

The Nehemiah Mandate

The Coming Kingdom and the Restoration of the Church

By Ran Vosler

Copyright 2016 Ran Vosler

Smashwords Edition

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### Table of Contents

Prologue: The Cupbearer

PART I: WHERE WE ARE

Chapter 1: A Church in Ruins

PART II: HOW WE GOT HERE

Chapter 2: A New Species

Chapter 3: Invasion

Chapter 4: The Enemy

Chapter 5: The Mirror

Chapter 6: A New Land

Chapter 7: Constantine's Legacy

Chapter 8: Babylon

PART III: WHERE WE'RE GOING

Chapter 9: The Divine Metaphor

Chapter 10: The Altar

Chapter 11: The Foundation of the Temple

Chapter 12: Finishing the Temple

Chapter 13: The Plan of the Temple

Chapter 14: Parsing God

Chapter 15: Spiritual Tools: the Energema

Chapter 16: Spiritual Assignments: the Diakonia

Chapter 17: Spiritual Gifts: the Charisma

Chapter 18: Expelling the Foreigners

Chapter 19: Nehemiah's Wall

Chapter 20: Vashti's Choice

Epilogue: The Kingdom of God

### Prologue: The Cupbearer

As the sun rose on the capital of the Persian Empire, a seemingly insignificant civil servant was struggling to get through the morning. It would become a momentous day, but to Nehemiah, it was just another morning in the most dispiriting week of his life. He was sick. He was dizzy. He felt flushed. He had to concentrate just to keep down the bile, to breathe deeply and slowly to stave off the dizziness. He struggled to maintain his composure, but somehow managed as if his life depended on it. Because it did.

The news was impossibly bad. The visitors, Hanani and the others, must have been mistaken. He wanted them—needed them—to be mistaken. He desperately looked for a reason why they would lie to him, why they would tell him what they did if it was untrue. Ever since their meeting, he had wandered around the palace, almost in a trance, certainly in a state of shock. In his mind, he went over and over their words, their inflection, the look on their faces. Their report couldn't possibly be correct. Things just weren't supposed to be this way.

Ultimately, he accepted their report despite his despair. At least, _they_ believed it to be true. He was sure they were sincere, if only because they had nothing to gain from deceiving him. And with nothing to gain, why would they risk coming to the palace at all? Jews weren't particularly welcome here, as the guards had made clear when they were ushered in. But they didn't seem to notice the insults. They were too intent on their need to speak with him. They didn't have the demeanor of hustlers or the shifty look of those trying to hide their real motives. No, they weren't lying.

But perhaps they were deceived. Perhaps they hadn't seen an accurate picture of what was happening. Perhaps their zeal had overridden their reason and they simply thought they saw what they reported.

But that didn't make sense either. They were as sick at heart as he was. Their look was that of those who carry a tragic message, almost against their will; like a huge load they had been saddled with and only wished to unload. So, they had unloaded it on him.

As the shock wore off, the horror of the message seeped in like a malignant fog. He felt physically ill. Had it not been for his training and the years of discipline, he probably would have spent the day curled up in bed. But he had managed to function reasonably well. His motions were smooth and crisp. His words were not tentative. It took immense effort, but his focus on the execution of his duties allowed him to avoid eye contact with the rest of the court. There was a brief moment when the King looked at him with a slight expression of puzzlement, but Artaxerxes often did that when he was working through a problem. He could stare right through you, glaring as though searching the deepest parts of your soul, when all the while he wouldn't even know you were there. Nehemiah's greatest asset—at least for this job—was his ability to become part of the furniture, to disappear into the woodwork, until the moment the King needed something, and then his response was immediate.

Cupbearer to the Emperor of Persia was not a particularly secure job. His predecessor had been categorically discharged. He had misread Artaxerxes' stare as an invitation to speak, and the disruption of the King's thoughts had brought instant dismissal. Artaxerxes, thankfully, had not been upset. He simply noticed that his Cupbearer had been speaking to him without permission, and considered him a nuisance to remove, like a child will shoo away a bothersome fly. The man had been remarkably fortunate, for his predecessor had been dispatched to the executioner.

As Cupbearer, Nehemiah was almost continually in the presence of the King. At first, he had lived in a constant state of terror, having been told by the other servants in graphic detail the bloody anecdotes about Artaxerxes' wrath. But early in his second week, the King had asked his opinion of a proposal made by an ambassador from Egypt. Nehemiah's measured words were neither fawningly obeisant nor drivelingly non-committal. He simply told the King his perspective, that from his view the man was obviously lying through his teeth, presumably to cover up his barely cloaked ambitions to gain power at Pharaoh's court, to the specific detriment of the Foreign Minister. Artaxerxes had stared at him for a few seconds that seemed like hours, and then in a deathly quiet voice said, "Young man, when I want your opinion, I'll ask for it." And then, after a second or two, he burst into gales of laughter and continued, "And I may ask for it often!" Then he stopped and actually looked at him, as though for the first time, and said with a bit of a mischievous grin, "Just don't let the rest of those vultures around here know that the gods don't reserve their discernment only for the King." And that was the beginning of Nehemiah's real tenure as Cupbearer.

Over the years, both King and Cupbearer had matured, and their relationship developed, if not into a friendship, certainly into a mutual respect. Nehemiah never took advantage of the trust of his King, never slipped into that fatal familiarity that can so easily tempt a servant. Artaxerxes almost never solicited Nehemiah's opinion in the presence of others, save the Queen, who obviously respected and appreciated Nehemiah as much as an advisor as a servant. But alone, the King would muse aloud to Nehemiah, often using him as a sounding board for strategies and insights into the complex machinations of running such a far-flung empire as Persia.

This day, however, Nehemiah waited in dread on his King, afraid his shaken state would be apparent. He had digested the awful news: that the very Land God had promised to his people as a source of blessing and prosperity was anything but. Israel, it had been reported, was in a shocking state of poverty and chaos, and Jerusalem was essentially a massive refugee camp. The news was distressing in itself, but Nehemiah had never imagined that this harsh reality could so utterly shatter his naive illusions about how things should be in the Promised Land. The news came as a blow to his very faith, and it took hours before the shock wore off enough for him to fall down before God and weep.

Nehemiah took the only action he could: he prayed and mourned in private, he fasted, he confessed the sins of his people and begged God to have mercy on the Jews. Then, from nowhere, a dim and formless hope began to flicker within him, and he was specifically moved to ask God for divine favor for himself, for this mere Cupbearer to the King of the world.

Artaxerxes had been consumed of late by a recent dispute with the Babylonian Satrap, who had requested a reduction in tribute for their province. But Artaxerxes was not King of Persia for nothing. The man had amazing insight into the motives of others, and could work through dozens of issues simultaneously with that prodigious mind, unbending will, and insatiable capacity for sheer work. It was during lunch with the Queen, when the servants had left the three of them alone, Nehemiah quietly standing invisibly to the side in the private dining hall. The two monarchs were engaged in quiet small talk, mostly about the issue with Babylon. Artaxerxes seemed typically preoccupied with a myriad of other matters as Nehemiah filled their wineglasses.

Then, as though there was nothing else on their minds, the King and Queen both stopped, turned to Nehemiah, and Artaxerxes addressed him in what seemed like an almost tentative, sensitive way:

"Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill?" he asked Nehemiah. "This can be nothing but sadness of heart." Nehemiah was shocked and petrified. He was so taken off guard by the King's direct question that, almost against his will, he blurted out:

"May the King live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?" Nehemiah was aghast! Many men had lost their heads for far less than the near impertinence he had dared to offer. How could he possibly get out of this mess? Artaxerxes was seemingly unfazed by his outburst, and although the eyes of the Queen widened in surprise, the slightest smile formed on her lips as though she was watching a favorite child struggle in a spelling contest. Nehemiah, however, knew he had to act quickly to atone and apologize for his words and do anything necessary to undo this breach of conduct. Before he could say anything, however, the King shook his head as though dismissing Nehemiah's concerns and continued.

"What is it you want?" Suddenly, even in his state of increasing panic, Nehemiah remembered his prayer, and knew that it had been answered. He just knew somehow, in some strange way, that even the great Artaxerxes was but a pawn to the King of Heaven. Somewhere, an ancient proverb came to mind: " _The King's heart is in the hand of the Lord; He directs it like a watercourse wherever it pleases."_

But it didn't staunch the flood of fear racing through him. Artaxerxes was a man of action. He had no time for whiners who saw problems without offering solutions. He had asked the question and now he expected an answer, a resolution, a definitive response that will effectively take this issue off of his plate. The Queen seemed mirthfully anxious to hear Nehemiah's answer, to see how this trusted servant would manage to get his foot out of his mouth. Again, Nehemiah spoke as through a long tunnel, as though he himself wasn't speaking at all, and his response shocked even him:

"If it pleases the King and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it." For the slightest moment, the King's gaze shifted away from and back to Nehemiah, as though considering the request while instantaneously assessing whether Nehemiah had the mettle for such a task. The Cupbearer had never been to the province of Judea. He had never been even engaged in, much less in charge of, a significant construction project. His only authority had been over some of the other servants in the palace—an admittedly conspiratorial brood, but definitely restrained by the sheer proximity to the King. The residents in Judea were far away from the center of the empire and likely to be unruly, if not outright rebellious to an untested imperial delegate.

Despite all these obstacles, Artaxerxes knew Nehemiah in a way, perhaps, that Nehemiah didn't even know himself. In that mere microsecond, Artaxerxes had processed this set of dilemmas and had made his decision, pending a bit more information.

"How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?" Even the Queen turned in amazement to her husband, who now smiled in that enigmatic way that bespoke volumes about his intelligence, his confidence, and his majestic sense of authority.

And in that instant, Nehemiah saw that it would work. He saw that the King saw it would work. That strange royal smile confirmed in him the confidence that what he asked would not only be permitted, it would succeed. Because Artaxerxes willed it to succeed.

Because God willed it to succeed.

* * *

And so, King Artaxerxes sent Nehemiah to Jerusalem. He gave him a mandate to use the resources of the Persian Empire to rebuild and restore the city, and to act as the King's legate in all matters of his concern. The book of Nehemiah records how this mere Cupbearer went to Jerusalem, marshaled the people, and despite strong and continual opposition from the local powers, restored the security of the city by rebuilding its wall in only fifty-two days.

The story of Nehemiah seems, at first glance, almost like an extraneous footnote to the history of the Jewish People. With the book of Ezra, the story of the restoration of Jerusalem under the Persians seems like a minor addendum that has no real significance for us today. Perhaps this is because the restored Jerusalem never reached its former glory and splendor as under David and Solomon. Perhaps it is because, barely 500 years later, the Roman Empire swept through Israel and made the Babylonian conquest look like a picnic, laying utter waste to the Land and scattering the Jews to the four winds for nearly 2,000 years. Perhaps it is because Christians have, for most of our history, erroneously considered the Promised Land to be an ancient and no longer binding promise God had made to His "former" People. For whatever reason, the Biblical history of the Jews after the Babylonian exile is barely of interest to most Christians.

But as we shall see, the rebuilding of the altar, the temple, and the wall around Jerusalem have immense importance to us. There are vital, symbolic promises inherent in this story. Indeed, the scriptural account of the rebuilding and restoration of Israel is a divine metaphor, a symbolic template for us today. We have been given our own Nehemiah Mandate.

To understand it, we must start, like Nehemiah, at the beginning. We must grasp, like Nehemiah, some very difficult, very painful facts. We must be willing, like Nehemiah, to recognize a harsh truth that runs perfectly counter to every divine desire we have, and, perhaps, against much of what we have been taught. Despite what we see with our eyes and yearn for in our hearts, that truth is this:

The Christian church is in ruins.

### PART I: WHERE WE ARE

Chapter 1: A Church in Ruins

So what's wrong with the Christian church? Sure, there have been some isolated, if highly publicized, problems. But with two billion adherents to Christianity, there are certain to be some problems. The church today includes more Christians than at any other time in history: fully one-third of the global population. Although many traditional denominations are losing members, there is a growing population of those who are devoutly seeking God, especially among the young, versus those who equate Christian faith merely with church membership. Even if it is often on the defensive against the anti-Christian onslaught in academia, politics, the arts, the media, and popular culture in general, the church's simple existence testifies to the impact and influence of Christianity on many institutions of power and prestige, if not globally, certainly in the West. It could be argued that the Christian faith is as vibrant, growing, and influential as at any time in history.

But that is not the point. The real issue is one of metrics. How do we measure the Christian church? By what standard can we determine whether the church is in good shape or "in ruins?"

Divine Metrics

Some things are easily measured. We measure the success of corporations by their profitability or stock price. We measure the success of athletes by their win-loss record. We measure the success of the IRS by how much revenue it collects versus its operating budget. Other things are less easily measured. Is a charity's success determined by the number of people it helps or the amount of donations it receives? Is an artist's success determined by the number of paintings he sells or by some ethereal quality of his art? Is the President of the United States successful because he accomplishes what the Constitution defines as his job or because his polls are favorable?

How do we measure the success of the Christian church? Some rate the church by its membership numbers. Some by its finances. Some by the popular fame or academic credentials of its leaders. Some by the areas covered through its missionary efforts. Many Christians measure the success of their local church by how much the sermons instruct or inspire them, by how friendly the members are, by how many extracurricular programs are available, or simply how they feel when they attend. But these are not the metrics we should be using.

Consider Jesus for a moment. How do we rate his success? Some consider him a successful teacher or philosopher because his words were profound. Some consider him a successful humanitarian because he cared about the poor. Some consider him a successful prophet because he inspired many in his day and billions more since then. Some may even consider him a successful doctor because he healed so many sick people.

But we cannot measure Jesus as a philosopher, humanitarian, prophet, or doctor. Whatever else he said or did, Jesus also claimed to be the Jewish Messiah, the Son of God. This is such an extraordinary assertion that it makes any other aspect of his ministry superfluous. As C. S. Lewis has pointed out, either Jesus was or was not the Son of God. If he was not, then either he knew he was not—which would make him a liar of the first order—or he actually thought he was—which would make him as crazy as someone who thinks he's a poached egg. Jesus' very words defined the standard of his success, and those words give us just three options: he was diabolically evil, he was a raving lunatic, or he was, in fact, the Son of God. He left us no room to rate him on any other scale.

The church has a similar scale for success. Jesus founded the Christian church with one overriding purpose: it was to be the vehicle through which the Kingdom of God was to be established "on earth as it is in heaven." The success or failure of the church must be measured on this standard alone. As he did with himself, so he did with his church: Jesus left us no other options. It is of no value whatsoever to measure the members, dollars, programs, ministries, fame, popularity, diversity, political influence, economic influence, cultural influence, or anything else about the church, unless it testifies to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth. This is not the best measure of the church's success or failure. It is the only measure given us.

And according to that standard, the Christian church today is "in ruins."

The Divine Ark

A man was running late for a meeting in an office next to a river. He speeds along in his new luxury car, and, as he approaches the river, he sees that the bridge is out. He stops his car and gets out to view the situation. As he stands there, a young lad in a small boat motors up to him.

"Can I give you a lift across the river?" the boy asks.

"No thanks" said the man, "I need to drive to that building over there, and I have to be there in ten minutes."

"Well" said the boy, "the next closest bridge is almost an hour away. But I can run you across the river in plenty of time."

"But you don't understand," replies the man a bit angrily, "I just bought this car, and I want to drive it to the meeting."

"It sure is a nice car, Mister" the boy says. "But I don't think it's going to get you across this river."

During his first visit to this planet, Jesus walked across the raging Sea of Galilee like it was dry land. More importantly for us, Peter also walked on water. Through faith and the supernatural power of God, a man who was not the Son of God, however briefly, walked on water. This same Peter was the man Jesus appointed to be one of the leaders of his fledgling church.

Accordingly, it was up to Peter to lead the first group of humanity across the raging sea of this world to the Kingdom of God on Earth. The church, if you will, was decreed to be the divine ark that would bring a fallen and sinful mankind across the deluge to its new Promised Land. It is not important how pretty or luxurious the boat is. What's important—and this is the only thing that is important to the divine mission of the church—is whether it can cross the water.

Today, the Christian church has it backwards. The church is in ruins because it cannot possibly accomplish its task. The church is a car and we need a boat. However we dress it up with luxurious buildings and state-of-the-art sound systems and rock concert worship services and pithy sermons relevant to our times, the church simply cannot float. It may be beautiful and powerful in all the ways the world cherishes, but, by its very nature, it cannot do what it has been commissioned to do.

"But wait!" some may say. "Some of the most kind, generous, devout people are members of my church." This may very well be true, but it doesn't matter. In Nehemiah's day, the Jews who lived in Jerusalem were the same way. They were the ones who had left the relative comfort of life in Babylon to endure hardship in their Land, based on their faith, trust, and hope in the promise of God. They were generous, self-sacrificing and devout. But Jerusalem, according to Nehemiah, was "in ruins" nonetheless.

Individuals vs. the Corporate

To some, declaring that the church is "in ruins" is taken as an indictment of the individuals involved. But it isn't about the individuals. The individuals in your church or any church may be whole-heartedly seeking God, may have been baptized in water and received the Spirit, may fast and pray and praise and worship and study the Bible all the time. But this changes nothing. The church as a whole—as a vehicle to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth—is simply not able to do the job. The only indictment of the individuals involved is that they may be ignorant of the mission and purpose of the church, and of the means to accomplish that mission. But ignorance is not sin. Ignorance can be remedied with a little understanding.

Collecting devout Christians into a room does not make a church, at least, not as Jesus intended the church. Collecting stellar athletes onto a football field or basketball court doesn't, in itself, make them a team. They have to be assigned positions. They have to be trained. They have to care about the good of the team over their own interests. They have to defer to the authority of the coach. In short, they have to function as a team. Just gathering them together doesn't accomplish this.

Neither does gathering together a group of Christians make a church. Putting half a dozen of the most kind, generous, devout, faithful, and loving people in even the most expensive and opulent car in the world won't make it float. Just as a team is more than the sum of its players, so the church is much more than the sum of its individuals. Arranging a bunch of organs in an operating room is a far cry from a living human being. Jesus didn't come to create an organ bank. He came to create a body.

The Call to Unity

God wants His people to come together. His design all along has been to be the God of His _people_ , not merely of His persons. The divine relationship, as powerful and wonderful as it is at the individual level, is infinitely more powerful and wonderful at the corporate level. God has simply reserved some things for His people _in unity_ that He won't provide for us individually. He has ordained a large degree of blessing for the church as a whole that He won't give to individuals. This is not because God is stingy or petty. It is because the glory He has destined for humanity is simply too big, too powerful, too potent to "fit" on or in an individual, or a group of individuals.

During World War II, the task was to destroy the worldwide power of the Axis enemies and to free the captives who were oppressed by their tyranny. No individual could do that task. Setting loose even millions of individuals to go rout Hitler would have been a disaster. The conquest of Germany and Japan required the complex planning and intense training of a well-disciplined army, not a bunch of individuals, even zealous ones. Unless those individuals could act as a concerted team, unless they could function as a collective unit, unless they could lay aside their personal comfort and individual ideas about how the war should be fought and follow the orders of the Allied High Command, we would have never prevailed.

In the same way, Christians are called to be an army. We are not merely called to meet together, to gather together, to share the same geography. We are called to function as a team. We are called to be trained. We are called to be armed and learn how to use our weaponry. We are called to be assigned to our proper platoons, under our proper authorities, doing the proper tasks God has uniquely designed for each of us. We are called to voluntarily subordinate our personal comfort and our individual ideas about how the Kingdom of God is supposed to advance, and actively obey the orders of our King. Of course, we have no idea how to do any of that to which we are called. But we need not worry. We need only choose to proceed.

Natural versus Spiritual

Before enlisting, a recruit may have been a excellent chef. If he's called to mix up explosives however, his chef's training won't do him much good. He may have been an Olympic fencer. But the days of sword-fighting are long gone, and learning to shoot a machine gun is an entirely different thing. He may have been a professional motocross racer. But if he's appointed to drive a tank, his experience won't be particularly helpful.

In the same way, when we come into the Kingdom, the tools, weapons, and tactics are entirely different from what we know. You may be a decisive businessman, but that won't help much when you're called to wait patiently on the Spirit's leading. You may have been a gifted college wrestler, but wrestling in the Spirit—either with God or the enemy—is a radically different kind of match. We may want to use our natural talents and skills in the Kingdom, but the problem is _there's nothing natural about the Kingdom of God_.

The Kingdom of God is a spiritual enterprise, a spiritual government, a spiritual army, a spiritual community. We are called to battle spiritually. We are called to think spiritually. We are called to respond spiritually. We are called to relate to each other spiritually. As with any army, we must be trained, armed, and assigned. But we are trained in the ways of the Spirit. We are armed with weapons of the Spirit to battle spiritual enemies. We are assigned roles based on that part of the Spirit within us, assigned tasks based on the tools the Spirit gives us, and assigned to platoons according to the Spirit's authority. Nothing in the Kingdom is done naturally.

This causes us a problem. The church today is almost entirely natural. We have been exposed only to natural things, to emotional orations, to intellectual teaching, to political action, to the not-so-hidden economic priorities of those who dare speak for God. We know little or nothing of spiritual things, spiritual means, or spiritual ways. Like a child, we must learn everything over again in an entirely different mode. We may want to express ourselves naturally. We may expect to be appointed to positions based on our natural talents or natural desires. We may prefer to work with those people we enjoy or appreciate in the natural. There is nothing wrong with such natural preferences, so long as they aren't confused with our divine mission.

To Begin

God promises to teach us. He promises to train us to hear and see and think spiritually. He promises to provide us potent spiritual weapons and amazing spiritual tools. He promises to assign us to tasks for which He spiritually empowers us, to groups in which we will find spiritual support and direction, and to positions for which we have been created and spiritually prepared. And above and beyond all of this, He promises us the unfathomable power of His right arm, the unfathomable strength of His joy, the unfathomable peace that is inexplicable, the unfathomable love that never fails.

Our first step is to come down from the stands and become participants instead of spectators. Not in church on Sunday—at least, not at first. But in the place where He positions us, starting in that most local of all arenas—our families—we can begin to learn how to spiritually participate in the Kingdom. We may desire to preach to the nations, but unless we learn how to participate in the Kingdom at home, there's nothing we have to offer anywhere else. This is where the church begins. This is the first building block of the Kingdom.

Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem was in ruins, so he sought God's direction and help. God responded by giving him a mandate, a commission, a charge, a task to perform. He not only gave Nehemiah a mandate, but also gave him—as He always does—the resources to accomplish it.

Nehemiah was called to build a wall. As we shall see, that is our task as well. A big step on our journey toward the Kingdom of God on Earth is to construct a wall. Where Nehemiah's wall was a natural one around the entire city, ours is entirely spiritual, and, at least to begin with, around only that part of the Land assigned to us. What exactly that means we'll discuss later, but it is a radically different thing than going to church.

Lest we despair that we have so much to learn and so far to go, we can take heart that it took Nehemiah only fifty-two days to complete his wall. How long it requires us to build our wall is uncertain, but God does not intend that it should take all that long. There is way too much to do for us to spend our lives on a fifty-two day task.

Today, just as Nehemiah learned of his people in their Land, the Christian church is in ruins. We can echo the words of the Psalmist: " _We are given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be._ " (Psalm 74:9) But we need not despair. We can also take to heart the words of the Lord to Zerubbabel, " _Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel_." (Zechariah 4:10) We can rejoice that it is time to begin rebuilding. We cannot know how long our journey will take, but we are promised that the trip will be worth it.

To begin, let's take a look at our destination. Let's look at what Jesus intended His church to be.

PART II: HOW WE GOT HERE
Chapter 2: A New Species

Christianity was not founded like any other religion. It was not established around some good ideas or a new set of rules or rituals. Most religions are built around the words and ideas of their founders. The essential gist of all religions is to provide a creed—words—to help us become better human beings and to enjoy the benefits of that improvement, either in this life or after death. Advice. Instruction. Rituals. Rules. Commands _. Words_.

Christianity, as it was founded, was entirely different from anything before or since. Certainly, Jesus spoke words. Many today, Christian and non-Christian alike, consider him to be, like the founders of other religions, mostly a source of words. But Jesus' words didn't describe how to behave better. He didn't tell us how to feel better or improve our outlook or raise our consciousness. He didn't tell us how to perfect the human condition. His words were not about fixing a broken humanity. What Jesus said had nothing to do with making us better human beings.

He taught quite clearly that the human condition was irreparable. He taught that mankind had been infected with an incurable spiritual sickness called "sin." He explained that there was no remedy for it, that no amount of effort could compensate for it, and that no human being, regardless of the words and ideas they acknowledged, could escape it. Sin, Jesus taught, was much more insidious, much more pervasive, and much more lethal than anyone had previously described. He made it absolutely clear that there was only one fate for every human being. Sin will kill us. We will all die. Not just physically, but spiritually and eternally. He taught that the result of being infected by sin was that our only and certain future was death. Jesus said that the entire human race—those born from the lineage of the first man, Adam—was on an inexorable path to physical extinction and spiritual damnation. Mankind had earned itself an inescapable death sentence. And contrary to how so many misunderstand his mission, Jesus did not come to pardon us.

A Strange Option

He did, however, offer an alternative. His alternative was quite unlike any words or ideas or philosophies or rituals ever espoused. His alternative sounded much less like a religion than it did some sort of science fiction story. His answer to a humanity universally infected with the fatal spiritual disease of sin was this: let it die. Don't work on it. Don't try to fix it or tame it or prevent it. Don't search for cures or salves. There's nothing to be done with this Adamic human race but to let it die.

And in its place, let's start a new race.

The essential point of Christianity was the introduction of an entirely new life form. Through some mysterious, metaphysical mechanics that we cannot completely fathom, Jesus voluntarily accepted an execution on our behalf. Being innocent—that is, being the only human who, because of his unique parentage, was not infected with sin—he took our place on the cross in what is referred to as a "substitutionary death." That his Father resurrected him on the third day proved that this bizarre exchange had successfully taken place, and he became the first human being to be transformed into a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God.

Rebirth

The process by which men and women could join Jesus in the Kingdom was called, as he termed it to the Jewish leader, Nicodemas, being "born again." It is a testimony to the explosion of the number of Christians today that this term has been co-opted by the world to mean any sort of revitalization. The careers of movie stars or musicians are sometimes referred to having been "born again" when they release a hit film or song after a period of no success. Athletes who recover from a slump are said to be "born again." Businesses that rebound to profitability after a reorganization are said to have been "born again."

But to Jesus, spiritual rebirth was not a metaphor. It was not in any way a reference to the rehabilitation of the human species, which could not—cannot—be rehabilitated. Spiritual rebirth is an enigmatic process through which God's Holy Spirit merges with the terminally ill spirit of a human person. This divine infusion creates a spiritual-human hybrid, an entirely new species of life, a "new man." Spiritual rebirth is a mysterious, supernatural process in which the living Spirit of the God of the universe cohabits with and enlivens the human spirit within a human body. Jesus' alternative went way beyond wise sayings or a renewed commitment to good behavior. It was much more than mere words.

New Creatures

When the scriptures refer to a Christian as "a new creature in Christ," this, too, is not a metaphor. It is a spiritual and natural reality. It is profound and inexplicable, to be sure. But even if we do not fully understand how it works, it is real. Becoming a "new creature" is not a revitalization or renewal of one's humanity. The new birth creates new life of an entirely foreign substance, packaged in a human form. It is a divine version of the old movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Jesus, like Adam, became the first person of an entirely new species. Through the spiritual act of faith, we can also be transformed into this new species. This is the essence of Jesus' earthly ministry. This is the essence of Christianity.

This is not only a far cry from how Christianity is portrayed in the media or current culture, it is also often a good bit removed from how it is portrayed in most churches. Instead, we too often hear how to live a better life, how to act like a better person, how to do something, usually conforming to some rules or—because Christians are quick to avoid the word "law"—Christian "principles." But Christianity isn't about doing things differently. It's fundamentally about _being_ different, from the inside out. About becoming transformed from one thing into an entirely different, alien thing. It is not something we do. It is something that is, supernaturally, _done to us._

The process of spiritual rebirth is like the injection of a divine virus. There are immediate effects when the Holy Spirit infects a human being. The most common symptom is a new and selfless love for others. Then, just as a virus spreads throughout the body, so the divine infection also works gradually to utterly transform a human being into the human-spirit hybrid of the Kingdom. The first symptom—love—continues to manifest itself in increasing strength and regularity, even as other symptoms arise which affect and transform the mind, the heart, the soul, and even the body.

Just as a virus is often contagious, so the divine infection is passed from one person to another. Some folks are given the unique ability to spread the virus to masses of people at a time. These are often called "evangelists." Most of us, however, pass it to one person at a time, often when we least expect to be doing so.

Just as a virus destroys the cells and tissues of its host, so does the divine infection. That is to say, the infection of the Holy Spirit is not something that strengthens or heals or in any way makes the human being better. Indeed, where a biological virus makes the host sick, the divine infection not only makes him sick, _it kills him_. The divine infection is fatal to the fallen human nature of the person infected. The result of infection by the Spirit is death to the "flesh"—to that fallen part of us—as the divine part becomes stronger and more dominant.

When a diluted virus is injected into a human being, the body develops a resistance to the full-fledged virus in a process we call "inoculation." In a spiritual sense, this has happened to the world in our age. Nearly everyone on the planet today has been exposed to an anti-Kingdom vaccine: a weak, ineffective, diluted version of Christianity. Tragically, this vaccine comes, not only from the secular media, but directly from too many church pulpits. It is, as Paul wrote, a version of the Kingdom that has "a form of godliness, but denying its power." The result is a population that has mastered the vocabulary of Christianity but has utterly no concept of the power of the Spirit; a population that has become immune to all but the most potent strains of the Kingdom of God.

Conversion

Spiritual birth initiates a transformation, a _conversion_. "Conversion" is often used to describe the adoption of new ideas, like realizing a new truth or assenting to the logic of an argument. "Christian conversion" is sometimes thought of this way, when a person adopts the ideas and teachings of the Gospels.

But that is not what Jesus initiated. That is a function of the intellect alone, of words. Christian conversion—Jesus' way—is the dramatic and irrevocable transformation of one thing into an entirely different and foreign thing. Like hydrogen and oxygen are converted, with the release of a great deal of energy, into water. Like plutonium matter is converted, with an even greater release of energy, into the heat and light of an atomic explosion. These are the conversions of one thing into a totally different thing. This is the true nature of Christian conversion.

This process of spiritual rebirth and transformation made Christianity radically different from any other religion or philosophy. It also made Jesus out to be an extremist. Jesus' new alternative for mankind was either true or it was not. If it was not true and Jesus thought it was true, then he was a raving lunatic. If it was not true and he knew it was false, then Jesus was a charlatan of unparalleled magnitude. If, however, what Jesus introduced was true, then something radically alien and astoundingly wonderful had invaded planet Earth, something beyond both the means and imagination of any human being. Christianity was either a monstrous farce, or it was unfathomably miraculous. What it wasn't was just another religion, another new set of rules or laws or rituals. Christianity—as Jesus founded it—was not merely a matter of words.

An Entirely New Thing

Those who view Christianity as simply another religion or philosophy can be confused or offended by what they perceive as its claim to be superior to other religions. "How can you believe Jesus' ideas to be better than, say, Mohammed's?" "How can a good God sentence a Muslim or Hindu to hell, just for having different ideas?" This is a common misunderstanding, based on the assumption that the ideas—the words—are the focus.

But Jesus didn't come to just speak words. He came to create an entirely new race of creatures. It doesn't matter whether the initial creatures—humans—believe in Jewish philosophy or Buddhist philosophy or Islamic philosophy or even—and this is particularly poignant today—Christian philosophy. Without spiritual transformation, without supernatural conversion, these creatures cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. All human beings, regardless of the ideas they espouse, are metaphysically designed in a way that prevents them from entering a place designed for non-humans. Only those who are born again can live in the Kingdom of God. It's like saying it's unfair that only those in spacesuits can survive walking outside of the airlock of the space shuttle. Only these strange new creatures, these human-spirit hybrids, are capable of surviving in that place called the Kingdom of Heaven. No other types of creature will survive. I suspect there will be no dogs in the Kingdom. I question whether there will be cats in the Kingdom. But certainly there will there be no human beings in the Kingdom. Only these Spirit-creatures can exist there.

The process of divine spiritual conversion is not a "better idea" than the writings of the Koran or of Confucius or of any other religious founder. It is an entirely different thing. It is the boat that is radically and fundamentally different from all the cars of so many different makes and models lined up on the shore. The cars are designed—some better and some worse—for driving around in the world. Only the boat, however, can float. Only this strange new species can live in the Kingdom, and no other religion or philosophy can effect such a conversion.

But this conversion isn't the end.

As Jesus told Nicodemas, "... _no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again_." (John 3:3.) Rebirth is the first step. It is not the end of the journey. It is merely the beginning. There is much more beyond crossing the threshold of spiritual birth. Today, millions of human beings have made the jump, have been reborn into the new species, and are being transformed into human-spiritual hybrids. These Christians are as "legitimate" as were the Jews living in Jerusalem in Nehemiah's time. But just as the Jews' mere presence in the Promised Land didn't make them complete, neither does individual rebirth and transformation complete the Christian process. Just as Jerusalem as a city was "in ruins," so the church, even composed of millions of truly reborn Christians, is in ruins.

Individually, spiritual rebirth is a wonderful and necessary beginning to an eternal adventure. Corporately, however, there is much more to it. Corporately, the Christian church is designed to be divinely synergistic. It is intended to be much, much more than the sum of its parts. Like the difference between our room full of human organs and a living, breathing person, the church is meant to be something unthinkably greater than a collection of its members. Spiritual rebirth allows these hybrid creatures to unite in an entirely new way, with entirely new powers, and an entirely new mission. But just stuffing them into a room periodically doesn't do it.

In fact, 120 or so hybrids were stuffed into just such a room about 2,000 years ago. Then the Holy Spirit arrived, and the room could no longer contain them.

### Chapter 3: Invasion

Christianity didn't gradually arise from the teachings of Jesus. Christianity didn't evolve from the experiences and writings of his disciples. Christianity didn't emerge as an adaptation of Judaism or from the logic of the Apostle Paul. Instead, Christianity literally exploded on the scene.

One hundred twenty people were praying in an upper room in Jerusalem, waiting for whatever it was that Jesus said would come. Suddenly, the Holy Spirit dropped in on them with dramatic results. Tongues of fire—a strange manifestation of the Spirit—rested on each of them, and they began to prophesy and speak in tongues. With fire and noise and seeming chaos, it was a literal explosion, with people running from all over to see what was going on. The result was a quantum shift in the universe.

This wasn't a vastly successful membership drive. It wasn't a solicitation to a new way of thinking. It wasn't an invitation of any sort, much less a solemn ceremony with emotionally soulful music in the background. No one asked for anyone to "make a commitment" or do anything. Instead, thousands of onlookers rushed to see what the noise and chaos was all about. Among these, Peter, a leader of the disciples, stood up and made a proclamation. He ignored the doubters and scoffers and stated, clearly and concisely, that what was happening was what Jesus and the prophets had said would happen. That this was the start of God's redemption of mankind. That a new order had arrived. That the divine invasion of planet Earth had begun.

Which is exactly what it was: an invasion. What happened on Pentecost in Jerusalem was nothing like the stained glass images of religious piety so common to Christian tradition. Instead, it was truly something from the genre of H. G. Wells. An alien agent, far more advanced and powerful than anyone could imagine, had long been rumored to be "out there." Ancient predictions spoke of a coming visitation, which would usher in a period of joy and freedom for humanity. The time of that visitation had finally come. Its method was to infect and mutate human hosts into strange, other-worldly creatures. It intended to overrun the entire human race. And its ultimate plan was to conquer every government, take control of every competing authority, and extend its rule across the whole planet. This is basically what Peter proclaimed. The result was that 3,000 people were immediately confronted, infected, and transmuted into these hybrid spirit-creatures.

Troops and Weapons

In some regards, it was just like any other invasion. It began with the amassing of sufficient troops to overwhelm the enemy. These were equipped with the arms and tactics necessary for the job. Their first task was to eliminate the enemy, to attack their strongholds until they fled or were hamstrung into impotence. Once the enemy was overthrown, the captives would be freed and tended to. Then the invaders would set up their own government.

In 1944, in preparation for D-Day—the Allied invasion of Nazi-controlled Europe during World War II—a million or so American troops and support staff flooded into England. Never before had so many fighting men and women been amassed in readiness for an attack. In the same way, prior to the beginning of the first Iraq war, Desert Storm, nearly a half-million Coalition troops gathered near the Iraqi borders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Before the onslaught of any military campaign, it is critical to ensure that one's army is large enough to handle the job.

The same was true for the divine invasion. By human standards, it was a paltry crew of motley folks, stashed away in an obscure house in a subjugated city in a harsh, rural backwater far from the centers of civilization. But the invading alien—the God of the Universe—saw in those 120 people, including their twelve uneducated, unsophisticated, formerly unreliable leaders, a force more than equal to the task. He saw that the most strategic place to amass this formidable army was in the divine city of Jerusalem. There, they were commanded to wait for the signal to attack. That signal was given personally by the very General assigned to lead the invasion: the Holy Spirit.

Once an invasion begins, the first order of business is to eliminate the enemy. During WWII, conquering the Nazi enemies in Europe was a gradual, bloody process. Even when the outcome was certain, the enemy fought relentlessly, forcing the Allies to dislodge them street by street and house by house, all the way to the center of Berlin. On the Japanese front, the enemy fought even more fiercely. It appeared that the invasion of Japan would require at least as big of a buildup as D-Day, and was projected to cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. But the scientists in New Mexico had had a breakthrough. Instead of trying to overwhelm a relentless enemy with sheer numbers, the Allies tried a strange new weapon: the atomic bomb. The power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were minor explosions compared to the technology of today, but at the time, these weapons were beyond belief. A single bomb delivered by a single airplane and its small crew created more desolation to the enemy than hundreds of sorties by entire squadrons over Germany. The damage was so vast and the power so shocking that Japan surrendered, saving millions of lives on both sides.

In the same way, the 120 souls who comprised the vanguard of the divine invasion were successful, not because they were more cunning strategists or more committed warriors than their enemy, but because they had immeasurably greater weaponry. The power of the Holy Spirit, unleashed through the leaders and members of the early church, overran the enemy defenses with ease. The tactics were really quite simple. They would go where and when their General directed, and there, in the midst of even deeply rooted and implacable enemies, evict them. The enemies were commanded to stop their oppression, to leave the innocent civilians alone, and to go away. And they did, fleeing from the unfathomable power of the Holy Spirit exercised "in Jesus' name."

Delegated Authority

This has caused some confusion. Some considered the name of Jesus to be a kind of magic word, a verbal amulet that could be used to tap into the unlimited divine power of the Spirit. This proved to be a dangerous misunderstanding.

Doing something "in Jesus' name" means simply that it is done under Jesus' delegated authority according to his plan and will. It is not unlike cashing a check. If I present your check made out to me to a bank teller, I am commanding them in your name—using your authority over your funds—to give me your money. If I decide that I want more of your money than you want to authorize and forge a check in your name, I may or may not succeed in getting it cashed. But I will have exceeded your authority, and the consequences could be a fine and imprisonment.

As the divine invasion swept through Israel, some saw the power that the Apostle Paul wielded and decided to "forge a spiritual check." Seven sons of a man named Sceva tried to exorcise the demons inhabiting a certain man. They commanded the demons to come out " _in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches_." The demons responded, " _Jesus we know, and Paul we know about, but who are you?_ " The possessed man then proceeded to beat up the seven men until they fled bleeding and naked. The demons recognized both the power of the Spirit and the authority of Jesus. But they also knew who did and did not have authorization to use these weapons.

Everywhere these new human-spirit creatures—these Christians—went, they dislodged the enemy. They healed the sick. They drove out demons. They raised the dead. They performed all sorts of miracles that defied natural laws and astounded the world. The enemy could not resist the power of the invasion force. People who had been captives of the enemy for years and years were suddenly set free. These and others who witnessed the miracles were confronted with an entirely new and alien power. As the invasion progressed, thousands heard the proclamation that the redemptive invasion had begun, and were reborn into the advancing Kingdom. This, in a nutshell, is the story of the Book of Acts: the beginning of the divine invasion of planet Earth.

Replacing the Government

In any war, it is not enough to merely eliminate the enemy. Once that is done, a power vacuum exists. If the enemy is broken, but the victors simply march out of town, the place will fall into total chaos. Chaos will inevitably lead to totalitarianism, either through the return of the enemy or by the rise of another strongman. For a city or country to be effectively conquered, the enemy must not only be destroyed, the occupiers must then set up their own government. This is what makes the conquered country truly part of the invading kingdom. This is what permanently eliminates the threat of counterattack and the need to reconquer the land. This is also the longest and often most difficult part of the invasion.

During WWII, the Allies conquered the Axis Powers. Afterwards, the Allies—particularly the Americans—stayed to oversee the rebuilding of Germany and Japan. In less than four years, the Allies eliminated the German and Japanese enemies. But the rebuilding process took decades. The Allied army stayed in both Germany and Japan, protecting the freed citizens, training them and leading them as they formed new governments. As free, constitutionally governed countries, Germany and Japan were converted from totalitarian dictatorships into democratic republics, the same kind of government as the Allies. By this, the Allies needed no longer to fear them as enemies. The conquered countries had become Allies themselves. But the process required much more than simply killing off the old guard and heading home.

The same was true with the divine invasion. It was not enough to just eliminate the enemy and free the captives. To maintain their freedom, the freed population was formed into the same government as the invaders. Not only were the individual human beings converted into human-spirit hybrids, but the lands themselves were converted from oppressive dictatorships into the spirit government of the hybrids.

This is, perhaps, the most critical and overlooked part of the divine invasion. The purpose of the divine invasion was not merely the elimination of an oppressive regime. It was the replacement of one government with another. As we shall see, the enemy had run things his own way for centuries. He had controlled the human population of the planet almost since the beginning. The divine invasion first eliminated his control over the world and the human beings therein. Then it set the captives free. And finally, it established a new government in its place.

Because this government was headed up by a single individual, it was, definitionally, a monarchy; a kingdom. Because the monarch who launched the invasion came from a place beyond this planet, His was not an earthly government, but a heavenly one. And because conquered lands are usually named after either their conquerors or their land, the divine invaders named the government established in their wake. Thus, the invader's monarchy was called the "Kingdom of God"—the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.

This was the purpose of the divine invasion. It was not the introduction of yet another religion. It was not the retooling of God's relationship with the Jews, or a poaching of His promises to them. The events that occurred on Pentecost in that upper room were the first beachhead in a worldwide invasion by an alien King and His subjects. It was the violent overthrow of the reigning government of planet Earth by a stronger power through nothing less than all-out war. The enemy, though long entrenched, could not resist the onslaught. The invasion was an absolute rout.

At least, for a while.

### Chapter 4: The Enemy

With such powerful weapons available to this divine invasion force, it seemed a simple matter to spread the Kingdom of God across the face of the globe. Even a cursory glance at the current state of society, however, makes it clear that this has not occurred. After such a glorious beginning, how did this happen? What stopped the divine invasion? What power is so strong that the unleashed spiritual weaponry of the King of Heaven could not overcome it?

The obvious answer is: the Enemy. But how could this be? During the early years of the invasion, the Enemy was soundly beaten at every turn. The Kingdom had quickly and dramatically expanded from a few souls in Jerusalem to millions throughout the world. It was abundantly clear that even "the gates of Hell" could not resist the divine invasion. By the end of the Book of Acts, Rome itself, the seat of power of the existing world empire, was under siege by the likes of the Apostles Peter and Paul and the Christians living there. So what suddenly stopped the progress?

The unfortunate answer is: we did. The Christian church—the vanguard of the divine invasion—suddenly and inexplicably decided that the invasion had gone far enough. The Enemy had recognized that he could not resist the invasion. So, he did what any good commander will do when faced with an insurmountable opposition. He offered a truce. And strange as it may seem, we—the church—accepted his terms and conditions and essentially laid down our arms.

During the last two thousand years, there have been brief moments when one or another person would rise up, sound the trumpet, and try to resume the invasion. But over and over, the results have been the same. The Enemy will offer a truce. The conditions will be accepted. And the divine invasion falters. Meanwhile, the Enemy proceeds to strengthen his positions, and to take back as much territory as possible.

Today, we live in a world as dominated by the Enemy as it was before the invasion had begun. The only difference between then and now is that, before the invasion, before the Holy Spirit arrived and established his new Kingdom on Earth, everyone knew the score. Everyone instinctively understood that the Enemy was in control. Everyone everywhere longed for freedom from his oppression. Today, however, there are very few who see what was so universally obvious before.

When put this simply, it may seem incomprehensible to us that the church should voluntarily make peace with such a vile and intractable Enemy, especially since we had all the power necessary to dethrone and incapacitate him. But this is exactly what happened. And it happened largely because we were not prepared for and did not recognize his change of tactics.

The Rebel

The Enemy began his tenure, it seems, as a steward, a delegated caretaker. Originally one of the leading spiritual beings in service to the God of Creation, Lucifer was apparently charged with overseeing planet Earth and its inhabitants on God's behalf. One of the most beautiful, brilliant, and powerful creatures in the universe, he decided at some point that being an underling of God was beneath him; that being a steward—even under God—was less desirable than being an owner; that he warranted a kingdom of his own. He and the third of the angels under him rebelled against Heaven, were defeated, and were exiled from Heaven to a little rock in the cosmos called planet Earth. No longer—in the eyes of God, anyway—the bright "morning star," he is hereafter referred to by one of two names: either as the "Adversary," i.e., Satan, or as the "evil one," i.e., the Devil. It is in this rebellious condition that he first encountered God's crowning achievement of Creation: man.

It should be pointed out that man was, by angelic standards, a rather miserable creature. He was not pure spirit, but a spirit-inhabited shell of clay. He was limited by space and time and even gravity. He required food and sleep to survive. He multiplied through a messy, physical process not unlike the stupid beasts in the field. Indeed, even as a beast himself, man was by no means the strongest or fastest or most beautiful creature God had made.

To Satan, human beings, being created from clay, were detestable "mud people," unworthy of notice except for one inexcusable attribute. The God of Creation had chosen these filthy creatures for a glorious experiment. Human beings were created with a unique feature: the breath of God. This made them, like their angelic counterparts, immortal. But beyond this, it gave them free will. And to add insult to injury, God gave them a job. Actually, He gave them Lucifer's job. These mud people succeeded Satan as the divinely delegated stewards of planet Earth. To Satan, this was simply intolerable.

The free will of man was the most mysterious of all of his attributes. God decided to create these humans with a capacity to make decisions on their own. Unlike the animals, the decisions could transcend their natural impulses and even their own well being. More unfathomable to Satan, human decisions could even transcend the will of God. We could choose to know and obey God. Or we could choose not to. And even God wouldn't override our decisions. We don't know whether any of God's other creatures—including the most majestic angelic beings—had this same privilege.

Enemy Tactics

The divine intent behind His gift of free will would not become evident for a long time (and is still largely unrecognized). But the most obvious, immediate effect for Satan was this: if God would not override man's free will, neither could he. This was not some agreed-upon rule of combat between God and Satan. This was part of how God designed the infrastructure of the cosmos. He made the heavens and earth, and stars driven by inconceivable fusion reactions, and plants of unimaginable variety with mysterious osmotic and photosynthetic processes, and animals of all sizes and shapes and modes of movement, and elements and compounds with a nearly infinite array of possible combinations and characteristics, all of this working in harmony with the rest of creation. And then He made mankind with a free will which could not be forcibly usurped by any other creature, heavenly or earthly, including—and this was seemingly preposterous—God Himself. The free will of man was built into the fabric of the universe.

So Satan, although unimaginably more powerful and intelligent than man, could nonetheless not force us into submission. Instead, he had to convince us. He had to lead us to make a seemingly impossible decision: to hand over this planet to him, to turn our backs on the omniscient and omnipotent and all-loving Creator, and submit to the malevolent, all-consuming will of the Devil. This, of course, was an unreasonable choice. So Satan, almost from the outset of life on this planet, instituted his most effective and longest running tactics: deceit and extortion.

The First Conquest

In the beginning of human history, there was a Man and a Woman. The Man had been made by the divine injection of eternal breath into the inanimate substance of earth. The breath made the earth live and become a human being. The Woman was not made the same way. She was created, not directly from clay, but from a part of the already living Man. God had decreed that man should not be alone. So she was designed and created to be his accomplice. Some have understood this to mean Woman was meant to be Man's assistant, which riles the feministic notions of current society because it has been used to justify unenlightened man's forcible subjugation of the weaker woman. In fact, they were meant to be "one." They were meant to work and live together, and only together did they attain the spiritual and natural vitality that both lacked on their own. The two were both human, but built magnificently differently; complementary to each other; needing each other; indeed, wanting each other. Their process of reproduction was a physical unity that created life. In the same way, they were intended to continually live in spiritual unity to have the fullest expression of spiritual life, which necessarily generated all the mental and emotional qualities inherent in each. God made Man and Woman as synergistic beings; together they were quite a bit more than the sum of their individual selves.

As God made them, He gave them different roles. The Man was assigned to be in front. As the stronger, he was the protector. As the one born of clay, he was equipped to deal with "matters of the earth." As the front man, as the head of this union, Man was given the delegated authority as steward of the planet. Likewise, behind his shield of protection, Woman was free to exercise her uniquely sensitive spiritual and emotional strengths. Like a finely tuned piece of precision equipment, her sensitivity was most effective when it was shielded from the barrage of coarse, external stimuli. She was made to deal most effectively with things of the spirit—primarily the Man—not mainly with things of the earth.

Satan recognized that the first issue was to get them apart from one another. He assumed the guise of a serpent—an animal, a thing of the earth—and approached the Woman. Getting her attention, he did what has become his hallmark: he lied to her. He spoke to her of wonderful things, spiritual things, things she found both valuable and desirable. He promised her the very spiritual attributes of God, and through her confusion and his deceit, convinced her to do the single thing she was forbidden to do. She ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And then she went to see the Man.

An Impossible Choice

Now the Man was God's delegate on and over the earth. God gave man His authority by putting him _under_ authority. In order to maintain God's delegated authority, there had to be a mechanism by which that authority flowed from God to him. That mechanism was the Commandment. By obeying the Commandment, by submitting to God's authority, Man could act and rule in God's Name. Through the mechanism of the Commandment, God could transfer and delegate His authority and power to the Man. This process was understood by the Centurion who requested that Jesus heal his servant. He recognized Jesus' authority to heal with just a command, because " _I myself am a man under authority_...." (Matthew 8:9) He keenly understood that to have authority, one must be under authority.

God allowed Man to do whatever he wanted to do. His sole proscription was to avoid eating the fruit of that one tree. So long as the Commandment was obeyed, the Earth was his, God's authority was his, everything was his to command and care for. Breaking the Commandment, however, would sever that divine authority. It would break the relationship with his Source, with Him Who had bestowed to Man all of creation.

The Woman, apparently not entirely understanding all this, ate the forbidden fruit and brought it to the Man. There, he was faced with a horrible choice. God had made it plain that the punishment for disobedience was death. Satan had, of course, insisted to the Woman that this was untrue, that God was merely afraid to share the fruit with them because He wanted to retain His superiority, and that death would certainly not result from a mere bite of fruit.

So the Man had to choose between God and the Woman. She had been confused, deceived, lied to. But the Man understood clearly. Satan didn't care about the Woman. She was simply the means to get to the Man, who, himself, was the means to get to God. She was the bait with which he intended to extort God's authority from the Man.

The Man's impossible choice was to keep the Commandment, let the Woman be judged and die, and return to living alone again. Or, he could eat the fruit, and continue to be with her, even through death. Neither was a palatable position.

The Original Sin

Man chose to eat the fruit. We would like to believe that he was not merely an idiot, but was deeply in love with the Woman (which some would argue is a difference only of semantics.) Either way, the Man chose to voluntarily walk away from God, from his position as God's delegated authority of the earth, and to hand that authority over to Satan.

The result was cataclysmic and universal and eternal. Man and Woman were now separated from God. Indeed, this first sin—the "Original Sin"—changed Man's very DNA, so that every human being born from his line would hereafter be separated from God. Mankind would never again "tend toward" God, but would have to overcome an inherent, powerful force inhibiting any approach to Him. This now innate tendency, this aversion to God, is the essence of what God calls "sin." Many actions can result from being away from and avoiding God. These actions are often referred to as "sins." But the substance of sin is not the action. It is the invisible supernatural force inherent in every human cell and chromosome to avoid God at all costs. This is the sin—the result of Original Sin—with which we are born, with which we contend in life, and from which we die.

The other primary result of the Fall was that Satan was now the undisputed, _legal_ ruler of planet Earth. Although he still could not override the will of man, he was utterly free from any divine restraint to bedazzle and befuddle and coax and threaten and lie—always to lie—to every generation of humanity since. Without our inherent connection to God, we could no longer resist him as he inflamed our natural and spiritual desires into perverted passions and twisted dreams. Indeed, in the first generation after the Fall, one son of the Man and Woman would murder his brother out of envy for God's pleasure—the first victim of a religious war. No longer supernaturally immune to the ravages of age and illness, Man would sicken and die, his body returning to clay and his spirit existing forever in a state of separation from God. Planet Earth had become a vast gulag, with mankind a slave to the new god of this world and his minions.

This was the state of things for nearly four thousand years. A few here and there would try to approach God, try to overcome their natural avoidance of Him, try to live by faith over sin. Inevitably, however, mankind as a whole could not overcome the power of sin within and the Devil without, and the world continued to darken, to become corrupt, to die.

Then God invaded.

### Chapter 5: The Mirror

The first phase of God's plan to invade planet Earth was, perhaps surprisingly, to announce it. To begin, He looked for a man He could trust, a man who was willing to work with Him, a man who—in God's terminology—had faith. This man was Abraham. God spoke to Abraham, and Abraham dared to believe that the God of Creation was asking him to trust Him.

God made Abraham some promises. He promised to give him many descendents. He promised to select these descendents as His special people through whom He would show Himself to the rest of humanity. He promised Abraham that through his descendents, through this Chosen People, He would redeem planet Earth from Satan's oppressive regime. And He promised to give Abraham's descendents a small piece of property on planet Earth then known as "Canaan." Today, that Promised Land is called "Israel." And, of course, His Chosen People are known as the "Jews."

The ensuing 2,000 years of human history—at least in God's view—is a history of the Jews. It is the tumultuous history of the Jewish relationship with God. And it is the terrible, sorrowful, and ultimately wonderful history of the Jewish relationship with the rest of humanity.

God did amazing things for, with, and through the Jews. From their miraculous Exodus from Egyptian slavery, to their conquest of their Land, to the rise of their great Kings David and Solomon, to their internal strife, schism, and civil war, to their conquest by the Empire of Babylon, to their return from Babylonian exile and the restoration of their Land, the divine relationship with the Jews has been a beautiful and painful thing. No other nation has experienced such divine blessing. No other nation has been given a specific piece of real estate. No other nation has been personally given divine rules like the Mosaic Law. And no other nation has been chosen as the vehicle through whom God would declare and display Himself to the rest of Satan's world.

The Written Record

God had them write it all down. He had them write down the miracles, the divine deliverance from their enemies, the supernatural interventions through Moses and Joshua and Samson and Gideon and Samuel and David and Solomon and Elijah and Elisha and Hezekiah and Daniel and Ezekiel and the others. He also had them write down all the other things—the embarrassments and unfaithfulness of Aaron and Miriam and Aiken and Saul and David and Rheoboam and Jeroboam and Ahab and Jezebel and the others. In these writings, in the Bible—or what Christians know as the Old Testament—the Jews recorded both their glorious victories and blessings as well as their horrors of rebellion, faithlessness, and judgment. They recorded precisely what God wanted them to record: how powerful He is; how severe He is; how merciful He is. The Jewish chronicle clearly shows that mankind—even when magnificently and divinely helped and guided and prodded and protected and chastised and forgiven—simply cannot escape the inherent power of sin. Even with their Law, their judges, their prophets, their kings, their Land, and their divine promises, the Jews demonstrated to all of the cosmos that mankind was incapable of relating and being faithful to God.

When the Assyrians conquered and exiled them, when the Babylonians conquered and exiled them, when the Romans conquered and exiled them, the rest of the world pointed and scoffed and declared them to be pariahs for their unbelief. When the pogroms decimated them, when the ghetto laws harassed them, when the holocaust nearly obliterated them, when the Arab legions nearly overran them, the rest of the world nodded knowingly that such was the destiny of those who would forsake their God.

Missing the Point

And in so doing, the rest of the world missed the point. The Jews were not merely chosen to demonstrate Who God is. They were also chosen to clearly and painfully demonstrate the true character of mankind, to demonstrate who each one of us is. They were selected from the rest of the world to be, among other things, the divine Mirror. If they, who had been given so much, could not maintain the relationship God requires, how could we hope for any divine relationship at all? The Jews were chosen to be displayed before humankind as the best that we could hope for, and humiliated as the failure that all humanity was. Through the Jews, God clearly showed Himself to be faithful, patient, just, and merciful. And He showed us to be so utterly sinful that not even His personal and continual intervention could heal us.

This is the same story played out in the lives of, say, drug addicts, who have to reach some point of desperation and hopelessness before entering rehab. It is the same story of many, if not most, of those who know God. We don't generally wake up one morning and say, "What a great day to go meet God!" Instead, we spend years or decades trying to fix ourselves on our own. We try this and that promised cure to be better or kinder or more patient or more caring. We try. We fall. We try harder. We fall. Sooner or later, we reach a point where we recognize the impossibility of our dilemma. Then, and usually only then, do we turn to God in desperation and ask for help.

As the Mirror of mankind, the Jews were selected to be the ones who would face that desperation. On our behalf.

For their role as the horrific Mirror of humanity, the Jews have suffered much at the hands of a just God and at the hands of an envious, sin-sodden mankind. For their role as the recipient of God's promises, they have suffered much at the hands of the Enemy, who keenly understands that to annihilate them is to prove God wrong—to effectively dethrone Him. His initial strategy was to turn them from God to other gods. But this only proved God's point, that mankind is intractably sinful. His secondary strategy is to wipe them out, and thereby make God's promise that they will forever be His Chosen People null and void. Despite his work through the Babylonians, the Romans, the Crusaders, the Nazis, the Arabs, the Muslims, and the United Nations, he has failed. So his final strategy is to drive them from the Land God has promised them. In this, too, he will fail. Although God has allowed much pain and suffering to afflict His People, He will never abandon them or His promises to them. Their role—and its respective cost—in His invasion plan has warranted them special, eternal blessings which the whole world will ultimately witness.

The Plan Revealed

In the meantime, however, God prepared for His invasion by displaying the utter and irreparable sinfulness of mankind. Through the Jews, He clearly showed that Satan was in control, and that humanity was imprisoned and doomed by the sin within us. Through them, He laid out His invasion plan through the written record of the Bible.

In summary, the plan was this: through a descendent of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God would send His "anointed one"—His "Messiah"—to redeem planet Earth. His coming would mark the beginning of a new age. He would break the power of the Enemy, free humanity from its captivity to sin, and restore all things to their rightful place.

This is what Jesus did. He did it legally through His substitutionary death, effectively paying the divine penalty for sin. He did it metaphysically, not by making mankind better, but by introducing an entirely new species to the planet through the mysterious process of spiritual rebirth. He did it practically by sending His Spirit to empower and lead His invasion force.

The Unfulfilled Promise

Yet, in one of the strangest twists of this divine plot, the only thing Jesus did not restore was the sovereignty of the Promised Land to the Jews. When Jesus was born, the Roman Empire ruled most of Europe and the Middle East, including Israel. After he was resurrected and had ascended to heaven, Israel was still under Roman control. The Land long promised to the descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had not been restored to them. This was, at least to the Jews, the single most important and visible prophecy about the Messiah, which Jesus did not fulfill. At least, not at his first coming.

This single prophetic omission made it terribly difficult for many Jews to recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Some certainly did. But the vast majority of Jews, both then and since, could not reconcile a Messiah who did not restore the Promised Land to Israel. In fact, to many, the restoration of the Land would be the single most telling effect that the Messiah has finally arrived.

This assumption is made clear by Jesus' disciples. The Book of Acts relates the early history of the Christians. After the crucifixion and resurrection, it tells us that Jesus showed himself to many, met with his disciples, and taught about the Kingdom of God for forty days. At one of these meetings, " _when they met together, they asked him, 'Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel_?'" (Acts 1:6) Even then, his disciples—all of them Jewish—considered his resurrection to be a divine sign that he was the Messiah, ergo he would now restore the Promised Land to the Jews. Jesus' response is excruciatingly enigmatic:

" _It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth_." (Acts 1:7-8.)

In other words, he didn't answer the question. By implication, he confirmed that the restoration would occur at the time " _the Father has set by his own authority_." But he made it clear that, for now, other things would take precedence. Mostly, the highest priority was the coming divine invasion of planet Earth.

The first Christians were all Jewish. Today, of course, this seems odd. Today, Jews and Christians may share a common God, but in nearly every other way, they view each other, at best, as competitors, and at worst, as enemies. Christians too often see Jews as strange, deluded folks who cling to an archaic perspective and legalistic worship from which Jesus came to free them. Conversely, Jews see Christians much the same way that Christians view, for example, Mormons: a group which has adopted their God but has also perverted the faith into some strange, even blasphemous, error.

But in the beginning, all the Christians were Jewish. There was no conflict between faith in Jesus as the Messiah and their historic religious heritage. Indeed, Biblical Judaism revolves around their promised Messiah. The difference between those Jews who embraced the Christian gospel and those who did not was simply whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was, indeed, their Messiah. In so many ways, Jesus had spoken and acted as their Messiah would. He exhibited obvious supernatural power, consistent with the Son of God. He fulfilled the vast number of ancient prophecies which only the Messiah could have done. When questioned at his trial, he overtly claimed—to the Sanhedrin—to be the Messiah, the Son of God, and—to the Romans—to be the King of the Jews. Most importantly, he was killed and came back from the dead. But Jesus did not restore the Promised Land to the Chosen People.

Instead, he ascended to heaven, and then God sent the Comforter. The Holy Spirit, whom Jesus had promised, arrived with power and drama as he descended upon those in the upper room on Pentecost. With the sound of a rushing wind, with fire, with speaking in tongues and prophesying, the divine invasion had begun.

The divine invasion began in Jerusalem, the capital of the Promised Land, for very good reason. God's intent was to free His Chosen People first. The Jews were to be the leaders of the divine invasion and the first captives of the Enemy to be set free. Thousands of Jews responded to the divine power of the gospel, and were ushered into the Kingdom of God as the first spirit-human hybrids to be born again. But many Jews, who could not see the spiritual power behind the natural oppressors of, particularly, the Romans, did not respond to the Holy Spirit. Instead, they saw these Christians as mistaken in their belief in Jesus as the Messiah. They continued to wait on the Messiah who would free them _naturally_ , returning to them sovereignty of their Promised Land.

The Gentiles

Then, another event occurred that compounded the Jewish problem with Jesus. Through a series of miracles, Peter was divinely led to go speak to the household of a man named Cornelius. (Acts 10) There, the Holy Spirit descended again in a reprise of his initial coming in the upper room. Men and women were speaking in tongues and prophesying and praising God, just like Peter and the 120 who began the invasion. There was, however, one significant difference. Cornelius and his friends were Gentiles.

Through this supernatural empowering of these first Gentile believers, it became clear to the Christian leaders—all of whom were Jewish—that God had bestowed His grace and faith on all men, not just Jews. To those Jews who already had difficulty reconciling Jesus' Messiahship with the continued occupation of Israel by the Romans, this was pretty much the last straw. A religion based on a Messiah who did not restore the Promised Land to the Jews, and which now utterly discarded the basic tenet of Judaism that Israel was called to a divine purity and commanded to avoid Gentile contamination, simply could not be right. It seemed to run completely counter to much of the Law of Moses and the 2,000 year long relationship of God and His Chosen People.

The Apostle Paul (a Jew) wrote about what he called the "mystery of Christ." " _This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus_." (Ephesians 3:6) Mysteries are, by definition, difficult to grasp. This one was seemingly tailor-made to be unfathomable—or at least unacceptable—to devout Jews. How could impure Gentiles be joined to the righteous and chosen nation of Israel? Ironically, this is still a mystery today, albeit in reverse. Christianity has become so thoroughly composed of Gentiles that it is almost impossible for us to believe that the Jews, while still remaining Jews, are joint heirs with us.

The impact of Cornelius' conversion was enormous. Gentiles, for the first time in human history, had been given access to a divine relationship that, until then, had been reserved only for the Jews. They had never been invested in God's promise to the heirs of Jacob to inherit the Land of Canaan, because, well, they were not in line to inherit anything. That Jesus didn't restore the Land to Israel did not particularly bother them, because nothing in their experience or religion depended on it. The Gentiles simply saw that Jesus had come and had initiated the divine invasion. He had freed them from the greatest oppressor of all—the Devil—and had opened up a way for them to relate to the God of Creation to Whom they had never before had access. Perhaps the best way to summarize the Gentile acceptance of the gospel is this: The Book of Acts begins with an entirely Jewish Christian church. At its conclusion, however, the Christian church is largely and increasingly comprised of Gentiles. To this day, many or most Jews consider "Christian" to be a synonym for "Gentile."

Because Gentile Christians did not have a divine promise to inherit any particular piece of real estate, it was, perhaps, easier for them to see an otherwise inconceivable fact. They could grasp that, like the Jews, Christians, too, had a Promised Land. But this Land wasn't visible to the eye. It wasn't to be found on any map. It wasn't a natural piece of land at all. Instead, the Promised Land of the Christians was a spiritual place. It was—and is—a place of supernatural provision, spiritual protection, and divine identity. Our Promised Land is a non-geographical place as real as and even more wonderful than Israel is to the Jews.

It is called the "Kingdom of God on Earth."

### Chapter 6: A New Land

During the early years of the invasion, the attitude of those Gentiles who entered the Kingdom of God was one of overwhelming gratitude. Gratitude to God for freeing them from Satanic oppression. Gratitude to Jesus for his voluntary sacrifice. Gratitude to the Spirit for his constant reassuring and empowering presence. And gratitude to the Jews for their cost in preparing the world for the invasion. Paul, the chief apostle to the Gentiles, clearly taught that the Gentiles were unwitting recipients of the gift designed and targeted for the Jews. He taught that the effect of this gift was the "adoption" of the Gentiles into a divine relationship that was rightfully intended for the Jews. He taught that it was this mysterious, divinely inflicted blindness on the part of the Jews that had allowed the Gentiles to be redeemed.

And most importantly, he taught that this blindness was temporary. That ultimately, the Jews would be restored to their Land, to their rightful place as the Chosen People of humanity, and to their relationship with God. As Paul wrote, " _Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in....but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable_." (Romans 11:25-28.) When and how it happens is certainly one of the mysteries of the ages. But one thing is abundantly clear: God never revoked His promises to His People. He has chastised them, exiled them, and temporarily blinded them to the revelation of their Messiah. But His love for them will never fade, and His promises are irrevocable. The Promised Land—all of it—will indeed be restored to them. When and how is God's business.

Expansion

In the mean time, Christianity was spreading everywhere. Whether through voluntary journeys or through persecution, Christians scattered from Israel throughout the globe. Everywhere they went, they expanded the Kingdom of God, invading increasingly large sections of the known world. Gentiles, particularly, welcomed the gospel with open arms and open hearts. They had been long excluded from the knowledge and favor of a God they had only heard about in myths and legends. And now, for the first time, He had provided a way by which, not just His Chosen People, but anyone anywhere could receive the gift of supernatural faith and be born again into an intimate relationship with Him.

Geography didn't matter. The early Christians had no centralized headquarters, no main shrine or basilica or other natural point of consolidation. Their "Promised Land", they understood, was anywhere, everywhere, and nowhere. Their "Land" was not a geographical place, but a state of spiritual existence. Wherever they were physically located, they enjoyed the spiritual benefits of a relationship with a supernatural, all powerful, and eternally loving God.

Jesus had taught that, although every believer had access to the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit and the faith, hope, and joy that access provided, there was even more available when they came together. Jesus had promised that "... _where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them_." (Matthew 18:20.) There was something magical about unity. The Holy Spirit did things, revealed things, and provided things to a group of Christians that far exceeded their grace individually. God had established a law of divine synergy. Whenever Christians came together, He would heal and deliver and empower and manifest all sorts of glorious things all out of proportion to their numbers. It was not a toilsome or sacrificial act to come together. The sheer joy and hope and love that was divinely provided and shared made each "church" a true utopia on earth. These outposts of the Kingdom of God—these churches—were being set up all over the Roman world and beyond as Christians came together and put the agents of Satan to flight. Nowhere, it seemed, was the evil empire safe from the onslaught of the invasion.

The divine invasion had caught Satan by complete surprise. He had expected, perhaps, Jesus to set up a natural kingdom, so he had inflamed the religious and political powers to kill him. Little did he realize that Jesus' death was to be the primary means of Satan's own destruction. The Devil was prepared to do what he had always done, deceiving and tempting and perverting the desires and actions of human beings. Never did he foresee that Jesus would introduce a bizarre new species, especially one that was freed from sin and thereby immune to his powers. He could not resist those who were suddenly filled with new spiritual powers and perspectives, who cared little or nothing for the cheap things of this world, who were firmly rooted in a view of a heavenly Kingdom, and who were motivated by supernatural love and compassion instead of self-interest.

Counterattack

The initial invasion of the early church did not go uncontested. Upon seeing the immediate success of the Christians in Jerusalem, the Enemy's first counterattack was to repeat his original tactics which had worked so well with the first Man and Woman. His target was the gatekeeper of this new order. Peter, like the first Man, was the divinely delegated front man for the Christians. As thousands entered the Kingdom, resources were needed to care for them, and Peter was in charge of that care. So Satan inspired one Ananias and his wife Sapphira to bring part of the money they had received from selling some land to Peter as a donation, claiming that they were donating it all. This may seem like a minor infraction, if any, to us today, which only shows how far the church has fallen. But to Peter—and to God—to accept their gift was to introduce deception and hypocrisy into a church that was powerful because it was pure. It was to introduce a love for money into a Kingdom where only God, not gold, was to be worshipped.

Peter, through the Spirit, recognized and rebuked Ananias for his duplicity. Ananias' response was to, quite literally, drop dead. A few hours later, his wife Sapphira came in and, unaware of her husband's fate, tried to continue the deception. Peter called her bluff, and she, too, fell down dead. Suddenly, the wonderful power of God had been revealed to be as deadly to evil as it was glorious to good.

Peter had successfully fended off Satan's first significant, if subtle, attack on the church. Just as he tempted Jesus with the wealth and splendor of the kingdoms of the world, so he had tempted Peter. After Jesus' temptation, it is recorded that Satan "left him until an opportune time." He did the same with Peter.

That time seemed to come later through a certain Simon the Sorcerer. Simon had seen Peter lay his hands on some new Christians, by which they received the Holy Spirit. Seeing this, Simon offered Peter money if he would give Simon the same power. Peter rebuked Simon harshly, and Simon repented in fear and trembling. Once again, Peter, as gatekeeper of the Kingdom of God, rebuffed a Satanic attack on the spiritual substance of the church. Ever since, the act of buying or selling sacred things has been known as "simony." Satan was having no success undermining the church through Peter.

So, in a knee-jerk, ham-handed reaction, Satan decided to have these Christians killed. If he couldn't tempt them away from their divine relationship, he would incite others to demean and destroy them, and to thereby frighten the rest into silence and, hopefully, capitulation. For the first two centuries of the divine invasion, Christians were abused, persecuted, disenfranchised from their jobs, their status, and their worldly goods, and killed. During that time, there were ten distinct, state-sponsored Roman persecutions of Christians, in which Peter, Paul, and thousands of others were brutally tortured and slaughtered.

But the martyrs simply inspired the living to greater devotion. Christianity spread throughout the world. The invasion was overrunning every part of the globe, including the fearsome natural arm of Satan's power: the Roman Empire. Nothing seemed to work against this Spirit-led invasion: deception, temptation, extortion, bribery, persecution, torture, or murder. Satan had tried them all, and nothing could stop the advance of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Finally, less than three centuries from its inception, Satan adopted a new strategy. As he often does, his tactic was a counterfeit to God's own. Where once, long ago, God had searched for a man to prepare His invasion and redemption of planet Earth and had found Abraham, so Satan began looking for the right man at the "opportune time." He found him, finally, in the person of a young, ambitious soldier who wanted nothing less than to be the king of the world.

Chapter 7: Constantine's Legacy

More than any other man, Constantine the Great was the founder of today's Christian church. More than Martin Luther, more than the Apostles Peter or Paul, more even than Jesus himself, Constantine was responsible for giving us the church we have today. Certainly, it was Jesus who initiated the divine invasion with the creation of the church. Certainly, it was Peter who led the church triumphantly into Satan's domain. Certainly, it was Paul who theologically reconciled the divine promises of the Jews with their fulfillment in Jesus, and who took the message of the gospel to the larger Gentile world.

But it was Constantine who gave us what we have now. And he did so by handing the church to the Enemy.

In all its varied forms and denominations, from the majesty and scope of Roman Catholicism to the smallest local church meeting in the local strip mall, the underlying essence is the same. Despite seemingly enormous differences in rites and orthodoxy and style, every Christian church today is driven and defined by a common, fundamental belief. It is expressed in a wide variety of ways, but it is all of the same substance. That substance could be called "Constantinian Christianity." And contrary to popular and official Christian thought, Constantinian Christianity has nothing to do with what Jesus intended.

It happened like this. Constantine was raised in a Roman Empire that was falling apart. Besieged by barbarians, overextended from its lines of supply and control, and rotten from within, Rome was a divided and ailing empire. It was Constantine's ambition to reunite the empire and return it to its former glory and power. He had been trained to be a warrior and a statesman. He had been born and raised to be a leader. At the proper time—after Diocletian, Emperor of the East, abdicated the throne—Constantine launched his plan. At the head of an army that had been battle-tested against the barbarians, he faced an opposing army for control of the empire. At the Milvian Bridge in Rome, his army was encamped, prepared for a battle the next morning that would determine who would lead the Roman Empire.

The Vision

Constantine's mother, Helena, had become a Christian, so he was familiar with her worship of Jesus Christ and of God's divine invasion of planet Earth. On the eve of battle, Constantine reportedly saw a vision. A brilliant cross blazed across the sky, and he heard the words "In this sign you will conquer." Convinced that Jesus was promising him victory, Constantine reportedly had his army's shields and horses' armor painted with the sign of the cross. The next day, after the bloody battle at the Milvian Bridge, Constantine emerged victorious, and saw in his victory a mandate from God.

Constantine's next move was rather odd. Instead of rushing off to secure his victory, he convinced some Christians to take him to their leader, an old man named Miltiades. Miltiades had spent his life hiding from the authorities. To be a Christian in Rome in the early fourth century was to give up any aspirations of a "normal" life. Christians suffered intense persecution under Diocletian, resulting in the loss of property, jobs, social stature, in torture and imprisonment, and often in execution. To be a Christian leader at that time was a _de facto_ death sentence.

So when Constantine rode out to meet Miltiades, the old man was, if not afraid, certainly suspicious. Constantine spoke the educated Latin of the royal court, while Miltiades, a man uneducated in everything except Christianity, spoke common Greek. Miltiades' more educated aide, Silvester, had therefore come along to interpret.

Constantine related his vision and victory to Miltiades. He explained his conviction that Jesus had called him to be an apostle and that he would help select the next bishop of Rome. He asked Miltiades for the three nails that had pinned Jesus to the cross. One of these, Constantine would put in his crown as a sign that he ruled in the name of God. A second he would use in his horse's bridle as a sign that he would wage war on behalf of the divine invasion. The third remained with Miltiades. Constantine then took the men to Vatican Hill, where he declared his intent to build huge basilicas on the graves and in the names of Peter and Paul. From there, they rode to the Lateran Hill, specifically to the largest of the palaces there—one he had received as a marriage dowry. There, he threw open the doors and proclaimed "Henceforth, this is the House of Miltiades and of every successor of the blessed apostle, Peter."

Soon after, Constantine left to fight more battles and consolidate his empire. His last words were "The Godhead wills us two to do great things in the name of Christ. Be here when we return." Prophetically, Constantine had spoken these words, not to Miltiades, but to Silvester.

Miltiades was probably perplexed by all this. Emperors—as merely the political pawns of the world system—were part of the Enemy's turf. Buildings were fine, but to become joined to a man who was, however devoted to God, dedicated to the worldly glory and power of human empire seemed way off base. To Miltiades, this was nothing less than the same promise that Satan had used to twice tempt Peter. This was the very same promise the Enemy had made to Jesus. As gatekeeper of the Christian faith, Miltiades almost certainly saw the diabolical deal for what it was: trading the spiritual authority of the Kingdom of God for the natural, political, and economic power of Satan's world. Jesus had successfully resisted the same test in the desert. Peter had successfully resisted the same test with Ananias and Sapphira and later with Simon Magus. Miltiades, after surviving decades underground, would not yield this most valuable pearl of great price for a few earthly trinkets, even from the hand of Constantine himself.

But it didn't matter. Miltiades wasn't given the choice. Silvester was. Miltiades died before Constantine returned. And Silvester had a different perspective altogether.

The Bargain

Silvester, perhaps, could see new possibilities. He could see how the power and wealth of Rome could be used to convert the empire. He could see the vast legions of Roman Christians marching off to conquer the entire world. After this, the divine invasion would be complete, and Jesus would then return to rule his Kingdom on Earth. Perhaps, Silvester thought, Constantine was God's mechanism to take the church out of the catacombs and into the light. Perhaps, this was the time and he was the man to oversee the conclusion of what began in that upper room in Jerusalem three centuries before.

Constantine returned a month after Miltiades' death and assembled all the Christians. His words were brief: "We have chosen to approve of Silvester as successor to Miltiades and to Peter the Apostle, as representative of Jesus the Christ." Silvester was then crowned just like a natural prince, after which he and Constantine had their final discussion. Together, they determined how this alliance would work, with such details as a repealing of all anti-religion laws, the banning of crucifixion, and the assignment of civil authority—besides their spiritual authority—to all local Christian bishops. The Pope—the Bishop of Rome—would have complete civil and spiritual jurisdiction over the empire. Constantine issued the Edict of Milan that year, in 313 A.D., to effect these changes throughout the land.

But the essence of the deal was this: Silvester had opened the gate. He agreed to an alliance between the church and the empire. In doing so, as the gatekeeper of the church, he effectively handed the keys of the Kingdom over to the Enemy. Satan could not resist the onslaught of the divine invasion, nor could he force his way into the Kingdom to destroy it. Instead, he had to be invited in. At Constantine's request—or demand—Silvester did just that.

The Christian church has had neither the will nor the faith to free itself from those bonds ever since. Despite the Reformation and Counter Reformation, despite the fresh outpourings of the Spirit throughout history, despite the minor revisions and the major, schism-producing revolutions in churches across the globe, at no time has it walked away from the deal that Silvester made with Constantine. At no time has it escaped from the clutches of the Enemy. At no time has it resumed the divine invasion.

Naturalization

The effect of the deal was to introduce human mechanisms and natural means to a church that was intrinsically spiritual, that was founded on the premise: " _Not by power, nor by might, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty_." (Zechariah 4:6.) What Silvester could not see, and what countless Christians since have failed to grasp, is that spiritual ends cannot be accomplished by natural means. As Jesus told Nicodemas, " _Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit_." (John 3:6.) The results of any natural effort, no matter how noble it may seem, cannot be more than natural. No matter how well a car is crafted to look like a boat, it is still just a car. The only way to accomplish the goals of the Spirit is through spiritual means. This is not some arbitrary rule. This is an inexorable law of divine reality, of supernatural physics.

Silvester's deal "naturalized" the church. In effect, he led the Christians out of the spiritual ship of state and into the glorious, gilded car of the Roman Empire. From then until today, it has focused on political power or military power or economic power as the means to accomplish God's will. Yet, God has made it plain that this is patently impossible. When Jesus told his disciples that " _it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven_ ," he was not decrying the evils of wealth. He was simply stating a fact based on the fallen human condition: if a man has wealth or power of any kind to rely on, he will almost never choose to rely on the Spirit. This is true at the individual level, and even more so at the corporate level. From the time that the church—through Silvester—began to rely on the power and wealth of Rome for protection, provision, security, and identity, it ceased to rely on the Spirit. And the divine invasion came to a screeching halt.

Constantinian Christianity

This is Constantinian Christianity. It is a philosophy that says that God's will can be done by natural means. The Crusades and the Inquisition are horrific examples of the church using physical force, and the church today is quick to condemn that part of its history. But the same philosophy urges us to pass civil laws to enforce "Christian" behavior, i.e., to use political force to compel an outward piety. It urges us to sell an ever more diluted message in order to accumulate funds for more lavish buildings, sound systems, and Broadway lighting in order to wow the audience, i.e., to use economic power to compete with other venues of entertainment. It urges us to be "practical" in the face of life's decisions: trusting God is good, but it's best to trust Him to work mostly through doctors or educators or experts. To expect a bona fide miracle is to brush much too close to fanaticism.

Constantinian Christianity is the religion of our churches today. Paul warned against just this type of "Christianity" which, " _having a form of godliness but denying its power,_ " is to be avoided as the evil it is. (2 Timothy 3:5.) Spiritual power was—and is—part and parcel of the Kingdom of God. Jesus didn't diagnose the sick, he supernaturally healed them. He didn't put lunatics into counseling, he exorcised them. In the early church, healing and deliverance and prophecy and supernatural discernment were mere basics of being a Christian. Today, we have justified our lack of spiritual power by insisting we are more sophisticated than the ignorant peasants of the early church. We now know so much more than the rubes of early Christianity. After all, God would not have let us unlock the power of the atom, or the powers of modern medicine, or the power of psychoanalysis, or the power of the infinite array of new technologies, if He didn't want us to use them. To use them, that is, in place of His supernatural, spiritual power.

But the result is simple, if tragic. There is little or no healing in the church today. There is little or no deliverance. There is no strategic prophetic direction, no discernment of spirits, virtually nothing supernatural at all. " _We are given no miraculous signs; no prophets are left, and none of us knows how long this will be_." (Psalm 74:9.) Thanks to Silvester's deal, the church has no divine power. Accordingly, it cannot possibly accomplish divine things. In substance, the Christian church is no different than the world. It can therefore only accomplish worldly things regardless of the religious terms it uses.

The result of this lack of power is the redefinition of our mission. The church has had to lower its aims and expectations to those things that can be done, to those things that can be accomplished with merely natural means. No longer is the church the front line of a divine invasion. Instead, it is enough that we have "missions" to build houses for poor folks in Central America or Africa. It is enough that we have turkey dinners for the poor on Thanksgiving. It is enough that we offer addicts 12-step programs, that we refer confused Christians to therapists, sick Christians to doctors, poor Christians to credit counseling services. The church has become nothing more than the world cloaked in religious language.

"Wait a minute!" you may say. "People are still experiencing the supernatural conversion of new birth and baptism of the Spirit." True. On an individual basis, God continues to give us a remnant of those who will live by faith.

But many of us are also keenly aware of the _corporate_ dilemma, even if it is rarely spoken about except in private conversations. That dilemma is this: once a person has been confronted by God, and has, by faith, been born again and receives the Holy Spirit, what then? What do we do with them? When we see this most miraculous of events happen to a friend of ours, do we really think dragging them with us to church will help them? It is when we see things through the eyes of a new believer that we can begin to recognize that the church—corporately—is too often merely the world cloaked in Christian terms and religious rituals.

Painting the Empire

This is exactly what Constantine did. His initial response to his vision was to paint a cross on the horses and shields of his army. I doubt the horses felt any differently, or that the army was anything but a bit confused. In the same way, all that Constantine did after winning the throne—and Silvester abetted him in doing it—was to paint a cross on the Roman Empire. In doing so, it became no less Roman, no less imperial, no less ravenous for territory and wealth and power. It retained every bit of its worldliness, but it was now cloaked in Christian terminology. Constantinian Christianity—the religion of the church today—is nothing more than a worldly lust for power and fame and control of our lives, plastered with a thin layer of religious paint.

This is how the church is in ruins. Even the most faithful Christian individuals are cursed to participate only in Constantinian communities. Individually, many may have profound and life-changing faith. But as a group, as a corporate expression of divine community, the church is nothing but the world painted with a cross.

Constantine had done to the church what Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, had done to Israel. He conquered us because Silvester opened the gate that no one—not Constantine, not Simon the Magician, not Ananias and Sapphira, not even Satan himself—could break through. Like the Jews before us, we have been taken captive to a foreign land. Like the Jews before us, we have been judged by our own God, and forcibly removed from our divine home to the land of the Enemy. And just like the Jews before us, that land is called "Babylon."

### Chapter 8: Babylon

How could Babylon conquer the Christian church? How could we be exiled to a land that had disappeared centuries before Jesus was even born? The ancient Kingdom of Babylon was a desolate swamp by the Euphrates River long before Christianity was ever founded. At least, the _natural_ Kingdom of Babylon was. For, while the Babylon that exiled the Jews was a natural kingdom, the Babylon that has exiled the church is a _spiritual_ empire.

Babylon is largely invisible to us today. This is because Babylon, as a spiritual kingdom, is as invisible to the human senses as is the Kingdom of God. It is also because the church—the only entity ever given authority over the spiritual kingdom of Babylon—has long since lost that vision and authority. We cannot see Babylon today because, although it is all around us, it requires the eyes of the Spirit to see it. To a church that has been thoroughly naturalized in its perspective and abilities, spiritual things are invisible. Individually, we may sense the deceit and malevolence of Satan's kingdom, but as a group, the church cannot overcome it, cannot resist it, cannot even recognize it.

Babylon plays a major role in the history of God's relationship with mankind. Indeed, Babylon is the clearly defined enemy of and antithesis to the Kingdom of God. There are not as many biblical references to it as its influence would lead one to expect, and there is not much detail about it in the few references there are, but it is pervasive in a mysterious, behind-the-scenes way.

The natural city-state of Babylon was founded by the great hunter—and God-hater—Nimrod, himself quite an enigma. The mystery deepens early as Genesis relates the story about the Tower of Babel: a bizarre tale of a unified humanity challenging God and being thwarted by the divine introduction of the language barrier. Babylon shows up again throughout the history of Israel as a competitive kingdom to Egypt, Assyria, and others, and is ultimately chosen as God's agent of judgment on Israel. It is referenced in many of the Old Testament prophets, mostly as the place of Jewish exile, and is the backdrop for the early part of the prophetically curious story of Daniel. Finally, it is symbolically portrayed in the Revelation to John as the Great Harlot, enemy of God's people, which is dramatically and violently judged. Babylon enters history early in the Divine Play, and, although it has only a few small parts throughout, is featured predominantly in the final climax, seemingly out of proportion to its overtly small role. In short, it seems that God has shrouded Babylon with an image of mysteriously evil imperial power, but has chosen not to reveal it too terribly clearly.

The Empire of Man

So who or what exactly is Babylon to feature so prominently in the divine relationship? Perhaps the clearest description of Babylon is found in the second chapter of the Book of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, had a dream about a great statue. It was the statue of a man whose head was made of gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, and its feet of iron mixed with clay. While Nebuchadnezzar was watching, a rock was cut out and struck the statue on its feet, destroying it without a trace, while the rock became a mountain that filled the whole earth.

Daniel supernaturally interpreted the dream for the king. Four great empires would arise on the earth. The first, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, was represented by the statue's head of gold and would be the most glorious. The second would be inferior to Babylon just as silver is inferior to gold. This was what we know as the Media-Persian empire. The third, the empire of Greece founded by Alexander the Great, was the kingdom of bronze. Finally, the kingdom of iron grew up from a small city-state on the Mediterranean Sea—an experiment in a representative form of government called a "republic"—which, by the mid-first century, had gobbled up all other kingdoms to become the monolithic superpower known as the Roman Empire.

It is important—at least, in understanding God and the Bible—to note that the four kingdoms of the statue were not the only kingdoms in the world at that time. In the Far East, China and Japan had rather advanced civilizations, while in the western hemisphere, the native Americans were organizing themselves into what would become the Mayan, Incan, Aztec, and other empires. In the biblical record, God included only the "statue empires," not because they were exclusive, but because they were important to Him in another way. These four empires would be the controlling powers over that small part of the world which was of particular interest to Him: Israel. What Daniel understood from Nebuchadnezzar's dream was that this was the beginning of the subjection of the Promised Land by four successive, divinely appointed non-Jewish kingdoms. This was the beginning of what is referred to as the " _times of the Gentiles_."

Historians can dissect this period beginning in 586 B.C. in any number of ways, and assign many names to the various kingdoms and empires that competed during this time. The Babylonians, for example, were conquered by the Medes and Persians; the Greek empire of Alexander was broken up into, among others, the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms; and the Roman Empire split into the Roman and Byzantine empires. God, however, looks at it another way.

The Golden Head

Let's assume medical science advanced to the point where a human head could be transplanted onto another body. Why we would ever do such an inane thing is not the point. But if it were possible, and you and your neighbor chose to exchange heads, after the operation, who would be whom? Obviously, you would be wherever your head was and so would your neighbor. Your head is what, in a practical way, defines who you are.

In the same way, God does not include the names of the successive kingdoms in Daniel's interpretation. It doesn't matter to Him whether we split hairs about when the empire of Greece split into its four sub-empires, or whether or when the eastern or western Roman Empire had preeminence. God sees the whole bunch—all four kingdoms and all their offshoots—as a single entity. It was—and is—an empire that, like the statue, was an exultation of Man. And, at least to God, this vast empire was and is known by the name of its golden head: Babylon.

So when the natural kingdom of Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians, it was, in God's perspective, simply an outward change of clothes. When Greece conquered Persia, the same thing occurred. When the Roman Empire grew and conquered the civilized world, it was merely the same old kingdom of Babylon, albeit in its "iron" phase.

In the same way, when the Roman Empire broke up, first into the Western Roman and Eastern Byzantine empires, and later into what became the nations of Europe and the Middle East, the kingdom of Babylon did not go away. Certainly, its natural center of operations has moved: from Rome to Constantinople to Moscow and London and Washington and New York, among other places. But the spirit is the same. And the headquarters is the same:

" _For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms_." (Ephesians 6:12.)

The capital of the spiritual empire of Babylon has never been on Earth.

So when Silvester helped Constantine paint a cross on the Roman Empire, when they founded "Constantinian Christianity," what they did was to put new terminology around the oldest religion in history. For the sum and substance of Constantinian Christianity—of the Christian church today—is nothing but the ancient religion of Babylon. When Silvester and Constantine cut their deal, the church was just as completely invaded, decimated, and carried off into exile as were the Jews centuries earlier. The church has been in exile ever since.

A Rival Government

Although the religious terms of Constantinian Christianity attempt to cloak the truth, its essence—the essence of the kingdom of Babylon—is about government. It is about who is in charge. This central issue is manifest in an infinite number of ways. But authority is at the core of the issue. Babylon is a spiritual government. It is a kingdom, with a spiritual king, who is actively and ruthlessly engaged in a campaign for control of humanity. Isaiah 14 is mostly a "taunt" against the "king of Babylon" who is called the "morning star, son of the dawn," that is, Lucifer. It spells out the issue quite clearly: " _You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God...I will make myself like the Most High_.'" The essence of the spirit of Babylon is a question about—really an assertion of—just who, exactly, will be God.

This nature was displayed in the ancient story of the Tower of Babel. There, a united mankind openly declared to God that He was irrelevant to them. In the plains along the Euphrates, mankind built a great tower to the heavens, thereby asserting its independence from a seemingly unknowable God. For reasons we won't go into here, God—in His mercy—did not let us finish the tower. Instead, He gave us the gift of many languages, which had the net effect of driving us apart into separate groups, which would later grow into cultures and nations. But the spirit of Babylon had been unveiled. As he did in the Garden centuries before, Lucifer deceived mankind into believing that we were self-sufficient. That we did not need God. That we were in control of our lives, our environment, our future. It is not a little ironic that, while we were engaged—and today, are still engaged—in declaring our independence from God, we were all along being led by the nose by the true spiritual tyrant over us.

This same spiritual dynamic is at work in our individual lives. It leads us to believe that we are independent from God and each other, that we need no one else, that we are self-reliant and in total control. Or, at least, we grasp for control. Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane expressed the exact opposite of the spirit of Babylon: " _Thy will, not mine, be done_." This is reversed in Babylon: in all things, let my will, not God's or anyone else's, be done. This is a statement of authority, of government, of kingship. It proclaims that I am the king of my life; that I am sovereign in myself; that I am the center of my universe; that I will bow my knee to no person, human or divine.

Obviously, Satan fully intends that we will most certainly bow the knee to him. But even those without a hint of spiritual illumination would not knowingly exchange the God of Creation for the malevolent god of this world. So, to him, the religion of Babylon—the worship of self—is an intermediate step. Through its flattering deception, we are offered control—or rather, the _appearance_ of control—over our own lives and more, without the presumed impediment of an absolute and seemingly authoritarian God. Eventually, however, the spiritual bankruptcy of Babylon will give way to the absolute deceit and despotism of the coming Antichrist, just as any authority vacuum ultimately gives way to tyranny.

The Slavery of "More"

In the meantime, what we do not see are our chains. Babylon is a place of captivity. As he has done from the beginning, the Enemy lies to us that we can be free from the oppressive authority of God, that we can choose our own path, that we are wise enough and strong enough to rule our world all by ourselves. But we are not. We are enslaved. We are slaves to the anti-God, who has deceived us into thinking that we, not the king of Babylon, are in control of our will, our desires, our hopes, our ambitions.

However hideous, natural slavery controls only our bodies. But spiritual slavery is insidiously more malevolent. It enslaves our minds through deception. It enslaves our spirits through our demand for independence from God. And it enslaves our desires and hopes through addiction. This is the primary mechanism of Babylon's power: deception and addiction.

Addiction can be summed up in one word: "more." The alcoholic wants one more drink. The drug addict wants one more fix. The gambling addict wants one more bet. But these are merely natural addictions.

The essence of the spirit of Babylon is more. More is the false god of Babylon. False gods are merely substitutes for the real thing. They promise what God promises His people, but do so with the presumption that God is unnecessary.

God promises us, among other things, joy and security and love. Babylon offers us the same things. It promises us joy if we could only get a newer car or a bigger house or more free time or more money. It promises us security if we could only get more guns or a better home security system or more money in our investment portfolio. It promises us love if we could only get another person into bed, or a more exalted position at work, or more prominence at the club, or a more athletic-looking or young-looking or affluent-looking or sexy-looking appearance. Life would be so much better if I only had _more._

This is the central lie of Babylon. The trouble with _more_ is that it is an infinitely long road to satisfaction. More is an impossible amount to get. Because it never stops. There can always be more. This is the deception and escape clause of Babylon's promises: "I don't yet have enough." The spirit of Babylon addicts us to _more_. And _more,_ by definition, can never be finally realized. _More_ is the antithesis to contentment. _More_ is the spiritual substance of addiction. The pursuit of _more_ will ultimately lead us to emptiness, to ennui, to a place of such bleakness and despair that we will gladly welcome someone who appears to have real answers. The religion of Babylon keeps charlatans and con-men in business. The religion of Babylon will eventually put the Antichrist on the throne of the world.

The Prostitute

The Bible also refers to Babylon as the "land of merchants." This does not imply that merchantry is bad. It means that in Babylon, merchantry is everything. That is, everything is reduced to a financial value, every activity to a financial transaction. Some things are fit for financial transactions: food, clothes, toys, tools, and most material things. But some things are not fit for financial transactions, particularly relational things and divine things: love, faith, hope, spiritual power, your divine call. Trafficking in these "sacred" things is not mere merchantry. It is harlotry. It is simony.

Indeed, God refers to Babylon as the "Great Harlot." This is true in the sense that Babylon tries to steal our affections for God. And it is also true in the nature of what a harlot does. A harlot epitomizes the nature of Babylon in several ways. First, a harlot reduces the most intimate act of love into a financial transaction, turning on its head the priority of love over things or money. In the parable of the shrewd manager, Jesus tells us to " _use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves._ " But the harlot reverses this, using relationships to gain money. A more subtle form of this reversed prioritization is found in those businesses today in which friends are seen only as potential marks, as business targets. The process, as with any form of whoredom, begins with "wooing"; the harlot indicates that the relationship is important in itself, until, once the transaction is offered and refused, the relationship immediately shrivels. Harlots only care about the next transaction. This is the priority of Babylon.

Secondly, a harlot's success is dependent upon deceit. She paints herself to be more alluring than reality, and she feigns attraction for her victim, who is, at least by implication, promised love and comfort and satisfaction. It is only afterwards that the ugly realities become clear. By then, however, the transaction has occurred, the prey has been snared. The spirit of Babylon requires deceit to lure us to its false promises.

Peter recognized the spiritual harlotry of Ananias and Sapphira, and stopped it in its tracks. He also recognized Simon the Magician's attempt to traffic in sacred power, and rebuked it as well. But Silvester, not three centuries later, did not stop the transaction with Constantine. Instead, he sold everything, the entire church, in order to have peace and wealth and security in this life. Whether he was aware of it or not, he played the whore and committed simony on the grandest scale possible. Through that act, through this transaction of merchantry, Silvester opened the gates of the Kingdom to the spirit of Babylon. And the Enemy flooded through the gate, destroyed the walls—that is, the protection of spiritual authority—and took the church captive into exile. The result of the Babylonian conquest of the church was the rise of Constantinian Christianity: the aims, means, and substance of the Roman Empire—the "iron" manifestation of the statue and kingdom of Babylon—cloaked in the words and traditions of Christianity.

It is difficult for us to recognize the spirit of Babylon, if only because it surrounds us so completely that we have grown used to it. It is obviously behind the grasping desires of our economic demand for more money, our political demand for more power, our cultural demand for more fame or popularity. What is, perhaps, less obvious is that these demands for more are found right in the heart of church leadership: more membership, more money, more popularity and fame.

This is where we are today. We are inheritors of Silvester's transaction, of Constantinian Christianity, of the spirit of Babylon in Christian clothes. We are in exile. We are enslaved. We have been captives in Babylon for almost two millennia.

It is time to come home.

### PART III: WHERE WE'RE GOING

Chapter 9: The Divine Metaphor

So we've heard the bad news.

The Christian church was initially the spearhead of God's invasion of Satan's earthly domain. But we have been conquered and exiled. Just as Israel was conquered by and exiled to natural Babylon, so the church has been exiled to spiritual Babylon. Individually, millions of Christians have been born again in the Spirit and are fully committed to God. But as a viable group, as a disciplined army, as the church, we are dysfunctional. We don't work the way God intended us to. There is, today, no expression of that initial cadre of united spiritual "hybrids" which so successfully attacked the enemy's strongholds and established God's Kingdom on earth. We may not like such an assessment. We may prefer to believe that what passes for the "church" today is, however imperfect, a pretty good expression of what God wants from and in His people.

But, as we each know from our individual relationships with God, what we prefer only matters if we are seeing and living in the truth. "Loving the truth," as Paul calls it, is an acquired skill. And the truth, unfortunately, is that we—as a group—are "in ruins." This is the bad news.

The good news is that it is temporary. Our exile is not permanent. The Jews were exiled to Babylon _for a period of time_. So, too, is the church's exile a temporary situation. Just as God permitted the decimation and exile of Israel, so He has permitted the decimation and exile of the church. And just as He brought the Jews back to their natural Promised Land, so He is even now restoring Christians to our spiritual Promised Land. This has all been part of His strategic plan for this planet. We are privileged to live in perhaps the most exciting, most significant period in human history: the divine restoration. Restoration of Israel. Restoration of the church. Restoration of the invasion. Restoration, as Jesus said, of "all things."

It's one thing to think about the Restoration strategically. That is, it is at least interesting, if not magnificent, to consider the divine plan for Restoration like a grand chessboard upon which nations and peoples and cultures are moved around toward God's appointed ends.

What may seem less glorious is to recognize that God always accomplishes His grand plans on a vast scale through the same humble mechanism: the decision of each individual. The Restoration of the church begins with the restoration of the individual. The establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth begins with the individual's embrace of his or her own divine relationship. Resuming the divine invasion can only occur as each person assumes his or her place in the army, accepting the instruction and training of the Spirit to learn how to wield spiritual weapons toward spiritual goals in the specific arena of the individual life.

So, we each have a decision to make. It is the same decision Nehemiah faced. It is the same decision every Jew in Babylon had to make once the exile was completed. Do I remain in Babylon? Or do I dare to follow the Spirit back to the Land? Do I stay here in the familiar and comfortable slavery in which I've lived my whole life, and ignore the news that the city is "in ruins?" Or do I risk losing everything I've known to follow God on a narrow and difficult path to the Promised Land that He promises will be costly and painful? It was not an easy decision for the Jews of Nehemiah's time. It is not an easy decision for us today.

It is a particularly difficult decision considering we have utterly no clue as to where we're going or how we're going to get there. Since none of us has ever lived there, none of us knows exactly what our Promised Land looks like, much less where we might find it. The only models we have ever seen have been merely one form or another of Constantinian Christianity, of the Babylonian religion of Man cloaked in Christian terminology. Without guidance, we will likely wander around, like those who are lost in a jungle or desert, in a circle. Left to ourselves, our pursuit of a restored church would wind up in exactly the same place we begin: just another version of Babylon.

The Restoration Template

Fortunately, we are not left to ourselves. God has long planned the restoration of the church and the resumption of the divine invasion. Inherent in that plan is His promise that we won't have to accomplish this impossible task alone. His Spirit will lead, empower, and comfort us along the way.

Plus, His plan has been mapped out and given to us. Typically, He has camouflaged it, so that the plan would not come to light until its proper time. His camouflage was a Biblical "code." This is not some sort of arcane mathematical or mystical code, but the same type of code He has used throughout history. It is a relational code. It is a living metaphor. It is an historical parable just like the parables Jesus used to teach about the Kingdom of God.

One key to this metaphor is found in I Corinthians 15:46: " _The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual_." Israel has been—and still is—God's _natural_ Chosen People who have been promised a _natural_ Land as a _natural_ Nation, who enter their relationship with Him through a _natural_ birth. Christians, on the other hand, are God's _spiritual_ People who have been promised a _spiritual_ Land, who enter their relationship with Him through a _spiritual_ birth. The natural—Israel—came first, then the spiritual. Israel is our metaphor. A living metaphor.

The parallels between the history of God's natural People and His spiritual People are not coincidental. The history of the Jews is a prophetic metaphor for the history of the church. We won't, however, examine the entire history of each group. Instead, for our purposes, we'll consider only that often overlooked part of Jewish history: their return from Babylonian exile, found in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah. The story of their return to and restoration of the Land is a prophetic template for the restoration of the church.

There were five major aspects of the Jewish restoration. Over a period of decades, five "events" occurred that were necessary for the restoration of Israel. It wasn't enough that the Jews merely came back to their Promised Land. When most of those Jews who would return were already in the Land, Nehemiah still referred to Jerusalem as being "in ruins." There was—and is—more to divine restoration than merely coming back. As we've said, the church is brimming with devoted, spiritually reborn people. But the church is still in ruins. It still must be restored. And that restoration will follow the divine template God has given to us through the Jewish metaphor.

Upon returning to the Land, the Jews accomplished five significant—and for our purposes, prophetic—things:

1) they rebuilt the altar;

2) they rebuilt the Temple foundation;

3) they finished the Temple;

4) they expelled the foreigners from their Land; and,

5) they rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem.

These events were not only necessary to the restoration and purification of Israel, but are also prophetic metaphors in the restoration and purification of the church. As we understand the symbolism of each, we can begin to see how God is, even now, restoring His spiritual People.

To date, as we shall see, the first two of these events have already occurred. The altar has already been rebuilt. And the foundation of the Temple has been laid. The next things on the list are the completion of the Temple, the expulsion of the foreigners, and the construction of the wall. Let us examine each of these events, hopefully gaining an understanding of what has already occurred, where we are now, and what is soon coming.

### Chapter 10: The Altar

To the Jews in ancient Israel, the altar was the place where sacrifices were made to God on behalf of the people. Most importantly, this was the place where the annual atoning sacrifice cleansed God's people from their sins for another year. The annual atoning sacrifice was perhaps the single most important event in the Jewish relationship with God. The altar, more than any other place, was the site where their relationship with God was legally renewed every year.

When the Jewish exiles returned to the Promised Land from Babylon, the first thing they did was to rebuild the altar and resume the sacrifice. This allowed them divinely legal access to the presence and blessing of God. Without atonement, the Jews, as a People, were legally estranged from God. With it, they could proceed with Him to all the other areas of their relationship. Rebuilding the altar and resuming the sacrifice was the first critical step in the restoration of Israel.

It is also the first step in the restoration of the church. The Christian equivalent of the Jewish atoning sacrifice is the act of being born again, of entering into a new relationship with God through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Being born again, as Jesus told Nicodemas, is the necessary first step to even see the Kingdom of God. This is where Christians are legally justified to enter a relationship with God, just as the atoning sacrifice was the legal justification of the Jewish relationship with God.

Being born again is not the end of the divine relationship. It is merely the beginning. As Jesus told Nicodemus, being born again allows us to first perceive that there even is such a thing as the Kingdom of God. It is the doorway, the entrance gate, through which anyone who wishes to enter the Kingdom must walk. Once through the doorway, there are other necessary things before we can participate in the Kingdom. But being born again is the first thing, the required initial step into the divine relationship.

Although Jesus used the words "born again" to describe Christian conversion, they had fallen into general disuse throughout most of the church for centuries. I was raised Presbyterian. When I was born again (outside the Presbyterian Church), I was amazed (and a little resentful) that in all the years of going to church, Sunday school, and mid-week youth meetings, I had never heard the words "born again." Instead, as a youngster, I was "confirmed" after some classes and the memorization of the Ten Commandments and Psalm 100. Later, I heard the words "join the church" or "become a member," but never did I hear the words "born again." Perhaps, the term was so associated with rural, "unsophisticated" churches that we Presbyterians eschewed it as unseemly. Whatever the reason, the terms "born again"—and more importantly, the supernatural act of actually being born again through faith in Jesus Christ, had generally been lost to much of the church for a long time. Most institutional denominations, not just the Presbyterians, had long replaced the simple _relational_ event of meeting Jesus Christ with rituals and rites, while being born again was ignored for centuries.

Then, in the late 1940's, evangelists—most notably Billy Graham—began to get widespread recognition, thanks to the strangely favorable attention of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. The message was a simple one: repent and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and be restored—be born again—to a relationship with God. This message was not much different from what had been preached for years in many, particularly southern, churches. But for the first time, the national media exposed the masses to the "born again" experience.

This restoration of the "born again experience" was not merely the return to proper semantics or to an ancient rite. Instead, what God restored to us was an awareness that it was all about knowing Him. It was the restoration of a _relationship_. What surprised me and so many others was the startling revelation that it was possible to actually know God. Just as I know my parents, my friends, my spouse, my kids. "Rebuilding the altar" is, in a spiritual sense, the restoration of the most fundamental aspect of Christian life: the personal, progressive, intimate, and life-changing _relationship_ with the King of heaven.

This is arguably the most significant thing Jesus accomplished. What he _showed_ was the power and love of God. What he _taught_ was the revolutionary difference between God's Kingdom and the world. But what he _did_ was to make a way. He forged a road to God. He created a path that, for the first time in human history, allowed us—fallen, sinful, selfish, God-hating beings—to come to God and actually _relate_ to Him as a Father. Not just learn about His ways. Not just understand His precepts or wrestle with His theology. Not just memorize His scriptures or blindly follow rituals. Not just know _about_ Him, but to _know_ Him. And in coming to know Him, we would be presented with everything we could possibly need to accomplish all that He has planned.

In the restoration of the church, a great deal of concerted, coordinated effort is required. In the resumption of the divine invasion, an unimaginable power is required. In the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, supernatural miracles are not only possible, but necessary. But all of these required things come from the humble, seemingly fragile, often confusing and frustrating core of a divine relationship. From knowing Him.

And while there is no guarantee that any one of us will have the power to toss mountains into the sea, or the wisdom to discern the great mysteries of the ages, or the miraculous ability to heal the sick and raise the dead, one thing is an absolute given: we can each come to Him and relate to Him. We can each get to know God. That is what happens at the altar.

This restoration of the born again experience—of the reality of the divine relationship—has had two notable results. First, there has been a huge recognition and wide acceptance of a biblically defined Christian relationship from people from all denominations and walks of life. Many of these have heard the conditions and promises of the gospel for the first time, even though they had long been members of various Christian denominations. Millions of people today have been born into a new relationship with God.

Secondly, the term "born again" and the related biblical theme of Christian salvation have been spread throughout the world. Prior to the publicity of the meetings of Billy Graham and others, being "born again" was a quaint, archaic ritual out of fashion to most people, including Christians. Today, the term and, more importantly, the spiritual experience of a divine relationship, are in common usage, restored to their place in the church.

Certainly, there are many, not only outside the church but within it, who deride the born again experience as, at best, a purely emotional or, at worst, an entirely delusional thing. But that is no matter. As Jesus so plainly stated, it is not whether a person calls him "Lord." It is not those who prophesy. It is not those who exorcise demons. It is not those who perform miracles. To these, he may say, "I never _knew_ you. Away from me...!" (Matthew 7:21-23) It is all about the relationship. What the world says is important is immaterial. What many church people say is important is often ancillary. What we grow up thinking and believing is important is usually in need of a major adjustment. But what Jesus said is important is critical and fundamental to anything and everything else. To _know_ God.

This is the spiritually rebuilt altar. Accordingly, Phase I of the Restoration Template has been completed.
Chapter 11: The Foundation of the Temple

The Temple was the central focus of Judaism since it was first built by King Solomon about 3,000 years ago. It was at the Temple that the people enjoyed their relationship with God corporately. It was here that they worshipped Him through praise and singing, through the reading of the scriptures, through the teaching of the priests and scribes, and through the celebration of the various divinely ordained festivals.

Most importantly, the Temple was the place where God met with His People. At the Temple was where He promised to have "His Name dwell," and His supernatural Presence manifested to the Jews. All males were required to come to the Temple three times a year to meet with their God. The Temple, in a way, was the "container" in which God's Spirit was housed.

Destroyed by the Babylonian conquerors, it's foundation was the second thing the Jewish exiles rebuilt after returning to their Land. As recorded in the biblical books of Ezra and Haggai, soon after construction of the altar, the exiles who had returned to Israel, under the command of Zerubbabel and Joshua, began rebuilding the Temple. Once the foundation was laid, the Jewish community celebrated, but their celebration was short-lived. There was enough resistance to the rebuilding of the Temple from outsiders that the King of Persia was convinced to halt all construction. For years, the foundation was the only finished part of the Temple, testifying not only to the obviously unfinished state of the rest of the Temple, but also to the promise of what was to come.

The Christian analog to the Temple—remembering that the church is not a natural, but a spiritual entity—is not the buildings used as meeting places for Christians. Rather, just as the natural Temple was the container of God's Spirit when He met with the Jews, so, in the Restoration Template, the Temple is a reference to the container of the God's Spirit when He meets with the church. Instead of a stone building, however, these new containers of God's Spirit are flesh and blood.

Jesus said "...the Kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21) As is typical with God, the words written here have two meanings, both of which are true. In one meaning, Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God is within each person, through the indwelling Holy Spirit dispensed to each of us individually. The other meaning, which is also true, is that the Kingdom of God is "among you", where "you" represents the believers as a group. In other words, the new container of the Holy Spirit is both the individual believer as well as the community of believers known as the "church."

This difference is critical, because today, while many believers have received and to some degree operate in the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit as individuals, virtually no churches today operate in the Spirit. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. First, let's see where we are and how we got here.

The church was designed and created to be first and foremost a supernatural place where the God's Spirit met with and manifested Himself to His people. Right before his ascension, Jesus told his disciples "you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you." (Acts 1:8) About a week later on Pentecost, in the Upper Room, the Spirit dramatically descended upon the 120 disciples in what is known as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. From that point on, the church was an entirely supernatural entity.

Since then, however, things have changed. The church has been _naturalized._ By the time Constantine made his fateful bargain with Silvester, the church had apparently already lost much of its supernatural vitality. Over the following centuries, the church became increasingly natural and worldly, with the supernatural leading and power of the Holy Spirit replaced by rituals, rites, rules and the traditions of men.

Throughout the past two millennia, there have been rare "outbreaks" of the Spirit in various places. Interestingly, none of these—at least, none that are recorded—involved much if any of the supernatural manifestations from the book of Acts.

Then, in Los Angeles, California of all places, in the early 1900's, the Spirit made himself known in what came to be called the "Azusa Street Revival." Among the manifestations of the Spirit were miracles, including "speaking in tongues." After a few years, the Revival ebbed, but it spawned a host of what are known today as "Pentecostal" churches. Perhaps because the primary Azusa Street leader, William Seymour, was black (considering the times), or perhaps because God simply so willed it, the Azusa Street Revival remained mostly a local phenomenon. Thus, this uniquely supernatural event never really touched the mainstream churches.

Then, on April 3, 1960, Dennis Bennett, an Episcopal minister in, again, Los Angeles, California, announced to his church that he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, complete with the manifestation of speaking in tongues. Needless to say, not long after, Mr. Bennett was asked to resign. He moved to a church in Seattle and wrote a book called Nine O'clock in the Morning, describing his experience. Soon, the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" was happening to people all over the world, including speaking in tongues, prophesying, healing, and other supernatural manifestations common to the experience of the first century church. Praise and worship was reenergized from the dreary droning of ancient hymns to lively, inspired, and joyous expressions of communion with God. For the first time in centuries on a global scale, the Holy Spirit was once again "within" individuals, bestowing the same supernatural power that Jesus promised to his disciples.

Named for " _charisma_ ," the Greek word for spiritual gift (a misnomer, actually, as we'll see later), this was the beginning of the so-called " _Charisma_ tic Renewal." Where the Azusa Street Revival stayed mostly local and almost entirely on the "fringe" of the Christian establishment, the Charismatic Renewal spread quickly and widely. By the late 1960's, it had affected nearly every denomination and Christian group worldwide. As Jesus taught, it was like "pouring new wine into old wineskins." That is, it caused the old wineskins of Christian tradition to rip apart at the seams, as the movement caused disruption and disorder in nearly every traditional denomination in which this new spiritual worship and supernatural power occurred. In February 1967, the Spirit visited a retreat at Duquesne University, which paved the way for the _Charisma_ tic Renewal to flood into even that ancient bastion of Christian tradition and orthodoxy: the Catholic Church.

As with the reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple under Zerubbabel, there was significant resistance to this supernatural restoration of the church's "Temple." The religious establishment, seeing only the negative effects that the _Charisma_ tic Renewal had upon the control and "normalcy" of their long held Christian traditions and meeting styles—including the mistakes and excesses by many _Charisma_ tic Christians—decried these volatile and unpredictable happenings as cultic and overly emotional aberrations to Christian worship. Many congregations were torn apart by the commotion. The Renewal was widely condemned as divisive and therefore evil, a satanic stratagem to destroy the church. In many places, those who enjoyed the spiritual renewal of the baptism of the Holy Spirit left to find or establish "Spirit-filled" churches.

Over the last several decades, the _Charisma_ tic Renewal has ceased to be controversial, for two reasons. First, more heartfelt, devotional worship has become universally familiar to the church. Vibrant praise and singing have "gone mainstream." Even the most traditionally sober congregations have recognized the value of lively worship, if not with the more dramatic "worship concerts" put on each week by some churches, certainly through the replacement of hoary old traditional dirges with hymns that provide Christians with a seemingly more worshipful experience. This has been one of the lasting legacies of the _Charisma_ tic Renewal.

But the second reason is less positive. In a word, the Spirit is no longer welcome in the church, at least in group meetings. Paul's instructions in I Corinthians 14 about orderly supernatural worship is unnecessary today, because there is little or no room for the Spirit's supernatural expression. Certainly, there is still some scattered praying and praising in tongues, but rarely is this anything beyond the personal worship of the individual. The church as a whole rarely worships in the Spirit, and almost universally does not function in the Spirit. There is no prophecy. There are no miracles. There only rare healings. There is virtually no deliverance. Barely a few decades after the reintroduction of the Spirit into all corners of Christianity, the power of Pentecost has all but disappeared from the church.

But this is only a pause.

The _Charisma_ tic Renewal reintroduced the baptism of the Holy Spirit to the church. But a lack of understanding about how the Things of the Spirit worked—caused largely and perhaps divinely by a problem with biblical translation—resulted in a wide scale waning of the Spirit's presence in church services.

For decades now, this has been the case. The Holy Spirit didn't leave. Millions of people have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and rely on Him and His power in their daily lives. At the individual and family level, the Spirit is alive and well and functioning, if not fully. But at the community level—in the church—He is largely absent.

This state of affairs perfectly mirrors the Restoration Template. During the restoration of Israel, the foundations of the Temple had been laid, but the completion of the Temple was delayed for years. In the same way, the Holy Spirit has been restored to the foundations of the church—individuals and families—but the completion of His Presence in the church has been delayed.

This is where we are. This is why, although there are millions of people today who have been born again, many who have received the Holy Spirit and are earnestly seeking God and relying on the power and direction of His Spirit, yet the church is, nonetheless, "in ruins."

According to the Restoration Template, the altar has been rebuilt and the foundations of the Temple have been restored. But just as the Israelites never confused the foundations with the entire Temple, so we must not confuse the Spirit's indwelling in individuals with a Spirit-led church. The foundation has been laid, but the Temple has yet to be completed. And the foreigners still need to be expelled. And Nehemiah's wall still needs to be rebuilt. And we have no idea what any of these things mean.

So, first things first: completing the Temple.

Unfortunately, we don't even know what the Temple will look like. This, of course, makes the restoration, not merely difficult, but impossible. What does it mean for the Holy Spirit to once again reside in and rule the church? How do we proceed when the only model we have for the church is a Constantinian Christianity which neither relies on nor even recognizes the Spirit?

Again, God will not leave us in the lurch. Just as He gave Moses specific plans for the Tabernacle and He gave King David specific plans for the original Temple that his son, Solomon, constructed, so He has given us plans for our Temple. As we might expect, those plans are a bit more intricate than simply slapping up some timbers and stones.

On top of that, He has promised that His Spirit will "lead us into all truth" as we walk with and depend on him. Our first task is to simply realize that our Temple—the Holy Spirit in the church—is, to date, nonexistent. That our community is "in ruins." That we have a task before us. It's a difficult task, to be sure. But it's a glorious one.

### Chapter 12: Finishing the Temple

The next step of the Restoration Template is the completion of the Temple. Shortly after the return of the first Babylonian exiles, the foundation for the restored Temple in Jerusalem was laid. Then, work was resisted and delayed. It was finally completed under the supervision of Zerubbabel and Joshua, at the prophetic urging of Haggai and Zechariah. The restoration was resumed in the second year of the Persian king Darius, and was completed four years later. Upon completion, the Jews celebrated the dedication of the Temple with joy, with sacrifice, and with the installation of "priests in their divisions and Levites in their groups for the service of God." (Ezra 6:15-18)

For us today, the completion of the Temple is a metaphor for the reintroduction of the Holy Spirit into the church. That reintroduction is not merely a nod in his direction. It is not carving out a few minutes between our hymns and the sermon to bow our heads and listen for him. It is not holding a seminar or preaching a series of sermons on the Holy Spirit. Reintroducing the Spirit into the church is a rather drastic and dramatic change.

Indeed, the completion of the Temple is a metaphor for undoing the bargain. For reversing the deal Silvester made with Constantine. For finally yielding the helm of the church back to the Spirit; giving the army back to God's general in charge. It is a metaphor for letting him train us, arm us, and guide us into battle.

As mentioned earlier, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was restored to believers half a century ago which sparked the _Charisma_ tic Renewal. At this time, he—the Spirit—shook things up pretty well. Many individuals today have received the Holy Spirit and make use of some of the supernatural power he has provided us. But not at the church level; at the corporate level. The Temple was never completed—the church was never completely restored to the place of supernatural power found in the first century.

Where we are now is described in Ezekiel 37, in the famous passage about the dry bones: "... _there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together...but there was no breath in them_." (Ezekiel 37:7) During the Charismatic Renewal, there was a lot of noise and rattling around, and many people left their dead denominations to come together with others who sought to be led by the Spirit. But in the church as a whole, "there was no breath." The word "breath," of course, is the same word as for "spirit." Even in Ezekiel's prophesy, just as with the restoration of ancient Israel and the current restoration of the church, there was a delay, a pause of sorts between the first "breath" and the "completing breath." For us, that pause has lasted decades. But it is time for the restoration to continue.

Ezekiel goes on: " _This is what the Sovereign LORD says: 'Come, breath...and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood on their feet—a vast army_." (Ezekiel 37:9-10)

Lest we forget what all this is about, Ezekiel reminds us. The restoration of the church is about the resumption of the divine invasion of planet Earth. What is needed for such an invasion is an army. Not a natural army with guns or tanks or economic clout or voting blocs. But an army of the Spirit.

Today, most Christian leaders do not see that their congregations are in ruins. They see the devotion, sacrificial dedication and faith of their people, and the growth of their churches as signs of success. Some see this success as evidence that the Spirit is sufficiently at work, leading and guiding and empowering their people. To these, the idea that their church is spiritually in ruins seems laughable.

Other leaders may acknowledge that the Spirit's presence in their meetings is somewhat lacking. They may recognize that rock concert worship meetings, passionate preaching, and insightful teaching are insufficient for what God created the church to be and to do. Some of these leaders have expressed that they are awaiting a great outpouring of God's Spirit to lead the church into its full divine calling.

But whether or not God sends us a fresh outpouring, the Spirit _has already_ been poured out. The foundation of the Temple has already been laid. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was reintroduced to the church fifty years ago, and it is both the necessary and sufficient provision of the power of the God on earth. The problem is not that we do not have the Spirit, or enough of the Spirit. The problem is that we are ignorant about what to do with Him. We are ignorant about Things of the Spirit. We are ignorant about how the community of the Spirit is supposed to operate. We are ignorant about how to walk together in faith and unity and the Spirit's power. But ignorance is not a sin. Ignorance can be can be fixed with a little revelation.

In ancient Israel, the foundations of the Temple had been finished for decades while the rest of the Temple lay uncompleted. Then God sent Haggai to the people with these words: " _Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?...Go up to the mountains and bring down timber and build the house_.... " (Haggai 1:4,8) He continues, speaking to Zerubbabel and Joshua, the authorities of the people: " _'But now be strong, O Zerubbabel,' declares the LORD. 'Be strong, O Joshua...be strong, all you people of the land,' declares the LORD, 'and work. For I am with you...." In the same way, the Lord is saying to the church and its leaders today, "Be strong, and work_."

But what 'work'? The Hebrew word means both "to do, accomplish" as well as "to make or produce." To make the current church into the church of God's design. To build the Temple. To establish the Kingdom of God on the earth. To let the Spirit breathe into the dry bones of the church, and turn them into Ezekiel's "vast army."

The difference between what we have now—a mass of devoted, faithful, and even Spirit-filled believers—into what He wants—a Spiritual army—is this: tools, assignments, and training. Because He is building a spiritual army, it is only through His Spirit that He has provided us with both the tools and an instruction manual for the training and assignments. Our job, once we have a better understanding of the Things of the Spirit, is to work. To work to rebuild the Temple.

But lest we rush off and recreate another expression of Constantinian Christianity, let's look at Jesus' definition of 'work': " _The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent._ " (John 6:29) This is spiritual work: to trust in God to accomplish, through our hands, what He has called us to do. This can seem confusing. "Do I wait and watch for God to do it? Or do I proceed? And if I proceed, how do I know it's God doing it and not merely me in my own strength?"

C. S. Lewis likened this dilemma to a pair of scissors. When cutting, say, a piece of cloth with scissors, which blade of the scissors is doing the actual cutting? It's a rhetorical question, because only in tandem does each blade of the scissors work. One without the other is useless.

In the same way, when God works through us, it is impossible to parse which part was God's doing and which was our doing. The thing is done via the unity of His Spirit in us. We must act. But we must trust. In all our spiritual activity, there is always a thread of passively trusting in the power of God. Conversely, in all our spiritual waiting, there is always a thread of actively relating to God. And, of course, the difficult thing for us—at least that human part of us—is that it is impossible, once the act is done, to see God's hand in it without faith. He never, ever let's us get away from the need to have faith. The need to actively and relationally _believe_.

Like the scissors, we cannot accomplish any work of God without His Spirit. But here's the flip side: neither can He accomplish His work without us. That's just how He arranged things.

So, when it comes to building the Temple—to bringing the Spirit back to the church—it is time to work. It is time to act while we trust. It is time to believe as He works in and through us. We need not wait for a great outpouring of His Spirit, either on us individually or on the church as a whole. He gave us His Spirit at Pentecost. Then He reintroduced us to him decades ago, when the foundation of the spiritual Temple was laid. He has already poured out His Spirit.

How then do we proceed? What does it mean to "rebuild the Temple," to reintroduce the Spirit into the church?

It means that, in whatever arena He has placed us, to begin to "live by the Spirit," to actively trust and rely on the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit through the seemingly mundane and everyday things we do. It begins, of course, by each of us receiving the Holy Spirit which He promised us. If you need help with that, ask Him. Ask Him for His Spirit. And, perhaps, ask Him to lead you to a person who can walk you through it. This is the same Spirit God gave to the first disciples at Pentecost in the upper room. It is the same power by which the early apostles performed miracles. It is not a power reserved only for the exceptionally holy or specially anointed. The power of the Spirit (and all the supernatural manifestations included) is the "children's bread" which Jesus provided for us. It is the power that God gives us in order to walk with and relate to Him. Without it, there's nothing we can do of value. With it, we can do anything.

Trusting in God to prophesy before thousands or to lay hands on and heal sick people may sound daunting or, perhaps, exciting. But before we actively engage in our spiritual work in the larger, seemingly more glorious arenas, let us get proficient in the smaller arenas in which we live. Arenas like our personal lives. Like our homes and families. Do we wait on the Lord for divine instruction—that "still small voice" that, without faith, may seem just like our own thoughts—when we are faced with a decision about, say, repairing the car or taking a vacation? Do we trust in the Spirit to lead and empower us as we go off to our job today? Do we actively engage Him as we run into the various people we meet each day? Do we lay hands on our sick kids or sick spouse and pray for supernatural healing for a cold or the flu? This is how it begins. These are the arenas in which He expects us to begin our work. _His_ work.

Then, as we work in our small arenas, He will construct the larger arena of His church. And, just as He did with the natural Temple, He will build it—using our efforts—according to His specific, divine plan.

### Chapter 13: The Plan of the Temple

God has a rather pointed interest in how His stuff gets built. He gave Moses very specific plans for building the Tabernacle that preceded the Temple. In fact, He emphatically warned Moses to stick to the plan: " _See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain_." (Hebrews 8:5, Exodus 25:40) Likewise, when it came to the first Temple, God gave David equally specific plans. (I Chronicles 28:19) And even the mysterious new Temple that Ezekiel prophesied about involves precise specifications. (Ezekiel 40-42) Perhaps no subject consumes as much of the Bible as the various divinely ordained plans for the Temples, their furnishings, and the specific positions of service assigned to Temple-related tasks. The fact that many of us tend to skip over these details in the scriptures testifies to just how mind-numbingly precise God can be about how He wanted His Temple constructed.

In the same way, God has specific plans for the reconstruction of His spiritual Temple. The Holy Spirit intends to infuse and transform the church, and to reestablish his sovereign guidance over and his immense power among his spiritual army. All along, his intentions have been perfectly aligned with a divine plan, a blueprint, if you will, for how the Kingdom of God on earth is to be constructed; for how the divine army is intended to operate. This plan for the Spirit's operation in our midst includes the three basic components which differentiate an unruly mob from a disciplined, functioning army: tools, assignments, and training.

Over the past several decades, God has familiarized us with some of the tools. The spiritual tools He has provided for us through the baptism of the Spirit—speaking in tongues being the most common—are powerful, supernatural things. But these were just the introduction to the Things of the Spirit. This was just the foundation of the spiritual Temple. Access to powerful tools is not enough.

Imagine, for example, some grade school kids—several brothers—who decide they want to build a new house for their parents. Their intentions are good and their enthusiasm is high, but they have no plans, no tools, no raw materials, and no experience. Then, one day, their Dad arranges for a truck to arrive. As they throw open the door, they discover lumber, hardware, and an array of power tools: circular saws, power drills, routers, sanders, nail guns, and even a jackhammer. The kids each excitedly grab a couple of tools, pull out some boards, and have at it. They are amazed how quickly and powerfully the saws cut, the drills bore, the routers shape, and the nail guns nail. At the end of the day, they have each become somewhat familiar with a tool or two, and they head home, tired but exhilarated. The next day, they return to their work site and sit down to discuss what to do. It quickly becomes apparent that they have differing ideas as to what the house should look like, and how to go about building it. Being children, each insists his own idea is the best, and a disagreement ensues. On top of their differing strategies, each child considers his own tool the most critical to the project. The one with the saw sees only that boards need to be cut. The one with the drill sees only holes that need to be drilled. The one with the sander sees only that the rough pieces need finished. And none of them has any idea what the jackhammer is for. Soon, their frustration peaks and, despite their earlier amazement and excitement, they quit. Their building site has devolved into a mess of butchered lumber, scattered hardware, and the formerly awesome tools are strewn around the place. The brothers run off to the park together to play, leaving their earlier disagreements forgotten back at the building site.

This is not unlike what happened during the Charismatic Renewal. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was accompanied by supernatural manifestations that amazed and excited many Christians. Over a few decades, however, it became clear that even the powerful tools of the Spirit were not sufficient to construct the Kingdom of God on earth. The zeal of that period was eventually eroded by conflict, confusion, and time.

But the foundation to the spiritual Temple had been laid. The power tools, perhaps long neglected, had nonetheless been provided and were available should their need arise. They are still available to us. To each and all of us.

What's missing is the plan, the blueprint for the Temple. That blueprint includes, not only how and when to use the tools, but the crafts required—carpenters, electricians, plumbers, etc.—and the trainers for each. It also includes, if not written architectural drawings, something better: fresh and continuing revelation as to what each part of the Temple should look like, how it should be built, and what tools and skills are required. Most importantly, the blueprint is in the possession of the general contractor who has been assigned to manage the whole project: the Holy Spirit.

In Solomon's day, if we were to ask someone to describe the Temple, it is unlikely that he would launch into excruciating detail similar to that written by Ezekiel. In the same way, we won't try to explain in detail about all of the Things of the Spirit. Instead, let's look at the spiritual Temple—the Things of the Spirit—through a broader, more general lens.

In the natural Temple, there were three primary areas: the outer court, the inner court, and the sanctuary, which included the Holy of Holies. These three areas are listed below in order of their increasing purity or holiness:

•the outer court: everyone was allowed here, even Gentiles;

•the inner court: only Jews were allowed in the inner court; and

•the sanctuary: only priests were permitted in the sanctuary, and only the High Priest was allowed in the Holy of Holies, and that only once a year.

The spiritual Temple follows the same basic pattern. There are three categories of the Things of the Spirit, akin to the three areas of the natural Temple. If we list these, too, in order of increasing divine holiness, they include the spiritual _energema_ , the spiritual _diakonia_ , and the spiritual _charisma_. (Although we will describe each of these categories in English, we will continue to use the Greek words. This may seem awkward at first, but the intent is to avoid the confusion that can so easily arise when we try to explain spiritual things with natural words.)

In the scriptures, God lists these three categories, starting with the most holy:

" _Now, concerning spiritual things, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant...There are different kinds of gifts (_ charisma _), but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service (_ diakonia _), but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working (_ energema _), but the same God_...." (I Corinthians 12:1,4-6)

To help us, in the Bible, God has included lists of the Things of the Spirit for each of these categories. A list of the _energema_. A list of the _charisma_. And actually two lists of the _diakonia_. Before we look at these, it is important to remember the most fundamental point about this subject: these are _spiritual_ things. Some of them are visible in the natural. With some of them, God uses the same or similar terms for different things. With many of them, God uses words that have common meanings in the natural world. As with His natural Temple, He is very specific about His plan, which He gave us because He wants us to understand it.

But let us be clear: God has made no provision for the natural mind to even grasp, much less use, these Things of the Spirit. We can mostly recognize them only in the Spirit. We can only understand them in the Spirit. And we certainly can only use them in the Spirit. So, although we will offer some descriptions here, it is only as we each embrace them in the Spirit—in our relationship with God—that they will begin to make any sense at all. As we will see, God has revealed in the Bible much about the Things of the Spirit. But He also cautions us that, as often happens when we read the scriptures, the assistance of the Spirit to give us understanding is not merely helpful, but critical. For when it comes to the Things of the Spirit—to the plans of the spiritual Temple—God has written about them " _not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words_." (I Corinthians 2:13)

Jesus taught mostly in parables. Parables are metaphors; stories that use words as symbols for other things. Jesus spoke about wheat and weeds, seeds and weather, sheep and goats, lost coins and lamps, bread and scorpions, wineskins and rocks. But with all these common words and prosaic stories, he was communicating about the Kingdom of Heaven. His entire ministry was about the relationship between us and God. He was using the same natural words that people used all the time, but he imbued them with the Spirit to communicate spiritual truth.

In the same way, the Bible describes the Things of the Spirit with natural words. They—like Jesus' parables—can only be discerned through spiritual faculties. We may know common words like "healing" or "teacher" for example, but the scriptures may mean radically different things than our natural understanding of healing or teaching. Besides this basic use of natural words as symbols for spiritual things, sometimes God uses a word like "teacher" to describe two entirely different spiritual Things.

Our natural usage of the word "light" is such an example. Just two of the many uses of "light" include 1) a lamp or candle, and 2) the visible illumination that is given off by a lamp or candle. It doesn't take a physicist to see that a lump of wax with a wick in it is far different from the electromagnetic energy we can see with our eyes. They are related uses of the word, but they are also completely different.

These are some of the obstacles we face in discussing the Things of the Spirit. Again, this is not because God is trying to overcomplicate things. It is because everything about Him is spiritual. His nature is spiritual. His Kingdom is spiritual. The tools, assignments, and training He provides us are spiritual. And it is because we are born into a natural existence, with natural faculties surrounded by a natural world, and we have not yet learned to use our spiritual faculties to discern the spiritual world around us.

But take heart: Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit himself would "lead us into all truth." As we grow in our relationship with God—almost entirely by simply spending time with Him—He will change us by the "renewing of our mind"—to be able to understand all that we need to in order to accomplish the tasks before us.

While we are on this subject, let's clear up one other item of confusion. The _Charisma_ tic Renewal got its name from the word " _charisma_ " meaning "gift." When God reintroduced the baptism of the Holy Spirit some decades ago, Christians experienced speaking in tongues, prophecy, and many of the other Things of the Spirit listed in I Corinthians 12:8-11. They soon started calling these spiritual manifestations "Spiritual Gifts." But these are not the Spiritual Gifts. This error was probably caused in large part because most versions of the Bible translate the first verse of this chapter as:

"Now _, concerning spiritual_ _gifts,_ _brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant._ " (I Corinthians 12:1)

The problem is, the word "gifts" (" _charisma_ ") is not in that verse. A better translation would be "Now _concerning spiritual Things, brothers_..." This may seem like a trifling point of semantics. But this small error has kept Christians so focused on these seemingly dramatic spiritual manifestations, calling them the "Spiritual Gifts", that we never discovered what the real Spiritual Gifts are. These things are not Gifts ( _charisma_.) They are spiritual manifestations ( _energema_ ) which we'll call "Tools." These Tools are important and divine, but they are not the Spiritual Gifts. The Spiritual Gifts, as we shall see, are incredibly more wonderful and powerful than the _energema_. Perhaps, decades ago, if we had understood a little bit more about the Things of the Spirit, we would have called that time the " _Energema_ tic Renewal." Or maybe not.

Just as when God poured out His Spirit, first at Pentecost (Act 2) and later at Cornelius' house (Acts 10), when He did so just a few decades ago, _all_ of the Things of the Spirit were made available to us: the Tools ( _energema_ ), the craftsmen Assignments ( _diakonia_ ), and the Gifts ( _charisma_.) During this latest dispensation of the Spirit, we gravitated almost exclusively to the Tools because, of all three spiritual categories, the _energema_ are the only ones that are visible to the eyes. The Tools are the only Things of the Spirit that can be recognized in the natural. Between our ignorance and our difficulty in growing into spiritual discernment, we never embraced the more powerful and sacred _diakonia_ and _charisma_. In other words, when, according to the divine template, we were just working on the foundations of the Temple, we never progressed from the outer court.

Now, however, we have a glimpse of the Plan. Now, we can proceed to finish the rest of the Temple. To do that, let us first look at _why_ He did what He did.

### Chapter 14: Parsing God

Why did God give us the Things of the Spirit?

He created the earth and the cosmos, exiled us from the garden, and then seemed to leave us to our own devices until the Flood.

Then He established His Chosen People, Israel, and dealt with them—and almost exclusively with them—through the Law, the promises, the prophets, and the priesthood.

Then He sent Jesus, and through His death and resurrection, opened the door of His Kingdom and access to Himself to anyone who was born again through faith in His Son.

Then Jesus ascended, and God sent the Spirit.

Because we are so natural, and because the Spirit cannot be perceived naturally, we may tend to minimize his importance. We tend to view him as an invisible cloud of divinity, or as a usually silent partner in our struggles in life, or even as a distant, theological idea that has no practical value to us.

In fact, when God sent His Spirit, He gave us the most valuable, most powerful thing He could give us to accomplish all that He intends us to do: Himself. But He didn't give us Himself in a way that, like Jesus, can be identified as a single person, or isolated to a specific location. In and through the Spirit, God "distributed" Himself to us, in all His power, knowledge, wisdom and glory. Certainly, the Spirit is a unique being, a divine person in himself. But in his—to us—unusual nature, he is not only omniscient and omnipotent, he is also omnipresent. He's everywhere. At the same time. And in that omnipresence, he is and provides us with all the attributes and abilities of God Himself.

Let's return to the Temple analogy to describe this. In a way, God revealed Himself differently to those in each of the three parts of the Temple. In the outer court, God showed Himself to even the Gentiles as, well, God. The all powerful. The almighty. The ultimate divine, supreme Being. Here, He was known as, in the most generic sense, "God."

In the inner court, God was known only by the Chosen People, the Jews. To them, God was their "Lord." Their leader. Their protector. Their teacher and provider. Their supreme authority.

In the sanctuary, God was known only to the priests. To them, He manifested Himself most intimately, as the One Who judged and redeemed, Who accepted the sacrifices in lieu of judgment, Who was the spiritual Source of the nation's identity, motivation, and purpose.

When the Spirit came, he brought all of God with him, in the very form of the same three ways He manifested Himself at the Temple. These three ways are listed in I Corinthians 12:

" _There are different kinds of gifts (charisma), but the same_ _Spirit._

_There are different kinds of service (diakonia), but the same_ _Lord_ _._

_There are different kinds of working (energema), but the same_ _God_..." (I Corinthians 12:1,4-6)

These three aspects of God—Spirit, Lord, and God—are not to be confused with three beings of the trinity: Father, Son, Spirit. Instead, these are the three aspects of God that He included in and with the Spirit when he was sent to us. And these three aspects help describe and clarify the Things of the Spirit.

We are not trying to dissect God, here. Rather, we are showing how God "parsed" Himself. Hebrews 2:4 says this explicitly: " _God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by_ _gifts_ _of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will_." Here, the word translated as "gifts" is the Greek word " _merismos_ ," which means "division, partition, or separation." In His giving us His Spirit, God subdivided Himself into three categories, and then distributed those categories in pieces to the church. These pieces, collectively, are the Things of the Spirit. United, they are all the attributes of God Himself.

I could describe myself similarly. My physical attributes—which are apparent to everyone—include how I walk, sit, and fidget; how I talk with a certain accent, using certain idioms and vocabulary that are unique to me. My relationships, on the other hand, are not apparent to everyone, but only to those in those relationships: I am a father to my children, a husband to my wife, a friend to my friends, etc. Behind these physical attributes and relationships, and invisible to everyone but myself, are my motivations, ambitions, perspectives, and fears. These three categories, if you will, are how I could be parsed and distributed, if such a thing were possible (or even desirable.)

So, by _nature_ , God is Spirit, including all His invisible motivations and perspectives. By _position or relationship_ , He is Lord. By _manifestation of power_ , He is the Divine One: God.

These are the three aspects He has parsed Himself into, and are thus the three categories of the Things of the Spirit. As we shall see:

the _charisma_ are spirits, even as God is spirit;

the _diakonia_ are assignments or authority positions of service, just as God's "position" or "assignment" is Lord; and,

the _energema_ are manifestations or workings, which demonstrate the supernatural power of God, even to those who don't know Him.

Through the Spirit, all of the Things of the Spirit are distributed to men and women. But here's the catch, and it has God's thumbprint all over it: the totality of the Things of the Spirit is never given to a single individual. It is only as we are united in faith and love that the complete attributes and abilities and power are available to us on earth. It is only when we, as a group, are one in Him that we can access the fullness of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Now, let's look at each of the three categories of the Things of the Spirit, and begin to take hold of the wonderful Things He has for us. While we will address and describe each of the three categories of the Things of the Spirit, space prevents us from a detailed description of each specific _charisma_ , _diakonia_ , or _energema_. A more complete description can be found in Navigating the Supernatural: A Guide to the Things of the Spirit.

### Chapter 15: Spiritual Tools: the _Energema_

Let us begin with the category most familiar to us: the _energema_. The word " _energema_ " is usually translated as "workings" or "manifestations." We will often refer to them as "Tools." These are those power tools that were reintroduced during the _Charisma_ tic Renewal in the 1960's and 70's. The list of _energema_ is found in I Corinthians 12:8-11:

_"To one there is given through the Spirit the_ _message of wisdom_ _, to another the_ _message of knowledge_ _by means of the same Spirit, to another_ _faith_ _by the same Spirit, to another_ _gifts of healing_ _by that one Spirit, to another_ _miraculous powers_ _, to another_ _prophecy_ _, to another_ _distinguishing between spirits_ _, to another_ _speaking in different kinds of tongues_ _, and to still another the_ _interpretation of tongues_ _. All these are the work (_ energema _) of one and the same Spirit...._ "

These are the Things of the Spirit with which we are most familiar. These are the dramatic manifestations of the Spirit that shook up the church five decades ago during the _Charisma_ tic Renewal. These are the dramatic manifestations of the Spirit that shook up the world two millennia ago in Jerusalem on Pentecost.

These are, however, the spiritual Things which God considers least important. That is, the _energema_ category is the least holy, least sacred, least spiritual of the three categories of Things of the Spirit. It is analogous to the outer court of the Temple; to that place where even the impure Gentiles were permitted to visit.

God gave us the _energema_ for two reasons. First, as manifestations, the _energema_ confirm that the Spirit has indeed been given to us. Spiritual maturity is not a requirement for the baptism of the Spirit. Rather, it is God's will that we receive the Spirit as soon as we're born again. (Acts 19:2) And because, at that early time in our relationship with God, we are not mature and not particularly discerning of spiritual things, He gave us the _energema_ as a testimony. We can know that we received the Spirit in ways that we can recognize with our natural senses. We may not understand them, but we can recognize when the Spirit causes us to prophesy or heal or, most commonly, speak in tongues.

The second reason God gave us the _energema_ is because they are practical. They do stuff. They really are Tools of the Spirit. The _energema_ allow us, supernaturally, to know things we didn't before, to know what to do in a certain circumstance, to pray about things that our mind may not fathom, but our spirit knows is important. They allow us to heal and be healed—spiritually, psychologically, and physically—not unlike a spiritual version of our body's natural defenses. They provide us the capacity to speak things and do things that would be impossible in the natural.

The _energema_ are a Tool kit for spiritual survival and growth. Without them, we are hamstrung in our efforts to know God. Without them, we could never operate in, much less construct, His Kingdom on earth. But unlike the Spiritual Gifts ( _charisma_ ), as we shall see later, the _energema_ are _workings_. That is, they are actions. They are things we _do_ , not who we are.

All of the _energema_ Tools are available to each and every one of us, with no exclusions. It is likely that we will use some of the Tools more than others, just as a carpenter uses different tools than a plumber. But some Tools, like speaking in tongues, are common for everyone, just as every type of craftsman uses some sort of tape measure.

Like natural Tools, we must actually use them. That is, the _energema_ are not supernatural events that are "done to us." We do them. We use them. And in order for that to happen, we have to dare to test them out. It helps if we have someone to show us and lead us (which is why God will provide us skilled craftsmen to teach us), but we must begin by realizing that to prophesy or speak in tongues, for example, we must speak.

To heal, we must speak divine health into ourselves or others, and maybe lay hands on them. In our family, when our kids were little, they would come crying to us about whatever latest bump or scrape they incurred, just as kids are wont to do. Our first act was to pray for them. Then we may go get a band-aid or aspirin or whatever next steps we thought were prudent. But initially, we accepted the blessing of healing that God had made available to us through the Spirit, and turned to Him first. It wasn't a big production or a lengthy prayer in King James' English. It was a quick "God, heal Sarah's knee, in Jesus' Name." Or Anne's elbow. Or Jenna's bee sting. Or Noah's throat. Or Dane's fever. Anything. First thing.

And just like an aspirin or band-aid, divine healing on a practical level usually takes time to work. Our artificial, stained-glass mental image of supernatural healing often portrays a melodramatic, instantaneous event. Certainly, God can cause melodramatic, instantaneous healing. But usually—at least in our experience—the process is gradual and invisible, requiring faith to see that God Himself has done the healing. We pray/speak healing into ourselves or another, and by that word, we set loose the Holy Spirit to do the work.

I mention this, not to either over hype or demean divine healing. Rather, the intent is to put it in context. Supernatural healing is not some special gift given to only a few anointed people. It has been given to each of us—as part of the "children's bread" (Mark 7:27)—which, like all the _energema_ Tools, are meant to be used in everyday life. It's up to us to use them.

Sure, at first, we can be a bit in awe of speaking in tongues or supernatural healing. But that awe wears off quickly—as it should—with use. Just as a carpenter may "ooh" and "aah" over a new table saw or set of chisels, the enjoyment of a new thing is both expected and appropriate. But that carpenter, however much he appreciates his new saw, will quickly see it, no longer as a shiny new toy, but as a practical, helpful tool. Using it frequently, getting familiar with its features and its feel, will replace the initial awe with a deep and practical appreciation for how valuable it is _to do work_.

In the same way, as we use the spiritual _energema_ Tools, they will become less and less awe-inspiring in their own right, and more and more useful and practical in accomplishing the tasks before us. Those tasks, contrary to popular Christian thought, are not usually the kinds of tasks we do in, at, or for the church, although they are quite helpful there, too. But mostly, the tasks that require the _energema_ are the tasks we do every day at work, at home, among our family, in our relationships, etc. The _energema_ , as with all the Things of the Spirit, are given to us to provide the supernatural power to live our daily lives in the Kingdom. In the Spirit. Right in the middle of the mundane and natural and boring and difficult.

The _energema_ are manifestations of God's supernatural power. As manifestations, they are visible even to outsiders, and are, thus, the least sacred of the three categories of Things of the Spirit. Indeed, it requires no spiritual maturity or acquired wisdom to have access to the _energema_. This is why Jesus made the surprising statement toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount:

" _Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!_ '" (Matthew 7:22-23)

We tend to be so awed by the supernatural power of the Spirit that we elevate those who practice the _energema_ as some sort of super-holy or anointed people. This is like assuming that those carpenters who are most familiar with power saws and jackhammers automatically do more careful, beautiful work than others. In fact, power—even the supernatural power of the _energema_ —doesn't require or create godliness, humility, or the fear of the Lord. Rather, power is given to us so that, in our pursuit of godliness, humility and the fear of the Lord—in our pursuit of _knowing God_ —we have divine mechanisms to help us.

### Chapter 16: Spiritual Assignments: the _Diakonia_

The second category of the Things of the Spirit is the _diakonia_. The _diakonia_ are assignments or appointed positions of service. This category is analogous to the inner court of the Temple, where only Jews were permitted: outsiders are excluded from the _diakonia_. It is not that outsiders are not _permitted_ to benefit from the _diakonia_. Rather, outsiders will simply be unable to recognize or otherwise care much about these appointments.

The _diakonia_ are assigned by the Spirit for the sake of those in the church. Outsiders will tend to view appointments in the church as non-athletes would view the assignment of coaches on a football team. If you are trying to become a better linebacker, you will recognize the authority, ability, and experience of the linebacker coach. If you are not on the team, however, you will have no particular interest in the linebacker coach or his training regimen. If you are not on the team, you simply won't care.

The _diakonia_ are appointed positions, just as, in the church, Jesus holds the appointed position of "Lord." "Lord" is a title, the label of a functional assignment, not a name. He is the ultimate leader, director, trainer, protector, and provider of those under his care. When God sent His Spirit to the church, He parsed His Lordship position into several pieces.

These pieces—these _diakonia_ —are the craftsmen of the Temple. They are the experts and trainers who provide the organization, knowledge, and experience required to turn raw recruits into a functioning army. They are like player-coaches who perform the job of certain positions as well as training their teammates to perform those positions.

We often see these positions—particularly apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers—through a stained-glass perspective as ultra-godly people. To be sure, men appointed to these positions must meet certain standards, which are listed in the Bible, and which we'll look at in a minute. But ironically, these supposedly super-religious people have positions that, in our debased current understanding, are viewed as the most humble and menial.

Let's dispel another long-standing misconception. It is from the Greek word _diakonia_ that we get our word "deacon." In today's understanding, a deacon is one who is assigned natural, often mundane tasks in the church like setting up chairs for a service or collecting the offerings. Deacons are lay people, clearly subordinate to the "more spiritual" positions of pastors or priests or teachers. But in fact, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers and the rest of these generally exalted _diakonia_ , are, indeed, examples of the deacon ministry. We have simply been tripped up once again by our misunderstanding of scripture.

The first deacons were the "seven" appointed to serve the early church:

" _In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained...because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, 'It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom_...." (Acts 6:1-3)

Our misunderstanding of the role of deacons centers around the words "food" and "wait on table" in the above passage. We tend to see the role of the first deacons as we do those who serve food at church pancake breakfasts or potluck dinners. If that was all that was required of deacons, then why must they be "known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom?"

First of all, in the Greek, the word "food" is nowhere to be found. The widows in question were being overlooked, but not in getting fed. Or at least, not in getting fed _physically_. Instead, they were being overlooked in the " _daily ministrations_." Those ministrations were the distribution, not of physical food, but spiritual food. The ministrations were the distribution of the prophesy, teaching, healing, miracles, and other spiritual resources that the early Christians needed for spiritual health and growth. The "waiting on tables" that compounds this misunderstanding is not the same as getting waited on at Denny's or IHOP. It was rather the spiritual food from the same "table" that Jesus discussed with the Canaanite woman:

" _He replied, 'It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs.' 'Yes, Lord,' she said, 'but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table_.'" (Matthew 15:26-27)

The "crumbs" she refers to was the deliverance of her daughter from demons. In the same way, the "food" served to the "children"—those in the Kingdom—are the litany of spiritually powerful "ministrations" that are necessary for spiritual and physical health and vitality in the Kingdom.

The _diakonia_ positions then—deacons—are, in fact, quite important positions of spiritual authority, spiritual ability, and spiritual experience. They are listed in two places in the Bible (we'll address the differences of the lists later):

" _And in the church, God has appointed first of all_ _apostles_ _, second_ _prophets_ _, third_ _teachers_ _, then_ _workers of miracles_ _, also those having_ _gifts of healing_ _, those able to_ _help_ _others, those with gifts of_ _administration_ _and those speaking in different kinds of_ _tongues_." (I Corinthians 12:28)

And:

" _It was he who gave some to be_ _apostles_ _, some to be_ _prophets_ _, some to be_ _evangelists_ _, and some to be_ _pastors_ _and_ _teachers_ _, to prepare God's people for works of service (_ diakonia _), so that the body of Christ may be built up_...." (Ephesians 4:11-12)

Churches services today are largely spectacles, in which a few perform and the rest of us, well, "spectate." That wasn't how God set up the Kingdom to work. These critical positions in the Kingdom are not purely "performance" positions. That is, prophets aren't charged to merely prophesy, and teachers aren't charged to merely teach. Rather, as we mentioned earlier, these positions are "player-coaches." Prophets are called to prophesy, but are also called to train others to prophesy. Teachers are called to teach, but are also called to train others to teach. Their jobs are "to prepare God's people for works of service ( _diakonia_ )..." That is, these _diakonia_ positions were given to prepare the rest of God's people for _diakonia_ positions. The church was founded as an entirely participatory entity. Like a family. Everyone has a place. Everyone participates (in order, or course.) And everyone is fed and cared for.

All of the _diakonia_ positions, however we may exalt them, are service positions. That is, like the original seven, they are appointments which serve the people. More precisely, they serve the power, truth, wisdom, and knowledge of the Spirit to the people. But they serve _the people_ nonetheless. That is, they take what's prepared by, well, the chefs, if you will, and distribute it to the community. Which means that they are not the final authority. The "chefs" are. So, who are the chefs?

The chefs are the final and ultimate human authority in the Kingdom of God. These are those who, as Peter said, are concerned with the "ministry of the word of God," not waiting on tables. In the first church, these were the Twelve. The Apostles. Later, as the church grew, these ultimate authorities of the church became the "apostles and elders."

Suffice it to say that, with the exception of apostles, all of these _diakonia_ positions, even though they are charged to stand before the people and preach, teach, or prophesy authoritatively—that is, to provide the people with their spiritual rations—they are not the ultimate authority of the church. Elders may also be teachers or prophets, but they need not be. They may rarely be "on stage." What's more, men who qualify for any of these positions understand that the role of Elder is vastly different from the role of Prophet or Teacher, even if they may do both.

We'll discuss Kingdom authority more in a later chapter. But in a nutshell, the essential difference between elders and the _diakonia_ positions is the difference between the roles of Moses and Aaron. Moses was commanded to relate to God, and then tell Aaron what God said. Aaron's job was to take what Moses told him and tell it to the people. This is the fundamental difference between the divine roles of elders and deacons: elders face upward toward God; deacons face downward toward the people.

The two lists of the _diakonia_ positions cited above differ somewhat. The first list (I Corinthians) is longer than the second list (Ephesians.) Plus, Pastor and Evangelist are on the second list but not on the longer first list. What's this all about?

The key is found in the first few words of the longer Corinthians list:

" _And in the church_..."

This longer list includes the _diakonia_ positions found in an established, functioning body of believers. The second, shorter list includes the _diakonia_ positions needed when an established church sends out a team to start a new church. Until the church is established, those positions are not " _in the church_."

Of course, we are all familiar with how many or most current churches send out missionaries. Usually, these missionaries are young and inexperienced, while the "lions" of the church stay home to minister to the existing flock.

This is precisely backwards from God's method. As evidenced throughout Acts, those sent out were truly apostles: filled with the Spirit, mature in their understanding and perspective, experienced with all of the supernatural aspects of the Things of the Spirit, and deeply knowing and known by God. Paul is the best example. He traveled around; preached and taught and healed and performed miracles; and established new churches wherever he went. Sometimes he stayed a few weeks, sometimes several years. But he wasn't a green recruit. He was a mature man of faith, and inevitably the most experienced and mature of any of the believers in the bodies from which he went out.

Paul and other apostles were almost always accompanied by others (including other apostles) who could help him in the establishment of new churches. Regardless of how many were involved, the essential ministerial roles required for an apostolic team were apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. Paul—indeed any of the apostles—could perform all of these roles, for thus is what an apostle is.

Once a foothold was established with new believers in an area, Paul, as well as other apostles under his tutelage (e.g. Timothy and Titus) worked hard to prepare the people as quickly as possible to become an established church. Then, their _diakonia_ ministry team could and should expand to more of the roles in the first list above.

By what criteria was a new church considered "established"? This happened with the appointment of elders. Then, the apostles ceased to be the primary church authorities, replaced by the "apostles and elders." At that point, God may direct the elders to appoint the same or other apostles to go out and establish another Kingdom beachhead.

Such is the cyclical nature of Kingdom authority. Apostles start a church. The church grows. The apostles appoint elders of the church. The elders assume the authority role in the church. Then they, the elders—under divine direction—appoint apostles to go out and do it again.

In an established church, the longer list of _diakonia_ positions demonstrates the diversity of the expressions of supernatural power available to every church. These positions are the craftsmen who, as experts, teach and train all who want to learn how to operate the _energema_ Tools, both in church meetings and in their extra-church lives: prophesy, tongues, healing (including exorcism), teaching, miracle working, words of wisdom and knowledge, etc.

Which brings us to our third and final category of Things of the Spirit.

### Chapter 17: Spiritual Gifts: the _Charisma_

Immediately following the list of the _diakonia_ positions in the church, Paul asks some rhetorical questions:

" _Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?...But eagerly desire the greater gifts_." (I Corinthians 12:29-31)

These questions follow the list of _diakonia_ that starts with " _first of all apostles, second prophets_..." So it is understandable that some interpret his command to " _eagerly desire the greater gifts_ " as a sort of encouragement to pursue becoming an apostle or prophet or teacher over the other _diakonia_ positions listed.

Except that Paul said to eagerly desire the greater _gifts_. The _charisma_. No where do the scriptures refer to the _diakonia_ positions as "gifts." Here, God is not distinguishing some of the _diakonia_ as more important or preferable than other _diakonia_.

What God is telling us here is that, while some may have either the spiritual desire or fleshly ambition to want to be appointed to one of the _diakonia_ positions, He would much rather we focus on and embrace that special, intimate category of Things of the Spirit: the _charisma_. He clearly states that, after several verses about the _diakonia_ , He would have us pursue the "greater" or "more excellent" _charisma_. He is clearly distinguishing that the _gifts_ —the _charisma_ —are to be desired more than any other category of the Things of the Spirit.

In the Temple analogy, the _charisma_ are represented by the sanctuary. This is the most holy part of the Temple, the place where God chose to most intimately and personally relate to His people. The sanctuary is our final category of Things of the Spirit:

" _There are different kinds of gifts (_ charisma _), but the same Spirit_." (I Corinthians 12:4)

The _charisma_ are the Spiritual Gifts. These are the most intimate, personal, and powerful of all of the Things of the Spirit. They can also be the most confusing, especially if we try to understand them naturally. The _charisma_ are _spirits_ , and, as we shall see, the Bible describes them by " _expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words_ ," even if those words are naturally familiar to us.

The list of the Spiritual Gifts is found in Romans 12:

" _We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is_ _prophesying_ _, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is_ _serving_ _, let him serve; if it is_ _teaching_ _, let him teach; if it is_ _encouraging_ _, let him encourage; if it is_ _contributing_ _to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is_ _leadership_ _, let him govern diligently; if it is_ _showing mercy_ _, let him do it cheerfully_." (Romans 12:6-8)

We have our ideas about what "serving" and "teaching" and "encouraging" mean. But it is likely that every one of the seven Spiritual Gifts listed above is thought to be an _action._ After all, prophesying, teaching and encouraging involve expressing words with the mouth. Serving and contributing and showing mercy involve acts of some sort or another.

But, as "spiritual words," none of the seven Spiritual Gifts listed above have anything at all to do with _action._ Instead, these words describe what happens to a person internally when they have been given one of the Spiritual Gifts. Both the _energema_ Tools and the _diakonia_ Positions are, to some degree, actions that we _do_. The _charisma_ , however, are not things to be done. The Spiritual Gifts, rather, describe largely what we _become_. Spiritual Gifts are not things we do. Spiritual Gifts help make us _who we are_.

This is because the Spiritual Gifts are exactly that: spirits. They are divine gifts God _inspires_ into us. They are, collectively, seven spirits that comprise the wholeness of the one Spirit of God.

When God gave us His supernatural power, He did so by dispersing the divine manifestations of His Godhood as the _energema_ Tools. When He gave us His authority, He did so by distributing His Lordship through the _diakonia_ Positions. In the same way, when He gave us His Spirit, He did so by providing us with His seven Spiritual Gifts. Each _charisma_ is one of the seven spirits of God.

How God parsed His Spirit into seven spirits is a metaphysical mystery. But it is clear that He did so, for not only is it consistent with how He parsed His Godhood and His Lordship, but He specifically mentions it three times in the book of Revelation (Revelation 1:4; 4:5; 5:6) Each of the seven spirits of God provides us with three effects: a unique vision or perspective, a unique motivation, and a divine ability to satisfy that motivation.

This is what spirits do. We can grasp it better, perhaps, by seeing the same effects with evil spirits. First, evil spirits cause a distorted perspective of what is good and evil within those so oppressed. Second, they create perverse motivations or desires within us, which are often merely the polluted counterfeits of divine desires. The sexual desire, for example, is a God-given motivation. So is the motivation to eat. Part of that motivation is due to the fact that God made both sex and eating pleasurable. Evils spirits can take these divinely-ordained and pleasurable things and distort them into self-indulgent lusts that are destructive to others, to ourselves, or both. Finally, evil spirits can provide supernatural abilities—appetites—to cause the oppressed to try to satisfy their lusts with excess amounts of sex or food—trying to sate the insatiable. But Satan is not creative. Evil spirits themselves are merely bent and distorted versions of divine reality.

The Spiritual Gifts cause these same three effects: a divine vision or perspective; divine motivations; and divine abilities to satisfy those motivations. It is notable that these effects are _internal_ things. That is, there is nothing about any of these Gifts that demonstrably identifies a person with one or another Gift, at least as evidenced from the outside. This is how the Spiritual Gifts are metaphorically like the sanctuary of the Temple. It was in the sanctuary that God met with the high priest _invisible to everyone outside_. Similarly, no one knows or can know the Spiritual Gift of another person except that person and God.

Human beings love labeling things, themselves and others. We read personality quizzes in magazines, descriptions on Chinese restaurant place mats, or daily predictions in the astrological section of the newspaper, often with the hope of being accurately defined or described. Business metrics like the Myers-Briggs Personality types were designed to help people understand and deal with differences in perspective and communication, but they can also trigger within us a kind of identity game in which we look to these things to define us.

In the same way, some have used the Spiritual Gifts as labels which they applied to themselves and others in ignorance. This is why it is critical to understand that no one else can define you or pigeon-hole you as having this or that Spiritual Gift. Only you and God will recognize the Gift He has given you. No one—other than those to whom you choose to reveal your Gift—will know which Gift He has given you.

Because it is difficult to see how prophesying, serving, teaching, and the rest are words that define spiritual _perspectives, motivations,_ and _abilities_ , God gave us another list: the list of the seven spirits of God:

" _The Spirit_ _of the LORD_ _will rest on him—the Spirit of_ _wisdom_ _and of_ _understanding_ _, the Spirit of_ _counsel_ _and of_ _power_ _, the Spirit of_ _knowledge_ _and of the_ _fear of the LORD_...." (Isaiah 11:2)

These are the seven spirits of God, each of which creates within us one of the Spiritual Gifts of Romans 12:4:

Spirit of the Lord -- Prophecy

Spirit of Wisdom -- Service/Ministry

Spirit of Understanding -- Teaching

Spirit of Counsel -- Encouraging

Spirit of Power -- Giving/Imparting

Spirit of Knowledge -- Leading

Spirit of the Fear of the Lord -- Showing Mercy.

Even though these words are verbs—words describing actions—the Spiritual Gifts are _internal_ things, not actions or natural abilities. These are common words, but they are _spiritual_ words, defining _spiritual_ things. Accordingly, they are only _spiritually_ discerned. You cannot "figure out" who you are or what Gift you've been given by natural logic, natural perceptions, or natural definitions.

" _For who among men know the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God...the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God...he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned_." (I Corinthians 2:11-14)

Each Spiritual Gift is a kind of lens, if you will, through which we view life. Even as we all see and recognize the same facts or events, our Gift will put a certain emphasis to those facts or events. We see this all the time in how the same current events are interpreted differently by those with differing political or economic presumptions. The same is true, in a divine way, with the Spiritual Gifts. Each Gift provides a perspective according to the Spirit we receive. It is only as we come together in love and unity that our differing perspectives can be integrated into the whole picture, as God sees it.

Each Gift also provides us a supernatural motivation. We will find that we desire to see and understand through the lens of our Spiritual Gift. In all of the normal and mundane circumstances of life, we will find the joy of discovery as we grasp new, divine things through our spiritual lens.

Because each Gift is an internal thing, only you and God (and those whom you tell) can know your Spiritual Gift. There is neither the authorization nor the ability for others to "assign" or "define" or otherwise "push" you toward one _charisma_ or another. Your Spiritual Gift is both spiritual—not naturally discerned—and a gift—not a loan or an assignment by others. When God gives you one of the seven spirits, it becomes a part of you, and you of it, as it shapes your perspective and motivations.

But neither this privacy nor privilege means that God will leave us entirely on our own to discover our Spiritual Gift. As we describe to others—trusted others—how we see things, what makes us tick, what motivates us and thrills us, even if we are final arbiter of recognition, they can counsel us and help us. And, of course, part of the "truth" in which Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would lead us is the truth of which _charisma_ is ours. The Spirit intends to help us.

These, then are the three categories of the Things of the Spirit, the three sections of our metaphorical Temple: the _energema_ Tools, the _diakonia_ Positions, and the _charisma_ Gifts of the Spirit. As we understand, embrace, and practice the use of these Things, and as we welcome the Spirit into his rightful place in our personal lives, our families, and ultimately in the greater community of the church, then the Temple will be finally rebuilt.

As mentioned earlier, we've skipped presenting the detail of each of the _charisma_ , _diakonia_ , and _energema_. A more complete description of each can be found in Navigating the Supernatural: A Guide to the Things of the Spirit.

### Chapter 18: Expelling the Foreigners

The next step in the Restoration Template is about purification.

When Ezra the priest returned to the Promised Land after the Temple had been rebuilt, he was appalled that a number of the Israelites, contrary to explicit Mosaic Law, had intermarried with foreigners. After confronting the people with this egregious sin of impurity, they were cut to the heart and agreed to rid themselves of this pollution. Over the next couple of months, in an example of the ruthlessness (to our politically correct sensibilities) of God's holiness and His demand for His People to be pure, the Israelites sent their foreign wives and children away.

What does this mean? As with rebuilding the altar and the Temple, these are metaphorical pieces in the restoration of God's church and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. What then, does this odd piece mean? In the Restoration Template, what does the expulsion of our "foreign wives" equate to?

One thing it probably does not mean is that we, today, will have to send away our foreign wives. First of all, we don't practice polygamy as the ancients did, so, at most, we each have a single spouse. And secondly, the New Testament makes provision for the most obvious parallel to a foreign wife: the non-believing spouse. Specifically:

"... _if any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her_." (I Corinthians 7:12) This does not tell us what "expelling our foreign wives" means. It only shows that it likely has nothing to do with divorcing or sending away our natural spouses.

So it is a symbol. It's a metaphor for something. And that something has to do with purifying the community. What's more, as we shall see, it is necessary that this purification occurred _after_ the completion of the Temple.

The most significant use of marriage as a metaphor for anything in the Bible is as a symbol of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church. Indeed, the most commonly used scriptural reference to the relational particulars of Christian marriage is found in Ephesians 5:22-31. Here Paul addresses the ideal attitude of a wife toward her husband as well as that of a husband toward his wife. Yet, even after half a chapter of this rather pointed and practical marital counsel, Paul makes a rather interesting statement:

" _This is profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church_." (Ephesians 5:32)

So, in addition to Jesus' parables about brides and bridegrooms, about the Kingdom being like a wedding banquet, and about John's reference in the Revelation about the bride of the Lamb, we have here a clear expression that human marriage is symbolic of the relationship between Christ and his church.

So, then, how does "expelling our foreign wives" relate to the purification of the church? It would seem to imply that He is urging us to get rid of any competitors to our love for God. This is a legitimate explanation, if only because God makes it clear that if we are to have any relationship with Him at all, it must be exclusive, not one of many, not even first among equals. Much of the Old Testament was precisely written to this effect: that the relationship between God and His People had been polluted by spiritual adultery—worshipping other gods—and that He is urging them to repent and return to Him. In the Revelation as well, the church of Ephesus is chided for forsaking Him as their "first love." The conviction to repent of our spiritual adultery and return to our relationship with God is found throughout the Bible. It is a common theme, and a primary tenet in the faith of both Israel and the church.

But there's something more going on here.

First of all, this isn't a case of the spiritual adultery so common to the prophetic admonitions of the Old Testament. The people were not worshiping Baal or some other god. These were, after all, the very Jews who embraced the hardships of life in the ruined city of Jerusalem for the sake of returning to the Land, and thus, to their God. They had rebuilt the altar. They had rebuilt the Temple. They were, largely, pious and devoted Jews who loved God.

Secondly, these foreign wives were, indeed, wives. This wasn't a case of fornication or adultery or prostitution. For anyone in the entire world except the Jews, these were legitimate, binding marriage relationships. The problem was exclusively a Jewish one, which was, basically, that marrying foreign women was a pollution of the community, and so was proscribed by the Mosaic law. The problem was not sexual, or even marital. The problem had to do with the purity of the community.

For a time, God overlooked this impurity. Presumably, many of the Jews had foreign wives even while they were rebuilding the altar and the Temple. Then, after that, He sent them Ezra who, among other things, brought this problem to their attention.

In like manner, God has overlooked the impurity of church for some time. Perhaps this is because, for a good while, their has been no viable alternative to the churches we currently attend. As we mentioned earlier, the church today is filled with all sorts of impurity.

There is a tendency, as with so many other religious things, to think of impurity in a natural sense. We may consider such things as smoking, drinking alcohol, watching violent or sexually explicit movies, and even, to some, dancing, eating sugar/salt/meat/dairy as things which make us impure. But as Jesus pointed out clearly to his disciples, " _Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean_.'" (Mark 7:15) In other words, the impurity of the church doesn't have to do with natural things, but with spiritual things. Particularly with our spiritual relationship with God.

So the impurity in today's church has to do with something that, like a foreign wife, offers itself as an alternative to the affections we owe to God alone. In the church today, those alternatives may be a set of rules or regulations or laws that have supplanted a living relationship with God. They may be rituals and procedures that we adhere to that are, at best, distracting to our divine relationship, and at worst, opposed to it. They may be traditions that we have inherited from friends or family that have been enshrined over time, but which offer no help in knowing God or in operating in the Spirit. They may include teaching that mitigates the power of God with "being practical" or living in the "real world"—as though, because He isn't visible or tangible to our natural senses, God isn't real at all.

At its worst, today's church practices some version of Constantinian Christianity: that impure mixture of Jesus' Lordship with the self-aggrandizing, self-indulgent, self-centered perspective of the Roman Empire. The same old religion of Babylon—the exultation of Man, specifically the exultation of "Me"—that has pervaded the church since the fourth century. Much of the church today is an unwittingly purveyor of Constantinian Christianity, and as we participate in these organizations, we, however involuntarily, will find ourselves immersed in spiritual pollution.

But the question asked by many today is, "Where else do we go?" Men and women who know and love God are searching for someplace to be with others who know and love God. Many of us have visited several churches, trying to find a "church home" where we can get to know God better. Many of us have found ourselves "settling" for something less than ideal, even as we don't really know what "ideal" looks like, even as we stumble in the dark toward the faintest source of light. Many of us have made the argument that, since perfection is not available, this place or that place will have to do. At least, we think, it's _something._

For a long time, God has overlooked our tolerance of—or even our investment in—churches that offer, if anything at all, a speck of divinity in a sea of spiritual pollution.

Which is why the Temple has to be completed first. Once it is done, once the Spirit has returned to his position of leadership and empowerment in our individual lives, in our families, and groupings of people who will become the restored church, then a true alternative is available. Then, we will be asked to put away our "foreign wives": those places using God's Name and claiming to be God's churches where they have " _a form of godliness, but denying its power_." (2 Timothy 3:5) Then, we will be able to walk away from the spiritual vacuity of our traditional churches and exclusively embrace the church of God's design. Then, we will be able to put the impurity of Constantinian Christianity behind us, and " _Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins_...." (Revelation 18:4)

Leaving our traditional churches, even for the Kingdom of God, will likely be a painful thing. For many of us, we have invested years or even decades submitting to and participating in groups that we may feel have "fed" us for a long time. Our expectations have been so low that we have easily dismissed the errors, overlooked and made excuses for the heresies, and ignored that these "wives" have, rather than helped us get to know God better, actually hindered our divine relationship. It is only as the Spirit gives us the eyes to see and hearts to desire God's ways, that we will be able to walk away from the polluted and watered down versions of the church to the life-giving purity of the Kingdom.

As a corollary, the leaders of today's church will have to make some critical decisions themselves. If and as they begin to recognize that their churches are not working, are out of order, are "in ruins," are pale lifeless versions of what God is building, they must decide what to do. Do they leave the castles they have built on the sand for something divinely hewn from rock? Or do they turn away from what the Spirit is doing to remain in the comfort of Constantinian Christianity? One thing is certain: to welcome the Spirit into their churches is to pour new wine into old wineskins. The "creative destruction" that occurred during the _Charisma_ tic Renewal of the 1960's and 70's will seem minor compared to the upheaval to come.

What makes this difficult, of course, is that we won't easily recognize His restored church. If we use our normal, _natural_ senses and standards, we'll never see the church for what it is. We won't be able to recognize it by its title or denomination, by its facilities or billboards, by its music style, by its service agenda, or by any other natural mechanism.

Instead, we'll only recognize the church by the Spirit. By that small, internal voice that leads us there, that whispers "Amen" to a place that, in all other aspects, wouldn't even count as a "church." At least, not a church as we've known it.

But the life of the Spirit will be there. The power of God will be there. The fear of the Lord will be there. And we'll find that our brothers and sisters will also be there.

### Chapter 19: Nehemiah's Wall

We began with the story of Nehemiah, because his mandate, his purpose in the restoration of Israel, is also part of our mandate today. Nehemiah was given the authority of the Persian emperor to go to Jerusalem. Upon seeing that the city was in ruins, he proceeded to organize the population to rebuild its wall. Even with tremendous opposition, Nehemiah completed the wall in only fifty-two days.

Nehemiah's wall—like the altar and the Temple—is a natural metaphor for a spiritual event. Just as the natural altar presaged the spiritual altar of being born again, and just as the natural Temple is an analog for the temple of the Spirit, so the natural wall foreshadows another spiritual event. In the same way that Nehemiah built a wall around Jerusalem, so God is now calling His people to build our own wall. Which means what, exactly?

What does a wall do? To the Israelites, the wall around Jerusalem provided two notable benefits. First, it provided protection from the enemies outside. It gave the Chosen People the security with which they could enjoy their relationship with God without concerns about their safety. With the wall as protection, the Jews could freely worship at the Temple and sacrifice at the altar unfettered by distractions from outside.

Secondly, the wall clearly distinguished what was and was not part of the city. The wall was the dividing line, the defining identification of what was inside and part of the People versus what was outside and foreign. The wall was the line of demarcation within which was the divine purity of God's Chosen People, and beyond which was hostile and impure.

The wall was impervious to infiltration. Outsiders could come in through the gates or not at all. It was up to the gatekeepers to determine who was permitted inside. In Israel, the gates were not manned by just anyone. It was the responsibility of the most respected elders to "sit in the gates." The gatekeepers were critical to both the protection and purity of God's People.

A Spiritual Wall

In the same way, God gave His spiritual People a wall. As with Israel, that wall identifies what is and is not part of the Kingdom. As with Israel, that wall provides protection from the Enemy, an impermeable barrier within which communion with and the worship of God can occur without distraction or pollution. As with Israel, that wall has gates that are to be manned by the leaders in the Kingdom. It was through the gates—during the watch of Pope Silvester—that the Enemy flooded into and ruined the church in the guise of a benevolent Emperor Constantine.

Nehemiah had been Cupbearer to the king, a trusted administrative and advisory position. He was not sent to Israel as a priest or a teacher or scribe or musician. Rather, Nehemiah was commissioned as a _governor_. As such, he organized the populace in their rebuilding efforts and he dealt with the outsiders who threatened the group. He also governed the people in their dealings with one another, resolving disputes between Jewish factions, and generally insuring that justice was done. As governor, Nehemiah _ruled_ the city.

According to the Old Testament metaphor, Nehemiah's wall represents _government._ Nehemiah was the natural governor of God's natural People, called to exercise his authority to rebuild the natural wall around the natural city of Jerusalem. For us, however, there is nothing natural about it. Nehemiah and his wall are a natural metaphor for _spiritual government,_ for the restoration of spiritual authority and the establishment of the spiritual government of planet Earth.

Interestingly enough, when Nehemiah was first urged by God to go to Jerusalem to address the fact that the city was "in ruins," the Temple had already been completed. This means, according to the Restoration Template, that even if and when the Holy Spirit has been fully restored to the church, the place will still be "in ruins" until the proper spiritual government has been restored.

Government and Authority

Government is essentially authority. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two is that authority is an invisible, intangible thing. You cannot touch or see or taste authority.

Government, however, is a very tangible thing. It is the visible structure through which authority flows. It is a person or persons who can be seen and touched and talked with who make decisions that affect others. If those decisions do not affect anything, then they have no authority. Authority affects things. It affects people. It causes things to happen. It causes people to act. In any group of individuals, authority is the means by which things are accomplished. Without authority, any group of people is merely a collection of aimless individuals. With authority, however, they are—depending on the mission—a club, a corporation, a state, a body, a nation, an army, a family.

Government is a good thing. It is unfortunate that today's view of government is almost entirely negative. We often see civil and national government mostly as impersonal, inefficient, and sometimes corrupt bureaucracies. We often see business government—"management"—as greedy, self-serving martinets who have been promoted because they lie and manipulate better than their peers. We often see church government either as impotent idealists who "strain out gnats and swallow camels," or as slick entrepreneurs who use religious words to barely hide their avarice and their ruthless pursuit of power and prestige.

None of this, however, should bother us. At least, it shouldn't once we understand, first, what government is generally, and second, what government is in the Kingdom of God. These examples of bad government are merely the excesses which normally occur in the Babylonian form of government. Some others that immediately come to mind are Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh and the millions of people who were oppressed and murdered under their authority. These are extreme examples of bad government, yet they and others shape our opinion of government generally. Ironically, we tend to think that, had we been in their positions, we would have ruled benevolently and selflessly. We think, "Well, those men were insane, power-crazed lunatics. We would never do what they did." This is not unlike our surety that we alone would never be corrupted by instant fame or by winning the lottery. This is every man's illusion. It is an illusion because we either don't understand—or in the case of each of us individually, don't want to admit to—the power of sin over every human being.

Babylonian Government

Perhaps the most famous quote about authority is attributed to Lord Acton: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This is true because it recognizes that human beings, thanks to sin, are already internally, spiritually corrupt. Having power (or fame or instant wealth) only serves to release us from the restraints under which we live, and magnify the sin within us. Power _always_ corrupts in the land of Babylon.

For the Babylonian model of authority is rooted in a single, simple demand: "My will be done." This is the fundamental desire of every human being born of Adam, because this is the essence of the sickness of sin within us. In the world of Babylon—which is, again, our entire planet and _every organization on it_ —having authority is being able to have "my will be done" through and to others. As Jesus taught, " _The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors_." In the world of Babylon, authority is used to make others do what I want them to do for my benefit. In the world of Babylon, "authority" and "authoritarianism" mean pretty much the same thing.

Our distrust of and distaste for authority is not only because we have seen examples of bad government. The real issue is that we all have within us a deep dislike of any authority. The spirit of Babylon within us refuses to acknowledge the right of anyone to tell us what to do, or what not to do. We are all in favor of the police catching "bad guys," but we don't want them to tell us how fast to drive or where we may not park. We all want to drive on newly paved roads or walk in safe, landscaped parks, but we don't want anyone taking our money as taxes to pay for it. We are all for a strong national defense, but we don't want our children drafted into the service.

We may cite corruption or injustice as reasons for complaining or demonstrating or even rebelling against authority. These are, however, just our excuses for wanting to do whatever we want, whenever we want, and to insist others help us or at least leave us alone. We all have an innate loathing of being told what to do by anyone. Our Babylonian infection of sin is so virulent that we instinctively hate anyone or anything that conflicts with "my will be done." Examples of bad government are not the source of our antipathy toward authority. They merely justify what is already inside us. We may call it an "independent" spirit. God calls it the sin of pride.

Divine Government

Yet, God makes it clear that government is a good thing. Indeed, in His Kingdom, government is everything. That's what a kingdom is: a form of government. Jesus' message was almost entirely "The Kingdom of God is near." We could rephrase this as "God's government is coming!" The gospel is about government. Jesus' message was about authority. It was about regime change. All his miracles, including and particularly his resurrection, confirmed and reinforced his message. Even after his resurrection, that's all he talked about. " _He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the_ _Kingdom_ _of God_." (Acts 1:3.)

Constantinian Christianity portrays Jesus as a nice man. Certainly, he was kind. Certainly he was motivated by love for his Father and for us. But Jesus wasn't nice. His mission during his first visit to planet Earth was to ruthlessly destroy. He was entirely focused on decimating the power of a competing kingdom. We, of course, saw very little of that destruction. We were prisoners of that kingdom, and as such, Jesus treated us kindly and gently and lovingly. But his mission was to overthrow—violently overthrow—the kingdom of the Enemy and to set up his Father's government in its place. He was not unlike the U.S. troops in Iraq, armed to the teeth with all sorts of malicious looking weaponry, yet cradling a baby or handing out candy to kids. The troops care for these victims of the old regime, and act kindly to them. But they were primarily in Iraq to be violent: to kill and destroy. To mercilessly overthrow an evil kingdom. The motivation is good, and the hope is for the freedom and prosperity of the native population. But the first act—the necessary act—is to annihilate the enemy. The first mission is about changing the government. And overthrowing a government is a deadly business.

There is singing in the Kingdom of God. But the Kingdom of God is not about singing. There is preaching and teaching in the Kingdom of God. But the Kingdom of God is not about preaching and teaching. The Kingdom of God is about authority. It is about government. It is about the will of God being done on this planet. It is about frustrating the plans and repelling the attacks of the Enemy. It is about building the walls of the Kingdom of God to encompass more and more of planet Earth. It is about sitting in the gates of those walls to insure that nothing and no one gets in except what God allows. The Kingdom of God is the active and purposeful exercise of God's authority in and over the earth, so that " _Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven_."

So what does it mean to build the wall? What does it mean to establish the government of the Kingdom of God? How do we enforce the will of God over the United States Congress, or over the United Nations, or even over our local school board? Quite simply, we don't. Not yet. We must first start where it matters most.

Divine Government: Level I – the Individual

Under Nehemiah, the Israelites were each assigned a portion of the wall to build. Mostly, each family built the section of the wall nearest its home. In the same way, we are called to a very specific scope in establishing the government of God. The ultimate goal is global. But our initial thrust must be local. Very local.

We can only establish the Kingdom over that area of the planet over which we have been given authority. For each and every one of us, the first such area is our own life. We must each begin by exercising divine authority over our own thoughts, emotions, and actions. We have each been commissioned as governor over our individual lives, and until that area has been brought under the dominion of God's Kingdom, we can do little or nothing else. Until then, we have no mandate, no power, no authority at all to proceed outward.

We will be given—indeed, have already been given—everything we need: divinely powerful tools and weapons to accomplish the subjugation of the Enemy in our lives. It is our job _to do it_. It is our job, and solely our job, to resist the Enemy when he harasses or attacks us, to drive him out of our most personal space which has been claimed by and through the Holy Spirit. This is the first and most basic level of God's government.

Divine Government: Level II – the Family

Even as we establish God's authority over our lives, our scope expands. The next beachhead is our family. This is first level of "group government." That is, this is the first area where delegated authority has teeth. In the family, God has appointed the father to be the governor of the family. He has appointed the husband to be the governor of the marriage. On this note, we must digress a bit to get through the Babylonian veil that has been thrown over our understanding of authority.

" _Jesus said to them, 'The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves_." (Luke 22:25-26.)

It is anathema in today's society to talk about authority of the husband over his wife, or even of parents over their children. This is because the Enemy has permeated our world with the concept of Babylonian authority. It is also because the church—the one place in the world where Jesus' ideal of authority should operate—is utterly dysfunctional. It is, remember, in ruins. This anti-authority mindset is so common that the traditional marriage vows about wives obeying or submitting to their husbands has all but vanished.

Anyone who knows God—not just knows _about_ God, but knows Him—keenly understands the joy and peace of submitting to Him. He will care for us better than we can care for ourselves. He will protect and provide for us better than we can ever do so for ourselves. He never oppresses us. He never makes us conform to some artificial standard. He is never arbitrary or capricious. He wants us to understand Him and why He does what He does. He wants us to be more unique and individual and special and free to be what we've been created to be than we can ever hope to be without Him. Basically, He wants more and better for us than we do for ourselves. In short, He loves us. Even more than we love ourselves.

This is the divine charge of every husband: to love his wife as "Christ loved the church." If a husband will love his wife like God does us (see above paragraph), submitting to his authority is not onerous. Indeed, God will provide any husband who asks with the supernatural ability to know and love and care for his wife. The world today sees man's authority of his family only as a mechanism for oppression and abuse. Considering the typical Babylonian man's perspective of authority, this is thoroughly understandable.

But in the Kingdom, the perspective of Babylon—that screamingly selfish demand to be first—is null and void. The husband's divine job is to be first in the following ways: first to sacrifice; first to face evil; first to give; first to console; first to protect; first to provide; first to be patient; first to bridge the gaps of misunderstanding and disagreement; first to love. It is the husband's job to care for his wife more than he cares for himself. It is the husband's job to love his wife as God loves us.

Just as it requires faith by a wife that God will protect her from a husband who could be foolish or selfish or cruel, so it also requires faith by a husband to be able to bear the impossible weight of loving his wife like Christ loved the church. In both cases, it is an impossible task unless each one—husband and wife—can trust God individually. Unless each one lives by the Spirit. Unless each one knows God and knows who he or she is in relation to God. This is the faith it takes to expand the scope of the Kingdom from the individual to the family. This is the next step in the establishment of the government of God.

Too many men—and women—would much rather preach to the multitudes or teach a Bible study or sing in front of the church or meet others to pray for the nation than to begin to establish the Kingdom in their family. Sometimes, for a while, God may allow us to do these things while our home life languishes in Babylonianism. But only for a while. Because unless a man or woman takes dominion over his or her individual life, and then establishes the Kingdom of God in his and her marriage and family, nothing of divine substance or eternal value can ever be built. Unless we build the section of the wall outside our own house, the city will never be secure. It is not enough to understand the wall, to talk about the wall. We must do the hard work of building the wall. To do otherwise is to build on sand.

A family governed by the Kingdom of God is an immensely powerful group. Yet, it is the smallest and least of all levels of the Kingdom. It is the basic building block of the wall. Once established, however, it can be knitted with others to form a larger and even more powerful wall. This is the meaning and intent of what Jesus called the "church:" individuals and families, each governed by the Kingdom of God, united together by the Spirit into a larger, more glorious, and enormously more powerful version of the Kingdom family.

In the New Testament, God writes (through Paul) that the prerequisite for shouldering any authority in the church is having already exercised proper authority in the home. The specific requirements for the governing role of elder or deacon are not a deep understanding of the mysteries of God or an unparalleled holiness. Instead, the number one requirement is that these men have their families in order. As it is written, " _If one does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church_?" (I Timothy 3:5)

As with everything else about the Kingdom, "managing" one's family is much more than what we may think naturally. It certainly means that he is not a drunk, greedy, or a hypocrite, that his wife is not a harpy or gossip, and the children are not juvenile delinquents. But those are mere natural appearances.

"Managing" your family includes all of the same things that the church requires: an altar, a Temple, and a wall. It includes having all members of the household believe—to have been born again. It includes all members having received the Holy Spirit, and operating in the Things of the Spirit. It includes a marriage relationship that is a supernatural example of Christ and the church, a unity that makes two into a new, different and powerful One. And it includes all members understanding their place in the family, and walking under divine authority. "Managing," God's way, is as much or more managing _spiritually_ as it is in any natural way.

If, in this context, we take an honest look at ourselves, our marriages, and our families, we are likely to be disillusioned. God's idea of government may seem like an impossible task. It should. Because it is impossible. At least, it's impossible to do it naturally, with our own wisdom and strength.

But we are not alone. And we are not called to do this naturally. " _Not by [our own] might or power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord_." (Zechariah 4:6) God will establish His government _through_ us. He will lead. He will empower. He will do the heavy lifting. We need only to ask, to be willing, and to obey; to walk where and how He leads.

Divine Government: Level III – the Community

Then, He will repeat the process on a larger scale: the church. Authority in the church is not merely similar to, it is identical to authority in the family. There are more people, there is more variety, there are somewhat more complex expressions of government. But the authority—His authority, is the same.

The government structure of the church lies with the apostles and elders. An apostle, as we discussed earlier, is one of the _diakonia_ positions. In fact, it is the chief _diakonia_ position. All of the other _diakonia_ positions—Prophet, Evangelist, Teacher, Workers of Miracles, Speakers in Tongues, etc.—have names that describe what they do. Like craftsmen, the terms themselves describe their specialty. A carpenter works with wood. An electrician with wires and such. A plumber with pipes and valves and the like. So, a prophet is involved with prophesying and training others to prophesy. A teacher is charged to teach, and to teach others how to teach.

But "apostle" simple means "one who is sent." The term doesn't describe his precise area of expertise.

This is because the apostle is meant to be able to do all of the other _diakonia_ tasks. In almost every case in the New Testament, apostles were accompanied by others. But functionally, an apostle—in order to be selected by God as an apostle—has to be capable of doing all the craftsmen jobs by himself if necessary. Just as craftsmen are engaged to build a house, so the _diakonia_ are charged to build up the house of God. And if necessary, the apostles alone can build it.

But the apostle was never intended to operate single handedly, and never meant remain over any church for very long. Soon after the apostles and their _diakonia_ cohorts establish a Kingdom beachhead among unbelievers, the apostles' job is to appoint elders over the new church. Elders were never "imported" from other churches. They were always locals. The immediate goal of the "apostolic team"—those _diakonia_ positions sent out to start a church—was to gather converts and build them up spiritually until they could take over the authority role. The job of the apostolic team was to oversee the church's growth and maturity until their own local men could be appointed as elders.

Then, it was the elders' job to collectively rule the church, just as the father rules the family, and just as each one of us rules our own soul. As the government of the church, the elders job was to wait on God, to devote themselves to hearing His will for the local body. The Spirit would give them fresh prophetic messages. He would provide them their direction. He would explain to them mysteries and hidden things. He would direct them to appoint other _diakonia_ positions, and to instruct and inspire those in _diakonia_ positions what the church needed to hear in preaching and teaching.

Some elders may also hold _diakonia_ positions, such as a "teaching elder." But no one would confuse the two roles. As mentioned earlier, the elders are the authorities, and like Moses, are charged to face God for the church. The teachers and prophets and other _diakonia_ positions, on the other hand, were like Aaron: facing the people. Their job was to take the fresh revelation and direction—the "children's bread"—from the elders and administer it ( _diakonia_ ) to the people. As the church grew, it was also the elders' job to appoint new apostles to be sent out to start the whole process over. These apostles may be the same apostles who started their church, or they may be new apostles altogether. Either way, this is the cycle: apostles start a new church, grow it up, and appoint elders from the locals. Then the elders appoint apostles to go out and do it all again.

As mentioned earlier, one of the things that will distinguish the coming Kingdom communities from existing churches today is the dual authority nature of the Kingdom. Moses was appointed to face God and hear from Him His will for the community. Aaron, on the other hand, was appointed to face the people and tell them all that Moses commanded from God. Likewise, the apostles and elders, like Moses, are appointed to face God, and the deacons ( _diakonia_ ) are appointed to face the people and tell them all that the apostles and elders command. This is dramatically different from the "one man on top" style of most Christian churches and ministries today. But the difference is critical. Without "following the pattern" of God's template for authority, the community will simple not be capable of participating in the establishment and operation of the Kingdom.

The apostles and elders are the wall of the church. They are what define the church for what it is. Unlike today, where often the chief attraction at a church is whomever is doing the teaching, the elders may or may not ever teach the people. But the elders, not the teachers or prophets or evangelists, are the ones who define the church. As is typical with the character of God, the true "celebrities" of the church are often largely hidden from sight.

The elders are also, like the wall, the protectors of the church. It is their job to "man the gates" to determine who or what gets in. It is their job to spiritually discern what is happening in the church, to discern what the enemy is up to, and mostly, to discern what God would have for the church that day. The elders' role in the church is so critical that God necessarily made it the most powerful. His full authority rests on the collective shoulders of the apostles and elders. Just as with God, their decisions affect things. Through the power of the Spirit, they _cause_ things to happen for their community.

This, then, is Nehemiah's wall. The authority of God. That authority is given to each one of us for our own individual lives. It is given to every marriage through the husband, every family through the father. And it is given to every church through the apostles and elders. Our job—at every level of divine government—is to _use_ that authority.

Until God begins to knit us together and reveal the restored church, let us begin with the local Kingdom. In our hearts and minds. In our marriages. In our families. Only those who have, not merely understood, but actually experienced the Kingdom of God in their hearts and homes can begin to grasp what God has planned for the church. Only these can participate in the divine invasion.

Following the books of Ezra and Nehemiah is the final "history" book of the Old Testament: Esther. As God restores His church according to the Restoration Template of Israel, there is one overriding element that will determine if and when we participate in the Kingdom of God or not. This element is presented to us in the very beginning of the book of Esther. It has to do with the most valuable asset in the cosmos: our free will.

### Chapter 20: Vashti's Choice

The Christian church is fast approaching a fork in the road. Actually, that fork is more like a freeway exit ramp, which will, at first, veer gradually from the main road but soon point in an entirely new direction. Whatever the metaphor, the Christian church will soon be faced with a choice: to continue on its current path or to dare to follow God into uncharted territory.

Every Christian will have to choose. Every husband and wife will have to choose. Every father and mother will have to choose. Every church leader will have to choose.

The biblical book of Esther begins with this choice. The first chapter records that Xerxes, the king of the vast Persian Empire, threw an elaborate, six-month celebration in which he put the wealth and splendor of his majesty on display. The celebration culminated in a week-long feast. At the end of this feast, the king wanted to display the most valuable thing in his kingdom: his queen. Her name was Vashti, and just as her name means, she was exceedingly beautiful. Toward the end of his magnificent celebration, the king summoned his beautiful Queen Vashti.

She refused to come.

Her husband, the emperor of a vast and powerful kingdom, bid her to come to him, and she refused. This refusal sent a shock wave through the celebration. The king was enraged. The people were stunned. Despite her insolence, Vashti was neither executed or exiled.

But, she was dethroned. She was never again to be allowed in the presence of the king. And she was replaced.

The rest of the book tells the story of her successor, Queen Esther.

The Christian church will soon be faced with Vashti's choice.

The King is about to summon His bride, the church. And the church, like Vashti, will have to decide whether to come to Him. Or to refuse. And stay where we are.

Which means what exactly?

One of the miracles of the coming of Jesus Christ was to open a new way to God. Prior to this, there were only two types of people on the planet, and two relationships with God. On the one hand, there were the Jews, the Chosen People, whom God had called from all the nations on earth to be His special People. He made a covenant with them, promising them a piece of land in the Middle East and giving them the Mosaic Law as a "user's manual" for relating to Him as the righteous Judge. Jesus was born a Jew as God's fulfillment of the prophecies and promises He gave to Israel.

On the other hand, there were the Gentiles. The Gentiles were not included in God's covenant with the Jews. They had no divine Law to live by. They had no promised land. They had no relationship with God the Judge. They knew God only as the dreadful Creator of the universe Who had once destroyed the world with Noah's Flood. Their fear and lack of knowledge of God led them into all sorts of pagan beliefs and religions, most of which attempted to explain and placate this dreadful, seemingly capricious God.

Then Jesus came. First he came to the Jews, who knew God as a strict, even severely righteous Judge, and later to the Gentiles, who knew Him only as an invisible, unfathomable source of divine power. To both groups, Jesus revealed a new relationship with God: as a loving, forgiving Father. And to insure that the legal restitution for man's sinfulness was atoned for, Jesus was executed in our place. His death opened the way for us to enter into an entirely new relationship with God, and His resurrection confirmed that all He set out to do for our sakes was accomplished.

The Christian church has known God as a Father for 2,000 years.

Now, He is summoning us to come to know Him as a King.

Certainly, most Christians are quick to acknowledge that Jesus was appointed by God to be Lord of the church, King of the Jews in the lineage of David, and ruler of all things. That is to say, if asked, almost every Christian would be quick to say that Jesus is their King. That God is the absolute ruler of the cosmos. But this admission is like that of the child whose father is the President of the United States. The child would be proud of his father, hopefully grateful for the honor, but perhaps even a bit smug about the preeminence of his dad. Likewise, Christians are aware their God is a King. They are, hopefully, grateful that their heavenly Father is omnipotent. But too often, there is a certain presumption or even smugness that comes from a recognition of the honor and power of authority without a familiarity with its costs and responsibilities.

Although we know _that_ our Father is a King, in fact, we _know_ Him only as our Father. We _relate_ to Him as children, on the basis of His infinitely patient and forgiving love. Just as any human father knows, the child is loved, not because of the child's virtues or attributes, but because the father has an inexplicable love that "... _always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, [and] never fails_." (I Cor 13:7-8) As children, if we are disobedient, God chastises us in love. If we are obedient, He disciplines us in love. As a Father, He is actively at work growing us up to become men and women of character and maturity. As children, however much we focus on and worship our God, our perspective is, for all intents and purposes, all about us. As it should be. This is how children see things.

But fathers are more than fathers. Fathers certainly see themselves as fathers, but not exclusively. They are also husbands, sons, neighbors, and citizens to name just a few of the other relationships they have. But there are two ways a father sees himself that are primary, that define who he is to himself. One of those ways is relational. The other is functional.

The relational way a man sees himself is as a friend. We have, of course, so diluted the term "friend" that it includes even superficial, incidental relationships. But to God, friendship is the ultimate relationship. It is also, as anyone knows who understands the gravity of the term, an exceedingly rare relationship.

Friendship is a mutual, voluntary relationship of commitment and love between peers. "Peers" doesn't mean an equality of talent or intelligence or strength. I have friends that are smarter than me, stronger than me, and more talented than me in many areas. And vice versa. But in friendship, despite our differences, we each know each other as _relational_ equals. Neither of us forces the other into the relationship.

Friendship is the most _free_ relationship possible. Every other relationship has some aspect of compulsion. A child is dependent upon his parents. A worker is subordinate to his boss. A neighbor is not a neighbor by choice, but because of geography. But friendship has no compulsory aspects. It is a truly free association.

This is why God sees friendship as the goal of every other relationship. Neighbors, coworkers, and citizens are all relational starting points, from which friendship may grow. The same is true with children. They are not meant to be children their entire lives. Children are intended to be raised into maturity, to leave home, and to become independent of their parents. Then, depending on the completely free choice of both the child and the parent, they may return to a relationship of love that is no longer compulsory, but purely voluntary. They may become friends. The goal of every parent is to raise his children to be mature enough to be capable of friendship. To be trustworthy, dependable, selfless, and self-controlled individuals who have the potential for friendship. With others. And with their parents.

This is the endgame of our divine relationship. God invested a terrible price to make us His children. He has since invested infinite patience and infinite love to raise us to become capable of friendship. Whether we are finally mature enough and trustworthy enough to become a friend of God is yet to be determined for each one of us. We have no assurance that He will choose to be a Friend to any one of us. Even when Jesus called his disciples "friends," it was a conditional statement: " _You are my friends_ _if_ _you do what I command_." Also, " _I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you_." (John 15:14-15)

So divine friendship requires, at a minimum, several things. First, it requires listening to God, hearing from Him what His commands are. Not just the universal commands in the Bible, but the specific commands He will give each one of us through the Spirit, which requires an intimate relational interaction. Secondly, it requires obeying what He tells us. And finally, it requires an understanding of what His "business" is all about, how He wants His Kingdom to operate. It requires seeing things through God's eyes, instead of merely through our own.

But then, because friendship—even with God—is a totally free association, we will each have to decide if we want to become His friend, as well.

Every (healthy) man sees himself as a friend more than as any other relationship. Another way to say that is that every man is more completely _who he is_ in a friendship than in any other relationship. He can share things with a friend he cannot share with his children, his boss, his subordinates, his neighbors. He can be more truly and freely himself, without limits, with a friend than with anyone else. In a relational sense, a man sees himself more as his friend sees him than in any other relationship. A friend knows us best and most as we truly are.

The ultimate friendship that God designed is the special relationship between a husband and wife. Certainly, there is a divine "headship" involved in marriage, and our historical misunderstandings about how this works has made a mess of many marriages, both from the extreme of authoritarianism on the one hand and the extreme of male abdication of authority on the other. But God designed marriage as a relationship between relational peers who voluntarily enter a divine covenant where their respective roles are divinely ordained and divinely designed to perfectly satisfy our needs and desires. Marriage is meant to be the most intimate version of friendship.

Besides the relational, the other way a man defines himself is functionally. It is based on what he does as a vocation. Certainly today for many of us, our vocation is not necessarily related to our occupation. Our occupation is what we do for compensation, for sustenance. But our vocation is _what we are about_. In the ideal, our vocation is expressed in our occupation.

God has a vocation. Relationally, He is a Father and, hopefully, will become a Friend. But vocationally, He has a job. He runs a business. And if and when we are ready, we might be mature enough to join Him in the family firm.

God's vocation is in the field of government. He is a King. He is The King. He rules. That has always been His job, His vocation. But He has not yet ruled completely or obviously on planet earth. This is because He decided, long ago before He first created the first man and woman, that He would rule this planet _through us_. He is the ultimate, infinite King. But He designed all of creation so that we might rule with Him. That His authority would be expressed and executed through the agency of human beings. God's business is ruling, and as a King, that means His "business" is a Kingdom. We were created and redeemed for the express purpose of joining the family business. Of ruling His Kingdom with Him.

In order to participate in the family business, we are faced with Vashti's choice. We can either come to Him as King, learning how to relate to Him in His vocation, or we can refuse and continue to relate to Him as children of our Father. Either way, we are secure in our place _in the family_. But only if and when He deems us ready, will we participate in the _family business_.

Let's assume my father is, say, the CEO of a corporation. Growing up, knowing the man only as a father, I hopefully learn to obey him and know him, but in his fatherhood, I am fully accepted and loved just as I am. If I screw up, I am forgiven, even if I'm chastised for it. If I decide to drop out of college to be a surfer, he will love me nonetheless, even through his disappointment. If I choose to accept his direction, I will stay in school and do my best to learn and excel.

When the day comes that he invites me to come work with him, everything seems to change. At the office, there are requirements on me that didn't exist when I was just a child at home. I must dress a certain way. I must arrive on time for work, whether or not I feel tired or lazy or unmotivated. I must perform my duties according to the corporate specifications, and if I do not, I will be corrected. Even though my father is the CEO, I will probably start in a position that reports to a distant supervisor. If I submit myself to my trainers and superiors and perform my job well, I might be promoted. If I do not demonstrate that I can learn and perform my duties well, I will be warned and, perhaps, retrained. But sooner or later, if I don't perform, I will be asked to leave the firm.

All along, the CEO—as my father—loves me unconditionally, and hopes and yearns for my success. As CEO, however, he is responsible for the success of the corporation. And my participation in the family business will have nothing to do with his paternal love for me. It will be based solely on whether or not I can perform my job.

This is where we're going. Our Father's business is government. The family firm is the Kingdom of God. And although our Father will love us unconditionally and eternally, His role as King of His Kingdom requires that we get to participate in running the Kingdom, not based on His love for us, but based on our capacity to submit to the duties and terms of His way of running His Kingdom. Based on how well we do our job.

Christians have ideas about our roles in the Kingdom just like children have ideas of joining Dad at the office. We may presume we'll start with a big office, fancy title, and lots of perks. In fact, however, we must first learn the family business. We must be willing to accept the job our King has for us, not in a corner office, but in some seemingly remote and menial position. It is in these mundane assignments that we must learn how to govern.

First, we must learn how to govern ourselves _according to the ways of His Kingdom_. And since His Kingdom is first, foremost, and solely a _spiritual_ Kingdom, we must learn how to govern in the Spirit. We must choose to learn how to govern our desires and needs and attitudes, not by human will power, but by the Spirit. For most of us, this is an entirely foreign thing. We're not even aware how many other things we rely on: our jobs, our bank accounts, the doctor, conventional wisdom, the opinions of others. To the degree that we rely on these other things instead of the Spirit, they are other gods. Idols. And since God is intimately invested in helping us, if we choose to allow Him, He will show us how worthless those idols are. And how powerful He is. Our first job in the Kingdom— _everyone's_ first job in the Kingdom—is to choose to learn how to govern ourselves in the Spirit.

Our next job is to choose to govern our relationships in the Spirit. Most importantly, to govern our family relationships. If we let Him, He will put our families in spiritual order. He will put our marriages in spiritual order. He will put our children in spiritual order. And to the degree that we didn't even know they were _out of order_ , we will be amazed at the joy and power each of these relationships can provide.

And then, our churches must be put in order, again under the direction, power, and provision of the Spirit. He will lead us to a new divine order according to the Things of the Spirit—the _charisma_ , the _diakonia_ , and the _energema_ —all under the authority of the Spirit through mutually submitted elders.

In every area of our lives—in every "job" He assigns us in the Kingdom—we must choose to turn away from the ways we have always done things and accept His ways—the ways of the Spirit. "Turning away", of course, is what "repent" means. This is the word He is proclaiming today, just as He did, first, through John the Baptist and then through Jesus:

" _Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand_." (Matt 3:2, 4:17)

We will soon be faced with Vashti's choice. When the King—Who we've known so long only as our Father—calls for us to join Him in His glorious mission—the family business—what will we do? It will seem foreign to us, perhaps harsh to our childish ears, to be called to this new and alien work. But the business of the Kingdom is what we were created for. We will find that the yoke He has designed for us will fit us perfectly.

As the potential bride—the potential friend—of God the King, He is calling to us with the choice of Vashti:

" _Listen, O Daughter, consider and give ear: Forget...your_ _father's_ _house. The_ _king_ _desires your beauty._ " (Psalm 45:10-11)

### Epilogue: The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God is a government. It is a spiritual nation. It is a group of human beings who have been changed. They have been transformed from dying, condemned mud people into glorious spirit-beings who, still living in their shells of clay, each personify the mystery of God: " _Christ in you, the hope of glory_." Reborn in the Spirit into an entirely new species of creature, they have been transformed from self-centered, self-loving, self-obsessed animals who care only that "my will be done" into agents of divine love and bearers of divine authority. Freed from the sin that had kept them from approaching God and from approaching one another except in competition and enmity, they have learned how to wield the authority of God to drive the Enemy from their midst. From their mind, body, and emotions. From their families. From all their relationships. From their communities. Freed from the oppression of the Enemy's control, they have been permitted again to come together, drawn by a love both instilled in their created composition and magnified by their spiritual conversion.

In the Kingdom of God, there is an infinite variety. It is a variety, not merely of external appearance or cheap natural difference, but of unique personalities, expansive divine perspectives, and deep spiritual motivations. The naturally divine variety built into mankind at creation has been amplified by the infusion of the Holy Spirit himself, distributed throughout the body to reveal the fullness of the very mind and vision and desires of God.

In the Kingdom of God, there is an unbreakable unity. It is a unity of totally free individuals. Liberated from the oppression of an intractable sinfulness and an unimaginably cruel Enemy, they have yielded to a love which lays down the need for self-promotion and self-glorification. They have come together, not from compulsion, but from a joyful desire to share in the expression of a single collective voice, of a single collective body, of a single collective Bride, spotless and pure. They have yielded the debased, ancient desire to be first, to the divine desire to be part of the grand concert, each playing willingly and flawlessly the divine instrument of their individuality under the direction of their Master.

In the Kingdom of God, there is a divine synergy. It is a synergy of unimaginable variety coordinated in perfect unity by the loving hand of an expert Carpenter who has designed, engineered, and is even now constructing the most magnificent edifice the world has ever seen.

In the Kingdom of God, there is an unfathomable power, distributed by the omnipotent Creator of the universe to an army of trained and tested veterans who exercise it in precise formation to overthrow the long-entrenched regime of an Enemy who has been at large for too long. It is a power that will fully reveal his lies, that will completely illuminate the truth and beauty and love of the Kingdom, that will utterly annihilate the tyrannical power of sin and death, and will thoroughly and permanently free the captives of the Enemy's deceit and oppression.

The Kingdom of God is a non-geographical place. It is an invisible, spiritual country, the Promised Land of those who have been reborn in spirit and circumcised in heart. It is a Land of immense wealth, shared voluntarily and wholeheartedly but owned by no individual. It is a Land of order and discipline, with no compulsion or repression or manipulation, but with willing submission to the leadership of the divine King and His appointed servants, all governed by a law, not written on stone or paper, but inscribed internally on each human heart with indelible love. It is a Land of activity and employment, where each works according to one's gifts and calling, motivated, not by internal greed or external force, but by the Spirit within and a love for each other. It is a Land of unparalleled wisdom and knowledge, but no arrogance or condescension; of enormous strength, but no compulsion or swagger; of immeasurable honor and glory, but no pride or conceit.

The Kingdom of God, as a conquering government, will rule the earth. It will rule in every individual through that person's exercise of Kingdom authority over his or her own life. It will rule in every family where Kingdom individuals are united through the husband's and father's exercise of divine leadership to protect and guide and defend and care for his wife and his children. It will rule in every local congregation where Kingdom families are united under mutually accountable leaders who are committed and competent and trained and tested to shepherd the divine flock. It will rule in the greater community where, regardless of the natural governing structure, the congregations will be united under Kingdom leadership to assault and overthrow the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms which have long controlled villages and towns and cities and states and nations.

It is time to start rebuilding the Kingdom of God. We don't do so by searching for yet another denomination or group in which we can sit and be entertained. We don't do so by chasing after the latest religious author or musician or celebrity. We don't do so by starting another fund raiser or non-profit organization, by building another sanctuary or more houses for humanity, by organizing another youth group or musical ministry or interdenominational bible study.

We start where our individual pieces of the Kingdom lie: in our own soul. We start by driving the Enemy from our own lives and resisting him continually. We start by rebuilding the wall of divine authority around our own heart and mind, and by manning the gate of entry against any and all onslaughts or deceptions. If we cannot do that, then we go back to the altar of God's grace and ask for the very help He has committed to give us.

We start by exercising divine authority in our relationships. We start by loving our spouses and children and parents and siblings. We start by dealing with others wholeheartedly and, while not naively, innocently. We start by ceasing to nurse our hurts and enshrine our insecurities, by refraining from attending to the speck in our brother's eye to address the plank in our own. We start by refusing to consider others in Babylonian terms of greatness or intelligence or beauty or wealth, but as those who either know God's love or who desperately need to. If we cannot do that, then we go back to the altar of God's grace and ask for the very help He is waiting to provide us.

We start by opening our hearts and will to the Holy Spirit; to His power, to His direction, to His love. We start by seeking the tools He has reserved for our use. We start by searching for that for which He has called us heavenward. If we are afraid or doubtful or confused, then let us go back to the altar of God's grace and ask for the illumination and courage He is longing to give us.

We start by letting God redefine our ideas about, well, everything. By letting Him redefine that Christianity is not a spectator sport; that the church is not a building full of folks who merely sing the same songs and espouse the same creeds. By letting Him redefine that people are not the Enemy; that what folks can or cannot do is not the same as what they will or will not do. By letting Him redefine that love is not a feeling of affection or a mutual commitment to an idea, but is very often the hard work of selfless invisibility, of giving without receiving, of being vulnerable despite being ignored or sneered at or spat on, of being willing to forgive—especially those who should know better—not seven times but seventy times seven. It is almost certain we can do none of these things. So let us return continually to the altar of God's grace and ask for the very love He has for us, despite our regularly treating Him far worse than anyone has ever treated us.

More than anything else, we start with hope. God has called us to an impossible task. The Kingdom is impossibly perfect for such fallen creatures as ourselves. Let us not redefine the Kingdom to be something that is possible. Let it remain impossible. Only then will God transform us into those who can do the impossible, create the impossible, live the impossible. He has clearly and repeatedly promised us just that. Because it is not us who must do it, but " _Christ in us, the hope of glory_."

God is even now amassing His troops. We don't look like much just yet. But there is great hope for us. " _His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature..._." (2 Peter 1:3-4) He has not left us to fend for ourselves. He has given us the Comforter who will lead us into all truth. He will not only teach us the truth. He will make the truth of His promises manifest in us. He will transform us into Kingdom individuals of love and power. He will transform us into members of families bound by love and power. He will transform us into communities unified by love and power. And He will transform us into the army of His Kingdom that even the very gates of Hell cannot resist.

It is time to begin rebuilding the Kingdom of God.

It is time to finish the Temple of His Spirit.

It is time to reject our foreign loves, leaving the Babylonian pretenders and come to what will yield the New Jerusalem.

It is time to rebuild Nehemiah's wall.

It is time to transform "a church in ruins" into the shining City on the hill.

It is time to resume the divine invasion.

We start at the altar of grace, in the presence of God, asking for help, accepting His love, embracing the reality of our impotence without Him.

Let us begin.

### About the Author

Thank you for taking the time to read this book. Ran Vosler lives with his wife Catherine in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Feel free to visit his Smashwords page at <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/RanVosler>.

For more information about the _charisma_ , _diakonia_ , and _energema_ , you can refer to Navigating the Supernatural: A Guide to the Things of the Spirit which can be found at: <https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/609075>.

