Two Kingdoms

The War for Your Allegiance Has Already Begun

Citizens of Two Worlds

Every day, you're pulled in two directions - one voice telling you to fit in, keep up, and go along with what the culture demands, and another calling you to stand apart, no matter the cost. Scripture doesn't leave this vague. Jesus said you cannot serve two masters, and James put it even sharper: friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). So which kingdom are you really living for?

We opened this conversation in prayer, because this isn't first a policy debate - it's a matter of citizenship. We are citizens of heaven living on earth, and the world pulls on us from every angle. That prayer leaned on Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the LORD Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth (Psalm 47:1-2). The question the Holy Spirit kept bringing back up through this whole discussion was simple: do we actually believe that?

Joining this conversation from the Philippines were Luke, Pastor June Malazo, and Pastor Ricky Victoria - three ministers who've been sounding this same alarm on their side of the world and watching, with real concern, how it plays out on ours.

No One Serves Two Masters

Jesus was direct about it in No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). Pastor Ricky Victoria put the modern version of that choice as bluntly as Scripture does: "There is no neutral. When you choose Christ, you already took sides - the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. There's no in between... Neutrality is not godly. Neutrality is demonic."

Luke tied that same warning to I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm... I will vomit you out of My mouth (Revelation 3:15-16), noting that Jesus doesn't just rebuke a lukewarm faith - He calls His people to live "on fire for Him, worthy of Him." A lot of people, he said, are treating God's word like a hobby instead of their manual for life.

The Age of Cultural Accommodation

Pastor June Malazo pointed to Paul's warning to Timothy as a description of exactly what's happening now, not just in the culture but inside the church: For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables (2 Timothy 4:3-4). He called this "cultural accommodation" - the church adjusting to the culture instead of confronting it, and he called it a pressing issue for every minister right now.

Pastor Ricky Victoria traced the same problem to a simpler root: a lack of knowledge of God's word. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6), he quoted, adding that too many believers treat Scripture as light reading rather than a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (Psalm 119:105). His term for it was sharp: people have become "religious practitioners," not citizens of the kingdom of God.

Living by the Word, Not by Opinion

Luke pressed the point that this isn't abstract - it shows up in how Christians argue about real issues. He raised the American church's debate over open borders and pointed to He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings (Acts 17:26) as evidence that God Himself established the boundaries of nations - meaning this, too, is a question Scripture actually answers, not one left to opinion.

He applied the same standard to marriage, pointing back to For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24) as God's own definition, set from the beginning. The through-line from both examples was the same: when the church answers the issues of life with people's opinions instead of God's word, it forfeits its authority over the very things it's trying to address.

Grace and Truth, Not Cuddling Sin

The conversation turned to how believers are meant to engage people living out the culture's competing vision for sexuality and identity. Pastor June Malazo turned to Jude's instruction: And have compassion on some, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh (Jude 22-23). He described believers as something like firefighters - not only resisting the fire itself, but actively pulling people out of it, urgently and with mercy, while refusing to compromise the stand itself.

Luke and Pastor Ricky Victoria were careful to draw a distinction here that they wanted stated plainly: "We are not against these people... we are against the culture." Their point was that people are loved by God and worth pursuing toward Him, while the cultural narrative shaping their choices is what Scripture calls believers to resist. As Pastor Ricky put it, "the real answer for this problem is that they do not know the kingdom, and they can only know the kingdom by its gospel... the gospel has no neutrality."

Advancing the Kingdom

This wasn't framed as a call to just withdraw from culture, but to actively advance something better in its place. Pastor Ricky Victoria pointed to how Jesus began His own ministry - not by first addressing people's felt needs, but by introducing an entirely different kingdom, telling Nicodemus, Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God... unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3,5).

From there, the Great Commission becomes the assignment: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20). Pastor Ricky summarized the logic simply: "You cannot change the evil culture unless you replace it with God's culture. And God's culture is coming from God's word." That kingdom, per the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17), is what Jesus told His followers to seek first in seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you (Matthew 6:33) - not as a slogan, but as the actual priority that reorders everything else.

America's Assignment

Dave asked the Filipino pastors directly how this fight looks from the outside, watching America in particular. Pastor June Malazo's answer was pointed: America has been given more freedom and platform than almost any nation, and "to whom much is given, much is required" (echoing For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required (Luke 12:48)). He described the United States as having the opportunity to model to the rest of the world what it looks like to be a nation under God, tracing that back to a founding built on the Scriptures - and warned that whatever direction America takes, the rest of the free world tends to follow.

Pastor Ricky Victoria drew a contrast that was meant to be instructive rather than complimentary: he pointed to how organized and strategic radical Islamist movements have been in pursuing dominion across family, community, marketplace, education, and politics, and warned that when the church chooses neutrality instead of engaging with the same intentionality for the kingdom of God, it doesn't create a vacuum - it surrenders that ground to the kingdom of darkness.

The prescription both pastors kept returning to was if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14) - and the reminder, quoting author Bill Wiese, that "the members of the body of Christ would honor one another and work together to fulfill the great commission... the consequence of not doing so is eternal hell for those who are not reached."

Walking in the Light

Pastor June Malazo closed the theological ground of the conversation with God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another (1 John 1:5-7). His warning was direct: "God will find you out whom you are really serving. You cannot serve two masters. You can only serve one, and that is God."

Choose Your Kingdom This Week

Here's the challenge underneath everything Pastor Ricky, Pastor June, and Luke laid out: you can't overcome in the culture what you haven't first overcome in your own life. Before God's word can flow through you, it has to be working in you.

So don't leave this as a scripture recap. Pick one specific area this week - one decision, one relationship, one habit - where you've actually been serving two masters instead of one. Name it honestly before God. Bring if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14) down to that one thing, and let it actually change this week - not someday.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version (NKJV).