This is a most vital subject. It concerns us all. There are two views. Let us look at both of them and distinguish between them. God will do two things:

1. He will give us power to conquer the world in our life through receiving the Gospel and,

2. He will enthrone His Son, Jesus Christ as King of Kings and cause His enemies to become His footstool.

For the first, God uses the Gospel, and for the other God abides His time and will use His Son at the Battle of Armageddon. Now let us consider the first. Many people are confused. We hear so much today about the church bringing in the Kingdom. This sounds good and gives a lot of prestige to the church, but it is utterly false.

After God created man lie rested. but not for long. It was soon after that man sinned and God has to begin His work of redemption. We know the story as found in Genesis three. Then we know how God could do one of three things:

1. Destroy man.

2. Take into communion with him a sinful creature.

3. Make a way back for the man.

God chose, because of His grace, to do the latter. Thus we find God in the Garden of Eden after man sinned, making a promise that was to shake the very foundations of hell, and cause Satan to become His worst enemy. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. 3:15).

That promise meant two things:

1. God was going to bring a Savior into the world for man. That Savior would be known as the "seed of the woman" and would suffer at the hands of the Devil and

2. God would see that the "seed of the woman" would sometime crush Satan and reign as King of Kings.

After making this promise God killed some animals and took their skins and clothed man, signifying by that, that He would cover man’s sin. Man had tried to cover his own and could not.

So in the Garden of Eden, God was making a way back for His creature. God has been opposed in His efforts to redeem man ever since the day man sinned. Adam and Eve were hounded. You remember how Abel was killed and then Seth was promised as the "seed" to take the place of Abel. Remember this: Those who believed that promise of Gen. 3:15 and looked to the coming of the Savior were saved by faith. No difference in their faith and ours. They looked to the Cross and we look to the Cross. All have been saved alike since God spoke His plan in Gen. 3:15. Nothing has been added to it, nothing has been taken from it.

Satan however tried to wreck the faith of those who looked to the coming of the Savior by trying to prevent the birth of Christ. He tried to kill off the "seed of the woman." God first worked through individuals to keep alive the promise and to keep it before the people in each succeeding generation. You see Seth bearing witness, but the devil trying to tear it down by intermarriage of saved and unsaved. Result: IMMORALITY. Result of that? FLOOD. Then came Noah and the promise passed on to Shem. But people still were unwilling to get away from magnifying the flesh and self, and tried to build a tower that would reach into heaven. God came down and confounded them and scattered them, and the nations we have today arc the result of that scattering: God saw that He must work through a race rather than an individual so He calls Abram. "Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto the land that I will show thee: and I will make of’ thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 12:1-3).

A new nation was born. A nation to be highly honored. But a nation is just as strong as the individuals that compose it. The spiritual strength of Israel was not much to brag about. There was constant trouble from time to time. It was called out as a nation to represent God’s chosen people until God had to turn away from it.

We could go on and on showing that Satan has ever been opposed to God conquering the souls of men. Look at the history of Israel and you see how Satan exerted his power. First upon the leaders, then upon the people. Look how he used the tool of jealousy to bring a whole nation into bondage, hoping to have it slaughtered and the seed of the woman destroyed. The eleven brothers of Joseph. Just eleven men that put them all as slaves down in Egypt. Then came Moses to lead them out. Then followed the Golden calf, tree worship, Baal, bowing down to the Queen of Heaven and listening to people rather than God. They were not satisfied with Samuel, so they demanded a King. They wanted a great big fellow who would make a good impression. Saul was chosen. He became rather corrupt and followed off after Spiritism, but got his full of it in one night. Then came David who did pretty well until the Devil got to dogging him. He sinned and so corrupted the people that they drove him off the throne in favor of his favorite son. Then came Solomon with his ideas. He listened to God for a while and God gave him wisdom. But his heart went off after other gods after he got too many heathen wives. The kingdom was divided and split into the north and south. Then they were scattered and led off into captivity. What a history!

Finally after nearly 4,000 years Jesus came. He fulfilled the promise that God had made in Eden. You know how He suffered at the hands of Satan and his crowd. Finally they took Him out early one morning and crucified Him! "And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, the place of a skull. And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not. And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take. And it was the third hour, and they crucified him" (Mark 15:22-25).

Before this we find Jesus teaching and preaching and healing the sick. He was telling the people that He was the Prophet that should come. He preached for three years and had a small group following Him after this tremendous effort. About 120. Not many. The people of God have never been in the majority but once, on Noah’s Ark. They will be again some day but not before Jesus comes again. God left His program for world conquest, which was now to include both Jews and Gentiles, free and bond, rich and poor in the hands of this little group of followers. They did not realize that the Gospel would be given to others beside Israel but they soon found it out. For God turned from Israel to the Gentiles when He saw they continued to reject Him and His Son.

Up to the death of Jesus on the cross, the people looked forward to His atonement, but now we look back to His atonement. The greater of the two faiths is that of the ones before His actual death, burial and resurrection. It is much easier to believe that God sent His only begotten Son, after reading it in the New Testament and after the great array of witnesses, than to believe that He would send His Son. Just as Jesus told Thomas, "Blessed are they that have not seen but have believed." We find this little hand full of followers being given their commission from the Lawgiver (Matthew 28:19,20).

Why did not the Jews accept Christ? They would had He proclaimed Himself as King. They wanted a physical restorer, not a spiritual restorer. They were similar to us today. They had sunk so low spiritually that they were blind as bats to their inner need. They should have known better. Our modernists today should know better also. The Jews had the Old Testament. God told them in His Word that He would raise first a Prophet like Moses. Then this Prophet would become a High Priest after the order of Melchidezek, and then this High Priest would some day become the King. Right here is where the modernist is getting all confused. He wants Christ to be the High Priest and at the same time a King, but a spiritual King. This is not taught in the Bible. Thus the modernist believes that the church will bring in the Kingdom. They must mean that the church will bring in a spiritual Kingdom and subdue all the evil influence and make of this earth a Utopia, and a great revival will break out that will spread around the world and all people will bow their knee to Christ, then He will come as the literal King. I can not figure it all out. They are getting people as confused today as the modernistic Jews had them in the days of Christ and before He came the first time.

People ought to know that Jesus would have to fulfill one office before He could take another. He was FIRST, the Prophet; SECOND, the High Priest, which He is NOW; THIRD, He will be the king.

You remember when God called out Abraham, He used a nation in which His love would be manifested. That nation did not appreciate His love and when Jesus came, that very nation nailed Him to the cross. So God turns now to the little group of people on Mt. Olivet and says, "I no longer can go only to the House of Israel but to all the world." Then we find Saul of Tarsus being called as a preacher to the Gentiles. Now here is what I want you to notice: We are now under the dispensation of grace and the Holy Spirit.

Under grace the preaching of the Gospel to people has been entrusted to His church that He built. Every born-again believer is obligated to carry that Gospel. But the church as a sacred trust to perform. He sent them back to Jerusalem to pray until they "be endued with power from on high," and then they were to go with that Gospel to all the world. What is that Gospel? Jesus was born of a virgin; He died without sin, but with our sins resting upon Him, and offered His blood as atonement for them; He was buried and after three days and three nights in the earth He came forth; He ascended into Heaven to become our High Priest, and someday He will come again as king. That is the full gospel. They were instructed to preach "repentance and remission of sins in His Name among all nations."

Thus God is today bringing about His conquest of the soul of man in order that through faith in His Son, man might be given power over sin in his life.

The only instrument they had with which to go forth and conquer the souls of men for God was the Word of God! That they used! They were not to use airplanes, tanks, guns, bombs, and material things. They were to conquer in His Name the works of the devil. This would not come through the church, nor through the ordinances of the church; nor through the law nor the sacrifices pertaining to the law. They were to conquer in THIS WAY ONLY, "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47).

In other words, God’s plan for world conquest by the Gospel is to rid the individual of sin. The only remedy for sin is the blood of Jesus. The only way to overthrow the forces of evil in the world is to first overthrow those same forces in the life of each individual.

We have gone at this thing backwards. We have tried to legislate evil out of the world. We think that all we have to do is make law, and evil is gone. Thus you will find your modernist today always in the political whirl, either a Psychoanalyst, or a Washington representative, or a leader in the World Council or National Council of Churches. Why? They are seeking to bring in the Kingdom. What Kingdom? I don’t know. Ask them, maybe they know. Do you want to rid the world of gamblers? Of whoremongers? Of street walkers? Of Bookies? Of liquor?

Let these preachers who are trying so hard to make the world a fit place in which to live start getting down to God’s business and making people fit to live in this dirty old world and a change will take place. If a dead man were to become alive and find himself in a coffin, he wouldn’t waste any time getting out of there. The same is true of a person who becomes alive to God. We don’t need all this Psycho stuff and Political gab—we need for people to hear again the old message of "repentance and remission of sins in his name among all nations."

The battle of proclaiming this program for the world conquest of men’s souls has been long, and after all these years, Christians are still in the minority. Many "isms" have sprung up with new doctrines. These "isms" have just enough of Jesus in them to make them enticing and just enough of the devil in them to appeal to the flesh. In other words the Devil has built his institutions right along as God has empowered His. The Devil would be a fool if he did not. We see today some 700 different groups of people. All with a different message. But amidst all this group we find one standing in the blood of their own martyrs, still proclaiming and still preaching, "repentance and remission of sins in his name among all nations."

Every orthodox Baptist church is sounding forth that message. But just as some Jews were orthodox and some were not, so it is today. Some are sound and some are unsound in the faith. But this is all the fulfillment of prophecy. I do not wish to spend my time showing how unsound they are but to show that we who still believe the Bible to be inspired, and who still believe that Jesus was born of a Virgin, that He died and was buried, that He arose again and will some day come back, must continue to fight and stand for the truth. We need as never before to "quit ourselves like men."

That Commission given 1900 years ago is to be carried to all the nations until Jesus comes again. Nothing is to be added to it, nothing taken from it. He is the Lawgiver—-we are the executors. So long as we keep this in mind we will continue to evangelize the world. This is what we are to do. God’s program for world conquest of the souls of men is through the Gospel. He entrusted to His church the proclaiming of that Gospel. What does that mean? That every born-again believer is obligated to carry that Gospel to the lost just as it is found in the Bible. When people quit analyzing the Bible and trying to psychoanalyze those who belong to Christ as though they were a crowd headed for the bug house; when they quit putting in our schools men and women who question the Bible and who know more about it than the Author Himself, and get back to preaching as did the early preacher, preaching Jesus and Jesus only and His return, then, we will see people turning to Jesus!

The church does not bring in the Kingdom, but the church causes the Kingdom of God to become visible to the lost through the new birth, which can come only by repentance toward God and faith in Jesus. When we are born again God enthrones Himself in our hearts as Lord. We cannot reach lost souls with moving pictures or racy discussion of current events. Neither can we reach them by using things that appeal to their flesh or by enticing them into the house of God on pretense of a social and then corner them. We cannot reach them by conferences or athletics. No, we don’t win men and women, boys and girls to Jesus by these methods. God gave us THE method. "Preach repentance and remission of sins in his name." When we do this people will come to God’s house. People are dying today for the simple old time Gospel that they are not getting.

When God conquers the world through Jesus becoming King of Kings! God will not use the Gospel to do this. The church will not be present when this takes place. When Jesus is set up as King of Kings it will be by His own power. Just as He needs no one to help Him save a poor lost sinner, neither does He need anyone to help Him bring in His Kingdom.

We are told that Jesus will come in the air and take His born-again believers out of the earth. This is when the church will go, and the Lord’s Table and Baptism will vanish. The redeemed will be up in the air with Him. On the earth their will be tribulation such as the world has never seen before nor ever will again.

Israel will be restored to the land of Palestine. The Anti-christ will arise out of these Western nations which shall compose the revived Roman Empire. As the Tribulation moves to a close Russia will have taken the land of Palestine. The Jews will have been deceived into signing the agreement with the Anti-christ. The sun will be darkened, the moon will become as blood and the nations of the world will be gathered around Jerusalem. Then there will come a thunderous sound and the heavens will open. Then we see this:

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. (Rev. 19:11-18)

This is when God brings His Kingdom upon earth and sets His Son Jesus on the throne as king. Then we will have a thousand years of peace on earth. After this reign of peace we will see take place the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15.

Listen to Rev. 20:7-10:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.

So we see that today we are to proclaim the message of the cross and the blood of Jesus. We are to help God conquer the soul’s of men through preaching Jesus. God’s program for bringing in the Kingdom is His own. He Himself will bring it about. The big question is, "Are we as Baptists helping God in the program for the conquest of men’s souls? Are we winning the lost? Are we burdened?" If we are to be true to Him and His commission we must! May God help us go out into the whole world with the Gospel of Jesus, and bring men to Christ so when God sets up His Kingdom on earth, they along with us shall reign with Him. If we do not proclaim Christ to those we contact daily, then we have not been true to Christ and we have done them an injustice. I have eternal life for them in the Name of Jesus. May God help us to see that they are offered, and told how to receive that eternal life. What they do about accepting it is not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to see that they hear the message from us; to see that the church to which I belong shall proclaim the full gospel as found in Jesus Christ.