Gooding, David: 2 - When Does Christ Reign?

Gospel by Luke in chapter twenty two and verse twenty eight. But ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, even as my Father appointed unto me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and ye shall sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. We are now, so I am told, at the midpoint of our conference together, and some of you may be thinking, when are these fellows going to begin to talk about prophecy? They haven't so much as mentioned Gog, let alone Magog, nor Meshech and Tubal, and they haven't talked a word about Armageddon. When are they going to begin to talk about prophecy? Well, I take your point if you feel like that, and there is to be a list of, uh, questions upon which you may put down the things that particularly interest you and Drew and John, and I will try to deal with them. But for my part, I am, I do confess, more concerned in this conference to talk with you about the principles of interpretation of prophecy rather than the more startling details. Pretty useless for you if we go on at great lengths about Gog and Magog and get you all excited and saying it's marvelous. Good job, the Russians are going to get knocked on the head. And then you discover in ten years time that our interpretation has been built on very shaky foundations, and that our equations of Meshech with Moscow are not possible. So forgive us if we seem to be dealing in vague generalities rather than in striking concrete future events. You may come to see, I hope you will come to see, even before you get gray hairs like us, that perhaps the principles of interpretation are the things of permanent value that will help you in your study of the detail. We are not thereby saying that it is invalid to study Gog and Magog. God has written about them in his word, and all that he has written is to be studied, and all is valuable. If we have to choose at this particular conference, I, for my part, will choose to talk about the principles of interpretation. Now, apparently, I did not make myself clear in my first talk. I thought I had. When we talked about the chronology of the end times, we worked backwards and came across the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ of a thousand years, normally called by its Latin term the millenium. I didn't make myself clear because I didn't apparently state in so many words that I believe it is to be a literal reign of Christ of a thousand years at least in the future. So now let me make it clear, I believe there will be a literal reign of Christ in the future before the end of the world. But somebody will come back at me and say, but look, that is a very arbitrary interpretation of that passage of scripture. There is only one passage of scripture in the whole of the Bible that mentions a thousand years. Why should we attach so much importance to it? The answer to that immediately is, if God says a thing once, it is true. God doesn't have to say things three times before they become true and important. But somebody will say, look, that, uh, passage of a thousand years is mentioned in the Book of the Revelation, but the Book of the Revelation is a book full of symbols. And it is not right to take those symbols as though they were literal statements of literal fact. Well, just let's examine that particular argument, because it is a serious argument. How are we to interpret this Book of the Revelation? Let's come to chapter one and verse one, Which reads, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass, and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John. It used to be said in my youth, I don't know if it is still said by any reputable theologian, that that word signified means that he showed it by symbols, and therefore indicates that nothing is to be taken literally in this book. Well, let's test that. This word he signified, does it mean he's indicated it by symbols, and therefore, and therefore, and therefore nothing is to be taken literally in this book. Let us, with our thumb in the revelation, turn the pages back to John's Gospel, chapter twelve to meet that very same word. John's Gospel, chapter twelve and verse thirty three: And we'll begin in verse thirty two. and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying by what manner of death he should die. It's of course the same Greek word. He said this signifying. What did he say then? He said, I, if I be lifted up. Ah, but you say, let me use the argument. Ah, but this word means he indicated it by a symbol, and therefore it isn't to be taken literally. He said, I, if I be lifted up, but of course he didn't mean literally lifted up, did he? Or did he? Yes, sir. He meant literally lifted up. The fact is that the Greek word means to indicate, to indicate by some manner of sign, but the nature of the sign isn't necessarily specified. It does not necessarily mean it is a symbol that shall not be taken literally. Or let us come at it another way. Let us take some of the, uh, symbols that are used in the book of the Revelation and see how they are dealt with. So let's take the first that occur. We might as well start at the beginning. Chapter one, John tells us that on the Lord's day on the Isle of Patmos, he heard a great voice behind him as of a trumpet, and when he turned, and now we come to chapter one and verse twelve. and I turned to see the voice which spake with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands, one like unto a son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about at the breast with a golden gird. So here we have some symbols. Lampstands. Symbols, aren't they? Obviously. Not talking about literal lampstands made of brass or gold or silver with oil lamps in them. These then are symbols. Let's have a go at interpreting the symbols. And let's suppose that because they're symbols, they don't refer to anything literal. Yeah? What are they? You say, well, nothing literal. Um, they refer to the spiritual principle of, um, life. Do they? Let's hear our Lord interpret the symbol. Uh, the last clause in the chapter, and the seven lampstands are principles of light. No. The seven lampstands are seven churches, literally so. Seven literal churches. You could have pinpointed their location on the map. You could have gone down street, uh, uh, uh, out of By these, themistocles or something else in Ephesus, knocked on the door of a building and found literal people inside that were the church of Ephesus. Yeah, very literal. Let's think again at the famous symbols of Revelation five. This is the great scene in heaven. Verse five, and one of the elders said unto me, weep not, behold, the lion is, uh, that is of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath overcome to open the book and the seven seals thereof. And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a lamb. And it represents? Well, not a literal lamb with wool on its back, all curly and cuddly. More a lion such as you would see in Long Leap Zoo, then you say it's a symbol. Ah. Well, symbols must not refer to anything literal. So it's a principle. I saw there the principle of meekness. Really? No, no, no, no. When he saw the lion, the symbol indicated something, someone exceedingly literal. Not a principle, but a man, thank God. Man of flesh and bone, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. It is altogether a false principle to assert that just because symbols are used in the book of the Revelation, you must not take them to refer to anything little. Generally speaking, the symbols are used to help us to see the significance of what is literal. Let's come to one further example. The very passage that I was talking about when we asserted that there should be a literal reign of Christ in the future. It is in chapter twenty of the Revelation. And that thousand years introduced, says chapter twenty, in this fashion. And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. They called on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years should be finished. Some theologians who hold that there is no millennium to come, we call them amillennialists, mean a Greek word plus a Latin word, which means not a millennium. Um, some of them, not all of them, but the less responsible among them, argue thus. Look, this thousand years reign of Christ is mentioned in a paragraph that mentions other things as well. And those other things can't be literal. Therefore, the thousand years reign isn't literal. What are the other things that are not literal? Well, they say, look, I saw an angel come down out of heaven, having a key in his hand. Well, it wasn't a Yale key, was it? You can't take it literally, nor was it one of those honky donky things with the, you know, round bit at the end and, uh, the warts and everything else at the other end. It isn't a literal key. And he had a chain, but it can't be a literal chain like you found in Harland and Wolff. Therefore, it isn't literal. And because the key and the chain aren't literal, the thousand years can't be literal. That, of course, is to confuse the principles of language, let alone anything else. Let me have some illustrations of the way language is used. The Israelites were promised that when they got to Palestine, they should find a land flowing with milk and honey. Not literally, surely, with a sticky mess of honey. No, you say, spiritually they were to find a land full of the milk of the Word and the honey of the Holy Spirit. They were to find a land where there was lots of green grass, lots of lovely cows who gave a rich supply of milk, plows with all from which bees made honey. And with poetical license and exaggeration, the scripture says it should be a land flowing with milk and honey. Please don't take the verb flow in some literal sense, that it flowed down the street. But please don't spiritualize it. It wasn't meant to be spiritualized. It's simply a way of talking, a metaphorical way of talking. Take another way language is used. I am concerned to explain to, um, little Tommy of eight-year-old, year old why he shouldn't devour his beef steak in half a minute, uh, and then run out to play. I say, you know, when we start to eat, we need to give our stomachs time. Because when we sit down to eat at the table and we see some food, then there's some little messengers that go down from the mouth all the way down to the tummy, and they tell the tummy to get ready and make the necessary supply of acid, and they, uh, in turn tell the liver to get ready and make some other stuff so that it can digest the food. And Tommy sits there open mouth. He never knew that. There are actual messengers run down from the mouth to the stomach. Never knew that. He's thinking of GPO telegram boys. Helmets on motorcycles. Cool. Never knew that. There were messengers went from the mouth to the stomach. Stupid chap. He's taking it literally. He oughtn't to take those messages literally, did he? He ought to take them spiritually. She said it wasn't a literal messenger, GP old boy on his motorcycle with a crash helmet. Of course, it wasn't, wasn't that kind of messenger. But they're very real messengers. You ask the pathologists and the anatomists and all that crew, and they'll tell you they're very real messengers. They're bits of chemistry and electricity and goodness knows what else. Very real stuff. When I use the term messenger, I use, there's no good talking to him, uh, with chemical names as long as this. Wouldn't know what you're talking about. So I had to use the word messenger. Yes, it's a type of messenger. Ain't a literal GPO messenger, but it's a literal messenger. And it is exceedingly shallow thinking to say because this key with which the angel locked up Satan isn't a Yale. Then it cannot in any sense be understood literally. Pray we need to do some deeper thinking in the use of language when we come to the interpretation of the language of the revelation. But you say, why is it important anyway? Can't we all get to heaven whether there's a millennium or not? Why is it important to establish whether the millennium is literal or not? Here we come to an exceedingly important and practical topic. The question is, when shall Christ reign? Those who hold that this millennium is not to be taken literally, advance the view that the millennium is now. That when it talks of Satan being bound, it is talking of what Christ did at Calvary. Please don't laugh at that. They have some strong arguments, haven't they, who hold the view that the millennium is now because Christ bound Satan by his death, or even earlier than his death. For in Matthew, Gospel of, chapter twelve, our Lord, in course of arguing with the Pharisees, said thus. Thus. Matthew 12 and verse 29. Oh, how can one enter into the house of the strong man and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? Our Lord was talking about the miracle he had just performed of casting out an evil spirit. The Pharisees said that it was by the Elzebub, prince of the evil spirits, that he cast out this evil spirit. And our Lord in reply said, nonsense, gentlemen. Satan has not turned to fight against Satan. Or, to take another analogy and argument, you won't enter into a strong man's house and spoil him of his goods, except you first bind the strong man. I have spoiled him of his goods. I have delivered this prisoner of his. Therefore, I must have bound the strong man. There you are, they say, well, there you are. Now that's QED. Our Lord bound the strong man when he was here on Earth. This was the beginning of the millennium. This is what Revelation means by Satan being bound. And therefore they argue that that millennial reign of Christ is future. You say, does it matter? Yes, it matters exceedingly. There is a very real sense in which the troubles in this province, this last four years, have sprung from the view that the millennium is now. You say what? Do you arrive at that? The early church fathers, great majority of the early church fathers believed that the millennium lay in the future. When Origen came along, he turned the tide and lent great weight and popularity to the view that the millennium was to be understood as of the present. With the joining up of the church with the state and Constantine, the view that our Lord's reign is now, his millennial reign is now, gathered to itself great strength. It follows that if our Lord's millennial reign is now, then what should be happening is, of course, what is prophesied of that reign. He shall break the nations in pieces as a potter breaks to shivers the vessels. And moreover, the promises that our Lord gives to his people, that in his millennial reign they shall reign with him, they would have to be now as well, wouldn't they? That pro- pro- promise he gave to the church at Thyatira, let me read it again. He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to shivers, as I also have received of my Father. That ought to be now. Yes, said generations of folks. It is now, and it's going to be now too. But because Christ is reigning, and the church is reigning with him, then the church should control the governments of the earth. Put up these and put down those. And they who oppose Christ in the last analysis must be put down. Alongside of that notion, you will find constantly the idea that the church is Israel. It also has lent great strength to the view that the church should be doing now what Israel did in the past. When the kings of Judah sat upon their thrones, they were God's anointed. They were God's immediate representatives on earth. They were his viceroys. And they ruled, in the last analysis, by armies with swords and staves and slings and bows and arrows. And in those days, God's king was victorious over the other kings in the manner of King David by cutting people's heads off. The book of Deuteronomy informs the Jewish kings and elders Elders. that That if if idolatry is reported in a nearby city of Israel, they are to warn that city, and if it doesn't repent, they are to take out their armies and destroy it, and thus put away idolatry from them. You can see how serious is the philosophy that lay behind medieval Christ- Christendom, when they put two and two together and said that the reign, the millennial reign of Christ is now. Therefore, the church is his immediate representative on earth and ought to be enforcing his government. And the church is Israel, and therefore, not only does the church put up and put down governments, but if there be heresy, or what the church is pleased to regard as heresy, hither or bither, the church must demand the civil power to use the magistrate or the army to put it down. Thousands were tortured and massacred as a result, in the name of the present reign of Christ. The Protestant churches kicked out from Rome. The Reformed churches scarce changed their theology. What they objected to was the Pope doing it. They still adhere to the notion that the church ought to be doing it, that is the Protestant church. And adhering to that notion that the church is Israel, that the millennium is now, that Christ is reigning now, and the church ought therefore to be enforcing his reign. The Protestant church equally has taken out its armies. And here in Ulster, there are Protestants that, on the excuse, in the last analysis, of defending the faith. And fighting for the cause of Christ would take out the armies. And fight. It is a matter of no small importance whether the reign of Christ is now or not. But if the millennium isn't now, all this fighting has been a ghastly mistake. The Christ will come and slay the beast with the sword of his mouth. He will do it one day. But let us get clearly in our mind that in that sense of his reign, the reigning is yet future. So I come back to the scripture with which we began. When is this occasion that he promises to his disciples, Luke chapter twenty two, and I appoint unto you a kingdom, even as my father appointed unto me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you shall sit on thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. When is it? Scripture itself will tell us when it is. You shall sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Keeping your thumb at that verse, would you care to look, please, at Matthew chapter nineteen and verse twenty eight? Verily I say unto you that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Because the judging of the twelve tribes of Israel by the apostles sitting upon their thrones is specifically stated to be in the regeneration when the Son of Man sits on the throne of his glory. Further, to, um, mark out that time when he sits on the throne of his glory, look what else shall happen then. Chapter twenty five of Matthew and verse, um, thirty one: But when the man- Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory. Sitting on the throne of his glory is when he comes again with all the angels of his power. And it was when he sits on the throne of his glory that the apostles shall sit on their throne and reign and judge along with him. I indicated the other night, Paul himself is witness to this fact. He writes in his letter to the Corinthians, the first letter and chapter four, The time of reigning, gentlemen, he says, isn't now. You have, in a sense, reigned. Verse eight, Already are you filled, already are you become rich. You have reigned without us. Yea, and I would that you did reign, that we might also reign with you. But at this present, he said, we are persecuted. And the promise of our reigning with Christ is ever held out to be, in the future, if we suffer, we shall reign. But now, our Lord has not come with the angels yet. In that sense, he has not sat on the throne of his glory. Our Lord, as the hymn puts it, is now rejected and by the world disowned. Let us turn again to Luke chapter uh twenty two once more. And notice what he says in verses thirty five to thirty eight. He Said unto them, when I sent you forth without purse and wallets and shoes, lacked you anything? And they said nothing. He said unto them, but now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a wallet, and he that hath none, let him sell his cloak and buy a sword. For I say unto you that this which is written must be fulfilled in me, and he was reckoned with the outlaws. For that which concerneth me has fulfillment. Notice this very big distinction that our Lord is laying down between the state of affairs as it had been when he was on earth, and the state of affairs that is going to be from this point onwards. When he came to Israel, he came as their Messiah. And because he was the nation's Messiah, he exercised the right to commandeer everything he should lead. When he sent his apostles out on their missionary journeys, he expected the nation to pay their traveling expenses and put them up in their hotels and homes, free of charge. For he was Messiah and had right to the nation's goods. When he wanted a donkey upon which to ride into Jerusalem as king, he simply sent his apostles down the road, and they untied the donkey, and they took it. And he said, if the owners of the donkey, uh, say to you, what are you doing taking that donkey, reply to them that the owner has need of him. And when he's finished with him, he'll send it back. For he was Israel's Messiah that had a right to commandeer all they had. Therefore, in his earthly gospel campaigns, he expected the nation to finance the campaigns and entertain the apostles free of charge. They were to take no money with them. Whatever house they came to that was reasonable, they were to stay there during the course of their gospel mission. That's not the way you finance gospel missions now, please. Or it isn't the way you should finance gospel missions now. But now it's going to be different, said Christ. Now you'll have to finance your own gospel missions. You cannot any longer expect the nation to finance you. Why can't you? And what has made the difference? Because the scripture is to be now fulfilled that is written of me. He was reckoned with the outlaws. And the nation cast him out. He accepted their rejection. The apostles are not at this moment sitting on the thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. There was a time when King David was anointed king, not yet been allowed by God to come to the throne. He had been put into the very court of Saul as one anointed of God, destined to be king and marked out as God's man. And Saul had the sentence already passed on him. His house should not continue. But nonetheless, David was asked to wait and suffer his period of rejection, as he was hunted as an outlaw upon the mountain. There was a figure called Jonathan, and he loved David. Jonathan should have been Crown Prince under Saul, but he loved David. Said David, I know that you're going to be king, and he stripped himself and gave all his warriors accoutrement to David. When David was hunted as an outlaw, and valiant men gathered to David to share David's rejection, Jonathan came out to the wood. He said, David, I know you shall be king. When you're king, I shall be second to you. But he never was. Never was. Why not? Because instead of staying with David and sharing David's rejection with him, he went back into the palace. Never actually reigned with David. If we would reign with Christ in the sense of holding active, responsible offices in that reign, as distinct from just being there lining the pavements with our confetti and streamers, and shouting long at the king. If we would actually reign in the sense of have office and responsibility in the coming regime, turns are that we suffer now with him. Well, then you say, you seem to be saying that Christ isn't reigning at all. Now, in any sense. And there is no pleasant reign of Christ. Oh no, I'm not saying that at all. Now I must come and deal, therefore, with an opposite extreme that is found in prophetic commentaries. And that is the proposition that wherever you read of the kingdom, it has nothing to do with the church, and it is future. That is wherever you read the kingdom in the New Testament. Either belongs to Israel in the past or Israel in the future, and has nothing to do with the church. That is seriously in error. For now, let us look to a brief, a few passages in the New Testament, where we read of the kingdom in relation to the church. You might start, for instance, in one Corinthians, and chapter four and verse twenty. or verse eighteen. Now some are puffed up as though I were not coming to you, but I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will. And I will know not the word of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. Notice the present tense, is in power. And please notice that Paul is talking to the church at Corinth, a predominantly Gentile church. And he is talking of the kingdom of God as being a present practical reality that shall affect the life of that Christian church at Corinth. They were misbehaving, and some of them had got the idea that Paul was a moral coward and then come to Corinth to face them out, but kept away and wrote strong letters because he didn't say the same thing face to face. Says Paul, don't you get that into your head. For I shall be coming to you presently, and if I come, you'll find out that the kingdom of God isn't a matter merely of words, it is a matter of present power that you will feel, and feel very unpleasantly. The kingdom of God will take the form of discipline in your church. Here and now, in the present Christian age. That verse is enough, isn't it? Let alone all the other verses in the New Testament epistles and in the Acts of the Apostles that deal with this matter, to show that in a very real, practical sense, the kingdom of God is a present reality. When we say that all gets marvellously, uh, complicated, the chap stands there and he spends the first, uh, forty minutes of his talk saying that the kingdom of Christ is future, now it is present. Now, now what would you do with a chap like that? Oh well, just what he says by Holy Scripture. Let us turn to the Gospel of Luke. Chapter seventeen, And notice of something that is of fundamental importance when we think of the term kingdom. In the first place, the term kingdom probably to us conjures up the idea of so much geographical territory, you know, the United Kingdom. England, Wales, I think still Scotland. Well, and I think there are some other parts, but I'm not quite sure. Kingdom, geographical extent. That is very rare use of its term in scripture. Normally, mostly, when you read of the term kingdom, you are thinking of the power that a king exerts, his rule, his government. The kingdom of God we have just read. Paul doesn't say it's not merely confined to Palestine, it goes to Greece as well. He says the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. He's talking about the rule, the power that God exerts. His rule. Now, being asked by the Pharisees, this is Luke seventeen verse twenty, when the kingdom of God comes, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God doesn't come with observation, neither shall they say lo here or lo there, for lo, the kingdom of God should come, it should come with great signs of wonders and power. So that you should be able to observe the skies or anywhere else, and observe for these signs and see the kingdom of God come. And they were still looking around and saying, how is this kingdom? When is it coming, Lord, they were saying. And he said, the kingdom of God doesn't come with observation. They shall not say, lo here, lo there. The kingdom of God is, already is, among you. What did he mean? Well, he was saying that the kingdom of God is a present reality. The kingdom of God had come because in their presence, standing already among them, was the king himself. Where the king is there is the kingdom. Kingdom of God is among them. That was the message that the Lord Jesus had preached and John the Baptist preached. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. But there is the king himself. They had not recognized the king. That is true. They were looking for signs and wonders. So they missed the king, but the king was there. The kingdom had drawn by. So you say that verse contradicts John Lennox in full force, because you see, he was telling us yesterday that the sign of the coming kingdom is all sorts of signs that you can see with observation, and here our Lord strictly denies it. Uh, but then you see, ha, please read verses twenty two following. And he said unto the disciples, the days will come when you shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you shall not see it, and they shall say to who you, lo here, lo there, go not away, nor follow after them. For as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven, so shall the Son of Man be in his day. It will be like the flood. It will be like Sodom and Gomorrah, the day when the Son of Man shall be revealed. So what we have are two different aspects and or phases of that kingdom. There is, of course, the future kingdom that will come with observation, and it will be so clear when the Lord comes in power and great glory to set up that public phase of his kingdom by force and power. When he comes, it will be so visible that you won't want anybody to say, lo here or lo there. It will be like the lightning. When he comes on the clouds of heaven in power and great glory and destroys the beast, and sets up his millennial reign. Yes, that part of his kingdom, that phase of his kingdom shall come with observation. But please observe, there is another phase of his kingdom, which is a present thing. Witness to those verses we have read in one Corinthians four. The present kingdom rule of God in the life of a believer, in the life of the church. Therefore, when you hear the New Testament saying things about the kingdom of God and saying it isn't this and isn't that, you must be careful to understand exactly what the scripture is saying. Most things about the kingdom of God, or many things about the kingdom of God, are taught us by negative statements. Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. The kingdom of God comes not with observation. The negatives are not to be taken, you will observe, as absolute negatives. They are correcting an unbalanced point of view. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink. Oh, then I can eat and drink what I like, and I can get drunk and and I can be a glutton. No, no, no, no. The rule of God in your life will control the fact that you must eat to the glory of God and not become a dumb. But in a context where people were thinking that the rule of God was concerned with tiny little things as to whether you should eat lettuces or, or, or, or beef or not, or both. Tiny little futuring things. Then Paul says, well, now the, the rule of God, you know, the kingdom of God is not concerned with futuring little things like that. Now there is. They're concerned with big, broad spiritual principles. The Kingdom of God is not in word, then we don't have to read the Bible. No, no, no. The rule of God is laid down in his word. So he's not only in simply words, empty words. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Then Drew Craig isn't in it because he's flesh and blood. Well, yes, in a sense he isn't in it yet. But what phase of the kingdom of God are you talking about? There is that glorious phase of the kingdom of God when the Lord shall come in power and great glory and set up his great kingdom, and in that sense of the kingdom, flesh and blood cannot inherit it, and before Drew will ever get into that, he'll have to be changed or raised from the dead and given a body like unto our Lord's glorious body. But as far as the rule of God is concerned now with a spiritual sphere in which God rules and Christ is Lord, then every believer is in it. Except a man is born again, he cannot enter it, of course not. But when a man is born again, he does enter. We must learn to distinguish, therefore, different phases of our Lord's kingdom. There is that coming kingdom when he shall come in the glory of his Father and the holy angels, and then he shall sit on the throne of his glory, and then the apostles will sit on thrones, and then they will judge the twelve tribes of Israel, and then they shall judge angels, and then they shall judge the world. But there is a present phase of his kingdom. That doesn't come with observation. You can't see it coming. Wind blows where it lists, with the sound thereof, and from whence it comes and where it goes. So is it that everyone that is born of the Spirit thereby enters the kingdom of God. How about you say, Mister, you still got it wrong? Well, you've not been so bad this morning, but you do got it a little bit wrong. Our Lord came along with John the Baptist, and they preached the kingdom of God is at hand, repent therefore. And they were announcing the coming of the kingdom to Israel, but Israel rejected the king, so God packed up the idea of the kingdom protest. And then he'll reintroduce the kingdom after the church is gone. But what was Paul talking about the kingdom for then, in the church of Corinth? And why did he go out about everywhere preaching the kingdoms, as he tells the elders at Ephesus? And what's Drew doing in the kingdom now by getting born again? The answer to the matter is given us, is it not, by our Lord, recorded by Matthew in his chapters eleven, twelve, and thirteen. The king came, he was indeed rejected. But he took his disciples aside down by the sea and taught them what were the divine, what was the divine strategy for the setting up of his kingdom? He was rejected. His own forerunner was cast into prison. That chapter eleven tells us of the gospel by Matthew. And John Baptist seems to have been disappointed because Christ didn't raise an army and come and slaughter Herod and deliver John out of the prison. In fact, so far from that, our Lord allowed John to stay in prison and at length be executed. It was a great stumbling block for the apostles. Jesus is the king. If he's come as God's king and he cares about moral right and wrong, and he has come to put an end to the world's evils. What's he doing letting John stay in prison? Why doesn't he get him out? Old John walked up to Herod and put his fist in his face. It is not lawful to thee to have thy brother's wife, he had said. And in the name of the coming Messiah, he had demanded that Herod repent of his sin because the king was coming, and the king wouldn't put up with that kind of iniquity. And he put him in prison. But John thought, well, Jesus is the Messiah, so he'll come and get me out, and he'll put Herod in his place, and he'll deal with evil. He didn't do anything of the sort. John Baptist had his head cut off. We are told in chapter twelve that our Lord was in a synagogue on a day, and he did a miracle. And the Pharisees' reaction was they took counsel that they might kill him. And our Lord... instead of gathering him an army and destroying those wicked men, he meekly turned round, quietly backed out of the temple. So how on earth can he have any claim to be God's king, come to set up the kingdom of God? This is absurd. And of course, the Jew says it still, doesn't he? He says, your Jesus is not the king, because the Bible said that when the king came, he would deal with evil, and he would put down wicked men, and he would reign, and your Jesus did nothing of the sort. In fact, he got crucified himself. How can you explain? Would you look, please, in chapter twelve of Matthew? And Matthew's comment, as our Lord quietly walks out of the synagogue and does not execute judgment upon evil. Matthew's comment is this: Behold my servant, verse eighteen, he's quoting Isaiah the prophet, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall declare judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive nor cry aloud, neither shall anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench. Until. Would you please notice the conjunction? Until. And then notice what point that is at which he will bruise the reed and quench the smoking flags. He will not do so until he sends forth judgment unto victory. In other words, what Isaiah was prophesying and what Matthew now repeats, is this: that it was in the deliberate strategy of God that when Messiah came the first time, he would not proceed at once to the judgment. There would be a period covered by this conjunction until, when he was not proceeding to judgment, but adopting altogether different and opposite tactics, when he should not be crying aloud, when he should not be breaking the bruised reed or quenching the smoking flax, but with great patience doing other things, until the time came when it would be right for him to begin his work of judgment. This, I say, was deliberate strategy on the part of God. And therefore, Matthew is pointing out that when our Lord allowed John the Baptist to be executed, when he himself appeared to yield to the opposition of the Pharisees and quietly retreat from the synagogue, it was not because he could not do otherwise, nor was it because he was weak, and certainly it was not because he was not, after all, the Messiah. It was, in fact, because he was deliberately fulfilling the strategy that God had laid down for the Messiah. He was not now proceeding to judge. He was about to turn to those other duties that God had given him. And he was prepared to wait until God's time should come for him to rise up and judge and put down evil. Does that mean then that between the time when our Lord was here on earth and allowed himself to be crucified. And the time when he will come in power and great glory to judge, that he is doing nothing whatsoever about the setting up of God's kingdom. Is the kingdom altogether in abeyance? Of course not. For now we should turn on to chapter thirteen and notice what our Lord says about this intervening time, the time covered by the until. It is a time when he is not judging, but it is a time, on the other hand, when, like a sower going forth to sow, he is sowing the word of God through his servants in the field of the world. It is a time also during which his enemy, Satan himself, attempts to confuse the issue by sowing tares among the wheat. But again, we have our lesson confirmed when we hear the Lord's servants questioning him about these tares that the enemy is in process of sowing among the wheat. Lord, they say, would you at this time that we root up these tares? And he says, no, certainly not. You are not to root them up. Let both grow together until the harvest. Will you notice the conjunction again? That is to say, during this time covered by the until, the word of God is going forth, men and women are receiving it, they are being born again, they are entering the spiritual phase of the kingdom. At that same time, Satan is attempting to confuse the ish- issue by sowing false seed, by sowing tares, by sowing false professors among the genuine children of the kingdom. And God is not immediately proceeding to root them up and bring in the judgment. He is letting both grow until the harvest. So now we are in this period when the kingdom of God is being set up in its spiritual sense. That is not to deny that one day the judgment will come. The kingdom in its outward form, the millennial kingdom of our Lord, shall not come by gradual stages, by the world gradually becoming Christianized, or by everybody getting converted. The scripture makes it clear that while at this period many are being saved and born again and entering into the spiritual kingdom. Not all the world is going to get saved. The kingdom in its outward form is going to be set up by our Lord's second coming in power and great glory, executing the judgment of God upon the impenitent and willfully unbelieving, and causing then the wheat, the true sons of the kingdom, to shine forth in the kingdom of their father. One final observation along this line. You might say to yourself, or at least if you were an unbeliever, a Jew for instance, you might say to yourself, but this question of a spiritual kingdom interposed, so to speak, between the Messiah's first coming and his second coming, is not this a something that the Christians have made up themselves? Because they were so dreadfully disappointed by the rejection of Christ by the nation and by his crucifixion, that they invented this idea of a present spiritual kingdom to cover their disappointment. The answer is no, those Christians have not made it up, for see, Matthew is quoting to us Isaiah's prophecy. It was the Old Testament that said that there should be this period of the until. And not only Isaiah said it, but the Psalms said it as well. Psalm one hundred and ten verse one says, and it is God speaking and addressing Messiah, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies the footstool of thy feet. That is, Messiah has been on earth, otherwise there would be no point in telling him to rise and sit at the right hand. But being bidden to rise and sit at the right hand of God at the ascension, he is thereafter told that he must now wait until his enemies are made his footstool. The Old Testament, then, is quite clear that there was to be this period of the until between our Lord's ascension and his coming again to judge. And secondly, it was, of course, absolutely necessary that God should have this period of the until. It is the only way a satisfactory kingdom could be set up. The Jews had a very simplistic idea, and many people still have. They thought it would be enough if when the Messiah came, he behaved like their Maccabean heroes and set up the kingdom of God by going around Palestine with an army and cutting off the heads of everybody who opposed the Messiah and his followers. We now, I hope, can see what a shallow idea that was. Simply by cutting the heads off a few thousand people will not get rid of the power and principle of evil in this world. Indeed, if that were the way to get rid of evil, it is not only the heads of our and Christ's enemies that would have to be cut off, but surely our heads would have to be cut off too, because in our hearts there resides that same principle of evil. Therefore, before Christ comes to destroy in, in judgment those who refuse to be converted and to be regenerate, there must be this period when God deals with this problem of evil at the spiritual level, and seeing it is a spiritual problem, it can only be dealt with at this level by spiritual means. That is to say, not by cutting people's heads off with literal swords, but by reconciling them to God, by putting within them a new life, by introducing them into the kingdom of God at the spiritual level, by giving them a new nature, a nature that is the very nature of God, and that, like God himself, is holy. And therefore, this present period, at which God should be long suffering with evil men, and not willing that any should perish, and therefore prepared even to allow evil to go ahead, to grow, to increase, to appear, to triumph. A period in which evil men should be allowed to continue, while God should offer men mercy and regeneration. That period was absolutely necessary if God were going to end up with a kingdom of priests that could satisfy his heart, that would be qualified to reign with Christ when he comes again in power and great glory. And so we see that while on man's side Christ was rejected and his kingdom rejected, on God's side this was no unforeseen disaster that put his plans awry. Christ being, uh, uh, crucified by evil men was nevertheless delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. This too was in God's plan. He has turned the very wrath of man to praise him, and the artifices of the devil he has turned against the devil himself, and is now using this present period deliberately and by foredetermination to be the time in which he sets up the kingdom in its spiritual phase. When this time runs out, then Christ will come in power and great glory and set up his kingdom in open physical form. Then it is that we shall, as the epistles promise us, reign with Christ. Now is the time of suffering with. Now the time of preaching the gospel. Now the time when may m- men may repent, be born again, and enter the spiritual kingdom. This time shall not last forever. When Christ comes, that period shall be over. Then Christ shall come in judgment. Then he shall reign, and they that have trusted him and followed him shall reign with him then.