The Kingdom of God, Student Workbook, SW02

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T H E K I N G D O M O F G O D

God’s Reign Challenged

Welcome in the strong name of Jesus Christ! After your reading, study, discussion, and application of the materials in this lesson, you will be able to: • Describe how God as Lord, reigns over all, but that his reign was challenged through satanic rebellion in the heavenlies, and through the voluntary rebellion and disobedience of the first human pair on earth. • Demonstrate how this challenge resulted in the curse upon creation, leading to death, and the greatest of all human tragedies, called by the Church, “the Fall.” • How this disobedience by Satan and the first human pair has produced tragic and corrupting results in three spheres of personage and existence: kosmos (the world), sarx (fleshliness of human nature), and kakos (ongoing influence and chaos of the evil one). Read Psalm 2.1-12 . Does God laugh? In one of the most amazing texts in Holy Scripture, we read here of the nation’s desire to oppose the reign of the Lord and his Anointed One. In response to this futile attempt of the nations to break away from God’s kingdom rule, the psalmist suggests that the Lord will laugh at their puny, little efforts to resist his rule. As a matter of fact, the Lord affirms that he has set his King upon Zion, his holy mountain, and that his Son will reign unopposed as Lord of all. The Lord’s Anointed will possess the nations to the ends of the earth, and shall shatter those resistant nations like jars of clay. The psalmist ends this grand vision with a plea to the kings of the earth to be discerning and take warning. They ought to worship the LORD, as King over all, and do right homage to the Son by kissing his feet, lest his wrath and anger are unleashed as they are consumed in his fierce wrath. Let’s agree wholeheartedly with the psalmist in verse 12: “Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2.12). • Recite from memory a passage relating to the challenge of God’s reign. The Reign of the LORD’s Anointed

Lesson Objectives

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Devotion