I do thank the Lord for the privilege of coming here and seeing you, dear brothers and sisters, again.
Will you please turn to the Gospel according to Matthew, Matthew 5? We will read from verse 1 through verse 12, and then the last verse of the chapter, verse 48.
And seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain: and when He had sat down, His disciples came unto Him:
and He opened His mouth and taught them, saying,
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you.
Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Lately, the Lord has put upon my heart this matter of the kingdom of God. I think it is the right time that we should be reminded of the kingdom of God, because our Lord Jesus said, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole inhabited earth for a witness unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.”
So, brothers and sisters, I do feel in my heart that before the return of our Lord Jesus, before the end comes, this gospel of the kingdom must be re-emphasized.
In a sense, we find that in the early church this was the gospel that they preached. But unfortunately, as you look back through the centuries, you find that the gospel of the kingdom has not been preached as it should.
As a matter of fact, among God’s people there are many of God’s children who are really saved, yet they do not even know what the kingdom of God is. Because of this, there is such a weakness in the testimony of the church to the world.
So I feel very deeply in my heart that this gospel of the kingdom of the heavens must be emphasized more and more as we are approaching the end.
What is salvation? We think of salvation in terms of having our sins forgiven, receiving eternal life, and going to heaven. Thank God, it is great that our sins can be forgiven, that we may have eternal life—even the very life of God—and that one day we will go home to our eternal home in heaven.
This is the gospel, but the gospel is more than that.
In Colossians 1:13, it says that God “delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”
You know, salvation means not only to have our sins forgiven and to be saved. Salvation is being delivered out of the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God’s Son, the Son of His love.
In other words, it is a change of position, a change of status, a change of environment, and a change of allegiance. That is salvation.
Before we were saved, not only had we sinned greatly and were dead in trespasses and sins, but we must remember that we were actually in the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of this world is the kingdom of darkness.
Satan, the adversary of God, is the ruler, the prince of this world. He uses darkness to rule over the people. Before we were saved, we were in a kingdom—a spiritual kingdom—but that kingdom was the kingdom of darkness.
We were kept in the dark. The god of this world had blinded our eyes. We did not know the right from the wrong. We thought we knew, but we were completely in darkness, groping in darkness, under the authority of darkness.
That was Satan’s tactic: to put us in darkness so that we could not see light. But thank God, one day our Lord Jesus came into this world.
He defeated Satan on Calvary’s cross, and He has delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into His own kingdom—the kingdom of love, the kingdom of light.
You know, this is a tremendous thing that has happened in our lives. Once we were in one kingdom, but now, when we believe in the Lord Jesus, we have been translated into another kingdom.
We no longer belong to the kingdom of this world. We are no longer under the authority of darkness. Thank God, we are in the kingdom of God’s Son, the kingdom of love. That is where we are today.
You remember the story of the children of Israel. They were slaves in Egypt. They served Pharaoh. They were not even allowed to live; they were put into slave labor. They were in the kingdom of Egypt, under Pharaoh.
But thank God, in His mercy, He saved them. The children of Israel were saved from death by the Passover lamb. On that Passover day, because of the lamb slain and the blood upon the door, the children of Israel were saved.
Now, that was the beginning, but it was not the end. God saved them from death, but God did not leave them in Egypt.
Immediately after they were saved from death that night, they marched out of Egypt. God delivered them out of Egypt. When they crossed the Red Sea, they were completely out of the authority of Pharaoh, and now they belonged to another kingdom.
God brought this redeemed people to Mount Sinai. There the Lord began to reveal His mind to them, and He said, “If you keep My covenant, if you keep My commandments, you will be a kingdom of priests unto Me.”
So, the children of Israel were not merely saved from death. They were actually taken out of one kingdom and made to be another kingdom—a kingdom of priests unto God, to serve God.
In the same sense, we who are saved by the grace of God through the blood of the Lamb have not been left in the kingdom of darkness. The Lord has actually translated us into the kingdom of His own Son, His beloved Son. Out of one kingdom, we have been translated into another kingdom.
What we need to understand is this: Where are we today? What is our position today?
It is true that we are still in this world. You remember our Lord Jesus in John 17. In His prayer, He said that these people were called out of the world. Formerly, we were in the world, but He has called us out of the world.
Yet, in John 17:11, He says that they are still in the world. We are out of the world, and yet physically we are still in this world. Then, in John 17:14, He says that they are not of the world.
So this is where we are. God has called us out of the world. We do not belong to this world anymore, but physically and bodily we are still in the world. Even though bodily we are still in the world, yet we are not of the world.
I am afraid many believers still do not know where they are. Because they judge by physical things, they feel, “Well, we are still in this world,” and they forget that even though they are in this world, they are not of this world. They belong to another kingdom.
We are children of the kingdom of God.
Let me use an illustration. During the Roman Empire, they conquered the world as they knew it at that time. After they conquered all these different countries, they set up colonies in different parts of the world.
These colonies were formed in different ways. Some colonies were formed by retired soldiers of the Roman legions. After they retired, they settled down with their families in a foreign place. These men became the inhabitants of a Roman colony, and they served as an outpost for the Roman Empire.
At other times, they conquered countries and set up a few cities as Roman colonies. Those who lived in the cities were given the privilege of being Roman citizens. For instance, Paul was of Tarsus. Tarsus was a Roman colony, and because he was born in that Roman colony, even though he was a Hebrew, he had Roman citizenship.
In these Roman colonies, they were under the direct government of Rome. They were not under the governors of a Roman province or state; they belonged directly to Rome.
The people dressed as Romans. Their lifestyle was Roman, and the law that ruled over them was Roman law. In other words, they were different from the people around them. They were colonists. They did not belong to the neighboring countries or cities; they belonged directly to Rome, and everything there was Roman.
Now, that is only an illustration. What I want to say is this: this is exactly what our Lord Jesus did.
This world was usurped by Satan. This world does not belong to him, but he got it through man. God actually gave this earth to man, to have dominion over the whole earth. But somehow man was deceived and gave up that rulership. So Satan is the ruler of this world.
He has been ruling this world for thousands of years. But one day there was an invasion from heaven, and that invasion was in the Person of our Lord Jesus.
You know, the incarnation is a tremendous event. You can view the incarnation from various viewpoints, and one viewpoint is this: heaven invaded the earth.
Here was One who belonged to heaven, and He came upon this earth. Why did He come to this earth? If you read the Gospel according to Matthew, you find that He was born to be King.
That was why He was born. He was born to be King. He came to set up His kingdom upon this earth.
But unfortunately, when He was born there was a king of the Jews—Herod the Idumean, not even an Israelite. He was the usurper. He was king on the throne, but here the real King was born.
You can see that Herod was a friend of Satan, because Satan actually was the ruler of this world—not by legal right, but by cheating and deception.
But here the Lord was born. He was born to be King, and He came into a hostile world. When He was born, there was no room for Him; and after He was born, Herod wanted to murder Him.
He came to set up His kingdom upon this earth. Since He came, there can be no neutral ground. After He came upon this earth, you either receive Him or oppose Him. There is no neutral ground.
You can be with Him. Those who have accepted Him, He has translated out of this world into His own kingdom.
After His death, resurrection, and ascension, on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came, and one hundred and twenty disciples were baptized into one body. In other words, that was the first colony of heaven upon the earth.
So you see what the Lord is doing. He came first and invaded the enemy’s domain. He destroyed the enemy on Calvary’s cross. Now He has sent His Holy Spirit to come upon those who believe in Him and has begun to set up His heavenly colonies.
These are His kingdom, the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. He first set it up in Jerusalem, and it began to spread through all Judea. It spread into Samaria, and it has been—and still is—spreading to the end of the earth.
In other words, here and there throughout the enemy’s land, as it were, you find that He has set up His colonies. So we are His colonies.
We who are in these colonies are in the kingdom of God’s love, brothers and sisters. We are no longer under the rule of the ruler of this earth. We are directly ruled by the King who is in heaven.
Our law is different. We are governed by a different law. Our lifestyle is different. We speak a different language. Everything is different. We belong to the kingdom of the heavens. That is where we are today.
Are we there? Why is it, as Scripture says, that we are strangers and sojourners? If we belong to this world, then we are not strangers; we are not merely passing through.
But in 1 Peter, you find that we are strangers and sojourners. Why? Because He has delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His own Son of love. It is because of this that we are strangers to this world.
Now, are we strangers? Are we sojourners? Are we just passing through, or are we being rooted and grounded into this earth? Where are we?
The thing that concerns me deeply is this: Do we know that we belong to another kingdom? And if we do, are we living today in that kingdom?
For the sake of some who are not familiar with the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of the heavens, probably I need to explain a little more.
In one sense, the kingdom of God is from eternity to eternity. Wherever God rules, there is His kingdom. Of course, His dominion is over all, from generation to generation. So, in a broad sense, the kingdom of God is from eternity to eternity.
But there is a stricter sense of the kingdom. It is not only wherever God rules, though of course God rules and overrules. Satan may set up his own kingdom outside the kingdom of God, as it were, but he is not outside the authority of God.
What, then, is the kingdom of God? What is the kingdom of God’s Son? What is the kingdom of the heavens?
It is a domain of people who give Him willing, voluntary obedience and submission, so that He can work in their lives to build His own character into them, that they may express Him in this world.
That is the kingdom. The kingdom is not only that God rules over all; the kingdom is that there is a people who allow Him to do the work of building His own character into them, that they may express Him and glorify Him.
In one sense, one day that kingdom will come. You remember our Lord Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come.”
When He taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” it means that it has not come yet. If it had already come, you would not need to pray anymore.
So one day that kingdom will have its public manifestation upon this earth. At the second coming of Christ, the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and righteousness will rule over the whole earth.
At that time, there will be nothing that will hurt anyone. The lion and the lamb will be together. The whole environment will be changed. The kingdom of God will have come upon this earth.
What a day it will be! We are looking forward to that day, and thank God, it is coming very soon. So, in one sense, it is still in the future.
But at the same time, even though “Thy kingdom come” is still in the future, that refers only to its public manifestation. So far as spiritual reality is concerned, it has already come.
People do not see it. Only those whose spiritual eyes are open, only those who have given themselves to the Lord, are actually already in the kingdom.
So that is what we are talking about. He has already translated us into the kingdom of His Son of love. We are already in that kingdom.
But do we know how to live in that kingdom? I think that is the real problem and the real concern. So my burden at this time is: How do we live in the kingdom now—not in the future, but now?
Perhaps I should add something. If we do not live in the kingdom now, when the kingdom of God is publicly manifested upon this earth, we will not be in the kingdom. In other words, we will not reign with Christ for a thousand years.
To reign with Christ for a thousand years depends upon whether we are living in that kingdom today. Not positionally—positionally, you are there—but conditionally: are we living in the kingdom now?
That is the only guarantee for the future, whether you will reign with Christ for a thousand years or not. So you see how important it is.
You may think, “Well, if I have been saved, that is all that needs to be. If I can go to heaven.” Now, thank God, the gift of God knows no repentance. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, He has given you eternal life. Eternal life is eternal life, and you will go to heaven—no doubt about that.
But, brothers and sisters, what about the kingdom? Before eternity, and in this age, the Bible tells us there is an age to come. The age to come is the millennial kingdom, the thousand years when the kingdom of the heavens is publicly manifested upon this earth and the heavens rule over this earth in a public way.
For eternity, by believing in the Lord Jesus, you are given that privilege. It is the gift of God. But to be in that kingdom to come, to reign and to rule—remember, it is to reign and to rule—that is not simply given to everybody, but only to those who live in the kingdom today.
That brings us to Matthew 5, Matthew 6, and Matthew 7: the so-called Sermon on the Mount.
Now remember, the Sermon on the Mount was not spoken to the crowds. When the Lord Jesus saw the crowds coming to Him, He ascended the mountain. His disciples came to Him, and He opened His mouth and taught them.
In other words, the Sermon on the Mount is not for the crowds. The Sermon on the Mount is for His disciples.
Who are the disciples of our Lord Jesus? In one sense, all believers are disciples. That is what it should be. But so far as our experience goes, you find that many are believers, but few are disciples.
To be a believer, all you need to do is believe Him. But to be a disciple, you have to answer His call. You have to leave all and follow Him. You have to put yourself under His authority.
You have to be a learner, to learn of Him. You have to let Him discipline you, train you, and put you through many lessons. You have to be absolutely obedient to Him and follow Him. Wherever He goes, you go. Now, that is a disciple.
So you find that many are believers, but few are disciples. If you read the Gospels, you find that the Lord began to call disciples. He was walking by the Sea of Galilee and saw Simon and Andrew. He called them, “Come, follow Me,” and they left all and followed Him.
Then a little farther on, He saw the sons of Zebedee. He called them, and they left all and followed Him. Every response to the call of discipleship is to leave all and follow Him.
Today it is not in a physical way, but in a spiritual way. You have to leave all and follow Him. By that, it means you have to give yourself over to Him. That is the only way He can teach you.
The Lord will not teach a half-hearted person. He will teach only those who surrender themselves completely to Him: disciples.
Here you find that our Lord Jesus is showing the disciples what the kingdom is. In other words, the Lord is telling them, “You belong to another kingdom, and you had better understand the nature of that kingdom. You had better know the secret of living in that kingdom, and you had better know how to live in that kingdom now.”
That is the Sermon on the Mount. It is spiritual, but most practical. But it is only for the disciples. That is the qualification.
And it is not discipleship to people, to man. We talk about discipleship, and unfortunately we have somehow been distracted and have tried to disciple people unto men.
We are disciples of Christ, not of man. People can be used by God to help in discipling, but do not forget that you are not discipling them to yourself; you are discipling them to Christ.
As God’s disciple, it is important to know where you are. You are in the kingdom of God’s Son. You are under His authority, and you had better know the nature of that kingdom. You need to learn the secret of living in that kingdom.
We are all familiar with the Beatitudes. I am not going to enter into details. You find that the Lord begins with the Beatitudes: “Blessed,” or “happy,” “are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.”
The Lord is trying to show us what the kingdom is. The kingdom of God is not in eating and drinking. The kingdom of God is an inward character and quality.
In the Beatitudes, what the Lord is trying to show us is His character. His character is what characterizes the kingdom. What is His kingdom? The kingdom is where His character is built in and expressed.
He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Now, who are the poor in spirit? Have you ever found anyone who is poor in spirit? Not poor-spirited, but poor in spirit. We have had many people who are poor-spirited, but have you ever found anybody who is poor in spirit? Naturally, no.
We are all proud people, even though we have nothing to be proud of. That is our nature. That self is the very nature of sin.
In the beginning, the archangel, through pride, turned himself into the adversary of God. He became the origin of sin. Brothers and sisters, in the natural we are all proud of ourselves.
But the kingdom is only for those who are poor in spirit, because that is the character of the kingdom. Do we have this kingdom character?
Only one Person upon this earth was qualified for this, and that is our Lord Himself. He was equal with God, and it was not a thing to be grasped. He had every reason to be rich in spirit.
But He emptied Himself. He emptied Himself of all His dignities, all His glory and honor. Of course, He could not empty Himself of His deity; He could not do that. But aside from that, He emptied Himself of all the honor and glory that was due to Him—worship and praise.
He came down to take the form of a bondservant. That is poor in spirit.
Poor in spirit does not mean that there is nothing in you. It means that He is so rich that He was able to empty Himself. We have almost nothing to empty ourselves of, but He had so much to empty, and He emptied Himself.
He took the form—the word there is the same word used of His having the form of God—the image, the inward character, of a bondslave having no rights whatsoever. He took upon Himself the fashion of a man, the likeness of a man, and became obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
That is poor in spirit. That is the kingdom. The Lord says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.”
Now, how can it be with us? Even though we are saved, brothers and sisters, our flesh is still very much alive. We are still very proud of ourselves.
If we are not proud of earthly achievements, probably we are proud of our so-called spiritual achievements. We look at our brothers and sisters, and to esteem others more excellent than ourselves becomes hypocrisy, because we feel that we are more excellent.
This is humanly impossible. Brothers and sisters, one thing we have to understand is that to live in the kingdom is impossible with man.
As long as you think it is possible for you to live in the kingdom today, you are not living in that kingdom. You have to be brought to the point of seeing that it is beyond you. With men it is impossible, but thank God, with God all things are possible.
That is the only way to live in the kingdom now. The cross has to work in our lives. We have to be put to death.
We have to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow the Lord. It is only through the working of the cross by the power of the Holy Spirit that we come to the end of ourselves.
Then we begin to realize what a life has been given to us. That is, we do not appreciate the eternal life He has given us. We think of eternal life as something reserved for eternity and not for today.
That is the reason you find that we are still living by our own strength and our own good intentions. Formerly, we used ourselves to serve sin; now we use ourselves to serve God.
We do not know ourselves. If you think that you can be poor in spirit, try it. The more you think you are poor in spirit, the prouder you are. Humility is not natural.
I remember when I was young, a young believer. Among us young people, we felt that because we were Christians, we needed to be humble. The only thing we could do was to try to walk with our eyes looking at the ground and our backs hunched.
But the more we did that, the more we felt, “Well, how spiritual we have become.” It is nothing.
Where is it? It is in the life that God has planted in you when you believed in the Lord Jesus. The very life that lived for thirty-some years two thousand years ago is the only life that can live in the kingdom today. No one else can.
Thank God, we have that life. But the problem is this: Are we living by that life, or are we still living by the old life?
In order not to live by the old life, we have to recognize that the old life is what we have lived by for a number of years. We know its ways. We are accustomed to it; it has become a habit.
When something becomes a habit, you do not need to think about it; it just happens. We are used to it. Unconsciously, we do the same things, think the same way, say the same things, and remain the same.
That is the reason we have to be discipled to Christ. The Holy Spirit has to work in us, applying the cross to our lives, until we come to the end of ourselves and say, “Lord, it is just impossible for me to live in Your kingdom. It is beyond me.”
You give up. Then you begin to appreciate the life of Christ in you, because you discover that the life is there. All you need to do is live by that life until it becomes a habit to you.
When it becomes a habit to you, a new character is formed. Today we are forming a new character all the time.
When you allow the life of Christ to live today, something is built in. When you let the life of Christ live again tomorrow, something more is built in. As you go on with the Lord, gradually the very character of Christ begins to be developed in you.
When a character is developed, you become that person. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”—not merely poor in spirit once in a while, but poor in spirit becomes a character. You become that person.
Then you are living in the kingdom of God’s Son.
We often quote the Bible and say, “You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth.” But if you read within the context, you find that we are not really light and salt until we are truly discipled to Christ.
We must really learn of Him and let His character be built in us. Then you have that salty taste, and you have the light that shines.
From Matthew 5:17 to the end of the chapter, the Lord mentions another thing: unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you cannot enter into the kingdom of the heavens.
There is a righteousness called the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Today we look down upon the scribes and Pharisees because they were hypocrites. But these scribes and Pharisees had a righteousness.
They had a righteousness according to the law. They had a righteousness according to the traditions of the fathers. They had a righteousness that was in the letter. In a sense, they were moral, ethical, and legal. That was their righteousness.
But the Lord said, “Unless your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Now, what is the righteousness that exceeds? The Lord begins to use many illustrations.
The righteousness of the Pharisees was that they kept the law, “Thou shalt not kill,” and they did not kill. But the righteousness that exceeds says that even if you are angry with your brother without a cause, you are guilty.
The righteousness of the Pharisees says, “Do not commit adultery,” and they do not. But the righteousness that exceeds says that if you look at a woman to desire after her, you have already committed adultery in your heart.
The righteousness of the Pharisees says not to swear, but to keep your oath. But the Lord says, “Do not swear.” If you say yes, let it be yes; if no, no.
The righteousness of the Pharisees is, “Love your neighbor, but hate your enemy.” Love your neighbor is God’s command, but hate your enemy comes from the rabbis.
But the Lord said, if somebody strikes your right cheek, turn to him the other also. That is the righteousness that exceeds. Now who can do it? Can we do it?
It is humanly impossible, because the requirement is that you may be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
So here you find that to live in the kingdom is not by law, but by grace. By law, it is impossible. By law, the best you can do is attain the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. That is the best you can do. As a matter of fact, many people fail even there.
But to excel in righteousness—that inward righteousness, that rightness with the Lord from the heart—it is only by the grace of God.
So the Sermon on the Mount is not law. The Sermon on the Mount is grace. Life has been given, and the grace of God is sufficient for you.
But you do not realize that grace until you are brought to the end of yourselves.
We are like the apostle Paul. You remember in 2 Corinthians 12, he had a thorn in the flesh that weakened him. He prayed three times that the thorn might be removed.
He was preaching the resurrection and the life of Christ, yet he had this thorn in the flesh that weakened him. He felt that there was no testimony, and he thought he had to appear strong before the people.
He wanted it removed for the Lord’s sake, not for his own sake. But the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for My power is made perfect in weakness.”
Paul said, “I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” Brothers and sisters, this is grace.
We will not appreciate grace, and we will not know how to use grace, until we come to an end and realize that only grace can get us through. We just cannot do it ourselves.
We live by the grace of God, and not by our own wisdom or by our own strength.
Here you find one thing: to live in the kingdom now, the secret is to live by His life, by His grace.
In other words, it is not I, but Christ. That is the secret. If we want to live in that kingdom, here is the secret. It is an open secret.
But the problem is that to be “not I” is not easy. You see, the “I” is so great, so big.
We have to see that that “I” was crucified with Christ. We have to stand on that truth of co-crucifixion.
It is only when we stand on that ground that we allow Christ to live in us. As you do that, you discover that you are living in the kingdom now.
Dear Heavenly Father, we want to thank Thee because in Thy salvation Thou hast actually delivered us out of the power of darkness and hast translated us into the kingdom of the Son of Thy love.
We thank Thee that we are in the Son of Thy love. But we do acknowledge that more often we are not living in that kingdom.
Lord, we do pray that we may be a people who really give ourselves to Thee, to be disciples of Thee, to be learners of Thee.
We pray that Thy Holy Spirit will daily work in our lives, that we may come to the point of seeing that it is no longer I; it is Christ who lives in us.
Lord, we want to live in Thy kingdom today. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.
Let us sing number 112. Why do we stand?