Not long after the establishment of the New Covenant Church a heated controversy erupted over the message church ministers should preach and teach. Some in the church wanted the focus of the ministry to be on the person of Jesus Christ. These parishioners wanted the gospel (good news) to be about the Lord Himself. They wanted salvation to consist of accepting Jesus as one’s Savior. Others contended that ministers must focus their message on the subject Jesus Himself preached and instructed His apostles to preach–the Kingdom of God and how to enter it. The conflict caused the church to work against itself for quite some time. And more importantly, it caused some of her parishioners to work against God. But Satan would not allow this condition to exist for long. As he had done to the Church of Eden, he was determined to do to the Church of God. He knew that if he could eliminate Christ’s message he could eliminate His power in the lives of the people. Using his past success as his model, he would destroy the Church of God by attacking her doctrine. His strategy was designed to bring about her apostasy. As was the case in the Garden of Eden, he has been ultimately successful. To this day only a tiny remnant of the New Covenant Church remains alive and active on the world’s religious scene. God’s “little flock” (Lk. 12:32) is so minute that most of the world’s religious people are not aware of its existence. It is important that God-seekers know the difference between God’s tiny flock numbering in the thousands world-wide and Satan’s enormous flock numbering some two billion. As the following will show, false doctrine is the weapon of mass destruction Satan continues to utilize today. The two-message controversy continues to divide professing Christendom. To fully understand the controversy one must understand what each message entails. Let us begin with the doctrine Jesus and His messengers preached–the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

The first mention of New Testament ministry is found in Matthew 3:1-12. Verse one picks up approximately 30 years after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Here we find His cousin John preaching in the wilderness of Judea, telling the Jews to “… repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven (God’s church) is at hand (soon to arise).” Verse two tells us that this rough-clad, blunt-speaking man was God’s messenger who had been introduced to the world many years earlier by the Prophet Isaiah. Speaking under the power of the Holy Spirit, Isaiah looked far into the future and identified John as “… the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.'” Having been convicted of their sins, many Jews, including a contingent of Pharisees, had come to where John was preaching to be baptized by him. In verse eight he informed them that baptism (removal of past sins) was merely the first step in their spiritual journey, that, following baptism, they must bring forth the quality of fruit (obedience to God) that would prove that they had truly repented of their sins. In verse eleven John warned those who failed to bring forth such fruit that they would be killed and burned. In the next verse he told true God-seekers that while they were producing the required fruit the Lord would baptize them with fire–they would experience trials, tests and persecutions (see 2 Cor. 11:23-30) designed to prove their allegiance to Him. Only those who endured those tests, trials and persecutions to the end (of life or Christ’s return) with their righteousness intact would inherit salvation (Mat. 10:22). John was telling the people that being baptized by him was not Christian baptism (see John’s Baptism) and had little to do with salvation. Read Acts18:25 and 19:3-5. Following baptism they would be required to be baptized (filled) with the Holy Spirit. They would then live the rest of their lives in strict obedience to the Word of God. Those who did so would enter the Kingdom of God that would be established at the end of the age. See the Kingdom of God. To be continued. L.J.