Rapture Fever

Foreword xv
Moreover, as we Christians spread the good news of Christ to
others and share the compassion and love of God to other> the
kingdom to come becomes the kingdom on thii earth. Heaven
gradually comes to earth, though certainly one day this will be so
in fullness and glory.5
What a tremendous opportunity a benefit! But what a tremendous
responsibility a cost!
costs
There can be no escape from making responsible ethical
decisions in this kingdom. Obviously, this transfer of ownership
from Old Covenant Israel could not skip to some future Jewish
society at least 1,960 years after Jesus announced it. He told
them that their kingdom would be removed from them and
given to someone else, not held in a kind of deep fi-eeze for two
millennia. It would be given to a rival nation that would bring
forth the fruits of the kingdom. So, we must abandon the fruits
of unrighteousness. Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus:
Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in
love, as Christ also bath loved us, and bath given himself for us
an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmell.ing savour.
But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not
be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither i3khiness,
nor foolish talklng, nor jesting, which are not convenience
but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger,
nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater,
bath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God
(Eph. 5:1-5).
There are laws governing this kingdom inheritance. We
must obey God through the empowering of the Holy Spirit. If
5. H. Wayne House, “Creation and Redemption: A Study of Khgdom Interplay”
The Joumul of the Evangelical Theo.!@al Socie~ (March 1992), p. 11.