The Blessed Kingdom (1)
July 24, 2016
Let us talk about The Blessed Kingdom today. Now we have moved through Matthew, we've also moved through Mark, and the different references to the Kingdom in Mark, and now we are moving our adventure to Luke.
Let us read Luke 6 verses 17 through 23 today.
17. "And he came down with them and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases, 18. They that were vexed with unclean spirits; and they were healed. 19. The whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. 20. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. 21. Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. 22. Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. 23. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets."
This is, of course, a very famous account; this is Luke's account of the Beatitudes. Jesus had just selected his apostles, the twelve apostles. He came down, from the mountain and gives the Beatitudes in Luke's account. And so this is the account here by Luke of Jesus' preaching about the Beatitudes. It is interesting, because if we start backwards, Jesus of course, says, "Blessed ye who are poor, who are hungry," but then, he goes on here and says, "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil for the Son of man's sake."
If you look at our current society today, you see now more and more the rise against those who believe in Jesus Christ. You see more and more an assault on those who uphold the Christian life by being obedient to God's word. You see them now being targeted, being seen now on the FBI terror list. Evangelicals, gun owners, people of that type of persuasion who know not only their rights, but have a relationship with God. You see also in our popular culture that everything that is opposite to the values and morals of what Jesus stood for is now will be magnified in our culture. It is being justified --- we use the term, of course, because we study philosophy here -- "relativized." Right? Relativized.
We have, in our culture now a war that is raging. Not only wars in terms of bombs and nuclear weapons, but real cultural warfare is going on. A real sociological warfare is going on behind the scenes.
I have shown this one video on:
How many enjoyed that video? Wasn't that great? That evangelist has an incredible ministry. What a tremendous evangelist. However, today I want to show you another documentary film that he made about a certain issue that has become very massive in our culture. It is so great that it is never talked about. It is so "in your face" that you cannot talk about it. It is very politically incorrect to talk about it.
However, there are issues that come out from the real warfare that is going on. A real spiritual warfare is going on in our midst. So let us prep that video please, and let us take a look at this brief video.
Video Narration
CGN Documentary.
Interviewer: "Have you heard of Adolf Hitler"
Interviewee: "No."
Interviewer: "You don't know who he is?"
Interviewee: "No."
Changing the Heart of a Nation.
"I'm Ray Comfort. I'm Jewish, and I'm deeply concerned that a generation is forgetting one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the human race. Adolf Hitler sanctioned the murder of eleven million people, including six million Jews, through what's commonly called The Holocaust.
In Germany, statues of Hitler are forbidden, and his Nazi salute is illegal. And in Austria, if you even deny the Holocaust took place, they'll throw you in jail. Germany so wants to keep alive the memory of that horror that it has mandatory Holocaust education for its children. This is because it's been widely said that, 'those who forget history are destined to repeat it.'
Interviewer: "So tell me what you know about Adolf Hitler."
Interviewee: "I don't know anything about him."
Interviewer: "You never heard of him?"
Interviewee: "No I haven't."
[Ray Comfort holding up a series of pictures, one of which is Hitler}
Comfort: "Who's the guy with the mustache?"
Young man. "I don't know, sorry."
You're about to meet Steve. As you'll see, Steve is a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi who loves Adolf Hitler, hates Jews, and people of dark skin."
Comfort: "What's the purpose of man's existence?"
Steve: "To get drunk and have a blue Mohawk. What was Jesus Christ?"
Comfort: "The Savior of the world."
Steve: "No, He was a (bleeping) Jew. And what did Jews do? They lied."
Steve: "Christianity is a Jewish trick. But it hasn't tricked me because I'm Greek. I'm smarter than that."
Comfort: Spell the word "Shop."
Steve: Shop? S -H-O-P.
Comfort: What do you do when you come to a green light?
Steve: Stop
Comfort: Green light.
Steve: [laughs]
Comfort: See now, if you can make a mistake with something as simple as that, just think if you are making a mistake with this whole philosophy.
Steve: "You're making a mistake. I don't hate black people because they're black. I hate black people because they're pieces of [bleep]. Because they ruin every [bleeping} neighborhood they come into, because they do bad things to my people because of the color of our skin. This country is [bleeped] and I hate America. …. Here by a bunch of weak little Jews, they couldn't stand up for themselves, so they had to make up a fake God to protect them because they are a weak race. Jesus was a Jew. And if he were in Auschwitz, I'd give him a tattoo."
Steve: Adolf Hitler was not evil.
Comfort: So what do you have to do be evil, he killed six million Jews and blacks, and Gypsies and homosexuals.
Steve: I don't believe that. I think that's a lie. I don't think he killed that many people. I love Hitler.
Steve: Because he wanted to cleanse the world of non-white races. Unidentified older man "Adolf Hitler was the most famous criminal in the world. Comfort to Steve: "Don't you think he was evil?"
Steve: Evil? No.
Comfort to Young man "Who was Adolf Hitler?"
Young man: "The leader of the Nazis. He ran the Fascist movement in World War II, right? Comfort: Good guy? Bad guy?
Young man: He was intelligent, but what he was doing was bad. Comfort to two young ladies: "Have you heard of Adolf Hitler?" Young ladies: "Yes."
Comfort: What did he do?
Young ladies: "He killed a lot of people and tried to take over the world." Comfort: Good guy or bad guy?
Young ladies: "Bad."
Comfort to a man: "I'm going to ask you this question, it's not a racist question, but are you German? Man: Ich bin ein Deutschlander.
Comfort: "Can I ask you a question? Did you read Mein Kamp? Man. Yeah.
Comfort: What did you think of it? Man. It's a great book.
Man. Absolutely.
Comfort: Is he evil?
Man. No.
Comfort: Is it evil that he killed the Jews?
Man. He didn't do that.
Comfort: Who did it?
Man. It didn't happen.
Comfort: It didn't happen? The Holocaust didn't happen?
Man. Correct.
Comfort: Who were the killers?
Man. The Jews. Don't you understand that America is run by Jews? Don't you understand that? Don't you get it? Don't you grab hold of it?
Comfort: What's wrong with that?
Man. What's wrong with it? Look around you right now and see the result of Judaism. Are you nuts? Are you crazy? You have hatred? Stop hating like a Jew?
Steve: And you know what Hitler said? He said Christianity is a nice religion, but let's let it die out.
Young girl: "He put the Jewish people in concentration camps."
Young man. "And he basically brainwashed the whole German civilization into believing that the Jews evil and he needed to get rid of them."
Young lady: "He started World War II."
Comfort: It's 1939, you've got a high powered rifle, and Adolf Hitler is in your sights. Do you take him out?
Comfort: So you didn't hesitate.
Comfort to young man. "Would you take him out?"
Young man. "Yes."
Comfort to older man. "Would you shoot him?"
Older man. "Immediately. Immediately. I would shoot him, and tear him apart."
Comfort: If you go back thirty years earlier and Adolf Hitler's mother is pregnant with Adolf, and you've got a high-powered rifle, and you had one shot, would you take him out? Would you kill her to kill him?
Older man. "Definitely, definitely. I'd kill her, kill him, and kill his relatives. Everybody who belongs to Hitler's family."
Comfort: Did he kill millions of Russians?
Older man> "Oh yeah, not personally, but the German Army, killed millions and millions. Russia lost about 30 million people in the Second World War. The German Army destroyed most of the European part of the Soviet Union."
Comfort "Did you lose any relatives?"
Older man "Oh yeah. I lost my Father, my grandmother, my aunt, my brother."
Narration: Adolf Hitler hated Christianity. He called it a disease, and once said, "The heaviest blow which ever struck humanity was Christianity," adding that "it was an invention of the Jew." He killed and imprisoned genuine pastors and replaced them with his own Nazi pastors. He also replaced the cross with the swastika. He printed a hundred thousand copies of his own twisted Bible, rewrote the 10 Commandments, and then created his own Aryan, anti-Semitic, non-Jewish Jesus.
But most importantly, all this sprung from the fact that Hitler had created his own image of God, and was what the Bible calls an idolater. He had another God before the God of the Bible. Like Judas Iscariot, he professed to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth, but his motive was for his own evil agenda. And that agenda was very clear. He said, "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."
Adolf Hitler deceived the youth of Germany. He deceived many within the traditional church, but most of all he deceived the millions of Germans who believed his lie about the supremacy of the German race.
History tells us of one man who was present when the Nazis killed sixteen hundred Jews on the night of April 6, 1942. He witnessed them being shot and then being buried alive.
Survivor: I saw them do the killing. At 5 pm they gave the command, "fill in the pits." Screams and groans were coming from the pits. Suddenly I saw my neighbor, Rudinman, rise from under the soil. His eyes were bloody and he was screaming, "Finish me off!" A murdered woman lay at my feet; a boy of five years crawled out from under her body and began to scream desperately, "Mommy." That was all I saw, since I fell unconscious.
Comfort to young lady: It's 1943, a German officer has pointed a machine gun at you, and told you to get in the bulldozer and drive it forward. You look in front of you, there's a big pit. Hundreds of Jewish families have been shot and they're in the pit. Many of them are dead, but some of them are still alive.
He's telling you to bury them alive. You know that if you say no, he's just going to say, ok, and shoot you with his machine gun, and someone else is going to do it. Would you do what he says?
Lady: "I don't know."
Girl: "Wow, I think that's a powerful question. I think I would do it, only because the fear of my own life, and fearing that I have no other choice."
Comfort to young man: Would you do what he wants?
Young man. No.
Comfort: Why not?
Young man: For one, that's not morally right to me.
Girl: "What can one person do if just that one person got out of the bulldozer? You know what I mean? Their life is gone too. Everyone needed to rise up against him. And you, know, where was the world? Where was everybody?
Comfort: Everybody is made up of individuals that would say, "I could never bury human beings alive. I'd rather die than do that."
Comfort to young woman: Do you value life?
Young woman: Of course.
Comfort to young man: So you wouldn't take human life, you value human life?
Young man: Yeah.
Young man: It all depends. That's a tricky subject.
Comfort to girl: It sounds like you value human life.
Girl: I do value human life.
Comfort: Alicia, how do you feel about abortion?
Alicia: I feel that it's a woman's right to choose and every situation is a different situation.
Young man: I'm for abortion.
Young lady: You know, that's a tricky situation, I am pro-life.
Comfort to young couple: When does it become a life?
Young lady: Well, it kind of does at the start, but it's not as much until after 3 months.
Comfort/narration. This is actual footage of a baby in the womb at just six weeks and six days of age. You can clearly see the baby's eyes, hands, and heartbeat.
Comfort to two young ladies: Do you think it's a baby in the womb?
Young lady: Yes.
Comfort: Ok, finish this sentence for me, okay? It's ok to kill a baby in the womb when ________.
Young lady: I don't know.
Comfort to girl: When does it become a life?
Girl: [Laughs} That's a tough one!
Comfort: Here's a question. If you're in doubt, ok, I'm a construction worker, and I see a building, and I say to you, "Ok, I'm just going to blow up that building in a minute. There's a possibility that there's somebody in there, I just don't know, but I'm going to blow it up anyway. What would you say to me? I'm not sure if there's life in that building or not, but I'm going to blow it up anyway.
Comfort to young lady: Have you had an abortion?
Comfort: Do you feel guilty about it?
Young lady: No.
Comfort: What justifies the killing of a baby in the womb?
Young man: If you cannot support it when it comes out.
Comfort: Here is you, Frank, you would give your life for Jews who were going to die anyway, and yet you will not speak up against the murder of children in the womb. I would like you to say, yes, it is wrong. To kill a child in the womb, the safest place in the world is the mother's womb, and to actually go in there and to destroy a human life, why, for selfish reasons.
Frank: Well, depending, I guess. It would depend on the reasons.
Comfort: Well, tell me a reason for killing a baby in the womb.
Frank. Well, I mean, you know, if it's rape or something like that, you know what I mean. Which is, I know a tough decision, but that is mentally.
Comfort: Why is it tough? Why would you kill the baby for the crime of the father? Which is worse? Murder or rape? You are murdering a child, taking another life, because of the crime of the father.
Comfort to young lady; Who knows when life begins?
Young lady: "I wouldn't know."
Comfort: Do you think God knows when life begins?
Young lady. I think, yeah, probably.
Comfort: And do you know what the Sixth Commandment is?
Young lady: No, No.
Comfort: It says you shall not kill. Therefore, you should say it is never right to kill a child in the womb, and Hitler declared Jews as non-human. So that is what you are doing when you are saying, "it's not a baby until three months." That is what I think. It's very subjective. And if you're not sure, it's taking a terrible risk with somebody else's life. Imagine if somebody said that about you when you were just three months old? And they decided to kill you because of selfish reasons.
Young man "It's their baby."
Comfort: Whose baby?
Young man. The mother's.
Comfort: She does have the right to kill it?
Young man. If she feels, she cannot take care of it, or she ….
Comfort: So that is the criteria. I can't take of this with my life, I will kill it?
Young man: Yes.
Comfort: Wow. You value human life.
Young man. Yeah.
Comfort to young lady. Are you a Christian?
Young lady. In a sense. I believe in God completely.
Comfort: What is the sixth commandment?
Young lady: I don't know.
Comfort: You shall not kill. Why would you ever take the murder of a child in the womb if you know God says you shall not kill? You should be dogmatically against the killing of children in the womb. It's the safest place on earth in a woman's womb, so why would you say that it's ok to kill children in the womb?
Young lady There's no way that you're going to change my opinion on this, because I believe it is a woman's choice. I personally would not do it, but I believe it should be a choice.
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