God's Kingdom
No desire has been more eagerly expressed; no
wish has been more sincerely wished; no need has been more earnestly felt than for a
kingdom of peace, joy, and happiness to replace present conditions on planet earth.
Christians center their beliefs, their very
lives, around Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus centered his life, and his teachings around this
theme of a coming kingdom. He taught about it in his words: But they which shall be
accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry,
nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the
angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection (Luke 20:35-36).
Jesus illustrated the coming kingdom in his
parables: Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, you blessed of my
Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34).
He demonstrated its power in countless miracles:
he gave sight to the blind; he made the lame to walk, he even raised the dead!
This was the kingdom he promised; this was the
kingdom he preached; this was the kingdom he died to achieve!
What Will That
Kingdom Be Like?
Although this kingdom was the central theme of
Jesus' life he did not originate the idea. The concept of this kingdom permeated Old
Testament prophecy.
The prophets foresaw a kingdom of health, with
harmony between man and his fellow. They foresaw a kingdom of peace, with total economic
security. Isaiah spoke of all these promises: They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my
holy mountain (11:6-9); they shall beat their swords into plowshares (2:4); mine elect
shall long enjoy the work of their hands (65:21, 22).
The prophets foresaw a kingdom with harmony
between man and animal; natural enemies of the earth will dwell together in complete peace
and harmony; and formerly harmful creatures will no longer be hurtful or dangerous. The
wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the
calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And
the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion
shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and
the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor
destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD,
as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:6-9).
They foresaw a kingdom of peace with
harmony amongst men and no more war: And he shall judge among the nations, and shall
rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears
into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more (Isaiah 2:4).
They foresaw a kingdom of total economic
security; mankind will reap the rewards of their labor and live in security without fear
of loss: they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and
eat the fruit of them.... mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands (Isaiah 65:21-22).
The New Testament apostles foresaw a
kingdom in which even death would be done away; there shall be no more death (Revelation 21:4). And the best
part is that these were not idle dreams. They were not wishful thinking. They spoke of
living verities for one simple reason--they knew what they were talking about for they had
been witnesses. The Apostle Peter said: For we have not followed cunningly devised fables,
when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were
eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when
there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in
the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto you do well that you
take heed (2 Peter 1:16-19).
And the Apostle Paul, when speaking of
himself, wrote: I knew a man in Christ...caught up to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2). In the next verse he calls this
third heaven paradise. These Biblical writers could speak with such authority, with such
sureness, for one simple reason; and to most of their kingdom prophecies the reason for
their positiveness is appended: For the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken it!
Who Will That
Kingdom Be For?
It will be for the righteous (Matthew 13:43)! That kingdom will
be for the Christian (Acts 16:31)! The kingdom will be for the Jew (Ezekiel 16:55)! The kingdom will be for the pagan of Sodom and
Gomorrah (Matthew 10:15)! The kingdom will be for the heathen of Tyre and
Sidon (Matthew 11:22)!
In fact the kingdom will be for ALL people! "Do not marvel at this; for the hour is
coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have
done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection
of judgment" (John 5:28-29 RSV).
ALL who are in their tombs will be raised
to life--the Jew and the Arab; the Christian and the Atheist; the Catholic and the
Protestant; the saint and the sinner; the priest and the master of voodoo--ALL! But that
seems impossible! The Bible clearly says: "Neither is there salvation in any other:
for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved"
(Acts 4:12).
Yes! One must be a Christian to be saved. One
must believe in Christ to live forever in that kingdom. Yet the Bible just as clearly
states that the men of Sodom and of Gomorrah, of Tyre and of Sidon, will be there. Can
both be true? Yes! Both are true because both are in the Bible. And the Bible is true!
The harmony between these seemingly
conflicting concepts is in a simple statement of the will of God concerning man by the
Apostle Paul: "God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto
the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time"
(1Timothy 2:3-6). God
will have all men to be saved! Jesus Christ gave himself a ransom for all! How much
plainer can it be stated! ALL--Jew and Gentile; saint and sinner; Christian and Jew and
pagan--ALL! Yet..."there is no other name whereby men must be saved than that of
Jesus Christ." Both are scriptural statements! Both must be true! But, How?
Two phrases in Paul's words to Timothy must be
examined to answer this question. FIRST, let us look at the phrase: "to be
saved." Saved from what? What does it mean to be saved? The answers come readily.
Saved from death! Saved from sin! These answers are correct, but they reveal only half of
the truth behind the words: "all men to be saved."
The Bible is a complex book. But its central
theme is simple. It is the story of redemption. It begins with man created perfect and
placed in a perfect garden home--Eden. It soon sees the original pair--Adam and Eve--sin
and plunge the entire race into the consequences of sin--death.
The Bible closes with man restored to perfection
in a perfect earth, an earth cleansed from the defilements of sin--including death itself.
In between it weaves a story of promise and
fulfillment, of despair and hope, of prediction and reality, of man being redeemed by one
man--Jesus.
A Ransom for All!
The word "ransom" itself shows the
principle on which the Bible's offer of salvation is based. It is taken from the Greek
word "anti-lutron", meaning "a price to correspond."
A simple balance scale illustrates it well.
Adam sinned and brought upon himself and his posterity the merited penalty of death. The
scales of justice demanded it. Christ died as a corresponding price--a perfect man for a
perfect man--to offset the sin of Adam and bring the scales of justice back into balance.
Simple? Yes, it is simple! It is scriptural! And it is true! Since all of Adam's children
(and thus their descendants as well) were born after the first sin, they were born into a
dying condition. The Psalmist David expressed it well: "Behold, I was shaped in
iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psa. 51:5).
Since Adam's descendants include both good people
and bad people, both saints and sinners, both believers and unbelievers, they are all
guaranteed salvation through the shed blood of Christ, which was freely given for Adam and
all his descendants.
The Apostle Paul summarized the whole of
the Bible message into two short sentences: "For since by man came death, by man came
also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive" (1Corinthians
15:21-22).
It was from this death sentence on the human
race, then, that all men are to be saved. This salvation is guaranteed by the death of
Christ to all men--the good and the bad.
But it is one thing to obtain salvation; it is
quite another thing to maintain that salvation. While the death of Jesus promises life
from the grave for all, it does not promise that that life will be maintained forever.
Adam and Eve were given life in the Garden of
Eden. They did not deserve it. It was simply a gift. It was God's grace. They could have
maintained that life forever. They did not because they sinned. In this same manner all
men will receive life in God's kingdom. They do nothing to deserve it. It is simply a
gift. It is of God's grace. They can maintain that life forever. But will they? Just as
with Adam and Eve, the option will be with men.
A Knowledge of the
Truth
This is where the second phrase of Paul's
statement to Timothy needs to be examined. "Who will have all men to be saved, and to
come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1Timothy 2:4).
Notice the order! God will first have all men to
be saved, and, second, come to a knowledge of the truth. Wouldn't you expect that order to
be reversed? That men must first know the truth--know Jesus--before they are saved? That
would seem logical. But that is not what the Bible says.
God's plan is for all men to "hear the voice
of the Son of Man and come forth" from the graves; and then to be instructed in
"the knowledge of the truth." That's what God's kingdom is all about. It has two
parts. First, raise all men from the grave. Second, instruct them in the rules of God so
that they might keep them and maintain the life they have been given.
That is God's plan! That is the beauty of the
kingdom! That assures the permanence of salvation! That is the promise of the Bible!
But is that not giving man a second chance?
Indeed it would be if sin and evil had caught God by surprise. But they did not--more
about that later. Because God permitted sin and evil for a purpose, life from the dead for
all is not a second chance but merely the completion of what God had originally planned
for man.
Why The Long Delay?
But, if God's kingdom is so wonderful why is it
so long delayed? Jesus died nearly 2000 years ago and there is still no kingdom. Instead
of improving, many feel that world conditions have gotten worse. Why the long delay?
The Bible outlines three reasons for the delay.
FIRST, to fully populate the earth; SECOND, to let man have a thorough experience with sin
and its consequences; and THIRD, to develop a class of individuals to help Christ uplift
the human race to life, perfection, and happiness.
When God first made man and placed him in
the Garden of Eden he gave him a commission. "And God blessed them, and God said to
them, `Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over
the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves
upon the earth'" (Genesis 1:28 RSV).
Demographic experts today say that this is just
the problem. The earth has a population explosion which threatens our existence. But is
this truly so? The Bible indicates that man has been on this planet for a little over 6000
years. The total population from creation to the present has been estimated at between
thirty and fifty billions. That's a lot of people!
Yet the earth is a big place. Fifty billion
people could each have 60 square feet of space on the island of New Zealand alone. But
that's not much space, you say! True! But New Zealand is not a great part of the earth,
either! Not only does man need more space to live on, land is required to grow the
necessary food for man's sustenance. This, too, has been provided in God's plan.
Notice, once again, the words of the
prophet Isaiah: "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and
the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and
rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the
excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency
of our God" (Isaiah 35:1-2).
The Desert Shall
Blossom as a Rose
Thousands and thousands of square miles today are
filled with desert--the Sahara, the Gobi, America's great Southwest Desert, the outback of
Australia. Countless more miles are unproductive wilderness area and scrub land. Think of
all of these blossoming as a rose. Think of the productivity of the world's breadbaskets:
the Ukraine, the vast prairie provinces of Canada, the great plains of the United States.
Think of these joined by the vast areas of today's deserts! Yes, there is room, and even
enough room for more.
And God's commission was to "fill the
earth." This "filling" is one of the reasons for the great delay in
ushering in that kingdom for which we are taught to pray.
The Permission of
Evil
Man's experiences on the earth have been hard
ones. Not only has he had to earn his living by "the sweat of his brow," but the
inhumanity of man to man has filled all decent men with revulsion. Natural disasters, such
as floods, earthquakes, famines, volcanic eruptions, have added to the misery of the human
scene. Does man really want to live forever in such conditions? If there is a God, why has
he permitted such suffering?
There is a purpose--and a good one--for all
of this evil. Listen to the words of King Solomon: "And I gave my heart to seek and
search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail
has God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith" (Ecc. 1:13). Sin was
introduced on this earth through the intervention of an evil personality--Satan. His
influence has made such evil epidemic. Every being who has ever lived can well identify
with the words of David of old: "Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my
mother conceive me" (Psa. 51:5).
One of the reasons for the success of the
kingdom of God is based on a simple premise--that evil influences will be
restrained--Satan will be bound. "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having
the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the
dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he
should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after
that he must be loosed a little season" (Revelation 20:1-3).
With Satan bound while man is educated in the
laws of God and righteousness, human beings will have the wonderful opportunity to compare
two life styles--sin, with its consequences of misery, sickness and death; and
righteousness, with its consequences of happiness, health and life. Is there any question
which they will choose! Certainly they will choose life.
Why God Permits
Evil
Yes, as the wise man said, "this sore
travail has God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith." Comparing the
brief span of man's present life under sin and evil with an eternity of life under kingdom
conditions, all will echo the sentiments of the Apostle Paul: "For I reckon that the
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall
be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18)
Kingdom Helpers
But there is still one more reason for the
long delay. The work of the kingdom is a big work. God's plan is that there be helpers to
assist Jesus in this great human uplift project. When Jesus reigns, there are those who
will reign with him. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he
also will deny us" (2 Timothy 2:12).
"Blessed and holy is he that has part
in the first resurrection: on such the second death has no power, but they shall be
priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years" (Revelation 20:6).
It is the selection of this class and their
training which has occupied the centuries since the death of Christ to the present. These
will be with their Lord in heaven, assisting him in the work of restoring men to perfect
life on the earth.
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God,
and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we
shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).
For these three reasons--the filling of the
earth, the full permission of man to experience evil and its consequences and the
selection of a class of co-workers with Christ in the kingdom--there has been a delay of
some twenty centuries in establishing that rule of righteousness. But come it will in
God's own due time.
When Will That
Kingdom Come?
How will we know when that kingdom comes? Is it
near?
Yes! It is near! The Bible contains abundant
signs of changes that would take place in world conditions introducing that kingdom. Many
of these are found in a sermon by Jesus located in Matthew, chapter 24, based on a
prophecy in the book of Daniel, chapter 12.
We will look briefly at just four of these:
1. A Time Of
Trouble Threatening To Destroy All Flesh:
"For then shall be great tribulation,
such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be And
except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's
sake those days shall be shortened" (Matthew 24:21-22).
Not until the second World War let loose the age
of nuclear warfare has man had this ability to destroy all flesh. Today the dreaded word
"overkill" heightens man's fear with the ability to destroy all flesh many times
over.
2. A Knowledge
And Transportation Revolution:
"But you, O Daniel, shut up the words,
and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge
shall be increased" (Daniel 12:4).
With the introduction of compulsory education,
the widespread availability of printed material, and the introduction of the computer age,
knowledge has been exploding exponentially--doubling every five to eight years. Means of
rapid transportation are so common that we may forget that our ancestors of only 150 years
ago were restricted to the speed of a horse, and most died without traveling more than a
few miles from their homes.
3. Israel:
"My people of Israel...shall build the
waste cities and inhabit them...and I will plant them upon their land and they shall no
more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God"
(Amos 9:14-15).
In a modern miracle, a people wandering homeless
for 2000 years, have returned to their ancient homeland. Despite numerous onslaughts by
overpowering numbers of enemies, they have endured and stand strong today among the family
of nations.
4. Preaching
The Gospel:
"And this gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall
the end come" (Matthew 24:14).
In the early 1800's Bible societies were
established in Europe and the United States for the sole purpose of distributing the
scriptures all over the world. Today the Bible is still a best seller and is available in
more than one thousand languages.
Now, once again, hear the word of the Lord:
"So likewise you, when you see these things come to pass, know you that the kingdom
of God is nigh at hand" (Luke 21:31).
We are living in a day when man has the potential
to destroy all flesh. We are living in a day when knowledge has been increased and many
run to and fro. We are living in a day when the rebirth of Israel in her ancient homeland
is a fact. We are living in a day when the Gospel--the Bible--is being published
throughout the world.
Therefore we are living in a day when the kingdom
of God is nigh at hand!
Yes, man has prayed for many things. He has
prayed for nothing harder or more often than the kingdom. And that is a prayer that will
soon be answered.
"Our Father which is in heaven;
hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in
heaven" (Matthew 6:9-10).
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