Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
We want to talk today about the Kingdom of God...the Kingdom of God. And in particular
we want to talk about the visible King and His invisible Kingdom. I would imagine that
THE most elaborate event that the world ever sees, THE most magnificent event, the most
grandiose ceremony that is ever held is a coronation. I've never been to a coronation,
but I've seen a few on television. And they really pull out all the stops, even, in fact,
when the person being crowned has a rather insignificant actual role to play. But that's
a holdover from days when the crowning of a King was intended to be grandiose and it
was intended to make a massive, if not awesome and even frightening impression on people,
cause after all, a king was a king and a king or a queen, in some cases, has absolute power,
absolute authority to do absolutely whatever he wills, whenever he wills, with whomever
he wills. This is what it means to be a king.
We've all seen on television the vestiges of a coronation. And we have seen what a grand
event it is in the most austere and magnificent building available to a people with the most
lavish kinds of clothes, attended by the most erudite and significant and important of all
people. These are all signs of the power and signs of the privilege and signs of the authority.
These are the magnificent emblems of what it means to be the monarch, to have absolute
supremacy and absolute sovereignty in a nation.
Our Lord Jesus made a claim to be a King. But there was no such coronation. There was
a very meager coronation, as a matter of fact, at least from the public's viewpoint, a few
sort of low-life shepherds showed up in a filthy stinking stable to bow down to a baby
in a manger one night in obscurity in a small town called Bethlehem. There was another coronation
of sorts some time later when some Persian king makers, strangers and foreigners, showed
up and came to that same child and offered gifts, indicating that this was indeed a King,
but this too was a very private event and it was purposely kept private. And in fact
it so upset the reigning king that even with a threat that it could be a real king who
was born there, he decided to kill every single baby who might not...who might be that king
and might be a threat to his throne some day. You might even say that the greatest king
that ever came into the world came in without an appropriate coronation, that would certainly
be true.
But then again, not only was His coronation not like any other coronation, His Kingdom
was not like any other kingdom either. In fact, it was He who said, "My Kingdom is not
of this world." It was actually Jesus who said, "The Kingdom is here and I'm the King." And the people
didn't believe it. He just didn't look like a king, He didn't act like a king and there
was no pomp and circumstance to indicate the establishment of any kingdom.
With that in view, we come to the text of Luke 17 verses 20 and 21. The Jews had an
immense expectation for the coming of the kingdom. They were waiting almost in a posture
of holding their breath hoping that the king would come. Even at the time of the birth
of Jesus, Anna and Simeon were waiting for the Kingdom of God to arrive. That Kingdom
promised in the Old Testament anticipated for centuries, patience was running out. The
ongoing pagan conquerors that had occupied the land of Israel were so distasteful and
accumulated disappointment was rising and mounting and the people wanted the Kingdom.
For example, Joseph of Arimathaea who showed up to take the body of Christ is identified
as one waiting for the Kingdom. Luke 23:51 it says, "Joseph was a man from Arimathaea,
a city of the Jews, who was waiting for the Kingdom of God." He wasn't the only one, He
was just one of many who were waiting for that Kingdom, hoping that Kingdom would come.
And when the King did come, He didn't look like a King, and when He said the Kingdom
had arrived, it didn't look like a Kingdom. And the Pharisees were convinced that He was
a phony, that He was a charlatan and a fraud, trying to pass Himself off to the people of
Israel as a King, when in fact He wasn't a King and didn't have a Kingdom. The ultimate
mockery was to put on the cross that this is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,
that was put there with disdain and scorn and sarcasm that just dripped with hatred.
But Jesus talked about being a King all the time. And He talked about the Kingdom of God
all the time. In fact, it was a constant thing in His ministry to talk about the Kingdom.
So it's somewhat natural that eventually they're going to get around to asking Him about it,
and that's what they did in verse 20. "Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as
to when the Kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said..." Let me stop you
there for a minute.
Just to give you a little idea of how much He talked about the Kingdom, go back to chapter
4 and let's just kind of flow through Luke. We could do this in Matthew, we could do it
in Mark, but we're in Luke so let's do it there. Verse 43 of Luke 4, He said this, "I
must preach the Kingdom of God to the other cities also for I was sent for this purpose."
Chapter 6 verse 20, He began the Beatitudes, "Blessed are you who are poor, or poor in
spirit, for yours is the Kingdom of God." Chapter 7 verse 28, "I say to you, among those
born of women there is no one greater than John, yet he who is least in the Kingdom of
God is greater than he." In chapter 8 verse 1 it says, "He began going about from one
city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the Kingdom of God." In chapter
9 it's the same thing, the chapter begins, "He called the Twelve together, gave them
power and authority over all the demons to heal diseases, and He sent them out to proclaim
the Kingdom of God." And in verse 11, "The multitudes were following Him and welcoming
Him and He began speaking to them about the Kingdom of God." In verse 27 the words of
Jesus, "I say to you truthfully, there are some of you standing here who shall not taste
death until they see the Kingdom of God." In verse 60 of that same ninth chapter, "Allow
the dead to bury their own dead," He said, "but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere
the Kingdom of God." In verse 62, "No one after putting his hand to the plow and looking
back is fit for the Kingdom of God." And then in chapter 10 and verse 9 He said, "The Kingdom
of God has come near to you." In chapter 11 and verse 20, "If I cast out demons by the
finger of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you."
He preached the Kingdom, the Kingdom, the Kingdom, the Kingdom and then He said, as
demonstrated by His power over Satan and demons, "The Kingdom of God is near," and then He
said, "The Kingdom of God has come." He preached the Kingdom and He preached that the Kingdom
had come.
In chapter 11, same emphasis, the Kingdom has come. Chapter 12 verse 31, "Seek for His
Kingdom and these things will be added to you." He preached on the Kingdom as recorded
in chapter 13, chapter 14, chapter 16, chapter 17, chapter 18. And He preached the Kingdom
particularly in that eighteenth chapter in verse 29, He said this, "There is no one who
has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children for the sake of the Kingdom of
God who shall not receive many times more in this present life and in the age to come,
eternal life." And then He preached the Kingdom in chapter 19, 21, 22, and as I noted earlier,
also in chapter 23. He preached the Kingdom, He was a Kingdom preacher. And He was preaching
a Kingdom that had arrived because He was the King and He was there, His Kingdom was
there.
Well this just did not fit the Jews expectations. All this Kingdom talk and where are the signs
of the Kingdom, where is the great coronation? Where is the great event?
Jesus knew what was on their minds. This was mockery. This was "You keep talking about
the Kingdom, You keep saying You're a King," which they perfectly well understood to mean
that, He was the supreme sovereign. They understood what it was to be a king. As I pointed out
last week, we have a hard time with that, we've never had a king in America. We don't
like absolute unilateral rule. That's not our approach. But they understood what a king
was and they understood the absolute supremacy, absolute sovereignty of a king to do whatever
he wanted, whenever he wanted, with whomever he wanted and there was no recourse. They
understood exactly what it was to claim to be a king.
But to claim to be a king without the appropriate kind of coronation and to claim to be God's
King and to have brought God's Kingdom without the attendant and what they thought to be
absolutely necessary evidences of that was in their minds ludicrous and foolish. They
made a lot of efforts to make Jesus look foolish. The Pharisees engaged Jesus in a number of
questions in the gospel of Luke, starting in chapter 7, chapter 11 and many other places,
and every time they engage Him with a question, it is in the intention of discrediting Him,
exposing Him, making Him a joke, or bringing down upon Him the animosity of the populous
or in some cases even ultimately the Romans. So they never had a good motive. It doesn't
seem that their motives were ever pure. And by this time, all this kingdom talk and absolutely
no evidence of it makes a joke out of His claim and they come wondering in their minds
just exactly when this Kingdom of God is going to come that You keep announcing. They had
developed a very elaborate expectation that the Messiah's rule would be inaugurated with
a display of miracles, signs and wonders in the sky and in the earth that would make the
arrival of the true King and His true Kingdom unmistakable.
In fact, it might be good to show you what they expected in part, I can't take you through
the whole Old Testament but a very good way to understand what was in their minds is to
go to the book of Joel, the minor prophets. The last twelve books of the Old Testament
begin with Hosea, then Joel and Joel lays out for us the prophecies concerning the arrival
of the King to establish His Kingdom. It involves, of course, judgment on the ungodly and then
protection and deliverance for the godly, the righteous, as they are ushered into the
glorious Kingdom.
Joel begins at the very outset of his prophecy with identifying this event, chapter 1 verse
15, "Alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is near and it will come as destruction
from the Almighty." The coming of the King was the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord
is always associated with judgment, maximum judgment, a final kind of judgment. There
are days of the Lord in the Old Testament, days when God stepped in with great judgment,
but there is a culminating eschatological final day of the Lord which Joel has in view
here. This will be destruction from the Almighty. He will come to destroy His enemies and the
ungodly. At the same time, it will be a time of salvation, it will be a time of blessing
for the righteous. If you go to the end of his prophecy, chapter 3 verse 18, "It will
come about in that day...that day of the Lord...the mountains will drip with sweet wine and the
hills will flow with milk and all the brooks of Judah will flow with water and a spring
will go out from the house of the Lord to water the valley of Shittim." In other words,
it's going to be a time of immense blessing. Back in verse 16 at the end, "The Lord is
a refuge for His people and a stronghold to the sons of Israel." Verse 17, "You will know
that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain, Jerusalem will be holy."
So we see the positives. There's going to be the rescue and the protection of the righteous
and God is going to send His King to establish His throne in Jerusalem and He's going to
reign over Israel and over the whole earth.
But what are the signs of this? What should they be looking for as an indication? Chapter
2 of Joel, verse 1, "Blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm on My holy mountain. Let the
inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord is coming, surely it is near."
Now we get a description. "A day of darkness, and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness
as the dawn is spread over the mountains so there is a great and mighty people. There's
never been anything like it." Now he goes in to talking about an army and a great war
that will take place. Then down in verse 10 he describes further phenomena, "The earthquakes,
the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark, the stars lose their brightness
and the Lord utters His voice before the army." Plenty of very visible signs, a great amassing
of people in an army on the side of the conquering Lord as well as enemies opposing Him. Signs
in the sky, signs in the earth, voices from heaven. Verse 11 says, "The day of the Lord
is indeed great and very awesome, and who can endure it?"
Now Jesus was doing miracles. He was healing people, casting out demons, raising dead people.
And there was a certain power in that that was inexplicable. Miracles were happening
all over the place throughout His ministry, stunning shocking, but not the kind of awesome
signs, a shaking earth, a collapsing heaven that are associated by this prophet with the
work of God. "In that day rend your heart...verse 13 of chapter 2...and not your garments. Return
to the Lord your god who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness
and relenting of evil." In other words, you better make your peace with God before it's
too late in that day. And so Joel gives very specific indicators.
Over in verse 30 of chapter 2, "Blood, fire, columns of smoke, the sun turned to darkness,
the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes." That's what they were
looking for. They weren't looking for someone who was meek and lowly, compassionate and
sympathetic and tender hearted, who spent His time with the sick and the needy and the
poor and the grieving and the pained. Certainly weren't looking for someone who was so comfortable
with tax collectors and prostitutes and the other assembled sinners who belonged to the
base level of their society. Where was the spectacular? Where was the big time divine
coronation? Where was the fire works show? And so they come in a mocking tone, I think,
can't be dogmatic, but I think consistent with all the other times they came. They'd
come and say, "Well when is the Kingdom of God coming?"
And as He always did, He dismantles their misconceptions. He says in verse 20, "The
Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed." It's not coming with signs to
be observed. That's not a future tense, by the way, that's a present tense. He's not
talking about the future coming of the Kingdom. That will come with signs to be observed.
The Kingdom is now currently in the process of coming and there are no such signs. You
can see signs of My deity displayed every time I do a healing, every time I cast out
demons, raise the dead, signs of My deity are on display when I feed the multitudes,
or when I walk on the water. But there are no signs of the coming of this aspect of My
Kingdom.
The words of our Lord reveal their misunderstanding. They didn't understand the Kingdom. The King
was there and the Kingdom was there, but they had a problem. And Jesus expressed what that
problem was in a conversation He had with Nicodemus in John 3. Do you remember that
conversation? Let me just pull one statement made out of it. "Jesus answered and said to
him," John 3:3, "'Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the
Kingdom of God.'" If you haven't been recreated, if you haven't been raised from the dead,
if you haven't had the blinders taken off, if you don't have new life, you can't see
the King or the Kingdom. And He went on to say, "You must be born of the water and the
Spirit," that's spiritual birth cleansing by the power of God and be given His Holy
Spirit, or you'll never see the Kingdom...never.
It's still that way now. God has revealed it to us, the not many noble, the lowly. God
has revealed it to us, the babes, and hidden it from the wise and the prudent. And as I
told you last time, the Kingdom of God is here, it's here now. It was there then, it's
here now and it's growing and it's expanding and the world still can't see it. It's the
invisible Kingdom. It's moving toward a great day of immense visibility when He comes the
second time, every eye will see Him. And not only will they see Him, but there will be,
Romans 8:19 to 21, the glorious manifestation of the children of God. There will be the
unveiling of who we really are.
I was thinking about that the other day at the carwash. At the carwash you just stand
around. I don't have a lot of times in my life when I just stand around, but I stand
around at the carwash. And I was thinking, "These people have no idea at they're looking
at." No, not that I'm a pastor, but that...that the Kingdom of God is within me. They have
no idea that the Trinity lives in me. I'm unveiled...I'm not yet unveiled, I am veiled.
The glorious manifestation of the children of God hasn't taken place. It was just a stunning
moment. The world doesn't see it. They know we gather like this. They pull along the street
here and watch you all coming in and they probably think we're kind of typical religious
people. It's nice for us, it works for us. They have no idea who they're looking at.
The Kingdom of God is in this place, it's in you. It's the invisible Kingdom, the world
can't see it. Jesus said you can't see it if you're not born into it. If you're still
blind and dead, you can't see the Kingdom.
So He came unto His own, His own received Him not. He was in the world, the world was
made by Him, couldn't see it. They were dead wrong, by the way. The King was there, they
were looking into His face. The King of kings and the Kingdom had come and it was there
and it's still here.
How...you say...are we to understand this kingdom? Let me review what I told you last
week. And by the way, many people said this week to me, that was really deep. And I just...I
was trying to make it really clear, I was working hard to do that. I don't know if I
succeeded on that. Deep is usually...when somebody says "that was really deep," that
means "I didn't get it." And...and I...you know, it's easy to be hard to understand,
it's real easy to be hard to understand. Because if I don't know what I'm talking about, you
won't either. It's hard to be clear because for somebody to be clear, they have to understand
what they're saying. So hopefully, maybe...maybe I've cleared up a few things and I can express
them a little more clearly to you.
God is King and He really rules over two Kingdoms...one Kingdom in two parts, two phases. First, there
is His external universal Kingdom over which He rules by creation. That is He's the King
of the universe. He's the King of everything and everyone. Everything and everyone in the
universe at all times from their creation to their end or their eternity is under His
absolute sovereign will and authority. He exercises supreme power over everything and
everyone He has ever made, and He exercises it at all times. Since the Fall, this Kingdom
has been in rebellion against its King. And by the way, there is a leader of that rebellion
named Satan and the rebellion is unsuccessful and headed for a total destruction. But in
the meantime, the system run by Satan is in violent rebellion against the King. And the
King Himself has cursed His own creation. But one day that will all be over, the curse
will end. Satan and all his minions will be cast into the Lake of Fire prepared for the
devil and his angels, all the ungodly will go there with them. And the Lord will destroy
this cursed universe in an uncreation, a dissolution, an implosion described by Peter as the melting
of all its elements with fervent heat. And in its place create a new heaven and a new
earth. And the thing that is distinctive about heaven and the eternal state is that God is
King forever. No more rebellion, no more curse.
But there's another Kingdom, or another aspect of His rule and that is not the external,
universal kingdom over which He rules by creation, but the internal personal kingdom over which
He rules by recreation. That is to say it is the spiritual realm. He rules over the
souls that belong to Him eternally through the salvation He has provided in His Son.
This is the Kingdom that they couldn't see and the world couldn't see. There's no pomp
and circumstance with the establishment of this Kingdom, nor with its increase. This
Kingdom is growing. Remember what I told you about Luke 13:18 to 20, Jesus said the kingdom
is like a mustard seed, it starts out very small and it just keeps growing and expanding.
That's why the present verb, the Kingdom of God is coming. And then He says immediately
after that, it's like leaven, it keeps permeating and expanding and expanding and expanding
until finally it reaches its maximum expansion when all the elect are redeemed and the Lord
returns and the spiritual Kingdom dominates the world in the great millennial reign of
Jesus Christ. After that, the establishment of the eternal kingdom and the spiritual kingdom
and the material kingdom, the newly created material kingdom are one forever. That's kingdom
theology. Spiritual kingdom will grow into its fullest consummation in the glorious reign
of Jesus Christ on earth that we call the millennium.
But it had already started. Let's go back to verse 20. So He says the Kingdom of God
is not coming with signs to be observed. The one that is now in motion in process is not
observable. Verse 21 He then adds obviously, "Nor will they say, 'Look here it is, or there
it is.'" It's not something that you can identify as an event. The Greek phrase here, "The Kingdom
of God is not coming with signs to be observed," literally is, "You can't see it...you cannot
see it." It's not with observation. It's not involving a public spectacle of any kind whatsoever.
In fact, it is completely invisible.
Back in the eleventh chapter of Luke, so amazing, He was casting out a demon in verse 14 and
a demon that had a made a man unable to speak, dumb. The demon went out, the dumb man spoke,
multitudes marveled. Sure. But some of them said, "He cast out demons by Beelzebul, the
ruler of the demons." Boy, a hundred and eighty degrees the wrong conclusion. But this is
amazing. They had just seen a shocking inexplicable miracle and the next verse says, "To test
Him, they were demanding of Him a sign from heaven." What in the world do they need? They
needed what they thought was consistent with the prophecies of Joel and all the other prophets
and healing a man, or delivering a man from a demon didn't fit their expectation. And
we can, to a degree, understand that because that expectation had been generated by the
reading of the Old Testament.
So all those miracles while they demonstrated the deity of Jesus Christ unmistakably, and
while they were intended to demonstrate the compassion and sympathy of God for people,
that's why God chose to prove the deity of His Son through the relieving of people's
pain and suffering, thus displaying Himself as a God of great mercy, never did convince
the people that He was the King. Later in that same eleventh chapter, as the crowds
were increasing He began to say, "This generation is a wicked generation, it seeks for a sign
and I'm not giving you any sign except the sign of Jonah," and then He went on to talk
about His resurrection. Even that didn't convince them.
So the Kingdom is coming...is coming, present tense, is coming, is coming, still coming,
still coming, still coming. Every moment when someone has added to the Kingdom by salvation,
the Kingdom expands but it is not visible. You can't say it's there, you can't say it's
here. It's not an event to point to, it is externally invisible. That's indicated by
the fact that these religious leaders were looking at the King and the Kingdom was growing
right in front of them and they couldn't either see the King or the Kingdom.
And then in verse 21 He says this, you want to know the nature of this Kingdom? "Behold,"
He said, "the Kingdom of God is within you." Now some of you have a Bible that says "in
your midst," translators bounce back and forth between those two. The original Greek text
uses a Greek word entoswhich has a little preposition enwhich means in. Entosmeans inside.
That's what it means. It's only used one other time in the New Testament and that's in Matthew
23:36 where Jesus said regarding the Pharisees, "They cleaned the inside of the cup." It means
inside. If our Lord wanted to say "in your midst," or "among you," He would have used
most likely en meso(?), which is a different Greek phrase, but that is the phrase that
is used regularly to mean "in your midst." And there are a number of illustrations of
that but one simple one is in the second chapter of Luke and verse 46 where it talks about
Jesus being found at the age of twelve in the Temple sitting in the midst of the teachers,
and it uses en meso.
You say, "Well why don't they just translate it "within you" if there's no disputed original
text?" And the reason most commentators give for not translating it "within you" is the
fact that that might make it apply to the Pharisees. Why would He say to the Pharisees
"the Kingdom of God is within you?" But that's easily resolved if you understand, first of
all, that the "you" is very generic and you also understand that even though directing
Himself at the Pharisees the crowd is always mixed. Remember that? We have been telling
you at the end of His life, particularly chapters 15 and following, there is this constant interplay
between Pharisees and the disciples, and Jesus. And what He says to the Pharisees, the disciples
here, what He says to the disciples, the Pharisees over here, they're always there and the Pharisees
are going to make sure they're in every crowd because they're seriously looking for some
things that Jesus says that they can use to have Him killed. The very next verse it says,
"And He said to the disciples." The "you" here is generic. All He means to say is the
Kingdom is inside, it's not outside, it's not external, it's not visible, it's not manifest
in the way you expect it to be manifest. Sad to think about those self-appointed religious
experts missing the whole thing. They had waited along with Joseph of Arimathaea for
the King and the Kingdom and the King and the Kingdom came...because they were not born
again, they couldn't see it. They were still looking for their perspective of the Kingdom.
But that couldn't come. If that Kingdom came, nobody would be there to enter it because
until the Kingdom is within you, until you're part of the internal, personal, visible Kingdom,
you'll never experience the external Kingdom.
So He said, "It's in you, it's set up in your hearts. It's for all of you in whom the King
lives." As in Romans 14:17, that beautiful statement by the Apostle Paul, "The Kingdom
of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." It's an internal thing.
It's righteousness in the heart imputed by faith in Christ. It is peace with God. It
is joy. All of that as a result of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom is within
you because the King is within you and He reigns and rules within you. There is no other
way to view Jesus Christ other than King. When we say we believe in the Lordship of
Christ, we're just saying we know He's King and that means He's in charge, absolutely
in charge. I love what Jesus said, He said, "I'll give you the Holy Spirit who will be
within you." But He also said this as we talked about last week, "I will come to you and My
Father will come to you and we will make our abode in you." And that's why the wonder of
wonders is this, that the Trinity has taken up residence in the hearts of those who embrace
Christ. That's the Kingdom for now. That's now in place of the future millennial kingdom
described clearly both in the Old Testament and in the twentieth chapter of Revelation,
that's simply the final consummation when that spiritual kingdom is unveiled and only
those who are the righteous enter in to that Kingdom. All the ungodly are destroyed at
the return of Jesus Christ.
This spiritual kingdom then became the message of the Apostles. That's what they preached.
If you want to see that, just briefly look at Acts chapter 1. Go with Jesus to the training
ground a little bit. He's got 40 days between His resurrection and His ascension, 40 days
before He leaves. And you might want to know how He used that 40 days, Acts 1:3...Acts
1:3, "To these He also presented Him alive," that is to His Apostles after His suffering,
"by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking of the
things concerning the Kingdom of God."
Rounding out any blanks in their Kingdom theology, the message of the gospel is Jesus is King,
bow to Him. Jesus is King, you want to follow Him? Then you deny yourself, you take up your
cross and you follow Him. He is the absolute sovereign of your life. That is what the gospel
is offering. It is not offering Jesus as your buddy, Jesus as your pal, Jesus as the guy
who wants to come along and make you feel good about yourself...Jesus is your King,
He is the absolute dictator of your life.
That's the message and they needed to understand all about the Kingdom of God. And so He used
those 40 days to fill up their understanding of things regarding the Kingdom. And when
they launched, that's exactly what they preached. And there are just a few illustrations, not
all, but in Acts chapter 8 it says of Philip, chapter 8 verse 12 of Acts, "Philip was preaching
the good news about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ and they were being
baptized, men and women alike." You went out and preached the Kingdom because the Kingdom
is the message that we preach. God is King, He calls you into His Kingdom which means
He calls you to submit absolutely and totally and completely to His sovereignty. And for
that He forgives your sin and gives you eternal life and imputes to you the very righteousness
of God which makes you acceptable to God which produces peace with God and eternal joy. Preaching
the good news about the Kingdom of God, it's the gospel of the Kingdom and it is through
the name of Jesus Christ. That's how they preached.
In the fourteenth chapter of Acts, another illustration. Verse 22, the Apostle Paul is
strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith
and saying, "Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God." His message
was you must enter the Kingdom of God. If you don't enter the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom
doesn't enter you. If you don't come to the King, the King doesn't come to you and it's
through tribulation, must tribulations. It's very hard to believe. I wrote a book about
that, didn't I? It's very hard to believe. Count the cost...count the cost, pay the price,
self-denial. It's not easy but that's what we preach...that's what we preach. We preach
the Kingdom and entrance into the Kingdom at a high cost...hate father, hate mother,
sister, brother, even your own life.
Acts 19 verse 8, Paul speaking out boldly for three months and what's he talking about
for three months? Reasoning, and persuading them about the Kingdom of God. In that wonderful
twentieth chapter where he meets with the elders at Ephesus in verse 25, he says, "I
know that all of you among whom I went about preaching the Kingdom will see my face no
more." I wish...I wish we could get off this kind of evangelism that never establishes
the absolute sovereignty of Christ over a life. That's what we're talking about, talking
about a King and a Kingdom, talking about an absolute monarch whose will is absolute,
whose authority is limitless and whose wisdom is perfect.
In the twenty-eighth chapter of Romans, just a closing illustration from...or in Acts 28,
right next to the book of Romans, verse 23 of Acts 28. "When they had set a day for him
they came for him at his lodging in large numbers." They're coming to Paul now, "And
he was explaining to them by...I like this phrase...solemnly, serious stuff, testifying
about the Kingdom of God and...they go together...trying to persuade them concerning Jesus." Cause
you can't get into the Kingdom except through Him. "And he used both the Law of Moses and
the prophets and he did it from morning till evening and some were being persuaded by the
things spoken, but others would not believe."
That's what we do. We solemnly testify about the rule of God, the reign of God. He is King
of the universe. He reigns over everything that exists for He made it all and He will
eventually dispose of it all and those who do not come into the spiritual kingdom and
under the sovereign rule of Jesus Christ will be cast by God forever out of His Kingdom
into hell. It's about the King and His Kingdom.
We know now that in this phase of our Lord's rule He does not exercise His absolute rule
over the whole earth. He will in the Millennial Kingdom, over this earth and then create a
new heaven and a new earth. He rules as King only among those who believe. It's a spiritual
kingdom and it's invisible and not everybody that says they're Christians are a part of
it, right? You hear people today say, "You know, we've got to drop the barriers down,
we've got to lower the things that divide us and...because if we're ever going to change
the world we've got to enlarge the Kingdom, we've got to have some Kingdom power." So
we use politics and social services and we'll make this thing big." That's...that's kind
of amillennial....er, post-millennial view, post millennialism, which I'm sure you've
heard of, says we bring the Kingdom and in the end Jesus comes, He shows up after we
have created the Kingdom on earth. A very popular view these days.
That's just the opposite of what the Bible says. The King comes and establishes His Kingdom,
that's simple. But there are people who want to accept any kind of Christianity, any kind
of gospel, any kind of Jesus for the sake of widening the Kingdom, for the sake of moral
influence, or spiritual influence, or capturing the world in some fashion so that we can collect
it all, create a kind of Kingdom to which Jesus will then come. No, until He comes the
Kingdom will be invisible and it will be internal and it will be personal and it will be spiritual
and we build the Kingdom one soul at a time.
The Apostles had no problem with that. They really understood it. They understood what
they were to preach. And even after you get out of the book of Acts, for example, get
in to the book of 1 Corinthians and I could show you a lot of passages, but just look
at a couple in the epistles. First Corinthians 4 verse 20, Paul writes, "For the Kingdom
of God doesn't consist in words but in power." It's not external, it's internal, it's powerful.
He's still preaching the Kingdom. First Corinthians 6:9, "Do you not know that the unrighteous
shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't be deceived, neither fornicators, idolaters,
adulterers, effeminate, homosexual, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers shall
inherit the Kingdom of God." What Kingdom are you talking about? Well they're not going
to be in the final consummate spiritual kingdom that takes over the whole earth because they're
not in the invisible kingdom. This message rings through all of the epistles. Galatians
5, Paul says, "These are the deeds of the flesh, immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,
sorcery...so forth...and I forewarn you...verse 21...those who practice such things shall
not inherit the Kingdom of God." In the fifth chapter of Ephesians, "This you should know
with certainty, no immoral, impure person covetous man who is an idolater has an inheritance
in the Kingdom of Christ and God." And I'm so glad those two are connected because we're
talking about the Kingdom of God, we're talking about the Kingdom of Christ as well.
Colossians chapter 4 verse 11, naming some people, "Mark, Jesus who is called Justus
are the only fellow workers for the Kingdom of God." We're in the Kingdom, we're fellow
workers for the Kingdom, we preach the Kingdom, it's all about the Kingdom. So we are a part
of this expanding spiritual Kingdom. We preach the Kingdom, we declare the Kingdom and in
doing so what we're basically saying is that Jesus must be acknowledged as...what?...as
King...as King.
This isn't the only part of the Kingdom. It's moving, it's expanding toward that consummate
earthly kingdom when Jesus comes back the second time. And when that happens, all the
signs prophesied will take place. Look back at Luke 17 for just a preview of next week.
Verse 26 speaks of the days of the Son of Man, the days of the Son of Man. Verse 30,
"The day that the Son of Man is revealed." Even Jesus was veiled. He unveiled Himself
on the Mount of Transfiguration, didn't He? And they saw the King in His glory but it
was just three disciples. The world didn't see who He was at all. He remained veiled
through His whole ministry. Even after His resurrection He appeared only to those who
believed, never to unbelievers. And now He's back in heaven but there is a day when He
comes and is unveiled. That becomes the subject of the next section as we move from the expanding
spiritual Kingdom its consummate form in the glory of the final millennium. And as we shall
see, at that point all the signs are made manifest. We live in a Kingdom under a King,
we are to worship Him and to honor Him and to obey Him and to submit to Him as well as
to love Him and to trust Him. And to be blessed both now and forever by His unimaginable benevolence,
kindness, mercy, grace and goodness.
Father, we thank You for helping us to understand our King. We look forward to that day when
the Kingdom is no longer invisible, when the spiritual Kingdom becomes visible in millennial
glory and the new Jerusalem descends out of heaven to earth and Jesus sets up His throne
in Jerusalem and rules the world with all the righteous who go into that Kingdom. We
look forward to that glorious manifestation of the children of God who are not now revealed
even as He is not revealed. And we look forward to that final Kingdom, that everlasting dwelling
place in the new heaven and the new earth, that heavenly Kingdom as well. We pray as
You taught us to pray, Our Father who art in heaven, Thy Kingdom come..." We say with
John, "Even so, come Lord Jesus," because we want to see that glorious Second Coming
and that glorious millennial Kingdom, that earthly Kingdom when the subjects of the King
are revealed. We want also to say, "Thy Kingdom come," in the eternal sense, we...we want
that eternal glory that goes to You in the final state. But even now when we say, "Thy
Kingdom come," we are pleading for the invisible Kingdom to grow and grow and grow one soul
at a time, all for Your glory because You are worthy to be worshiped as our King. O
God, You are our King. Christ, You are our King. And we honor You as such and we say familiar words that come from the
pen of Jude, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in
the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior through Jesus
Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now
and forever. Amen.