The Kin-Dom is at Hand!
10"Then I will turn your festivals into mourning And all your songs into lamentation; And I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins And baldness on every head. And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, And the end of it will be like a bitter day. 11"Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord GOD,"When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the LORD. 12"People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, But they will not find it.…Amos 8:10-12 We live in a time of grave spiritual jeopardy. The spiritual storehouses of the traditions are now barren. The swine feed on the spiritual husks of religious tradition while the children of the Master wander the streets in perilous want. The true spirit of the Master’s life and teachings is like a spiritually sustaining well but the cracked vessels of tradition can no more be made to hold a soul saving draught and so souls are left parched; brothers and sisters die in the very presence of the Bread of Life. For now, Christianity is a Great Mausoleum buried deep inside which lies the Fountain of Youth – the ever bubbling fount of spiritual truth. Today we call these Mausoleums “Churches” but the enlivening spirit has long since departed. Though their marvellous structures reach the skies and are filled with tens of thousands they are filled with the dead – filled to bursting with those who are dead to living truth. They attend their services and instead of being brought to life and transformed they are daily confirmed in their rotten way of living and led into deeper spiritual decay and destitution. This Unholy Hoard devastate the world; devouring mountains, rivers, and lakes, ravishing communities and nations. To them truth appears as darkness and salvation the death of their “way of life” – their way of life, oh the black irony of those words – way of death more like, for the price that must be paid to preserve their existence is to vomit death and pestilence upon the earth. They slaughter the prophets, persecute the peace-makers, and castigate the righteous. They love deception, treachery, and corruption. This people were called to be a healing and sacred symbol of the Almighty Father’s love, fidelity, and indivisible unity but they have turned in the way of their own choosing followed after the god of war and treacherous deception and have become the very Doom of the Earth! You fools! Repent! Flee the wrath to come! The Kin-dom is at hand and even now is! Give heed to me – you who are lost in the Great Forest of Information, that are tossed about on the ceaseless waves of public opinion, who are blinded by science and baffled by bullshit, who thirst for wisdom amid the dry sands of knowledge. Come! Join me. I will show you the way. You can enter the Kin-dom even now, in an instant, for the Kin-dom is a journey; a great journey of profound transformation; departing from the old life and embarking upon the new; surrendering the old ways and embracing the new and better ways; a journey into the progressive spiritualisation of your character, into the actualisation of the divine potential of your spiritual nature; it is the progressive harmonisation, alignment, and co-ordination of one’s life with the ideals of the Divine. It is to trade imperfection for perfection, inefficiency for efficiency, ignorance for wisdom, fearful doubt for courageous faith, grasping selfishness for freely bestowed loving service, hurt for healing, arrogance for humility, weakness for strength, despair for hope, the ash of sorrow for the oil of gladness. Such are the spiritual jewels that adorn the crown of victory that rests gently upon the brow of the children of God. The Father himself craves His children to seize these riches for themselves, that they would wear with pride the garments of spiritual glory that He has laid out for them which are theirs but for the striving!
Comments
Barry Kahlil Gibran makes a similar statement of these facts in his poems of what was recorded in Isaiah 30:9-14 I Tell you that the children of yesteryear are walking in the funeral of the era which they created for themselves. They are pulling a rotting rope that may break soon and cause them to drop into a forgotten abyss. I say that they are living in homes with weak foundations. As the storm blows - and it is about to blow - their homes will fall upon their heads and thus become their tombs. I say that all their thoughts, their sayings, their quarrels, their compositions, their books and all their works are nothing but chains dragging them because they are too weak to pull the load. But the children of tomorrow are the ones called by life, and they follow it with steady steps and heads high. They are the dawn of the new frontiers; no smoke will veil their eyes and no jingle of chains will drown out their voices. They are few in number but the difference is as between a grain of wheat and a stack of hay. No one knows them but they know each other. They are like the summits, which can see and hear each other - not like caves, which cannot hear or see. They are the seed dropped by the hand of God in the field, breaking through its pod and waving its sapling leaves before the face of the sun. It shall grow into a mighty tree; its roots in the heart of the Earth and its branches high in the sky.
The Discourse at the Temple that Monica Kemp referenced.
True righteous indignation spoken by a Son of God.
Thanks Monica! The Kin-dom term was developed by a Hispanic female theologian. Female theologians have been opening up the meanings of the gospel in interesting ways. To me the tragedy we are tending towards is profound and I just wish people would open their eyes but without the sincere love for truth little can be done.
As in the days of Isaiah:
Isaiah 30:9-14New International Version (NIV) 9 For these are rebellious people, deceitful children,
children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction.
10 They say to the seers,
“See no more visions!”
and to the prophets,
“Give us no more visions of what is right!
Tell us pleasant things,
prophesy illusions.
11 Leave this way,
get off this path,
and stop confronting us
with the Holy One of Israel!” 12 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,
13 this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
14 It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern.”
Excellent, Barry. Love the Kin-dom word play...so perfect. Your passion for the spiritual bankruptcy of today reflects the impassioned speech Jesus gave to the Sanhedrin the Wednesday of his terminal human week. Well-written and crystallized.
Monica