A Deathless Kingdom

Scripture References: Isaiah 62:2; Matthew 16:18

Before falling into disuse and disrepair, the church along route 22, constructed in 1794, had hosted up to five hundred worshipers each Sunday. When citizens of the community learned that a nearby factory intended to buy the property, raze the building, and pave the land with asphalt, they intervened. They raised funds, cleared the cemetery grounds, overhauled the structure, and saved the building as a historical landmark. Readers Digest ran a story about it called “The Church That Would Not Die.”

In the years when mercy died and cruelty lived, congregations of men assembled along the banks of the River Kwai. Those emaciated, threadbare prisoners called themselves a church—a church whose single requirement for membership was faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. This was God’s kingdom, Ernest Gordon wrote, a spiritual fellowship that expressed Christ’s love. The physical temple was absent, with most of the accouterments we think of as the church, but the fellowship of God’s people survived and thrived.

Which is the church, the kingdom of God? That colonial building along route 22, or the men of the death camps? Which can exist without the other? Which one goes on and thrives in all changes, in even the most dangerous places, without human intervention or sustenance? Which is the militant kingdom of God, spiritually warring against all of Satan’s strongholds? Which is, simultaneously and forever, the church devoted to God’s purpose and at rest in God’s love?

Courtesy of Speaker’s Sourcebook of New Illustrations by Virgil Hurley © 1995 by Word, Incorporated.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV © 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®
Used by permission. All rights reserved.