THE KINGDOM By David S. Musick

Jesus Christ is the Messiah. He "IS" and that is all that matters. Earthy mind sets, opinions and teachings have no place in the absolutism of the only true God and His Kingdom Realities. When Jesus said "I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last," He was saying that in Him ALL THINGS have their origins, fulfillment and purpose. The Kingdom of God is endless. Entering the Kingdom is entering into Christ into the EONS of EONS. It is not found at death, as some suppose; it is found in LIFE. "The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, Lo there! For, behold, the KINGDOM OF GOD IS WITHIN YOU" (Luke 17:20-21). Christ, in His fullness, is the Kingdom of God. In John the 17th chapter, Jesus prayed to the Father and in this stated, among other things, that He and the Father are in us and that we are one in Him. Now, we must enter into Him. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God" (John 3:5). He goes on to say that flesh breeds flesh, corruption and death; but that which is of the Spirit births life. Conversion is the beginning of one’s walk into God; the initial salvation experience. It is the place of a Divine epiphany; a realization of one’s need for Christ and the Father's redemption plan found only in Christ. It is where your sins are forgiven by the Blood of the Lamb and where one falls in love with Jesus for the first time. It is where renewal begins. It is a view of Christ from the beginning of an endless life in HIM. This is the beginning of revelation. That is to say; "confessing with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believing in your heart that He was sent to bring man back into right standing with the Father. That He is the propitiation and sacrifice for the sins of the world. That He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. That God has raised Him from the dead on the third day, and that He sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high as the One whom God sent as Messiah and Savior. He is the Prophet, the High Priest and the King of kings" (Rom 10:9-10; paraphrased). To that person heaven is yours. "Verily, verily, Except a man be born again, he cannot SEE the Kingdom of God" (John 3:3). So being born again is conversion; it is turning to Christ and acknowledging Him as the Messiah; the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is being able to SEE something greater. "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to BECOME the SONS of God even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God" (John 1:12-13). It is the beginning of your walk in God's Salvation; which is Christ the Lord. This is the opening up of the Human Intellect to the Divine Perspective. Salvation, then, is progressive from glory to glory and faith to faith. To be filled with the Holy Spirit (in the truest sense of the meaning), is to be empowered to walk it out and enter the Kingdom of God; (i.e.), empowered to BECOME. "Become" is a verb; it means: 1). come to be as specified. 2). be suitable to. So coming into a thing doesn't make you that thing as yet. You are processed and trained and purified for it.


Kingdom Living requires a Kingdom Birthing. That is; entering the Kingdom by means of the water and the Spirit. This is not water baptism; it is the water flowing from the Throne of Grace, the Crystal River; it is the washing of the Word of Life. It is being submerged in the Divine. It is diving into the River of Life. It certainly is not water baptism. Being born of the Spirit is a baptism of fire. This is not a "Pentecostalism" type Spirit baptism, no; it is something much higher. This baptism is submergence in the Holy Spirit and fire. This is also where the Life of God engulfs the inner man. This reality "Transcends" Pentecostalism and brings you right into the Throne Room of Father blind, deaf and dumb on your knees as dead. In this place you forget who you are. The "I" of self is swallowed up in the "I AM"; Glory to His name! This Fire is an exposing reality; It exposes and then it consumes. It's not all "Happy Jesus"; it's a place of losing yourself, so you can find it hid with Christ in God. This happens as you follow on to know Him, and not a denominational or religious manifesto.


Where God is, there is no ending; there is only God and you do not possess Him, He possesses you. The “absents” of God is the manifest presents of evil. In the Kingdom there is no final destination. There is no "End of the road" concerning our walk into Christ. He is both your Peace and your Rest. Peace and Rest are not a state of mind; they are a Person and being possessed by their reality comes about only by personal relationship in Christ. Jesus Christ is the personification of these things. The journey is continual; it is perpetual. There is no arrival point in this walk. If you stop, put down roots and believe in your mind that this "revelation" or that "experience" will sustain you; then you become a target for stagnation and defeat. Most experts of denominational doctrine are experts of religious stagnation. Religious Denominationalists inhabit permanent dwellings within the walls of their own credos, dogmas and narrow-minded view point. However; the external church world is not representative of that which was formed in the mind of God from the beginning. The Intellect of man must be elevated into the higher plane of Divine thought and brought into the salvation process as well. Man is a Dichotomy of body/soul and spirit. Man is not divided up into small pieces, as some would teach. In Christ the whole man is made one. Our intellectual man is not destroyed when we come into Christ. It is set free; it is swallowed-up by the mind of Christ. When we put on the mind of Christ, (as we are commanded to do), we are put in the place where God is redeeming our intellect, bringing our will (soul), into subjection to His Will and putting the undercurrent of fleshly desire (body/organic desires, beast nature), into the control of the Holy Spirit by infusing our spirit with Divine Life. We become empowered as OVERCOMERS. When our spirit is made alive by the Spirit of God; then we are, in essences, RESURRECTED.


The seeds of Spiritual growth and enlightenment can be found in the Scriptures in the "rightly divided Word of truth" and realized in relationship to Jesus Christ by the indwelling presents of the Spirit of God. Biblical understanding and Divine enlightenment cannot be formulated in the academics of "Jesus Seminars" by religious professors. The Tabernacle in the wilderness, the desert government of Divine Theocracy, the medium of prophets, judges and elders, the controlled diet of Manna given daily by the hand of God and living under the principals of Godly truth; stripped Israel of the necessity to look else where for their Leadership or their salvation. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers (in that order; [Eph 4:11]), is the Order of New Testament Israel's Divine governance. IN THE SPIRIT OF THESE GOVERNMENTAL REALITIES; God's Ecclesia (The True Church), will allow the operation of the Five Fold Ministry as their own Spiritual needs are met. The Five Fold Ministry is to minister itself out of business: till we all come up into our Head the Lord Jesus Christ. IN THIS, THE REALM OF HIGHER SPIRITUAL OPERATION, (i.e.: Ministering from union in Christ), we find ourselves in the WILL OF GOD. The Fruit of the Spirit will be operational, and the Gifts of the Spirit will also be operational. God never changes; why should He.
(Eph. 4:11-14.) "And His gifts were [varied; He Himself appointed and gave men to us,] some to be {1} apostles (special messengers), some {2} prophets (a foreteller; inspired speaker), some {3} evangelists (preachers of the Gospel, traveling missionaries), some {4} pastors (shepherds of His flock) and {5} teachers....{in that order}...His intention was the perfecting and the full equipping of the saints (His consecrated people), [that they should do] the work of the ministering toward building up Christ's body (the Church), [That it might develop] until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the full and accurate knowledge of the Son of God; that [we might arrive] at really mature manhood--the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ's own perfection--the measure of the fullness of the Christ, and the completeness found in Him. So then, we may no longer be children, tossed [like ships] to and fro between chance gusts of teaching, and wavering with every changing wind of doctrine, [the prey of] the cunning and cleverness of unscrupulous men, (gamblers engaged) in every shifting form of trickery in inventing errors to mislead."


(end of part 1)






God has established a Divine order and Government in the New Testament Ecclesia that is mandated by the Holy Spirit to bring up a people into their Head the Lord Jesus Christ; then having done that, they are to fade away. To those who would say that the Apostolic or the Prophetic Ministries have died with the last Apostle or Prophets; or that Divine insight and authority was handed down by Peter to an earthly succession of men; must consider the need for an operation of Divine Revelation of His Light. Simplicity is found in the Word of God empowered by the Holy Spirit. Its' higher understanding is a Spiritual one found and developed through and in Christ Jesus to the glory of the Father. In other words: God is restoring or, if you will, renewing His Ministries in their order and fullness to the body of Christ. He doesn't need the vessel He is going to fill to be a professor of Theology, He uses the "broken and contrite spirit."


The pillar of fire by night and the cloud of smoke by day are witnesses, in the believer, that God is ever present in them no matter what the circumstance in life may be. It is the evident reality that God is there. God will not cater to nor condone the deeds of the flesh nor its carnal desires, but He is ever looking for His Son to arise in His people. The true Ecclesia is outside the walls of denominational religious organisms that are ego-centric in nature. The people of God may be in an organization but they are not of it; it is not in them. The Ecclesia may be in a system, but the system is not in the Ecclesia. Even some so-called "non-denominational" entities have organized only to later become a religious system full of dead men's bones. These "Babylonish Systems" cater to the flesh, as evidenced by the false prophets, sodomites, pedophiles, money changers, prosperity preachers, whoremongers, fornicators, liars and thieves that creep into the system and twist the true meaning of the Word of God. Even some elements of the Latter Rain Movement (touting a twisted interpretation of the "Manifested Sons" teaching), ascend to the pulpit dressed in religious robes calling themselves Christ and God, denying the need for the cross and dying to "Self"; opening up the people to every unclean bird of doctrine and prophecy. Also among some so-called "Orthodoxy" the heady high-mindedness of a "Degreed" educated religious organism can, in some cases, can be such a head trip, that humility and Christ-likeness are gone, their great intellect has deceive those people that have itching ears and a desire to sin and feel good about it. (Case in point: the members of the Jesus Seminar in New Jersey that have denied the virgin birth and deity of Christ, condone homosexual priests). They do this at the expense of those people in the system that truly love the Lord and desire what they can't see as yet. There are those within these denominational walls that are sincere ministers of the Word. Yet their efforts are made null and void by the system they serve and the mixture that has oozed its way in. Don't serve the system; serve the Living God. God admonishes His people to get knowledge and with it get understanding. And with all of that gain wisdom. The gospel has nothing against learning, knowledge and study. "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH." (2 Tim. 2:15) Several chapters in Proverbs cover gaining knowledge and wisdom. Really the whole Bible is full of men and women of knowledge, wisdom and understanding. What we as Christians are to avoid is "Ever learning and never able." That is to say; accumulation of knowledge for knowledge sake. "For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, EVER LEARNING AND NEVER ABLE TO COME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH. Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith." (2 Tim. 3:6-8.)


The Doctors of Babylon call themselves "enlightened, tolerant", and claim that God's love is the love of acceptance without putting into practice the power, (by the Holy Spirit), the need to be changed into His image from Faith to Faith and Glory to Glory. They run from the word HOLINESS. The church world i.e.: the religious organisms of man, has nothing to do with Christ and the Kingdom of God. Christ has nothing to do with preachers that have called themselves into the ministry. There are some in certain denominations, that have put themselves there where there is a salary, a parsonage, a retirement fund and maybe a book deal. The true ministry and call of God is not a profession with a tax break; it is a divine call. Preachers who have called themselves preach another gospel. T. Austin Sparks in his book "GOD'S REACTIONS TO MAN'S DEFECTIONS" states:


"Our conviction is that, whatever may or may not be recognized as needed by that which ostensibly stands to represent God in the world today, His own need in the earth is that which will lift all the phases and aspects of the Church's life and work into the realm where this glorying in and glorifying of the Lord Jesus is the dominant characteristic; where formalism yields to life; where all is aglow with His wonderfulness; where His train fills the temple; where 'ordinances' are living testimonies; and where all is vital, dynamic and effectual. What is necessary to the Lord to bring this about? It is a new cruse, a new vessel. There is so much mixture in the constitution of the vessels to-day. The world has got in, on the one hand, and the natural man has so much taken hold, on the other. Tradition, formalism, ecclesiasticism and 'mechanicalism' are like chains and fetters upon the Lord. Moreover, things are given different meanings to-day from what they had at first under the sanction of the Holy Spirit. A new cruse is needed, and it must be that which has been made like unto the Lord's vessel at the first".


If revelation is not Christ-centered, it is not true enlightenment and has nothing to do with Divine Spirituality by the Holy Spirit. Truth will always marry up with the Word of God, because the Word of God is the Truth. The kingdom of God is within you and the Kingdom is God Himself. At the initial salvation experience God sets up residence in you, but after that there must be a "putting on" and a "putting off." There must be a "reaching forth" toward an ascension life. Seeking the High things in God by the Word will lead to the necessity of being filled with the Holy Spirit and growing your mind in Christ. Putting on the mind of Christ doesn't mean losing yours! It means being swallowed up by the mind of Christ and developing a love relationship with the LIVING GOD. None of this makes you or me a god. This is walking out our salvation experience in the fullest sense of the word. To be endued with the power of God gives strength and insight and true spiritual growth ensues; at conversion you "SEE" the kingdom of God (Christ) and He enters you. At the Spirit and Water birthing you "ENTER" the Kingdom of God. At that point you then step into the Beginning of the FULLNESS of the Kingdom and walk it out; don't get the idea, however; that walking it out means finding the end of the EONS! The Fullness is ENDLESS. The Kingdom IS in you; and you ARE in the Kingdom; but the Kingdom is always God, not you or me. This is the Eons of Eons, the endless life in the presents of God from glory to glory and faith to faith; FROM HORIZON TO HORIZON. This is "Thy Kingdom Come Thy will be done."