Cross View Blog

 

Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you a king? Who are you?" Pilate was a shrewd political pragmatist, attentive to raw power in the kingdom of Caesar. He understood what it took to gain and maintain authority in the world.

"Behold, the man!" Pilate announced to the angry crowd, but he did not know the man he condemned.  He knew that Rome would not be pleased with more unrest in his province. To the Governor, Jesus was nothing more than a delusional dreamer, just another troublemaker who came to stir up the masses and make it more difficult to maintain Roman rule and power.

Pilate had no understanding that he himself was being used in the divine drama of the salvation. In fact, Jesus had to remind Pilate that he would have no authority had he not been given that authority by Caesar and by God Himself.

Similarly today, people who deny the existence of spiritual beings are blissfully ignorant of the existence of The Two Kingdoms. They react to what is in front of their faces and what they see in the news, but they have no clue of the bigger and deeper reality that lies behind immediate events. They are like infants constantly distracted by shiny objects in front of them.

We get a clue about spiritual beings from the Apostle Paul:

Behind the forces of evil in this world, stand demonic forces which infiltrate and seek to destroy the kingdom of God. Our real enemy is not the actors we see on the surface (criminals, tyrants, unjust systems, racism, plagues, wars, ignorance, etc.), but our real enemy is the dark spiritual forces that use these events to rob, destroy, and defeat God's kingdom on this earth.

Criminals, liars, deceivers, and wicked people may have no idea they are being used as pawns in the conflict of the kingdoms. They see themselves as players, yet they are being played in a much bigger struggle than they imagine. They are minor actors in the larger conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.

These pernicious forces use capitalism and socialism, conservatives and liberals, rich and poor, intellectuals and simple people, democracies and autocracies, spiritual and secular,  scientific and unscientific alike. Like the virus, these forces cross all human boundaries and eras. They are forever pandemic and forever universal.

To gain a proper perspective on the conflict of the kingdoms, we must realize that ultimately the enemy is deep within us. Within each of us is the power of sin that can pervert our sense of justice and distort our sense of good and evil. The gods we worship reflect our own broken images.

Within all of us is the potential for evil and destruction whether it is by our tongues or by our hands. In short, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All we like sheep have gone astray, each in his own way."  The cloud of infected includes saints and sinners, the good and the bad. There are no exceptions. We have all been tested and found wanting.

 Were it not for the mercy and grace of God in Christ, we would forever be lost in the divine battle for our souls. Yet, in the wisdom of the Almighty, One was appointed to defeat the unseen enemy. Miraculously, He defeated the enemy and death itself by his stunning resurrection and ascension to the right hand of His Father.

Therefore, we put on the full armor of God and stand our ground against the seen and unseen assaults - within and without- that face us day by day.

We know that the conflict between the kingdoms has already been resolved by His grace, and we shall fully inherit the Kingdom prepared for us when our time on this earth is over.

Few knew spiritual conflict better than Martin Luther (1483-1546) who all his life battled forces within and around him. Notice both his sensitivity to these forces and his adamant faith in the third stanza of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."

That little word is "Jesus."

Paul Emmel
Minneapolis
The Last Sunday of Easter 2020
and
The Sunday after the Ascension

Paul Emmel is a retired pastor in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, having served as a parish pastor, a correctional chaplain for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, and a hospital chaplain and a community counselor. As a retired pastor, Paul continues to serve the Lord and His people, including establishing the Minnesota South District’s “Pastors to Prisoners” ministry.