Go Ye Therefore
“Knew ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49) I recently received a twelve-page letter from one of our readers lamenting both the economic and related problems that have befallen the U.S. and for that matter, all of the nations of the Christian West. The gentleman who wrote the letter requested that could I please reprint some or all of his comments in our monthly publication of “Thy Kingdom Come”. Even though I agreed with most of what this gentleman wrote, since I am not the Editor of our magazine, I cannot determine what is published in TKC. But this I will say, the primary goal of our magazine is to bring God’s Word to a fallen people, a people that has lost sight of and contact with the Ever-Living God. Thus, our main goal is to bring the message of God’s Kingdom to whomever have ears to hear and eyes to see, for that is our Lord’s commission, to spread the Gospel of God’s Kingdom first, foremost and always.
In the 2nd chapter of Luke we read the story of how Joseph and Mary had lost track of Jesus, and after a frantic search of three days, they found Jesus, at that time only twelve years old, debating theology with the teachers in the temple. When Mary questioned Jesus about this and her concern for her son, Jesus answered and said, “How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49) What exactly was or is His Father’s business? During Christ’s earthly sojourn Jesus performed many supernatural miracles. He turned water into wine, He made the blind to see, He made the lame to leap, He healed the sick and raised the dead. All these miracles gave credence to His real mission, to show that He, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God, had come to save His people and to show that the Spirit of God dwelt with Him. When He rebuked the storm and calmed the sea, He showed that He also had the power over the elements, proving His claim as per John 10:30, “I and my Father are one.” In other words, I and my Father are one and the same God! Christ did not come to be a miracle worker, but primarily His mission first and foremost was to make His people aware of the Kingdom of God. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.” (Matt. 6:33)
In each of the four Gospels and in the first chapter of Acts we read where Christ commissions His disciples to spread the Gospel to all men and in all parts of the earth. In Matt. 15:24 we read Jesus words where He said, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel” and in John 17:18 Jesus praying to the Father says, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I sent them, the disciples, into the world”. Thus, we can see that the primary objective was, and still is, to teach and convert the lost sheep of Israel, the lost Tribes in dispersion. That task has been accomplished and after the Reformation the Church was firmly established. In 2Thess. 2:3 Paul warns of a falling away, a falling away from the true Gospel and the adherence to sound Christian principles, and that has also come about.
In the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, during the period of colonization, the Churches of those colonizing powers went far and wide to evangelize all the non-Adamic peoples of the world. This evangelizing was done out of love for the Lord, and our want to have everyone, regardless of color or ethnic origin, share in the wonderful saving Grace of God. This practice extended into the nineteen hundreds and to some point is still being pursued today but here is the crux of the matter. The nations that evangelized with such zeal have by and large fallen away from God to such an extent that they are in dire need to be evangelized themselves. The Christian Western world is awash in apostasy and needs to be brought back to the old paths that lead back to their God, whom they have forsaken for the fleshpots of this wicked world. But it is one thing to bring those who are ignorant of the saving Grace of God into the Church fold, but quite another to persuade those that have no excuse for not knowing, but willfully reject the Word of God, to fall on their knees and ask for forgiveness and return to Him.
It is for this reason that we at A.C.P. publish our monthly magazine. To spread the message of God’s Kingdom throughout all the world, to all those places on the globe where God’s people dwell. The necessity and urgency has never been greater than it is today. A large majority of our kinsmen live in total apostasy and abject Spiritual poverty, because they have lost contact with the only thing in life that really matters, namely a close personal relationship with the Ever-Living God. But this work is not only the responsibility of our publication and others like it, but it falls on the shoulders of all of us, whenever the opportunity lends itself to share your faith with others, and by doing so, you may perhaps turn a wayward soul back to God. Let your walk through life be an example, so that others may say, “I wish I had what he has”. Take your magazine and pass it along or leave it where others may find it and read its comforting message of the Ever-Loving Savior. By doing so, you might save a lonely soul from being lost forever. This is being about our Father’s business.
For the gentleman who made his request in his letter and maybe others who feel that we should address the more worldly issues let the words of our Lord as found in Matthew 6 be a guide and a comfort. “Therefore be not anxious saying, what shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or, with what shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Be therefore, not anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow will be anxious for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is its own evil {misfortune}.” (Matt. 6:31-34)
