A kingdom divided against itself, Jesus says, will not stand. Dr. Tony Evans talking about the importance of an unwavering purpose within the church. That's why we need today Christians who are willing to take a kingdom stand for biblical unity. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Although it may sound cliche, each one of us is truly unique with our own talents, ideas, and personality. In today's message, Dr. Evans reveals that in spite of those individual differences, remarkable things happen in God's kingdom when believers embrace harmony and come together with a unified purpose.
Let's listen in as he talks about how to make that happen. Jesus speaks in chapter 12 about a kingdom divided. When I wrote my book on race, Oneness Embraced to try to address the racial issue, just one of many issues of division that we face in our culture, I tried to bring about a theological understanding of our historical cultural reality. Our culture is devolving and erupting into chaos, and you will find and discover division and divisiveness in every dimension of society. The racial division has plagued us from the inception of the nation. The class division between rich and poor, whether economic disparity or unfairness, lack of equality, access, or opportunity, bringing about this division as to how this problem is to be solved from those who are down and out, even to those who are up and out, from homelessness to social inequity. You look at the amount of divorce that is occurring today, where the conflict in the home, for whatever the reasons, are leading to the dissolving of relationships, not only with husbands and wives, but parents and children, and the divisions just keep raging. But we must understand, first of all, the theology of how this works, because the spiritual is supposed to inform the physical, social, political, and economic.
It is supposed to be the root place you go to understand the fruit that you bear. Jesus said a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. He says a city divided itself cannot stand. He said a home divided against itself cannot stand, if there is a divide.
Now, you have to understand why this is the case. There is one God composed of three co-equal persons, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We call it the Trinity. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, but they all make up the one Godhead.
As you've heard me say, like a pretzel with three holes, the first hole is not the second hole, the second hole is not the third hole, but they all tie together by the same dough. Divine nature, they all bear the attributes of deity. One God in perfect unison, and because God is a unified being, He can only function in the way He would prefer to function in a unified environment, because that is who He is by nature. So if you were the devil and you knew that God does His preferred work in a unified environment, what would be your strategy to disunify the environment? Because he knows that if he can disunify the environment, he can keep God at bay. That's why 1 Peter 3 verse 7 says, it says that if the husband and wife are not getting along, the husband's prayers are not going to be heard, because disunity. Conversely, 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 5 says, if the husband and wife come together in agreement, they will be able to touch heaven, because God's presence is manifested in the context of unity. So destabilizing homes or even a nation, he keeps stuff stirred up.
Why? Because he has a kingdom. It talks about his kingdom in this verse. It says his kingdom, talking about Satan. So we're not just talking about one kingdom, we're talking about another kingdom.
There are two kingdoms that are in conflict. Now, what is important to Satan is to keep his kingdom unified while disturbing God's kingdom. What was in the context of this passage is Jesus was casting out demons, and they were saying the way he's casting out demons is by Beelzebub. In other words, Satan is the power behind Jesus casting out demons. Jesus said that makes no sense at all. He says Satan is not going to be casting out Satan. Satan is not going to work against his own programs, because a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand and Satan wants his kingdom to stand. That's why he unifies his anti-God sentiment. So he tries to or seeks to maintain kingdom. That's how, by the way, marriage got redefined.
It got redefined by a unified effort in the culture to redefine the institution, the divine institution of marriage. So he unifies against God. He divides the people of God in order to keep God from manifesting his influence in the world as he prefers.
You say, now how would Satan get such power to do that? Well, again, we must start with theology, not anthropology. We must start with a God's point of view, not a man-centered point of view.
When God created the earth, the Bible says in Psalm 115, verse 16, the heavens belong to God, but the earth he's given to men. So what God did was he actually leased the earth to humanity and says, I will give you the freedom to choose for me or against me, and I will let you make a choice. I'm not going to force you to choose me, but you need to know if you don't choose me, you don't have me. You don't have to choose me, but the repercussions is that I stay back and you bear the ramifications of the abandonment of God. He gave that choice to Adam and Eve in the garden. He gives that choice to individuals, families, churches, and governments today.
You can choose with me, you can choose without me, but don't count on me if you leave me. In fact, the scripture says we can limit God. Now we don't limit God by power, we limit God by choice. So Satan's goal is to bring about division. His goal is to bring about this fissure in our lives and our conscience. In fact, one of the biggest things Satan wants to do is to get you to divide with you. Because if you can't get along with you, everybody else is in trouble. So what does he do? He creates an identity crisis.
So you don't even know who you are. So if he can divide you against you and you can't get along with you, everybody living with you is going to be miserable. Because it starts theologically and spiritually. It works itself out familiarly and culturally and economically and socially and racially. Let's make sure we understand what unity is because he's talking about a kingdom divided.
A kingdom is a jurisdiction, a sphere of rule. Biblical unity is not uniformity. Biblical unity is uniqueness headed in the same direction. Biblical unity is not everything or everybody being the same. Biblical unity is the differences are still headed toward the same goal. On a football field, you've got 11 different players playing 11 different positions with different backgrounds, different histories, but there's only one goal line because all of those uniquenesses are headed toward that one destiny. What Satan gets us to do is he makes us so focused on our differences that we don't even see the goal.
You take, for example, the racial issues. People say, well, I'm colorblind. Well, you're doing something God don't even do. God is not colorblind. John says in heaven, Revelation 5, 9, Revelation 7, 9, he says in heaven, I saw people from every nation, every tribe, every kindred, every tongue. So whatever race you are now will be the race you are in heaven.
So stop trying to change it. God is not colorblind. He's just not blinded by color. He doesn't allow it to make the final decision or to be the ultimate determiner. But what we're doing is we're running around here like we're deifying color rather than understanding it's supposed to be operating under the authority of God's kingdom.
That's the problem. It's color without a kingdom, and it leads to a chaos. You can replicate that all around, and Satan's job is to bring about a division in God's kingdom, and a kingdom divided against itself, Jesus says, will not stand. Dr. Evans will have more to say on the importance of unity when we return to him in just a moment. First though, I want to let you know that today's message is part of a powerful series of lessons Tony presented earlier this year called Unleashing the Kingdom. This is the first time we've brought these 12 messages in this sermon series to our listeners here at the Alternative Broadcast, and we're excited to make them available to you now. In this collection, Dr. Evans takes you deep into Scripture to help you recognize that the kingdom of God is relevant and real.
It's here and now, and it's waiting for you to access all it has to offer when you live life as it ought to be lived. You can receive the 12 full-length messages in this two-volume collection on either CD or digital download when you make a donation toward keeping this Bible-based teaching here on this station. We rely completely on the generous support of listeners like you to allow us to carry these messages to a world desperately in need of God. And as our way of thanking you for that support, we'll send you the Unleashing the Kingdom audio series, along with an added bonus, One Kingdom Under God, a powerful paperback Dr. Evans has written that embodies the central theme of these messages. All the details are waiting for you at toneyevans.org, or you can call our resource center any time of the day or night at 1-800-800-3222.
That's toneyevans.org, or by phone at 1-800-800-3222. Well, Dr. Evans, we'll come back with more of today's lesson right after this. In a world shrouded by fear, prophecy seeks to make sense of it all. Dr. Tony Evans' latest book, Thy Kingdom Come, reveals the secrets to deliver us through dark times. Now is the time to gain clarity in the midst of confusion. Be prepared for what's to come by picking up your copy of Thy Kingdom Come at toneyevans.org. It comes with a bonus sermon series, Staying Right with God.
Arm yourself against the impending storm. All through the Bible, God has had to deal with this disunity to get His people back in track so that He could come down and do something with them. There was an interracial marriage in Numbers chapter 12, verses 1 to 14. It's an interracial marriage. Moses marries a woman of African descent. Moses marries Zipporah. He marries a black woman, and Miriam and Aaron get all upset about this interracial marriage. So God has to come down and turn Miriam white. It says He turned her white as snow in leprosy, and He judged her because she was making a racial decision that was not consistent with a kingdom worldview.
And He judged her on the spot. When Peter in Galatians chapter 2, verses 11 and following, Peter is eating with the Gentiles, but when his Jewish brother shows up, he didn't want to— his Jewish brothers wanted to know why our pastor is eating with them. Because the mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew, so when the preacher is off, the congregation going to be messed up. So they came to say, Peter, why you eating with them? We going to eat with them in heaven.
We don't have to mess with them on earth. I know why Peter was eating with them because he found out them Gentiles knew how to cook. So he was over there eating with them, chitlins, hog moths, and neck bones.
He's all, eating with them. So Pastor Peter leaves, goes with the Gentiles. Paul shows up, said, Peter, what are you doing? He says, you are not acting in concert with the truth of the gospel. You've embarrassed Christ with that action because you've made an earthly social decision void of the truth of Jesus Christ. And you're splitting up the kingdom of God. God called a whole meeting in Acts chapter 15 of all of his leaders and he said, let's get this straight. Jews don't have to become Gentiles.
Gentiles don't have to become Jews, but you all have to be Christian. What Satan is doing is he's trying or seeking and has successfully disrupted a kingdom and we wonder why the church is not standing. The church is not standing because it has not pursued kingdom unity. And the reason why it's important, Psalm 133 verses one to three, the Lord says, how blessed it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.
And then he comes at the end of it. He says, and from that space of unity, God will command a blessing. That is the only place in the Bible that I am aware of where blessings are commanded, but God will only command a blessing if he sees you functioning in unity. So he wants to create disunity in the family, disunity in the church, disunity in the culture, so that no blessing gets commanded. No matter how many church services you go to, no matter how many prayer meetings you have, if he sees there's illegitimate division, you have uninvited him to the party. So this issue of unity, Jesus says, is a theological issue. And why wouldn't it be since he says Satan has a kingdom? He says in his kingdom, he promotes. His kingdom, he drives in unity. Jesus put it this way in John chapter 17, verses 22 to 24. He says, God, make them one and make them unify.
And then he says, why? So that they will see my glory so that I can show up. With glory is God showing up and showing off.
Glory is when God displays himself. He says, I want to display myself, but I can't display myself unless they become one, unless they become biblically unified, oneness of purpose. And so when you look at what is happening in our divisiveness today, you have to understand it's theological and spiritual, not for social and cultural and political and racial. Those are just the fruit of a bad root that doesn't start with a bibliocentric, theocentric, crystallocentric worldview. That is a view that does not start with God's kingdom values. And as a result of that, disharmony, disunity, conflict is everywhere. It does not matter who you elect.
It don't matter who you elect. Look, when the Church of Jesus Christ abandons biblical unity, when the Church of Jesus Christ, whatever category it is, abandons a biblical standard, a kingdom focus, then it becomes like the anthill on my grass, fire ants, unified servant and queen, fire ants, unified servant and king, got all these anthills eating up my kingdom grass, because they're building a foreign kingdom on my lawn. And what Satan wants to do is build a foreign kingdom in your home, build a foreign kingdom in the church, and certainly build a foreign kingdom in the culture. And he wants Christians to take cultural sides to help things not stand.
That's why we need today Christians are willing to take a bibliocentric kingdom stand for biblical unity without losing personal uniqueness. And so, Jesus says, but I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God, verse 28, has come upon you. How do you know when the kingdom is clicking, when the kingdom is working, when the jurisdiction of heaven is entering history? He says, because then you will see the Spirit work addressing the illegitimate spiritual attacks. He calls the illegitimate spiritual attacks demons. Demons are Satan's posse. Demons are errant angels.
They are the ones who follow Satan's command and they follow it to the key. And whether you like it or not, he has assigned one to you. You are on assignment to bring division in your life, division in your sphere of influence, and he is going to use whatever he knows based on his game film, Study of Your Life, that will work to bring about a division to thwart the kingdom of God. He says, but you, when you do not allow God's kingdom to divide you, you then are qualified to see the Spirit of God drive demons out. Because a lot of this stuff we're dealing with that we call personality are personalities under demon-monic control. A lot of this racial, social, political divide are demons influencing it. Your major problem with the devil and his divisiveness is between your ears. That's where it is. You know, the devil made me do it about that.
No, no, no, no. When Satan came against Eve and Adam, he didn't come as a lion, a bear, a tiger. He didn't overpower them. He got them to think differently. And once he got them to think differently, once he got to their minds, they functioned differently. So there was now a division in the relationship, a division between siblings, because Cain kills Abel, so you got all this division taking place because he got into their heads. So your spiritual battle is between your two ears. My spiritual battle is between my two ears. Our collective spiritual battle is between our two ears. That's why the Bible calls for the transformation of the mind.
Now, I know everybody uses that. We need to transform our minds, and they be talking a while. So when the Bible says transform your mind, it's talking about learning to think biblically, learning to think kingdom-wise, learning to think Christocentrically. It's talking about a spiritually informed way of thinking, a politically-centered way of thought, because Satan's power is when he gets to your mind, because whatever controls the mind will guide the feet. So you will know when the Spirit of God comes, because when the Spirit of God comes, He says, the demonic gets overrun. A powerful message today, encouraging believers to embrace a unified purpose within God's kingdom.
And we'll hear a final word from Dr. Evans in just a moment. But first, if you'd like to get the complete full-length version of today's message, it can be yours as a part of our current teaching series, Unleashing the Kingdom. As I mentioned earlier, we're offering all twelve messages in this powerful collection, digitally or on CD, paired with Tony's empowering paperback, One Kingdom Under God.
They're both yours as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution to support the ministry of the alternative broadcast. Contact us at TonyEvans.org to get the details and make the arrangements. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. Or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help you.
That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, once again, here's Dr. Evans with a final word for today. The greatest need in all of our lives is for the forgiveness of sins.
And there's only one person who can do that. That's Jesus Christ. That's why He died on the cross and rose from the dead, and He offers forgiveness of sins. If you're carrying guilt for what you've done, fear for what you've done, Jesus Christ is right here, right now. If you go to Him, confess your sinfulness to Him, and trust Him to forgive you, He will do it on the spot and also grant you eternal life. If you're ready to accept that offer of salvation and forgiveness, take the time to visit TonyEvans.org and click on the link at the top of the homepage that simply says Jesus. Tony has some information there about becoming a follower of Christ, as well as some free resources to help in your journey. Well, tomorrow, more from Dr. Evans on how believers can avoid being drawn into the division and disagreement the culture pushes on us. I hope you'll tune in for that.
