more power than Satan ever had. We
are now proving by our faith and obedience that we love the truth, and
we love Him, more than we love even our own lives.

Even though we can fall even when beholding the glory of the Lord, as
Satan proved, it is hard not to worship the Lord while we are beholding
His glory. For all of eternity the whole creation will know that His sons
and daughters worshiped Him, and stood for His truth, against the
opposition of the whole world that now lies in the power of the evil
one. After the Fall, Satan could boast that even in a perfect world, man
chose to rebel against God. By this he has justified his own rebellion.
Now even his own principalities and powers have beheld the witness of
those who lived in a most imperfect world, and even when all hell
raged against them, they loved the Lord and obeyed Him at even the
cost of their lives. These are the ones who all of creation will testify that
they are worthy.

Therefore, walk in a manner worthy of your calling. Believe God. Obey
Him. Do all things for the sake of His gospel, and let the love of Christ
control you. He is worthy of our obedience and faith.

To this end also we pray for you always that our God may count you
worthy of your calling, and fulfill every desire for goodness and the
work of faith with power;

in order that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and
you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ
(II Thessalonians 1:11-12).

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing
of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but
because of Him who subjected it, in hope

that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption
into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of
childbirth together until now.

And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the
Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our
adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for
why does one also hope for what he sees?

But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait
eagerly for it (Romans 8:18-25).

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