Dear Brethren, Co-Workers and Friends,
It’s Christmas time again. No matter where you may live in our “civilized” Western world, you can’t help but noticing it. Christmas carols are being played non-stop in supermarkets; friendly-smiling merchants wish you a “happy Christmas,” and televised religious broadcasts and services proclaim and repeat endlessly the Christmas dream of peace and good will for all men.
Yet, before and after Christ’s life and death as a human being, we have had insurmountable problems, violence, hatred, wars, destruction, holocausts and crimes against humanity. Surely, if it had been God’s intention to have His Son replace war with peace about 2,000 years ago—to make this world a better place then—He would have really done a miserable job.
The truth is, this is NOT yet God’s world, and Christ was not born into the world to bring peace to it. In fact, He said that He came at that time to bring the sword. Not a literal sword, of course, to be used by His disciples—but He came to preach the Word of God, which is a divider between truth and error. He came to call just a few during this day and age to show them the right way of life—and to empower them to live that way. But those who did receive Him would find themselves to be “outcasts” in this world—rejected and despised by men, and persecuted even to the point of death.
Christ came to announce peace to the world—but not to enforce it. He proclaimed peace by preaching the gospel, and He has commissioned His Church to continue in this endeavor until He comes back. However, it is not just any gospel of man’s choice. There is only one gospel, but there are many counterfeit “gospels.”
The Christian world especially has been saturated with gospel messages. There seems to exist a “gospel” for just about everybody’s taste and preference. We have heard of the gospel of grace, the gospel of salvation, the gospel of peace, the gospel of repentance, the gospel of faith, the gospel about Christ—and even though all of these aspects, if correctly understood, are part and parcel of the true gospel, they themselves are NOT the gospel that Jesus Christ came to preach.
The Bible tells us what that gospel is—it is the gospel (the word “gospel” means good news or glad tidings) of the KINGDOM OF GOD. Christ preached it; the early apostles preached it; and the Church of God is to preach it until the very end of this age.
Most have no idea what the Kingdom of God is. They don’t know when it will be established. They may think it is already here. And even some—or many—of those who once knew the truth, have allowed that precious knowledge to slip away from them. They have begun instead, to embrace the worldly concepts of peace and good will for all men at this time. They have fallen into the trap of observing Christmas. But even apart from its pagan origins and its lust for monetary gain, merchandise and the uncontrollable desire to spend money and to receive gifts, Christmas contains another wrong Biblical message—the false concept that Christ came 2,000 years ago to set up the Kingdom of God, and that He brought at that time peace and happiness for all men. We know that He did neither, because the world today is surely not a happy and peaceful place.
Man will only begin to experience true and lasting peace when the Kingdom of God has come to this earth. Many parishioners of different churches may pray daily, “Your Kingdom Come,” but they don’t seem to realize what they are actually saying. Instead, they may believe that it already has come. But it is still FUTURE. It has not happened yet.
Do you know what the Kingdom of God really is—and who is and will be in it? Our free booklet, “The Gospel of the Kingdom of God,” explains this topic in much detail. Please request a copy if you don’t have one. And if you have read the booklet in the past, you might want to re-read it.
In short, the Kingdom of God is the Government of God, to be established on this earth. The Government of God will enforce Godly laws—including the spiritual Law of the Ten Commandments. Man will be taught to keep God’s Law, and when he does, he will experience peace and happiness.
All the wars of this world result from man breaking one of the Ten Commandments, which says, “You shall not kill.” When Christ returns, He will teach man the way to peace—and men will exchange their destructive weapons of violence and war for instruments of agriculture and other useful tools, which won’t be used to harm anyone.
But the gospel or good news of the KINGDOM OF GOD is more than just the message about the Government of God. It also contains the good news that the Kingdom of God IS the FAMILY OF GOD. But it is not a “closed” Family. The gospel message includes the understanding as to WHO will be in the KINGDOM or FAMILY of God—WHO will RULE the world, by implementing and executing the Government of God.
Right now, the KINGDOM or FAMILY of God consists of two Spirit beings—God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Son. The Holy Spirit is not a Person or a Spirit BEING—rather, it is the power and the mind of God, emanating from both the Father and the Son. But, the Kingdom or Family of God is GROWING. It already has, at this point, begotten, but yet unborn children. We are already the children of God and the brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, IF the Holy Spirit of God dwells in us.
But we are not yet BORN into the God Family, because as long as we are flesh and blood, we cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. However, when Christ returns, we will be resurrected (if we died prior to that event) or changed (if still alive at that time) from mortal to immortal. We will then be Spirit beings—like God the Father and Jesus Christ are Spirit beings. We will then be God beings, as the Father and the Son are God beings. We will have become a PART of the Kingdom of God.
It is THAT message which the Church of God must preach today! It is the gospel of the KINGDOM OF GOD—that it is man’s potential to become God; that God’s Spirit-begotten children will become born-again members of the Kingdom or Family of God; that they will become KINGS and priests, ruling over human beings by executing the Government of God. The Kingdom or Family of God will rule over this world, but man, as long as he is in the flesh, will not be IN the Kingdom; only those who will BE God will be in the Kingdom of GOD—who will have been BORN AGAIN into the Family of God. And when the God Family rules over this earth, THEN—and ONLY then—will this world begin to experience true and lasting peace.
Christmas will not be taught or observed anymore. Christ will be recognized and worshipped as the living and most powerful KING over all the earth—not as a helpless little baby in the manger or a dead Savior on the cross. He will RULE over man—and you have been called today to prepare for that time, so that you can rule with and under Him.
We pray that, especially during this time of year, God will give all of us the strength and wisdom to keep ourselves unspotted from the world, knowing that so many of men’s customs and traditions will pass away, while the TRUE light of Godly understanding has already begun to shine into our hearts.
In Christian love,
Norbert Link
