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Christ Preaching His Kingdom (with audio)

Christ Preaching His Kingdom

“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” – Matthew 4:23

There are three actions words that stick out.  They are: teaching, preaching, and healing.  These three actions are different and yet they purposely come together in the Kingdom ministry of Jesus Christ. 

First, teaching.  The Jewish synagogue was the central place for the community to worship God and to teach about God.  The synagogue is where King Jesus showed up to teach about His Kingdom. 

Next, King Jesus went about preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom outside of the synagogue.  Preaching is different from teaching.  Preaching is declaring abroad what has already been taught.  Teaching passes on information about God, while preaching proclaims God with an impassioned cry out to the people declaring God’s truth – whether people want to believe it or not.  Understand that King Jesus is the example that there is never preaching without teaching and there is never teaching without preaching.  That’s why the churches who do both are usually fewer in number.  Obviously, we can get a large numbers of people in church buildings with games, give-aways, programs, pot-luck dinners, and music-laser shows.  However, if you follow the simple example of Jesus and teach and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom sadly there is little interest. 

Lastly, we read that King Jesus came healing every kind of sickness and disease.  Obviously He had compassion upon the people.  However, the healings first of all confirmed that His message of the Gospel of the Kingdom has come down from heaven.  The healings were signs proving that what He was teaching and preaching was true, and that He is the King of this Kingdom.  Understand that miraculous healings are not everyday occurrences.  That’s what makes it a miracle.   Yet we have these self-proclaimed healers taking the name of God in vain.  If they were authentic then why don’t they walk the halls of the nursing homes and the children’s cancer ward?  Why don’t they go out into the community like Jesus did teaching, preaching, and healing?  Only God heals, if He chooses to do so, but it is not in the quality and quantity as in the first century, and there is a reason.  It is because those were signs for that day confirming the Gospel of the Kingdom. 

Understand that teaching is true information about the Kingdom.  Preaching is the true declaration about the Kingdom.  Healings are the true evidence that the Kingdom has come (Matthew 12:28).  King Jesus’ message was and is very simple.  In His Kingdom, there is forgiveness of sin, salvation from hell, mercy for the guilty, grace for the needy, hope for the hopeless, and love for the unlovely, and that He takes the guilty, needy, hopeless, and unlovely sinner and makes them a beautiful child of the Majestic God (1 John 3:2).  Yes, He makes the believer royalty (1 Peter 2:9). 

David C. Hale, pastor

Published in the Marshall County Tribune, Lewisburg, TN

Christ Preaching His Kingdom (Audio)

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How Do We Explain the Different Races?

From the beginning of creation it was God’s will for man to populate the whole earth, but in Genesis chapter 11 we read the historic account that human society was of one language and determined with one mind to stay together (Genesis 11:4).  Due to their disobedience to the LORD, He confused (or confounded) their language, so that they could not understand one another.  In doing so, the Lord “scattered them upon the face of all the earth” (Genesis 11:5-9).  As a result of the different languages, people married those whose language they could understand.  This arrangement produced separate INBREEDING groups.

Over a few generations these inbreeding groups produced specific characteristics, including different eyes, ears, noses, and shades of skin color.  Despite different characteristics and different languages, nevertheless, we all have blood flowing through our bodies, we all are given a soul, and we all are created in the image of God according to (Genesis 1:27).

As foreign as this may seem to this generation, “racial barriers” are broken down by the preaching of the gospel, and not by political correctness.  In fact, there are many Biblical examples of racial barriers being broken by the simple preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In Acts chapter 2, Jews from every “nation” believed.  In Acts chapter 8, there is the bringing in of the Samaritans and the Ethiopian eunuch into Christianity.  Acts chapter 10 records the preaching of the gospel to many Italians in the house of Cornelius.  While in Acts 17:16-34, the gospel is preached to the Greeks in Athens.  Therefore, if any racial barriers are to broken down it will come through the church of Christ being BIBLICALLY CORRECT.  The truth is that, the original manuscripts of the Bible do not use the word “race” to describe different people.  Rather, God uses the words “NATIONS, TRIBES, KINDRED, TONGUE, and PEOPLE.”  The concept of “race” was purely invented for convenience in biological and anthropological studies.  Such concepts led to the pseudo-scientific belief that one race is superior to others.  Evolutionary scientists may not all be racist in their personal philosophies but, like it or not, this humanistic philosophy can be traced throughout history as promoting racism.  The Bible teaches that there is only “one blood” or one race of men upon the face of the earth – the human race (Acts 17:26).

 “And (GOD) hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;” Acts 17:26