Studies In The Kingdom Of God

Vol 2: Chap 8: Taking The Kingdom Of God To Earth's 7 Cultural Kingdoms

"Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, "Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!"" Psalm 2:1-3 (emphasis mine)

"Then the seventh angel sounded and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.'" Revelation 11:15 (emphasis mine)

In 1975, Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With A Mission each had an encounter with God and, later, had an encounter with each other that they would never forget. These encounters would impact the entire Body of Christ and set in motion a mandate and a direction for reaching the leaders and peoples of the earth with the Kingdom of God, in all areas of life and culture.

Lance Wallnau, who, later, had a direct conversation with Loren Cunningham about his encounter with Bill Bright, describes their conversation this way:

"My first encounter with the revelation of the seven mountains of culture goes back to a conversation I had with Loren Cunningham in the year 2000. Loren is the esteemed founder of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), a global missionary organization with an emphasis on enlisting young people in the call to serve Jesus. He shared how, in 1975, he was praying about how to turn the world around for Jesus and saw seven areas. He said, "I saw that we were to focus on these categories to turn around nations to God. I wrote them down and stuck the paper in my pocket." This was his list:

1. Church

2. Family

3. Education

4. Government and law

5. Media (television, radio, newspaper, Internet)

6. Arts, entertainment, sports

7. Commerce, science, and technology

The day after this revelation, he had a divine appointment. As he put it, "I met with a dear brother, Dr. Bill Bright, leader of Campus Crusade for Christ. He shared with me how God had given him a message, and he felt he needed to share it with me. God had identified areas to concentrate on to turn the nations back to Him! They were the same areas with different wording. Bill was stunned when I took the same notes out of my pocket and showed them to him."

It was later discovered that during this same period of time, Francis Schaeffer, a Presbyterian pastor and founder of the L'Abri Christian community in Switzerland, received a similar message of these seven cultural categories.

Three prominent, influential and visionary leaders in the Body of Christ receiving the same message from God at the same point in time.......coincidence? Two of the three men are leaders and visionaries of worldwide youth movements and the other is a leader and visionary of Christian community.......coincidence? I don't think so. God gave these three men a prophetic message with a mandate and direction for the Body of Christ, to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God throughout the world, in all the cultural kingdoms of the world, as a witness.

These seven "cultural kingdoms" of this world have existed with us and have been an ever-present reality among us, in one form or another, since the early days of humanity. Their powerful influences have shaped us and their grasp on even the most routine areas of our lives have established them as fundamental to our existence.