THE KINGDOM OF GOD 5

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 5

We have come to the time of the crucifixion of Jesus.

After that, through the rest of the New Testament.

There is not a great deal, that we can learn definitely

on the subject from the standpoint of just what is the Kingdom.

The definition of the Kingdom is that it is righteous men under Christ

ruling the earth in righteousness.

The fullness of the Kingdom involves the three institutions

that are necessary to the lives and welfare of the people.

The Kingdom of God in its fullness involves government, or the political realm.

It involves the economic systems,

or the every day dealings of man with man.

It also involves the religious side of man’s life.

In the coming age we can only call the millennium,

Christ is to be the King over the earth.

He is the head of the political government, we might say.

He is to dominate the economic world,

or the physical phase of our lives.

He will dominate the religious, or spiritual life of the world.

The Kingdom was offered first to the Jews

with the promise that it should, in due time, come in its fullness.

One way of expressing the faults and failures of the Jews

is to say that they wanted to grasp the material side of the Kingdom

without first having grasped the spiritual side of it.

They were not conforming themselves to the spiritual angle,

and requirements of the Kingdom,

and their rejection of the Kingdom.

Then, it was given to the other nations of the world in the church.

So, the Kingdom exists in a spiritual phase today.

The material phase, or government and economic phase

awaits the coming of that age we call the millennium.

In our scanning of the Scriptures dealing with the Kingdom,

we are nearly up to the time of the crucifixion.

All institutions are of a necessity composed of individuals,

but in certain of these parables,

it is institutions, as such, that are stressed, not individuals.

When the Great Commission was given,

it said to the church,

Go ye unto all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

And, it was to continue this work until Jesus should come again.

Well, a period of over 1900 years has already elapsed.

All of these individuals who composed the church

when the Commission was given were dead long ago

and they could not continue down through the age

and preach the gospel to the ends of the earth.

The church, institutionally, has done just that.

A like illustration comes out of Matthew 24,

where Jesus is telling a group of His disciples

a sign of His second coming and of the end of the world.

He said to these apostles,

who died 1900 years ago,

When ye see the Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy place… -

they did not see that.

They died 1900 years (at least)

too soon to see anything like that.

What did He mean then by telling them about things like

that they did not see,

and could not see as individuals?

He was talking to the church.

He was not talking to the individuals,

He was speaking to the church.

Trying to apply the same principle to that matter

of the man who was found at the wedding feast without the garments –

He was talking of the end of the age

when He spoke this parable.

We pointed out how they were His servants,

how that some of His own servants were faithful,

some of them were unfaithful.

In addition to those,

there were His fellow townsmen who sent messengers

after Him and said, We will not have this man to rule over us.

I took the application that His servants were the churches

to whom the Great Commissions was given.

His fellow townsmen were the Jews

who had rejected Him as the Messiah of Israel,

thus they were rejected from the chief place of the Kingdom.

Then comes this wedding feast.

The Lord went in to see the guests who had assembled there.

He found there a man who did not have on the wedding garments,

and this one was cast out into the outer darkness.

If you try to make an individual application of that,

you have a dead saved person, raised from the dead,

or a living saved person raptured (changed over into a glorified body,

carried to heaven with all the rest of the saints).

Then you come to the Judgment Seat of Christ,

or the Marriage Supper of the Lamb

and you find this glorified saved person without the wedding garment.

He is cast into outer darkness, (hell)

Matthew 15.

1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees,

which were of Jerusalem, saying,

2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?

for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

3 But he answered and said unto them,

Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

4 For God commanded, saying,

Honour thy father and mother:

and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.

5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother,

It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;

6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free.

Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.

7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,

8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth,

and honoureth me with their lips;

but their heart is far from me.

9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

10 And he called the multitude, and said unto them,

Hear, and understand:

11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man;

but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

12 Then came his disciples, and said unto him,

Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended,

after they heard this saying?

13 But he answered and said,

Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted,

shall be rooted up.

14 Let them alone:

they be blind leaders of the blind.

And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

even J.R. Graves, the great minded man that he was, failed to make it add up right. He had to ignore some of his types in order to made that thing come out right when he attempted to apply it to individuals.

The Ten Virgins, in my way of seeing it are ten churches and the virgins, to my mind, do apply to churches as opposed to Jews to whom the Kingdom of God was first preached and offered. This is just before the crucifixion. This is when it is already toward the church in form that it has taken down through this, the church age. So, the ten virgins are ten churches. 59 It says they went forth to meet the bridegroom. The church has been looking for the second coming of Christ since the very day He left the earth. The disciples said the day that He left, Will thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel? He hasn’t told them till yet whether He would or not. So, the church has been looking for the second coming of Christ.

All these are virgins, they went forth to look for the coming of the bridegroom.

They all had lamps and certainly the implications are that,

to begin with at least, they all had light.

But, the bridegroom stayed away for a long time.

In fact, He has been gone for 1900 years now.

While He tarried, all ten of these virgins nodded,

and they went sound asleep.

At the midnight hour the cry came,

Behold, the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet Him.

They all wakened out of sleep, and began to set their flames in order.

The five foolish virgins did not have any oil in their lamps,

and they said either,

Our lamps are going out, or they have gone out.

I think probably their lamps had already gone out a long time before,

while they slept and they asked the wise for oil.

They said, No, lest there be not enough for us and for you.

Making this interpretation or application as brief as we possibly can,

the only distinction you can make between these two

groups of five virgins is that it says one group was foolish and the otherwise.

Their folly and their wisdom was manifested in the fact

that the foolish did not take oil in their vessels.

The wise did take oil in their vessels.

Here is what that means to me:

All ten of these were Scriptural and legitimate churches.

The five foolish virgins departed from the faith,

they rejected the New Testament

as the all-sufficient rule of faith and practice

somewhere down the line,

and the candlestick was consequently removed from them,

or the guiding Spirit was taken away from them.

There is why they did not have any oil in their lamps.

You might think, well, the wise virgins went just as sound asleep

as the foolish ones did.

That is true enough.

That is a very peculiar fact, but brethren, is not it a fact today

and has not it been a fact in the recent past

that we as Baptist people have been very much in many details

like the Protestant world, or in the religious world in general?

Brethren, right tonight, is not it a fact that we as Baptist people,

and I believe there is a select people of Jesus Christ here on earth.

Is not it a fact that we are spending more time, energy, thought

and affection on advancing our material causes in the world

than we are spending on the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

in these last days of desperation

that I think we have to labor on earth?

I think if we will look at that thing honestly,

you will find you and I are very much asleep to the facts

as they confront us today.

I will tell you how the facts look to me today.

They look to me like that all these things

we are building in a material way,

and to us who are giving the most of our energy and attention,

we are going to lose the last vestiges of it in the next generation or so,

to say the least.

There we are just as sound asleep, almost at least,

as the rest of the world,

and the rest of the religious world.

But, Jesus said, Lo, I am with you every day until the end,

or the consummation of the age.

I thank the Lord for one thing – that we do,

whenever we are pinned right down to things,

we will stand on the New Testament Scriptures

as our all-sufficient rule of faith and practice. 

That is the one thing in the world

that causes us to have some oil in our lamps,

and thus to give forth light to the world.

It says in the hour of awakening the five foolish virgins

said to the wise,

Give us some of your oil.

They said, We can not do that.

Let me tell you something.

You can not give the power

of the guiding and energizing of the Holy Spirit

to people who sprinkle babies, preaching falling from grace,

baptismal regeneration, the universal church

and all that kind of thing.

So, the wise virgins could not give that oil to the foolish

if they wanted to.

Christ had taken that candlestick away

because they had rejected the New Testament Scriptures

somewhere down the line and they were just out,

so far as having any light is concerned.

That seems to me to be the essential facts of that particular parable.

It is that they are just ten churches,

five of which apostatized, got their candlesticks removed.

In the other case, the wise, they were greatly affected

by this religious movement,

which to me is in reality the Protestant Reformation.

That is the thing that made us to sleep in a way

that nothing else has ever done.

Some have still clung to the fundamentals of the faith.

Matthew 25.

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory,

and all the holy angels with him,

then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations:

and he shall separate them one from another,

as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand,

but the goats on the left.

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand,

Come, ye blessed of my Father,

inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat:

I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me:

I was sick, and ye visited me:

I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying,

Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee?

or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in?

or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them,

Verily I say unto you,

Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,

ye have done it unto me.

41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand,

Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,

prepared for the devil and his angels:

42 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat:

I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in:

naked, and ye clothed me not:

sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

44 Then shall they also answer him, saying,

Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst,

or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison,

and did not minister unto thee?

45 Then shall he answer them, saying,

Verily I say unto you,

Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these,

ye did it not to me.

46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment:

but the righteous into life eternal.

this has been a hard parable for me to interpret with much enthusiasm.

There assembled before Him all nations.

It means exactly what it says.

{America as a nation is to be assembled}, or judged there.

(It does not say America, but it is interesting.

It has "all nations", but does it mean nations down through the ages?

America will be wiped off the face of the earth)

Whether it is literally assembled or not,

so will Russia, England, and all the other nations of the world.

The basis of that judgment, He says,

is how they have dealt with His brethren.

In the last year or two my viewpoint has changed

as to who His brethren are.

I always took it to be the Jews.

Down to this late in the day,

the Jews are not so much His brethren any more.

They were about to crucify Him and He

is now talking about brotherhood within the church.

So, I am thinking that at the present time the brethren

who are well treated by some nations,

ill treated by others are the ones He is talking about.

The treatment of the church of Jesus Christ

is the basis on which these nations are to be judged.

You know what has happened.

The Roman Empire sought to crush the church as long as it prevailed.

The dictatorships of Europe under the power of the Pope

all throughout the Middle Ages sought with bitter vehemence

tried to destroy the church.

Then, in relatively modern times,

some way under the grace of God,

the church gave to some of the nations the democratic principles,

then democratic governments such as our own,

have fostered the church and have given it liberty and opportunity

that churches have never had before in the history of our existence.

In many ways America is a very wicked nation.

{I expect America to be one of the nations that is judged

before the Judgment Seat of Christ.}

It will go into the millennium as a nation for the simple reason

that, so far as I can understand,

the churches of Jesus Christ have prospered in a way

they have never prospered anywhere on the face of the earth.

That is just about all I can get out of the Judgment of the Nations.

I think definitely Russia will be destroyed,

either in the battle of Armageddon,

or in the judgment that He speaks of here.

I think these other atheistic nations and Catholic nations as well

will go down in this judgment

that Christ holds over the nations of the earth.

These nations go away into everlasting destruction.

Nations have a personality the same as individuals do.

This church right here has just as much a personality as a church

as you have as an individual.

If you do not believe it,

you get to be a preacher and you go off somewhere

and come in here as a stranger

and you will soon get acquainted with that church as a body

just the same as you get acquainted with the individuals

who compose the body.

That is perhaps getting off into rather vague things,

but that is my notion of the interpretation of the Judgment of Nations.

We then pick up some short passages spoken by Jesus

from the time He ate His last Passover Supper

until He went to the Cross,

which was just a very short period of time.

Luke 22.

14 And when the hour was come, he sat down,

and the twelve apostles with him.

15 And he said unto them,

With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:

16 For I say unto you,

I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

17 And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said,

Take this, and divide it among yourselves:

18 For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine,

until the kingdom of God shall come.

Luke 22.

24 And there was also a strife among them,

which of them should be accounted the greatest.

25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them;

and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.

26 But ye shall not be so:

but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger;

and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.

27 For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth?

is not he that sitteth at meat?

but I am among you as he that serveth.

28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.

29 And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;

30 That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom,

and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

There became a rivalry among them as to who of them should be greater

and He said to them, The kings of nations exercise lordship over them

and the ones exercising authority over them are called great workers,

but you, it shall not be so among you.

The greater one among you,

let him become as the younger and the chief one as the servant.

Who is greater, the one reclining or the one standing?

Is it not the one reclining?

But I in your midst, as the one serving ye

are the ones remaining in my testing or temptations

and I deliver unto you a kingdom

as my Father delivered to me a Kingdom.

Ye may eat and drink on my table in y Kingdom,

ye may sit upon the throne judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

I think the Kingdom viewpoint is double there.

He now gives the Kingdom law and administration into the hands

of those who continued and do continue with Him in His testings,

or temptations.

When that future full phase of the Kindom comes,

that these shall sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel,

exactly as He says.

Matthew 26:29,

I say to you,

not by any means will I drink from now this fruit of the vine

til the day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.

Mark 14:15,

Truly I say unto you,

no longer by any means will I drink from the fruit of the vine

til that day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God.

Matthew 17:11,

But Jesus stood in the presence of the chief,

and the chief ask Him saying,

Art thou the King of the Jews?

Jesus said, Thou sayest it.

In other words, He is confessing that He is the King of the Jews.

Luke 23:2-5,

They began to accuse Him saying,

We found this one turning away our nations,

forbidding to give offerings to Caesar,

saying Himself to be Christ, the King.

Pilate asked Him saying, Art thou the King of the Jews?

And He answering him said, Thou sayest it.

In John 18:33-38,

Pilate entered again the palace and called Jesus and said to Him,

Art thou the King of the Jews?

Jesus answered, My Kingdom is not of this world.

If my Kingdom were of this world, my servants would strive

that I might not be delivered over to the Jews.

No, my Kingdom is not from thence.

That is one of the fundamental reasons

why the Jews rejected Him in the first place.

They wanted Him to take over the headship of a literal,

physical order of things and rebel against the Roman Empire,

and to give to Israel great material prosperity.

Israel will get great material prosperity

only after that nation is spiritually prepared for it.

So, Israel will have to wait until the millennium

to get their part of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus teaches them the principle that,

for the time being at least,

His Kingdom is a spiritual Kingdom.

He does not have any political conflict either with Pilate or Caesar.

Pilate said unto Him, Then art thou not a king?

Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king.

I for this was born,

thus I came into the world

in order that I might bear witness to the truth.

Everyone being of the truth hears my voice.

Pilate says to Him, What is the truth?

Saying this again he went out to the Jews and said to them,

I do not find any fault against Him.

They made political charges against Him,

but Pilate failed to find evidence to that fact,

and so he testified to the crowd.

Matthew 27:29,

Plaiting a crown of thorns, they set it upon His head,

a reed in His right hand,

falling on their knees before Him,

they mocked Him saying, Hail, King of the Jews.

They despised Him once again,

simply because His ministry was first spiritual,

and the material side of the thing was to come and be taken up later.

That was not to their liking.

Mark 15:18,

They began to salute Him, hail, King of the Jews.

John 19:3,

And they came unto Him and said, Hail King of the Jews,

and they slapped Him.

Matthew 27:37,

And they set above His head His cause written,

This one is Jesus, King of the Jews.

Mark 15:26,

And the superscription of His cause was written,

the King of the Jews.

Luke 23:38,

Moreover even the superscription was above Him,

This one is King of the Jews.

John 19:19-22,

Moreover, Pilate also wrote a title and set it upon the cross,

written, Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.

This title then many of the Jews read,

because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city.

It was written in Hebrew, Roman and Greek.

The chief priests then said to Pilate,

Do not write thou, The King of the Jews.

Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.

Different gospel writers give different accounts of this title,

or superscription

that is written over His head on the cross.

The reason for that is the gospel writers

wrote about Christ from different angles or standpoints.

Matthew wrote about the King of Israel.

Mark wrote about the Servant of Jehovah.

Luke wrote about the Son of Man, and

John wrote about the eternal word of God who became the Son of Man.

So, whenever you add up what the four of them say,

then you have the sum total of that superscription

that was written over the head of Jesus on the cross.

Matthew 27:41, 42,

Likewise, the chief priests mocking with the scribes to the elders said,

Others He saved;

Himself He is not able to save.

He is the King of Israel,

let Him come down from the cross now and we will believe on Him.

If He can do mighty works form the physical standpoint,

then we can believe in Him.

What is there to it?

It is just as fleshly a viewpoint of religious things

as we see prevailing in the religious world today,

more prominent in the Catholic and various holiness sects

than anywhere else.

Mark 15:31, 32,

Likewise also the chief priests

mocking to one another with the scribes said,

Others He saved; Himself He is not able to save.

The Christ, the King of Israel,

let Him come down from the cross

in order that we may behold and believe Him.

The ones crucified with Him reviled Him.

They told some half truths there when He said He could not save Himself.

He could not save Himself from death, and yet,

every purpose for which He had come into the world,

which was to die for the world in order to save the world.

This was not the viewpoint they had, of course.

Luke 23:36-43,

The soldiers mocked Him, coming to Him, bringing Him sharp wine,

or vinegar to Him saying,

If thou art the King f the Jews, save thyself.

Then those who were crucified with Him blasphemed Him also.

Then, later, one of them repented and he said,

Jesus, remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom

(which is the millennium, I suppose).

He said to him, Verily, I say unto thee,

this very day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.

We will not go into that further right now,

but anyway, where Jesus went, the saved go also.

Mark 15:43,

Joseph, the noble chancellor from Arimathea coming,

who also himself was expecting the Kingdom of God.

He had a right viewpoint of the Old Testament Scriptures

and that is why and how he was expecting the Kingdom of God.

Therein, he entered in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Luke 23:51, 52,

He was not agreeing to their counsel and practice.

That is the same Joseph from Arimathea,

a town of the Jews who was expecting the Kingdom of God.

He coming forward to Pilate asked the body of Jesus.

We go now to the Acts of the Apostles

and I think a lot of these passages we will just mention for the record

and not attempt to read all of them.

Acts 1:1-8,

we will read just a few verses.

Indeed, the first recounting I made,

O Theophilis concerning all things

which Jesus began both to do and teach

the very day when having commanded the apostles through the Holy Spirit,

whom He had elected He was received up,

and when He had exhibited Himself living after His suffering

in many sure signs through forty days

appearing to them and speaking the things concerning the Kingdom of God.

He takes a future viewpoint there

and then He goes on to speak the Great Commission in different terms

and go on down near the closing of that passage,

The ones being therefore assembled together asked Him saying,

Lord, wilt thou at this time reestablish the Kingdom to Israel?

He said to them,

It is not for you to know the time or the seasons,

which the Father set in His own authority.

Then, He gives them the promise of the Holy Spirit and says to them,

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,

and ends that speech right there.

We are still presumably to go into all the world preaching the gospel

and waiting for, looking for this same coming

that these disciples were looking for.

Acts 8:12,

And when they believed Philip preaching

concerning the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ,

they were baptized, both men and women.

That refers to the Samaritan converts.

And the Kingdom references have become a little indefinite along here.

There was a present spiritual phase of the Kingdom

manifested in the church.

but, it always looked forward to the time when the Kingdom

would be restored to Israel,

when it would take over the material realm along with the spiritual,

and the two viewpoints

are hard to keep separated in these references

through the various epistles.

Acts 4:21

just tells about Paul preaching the Kingdom of God and he says,

That it is necessary for us through great affliction

to enter into the Kingdom of God.

Acts 17:7,

where they said that the apostles preached

that there was another King, a rival to Caesar, by the name of Jesus.

Acts 19:8,

Paul preached about the Kingdom of God over in Ephesus

Acts 20:25,26,

Paul speaks about how he came to this particular place,

first heralding the Kingdom of God.

Acts 28:23,

it is again Paul preaching about the Kingdom of God.

Acts 28:30, 31,

he remained in Rome two whole years preaching the Kingdom of God.

Romans 14:17

to my mind is the great Scripture that defines the Kingdom

in its present state.

For the Kingdom of God is not food and drink,

but in righteousness and peace and joy and the Holy Spirit.

My contention is that when the millennium comes

the Kingdom of God will be food and drink in addition to righteousness

and peace and joy and the Holy Spirit, therefore,

this is the definition of the Kingdom in its present phase of operation.

1 Corinthians 4:19, 20,

I will come quickly to you if the Lord wills

and I will take note of the words of the one being exalted,

not of the words of ones being exalted, but of the dynamic power,

for the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in dynamic power.

The Holy Spirit goes where the Word of God goes.

If the word of God is resisted,

the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit does not go there.

Therefore, Paul said, I am going to see what the results are.

Then I will know who is legitimately preaching

and operating the Kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9, 10

talks about all manners of sinners, drunkards, revilers, and so on,

shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.

Just what does he mean by that?

Of course, folks say that those who do these things cannot be saved,

and if they do them as saved people, they will lose their salvation.

That is ridiculous.

Perhaps I am going to make a bold statement.

Israel, operating under the law of Moses committed adultery, murder, lied,

stole, worshipped idols and all the rest of it.

Under the law of Moses, they did not inherit the Kingdom of God,

neither will anyone else.

So, Christ comes along and gives us a rule of faith and practice

that we can measure up to, and thus,

embrace the spiritual side of the Kingdom of God.

Righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit –

these are the things that we now reap, or inherit of the Kingdom of God.

It is a thing that is apart from the sins of the flesh,

the sins of the world.

It is a thing we lay hold on and embrace

in spite of the sins of the flesh and of the world.

I think that is about what he means by saying

that those sinners do not inherit the Kingdom of God.

Of course, if you look forward to the millennium,

then the saved will have been completely cleansed

from all such things as that.

1 Corinthians 15:22-25

talks about the resurrection of the dead

and speaks of the reign of Christ.

Christ takes over the Kingdom in its fullness

at the beginning of the millennium as the Son of Man.

He reigns throughout that thousand years.

During that thousand years He puts down all enemies that God has on earth.

At the end of the millennium He delivers up to God

a fully conquested Kingdom in every detail

and then we go into the Heaven Ages.

The last enemy to be overcome, He says is death.

1 Corinthians 15:50,

But this I say, brethren,

flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,

nor shall corruption inherit incorruption.

If you started off to heaven tonight in your present condition

you would explode as you got out of the atmosphere of the earth.

You just would not make the trip.

That is one detail involved in the proposition

that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:21,

One practicing such things (that is, these sins of the flesh)

shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.

I do not care if you are saved,

I do not care if you are a member of the Baptist church,

you get out here and commit adultery, lie, and steal

six days in the week,

you are not going to come to the house of the Lord on Sunday

and get the spiritual blessings

that the church might have in store for those

who are prepared to receive them.

Ephesians 5:5,

This know, that every fornicator, unclean one, covetous one

which is in idolatry

shall not have inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.

Colossians 1:13,

Who snatched us out of the authority of darkness

and set us over into the Kingdom of His beloved Son

(that is the past tense, a thing already accomplished.)

I do not remember any other passage that is of vital interest

as we scan through the rest of the epistles.

Revelation 10:1-6,

And I saw an angel coming down from God out of the heavens,

having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.

He seized the dragon,

the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan,

he bound him a thousand years and cast him into the abyss,

(commonly called the bottomless pit)

He shut him up and set a seal upon him in order

that he should not deceive the nations anymore

until a thousand years should be ended.

After this, it is necessary for him to be loosed for a little time.

I saw thrones and they sat upon them;

judgment was given to them.

The souls of the ones beheaded

on account of witnessing of Jesus and account of the Word of God,

who did not worship the wild beast, nor his image.

They did not receive his mark upon their forehead,

or upon their hand, they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

The others of the dead did not live again

until the thousand years should be completed.

This is the first resurrection.

Upon those the second death does not have authority.

They shall be priests of God, and of Christ,

they shall reign as kings with Him a thousand years.

We will repeat once again that in my estimation

those who sit upon the throne,

who reign as kings with Christ a thousand years,

are the ones who have talked and acted like Christ in religious matters

throughout this, the Church Age.

In other words, the {faithful} of the church

are the ones who are to reign with Him in a special position

during this thousand years upon earth.

We are going to close this scanning of the Kingdom Scriptures now,

stating again that in my estimation, the Kingdom was established in a spiritual phase during the personal ministry of Jesus in the world.

It was offered first to the Jews;

they having rejected,

the physical side of that thing

faded into the background for the time being.

The stress was laid on the church of Jesus Christ

as it had been revealed down through this, the Church Age.

It was gradually revealed that after this present age

there would come that other age

that can only be called the millennium

when Christ should sit as King in Jerusalem over the earth.

There will be the nation Israel,

regathered in the twelve tribes, living in the Land of Promise,

in the land of Canaan in the flesh.

They will be claiming all the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant.

There will be Jesus glorified.

There will be nearest to Him His glorified church.

There will also be all the glorified saints of the past ages

holding their positions meted out to them at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

So, we enter into that peculiar, but glorious age for a thousand years.

Every enemy has been overcome by Christ as the Son of Man.

Every principality and power has been cast down.

The victory of the Son of Man over the devil is completed

as to every detail in the presence

of all the intelligence of the universe.

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