A dramatic change has occurred in the preaching of the Gospel. What began in the first century as a call to repentance in light of the soon coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth has been altered to a flight of the believers to Heaven.

This alteration has serious consequences. The most serious consequence is that most of what Paul commanded has become irrelevant. Paul taught that we had to be changed so we could be part of the Kingdom of God, that those who sin cannot inherit the Kingdom.

The Christians today do not understand the difference between Paradise (Heaven) and the Kingdom of God. They view salvation as a movement from earth to Paradise rather than what it is, the forming of Christ (who is the Kingdom) in the believer.

Satan would love it if all the believers would go to Heaven and stay there in mansions doing nothing of significance. But the thought of Christ being formed in a believer sends the demons scurrying for cover.

Yesterday, Sunday morning, a young lady approached me after the service and said, "Pastor, you mentioned that Paradise is a place and the Kingdom of God is some kind of abstraction. I've been here seventeen years and I don't understand the Kingdom of God."

This started me thinking and so last night during the service we talked some about Paradise and the Kingdom of God.

I have now (Monday morning supposed to be my day off) taken computer in hand to reward you with a continuation of the discussion of Paradise and the Kingdom of God. MacDonald said in Phantastes something to the effect that he had started to write and didn't know where it was going. This is the condition I am in now because the Kingdom of God is a tremendous subject. I trust the Holy Spirit to give understanding at this point.

First of all, it is interesting that John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostle Paul preached the Kingdom of God. This was the original Gospel message. "Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand," as though the Kingdom is coming to the earth.

At some point in the early history of the Church the message changed to

"Repent so you can go to Heaven." How this happened I do not know. It probably had something to do with the philosophy of Gnosticism and the influx of pagan religions as Gentiles brought into the originally Jewish assemblings their beliefs concerning life after death, fertility symbols, and other ideas that have become part of the Christian tradition.

I do not wish to make a cause celebre of Christmas trees and Easter eggs, but the issue of Paradise versus the Kingdom of God has direct practical bearing on the way we Christians work out our salvation.

I looked at the statement of faith of our denomination (which is as good as any denomination!) and do you know what? The Kingdom of God is not mentioned. Since we are fundamental believers, how can this be? Check out the statement of faith of your denomination and see if you can find any statement about the Kingdom of God. You probably won't because the Christians think the Kingdom has something to do with Jehovah's Witnesses (bless them).

How could it be that a Bible-believing denomination does not mention the Kingdom of God in its statement of faith?

How did we get off the track? We still pray the Lord's prayer, most of us, about the Kingdom of God coming to the earth. But we are looking forward to getting out of here, and you can't blame us for that these days.

In any case we are mixed up and it is time now for the Lord to get us back on the track concerning the Kingdom of God.

There is Paradise and then there is the Kingdom of God. By the way, the manner in which we currently use the term Heaven makes it synonymous with "Paradise," at least for our purposes here. So when we say "Paradise" think of Heaven.

To be continued.