Thank you, Matthew.
Matthew 13:24:
Another parable set He before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man that sowed good seed in his field:
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away.
But when the blade sprang up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
And the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? Whence then hath it tares?
And he said unto them, An enemy hath done this. And the servants say unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
But he saith, Nay; lest haply while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.
Let us also read Matthew 13:37:
He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
And the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one;
And the enemy that sowed them is the devil: and the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered up and burned with fire; so shall it be in the end of the world.
The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity,
And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears, let him hear.
Now let us pay attention to this phrase: “The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom.” Here we have the kingdom of the Son of Man.
Then, in Matthew 13:43, we have “the kingdom of their Father.” Let us pay attention to that also.
Dear Lord, once again we commit this word into Your hands. We thank You. This is the word of Your kingdom, and we know how Your enemy hates this word. He will not allow this word to sink into our hearts.
So, dear Lord, tonight once again we ask You, in Your victorious name, that You will win the victory tonight; that You will win all our ears. May all those who have ears hear Your words.
Lord, we thank You so much because our eyes are blessed: we are going to see. Our ears are blessed: we are going to hear. Dear Lord, tonight we pray that the word of Your patience may fall into the very depth of our being. May the power of that word transform us from glory to glory.
Thank You, Lord. We are all waiting here for Your mighty working tonight. In the name of our Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.
We know that Matthew 13 contains eight parables. These parables are all connected with the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Last time, we occupied ourselves with the first two parables. But I felt that something very important was still left untouched, so we will spend a little time reviewing some key points in the second parable.
We ask the Holy Spirit to continue to work through these key points and translate everything into our hearts, that we may understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
The greatest mystery of the kingdom of heaven is the King Himself. We have already mentioned that the greatest mystery is that our King wears a crown of thorns and holds a reed in His right hand. This is our King.
These parables begin with the sower. When our Lord went forth to sow, it was not a picture of a general going forth to war. No. He speaks of life, not of power. Again, we are reminded of an important mystery of the kingdom of heaven.
Some people think that, when the Messianic kingdom comes, it will come as one great event. But through these parables we are reminded that our King begins to work in human life and in the human heart before He changes the outward order of this world.
Today, He works in the spiritual order and in the life of every man and woman. It is not one great event; it is a slow and gradual process. The word of the kingdom is transforming us. The objective Word becomes subjective: something is working in the very depth of our being.
This is the kingdom today. Since our Lord first went forth to sow nearly two thousand years ago, the kingdom of heaven has begun. Our Lord said to the Pharisees and Jewish leaders, “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” What does that mean? The King of the kingdom was there.
Wherever the King is, there is the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, brothers and sisters, the kingdom of heaven is not merely a future kingdom; it is also a present kingdom. We are not only speaking about the kingdom tomorrow. We are speaking about the kingdom today.
One of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven is this: the kingdom is tomorrow, and the kingdom is today. The word of the kingdom has already begun its work in us, slowly and gradually.
It is not a uniform success, but thank God, it is effective. Without firing one bullet or using any weapon, Christ has conquered many subjects and won many people into His kingdom.
For almost two thousand years, the fruit of the cross has caused millions of people to surrender at the feet of our Lord. This is the kingdom of heaven today. That is how the word of the kingdom works in our hearts.
Today the kingdom is inward. One day it will be public; one day it will be outward, because the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. But today it is something inward and spiritual.
It is not yet a great change in the outward order of the world—whether political, economic, or social. Our Lord knows that there is no use merely changing the outward order. Ask all the politicians and statesmen of the world to change the outward order, and they will never be able to do it.
Only our Lord knows that the greatest source of pollution in this universe is man. The problem is not merely how Israel, the chosen people of God, can be delivered from Gentile oppression. That is a small thing. The great question is how our Lord and Savior can save men from sin.
For that reason, this is the mystery of the kingdom of God: today it is spiritual before anything else. Today our Lord is dealing with the spiritual reality. One day He will deal with everything else.
I believe that when our Lord returns, He will solve the problem of air pollution. Do you believe that? According to Isaiah 30, when our Lord returns, the moonlight will be as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be sevenfold brighter.
What does that mean? It means that as we approach the return of our Lord, the world is getting darker and darker and darker. Human technology may invent many new things, but it can never solve the problem of pollution.
We have discovered a great hole in the sky—not only over the South Pole, but even above the United States. When you use hairspray, you are contributing to that trouble. A molecule rises and, somehow, damages the whole system. No one is able to solve this problem.
We have had great global congresses to discuss how to solve air pollution. But, brothers and sisters, there is no hope unless our Lord returns. Today He is not going to solve that problem, because merely changing the outward order is no use.
You may clear the air, but here is the greatest source of pollution in the whole universe: man. For that reason, our Lord died on the cross to solve the most important problem.
The word of the kingdom is exactly the same as “the word of My patience” in Revelation. When our Lord spoke to the church in Philadelphia, He said:
Because thou didst keep the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial, that hour which is to come upon the whole world.
— Revelation 3:10
The word of the kingdom is the word of His patience. Why? Because today, when our King is working, He is not using a rod of iron. He is using a reed. He is not working by outward power.
Yet how that reed has conquered us! When we see the scars in His hands and in His side, when we see the crown of thorns and the reed in His right hand, we see a picture of One who appears weak. How can He conquer the world by such a picture?
Brothers and sisters, that is how we are conquered. We all could stand and testify how we were saved and captured by our great Savior. No wonder Queen Victoria once said, “When our Lord returns, I want to cast my crown under His feet.”
Let us remember: His word of kingdom is the word of His patience. Today, He is not demanding. He is pleading with us.
He does not have one hundred percent success today, because the kingdom today is an offer. If it is an offer, you can accept it or reject it. Oh, how He wishes and hopes that you will accept Him.
Today we do not see the fork and the axe in His hand. Thank God, we see the King with wine and oil. For that reason, He had to go through the winepress of the cross and through Gethsemane.
Gethsemane means an oil press. When I visited the garden, I saw olive trees that were more than two thousand years old. I could almost imagine all that our Lord had seen there.
Olives grow high above, and they must be brought down. Our Lord was high above in heaven, but because He loves you and me, He came down from the highest heaven. In Gethsemane He prayed, “Not My will, but Thine, be done.”
He also went through the winepress of the cross. Therefore, He has His oil and His wine. We are like the man who fell among robbers and was left half dead. Religious people, like the priest and the Levite, passed by as though they did not see him.
But the Samaritan—our Lord—came to us. He loved us and bound up our wounds with oil and wine. Anyone who is weary may come and find rest.
Think of it. Throughout history, that wonderful word has conquered millions and millions of souls—not with bullets, not through force, but because the word of the kingdom works in the heart, and we respond.
When we respond, we become sons of the kingdom. Thank God, He has sown us in the field of this world because He has an eternal purpose. We are to grow as wheat.
The tares and the wheat look almost alike in the beginning. You cannot easily distinguish them. Of course, the wheat refers to Christians, while the tares refer to counterfeit Christians.
Our Lord does not immediately take the tares away. No, He allows them to grow together. Life itself will make the distinction. If it is the life of wheat, then as it grows and matures, it bears grain.
When the grain matures, the weight causes the wheat to bow down. But the tares grow upward and upward. Who is lower? The wheat. Who is higher? The tares.
When true wheat is mature, it is always low. This is why the Sermon on the Mount is so important. You can never pretend to be humble.
When we were young, we tried to imitate spiritual brothers whom we considered humble. We carried our Bibles in a certain way, trying to look humble. But the more we did that, the more proud we became. Sometimes I told myself, “Look how humble I am!”
Brothers and sisters, this is counterfeit. It is not true life. If you have the life of wheat, time is a good test.
The kingdom tomorrow gives us hope; the kingdom today gives us true experience. Only when we reign with Him today will we reign with Him in that day. Only when we shine with Christ today will we shine with Him in that day.
The kingdom today is our great laboratory. This is not a national laboratory, not Brookhaven, not Oak Ridge, not Los Alamos. The great laboratory of the kingdom of heaven is the world.
In order for us to mature before the Lord, the wheat must grow. In Mark 4, another parable tells us the process of growth: first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
How slow it is! It does not happen overnight. But when the kingdom comes in manifestation, that will be one great event. Then it will be black or white: either righteous or wicked.
Today the secret of the kingdom of heaven may seem to have only twenty-five percent success, and the process is slow. First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
When wheat grows and ripens, the part near the earth becomes detached from the earth. It becomes easy to reap. This teaches us something about rapture.
Today we argue about pre-tribulation rapture, post-tribulation rapture, mid-tribulation rapture, or partial rapture. But remember this: to be raptured is a very natural thing.
If the Lord places us in this world, then as we grow and mature, on the one hand we die to this world; on the other hand, our face is always beholding the glory of the Son, and we grow toward heaven.
The more detached we are from the world, the more attached we are to heaven. We live heaven on earth. This is the kingdom of heaven.
Sometimes we talk about rapture and forget this point. We may know prophecy, theology, and doctrine clearly, but it is quite another thing to be truly waiting for the Lord’s return.
If we are waiting for the Lord’s return, how do we explain our bank accounts and our manner of life? The more we live in this world, are we becoming detached from it or more attached to it?
The kingdom today is an inward reality. People do not see it, and some call it the kingdom in mystery. But there is also an outward appearance in this world which we call Christendom.
When you study history, especially the Middle Ages, you see that the Roman Empire accepted Christianity as a national religion. The state and the church became joined together. The world sees this outward appearance, but it does not see the inward reality.
In the second parable, you see not only the inward reality of the kingdom but also its outward appearance. More than that, one day the kingdom will be manifested. That is why our Lord taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come.”
At the end of the age, the kingdom of heaven will be manifested in fullness. But we must not confuse the kingdom of the Son of Man with the kingdom of the Father.
The Jewish rabbis generally saw only one coming of the Messiah. But the Bible presents two comings. They saw the glorious Messiah, but they did not see the suffering Messiah. They saw the crown, but not the cross.
Even in the public manifestation of the kingdom, there are two aspects. The kingdom of the Son of Man, the Messianic kingdom, is universal and has to do with the earth. But there is also the kingdom of the Father.
The righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. That is heavenly. The millennial kingdom is not merely an earthly kingdom; it is a universal kingdom.
Abraham has two classes of descendants: one as the sand of the seashore and the other as the stars of heaven. Through faith in Christ, though we are Gentiles, we become Abraham’s descendants.
Today nobody knows that we are stars. It is hidden. But one day, in the manifestation of the sons of God, there will be a public display. Then the sons of God will shine forth.
Christ is the Sun of righteousness. When we reach the measure of the stature of Christ, we shall shine with Christ in heaven. We often think only about reigning with Christ, but to shine with Christ is the whole spectrum of life in the kingdom of heaven.
Yes, we will reign with Christ. But if we suffer with Him, we shall also be glorified with Him. What does that mean? We shall shine as the sun.
The kingdom of the Father means that all the citizens of that kingdom are sons. Why else is it called “the kingdom of their Father”? They are righteous men, and God is their Father.
The Old Testament prophecies will be literally fulfilled. But when our Lord came, there was a great turning point in the history of mankind. This is the mystery of the kingdom of heaven.
Let us turn to Matthew 5. Matthew 5:9 says:
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.
Matthew 5:44 says:
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you;
That ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.
Now you understand what the kingdom of the Father means. If you hate your enemy and do not love him, you may still be a Christian. You are born again and eternally secure. But if you love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, you are manifesting the character of the sons of your Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 5:48 says:
Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
This does not mean sinless perfection. That is impossible. It means that in one particular matter—love—we should be as perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.
We cannot be perfect as the Father in every aspect. But in the matter of love, we should be perfect as He is perfect. He causes His rain to fall on the righteous and the wicked. We naturally love those who love us, but when we love our enemies, our love is being perfected.
Every demand in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is coupled with a higher work: we are being transformed into the image of Christ. We shall never love our enemies apart from being transformed into His image.
One day these sons of the King will shine in the millennium. Today we are often at the feet of people because we have only an appearance of service. But only those who are at the feet of our Lord are able to be at the feet of others.
One day, in the kingdom to come, there will be a manifestation, or revealing, of the sons of God. According to Romans 8, the whole creation is groaning and eagerly waiting for that moment.
Something happened in England in 1967. At a great radio telescope laboratory, a graduate student detected a strange but interesting signal. They called it LGM—“Little Green Men”—because they thought it might be a signal from intelligent life in outer space.
Later they discovered that it was the signal of a neutron star. A star was growing old, shrinking, and dying. In a sense, it was sending a signal to the whole universe: “I am dying.”
The whole universe is under corruption and is waiting for liberation. In the history of mankind, through scientific instruments, we have heard something of the groaning of creation.
Then there are black holes. A black hole appears black outwardly, but if anything passes into it, it is swallowed without end. Even light cannot escape. Outwardly it is black; inwardly it is like a furnace of fire.
Not only is the universe groaning; we who are saved also groan. The more we look in the mirror as we get older, the more we understand that our bodies are decaying. We are waiting for the adoption as sons—that is, the redemption of our body.
The Greek expression for adoption means the placing of sons. In Roman society, a child might grow up among servants, and people would not recognize that he was the son of the master.
When he came to maturity, the father would invite his friends to a banquet and announce that his son had grown up. From that day on, the son would receive the inheritance, assume responsibility, and execute the will of his father. This was the placing of the son.
Today, the sons are hidden. But one day there will be the manifestation of the sons of God. That is why we are groaning and waiting for the redemption of our bodies.
Today we sow in tears, but that day we shall harvest in glory. Today we suffer with Christ; one day we shall be glorified with Christ. Today we shine as servants; that day we shall shine with Christ.
Let us be delivered from our narrow concepts. To reign with Christ is wonderful, but to shine with Christ is even more wonderful. God has reserved something for our surprise.
The Lord has not told us every detail. One day, when we see Him face to face, He will give us a happy surprise. But the problem today is that we must grow. We must mature—not merely be children of God, but grow into maturity.
Romans 8 tells us that not only the creation and believers are groaning; the Holy Spirit is also groaning for us. For what purpose? That we may be transformed into the image of Christ.
Today we shine as candles. We sing Sunday-school hymns about shining as a candle, and that is good. But if you put a candle under the sunlight, that candlelight becomes the very definition of darkness.
We ought to shine as candles, but more than that, we should shine as the sun. No one can accomplish this by his own effort. The Holy Spirit is groaning in us and praying for us.
When we pray, we often do not know what we should pray for. Sometimes we think something is a blessing when it is not, and sometimes we think something is not a blessing when it is. Only the Holy Spirit knows how to pray for us according to the will of God.
Sometimes we become occupied with the weakness of our bodies. We have aches and pains, and all we worry about is how long we shall live. But we forget to ask how well we shall live.
A thick book is not necessarily a good book. May the Lord be merciful to us. We can waste our days caring only for our sicknesses and pains, forgetting that we have a duty, a mission, and a purpose for living today.
Lord, today is not merely another day of sickness. It is a day for me to shine with You and to be transformed into the image of Christ.
A brother once said, “I am so busy that I have no time to be sick.” Sometimes, brothers and sisters, we have nothing to do but to be sick. But may the Lord be merciful to us. The enemy of God knows our weakness.
Let us remember that today we are wheat, and the wheat will ripen. Every day our heads should be turned toward glory. The more we receive His glory, the more we shall be clothed with glory.
Our glory is greater than the glory of Moses. Moses’ glory came from without, but when we behold Christ, we are transformed from glory to glory from within.
This is our duty and our mission: to behold His glory so that we may be transformed from glory to glory. When we learn this lesson, all things work together—including sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, mothers-in-law, fathers-in-law, everything.
The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of His patience. It makes us sons of the kingdom. The sons of the kingdom are sons of the Father.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
— Matthew 5:3, 10
The kingdom of heaven is not only a future reality; it is also a reward. Our Lord said:
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
— Luke 12:32
What kingdom? The kingdom of our Father. We see the kingdom as a present reality to be experienced and also as a future reality. It is our hope, and it is our reward.
If God allows someone to become the governor of a state, that is wonderful. But if not, the Lord has a better way. As long as we shine with Christ, that is enough.
When I was young, our hearts were captured by kingdom truth. We encouraged one another to gain a crown. We compared crowns: perhaps one crown would be larger, have more gold, or contain more pearls.
Then one day we were reminded that the most wonderful crown is our Lord Himself. When we come into the kingdom of heaven, by the mercy of the Lord we may receive a crown. But the greatest crown is the King of kings. He is our reward. That is enough.
Are you willing to gain that reward? Is it by works? No, it is by grace.
If you study the Gospel of Matthew carefully, you find that there is One greater than Jonah and One greater than Solomon. Matthew presents Jonah first and Solomon second.
Why? Jonah speaks of the death and resurrection of Christ. Solomon speaks of the glorious kingdom. Before we can live according to the pattern of the Sermon on the Mount, we need the death and resurrection of Christ. Otherwise, we can never do it.
People mistakenly try to create a kingdom on earth merely according to Matthew 5, 6, and 7. This is Christian socialism. But it is impossible. We do not gain our reward by our works in ourselves.
Yes, there are works, but those works are the fruit of life. How can we bear that fruit? It is by the Holy Spirit and on the basis of Christ’s work at Calvary.
It is not our merit, our theories, or anything of ourselves. It is all by grace. We are to live according to the standard of the kingdom of heaven, and the Lord will never lower that standard.
When I go to a department store, good things may be on the sixth floor. You cannot ask the store to bring the sixth floor down to the first floor. But they provide an elevator. You stand there, and it brings you up.
That is what happens in the Gospel of Matthew. The kingdom is a kingdom of grace. Christ is our crown, and Christ is our reward. All we desire is His smile when we meet Him. That is enough. It is worth every valley of tears and suffering.
This is the mystery of the kingdom of heaven in the second parable. I have spent a long time reviewing it because it is very important.
Now we come to the third and fourth parables. Let us turn to Matthew 13.
Matthew 13:31:
Another parable set He before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
Which indeed is less than all seeds; but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the heaven come and lodge in the branches thereof.
Matthew 13:33:
Another parable spake He unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.
Brothers and sisters, we must relate these two parables to the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Before entering into them, let me remind you of some important principles for understanding parables.
First, we must expect harmony between the teaching of one parable and that of another. Christ is consistent in His teaching.
Second, these parables must concern mysteries that were previously unknown. We must interpret them in their context, not outside their context.
Third, our interpretation must not contradict the Lord’s own explanation. The Lord does not confuse us in His use of figures. We may be poor students, but our Lord is the greatest Teacher.
He makes everything clear. We do not have to guess. When the Lord has explained a figure, we should apply that explanation consistently.
For example, the sower in the parables represents the same person throughout. The Lord has given us the guidelines for understanding His parables. We should follow His direction rather than add our own ideas.
Of course, if the immediate context gives no answer, then we may look to the wider teaching of Scripture. But we should always begin with the immediate context and then go to the more remote context. This is the correct order.
Almost all Bible students agree that these two parables speak of the growth of the kingdom. But the question remains: is this growth normal or abnormal?
There are many arguments and many Bible teachers. Sometimes you can become lost among their explanations. But if we follow the Lord’s own rules for interpreting parables, we do not have a problem.
In the third parable, there are birds of the air. But there are also birds in the first parable, and the Lord interpreted those birds for us.
And as he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the birds came and devoured them.
— Matthew 13:4
Then the Lord explained:
When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the evil one, and snatcheth away that which hath been sown in his heart.
— Matthew 13:19
The soil is the heart, and the birds represent the evil one. Now, in the third parable, the mustard seed grows into a tree, and the birds come and lodge in its branches.
If the birds represent the evil one, then can we call this normal growth? The tree becomes a lodging place for the evil one. Clearly, brothers and sisters, this is abnormal growth.
We do not need to ask every Bible teacher. Thank God for many great servants of God, but the One greater than all teachers is our Lord Himself. We understand the Word of God by the Word of God.
If we come to Him simply as children, He will reveal His truth. The Father hides these things from the wise and prudent and reveals them unto babes.
The mustard seed becomes a tree. But the secret is not merely that it becomes great. The secret is that it represents abnormal growth.
The world always wants something large and great. Great empires, great institutions, great visible structures—these are not mysteries. The Old Testament already speaks of great kingdoms.
Babylon was compared to a great tree whose height reached to heaven and was visible to the end of the earth. There is no mystery in earthly kingdoms becoming great.
The mystery is that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed—the least of all seeds. The seed is small. Yet it grows into the greatest of the garden plants.
The danger for the church today is that we imitate the world. When we do something, we want it to be great. We forget that even a mustard seed is full of life and energy.
People want to see size and numbers. They do not want to see reality. But the Lord said:
Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
— Luke 12:32
We must remain a little flock. Why little? Because the whole church of God in this world is only a small minority. It has no political power, no outward strength, nothing in the eyes of the world.
Do not be afraid. Remain small. This is the secret of the kingdom of heaven.
I remember a beautiful prayer from the early Moravians:
From the unhappy desire of becoming great,
Good Lord, deliver us.
May this prayer become our prayer:
From the unhappy desire of becoming great,
Good Lord, deliver us.
This is the secret of the kingdom of heaven, and it is a paradox. The world does not understand it.
If I summarize the lesson of these two parables in two phrases, they are these:
This is the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. Small is beautiful, and pure is beautiful. These are great paradoxes in the kingdom of God.
When you enter the kingdom, you discover that it is very different from the kingdoms of this world. It is an upside-down kingdom—not a disorderly kingdom, but an inverted kingdom.
The values of the kingdom are different from worldly values. These two parables speak of kingdom values. To be pure is most precious; to be small is most important in the eyes of the King.
Our flesh wants something big. We want to make things easy by adding leaven. But the Lord says purity is beautiful, and our flesh wants greatness. The Lord says smallness is beautiful.
That is why the cross is essential. The cross keeps us low, keeps us small, and keeps us pure. This is always the operation of the cross in the kingdom of heaven.
When you go to England, you find people driving on the left side of the road. You immediately realize that you have entered a different country with different rules.
When we enter the kingdom of heaven, we leave behind the values of the world. We enter a kingdom with different values.
Let me conclude with a few phrases. The upside-down kingdom is the kingdom in which:
These are not my inventions. They are taken from the Bible.
It is also an inverted kingdom in which you meet:
Dear Lord, we commit these words into Your hands. Speak to our hearts, Lord. Impress these words in the very depth of our being.
May Your word—the word of the kingdom, the word of Your patience—sink into our hearts and grow in our hearts. Make us sons of the kingdom, Lord.
Make us appreciate the kingdom matters that are the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Thank You, Lord. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.