Part 2 of 6 – Kingdom of God

Equipping God's Saints (Followers of Christ) through the Prophecies of the End Times …

We need to have a well-defined definition of what the gospel really is. The Apostle Paul, who wrote the Book to the Thessalonians, also wrote to the church at Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, he takes time to define the gospel:

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;

By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”

Paul says, “I declare unto you the gospel, how that Christ died, was buried and rose again.” So the gospel is simply the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In order to accept the death, burial and resurrection ~ to obey the gospel ~ to obey the death, burial and resurrection ~ we must be born again. It really makes a lot of sense and it's really very simple.

How do we do this? How do we accept and obey the death of Christ?

We don't have to literally die. He did that in our place. But we accept that by “dying to self”. It's called repentance. When you repent, it's not a matter of saying, “God, I'm sorry for my sins.” It's part of that, yes, but real repentance is a decision to turn away from selfish living to a life centered around God's will. We make a decision, from this day forward, I won't do what “I” want to do … I'm going to do what “HE” wants me to do. So we accept the death of Christ by dying out to self and accepting Jesus as Lord. We say, “From now on I don't do what I want to do, I give my life to Jesus Christ and I want to do His will in my life because I know that's the reason that I was created.” This is the act of repentance. It's dying to self. That's when we accept the death of Jesus Christ.

In Romans 6:4 it says:

“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

If we're going to be buried with Christ, then we're buried with Him by baptism. That's the reason all baptism in the Bible was done by immersion. It is a symbolic burial.

There is one more step according to the Bible. Romans 8:11 talks to us about accepting the resurrection power:

“But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

This is talking about the time of the Second Coming. When Jesus comes back to this earth, if the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, It will change us from mortality to immortality and we will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air.

1. We accept and obey the death of Christ in repentance.
2. We accept and obey the burial of Christ in baptism.
3. Spiritual resurrection power through the Holy Ghost.

Another passage that will help us to understand this better is 1 John 5:8:

“And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”

What is this saying? The blood covers our sin when we repent. Water is applied in baptism. We are buried in water when we are baptized. We receive the Spirit when we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. All this is saying is that blood, water and Spirit agree in one. One what? ~ One New Birth.

The Apostle Peter, on the day of Pentecost, agreed with this. On the day of Pentecost, he had preached to the people that they had rejected their Messiah ~ they had crucified Jesus Christ. By now all of Jerusalem was abuzz with the report that Jesus had not only risen from the dead, but been caught up into the heavens.

Peter preached to them that they had crucified their Messiah. They became so convicted. Acts 2:37 says:

“Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart [convicted], and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

Peter is going to give them the answer. They are asking, “What shall we do to be saved? How can we rectify this horrible error?” Act 2:38 tells us:

“Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

So what did Peter do? He's preaching the gospel of the kingdom; he's preaching the death, burial and resurrection. He's preaching the three steps to being born again.

In order to really understand a lot of these things, it's good to have illustrations. Have you ever tried to put something together? You get these instructions, but it's really nice to have the illustrations so that you can see pictures of what they did. We are now going to look at the conversion accounts in the Book of Acts.

The Book of Acts is the Acts of the Apostles. It's the history of how the New Testament Church was established after Jesus went away; how the Apostles enacted the teachings of Jesus in everyday life. We are going to look now at four major accounts of conversion in the Bible.

Resources: The anointing of the Holy Spirit and God Almighty, of whom I am accountable to. I have prayed diligently and am led to follow and support the teachings of Pastor Irvin Baxter from Endtime Ministries and his teachings of Understanding the End Times. I encourage you to visit his website at endtime.com.