You will turn with me to a few scriptures. The theme of this time together this year is, “Thy kingdom come,” and my responsibility is the gospel of the kingdom—the good news of the kingdom.
I would like to turn you to a few scriptures in the Gospel of Matthew: Matthew 4:23; Matthew 9:35; and Matthew 24:14.
And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among the people.
And Jesus went about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness.
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.
Shall we bow together in a word of prayer?
Lord, we are so thankful that we are able to meet in this simple way in Your presence. We thank You that we are gathering together, not supremely to a place, nor supremely to a people, but we are gathering together to Yourself.
And Lord, as we are found here in Your presence this evening, we want to ask that You will graciously endow us with the Holy Spirit, both in the speaking and in the hearing. We need You, Lord.
We can hear many truths, we can outline truths, we can learn much academically. But Lord, what we need in these days is to meet with You. We need Your word to come and dwell in us richly, in all wisdom.
We need that implanted word, that word which will take root in us and will grow up and bear much fruit. To that end, Lord, we thank You that You have provided us with all that we need for this conference and for this opening time together.
By faith, we stand in that anointing, both for my speaking and for our hearing, that, Lord, You will wonderfully, deeply, fully meet all our needs this night. Be manifested in our weakness—my weakness in speaking and our weakness in hearing—that, Lord, it may be Your word that is spoken and Your word that is heard and received.
We give ourselves afresh to You. In the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I would like to plunge immediately into this subject of the kingdom of God. There are many errors at present being propagated concerning the kingdom of God—many things which must bring grief and pain to those of us who love the Lord and who long, above everything else, that His kingdom shall come.
We, above all people—those of us who are born of God—should have an experience of the kingdom of God. For us, the kingdom of God has arrived. It has come in our hearts. It has brought us into union with God through the Messiah, Jesus. It has brought us into a marvellous experience of eternal life and an ever-deepening discovery of those unsearchable riches of the Lord Jesus, that fathomless fullness of God.
But, of course, there is a kingdom that is going to come outwardly. First and foremost, it must come inwardly to us, as individuals and as the church of God. We must know in our experience the rule of God. We must know the reign of the Lord Jesus. We must be truly and genuinely led by the Spirit of God.
But there is coming a day when the kingdom of God will come literally, and when the kingdom of this world will become the kingdom of God and of His Messiah forever.
I do not know how far away that day is. I suspect that we are very near to it. All the signs on every side seem to point to the coming, finally, of the kingdom of God.
It is a literal kingdom that is coming. It is a literal King that is coming. It is the very same Jesus who walked this earth for thirty-three years whose feet are again going to stand upon this earth.
Very sadly, amongst many Christians, because we want to be truly spiritual and to know the Lord spiritually, we have almost made the Lord Jesus the Spirit of God—as if He is, may I put it reverently, faceless; as if He has no human form; as if He will never again walk as a human being.
But the Lord Jesus is the Son of Man forever. He is God’s Messiah. And one day He is coming back literally. You will actually see Him. He will be a human being, even with marks in His hands, and in His side, and in His feet. It is the same Jesus.
It is wonderful to consider this, because if the Lord Jesus is literally coming back as the Son of Man, as the Messiah, as King of kings and Lord of lords, as King of the Jews, King of Israel, and Head of the church, then the kingdom that comes with Him is a literal kingdom.
He is going to extend that rule of God to the ends of the earth, and all the nations are going to come under His government and under the righteousness, justice, and mercy of His government.
Now, once we begin to understand that, we can start to talk about a whole number of other matters. What does this word kingdom mean?
Now, I have to say straight away—and I do not want to tread on anybody’s toes—that here in the United States I am not at all sure that there is any understanding of a kingdom. If only I could say, “The republic of God is going to come,” I think perhaps you would understand a little better.
It is very hard for people who have been brought up in the republican tradition. I am not saying it is wrong; that is another matter altogether, and I am not going into that. The fact of the matter is, a kingdom is a kingdom, and it is very hard for some who are in a republic to understand what a kingdom is.
What is this word which is used again and again and again—not only throughout the New Testament, but throughout the Old Testament? Everywhere you turn, you hear about the kingdom of God and the proclamation of this kingdom. All the prophets spoke of this kingdom of God.
To David in particular, it was promised that this kingdom would be an everlasting kingdom. To Daniel, in one of the greatest empires—and in the capital of that greatest empire in the world at the time—God spoke about an everlasting kingdom. The day would come, the Lord said through Daniel, when the saints should possess the kingdom.
Oh, everywhere we find it in the word of God. But what does the word mean?
For some people, it is a question of territory. They think of a kingdom simply as something to do with territory, bounded by borders. Just as we speak of the United Kingdom, which does not include the Republic of Ireland: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Its proper name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The moment you hear of this United Kingdom, you think of territory. It is not in the North American continent, nor on the Asian continent, nor on the African continent. It is the United Kingdom. But that is only one aspect of the word kingdom.
We cannot understand that every time God uses the word kingdom, He is merely talking about territory, as if He is simply saying, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.”
There is something far more to the kingdom than mere territory. It is not simply the territory over which the King rules, over which the throne has absolute authority. That is one aspect—one very important and fundamental aspect—of the word kingdom.
But the word kingdom may be understood in another way: it is the throne. When we speak of the kingdom, we are speaking of the throne—not merely a king. Of course, in our connection, it is the King, and the only King.
When we are talking about a kingdom such as the United Kingdom, it may have been ruled by all kinds of kings and queens down through the years. Yet we are speaking of the whole principle of authority, the whole principle of rule, a national policy, a national character, a national constitution, if you like. That is the kingdom.
So when we speak and read in the word of God of the kingdom coming, we are not only talking about territory or extension. We are talking about the rule of God. We are talking about the reign of God. We are talking about that constitution, as it were, of God—that constitution produced by His purpose, His word, and His will.
Mr. Sparks—Theodore Austin-Sparks—used always to prefer another word for this, and I must say it has helped me more than anything else. He used to substitute the word kingship for kingdom.
Because, in the Greek, it does not just and only mean territory, or even rule. It is a combination of ideas. So he used to say, “Thy kingship come.”
He used to speak of that word: “Fear not, little flock; it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” In this sense, he would say, “to give you the kingship.”
Now, I think if you begin to understand it like that, suddenly a whole lot of things begin to fall into place: “Seek ye first the kingship of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
For me, it is not absolutely the best word, but at least it brings us much nearer to the heart of the meaning of the word kingdom: kingship—the rule and reign of God, and the character of God in His reign and rule, as well as all that He reigns over.
Once we begin to see that, then we have the beginning—the first glimmer, as it were—of an understanding of this whole matter of the kingdom.
Because immediately you will see that if you and I have an argument with the kingship of the Lord Jesus, then we can talk until we are blue in the face about the kingdom of God, but actually we are living in contradiction.
If you and I are not prepared to surrender to the kingship of God, if we are not prepared unconditionally and unreservedly to commit all that we are and all that we have to that kingship, it is no good talking about the coming kingdom.
It is no good saying, “Oh, how wonderful it will be when the kingdom comes,” if the kingship of God has not first come to us—if you and I have not come literally, relevantly, and practically under His kingship.
If you have come with me thus far, I would like to move to a second point. This matter of the kingship of God—the kingdom of God—lies at the root of world history.
Actually, the whole of world history, either negatively or positively, is related to the kingship of God.
Recorded history is the record of a challenge to God’s kingship—a satanic challenge to the kingship of God. This explains history. It explains why man, with all his genius and creativity, always falls short.
Every time man seems to be bringing in a new golden age, a new utopia, it turns to ashes in his hands and becomes a prison house, a dungeon.
From Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, we discover this matter of dominion, authority, kingship, and kingdom.
When God first created Adam and Eve, almost the very first words He said to them were, “Have dominion.”
In Psalm 8, that amazing psalm, we have almost a prophetic revelation from God concerning His whole purpose for man.
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
For Thou hast made him but little lower than God,
And crownest him with glory and honour.
Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put all things under his feet.
Right at the very beginning of world history, right at the very beginning, as it were, of the creation of the universe, we find within the heart of God a purpose for mankind. It is not only that you and I should come under the kingship of God, but that we should exercise the kingship of God.
But another has entered the arena. That other has challenged God and poisoned mankind, and the challenge is totally against the kingship of God.
Wherever we turn, we find this enemy of God. From Genesis 3 right the way through to Revelation 20, we find the story of this great adversary of God, this great enemy of God.
In that amazing prophetic word in Isaiah 14, verses 13 and 14, this is how it is put. This is the prophecy concerning Lucifer:
And thou saidst in thy heart,
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.
Here, then, whatever academic problems you may have, is a revelation from God that at the very beginning a poison entered into mankind. How it happened, how it was permitted, and why, is another matter. But the fact remains that into this world came a poison and a challenge to the kingship of God.
Wherever we turn in the whole Bible, we find the record of this challenge. Think, for instance, of Colossians 1:13:
Who delivered us out of the power of darkness,
And translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
What a word: the power of darkness—the authority of darkness—and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
We are born into that power of darkness, born with links to that power of darkness, born with chains that chain us to that power of darkness. Only by the grace of God, when something happens to us and we are saved by the grace of God, are we delivered from that power of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
Or I think of those other mysterious words. Jesus referred, not once but again and again, to “the prince of this world.” That is a very interesting title: the prince of this world. He did not simply call him an impostor. He said, “the prince of this world.”
That speaks of some authority, some kind of status. It is a challenge.
I think of another word of another apostle by the Spirit of God. John, in 1 John 5:19, said words which must surely be almost fathomless in their meaning, yet which explain so much in world history:
The whole world lieth in the evil one.
The whole world lieth in the evil one.
I do not know whether you find this too heavy for the first night, but to me it is amazing. Here you and I—this is where we all begin. I do not care who you are, what you are, or what kind of family you came from—Jew, Gentile, whatever you are. The fact of the matter is that we all began here.
We all began in this darkness. We all began in this bondage. We all began here until God, by His grace, shone into our hearts and delivered us out of this power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His dear Son.
There are so many other things. I think of that wonderful cry in the book of Revelation. Whatever interpretation we may give to it, what a wonderful cry it is in Revelation 11:15:
The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ:
And He shall reign for ever and ever.
And then Revelation 12:10:
Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ:
For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night.
Here we discover little you and little me. We are introduced into a conflict we hardly understand. Because, by the grace of God, we have been saved, we have been catapulted, as it were, into an enormous conflict.
We hardly understand the dimensions of this conflict. We hardly understand exactly what it is all about, except that the moment a person is saved by the grace of God, they find all kinds of things coming out against them. Every kind of thing is going to try and trip them up.
Why should it be? You have sided with God. Surely everything should be a bed of roses. Everything should be absolutely right. You should be carried on beds of ease into the kingdom of God.
But no. We find it as if the whole world is against us. It is put in another way: “Through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God.”
Why this tribulation? Why all this opposition? Why this antagonism? Unless the enemy cannot bear anybody who has been transferred.
He cannot bear the thought that you have been taken out of his authority and placed under the authority of God and of His Messiah.
When you begin to understand that, it makes sense of the whole conflict—an age-long conflict, an ages-long conflict.
Consider Psalm 2. Here we have, at the very beginning of the Psalter, a psalm that everyone—both rabbis and church scholars—has called a Messianic psalm.
Why do the nations rage,
And the peoples meditate a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord, and against His Anointed, saying,
Let us break their bonds asunder,
And cast away their cords from us.
He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh:
The Lord will have them in derision.
Yet have I set My King
Upon My holy hill of Zion.
What a psalm. It is a window into an ages-long conflict, beginning in Genesis and ending in the book of Revelation. You and I are in it by the grace of God.
If we are in it—not because we are anything in ourselves, but because we belong to the Lord Jesus—then victory is assured, if we will only come under His kingship.
We are invincible if we come under the kingship of God. But if we have an argument with the kingship of God, if we have an argument with the kingship of the Lord Jesus, then we shall find, saved though we may be, that we lose everything.
We do not come to the throne. We do not come to kingship in our own lives. We have lost our inheritance, but not our salvation.
My dear friends, I find this psalm an unbelievable psalm. What does it mean? Why? No wonder the psalmist asked, “Why do the nations rage? Why do the peoples imagine vain things?”
I live in a part of the world where it is exactly true. They are unbelievable in their vanity, all around us, screaming things that make no sense and have no relationship to the truth. What is wrong with them, one asks? Why all this turmoil? Why all this conflict?
But it is something to do with the kingship of God. It is something to do with the kingdom of God. It is something to do with the King of God—God’s King, God’s Messiah.
Is it not wonderful that the Lord laughs? I love it. We get all upset and bothered. We think we ought to build deep shelters and store up food and all the rest of it for the things that are coming. But the Lord laughs. He has them in derision.
Yet have I set My King upon My holy hill of Zion.
The purpose of God is established. The King—God’s King—is in His place. Nothing can reach Him, touch Him, or overthrow Him.
We are in the train of His triumph. How stupid we are—how stupid we are—instead of realizing that we are in the train of the triumph of God’s Messiah, who is at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
We have arguments all the time. We have to be dragged into the will of God. God has to go through the most amazing ways of manipulating us to get us even to do simple things that are His will. Is that not sad? Do you not think so?
And if you are thinking of somebody else, why do you not think about yourself? Because that is true of all of us. We sit there and say, “Oh, I hope so-and-so is listening to this. They need it. They need it.”
But in actual fact, we are all stupid when it comes to it. We spend our time arguing with the Lord, misreading God’s purpose and word for us, misunderstanding His way for us, misunderstanding His motives in leading us.
It is amazing how clever the enemy is, to have injected a poison into us that we need to be cleansed of, but which so often we allow to remain within our lives, within our circumstances, within our homes, and within our relationships.
Thus Satan has ground—not like the Lord Jesus, who said, “The prince of this world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me.” Would to God we could say such a thing: “He has no ground in me.”
Can you bear with me a moment or two longer on this matter before I come to a third and last point?
Everything—listen carefully—every single thing in the divine programme is, at present, on time. It is not a minute behind and not a minute before. It is all on time.
I think that is amazing. I think it is absolutely amazing. It gives me enormous comfort at a time when we could be very confused, and when I know many believers are even more confused than I am.
There is no confusion with the Lord. Everything that is happening in this world is on time. It is absolutely according to the divine programme. Praise the Lord.
That gives me courage to believe that when the time comes—which no man knows, neither the angels, nor even the Son, but the Father only—when that moment comes for the Son to begin His journey back with the kingdom of God, it will be on time. Not a minute before, not a minute behind. It will be absolutely on time.
This present world situation, the movement toward a world government—I do not have any doubt about it. I know many people are confused by what has happened in the Soviet Union. They have always thought that the Kremlin was the Antichrist, and that somehow or other that was the power which would cover the whole earth by military power and bring the persecution in Russia, Eastern Europe, and China to the whole world.
Now suddenly, it is all breaking up. So many believers write to me and telephone me, and they say, “Do you not think it is a fraud? Do you not think that Mr. Gorbachev is just blinding everybody and that he is going to suddenly attack the United States?”
It is possible. It is possible because Mr. Gorbachev, whatever you think about it, is still a communist, and a dedicated communist.
But the fact of the matter is this: the Soviet Union has no money. It has no money at all. It is unable.
Do you think they wanted to get out of Eastern Europe? Do you think they wanted to get out of Afghanistan? The point is, God, in His marvellous way, just like Nebuchadnezzar, has spoken the word, and the whole thing is in the process of breaking up.
Now believers are all confused. “What about the Antichrist? Where is the Antichrist going to come from?” Well, the Antichrist may come from a place and a source that may surprise you.
I do not know where the Antichrist is going to come from. I have some suspicions. I know others may be more expert in this matter than I, but all I know is this: what has happened within a few months is remarkable.
Suddenly, it started in Poland. It went from Poland to Hungary, from Hungary to Bulgaria, from Bulgaria to East Germany, from East Germany to Czechoslovakia, and from Czechoslovakia to Romania. Suddenly, the whole of Europe was free.
For the first time ever, Romania televised a whole Christmas Eve service to the whole nation. For the first time in seventy-one years, the Kremlin allowed a Christian service to be televised to the whole extent of the Soviet Union on Orthodox Christmas Eve, and allowed the bells of the Kremlin to ring in the New Year.
Now, my dear friend, what we are witnessing is something amazing because it is going to move toward a world government. What is going to happen is that the Western world has got to do something, somehow or other, to bring in some kind of peace for the world and stop the possibility of war.
I do not know. It would be foolish to predict. But one thing I am quite sure of: God’s programme is on time.
I do not have any doubt that the emergence of the EEC, the Common Market, as the biggest single force in the world, has already begun. The great question is whether Eastern Europe will be included—whether Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia will be included in this mammoth new United States of Europe.
It is amazing to see all that is happening. On the one side, for the first time, the gospel is being preached in the streets in Prague. Do you know that the president of Prague is the friend of one of my friends? When they were imprisoned together, he prayed every day with him during the exercise hour in the prison yard. He is a believer.
Do you know that the Prime Minister of Poland is an observant, committed Catholic believer? It is unbelievable what is happening.
I must be careful, because we shall digress on this whole matter, and I do not want to digress. I want to keep to the point. But the fact of the matter is, it is quite amazing.
There were two nations in this world that were empowered and inspired by a pagan spirit in the beginning of the 1930s. One was Japan, and the other was Germany.
Both of them spoke of a new world order: Japan for Asia, Nazi Germany for Europe. Both of them sought by military means to bring that new world order into being—Adolf Hitler with his Reich of a thousand years, and Japan with its master race.
They were both pagans. Both of them were defeated. Then we witnessed the most amazing thing: they became almost the supreme economic powers in the post-Second World War period.
Now it seems as if these two nations are once again poised—not to take the world by military means, not even to be nationalistic—but the same pagan spirit is permeating through them to try and influence the whole world society.
It is very interesting that when the United States could not shore up Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with money because of her weakness in that way, she called upon Germany to do so. But Germany could not do so because she was more interested in reuniting with East Germany.
So Germany called in Japan. When the Prime Minister of Japan came, he came first to Bonn before he went to all the Eastern European capitals. He gave a most amazing speech that, in days to come, will probably be one of those watershed speeches. He said, “We are on the brink of a new world order.”
My dear friend, I may be wrong in much of what I have said, but at least I think I am right in this: something is happening, like an enormous convulsion in the whole of world society—both in Asia and in Europe, everywhere.
We see the turmoil of society, and as always, with these great convulsions, great shakings, great tumults, out of it will come beasts. It has always been so in the history of the world. Why? Because it is a satanic challenge.
It is fallen man who wants to bring in, satanically inspired and demonized, a utopia, a golden age, without God’s Messiah.
Whether I am wrong on the details of that matter, I think I can be absolutely dogmatic about this: this is the challenge.
Now, my dear friends, there is much else I could talk about in this whole matter. I think one of the most amazing things—I will only mention it in passing—is that suddenly, in the midst of all this turmoil, convulsion, and change, something else is taking place.
Mark you, when I was here last year—showing I am no prophet—I had no idea that any of this would happen. I do not suppose most of you did either, so we are all in this together. We have all been taken by surprise by the whole thing—the whole world.
I come from a little nation with enormous problems, facing huge crises. In the midst of it, at the most inopportune time, at the time when everything should humanly speaking cancel out any such possibility, the greatest immigration in our history is taking place.
One million one hundred and fifteen thousand Soviet Jews have applied for visas to come to Israel. But it is not just that. Suddenly, ten thousand Ethiopian Jews have applied for visas, ten thousand Romanian Jews have applied for visas, and two thousand French families have applied for visas.
It is as if suddenly God is breathing upon all the Jews in the Diaspora—not the ones in America, perhaps, but those all over the world. He is breathing upon them, and suddenly something is happening: they are coming back home.
It is unbelievable. We have not got the homes for them. We have not got the jobs. We have the most impossible economy. We have a bureaucracy that is Eastern European in its spirit.
If you had asked me, “When will this Exodus take place?”—you know the Bible says there will come a day when the exodus from the north country will eclipse the exodus from Egypt—I would have said, “Not yet.”
We have this problem, that problem, and the other problem. We have a hopeless economy. We have a very weak government. We have threats from the president of Iraq about incinerating us and gassing us. I would have said, “This is not the time.”
And God laughs in the heavens. He has the whole situation. He speaks the word, says to the north, “Give up,” and it gives it up; to the south, “Keep not back,” and they keep not back. It all happens.
Surely that means only one thing: the kingdom of God must be near. Everything in the divine programme is on time. This is no mistake.
I have known believers—Christians, non-Jews—who have gone to the Soviet Union trying to get these folks to come, and it has been like hitting their head against a brick wall. They did not want to come.
They are so assimilated that most of the men are not even circumcised. In Jerusalem, they are being circumcised—sixty a week. They do not even know the first thing about Jewishness, Passover, or anything else. They do not understand what we are talking about. They never wanted to come back.
If they wanted to come anywhere, they wanted to come here—to the United States. This was the promised land. But then God blew on it. Suddenly, it all happens, my dear friends.
It has to be that God is in this thing.
Now, come back to this whole matter: the gospel of the kingdom. I have talked about a challenge to the kingship of God. We have said something about the meaning of the word kingdom. But now consider the good news.
You know, this word gospel—I am always rather sad about it. Either we associate it with a kind of soul music, or many people who have not been brought up in Christian circles associate it with barnstorming preachers or fraudulent preachers who preach the gospel and then send the plate down.
Or we think of it as something that is not quite right. But gospel means good news.
The good news of God’s kingship. The good news of the kingship of God, of the kingdom of God.
What is this good news? I am only going to touch on it, because next time I talk about the gospel I want to speak about it more fully. So I will just touch on it.
God has never given up on His original purpose: to have His King in His place, His kingdom on earth. Did you hear that?
God has never given up on His original purpose for His King and for His kingdom. No matter if the whole world is demonized, no matter if all the nations become a fury of antagonism, God has never given up.
But now listen to this: nor has He given up on His original purpose for man to share in that kingship.
He has not grown disillusioned. He has not seen what a mess mankind is and given up over the difficulties He has with believers. My dear friends, every one of us is a nuisance.
I have always had the greatest sympathy with Moses. One day I shall say to Moses, “I am so thankful the Lord chose you to lead the people of God through the wilderness and not me. I would not have just broken the stick; I would have broken the rock as well, I am sure.”
I get so irritated with God’s people at times. I know I am a nuisance, and I have to continually remind myself that I am a nuisance to God. It is amazing to me that the Lord loves you and me so much that He saved us—nuisance and all.
Let us get this quite clear. In spite of this modern type of gospel preaching, which almost sounds as if you are doing a favour to side with God—you know, it is like a kind of election thing: “Please vote for the Lord, for pleasure”—it is a loose, superficial thing.
It is not the gospel that we find here in the Book, which proclaimed that God was King and that the only right way to approach God was with humility and repentance.
But in spite of this idea that we are doing the Lord a great favour in siding with Him—that He should be so pleased and fall over Himself doing everything for us because we have given up everything to go with Him—it is not so, beloved.
My dear friends, what a difference from that old-time gospel preaching in which people wept for hours over their sin, wept over their lost estate, and wept their way into the kingship of God.
God did such a deep work in their lives that somehow or other they were delivered from pride at the very beginning of their Christian life—broken at the start, understanding that it was the grace, mercy, and favour of the Lord that saved them.
By saving us, the Lord has only introduced a load of trouble to Himself.
Any child of God who thinks that they are doing the Lord a great favour in following the Lord does not know anything about the gospel of the King.
Let me put this quite clearly again. God has not given up on His original purpose—not only to have His King, not only to have the kingdom, but to share that kingship with others.
He intends to establish His kingdom, His King, and those who will reign with Him. Is that not wonderful? I think it is, anyway.
I think of wonderful scriptures. I will not be coming back to these; perhaps some of the other brothers will. But I think of the word we have already quoted:
The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ:
And He shall reign for ever and ever.
Then I think of that wonderful little chapter in Isaiah. When I was first saved, I was told something I have always remembered. I was only twelve years of age, had never read my Bible, and had never been in a place of worship. I was told, “If the Bible ever repeats something, it is very significant.”
This wonderful passage in Isaiah 2 says:
And it shall come to pass in the latter days,
That the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And all nations shall flow unto it.
And many peoples shall go and say,
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
And He will teach us of His ways,
And we will walk in His paths:
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem;
And He will judge between the nations,
And will decide concerning many peoples;
And they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
And their spears into pruning-hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war any more.
These words are repeated, word for word, in Micah 4. This is the purpose of God: to establish His kingdom on the earth.
It is a literal kingdom that is coming. He is going to decide concerning the nations. It is not only to do with the saved; it is also to do with the nations of the earth. God is going to vindicate His truth ultimately before all the nations.
I think of another little scripture, just remarkable in my estimation, in Isaiah 11:
And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse,
And a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and might,
The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
This is the Lord Jesus. This is God’s King. Now listen to the rest of it:
And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them.
And the cow and the bear shall feed;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp,
And the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain;
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.
What a prospect. That is the purpose of God to establish.
Now, my dear friends, here is the good news: God already has His King. That King is Jesus.
God’s Messianic King, born of the royal seed, born according to the prophecy in Bethlehem Ephrathah:
But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Which art little to be among the thousands of Judah,
Out of thee shall One come forth unto Me
That is to be ruler in Israel;
Whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.
Here, then, is God’s King. He was born King of the Jews. Wise men came from the East inquiring, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews?” You know the story.
People sometimes speak of the Lord Jesus in a quite false way when they speak of His humanity. They speak of Him as a peasant, as some kind of artisan. It is true that He was a carpenter. He grew up in very humble, pressurized circumstances. But there was not a drop of blood in His veins that was not royal.
He was the King.
When He came forth for His public Messianic ministry, He was acclaimed everywhere. I do not know whether most people who read their Bibles without a background to it would understand. You remember blind Bartimaeus. Do you remember what he said?
Son of David, have mercy on me.
Why “Son of David”? Why not “Son of Man”? Why not “Rabbi”? Why “Son of David”?
It came again and again and again. People said, “Son of David.” It was as if they were saying, “Crown Him! Crown Him!” They knew it was Jesus. They knew that He was of the royal seed, that He belonged to the tribe of Judah, that He was of the royal house of David, that He was great David’s greater Son.
I could say very much more on this subject, because the genealogical tables were extant at the time. If the chief priests and that ecclesiastical mafia had really wanted to destroy Jesus, they could have said to people, “Come to the registry, and we will prove to you that this man is not royal. He is not of the royal seed. We have all the genealogical tables extant.”
They never once mentioned it. What they did say to Pilate was, “He says He is a King.”
When Jesus was crucified, there was only one title nailed above His head. They could have put, “Jesus of Nazareth, the Saviour of the world.” It would have been right, but they did not.
They could have said, “Jesus of Nazareth, Prince of Peace,” but they did not. They could have put all kinds of things, such as, “Jesus of Nazareth, He said He was King of kings and Lord of lords,” but they did not.
They put, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
When God raised Him, He vindicated His Messiahship and His kingship. This means that at the right hand of God stands the King—Head of the church, King of kings and Lord of lords, ruler of the kings of the earth, and still King of Israel.
That is why He returns to Jerusalem. My dear friend, I have never had an adequate explanation as to why Jesus is going to return to Jerusalem, where, at the present time, there are fewer believers than in almost any capital city of the world.
Well, here we are. God has His King. That is good news, as far as I am concerned. It is good news because this King is a Saviour.
This King is not some great king exhibiting His royal majesty, exhibiting His royal power, dressed in all the regalia, wanting to be admired and looked at. Some people imagine kings on this side of the Atlantic in that sort of way.
They imagine, “I would love to be a king, sitting there with nothing to do, with an orb in one hand and a crown on my head.” People have got the idea that this is what it is going to be like when the kingdom comes: an orb in one hand, a sceptre in the other, a crown on the head, hardly able to move, just sitting on some throne while all the angels admire you.
Oh, my dear friend, it is so stupid. The biblical idea of kingship is service. It is servanthood. The King is the servant of the Lord. That is the character of kingship.
When you and I begin to see Jesus in this way, we discover that He is not merely some potentate, some majestic personage who has an aura of mystery around Him.
This is the One who washed His disciples’ feet. This is the One who loved them to the end. This is the One who knew that Judas was a swindler and still loved him.
This is the One who loved you and gave Himself for you. My dear friend, there is nobody else in the whole world more worthy to sit upon God’s throne.
Here is a character of kingship that means utter humility, utter brokenness, and absolute service.
God has His King. Praise His holy name.
Many other things we could say, but I will only touch on this. Here is the second thing: God intends to share this kingship of Jesus with others.
I want to put a word of warning in here. Jesus is unique. In my estimation, He is unique. I have known Him now for quite a few years, and I find the Lord Jesus absolutely unique.
I do not want to take away from the Lord Jesus. I shudder sometimes when I hear the Lord Jesus spoken of as a thing, as if He is only a life, a power, an agency, or an instrument.
My dear friends, this marvellous Lord Jesus is a person. It is amazing to get to know Him, to walk with Him, to hear Him. This Jesus—He is unique.
Yet God still intends to share His kingship with others. It is said of Jesus in the letter to the Hebrews that He shall bring many sons unto glory.
Yes, my dear friends, we have been made kings and priests unto God—a kingdom of priests unto God. Is that not wonderful?
We have to finish, but you see, it is almost hard to finish, is it not, once you start on this? Because to me, this is good news. I think it is absolutely marvellous.
Here am I, a rotten little troublemaker as far as God is concerned. I do not think I try to make trouble with you, but as far as God is concerned, I am the troublemaker. I am always troubling Him. Poor Lord, I feel so sorry for Him.
I misunderstand Him. I misread Him. I misinterpret Him. He has to lift me up. Sometimes He has to whack me with His rod. What a lot of trouble I am to that wonderful Lord.
But, my dear friend, He intends me to be a king. I can hardly believe it. I can hardly believe it. He wants me to come to His throne. Is that not amazing?
To share His throne, to sit with Him on the throne—not, as I have said, in some way to be admired, but to administer with Him the purpose and will of God in the ages to come.
Dear, dear child of God, I find this amazing.
I would like to stop and talk about the city of God. That is the very last thing in the whole Bible, is it not? A capital city is all to do with government, authority, and the executing of national policy. That Bride is the city. Is that not amazing?
Here I discover that at the very end of the Bible—the Bible begins with a wedding, Adam and Eve; it ends with a wedding, the Lamb and the wife of the Lamb; and in the midst of it are two little books that most people do not really understand.
Liberal theologians call one of them a bawdy love ditty. One is called Ecclesiastes, and the other is called the Song of Songs. Open your Bible in the middle, and what do you find? The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes.
In Ecclesiastes, if we understand and accept the Jewish tradition, Solomon did everything, and all he said was, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Emptiness, emptiness, all is emptiness. Uselessness, uselessness, all is uselessness.”
Some Christians say, “I do not think this book should be in the Book.” It is a most amazing book. It says, “Do not be too righteous, and do not be too wicked, because in the end you are going to die anyway.”
You think, “Oh, this is not like the rest of the Book. It is wrong.” Even the rabbis argued and argued and argued about the little book of Ecclesiastes: should it be in, should it not be in? Finally, they said it should be in.
But the Song of Solomon is altogether different. If we understand Jewish tradition, it was a vision God gave to Solomon of the love between God and His covenant people.
The whole thing is an education. God takes that girl, delivers her, and brings her into a relationship with Himself. Then she becomes complacent, and He leaves her. She goes out to find Him, and then she finds Him. Now she is on a deeper level. Then He leaves her again, and she goes out, and in the end they are forever together.
“Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Uselessness, uselessness, all is uselessness.” That is the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon ought to know. He built parks, he had zoos, he had botanical gardens, he had farms, he had palaces, and he had a thousand wives. He ought to know what he was talking about.
But when we come to the Song of Songs, it is value, value, all is value; purposefulness, purposefulness, all is purposeful.
Here, in the heart of your Bible, the Bible begins with a wedding, ends with a wedding, and in the middle of your Bible is a wedding. What is it all about, unless it is that God longs that you and I should come to the throne of the Lamb?
It is as if He longs that you and I should share in the kingship of Jesus, that we should be those who can reign with Him. My dear friend, that is good news. That is good news.
Here is the last point: it is good news. How can we get there? Not by our works, not by our zeal, not by our devotion, not by our religious knowledge, but by His grace.
That is the good news of the kingdom. This Lamb gave Himself for us. This King became the sin-bearer. This Jesus is the One through whom you and I are justified in the sight of God, declared righteous, and given an eternal foundation so that you and I can become kings with Him.
That is good news. Not only has He saved us, but He has provided us with the wherewithal—the power, the wisdom, the grace—that you and I should not only be saved, but that we should come to the throne of God.
Here, then, is the good news of the kingdom. Jesus went everywhere preaching this good news of the kingdom. He turned His known world upside down.
It is interesting that in that great discourse on His second coming, it is said that this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the nations, in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations; and then shall the end come.
My dear friend, is it not an amazing thing that you and I have been saved? I think it is such a privilege in these days, with confusion, turmoil, and convulsion—so much happening—that you and I, by the grace of God, have been saved.
It is the grace of God. Then we stand in His presence. We have entered the race. We have entered His school. We have entered His education, His discipline. It is good news, as far as I am concerned.
May the Lord make it true to us all.
Shall we have a word of prayer?
Beloved Lord, beloved Lord, we need that Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus to be granted to us.
We have been considering this whole matter of the gospel of Your kingdom. Lord, let that shaft of divine light shine right into our hearts.
Bring us to a new understanding of this amazing position that You have brought us into, this amazing status that You have given us. You have saved us with an everlasting salvation. You have justified us in Your sight through the work of the Lord Jesus at Calvary.
Dear Father, for us, it is good news. Now, Lord, bring that home to every one of us, that we might begin in a new way to understand what it is in this world which is so filled with ideas contrary to Your truth and to Your word.
Bring us to a new place of understanding, and bring us, Lord, to a new experience of Your kingship.
Lord, help us. We are so foolish. We argue with You, we rebel against You, and we often misunderstand You altogether.
Lord, deal with us in love and in mercy, that we may be those who come absolutely under Your kingship, especially in these days.
We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.