Will you please turn to the letter to the Ephesians? Ephesians, Chapter 3.
We will read the first six verses, beginning with Ephesians 3:1.
For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus in behalf of you Gentiles,—
if so be that ye have heard of the dispensation of that grace of God which was given me to you-ward;
how that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words,
whereby, when ye read, ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ;
which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit;
to wit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs, and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Please turn also to Matthew, Chapter 13. We will read from Verse 10 through Verse 17.
And the disciples came, and said unto Him, Why speakest Thou unto them in parables?
And He answered and said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath.
Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive:
for this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I should heal them.
But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.
For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not.
Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, as we gather together this morning in Thy presence, how we praise and adore Thee, because great is Thy faithfulness. We do thank Thee. It is because of Thy faithfulness that we are here this morning, and it is because of Thy faithfulness that we believe Thou hast a word for us.
Lord, we do commit this time into Thy hands and look to Thee for blessing, that Thou mayest be glorified. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.
My part in this theme, Thy Kingdom Come, is on the kingdom and the church. We will look at this from four different angles.
Number one: the kingdom is one with the church. We have touched upon this briefly already. Now, for the sake of continuing, probably some of you have already forgotten what we have heard. So, just to remind you, what we have heard is that the kingdom is one with the church. It is one and the same thing.
The church speaks of life, and the kingdom speaks of authority. You cannot have life without authority, nor can you have authority without life. These things are together. As a matter of fact, they are one.
When we think of the church, we think of growth, because it is the body of Christ. The body of Christ has to grow, continually growing until it reaches maturity, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
When we think of the kingdom, we think of government. God rules over all.
When we think of the church, we think of love, because it is the house of God. In the house of God, the rule is love. When we think of the kingdom, we think of discipline. In other words, you cannot separate love from discipline. You have to discipline through love; and if there is real love, there must be discipline. Otherwise, it is not love. You cannot separate these two things.
When we think of the church, probably the symbol that we have in mind is the table. We gather around the table of the Lord, and of course that speaks of fellowship. We fellowship not only with our Lord, but we fellowship with one another. That is what the church is.
When we think of the kingdom, probably the picture that arises in our minds is the throne. There we find God seated upon the throne, and the Lamb seated upon the throne. That is the picture we have. So we bow and worship.
Another symbol found in Scripture, when we think of the church, is the lampstand. The lampstand is that which lifts up the light, and that is what the church really is. It is a lampstand, an instrument for the light.
Of course, we know that the light is none other than our Lord Jesus. It is the responsibility, the ministry, and the testimony of the church to lift up our Lord Jesus, that He may be seen and heard.
When we think of the kingdom, the picture we find in Scripture is the city. Here we find a city: the city of God, the New Jerusalem, where the glory of God is manifested.
When we look into Revelation 21 and Revelation 22, we find that this holy city is actually a giant lampstand. The foundations are the base of the lampstand, and the light is our Lord. So we find that the kingdom is one with the church.
In other words, when you come into spiritual reality, there is no difference between the kingdom and the church.
This morning, we would like to consider together the second aspect: the kingdom is bigger than the church.
Now, we have just said that the kingdom is one with the church. How, then, can the kingdom be bigger than the church? When we talk about the kingdom as one with the church, we are thinking of spiritual reality. Spiritual reality transcends time and space. It is eternal. It never changes. Because of that, when you come to spiritual reality, the kingdom and the church are truly one—one and the same thing.
But when we come into time and space, when we come into history, we find that there is a difference. The kingdom is bigger than the church.
We read in Ephesians 3 that the apostle Paul says God, by revelation, gave him the knowledge and understanding of the mystery. It is called the mystery of Christ. This mystery had been hidden throughout the ages, until it was revealed by the Spirit of God to the apostles and prophets.
When Paul mentions the mystery of Christ, he refers to the church. As Christ is the mystery of God, so the church is the mystery of Christ.
Now, what is a mystery? A mystery is not something mysterious, unknowable, or altogether secretive. A mystery is a secret, that is true; but the mystery of God is a secret hidden in the mind and heart of God.
A mystery is related to purpose. God has a purpose in His heart. In eternity past, it was a secret hidden in Him. But it is a glorious secret. That is to say, it is something upon which He has set His heart. It is something He desires to accomplish, and it is within Himself.
This mystery, this secret of God, has been hidden in the mind of God through the ages. You know, brothers and sisters, our God is One who can keep secrets. We cannot keep a secret. We say, “Now, this is a secret,” and then we tell it. But our God is One who can keep a secret.
There is something so glorious, something so precious, something that He so desires, and yet He can hide it in Himself through the ages—not just one day, not just one month, not just one year, not just a century, but through the ages. It is hidden within Him.
I wonder, if we try to keep a secret, we try very hard not to tell it. But when we realize it is so precious and so important, sometimes we have to deny ourselves and really be violent to ourselves in order to keep it. I wonder what it was like with God.
There is something that God purposed in eternity past, something He desires to have. We know that with God there is no past and no future. There is no tomorrow and no yesterday; it is always now. In other words, when God purposes something, He already possesses it. Yet somehow it is within Himself, and He never revealed it to mankind through the ages.
Because it was not ready. He had to wait until the right time. When the right time came, then He began to reveal that secret. It is called a mystery.
Brothers and sisters, because it is a mystery, it is the depth of God. It is not something on the periphery. It is something in the very center of His heart, in the very center of His mind. Therefore, there is no way to know that mystery except by revelation. God has to reveal it to us.
He has to reveal it by His Spirit. The Spirit of wisdom and revelation has to be given, and thank God that it has been given. First of all, it was given to the apostles and the prophets.
That mystery is something the prophets of old looked into and desired to know about, but God had not revealed it to them. It is a mystery, a secret, into which even the angels desired to look, but God did not reveal it to them.
God waited until the right moment, and He revealed it by His Spirit to the apostles and prophets of New Testament times. After it was revealed, it became an open secret.
In other words, today this mystery has been revealed. If it is still a mystery to you, the responsibility is yours. After that mystery has been revealed and opened up, every one of us who is the Lord’s should know what the mystery of Christ is. The mystery of Christ is the church. We need to know what the church is.
God kept that secret until the fullness of time. He sent His Son into this world, born of woman, born under the law. Then our Lord Jesus, when He was thirty years old, began to come and minister and preach the good tidings of the kingdom of God.
Strangely, in the records of all the Gospels, the word church is used by our Lord only twice while He was on earth. He preached the good tidings, the gospel of the kingdom. For some time He had gathered people around Himself, but He waited until one day when He asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I am?”
Of course, the disciples gave Him all the good reports. They would not give Him the bad reports. Out of courtesy, they gave all the good reports: “You are Elijah. You are John the Baptist, risen from the dead. Or You are the prophet prophesied by Moses, whom God would raise up from among the brethren, to whom we must take heed.”
But the Lord was not satisfied. So He said, “But who say ye that I am?” You who are My disciples, you who have followed Me, you who have known Me—what do you think? Who am I?
We all remember that story. Simon Peter, being the spokesman of the disciples, said:
Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
After Peter confessed our Lord Jesus in such a way, our Lord Jesus said:
Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in heaven.
And I also say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Brothers and sisters, this is the first time that our Lord even revealed the word church to His disciples: “Upon this rock I will build My church.”
What is this rock? I believe we all know that this rock is not Peter. Peter is just a stone, not a massive, huge rock. Peter is just a chip from that living Stone; so he became a living stone.
That rock is our Lord Jesus. The rock is the confession of our Lord Jesus. It is the confession of Peter; it is the confession of all of us. We confess our Lord Jesus as the Christ—that refers to His work—and as the Son of the living God—that refers to His Person.
So we who believe in the Lord Jesus and confess Him as such, He builds together to be His church. And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Only twice did our Lord mention this word church. The other mention is in Matthew 18. Our Lord Jesus said that if your brother sins against you, go to him in love. Try to help your brother and bring him to repentance, that he may be restored and recovered.
You do not go for the sake of taking revenge, nor for the sake of trying to prove that you are right. You go out of love. You have already forgiven him. You try to restore him into fellowship with you.
If he does not listen to you, take another two brothers or sisters whom you both know and respect. Then you go again and give him a second opportunity. If he still does not listen, then you go and tell the church.
When our Lord mentioned the word church there, there is a slight difference in context. In Matthew 16, when He said, “I will build My church,” He referred to the universal church, built upon the principle of confession.
But when He said, “Go and tell the church,” you cannot tell the universal church, because it is too big for you. You have to tell the local church, where you fellowship. Here He shows the local church, because all spiritual principles must be put into practice.
Only twice did our Lord Jesus mention the word church. But I wonder: when He used this word, did the disciples really understand what the church was? I doubt that they understood.
Not until our Lord Jesus went to Calvary and to His cross. Brothers and sisters, in order to have His church, in order to have that mystery fulfilled, He had to go to Calvary. There He was crucified on the cross.
Our brother has already mentioned how He was crucified there. When He was crucified, He suffered not only from the hands of men—that was the least of it. He suffered from the hands of the enemy, as the enemy surrounded Him and tried to attack Him fiercely.
But His greatest suffering, as has already been mentioned, was from the hand of His beloved Father. There He became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.
At the end of the six hours, He said, “It is finished.” The work was done. But He was still on the cross. Because the next day was a high Sabbath, according to Jewish tradition, no one could remain hanging on the cross, for that was accursed. Those who were crucified had to be taken down and buried.
When the soldiers came, they found that our Lord had already died. The two robbers were still alive, and their legs had to be broken to hasten their death. But when they came to our Lord Jesus, He had already died.
To make sure that He had truly died, a soldier pierced His side with a spear. I believe it reached to His very heart. When the spear was drawn out, blood and water came out.
The apostle John was there, and he said, “I saw blood and water coming out, and I witnessed it, and my witness is true.” Why did the apostle John emphasize this point? There is a reason.
Out of the side of our Lord Jesus something came out, and that something is the material for the building of the church. We mentioned how God put Adam to sleep, and out of the side of Adam God took a rib, something out of him, and with that something He built Eve.
Therefore, Eve was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and they became one. This was only a type; but here we find the reality.
Our Lord Jesus had to die. His was a violent death, unlike Adam, who was merely put into a sweet sleep, because sin had not yet entered the world. But our Lord died a violent death because sin was already in the world, and He became the sin offering for us.
Out of His side came blood—blood for the remission of our sins—and water, to give us life: His own life released through the cross. Brothers and sisters, it is by the blood and the water, the life of our Lord Jesus, that He builds His own church. That is the basis of the church.
After three days, He rose from the dead. He ascended and was seated at the right hand of His Father. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came down.
The meaning of Pentecost is most significant, because Pentecost marks the beginning of the history of the church on earth. On the basis of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, and on the basis of the blood and water which flowed out from Him, the Holy Spirit came down.
In one Spirit, the one hundred and twenty were baptized into one body. They were no longer one hundred and twenty individual believers. They were no longer a congregation of one hundred and twenty members. They became a body of one hundred and twenty members. A great difference.
This body, this church, began to grow. Since Pentecost, the church has been growing: first established in Jerusalem, then throughout Judea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth.
Brothers and sisters, God is still building His church. He is not only calling people out of every nation, tribe, tongue, and people; He is assembling them together. He is building them together organically.
This work has continued through these thousands of years until one day, when we come unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Then our Lord Jesus will come back, and He will receive that grown-up body to be His bride.
Following that, they will reign with Him for a thousand years. In eternity, the church will be merged into the everlasting kingdom of God. Now, this is the church.
How about the kingdom? We have mentioned already that from eternity to eternity, He is God. Our God is the great I AM, the self-existing One.
In eternity past, before there was time, there was God—supreme, all by Himself. Now, imagine: God is King over the universe. Where God is, there is His kingdom.
But to be more exact, God is from eternity to eternity. When, then, does His kingdom begin? In Psalm 145:13, it says:
Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.
In Daniel 4:3, we find:
His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And His dominion is from generation to generation.
When you think of ages and generations, you have time. When you think of eternity, it is beyond ages and beyond generations.
So, in the strictest sense, in eternity past God was all by Himself. He was supreme. He was King. But the moment He began to create the universe, He had His kingdom.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. When the heavens and the earth were created, God, being the Creator, had every right over what He had created. Here we find that He had His domain over which to rule.
His kingdom is a kingdom of all ages. From then on, age after age and generation after generation, God ruled supreme over all that He had created.
Of course, we know that in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, He had not yet created man. Man was a latecomer. In the first creation, the highest of God’s creation was the angels.
Now, I do not know whether I am theologically correct. I am open for correction. Probably when God first created the heavens and the earth, He first created the angels. Why? Because if you read Job 38, you find that when God laid the foundation of the earth, the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
The morning stars refer to the first stars, and the sons of God there refer to the angels. So, when God laid the foundation of the earth, the angels had already been created, and they sang for joy. They were so happy that God created the earth.
As our brother has already mentioned, probably the first being created, the first angel created, was Lucifer. Because of that, he had a high rank among the angels. He was an anointed cherub, serving as guardian of the throne of God.
He was given beauty, talents, authority, and dominion. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the angels led in worship of God. Lucifer was the chief musician, leading the whole universe in singing praises to God: “He is worthy—the Creator, the Almighty, the exalted One, the incomparable One.”
There was harmony in the universe. There was peace. Everything spoke of the glory of God. The glory of God filled the universe. You did not see the created things; you saw God.
But unfortunately, as our brother has already mentioned, pride came into the heart of this archangel. He rebelled against God. Because of this rebellion, the harmony in the universe was broken.
God cast out that archangel. He cast him out of heaven. Most likely, he descended upon the earth. That is the reason why, in Genesis 1:2, darkness surrounded the earth. The earth was in ruin, completely ruined.
In other words, when God punished the archangel for his rebellion, that which was under his domain, that which was given to him to rule, entered into ruin. Evidently, planet Earth, or perhaps our solar system, had been given to this archangel to rule for God. So our solar system and our earth entered into ruin, desolation, emptiness, and purposelessness.
We do not know how long this continued. But thank God, what He had purposed in His heart, He never changed. He began to recover. He began to repair this earth.
Even though the earth was ruined, and even though darkness was upon it, the earth still belonged to our God. He had not given up His rulership or His ownership. The title deed was still in His hand. Therefore, He had every right to prepare it and restore it for habitation.
What did He have in mind? God had a glorious plan. He was going to restore this earth for the man He was going to create.
God had a wonderful plan to recover His kingdom upon this earth. He had a marvelous plan to dispossess the enemy and to replace him with another being: man.
Brothers and sisters, you have to remember this: Scripture says that man is made a little lower than the angels. So far as divine order is concerned, angels are of a higher order than men. Man is lower than the angels.
The angels are spirits. They are not limited by a physical body. We have a spirit, yet our spirit is confined in a small body. That body actually limits us to a very large degree. Because of this, angels are of a superior order. Their intelligence is greater than that of men.
God made man a little lower than the angels. Yet when He made man, He created man in His own image. That is something God had never done before.
When He created angels, He did not create them according to His image. When He created all other living things, He created them according to their kind. But only man was created in His image. Why?
Because God had a purpose in it. He was to give man His life, and through man to wrest this earth from the hand of the enemy and establish His kingdom right here on earth.
He gave the man whom He created dominion over all the things He had created. He said, “Subdue. Subdue all these. Bring all things back under the feet of God.”
That was the mission of man. Man was to be the instrument in God’s hand to bring His kingdom back upon this earth. What a tremendous task it was.
Of course, we know this task could only be accomplished with God’s life given to and received by man. God had to work in and through man.
But again, there was tragedy. Satan knew about it. He knew that God would use man to bring in His kingdom and to dispossess the kingdom of darkness. So he began to tempt man, and man fell.
Again, there was a curse upon this earth. But God began to work again. He began even in the Garden of Eden.
God not only clothed Adam and Eve with skins to cover their nakedness, but in Genesis 3:15 God gave man a promise:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed:
He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.
Brothers and sisters, God began His work of recovery to recover man, in order to recover His kingdom on earth, right in the Garden of Eden, immediately after the fall of man.
In the patriarchal age, all that God could have among men was only a few here and there. God had Abel. Abel represented the kingdom of God on earth in his generation.
God laid hold of a man called Enoch, and he represented God’s kingdom on earth in his generation. God laid hold of Noah, and Noah represented God’s kingdom on earth. In the patriarchal age, He got hold of Abraham.
So, in the patriarchal age, all that God was able to recover of His kingdom on earth was just a few persons here and there.
Later on, in the dispensation of law, God was able to redeem a people—a nation, the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel was to represent the kingdom of God on earth in their time.
All the other nations worshipped idols. They belonged to the kingdom of darkness. But there was light in the kingdom of Israel. God was their light. They worshipped one God. They represented the kingdom of God in their time.
But, brothers and sisters, we have to acknowledge that whether it was in the patriarchal age, represented by individuals, or under the law, represented by the nation of Israel, the representation was very incomplete.
Not only was it incomplete; it was very much lacking. Even though these men and these people were redeemed and walked with God, there were so many human frailties.
It was not a perfect representation of the kingdom of God. There was not perfect obedience or perfect submission. God was not able to put His whole character upon them. They might take up a little of His character here and there, but not the whole thing.
So, in a sense, God still had not established His kingdom upon this earth—not until the coming of our Lord Jesus.
When our Lord Jesus came into this world, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, full of grace and truth. He was the reality of the kingdom of God upon this earth.
He fully represented God. The full character of God was His character. He was the King. He was the kingdom.
Then a new term was introduced: the kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom of heaven is a term that was never used before. The only hint we have in the Old Testament is in Daniel. In Daniel 4, it says, “The heavens do rule.” The heavens do rule over the affairs of men.
In the New Testament, aside from the Gospel according to Matthew, there is only one other reference: 2 Timothy 4:18, where Paul says that the Lord will preserve him unto His heavenly kingdom. These are the only two occasions in the whole Bible, apart from Matthew.
We know that the Gospel according to Matthew is the Gospel of the kingdom. Here we find a special feature introduced into the kingdom of God: it is called the kingdom of heaven.
Why? Because heaven had come upon the earth. Our Lord Jesus came out of heaven. He is a heavenly Man. When He was on earth, He was still in heaven. He is the representation of heaven.
He carried about Himself a heavenly atmosphere. He put a heavenly touch upon everything. He was so different from anything earthly.
Brothers and sisters, the kingdom of God is completely different from the kingdoms of this earth and this world. It is heavenly, not earthly. It is spiritual, not material. It is life, not merely outward form.
Here we find the heavenly Man, our Lord Jesus, the Man who came out of heaven and brought heaven upon this earth. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven had drawn near.
You remember that John the Baptist began to preach, saying:
Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
The real thing had come. In Old Testament times, what you had was a shadow. But now the reality had come in Christ Jesus. Because He had come, John the Baptist said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Brothers and sisters, we always teach repentance because we say, “Now you have sinned; therefore, you need to repent.” Of course, we need to repent of our sins. But here we find a new meaning to repentance.
Repent. Why? Because the kingdom of heaven is coming. In other words, you are not fit for the kingdom of heaven.
Not only are you unfit for it, but when He comes, He will judge you. Therefore, you have to repent. You have to turn completely around. You have to repent not only of your sins, but even of your good deeds, your dead works. You have to repent of yourself, of your religion, of your piety. You have to repent of everything.
In order to receive the kingdom of heaven that is coming, that is the message: the King is coming; be prepared for Him. If you are going to meet the King, you have to be prepared. If you are not prepared, when He comes you will be cut off.
When our Lord Jesus began to preach at the age of thirty, He continued to say, “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Why? Because the King is here. But where are His people? He does not have a domain over which He can rule.
Very shortly, when you come to Matthew 4, you find that the Lord not only preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” but He began to gather disciples around Himself.
He began to call Peter and Andrew. He called the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. He called others as His disciples—those who would gather around Him and learn of Him.
They were those who would put themselves under His kingship, those who would be discipled by Him, under His discipline, learning obedience and submission, and being subject to Him in all things. Brothers and sisters, here we find that He was beginning to have His kingdom.
In Matthew 5 through Matthew 7, what we call the Sermon on the Mount, there was a multitude present. They loved to hear. But the Lord left the multitude, went up into a mountain, and His disciples followed Him. He sat down and spoke to His disciples.
The Lord’s interest is not in multitudes. The Lord’s interest is in His kingdom—those who are discipled to Him.
He began to speak to them in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is actually the Lord’s description of what the kingdom of heaven is, who the sons of the kingdom of heaven are, what characterizes them, and what kind of people are in the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In other words, to be truly living in the kingdom, you have to be poor in spirit. The kingdom of heaven is not for the proud. The kingdom of heaven is for those who are humble, for those who are broken, for those who are bankrupt in themselves.
You find that you are utterly undone. You are nothing. There is no good in your flesh. As you humble yourself before God, brothers and sisters, the kingdom is yours. The kingship of Christ comes upon you. These are the kind of people in the kingdom of heaven.
They are the light of the world. They are the salt of the earth.
Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
What was the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees? In comparison with the world, they seemed to have righteousness. Why? Because they kept the law, the letter of the law. They were very careful and very strict.
They even carried the law upon their bodies, written upon their forehead and bound upon their arm. They had righteousness according to the law—that is, according to the letter of the law. It was an outward appearance of godliness.
That was the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. But our Lord Jesus said that if that is all you have, you cannot enter into His kingdom. You have to have a righteousness that excels, exceeds, and surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
Why? Because it has to be an inward righteousness, something from the heart. You have to have righteousness according to the Spirit of the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, do we have that kind of righteousness?
Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
You say, “How can it be?” It is impossible with man, but it is possible with God. Our brother has already mentioned that it is only by grace. It is not by yourself. It is by His life in you that you are able to have this righteousness.
There is an inward righteousness, a righteousness out of life: Christ, our righteousness.
You have to be single-eyed. If your eyes are double, if you have double vision, you cannot see what the kingdom of heaven is. You have to be single-eyed. Set your heart upon Him as the treasure in heaven; then you can serve Him as your Master.
It is a strait gate and a narrow way. Very few find it, and fewer still enter into it and walk in it. But it leads to life.
Brothers and sisters, this is the kingdom of heaven. This is the kingdom of heaven that our Lord is establishing upon this earth among His disciples. He is such; He is the King. This is what He is.
He wants us to be like Him—not by outwardly imitating Him, but by receiving His life and allowing His life to take over us, that we may live as He lived. Brothers and sisters, this is the kingdom of heaven upon the earth.
In Matthew 11, He says that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and men of violence take it by force. We have already mentioned that you have to deny yourself and do violence to yourself. Otherwise, you will never seize it. It is beyond you.
Then something happened. Our Lord continued to preach the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. He continued to cast out demons and heal the sick by the power of the kingdom of God.
In Matthew 12, when He opened the eyes of the blind and healed the mute, He did something that had never been done in the history of Israel. It was a sign that He was the Messiah.
The scribes and Pharisees, in their hatred and opposition to Him, said that He cast out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. They said that He cast out demons by demons.
Because of this, the Lord said that every sin against the Son of Man could be forgiven, but he who sins against the Spirit of God cannot be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the age to come.
After that, He would not speak plainly to the people anymore. He spoke to them only in parables. That brings us to Matthew 13.
Matthew 13 gives us the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven in parables. Here we find the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
Why did the Lord use parables? Because He did not want the people to understand. He wanted only the disciples to understand. Those who have will be given more. Those who do not have, even what they have will be taken away from them. Those who have will have in abundance. The Lord wants us to be in abundance.
So He spoke to His disciples, and He explained the parables to His disciples. Here again we find mysteries: something hidden in parables. People would not understand; they would simply hear a story. But the Lord explained them to the disciples. These mysteries are open to the disciples. We should understand them.
These parables are the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. When the gospel of the kingdom is preached in the world, and people hear the gospel, what happens? This is the parable of the sower.
The sower, primarily, is our Lord Himself. He was sowing the seed, and the seed is the Word. The Word is the word of the kingdom. That is what He preached. He sowed the word of the kingdom upon this world.
When people listen to the word of the kingdom, the reactions and responses are different. The word of the kingdom falls into some hearts that are like the wayside, the pathway, the trodden heart. The word of the kingdom cannot fall into it.
It simply stays outside, and the birds come and snatch it away. In other words, Satan comes and takes away the Word, so that they have not really heard.
Another kind of people hear the word of the kingdom and are emotionally stirred. They seem to receive it very quickly and happily, but it is temporary. When persecution comes, they fade away. It is gone. There is no root.
Then the word of the kingdom falls upon some hearts, and it falls into the heart and takes root. It begins to grow, and yet thorns squeeze upon it. It cannot bear fruit. The cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches so squeeze us that even though we have the gospel of the kingdom in our hearts, it cannot produce fruit for God.
Thank God, there are people whose hearts have been ploughed and turned, poor in spirit. When the word of the kingdom falls into their hearts, it takes root, and patiently—it takes time—they bear fruit: a hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold, unto the glory of God.
That is what happens when the gospel of the kingdom is preached. Brothers and sisters, it is no different today from what it was in the time of our Lord Jesus.
But Satan was not satisfied. He knew that even though he could immediately snatch away one kind of seed, and could stifle the other two, there was still something growing. The kingdom of heaven was being established upon this earth. So he was not happy with it.
Then we find the second parable. While men slept—notice that men is plural, not singular. The sower is singular; He is our Lord. He neither sleeps nor slumbers. But here, the men are plural.
In other words, these are those who serve God, like the apostles and other people afterward. They slept. In other words, they were not watching and praying. So the enemy was able to come in and sow his seed among the good seed.
In the second parable, the seed is no longer the word of the kingdom. The good seed are the sons of the kingdom. The seed has been sown into their hearts, they have been born again, and they have become the sons of the kingdom.
Brothers and sisters, do you know that you are sons of the kingdom? Thank God, He has planted you in the world. The field here is not a heart; the field here is the world. God has planted us here and there as sons of the kingdom.
But the enemy came and planted his sons, the sons of the evil one, the tares, among the sons of the kingdom in the same world.
When they grew up, the tares began to show. The servants came and said, “Master, we find tares here. Did you not plant good seed? How did this happen?” The Master knew. He said, “An enemy has done this.”
They said, “Do You want us to take them out?” “No, you cannot, because their roots are intertwined. If you try to take out the tares, you will take out the wheat also. Let them grow together until the harvest.”
It is not for men to do anything. God says that He will send His angels to separate them.
Brothers and sisters, can you apply this parable to the church? Unfortunately, in Christianity today, we interpret the parables of the kingdom of heaven as parables of the church.
We say that the church is in the world, and that within the church there are sons of God and sons of the devil, and they must remain together. We say you cannot separate them, because if you separate them, you will destroy everything.
That is the argument which says that in the church the saved and the unsaved have to remain together—those who belong to God and those who do not belong to God. But, brothers and sisters, that is not what the church is.
What is the church? The church is the body of Christ. In that body, you cannot have any foreign elements. Everyone in the church is a called-out one. Everyone is a true believer, a child of God. That is what the church is.
So here we find the difference between the kingdom and the church.
When the gospel of the kingdom is preached in the world, we find different responses. Wherever the gospel is spread, and people come under the sound of the gospel, something happens.
What we call today Christendom comes into being. We say, “This is a Christian nation. That is a Christian nation. This is a Christian school. There is a Christian hospital. This is a Christian institution. It is a Christian organization.”
Wherever the gospel of the kingdom has been preached and Christendom has spread over the world, there has come to be Christendom, or, if you like, Christianity.
In Christianity, you find a great mixture—a mixture of wheat and tares. That is permitted, but that is not the church.
Matthew 13 shows us the outward appearance of the kingdom of heaven. When the kingdom of heaven is preached, that is what you find upon this earth: a great mixture.
On the one hand, it is like a mustard seed. There is life in it, but it has grown abnormally, and the birds of the air lodge in its branches.
Christianity has grown. The Lord tells us, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Yet today Christianity has grown into a great power and influence upon this earth. It becomes a lodging place for all kinds of evil things.
Inwardly, we find it corrupted, like a woman who put leaven into three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened. It is puffed up: corrupt doctrine and corrupt conduct. That is what you find in Christianity today.
Yet, on the other hand, within Christianity today—in the outward appearance of the kingdom of heaven—there is something hidden. There is a treasure hidden in the field.
Our Lord found it, and because of it He sold everything and bought the field for the sake of that treasure in it. The treasure speaks of the church, but it is hidden. The Lord covered it and hid it again so that people would not see it. Then He bought the earth.
There is another aspect: the pearl of great price. The Lord is that merchant looking for a pearl of great price. He found that great pearl, and He paid everything for it. That is His love for His church. He gave Himself for it.
So you find it is a mixture. This will be solved in the last parable. The net will be drawn in, the wicked things will be thrown away, and the good things will be gathered into vessels.
Brothers and sisters, here you find a difference between the church and the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven has an outward appearance that cannot be applied to the church.
The local church, in its outward expression, has to be as pure as the universal church. That is the church.
When you come to Matthew 24 and Matthew 25, you find that eventually the kingdom of heaven will come to its consummation.
This is the history of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is from eternity to eternity. But the kingdom of heaven is a portion within the kingdom of God.
It begins with the first coming of our Lord Jesus, and it ends with His second coming, when He shall establish His kingdom upon this earth.
Eventually, in eternity, the two will merge into one. So, brothers and sisters, the kingdom is bigger than the church.
Dear Heavenly Father, we pray that these words may not be just knowledge to us, but that these words may be life to us. May we see that there is something special today, because the kingdom of heaven is here.
We pray that we may be a people who live under the rule of heaven, that we may be Thy kingdom in this earth, representing Thee amidst the kingdoms of this world. We pray in Thy precious name. Amen.