Gooding, David: 2 - The Kingdom at Christ’s Return

It is now a quarter past three. My name is David Gooding, and this is the second of three seminars devoted to the topic of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God, particularly in the hands of his dear Son. The seminar should stop somewhere around ten minutes to three o'clock, because there will be people who wish to go to another site for a different seminar at that time, and that second seminar is time to start at four o'clock. I hope to be able to give you sufficient time to depart here and go there. If you, uh, choose to stay, be warned that there is a second seminar here that is conducted by me and is on the same topic, the kingdom of God, particularly in the hands of Christ. But we are considering the different phases in our Lord's kingdom. And yesterday we were thinking of that phase that began when John the Baptist was ha- uh, uh, arrested and put in prison, and our Lord became to Galilee, went forth to Galilee, and began to preach, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And we saw evidence further from Matthew chapter twelve that by saying it is his hand, he meant it had come. For Matthew records his saying to the Pharisees, Matthew twelve verse twenty eight, it is. If I, by the Spirit of God, cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. So that was what we were considering at our first seminar. Today I want to move on to talk about the kingdom of God in its other phase, when our Lord shall come again. And if we can also, therefore, uh, move on to consider the kingdom of God as it relates to this present. Shall we just pray? Lord Jesus, thou who did speak these words that we are about now to consider. Grant us thy grace, we pray, that we may love the Lord our God with all our minds as well as our hearts. Help us to help one another. Confirm in our hearts all that is true that we have learned in time past. Wherein we may need to be adjusted, give us grace and vigor of thought to follow where thy word and thy spirit would lead, that we may more effectively serve thee in our day and generation and await thy coming. For thy name's sake. Amen. Now, it is our habit, as was established in the first seminar, that, uh, whenever I say anything wrong, which is quite frequently, you are allowed to protest with a loud voice, you see. Raise your hands or stamp your feet, and so forth and so on, so that we may all contribute and help one another to affirm understanding and the clear understanding of the term the Kingdom of God. I therefore call upon you now to speak, or forever hold your peace, uh, over those difficulties that you felt yesterday but didn't have time to voice and wanted to protest but were not able because of the exigencies of the time. Any questions then, and suggestions, and protests, and contributions right now? And here's a good man leading the... Yes, thank you, sir. Very. Yes. Uh, I, I just had one question, and if you, if you're going to be answering this as, as you progress, then we can skip the question, it'll be answered as we go, but, uh, the, the, the verse was quoted from Colossians 1. Yes. Um, uh, can I quote it? Uh, It's translated. Translated into the kingdom of his dear son. Yes, yes. Uh, in, in, and yet you also mentioned that it's, that, um, it, the, the kingdom is coming. In what sense is, are we in the kingdom now versus that coming kingdom? Yeah, that is a marvelous question, sir. Uh, I- I- I'm so glad you raised it, because that is going to be the burden of our consideration in this seminar, and God willing, in the next one at four o'clock. Because it is of my opinion, you may have feared it or guessed it already, but I'm going to say that the kingdom of God in the hands of his dear son has a very practical relevance to us now in this present age, and how that is, uh, that's a good topic. I fulfill your advice, and uh, and we answer it as we go along. Good. Any other protests and questions and contributions? Don't be shy. No. Uh-huh, it's you, sir. With regards to the Messianic kingdom, how does that relate to the throne of David? I'm thinking of Isaiah, uh, chapter nine verse six, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom. Uh, you mean in the, i- i- uh, for instance, in the words of the angel to Mary? He shall give unto him the throne of his father David, yes? Yeah. And such like that. Well, I myself think that, uh, that lies in the future. Uh, I shall be quoting as a, uh, key verse given us by our Lord for the understanding of these things, Psalm one hundred and ten verse one, where God Jehovah says to the psalmist's Lord, that is the Messiah, sit at my right hand until I make the enemies the footstool of thy feet. So that in our Lord's, uh, uh, in the verse quoted by our Lord, there were three phases. There was the phase first of his incarnation. Had the Messiah forever been seated at the right hand of God, there would be no point in God's inviting him to come and sit at my right hand. That very invitation presupposes a time when he wasn't sitting at the right hand of the throne of God. Come sit at my right hand. A verse quoted many times in the New Testament of our Lord's ascension and session at the right hand of God. Now, secondly, the Psalm said, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. This present dispensation, to use a a technical term, was foreseen, of course, in the Old Testament. And here indicated there was to be a period between our Lord's ascension and his session at the right hand on the one hand, and then his enemies being put under his feet, eh, when he comes again. So that the, uh, final fulfillment of those prophecies, uh, uh, uh, of, uh, uh, he was to sit on the throne of his father David, at least at the present moment, I understand then of his coming again. I would hold myself that this is a very different thing from what James mentioned, uh, you'll see, about the, uh, uh, restoring of the tent of David, which has fallen down. The tent of David is, is not the temple in Jerusalem, it is rather the David's house and dynasty. And with the coming of our Lord, born of the seed of David according to the flesh, now exalted at the right hand of God, I don't think David's tent is collapsed. He is, he is the son of David par excellence, you'll see. And, uh, therefore, I don't think David's house is collapsed, but the time of his being manifest to sit upon David's throne might be still in the future. Yes? Does that come anywhere near beginning to make suggestions in the direction of answering your questions. Yes, it does very much, thank you. Oh, very good, yes. Well, for time's sake, shall we proceed? I suspect I shall say a lot of provocative and erroneous things to, to bring forth all sorts of questions. But, uh, Matthew tells us, and so does Luke, uh, that John the Baptist, the forerunner of our blessed Lord, when he found himself in prison, and Christ apparently made no attempt to come and release him, John Baptist had certain misgivings. Now, some people say it would be wrong to suggest that John Baptist had any, uh, uncertainty in his faith. How could he, they say, when he was the divinely appointed, uh, uh, forerunner of Messiah? And nevertheless, we are faced with the fact that at a certain stage he sent messengers to the Lord Jesus, and they were to say to the Lord, art thou he that comes, that should come, the one that was prophesied should come, or do we look for another? This is Matthew eleven, for instance, verses two and three. And people that are afraid of suggesting that John Baptist had any tremor in his faith whatsoever, suggests that John here was hit upon a tactics. He had announced the Lord Jesus, you'll see, as the promised Messiah. He had baptized him, the God-given sign, and seen the Spirit descend upon him as a dove from heaven, that this is indeed he that baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And John the Baptist, therefore, had no real doubts. What he was, was a trifle impatient. He couldn't quite understand why Christ, in his preaching, didn't get up and constantly say, look here, crowds, first thing for you to notice is I am the Messiah, do you see? Get that straight to start with. Whereas the fact is our Lord didn't seem to claim to be Messiah, not explicitly. In fact, on times when he healed people, he told them not to tell anybody. And John the Baptist was getting a little impatient, according to this theory, and couldn't make out what Christ was actually doing. So he hit upon the strategy. He would wait till our Lord was surrounded by a large crowd, and he would have two of his disciples placed in the crowd that they could pop the question, are you indeed the one we, uh, the prophets prophesied of? And our Lord would be obliged to answer, you see. Ah. I myself think it was more serious than that. According to the record in Matthew and Mark, John had preached, not only was this the Messiah come, but he preached what Messiah would do. His fan is in his hand. He will truly, thoroughly ca- cleanse his threshing floor. The wheat will he gather into his garner, and the chaff he will be burn up in fire. And when the Pharisees came, he told them straight, you better start repenting. The axe is already laid at the root of the trees, gentlemen. Every tree that beareth not good fruit will be cut down. You better start requent- uh, repenting very quick. That was the message. Not only would Christ baptize with the Holy Spirit, not only was he the Lamb of God come to take away the sin of the world, but he come to execute the judgment of God. Then Herod put him in prison. What do you suppose John was expecting Jesus to do? Wasn't a mere personal matter. John, as forerunner of Messiah, had declared that Christ would burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire and cut down the trees that didn't bear fruit. And this evil woman, Herod's, I don't know what you call her, wife, if you like, uh, do see, um, had got him in prison, was determined to end his life. Why didn't Christ come and deliver him? There were footsteps down the road, down the path. Perhaps this is the Lord. No, it was the Jaber with his bread and water. And eventually sends to Christ. Are you really the one that should come? John was expressing what nowadays we would call the problem of evil. When I was a student years ago, trying to learn a little Hebrew, there was in the class with me a Jewish student. He came from Germany. His parents had perished in Hitler's gas chambers. And I remember on one occasion he's saying to me, David, your Jesus is not the Messiah, cannot be the Messiah. Says he, you see, the scriptures prophesied that when the Messiah came, he would put down evil, and your Jesus hasn't done anything of the sort. And don't you stand there telling me that, well, he set up a spiritual kingdom. That's only an idea you Christians cooked up when your expectations of Jesus didn't get fulfilled. So the question of how the Messiah would deal with evil is, of course, a fundamental question to our faith, is it not? Um, let's look at Luke chapter four, the famous passage, because it's programmatic. Luke chapter four. When our Lord visited Nazareth, where he was brought up, there was handed him the scroll, and he read the passage from Isaiah sixty one verse eighteen: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bound, are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the book, of the Lord. And he closed the book and began to say, today is the scripture fulfilled in your ears. And preachers galore have rightly commented upon this. How wonderful it is that he closed the book exactly where he did and said, this much is fulfilled, because the very next day was the day of vengeance of our God. And he had certainly not come to full that, fulfill that at his first coming. But now let us notice what exactly the day of vengeance of our God meant for the, his contemporary, uh, Jewish, uh, uh, people. Let's look back at Isaiah sixty one and see its context. You'll see the passage our Lord quoted at the beginning of chapter sixty one. Verse two is the crucial verse to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God. What day of vengeance? Well, let's look at, uh, chapter sixty three. And And... here we have depicted one that comes from Eden with dyed garments. I that speak in righteousness, mighty to say, wherefore art thou red in thine apparel and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine fat? And he replies, I have trodden the wine press alone, and of the peoples there was no man with me. Yet I tried them in my anger and trampled them in my fury, and their lifeblood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance was in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked, and there was none to help, for my own hand upheld me. Notice the coupling of ideas, the day of vengeance and the year of my redeemed. Because Isaiah's not talking about vengeance in the sense of revenge. He is talking about the day of vengeance when God will rise up and avenge his people that have been desperately persecuted by the wicked. The people in the synagogue at Nazareth would have been delighted had our Lord proceeded to the phrase, and the day of vengeance of our God, and said that is going now to be fulfilled. Well, that in their understanding would be God sending Messiah to rescue his people, to see that justice is done, to avenge them of their adversaries. And when he indicated that he had not come to do that bit, many, like John Baptist, were disappointed. They'd come not to do it yet. Our Lord told a parable about this very thing, did he not? It is found in Luke's Gospel, chapter eighteen. He told a parable to the effect that men are always to pray and not to faint. And the parable ran like this. There was a widow in a certain town, and she came to the local judge, pleading with him to avenge her, not revenge, avenge, because the local businessmen had been cheating her, or somebody or other, and she looked to the judge to intervene and avenge her of her adversaries and see that justice is done. Had they fiddled away her bank balance or stolen some of her farm? I don't know. All she wanted was for the judge to fulfill his, uh, his, uh, responsibility and avenge her, see that justice was done. But the judge at first wouldn't. Hand in hand, I suspect he played chop, probably played golf with the, with the businessman, and, uh, he did do nothing. But the woman couldn't be satisfied. She kept coming and coming and coming. You know their tactics, a wise woman, and she kept coming and coming until, as the judge put it, she had given him a couple of black eyes, so to speak. And he said, though I fear neither God nor man, yet if I don't deal with this woman in a moment and do what she wants, uh, she'll destroy me. And so he intervened at last and avenged her. And Christ said, shall not God avenge his elect who cry unto him day and night? This is what we have to pray for. Some people say it's no Christian prayer, Christians would never pray that prayer. Well, our Lord told us we should. We are always to pray. Because the very character of God is involved. The all right, the unrighteous judge, he didn't care for God and the man, yet he was moved by the prayers of the woman eventually to see that justice was done. And shall not God do so? What's our estimate of the character of God? Will he not one day intervene and see that justice is done? Of course he will. And to give up praying is to suggest that God is, is more unprincipled than that unjust judge. The Psalms have raised the question, haven't they? Psalm 94. O thou to whom vengeance belongeth, how long, O Lord, dost thou not intervene to save us from our persecutors? How many Jews went to their death in Hitler's camps? Crying in their hearts the prayer from Psalm ninety four ninety six? O Lord, to whom vengeance belongs, how long, O Lord, before you intervene. Our Lord was aware of it, of course. Part of Messiah's program would be precisely that. The Psalm ninety six had the answer to it, where of a sudden the psalmist calls upon the trees, the mountains, the woods, the rivers, and everything else to clap their hands. For he says, the Lord cometh. Say thy God reigns, in the sense it has now begun to reign. He cometh to judge the world in righteousness. That's part of the Christian gospel too, isn't it? Paul preached it to the Athenians on the Areopagus, for he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained. But our Lord himself told a parable in that same Gospel of Matthew, chapter thirteen of what the timetable was going to be, the famous parable of the wheat and the tares. Farmer sowed good seed in his ground. It brought forth wheat, of course, eventually, but while he slept, the enemy put in tares. When the wheat and the tares began to grow so that they could be distinguished as to which was which, the farmer's servants came and said, would you that we should root up the tares? And the farmer said, no, let both grow to harvest. Best attempting to root up the tares, now you root up the wheat as well by accident. And the interpretation he gave of the parable was this, that the field is the world, not the church. Pray notice that, and don't believe Saint Augustine on that score, you'll see, the field is the church, the church is the world. The wheat are the sons of the kingdom, the tares are the sons of the evil one. Christ will not attempt to intervene to root up the tares until the end of the age. That is the program. They shall be allowed to grow together. So then this is the program that Messiah himself gives. And his answer to John was to tell his servants to witness what they had been seeing with their eyes, the miracles that he did of healing and mercy, just as Isaiah sixty one prophesied he would. John was given then the evidence that he is Messiah from what the miracles of healing and the message of mercy and his gospel message is demonstrating. That far the fulfillment of Isaiah sixty one, By fulfilling the day of vengeance, that is, avenging his people, and then of course the day of judgment upon the ungodly that waits for the future phase of his coming. Now, now, now, let me stop. You're not here to be preached at. My apologies. Uh, yes, if the man has a question. In Isaiah fifty one sixty one one, it does say that he will deliver the first people from prison. Was John not thinking about that? Well, you could actually think that, couldn't you? The question was, what kind of a prison was he getting people out of at that time? Are you, that's a very apt question, sir. So just give us a rundown again between vengeance and revenge. Oh, sir, revenge is one, uh, uh, if you hit me in the, on the nose, I, uh, get my revenge and hit you on the nose, possibly twice over. For good payment, you see. Then if the, if he, she was avenged, she would get what was rightfully hers. Ah, yes. She exacted a penalty as revenge. That, uh, uh, yes. I- I- uh, if you, somebody pains you and you get your back on him, that's revenge. But when you take your, your case to the court and the judge gives sentence, he's not executing revenge. He's the impartial judge, but he's seeing that justice is done. That's revenge. The Greek has different words for it, so it makes it clear in Greek. It's our English language and its limitations that confuse people, you see. Mm-hmm. There are lots of questions. There's a senior man here. I have a different question. If, if John the Baptist was expecting Messiah, how can he declare this is the Lamb of God that takes away the, away the sin of the world? Yes, yes. That is, that is, it's a very perceptive question, sir, uh, because he ought you to thought to have, uh, sensed by that that the Lord had to suffer. For how could the Lamb take away the sin of the world without being sacrificed? Yes? I, I, I, I- Is that in my mind, if he expecting Messiah to come and reign, there is no suffering. Well, yes, uh, I, I can't now answer for John Baptist, sir. Uh, I say this seriously, you'll have to ask him when you get to heaven. If you see, and he may rebuke you for listening to that fellow talkman and give you another interpretation. But you see, uh, uh, he may not have seen that the, uh, uh, judgment had to wait till after the sacrifice. The two on the road to Emmaus, do you see? Um, uh, they had read the scriptures talking about the, uh, future judgment that Messiah and the victories he would bring. They hadn't got it quite that the Messiah must first suffer and enter his glory. And, uh, the prophets, so Peter tells us, searched diligently. They were sure that the Messiah was coming. They searched at what time and what kind of a time the Spirit of Christ that was in them did, did indicate when it spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. Wasn't always clear to the Jews the order that the those events must take. Mm-hmm. There's a question over here by somebody in a blue shirt, I think. Yeah. I was just going to comment about what you said in regards to the difference between revenge and, and vengeance or avenge, Mm-hmm. um, it's possible that the judge may deem it necessary that, uh, someone was, uh, struck a blow or something like that, and that nothing would be given in return, and that that was their due, their just desserts, I guess you could say. Whereas that person may deem that it is right to have revenge. I don't know if I'm making myself clear, but I think the judge is one who ha- who holds the, the right to make that judgment as to whether something is, should be returned. Like, like, uh, Jesus said, you were taught eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but I say to you that, that, um, if someone strikes you on the cheek, then you should turn to him the other cheek. Yes. It's a whole different, um, um, economy, I guess, so to speak, a different way of looking at things. Uh, yes, I, I, I, if I, if I get your question, I'm not quite sure I got your question. Are you saying that a judge might decide, impartially decide, that because someone had, uh, uh, uh, injured you, he might give you the right to go and injure him to get your own back on him. No, the contrary. The contrary. Yes. That, that I might think that I had the right to go back and, and get vengeance, but the judge may deem it that it was right that I got what I got in the first place. Ah. Well, yes. Now, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, there again, uh, I may not quite have gathered you, but your question is useful to illustrate these different points. Eh, you see, what our Lord said to his people in the Sermon on the Mount as to what, how they were to behave, we noticed that he behaved himself exactly the same when he was buffeted, he endured. In other words, turned the other cheek, yes? When he suffered, he threatened not, Peter says. But Peter adds, as he committed himself to him that judges righteously. Christ did not teach that there will never be executed the righteous judgment of of God upon sinners, and they who crucified him will reap the judgment due to it unless they repent. And Christ himself, as he went to the cross, I say it, forgive me the the term, put his faith in God, committed himself to God who judges righteously. And when the women came, kindly women that they were, and wept to see that young man Jesus being so cruelly tortured and about to be crucified, he spoke to them a little sternly. Don't you weep for me, says he. It's not I that's got the wrong end of this stick. You start weeping for yourself. For it's this kind of thing is done in a moderately civilized country with established law and order, when the very authorities break their own rules to crucify an innocent man, if these things are done in a green tree, what shall be done in a dry? When men's evil comes to its great harvest, its blast and its destruction. We'll say, what then? You'll call on the mountains to fall on you. Because the judge, the righteous judge, will come and execute judgment, yes. But perhaps I still haven't got your question right up. No, that- that's fine. Good stuff, right? Well, if we- if we are happy with that so far, all I'm arguing now is the very obvious and commonplace truth, that according to Christ, there were to be phases in his kingdom. And the first phase fulfilled the opening verses of Isaiah sixty one But the fulfillment of the day of vengeance, and then the execution of the wrath of God, such as depicted in Isaiah uh sixty three and in the book of the Revelation, likewise, as he treads the winepress of the wrath of God upon the enemies of God. That was to be not in the first phase, but at his second coming, in what I should call the third phase, but you may be content to call it the second phase. We won't argue over terms, but it's coming. That phase when he shall come in glory of his father and of the holy angels, you'll see. Now, that prospect raises the question. The Old Testament never said there were to be two comings, did it? I can't think of a passage that says there will be a first coming of Christ and a second coming. There are prophecies that are difficult to explain if it were all intended to happen at once. For instance, one said he would come on a donkey, the other said he would come in the clouds of heaven. Difficult to do it simultaneously, both at the same time, I imagine. You'll see. But no explicit statement in the Old Testament that there were to be two comings. It is a very big part of our Christian gospel, nevertheless, that there are to be two comings. There was one in the past, there will be a second coming. Where did we get the idea from? We got it from the Lord, of course. He told them he was going away, much to their surprise and consternation. If he went, he would come again. Yes, but it was in the Old Testament. Not explicitly, but in the verse I've already quoted, Psalm one hundred uh, Psalm 110, verse one. The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. This is the verse from the Old Testament, the most frequently quoted verse in the New Testament from the Old, because it goes back to our Lord. I mustn't be tempted to go along down that line, but that verse, of course, is a compendium of Christian doctrine and is useful for establishing all kinds of things. It's useful to establish the deity of the Messiah. Our Lord used it in his arguments with the Jews in the temple courts, yes. It's used also in the book of the Hebrews to point out that the sacrifice of Christ is finished. The work of sacrificing is done, and our high priest doesn't stand, he has sat down at the right hand of God. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. And Hebrews observes that the sacrifice having been completed, all our Lord is waiting for now is from henceforth expecting until. That's what he's waiting for. And of course, he spoke the parable we've already quoted, let the tares grow with the wheat until the harvest come. This then is Christian doctrine, and it goes back to our blessed Lord himself. Has that second coming, the coming of the kingdom, anything to do with us? Or is it the something we may make, make a note in our diary for the year, whenever we think it happens? Uh, and that's a something that's going to happen, so thank the Lord for that, and now we forget it. Or has the future phase of the kingdom of God any relevance for our lives now? Or let me put it personally to you. The third, the coming phase of the kingdom of Christ, when he shall come in power and great glory. Any impact on on on your life? If anybody here likes to confess that there's some impact that means something to you, with... helps you in your Christian life? Oh, it's another man there again. Is it green or blue, the shirt? I can't quite see. Well, in regards to that, um, First John chapter four and and verses, uh, two and three, I think speak to that, and and I actually would like to hear what you have to say about that verse that says, um, I I like the way that the King James because it seems to bring out the tense that I understand is in the Greek. I'm not sure, but it says, um, hereby know you the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confes- confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. So it's not a future tense, but, um, my understanding is that it's a, a present and, and ongoing tense. Um, and so that, that, that coming is relevant to us now because it's not spoken of something that's just to happen in the future. Oh. This is one John, sir. Um, chapter four, two and three, And verses two and three. Well, in verse two, every spirit that that confesses that Jesus Christ has come, that is a perfect part of supporting Greek. It's is come in the old English sense of is come, the master is come and calls for you. That is old English for has come. Modern French, uh, is je suis venu, I am come, meaning I have come. I understood that it meant, um, um, has or is come and and is coming. No, I well, no, you shouldn't trust me, I, I, you know, apprentice that I am in Greek, but, uh, as far as I know, uh, this is a perfect, uh, participle. You could argue it means has come, and the effect of that coming remains. But normally you wouldn't use that, uh, participle, a perfect participle of a future event. There is another verse, I think, you may be thinking about in the other epistle by John, uh, every, uh, uh, spirit that doesn't confess Jesus Christ coming in flesh. Now that could be referring to the future. Uh-huh. Second John verse seven. Yes, Second John verse seven. That could be referring to the future. Perhaps the one, that was the one you were intending to, uh, quote. You see, uh, that those who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in flesh, and that could well be, uh, a use of a present participle referring to the future. Mm. But, uh, uh, uh, all I wish to say now, oh, no, I don't wish to say it now, because it is now, uh, five to four o'clock, and I must give you a break now so that you can proceed to the other seminar that you are thinking to go to.