Many of you who are reading this will remember that Mr. Herbert Armstrong stated a number of times that Almighty God did not personally “call” us in this present age just for our personal salvation. Rather, he stated, there are two primary reasons why God chooses to call us now—rather than allow us to come up later in the Great White Throne Judgment. The first is to do the Work. The second is to let us prepare ourselves to be kings and priests in Christ’s coming Kingdom. In this Editorial, I want to concentrate on the importance of each of us preparing to be kings and priests, governing in Christ’s soon-coming Kingdom.
I sincerely hope that all of you baptized members of God’s Church who are reading this believe in this goal. However, in our present materialistic, technological society, the goal may not seem as “real” to many of us as it should be. We are bombarded continually with images of this world and its God-rejecting concepts—in advertising, on the Internet, on television, and in so many other ways. All of this does “take its toll” in weakening the reality of God and of His coming Kingdom.
Most of you know that the Bible clearly indicates that King David of ancient Israel will be resurrected and become the king over all twelve tribes of Israel in Christ’s Government (Hosea 3:5; Ezekiel 34:23–24; Ezekiel 37:24–25). In the months and years preceding his human kingship, David spent countless hours out under the stars, thinking and meditating on the greatness and reality of the Creator. He stated in Psalm 8:3–6, “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet.”
Brethren, unless each one of us begins to “seek” God with all our hearts and minds it is difficult for us to quietly meditate and “consider” the works of our Creator, as David did over and over. Yet, we must take time and we must make time to do this and to “feed” on Christ through genuine study of the word of God (John 6:53). We must fervently pray, meditate and genuinely study God’s word so that increasingly the images going through our minds are more concerned with the reality of God and His soon-coming government than this present evil world.
The Need for God’s Kingdom
Right now, we hear about and see television pictures of the death, destruction and absolute misery of multiple thousands of human beings in Syria, in Sudan, in the Republic of Congo and elsewhere. Also, we read of other countless thousands being imprisoned, tortured and living in anguish and terrible situations extant in China, Russia, North Korea and other oppressive societies. This should help us see the absolute need for a genuine World Government as described in Psalm 72:1–8: “Give the king Your judgments, O God, and Your righteousness to the king’s Son. He will judge Your people with righteousness, and Your poor with justice. The mountains will bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He will bring justice to the poor of the people; He will save the children of the needy, and will break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear You as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the grass before mowing, like showers that water the earth. In His days the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”
Yet, as most of you know, Christ alone is not going to run this entire enterprise. For He, under the Father’s direction, is right now preparing many of us to assist Him in bringing about this kind of loving peaceful government to take over this confused world. Most of us realize that we are not—as a whole—the wise or noble of this world. For God inspired Paul to tell us: “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called” (1 Corinthians 1:26). The Word of God makes it clear that He will always give us the help we need through His Holy Spirit: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). Also, God’s Word tells us: “For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6).
Since God is fashioning and molding us and training us to be kings and priests, it is obvious that He will give us the wisdom and guidance that we need in order to do the job He wants us to do in Tomorrow’s World. For He is more willing to give us of His Holy Spirit than we are to give our hungry children bread (Luke 11:13). Each of us needs to think specifically about how we should function as a righteous king or priest in Tomorrow’s World. God told the leaders in ancient Israel: “Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it’” (Deuteronomy 1:16–17).
So, as we function in God’s Church today, each of us should try to be absolutely fair. Ask God continually for wisdom and judgment in making right decisions in any aspect of God’s Church or Work in which we are involved. We should try to see the “Big Picture” in every situation and not allow ourselves to get distracted by “fringe” situations and problems that would take away our ability to judge righteously the key things in which we are involved.
Also, throughout the entire book of Proverbs, God tells us over and over to seek wise counsel in any major situation: “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14). The same basic instruction to seek counsel is found in Proverbs 12:15, Proverbs 15:22, Proverbs 19:20, Proverbs 20:18, Proverbs 24:6 and elsewhere. It should be obvious that the book of Proverbs, itself, is a tremendous source of wisdom. Every one of us should absolutely study this book on a regular basis—specifically thinking about its instruction in relationship to our future responsibilities as kings and priests in Christ’s Kingdom!
We should also read the examples of how King David, King Solomon and other great leaders in the Bible handled various situations—especially how Jesus Christ functioned as a leader and solved various situations. Note how Jesus handled the Pharisees when they plotted to “entangle” Him in His talk (Matthew 22:15). He showed them a coin with Caesar’s image stamped on it, showed that this was Caesar’s work and then put the onus back on them to realize that Caesar did have a part in the money that they used as a medium of exchange. But He never directly answered their question about taxation!
When asked about the man being forced to marry his dead brother’s wife, He did not get into the details of that. Rather He showed that “in the resurrection” there was to be no marriage in the first place. Again and again, Christ was able to turn things around when men tried to accuse Him, entangle Him in His talk or “trap Him” in any way like this. For Jesus had supreme wisdom—which we should all strive to emulate. Since God promises to give us glorified spirit bodies (Philippians 3:21), it should be obvious that He will also greatly enlarge our mental capacities to function in the role to which He has assigned us. However, the Bible clearly indicates that even in this life we should grow in “grace and knowledge” (2 Peter 3:18). So we are to try to exercise the “mind of God” more and more in everything we think, say and do—all in preparation for the tremendous responsibilities and opportunities we will soon have to be an absolute blessing to thousands or perhaps even millions of people in a coming government based on love, joy and peace.
The Need for Humility
Over and over, God’s word tells us to humble ourselves and try in every way we can to honestly serve our fellow man and our Creator. Jesus said, “But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:11–12).
After describing the Gentile rulers’ tendency to exalt themselves and “exercise authority” over others, Jesus said, “Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26–28). Dear brethren, if we function like this in virtually every activity in the church in which we are involved, if we genuinely strive to use wisdom, to use kindness and mercy and humility in whatever function we have, we will be truly preparing to be those kings and priests in the coming Government of God. We will be able to assist Christ in bringing the genuine peace and joy upon all human beings for which they have longed for so many centuries. We will truly be “growing” in our capacity to assist Christ in the wonderful Government that we saw pictured in Psalm 72:7, “In His days the righteous shall flourish, and abundance of peace, until the moon is no more.”
So let us set ourselves to seek wisdom and to cry out to God for the humility, the leadership and the spirit of service that we will surely need to assist Christ in bringing that kind of government to the entire world soon. May God speed that day!