MONDAY MINUTES With Pastor Chris McCool (December 14, 2020)

The “Kingdom of God,” sometimes called the “Kingdom of Heaven,” is a very broad subject.  There is one application of the Kingdom of which each and every one of the elect family of God are members (Mat. 13:38).  There is another application of the Kingdom which deals with the fact that the children of God who have been born of the Spirit have passed from death unto life, and now the “kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21).  And there is certainly an application of the Kingdom in which we speak of the heaven itself (1 Cor. 15:50).   In truth, it would take much more than one article to deal with every aspect of the Kingdom.

In this writing, however, I want to focus on one particular aspect of the Kingdom:  the visible Kingdom that is here and now, i.e., the gospel kingdom, or the local, visible church.  I believe Jesus is referencing this aspect of the Kingdom in Matt. 13:44:  “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.”

The man in this parable found a “treasure”.  The Greek word here means a “place in which goods and precious things are collected and laid up,” i.e., a storehouse or treasury.  This is a place where valuables are kept safe.  We might call it a “bank” today.

Does this not describe exactly what we have in the church, the visible kingdom of God on earth?  The church is a treasury, a storehouse for valuable spiritual goods! 

One of the treasures in the storehouse of the church is TRUTH.  You see, the church is the depository of the truth.  In 1 Tim. 3:13, we find that it is the “pillar and ground” of the truth.  A pillar holds something up high for viewing:  the church holds up the truth so it can be seen in the world.  The ground is that upon which the pillar and all other structures are built:  the church must be built upon the truth, or its foundation will crumble.

We are not afraid to speak the truth in the church of God!  There may be other places in the world where we are hesitant to speak up for the truth, but God forbid that we should be afraid to speak the truth in God’s church!  And that’s not surprising, is it?  You see, Jesus tells us in John 14:6 that He is THE TRUTH, the church is HIS CHURCH (Mat. 16:18), purchased with His own precious blood (Acts 20:28)!  Therefore it follows that we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24), does it not?

One characteristic of truth is simplicity.  Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”  2 Cor 11:3.  This simplicity has to do with both our message and our manner of worship.

Have you ever tried to tell and sustain a lie?  When I was a child, I remember at times trying to feign sickness in order to continue staying out of school.  I was never able to maintain it, because I would forget which lie I had told or which symptom I had manufactured!  It would have been so much simpler just to tell the truth from the beginning.

Most of the teachings of the world are complicated.  Take, for example, the theory of evolution, promoted as truth in our world today:  a simple-celled organism evolved over millions of years into the complicated body-systems we have today.  This theory is constantly being revised and modified, in order to handle the “new discoveries” that disprove previous versions of the theory.  Entire courses are taught in our universities in an effort to establish this theory as fact.  What a complicated mess!

Truth, on the other hand, is simple:  God “made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is.”  Ps. 146:6.  It doesn’t take much ciphering to figure that one out, does it?

Likewise, the truth of God regarding salvation is simple:  Jesus Christ died to save His people from their sins (Mat. 1:21).  Notice that this sentence is simple, not compound.  The message of the gospel is simple, and we should not be tempted to complicate it.  He accomplished the work He was sent here to do (John 17:4); when He cried out “It is finished!” (John 19:30), He meant what He said!  

Notice that the message is NOT “Jesus came to save His people, but . . . .”  Neither is it, “Jesus came to save His people, and. . . .”  There are no additions or subtractions from the work of Christ.  No, my friends, Jesus did EXACTLY what He came here to do – He saved His people from their sins!  Hallelujah!  I am thankful that there was no addendum to the contract, specifying what works I had to perform or what choices I had to make in order to fit myself into the number.  This is the message that we preach in the Primitive Baptist church.

If you’re looking for a church that strives to be a conscientious depository of the truth, and tries to promote and encourage the moral walk of its members in this world, then we invite you to worship with us at Zion Primitive Baptist Church. We meet every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., and the first and third Wednesday nights at 6:30 p.m.

May the Lord richly bless you is my prayer!

Elder Chris McCool, Pastor