Building the Church is the first stage in building the Kingdom of God

      Anyone who is an observer of things would certainly tell that we are definitely coming close to the end of the ages. There is an unprecedented battle that is underway for the souls of nations.

    In the UK, we have seen the move of an aggressive secularism that wants to take the worship of God out of public life. We have seen our leaders embarrassed and forced to resign simply because of their faith. We have seen and see an attempt by another faith to wrest control of the nation, to seize the soul of the nation. We have seen churches closed: on the last account 500 churches in and around London closed and 480 mosques were planted in their stead. We have seen laws that are so ungodly passed. Policies that we know are so ungodly passed. It is impossible to imagine that such things can happen. We are now dealing with the issue of genders and transgenders. It’s being taken out of a lot of our literature the reference to male and female, because it is assumed that there is some middle ground that is neither male nor female. And that is official. Things are dark in the UK.

         But then, I wouldn’t say it’s any different from here. It might not be the same expression, but when we look round at the state of things here in Nigeria, we see the rabid corruption. We see the blatant use of the government’s machinery in some places to advance the agenda of one faith over another.  We read about how our curriculum for our children has been hijacked so that any reference to the deity of Christ has been removed. We look around at some parts of the Church and we marvel that this is the Church of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We hear about the killing that is taking place in some parts of the country. The persecution of Christians. The kidnapping of young girls and them being forced to convert to other faith.

        And I can go on and on and on, but you get the picture. What I’m trying to say is that it’s no different here.  It’s no different in the Middle East.  It’s no different in North America. It is no different in South America.  It is clear that the kingdom of darkness is marching on and has an agenda, and the agenda is to push back the Church, and to seize the high ground.

        How did we find ourselves in this state? We find ourselves in this place because while men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares. We ended up here because we played Church. We became politicians of an ecclesiastical nature. We specialized and majored in pettiness and distractions.  We built empires, we said we were building churches. And maybe we did, but we didn’t understand that to build a church is the first stage in building the Kingdom of God.

    If we stay in our churches and clap hands, and sing songs, the enemy will arrive at the door of our churches.  The whole essence of Church is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.  The work of the ministry is not just the pulpit. Of course the Pastor can be President. A Pastor can be President of the Senate. Why shouldn’t ministers be heads of banks? Of course, they can!     Agu  Irukwu