The Gospel of the Kingdom: Part 9

Since it's been a while since part 8 of this blog was posted, it might be good to revisit the motivation for beginning this series in the first place. Motivation #1 - Jesus' central theme in ministry was the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 4:23, etal). Motivation #2 - Jesus said that the end would not come until this gospel had been preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations (to all peoples, people groups, ethnos, Matthew 24:14). Motivation #3 - we should be familiar with this gospel so we can preach it accurately, and thereby hasten the day of the Lord's return (2 Peter 3:12).

When we ended last time, we said that we would begin this installment with Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer i who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." By joining Him in death, we are also able to join Him in resurrection power (Philippians 3:10) and share in His resurrection life now (Ephesians 2:5). We are already living on the heavenward side of the first stage of the resurrection. Wow!

The final stage of the resurrection is seen when 1 Corinthians 15:24 and Revelation 20:10, 14 are seen together. The Kingdom (which became the possession of the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation 11:15, is now given up to God as the devil is thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, followed by Death and Hades (the grave). At the end of the millennial reign of Christ, the last enemy (death) will be destroyed forever, and having subdued all enemies, He will deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father. A previous stage of this conquest occurred, as stated in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:23, and Revelations 20:4, when "they which are Christ's at His coming" are raised (or transformed) incorruptible.

So the kingdom of God means the defeat of all of the enemies of God. It means the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, defeating the enemies of God one by one until the last enemy is destroyed... death. And from whence cometh death? "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). And from whence cometh sin? Satan, of course - he who was created perfect, and then iniquity was found in him (Ezekiel 28:15). Here we have a hellish triumvirate - Satan, sin, and death. Christ must reign until He has put ALL enemies under His feet. While it is not until the end of the Millennium that this is finally accomplished, there is a past aspect to the conquering of this triumvirate which translates into a present benefit. Christ has already been raised from the dead. Stage one to the conquering of the final enemy has been accomplished.

It's not just the first stage of the conquering of death that has been accomplished, but the Kingdom of God has invaded the present evil age - the domain of Satan! Hebrews 2:14 (which we have cited previously) makes this abundantly clear. Those whom God would make His children through faith have been delivered from the fear of death and are no longer subject to its bondage. A destruction of Satan (at least his power) has already taken place through the death and resurrection of Christ. The Greek word translated "destroy" here means "to put out of action," "to render ineffective." The first of three stages in the conquering of Satan has been accomplished. We see this in several of the Gospel narratives, such as Matthew 4:23-24. "And He went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and infirmity among the people. SO His fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and He healed them."

The Lord Himself, when He proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom of God, demonstrated that Good News by delivering men from the bondage of Satan. This involved both physical healing and the exorcism of demonic spirits. Jesus would say in Matthew 12:28, "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." And so the Gospel of the Kingdom is that God is now acting among men to deliver them from the power of Sin, Satan and Death. Jesus commissioned the 12, and through them believers down through the centuries, to go and preach this Gospel, declaring that the same signs that accompanied His preaching of the Gospel would accompany theirs (ours).

Next time we will see how the importance of this Gospel being preached and and practiced will reach its zenith in the last days, as the end nears. Until then, be encouraged by these words. May they quell any concerns in your heart about healthcare reform. Jesus already reformed the healthcare system.

The Gospel of the Kingdom: Part 8

To what extent is the Kingdom of God manifest today?

It's taken a while (longer than I originally anticipated) but so far a foundational truth has been established: The Word of God divides the course of God's redemptive purpose into two ages: This Age and The Age to Come. These two ages are separated by the Second Coming of Christ and the first resurrection. The fullness of the Kingdom of God belongs to The Age to Come, and if that were all there was to the Kingdom, then the gospel of the Kingdom would be strictly that of promise. Salvation would be little more than an insurance policy to provide against a future day of trouble. It's present value would be little more than to provide a sense of security for deliverance on the day of judgment.

However, the bible makes it clear that there is a transition from This Age to The Age to Come which lasts 1000 years, called the Millennium. At the beginning of the Millennium, Satan will be bound and thrown into the abyss. The earth will then enjoy a new measure of the life and blessings of the Kingdom of God (Isaiah 65:20-25). At the end of the Millennium, the devil is released from the abyss, and amazingly he again deceives multitudes and incites them to rebel against God. God visits the earth with fire and devours all His enemies and Satan is thrown into the lake of fire, joining the beast and the false prophet where the unholy trinity will be tormented forever (Revelation 20:7-10).

Then the fullness of the Kingdom of God will finally be realized in a new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21). Again, if this were the complete program of redemption, we would have merely a religion of hope and promise. Please don't get me wrong - Christianity is full of hope and promise, but Christianity (The Gospel of the Kingdom) is not a religion, but a relationship, so it goes beyond hope and promise. There is a further overlap of the two ages, beyond the Millennium. The New Testament is full of explicit statements compelling us to conclude that the blessings of The Kingdom are not exclusive to He Age to Come. The theology of the New Testament as a whole supports this as well. Hebrews 6:5 speaks of those who "tasted.....the powers of the coming age." Something has happened causing the powers of The Age to Come to penetrate This Age. And while a "taste" is not a seven-course banquet, a taste is still real; more than a promise it is something to be experienced.

Paul says in Galatians 1:3-4 "Grace and peace to you (virtually every epistle begins this way; grace first, followed by peace) from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father." Hallelujah! Satan may still be the god of this world (This Age) but the power of The Age to Come has projected itself back into This Age in the person of Jesus Christ, so that we might be delivered from this present evil Age. "Glory to God forever and ever! Amen!" (Galatians 1:5). Paul gives an amazing theological exposition in his letter to the Roman Christians, and the last verse in chapter 11 reads, "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen." (Romans 11:36).

He then begins chapter 12 with the words "Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God's mercy...." What are we to do? Present our bodies as living sacrifices.....Do not be conformed to the patter of this world (This Age) but be transformed by the renewing of our mind... It is only by undergoing an inner transformation, which is the result of the power of The Age to Come penetrating back into this present evil Age that we can keep from being conformed to This Age. By this new power we are able to test and approve that which is God's perfect will.

What does this mean? The follower of Christ is now caught up in the conflict of the ages, as the Kingdom of God which belongs to The Age to Come has overlapped with This Age. Therefore, we may be delivered from This Age and no longer live in conformity to it. This is not easy, and it is not complete and it is a struggle. It helps to know that God has a plan and a purpose. The plan (which includes the order of things) is outlined in 1 Corinthians 15:22-26. This passage declares that the Kingdom of God is the reign of God through Christ destroying the enemies of God's reign. The highest expression of the Kingdom is the defeat of death. "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." (v. 26). This does not happen at once, but in three stages: "Christ the first fruits; after that they which are Christ's at His coming. After that comes the end, when He delivers up the Kingdom to God the Father." (v. 20-24 paraphrased).

This all begins with the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is history; not something to be anticipated in the future. That is our assurance of our own resurrection (or sudden transformation) - a resurrection has already happened. Jesus said, "Because I live, you will live also" (John 14:19). This is the meaning of the power of His resurrection, in that it enables us also to partake of His sufferings (Philippians 3:10). Jesus in His human body, died for our sins and rose on the third day, "so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." (Hebrews 2:14-15). It is only when we enter into the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ that we experience the power of The Age to Come in This Age. When we no longer fear death, to paraphrase William Carey, the "Father of the Modern Missionary Movement," there is nothing we won't attempt for God, nothing we won't expect from God.

Take a look at Galatians 2:20, for that is where we will begin the next time. Good stuff with which to end one year and begin another. Be encouraged in Christ.

The Gospel of the Kingdom: Part 7

Last time we ended by pointing out the stark contrast between "this age" and "the age to come," or, to put it another way, the present "kingdoms of this world" which shall become, at God's appointed time, "the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ..." (Revelation 11:15). Until that time, while there is a manifestation of the Kingdom of God in the church, in the present, it is primarily one of the Kingdom being within the life of the individual believers who make up the church. "Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, 'The Kingdom of God does not come with careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you.'" (Luke 17:20-21).

And so we must point out here that it is the coming (parousia) of the Lord Jesus Christ that will separate This Age from The Age to Come. And further we must say that before the final consumption of God's redemptive purpose, Scripture teaches that the earth is to experience an extended period of our Lord's glorious rule, a literal 1,000 year period known as the Millennium. (Revelation 20:1-9; Isaiah 65:17-25). If The Age to Come is thought of as existing beyond history, then the Millennium will witness the triumph of God's Kingdom within history.

This is made easier to see when one understands the "Biblical prophetic perspective." The prophets of old often described the distant future, not only as a single although complex event, but the immediate future and the distant future were often described as a single act of God. The same can be said of Jesus' prophetic utterances recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. History makes it clear that the Lord was not only describing the historical destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (A.D. 66-70), but it was against the backdrop of the eschatological Antichrist and the Great Tribulation. The Old Testament makes no clear delineation between the Messiah coming as a suffering servant (Isaiah 53, Zechariah 9:9-10) and the Messiah coming as a conquering King (Isaiah 9, 11).

George E. Ladd, in his book "The Gospel of the Kingdom" states, "The Old Testament makes no effort to synthesize the prophecies; and the effort to decide which prophecies apply to the church age, which apply to the millennial era, and which belong to the Age to Come ignores this basic fact of the prophetic perspective." Further study of Revelation and 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 make it clear that there are at least two eschatological stages in the future establishment of God's Kingdom. There are at least two resurrections. There are stages in the defeat of Satan. Death and the grave are not destroyed until the end of the Millennium (Revelation 20:14). Jesus possesses the keys of Hades and death now (Revelation 1:18) but the prayer, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," will not be fully answered until the close of the Millennium.

So what can we conclude from our study thus far? 1) We shall never experience the full blessings of God's Kingdom in This Age. 2) The perfected Kingdom of god belongs to The Age to Come. 3) When God's people are called upon to pass through severe sufferings and tribulation, they should remember that God has not abandoned them, but that their sufferings are due to the fact that they no longer belong to This Age and are therefore the objects of its hostility. 4) Finally, the Kingdom of God will never be fully realized apart from the personal, glorious, victorious Coming of Christ. Men cannot build the Kingdom of God; Christ will bring it!

Next time we will be encouraged as we begin to study the extent to which the Kingdom of God today.

The Gospel of the Kingdom: Part 6

"Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?" (Matthew 19:16) It's an age-old question. Maybe a drink from the fountain of youth will do it. Maybe slaying the dragon will do it. Maybe going out in a burst of heroism will do it. What good deed.......?? What would you give for the answer to that question? The answer is there in the text, but it may not be what you think it is. It's not specifically about selling everything and giving the proceeds to the poor. Oh, it was for this rich young ruler, but it may be something different for you or I. Jesus in essence told him, "Rid yourself of every restraint that hinders you from becoming (and being) my disciple."

Jesus' remark a few verses later, "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:23-24) Jesus was declaring an absolute impossibility, which only God can reverse. Only God can bring the sincerely seeking heart to the place where it trusts in nothing but His grace demonstrated on Calvary's cross. It takes the working of God the Holy Spirit to bring one to the place where the words of the old song become personal" "Nothing of myself I bring, only to the cross I cling..."

In passing, I would like to point out that Jesus in this passage uses the terms "kingdom of heaven" and "kingdom of God" interchangeably. More to the point, it probably has to do with the language in which Jesus taught (Aramaic) and the language in which the New Testament was written (Greek). In any event, they are interchangeable, and include eternal life, which is also interchangeable with salvation. Jesus says that this is not attainable by man's efforts, and anything which is pursued and/or held on to as a substitute will disqualify one from the true prize. If you will remember in Jesus' parable of the sower, both the rocky soil and the thorny soil represent people who have received the Gospel of the kingdom. In one case, persevering faith is interrupted by persecution and affliction, both of which produce fear. In the latter case, the deceitfulness of riches (the rich young ruler's problem) materialism, and the cares of the world (the cosmos or world system over which Satan temporarily rules) choke out seed's ability to produce fruit.

So it is a miracle that anyone, rich or poor, to have his affections turned from the things he either desires or worries about so that he may become a disciple of Jesus, and thus be prepared to enter the future Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus goes on to say that those who have experienced this miracle, and have abandoned those things they once trusted in, will experience in this life great blessing along with persecution [present Kingdom benefits] and in the Age to Come, eternal life. (see Mark 10:30) If these parallel passages were the only biblical teaching we had about eternal life, we would have to conclude that it (and the Kingdom of God) will come only when Jesus returns. This occurs following the resurrection. As Paul says, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Corinthians 15:50). Only in transformed, resurrection bodies will we enter the Kingdom of God.

In the parable of the tares, we find that the Kingdom of God will be introduced by the day of judgment (Matthew 13:39). In the parable of the net Jesus says, "So it will be at the close of this age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire." (Matthew 13:49-50). Thus we find that the Kingdom of God belongs to the Age to Come and is set in stark contrast to This Age. This Age is dominated by evil, while the Age to Come will witness the fullness of God's Kingdom and the perfection of His reign. The simplicity of this is interrupted by something called the Millennium, about which we'll speak next time. Then we will transition into the "now' aspects of the Kingdom of God. As we sort this out, be encouraged to trust Christ always. He is the key to the Kingdom!!

The Gospel of the Kingdom: Part 5

In Part 4 we introduced the fact that the Kingdom of God is Tomorrow. Today we will continue with that concept, and a troubling concept it can be, especially when you look at the sample list of those who will not inherit the Kingdom of God (see Galatians 5:19-21). Every one of us on the planet who has reached the age of accountability is guilty of practicing such vile things. And then Jesus comes along and makes it worse by saying that lust is as bad as the act of adultery or fornication, and anger without cause is as bad as murder. He goes on to tell his amazed audience that they need to love their enemies; turn the other cheek; and this catch-all statement: "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:20).

Jesus is not adding one impossible standard after another to 513 that the people could not keep already. If anything, Jesus is making it absolutely clear that no one will enter the Kingdom by keeping the Law.

We find that the Bible frequently contrasts the tomorrow aspect of the Kingdom of God with the spirit of This Age. The spirit of This Age is portrayed as hostile to the Gospel of the Kingdom. Matthew 13 tells us what happens when the Gospel of the Kingdom is preached. Now remember; this is the Good News of the Kingdom. For there to be good news, there must be bad news. The bad news is that nobody can keep all 513 of the Jewish Laws to get into the Kingdom. The bad news is that nobody can maintain all of the right attitudes that must accompany the keeping of the Law to get into the Kingdom. The bad news is that by our (sinful) nature we are objects of God's wrath and cannot enter the Kingdom. The good news is that there is a way into the Kingdom.

When this good news is preached to some people, because of a lack of understanding, the words are like seed bouncing off the cement. They neither sprout nor take root, but are snatched away by the evil one. When preached to others, the Gospel is received with joy, but when persecution arises because of the Gospel, these people wither like plants with shallow roots under a scorching sun. There is yet another group of people who hear the gospel, but the care of the age and the delight in and the deceitfulness of riches chokes out the word and it proves unfruitful. (Matthew 13:22). This is common in the advanced and prosperous western cultures. The care of the age goes beyond the challenge and anxiety of making a living; it is the entire spirit which characterizes This Age: worry and anxiety about physical life, the pressure and drive for wealth, success, prosperity and power. All of this is involved in the care of This Age. The spirit of This Age is hostile to the Gospel, and by persecution or pressure for possessions and prosperity, it causes the Gospel to be unfruitful in the lives of those unwilling to pay the price of following Christ.

The inspired writings of Paul reveal a core truth: "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). In God's judicial righteousness, Satan has been permitted to exercise much authority and power throughout This Age. While all the pain, suffering, conflict and evil originate from Satan, man cannot cop to the "Devil made me do it" excuse; man remains a free moral agent. As such he is answerable to God and to his fellow man. We also discover that the root of evil is blindness or religious unbelief. Sin is primarily religious and secondarily ethical. Satan's objective in all of this is to keep men from Christ. It is obvious then that the Kingdom of God is opposed to and does not belong to This Age.

Next time we will pick up the story of the rich young ruler and and his attempt to secure eternal life (in the Age to Come). Until then, don't worry about tomorrow.

The Gospel of the Kingdom: Part 4

The Kingdom of God is Tomorrow. This is not meant to encourage you to adopt the slogan of the grasshopper as your own: "Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?" Remember our basic description of the Kingdom of God? It is basically the rule of God; or divine sovereignty in action. It is helpful, however, to remember that God's reign is manifested in several realms, and the Gospels speak of entering into the Kingdom of God both today and tomorrow. There is both a future realm and a present realm in which men may experience the blessings of God's reign. For the moment, we are going to focus on the future realm.

It is a clear teaching of the New testament that God's will (and the accompanying enjoyment of blessings) is not to be perfectly realized in this realm. Central to Biblical Theology is the doctrine of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This doctrine, and what Scripture says what must transpire on planet Earth before the Lord's return is central the ministry of Encouragement for End-Times Endurance http://www.endtimesencouragement.com/ Just as there are two advents of Christ, one in the flesh which we call the Incarnation, and the other in glory, which may be called the Parousia, so there are two manifestations of God's Kingdom: one which is present now because God's Son has appeared among men, and one in power and glory when Christ returns. For now we will look at the final realization of God's Kingdom in the realm "beyond history"

Properly understood, the Bible does not present a view of time, and then eternity. The Bible really presents the linear concept of eternity simply as unending time. There are two Greek word in the New Testament translated by the single English word "world." The first is kosmos, which in its most common usage means the world as the sum and total of everything constituting an orderly universe. (Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time, S.C.M. Press, London, 1951). The other Greek word translated "world" is aion, which is better translated "age" as in a period of time. The entire sweep of man's existence is set forth in terms of this age and the age which is to come.

In Ephesians 1:21, Paul speaks of the exaltation of Christ, not only in this age (aion) but in the age to come. The blessing eternal life Christ speaks of for those who have left earthly comforts for His sake will come in the age to come. Over and over the New Testament speaks of two different ages, separated by the Second Coming of Christ and the First Resurrection. This present age will end with the Parousia and it will be followed by the age to come. In Luke 20:34-36 Jesus speaks of "those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead...." Reading through the passage you discover that in this age, marriage is a necessary (and honorable) institution, but that a different state of affairs will exist in the age to come. The "sons of the resurrection" will be immortal, and thus this present age will be separated from the age to come will be separated by the First Resurrection.

We read that Christ "gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father," (Galatians 1:4). A more detailed presentation to the order of this present evil age is given in Ephesians 2:1-2, and all believers once walked in accordance with this order. The New Testament is full of non-exhaustive lists describing our attitudes and activities as we walked in ways displeasing to God. For example: "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21).

Whew! Is there any hope of inheriting the Kingdom of God; is there any hope of ever entering it? I know this is rather a down place to stop; but I promise you: It is not the end of the story. Please keep in mind that the title of this blog series is "The Gospel (good news) of the Kingdom. So stay tuned..........

The Gospel of the Kingdom: Part 3

To understand the Kingdom of God, we must understand the biblical meaning of the word, "kingdom." The archaic definition from Webster's dictionary gives us a clue. "The rank, quality, state, or attributes of a king; royal authority; dominion; monarchy; kingship. The primary meaning of both the Hebrew Old Testament word and the Greek New Testament word translated "kingdom" is the rank, authority and sovereignty exercised by a king. We have already ascertained that the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew 24:14) meant the Gospel of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. Now we are ascertaining that, first of all, a kingdom is the authority to rule, the sovereignty of the king. So when it is written in Ezra 8:1 of the return from Babylon "in the kingdom" of Artaxerxes, it refers to his reign. Likewise, when the Scriptures refer to God's Kingdom, it refers to His reign, His rule, His sovereignty and not the realm in which it is exercised. (George Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom, [Wm. B. Erdmans, Grand Rapids, 1959] 20).

In Hebrew poetic expression, God's Kingdom is also His power. (Psalm 145:11). "Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endures throughout all generations." (Psalm 145:13) It is God's rule which is everlasting, not the realm of His rule, for the Scriptures also declare that this heaven and this earth will pass away. (Mark 13:31) So when Jesus said that we must "receive the kingdom of God" as little children, (Mark 10:15) He wasn't speaking about receiving the church, or heaven, but God's rule. So here we begin to see a condition of the Kingdom: to enter the future rule of the Kingdom, one must submit, in complete trust, to God's rule in the here and now.

How many times have you heard it said at a funeral, "Well, so-and-so is in a better place now"? For that to be true, so-and-so had better have already submitted to the rule of God in his former life. It is not written for nothing, "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness." (Matthew 6:33) When we pray, "Thy kingdom come," we are not praying for heaven to come to earth, really. Apart from the reign of God, heaven is meaningless, so we pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10).

Now we've dealt with the primary meaning of the word "kingdom," but let's face it; a reign without a realm in which it is exercised is meaningless. So we find that the Kingdom of god is also a realm in which God's Kingdom may be experienced. In this regard, the Bible sometimes speaks of the Kingdom as a realm to be entered at the present; sometimes as though it were future. In passages such as Matthew 7:21; Mark 9:47, 10:23, 14:25 the Kingdom is equivalent to that aspect of eternal life which will be experienced only after the Second Coming of Christ. Other passages, such as Luke 16:16, 11:52; Matthew 21:31, the Kingdom is spoken of as being present, capable of being entered now.

So we are faced made up of three facts: 1) Some passages of Scripture refer to God's Kingdom as His reign; 2) Some passages refer to it as the realm into which we may now enter and experience blessings; 3) Others refer to a future realm which will come only with the return of Christ, into which we will enter and experience the fullness of His reign. So, the Scriptures must be studied to determine by context which meaning is correct for the particular passage. "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)

Fundamentally, the Kingdom of God is God's sovereign reign; but God's reign expresses itself in different stages throughout redemptive history. On occasion, God has entered human history and has abruptly changed it's course (the flood, the exodus). He has also entered human history and changed human destiny, but the manner of change has been much quieter, although no less real. I'm speaking here of the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, speaking to us, and expressing in human form the image of God. (John 1:14; Hebrews 1:1-3) Thus man has been able to enter the kingdom of God at various stages of its manifestation, where they experience today, enjoying in part but in reality, the blessings of God's reign, while they await the fullness of those blessings to manifest when Jesus returns as King of Kings.

So when you pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," pray with thankful confidence that His Kingdom is coming, and it will fill the whole earth. But when you pray that, also ask that God's will be done in the here and now (in you, in your family, in your church, town, state, country and the world). The church especially ought to be a fellowship of people among whom God's will is being done all the time. Our lives, our churches should be a sneak preview of the Kingdom of God.

"Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:10-11)