THE KINGDOM OF GOD 1

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 1

A SERIES OF SEVEN LECTURES

The Kingdom of God was introduced by John the Baptist

as something new

when he came preaching in the wilderness of Judea

as the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We should remember that the Kingdom of God

does not go back to Adam or Abraham,

nor any of the other Old Testament characters in actuality,

however, we are going to start with Adam in our Kingdom study.

Outline teachings as brought out in the Old Testament Scriptures.

The Kingdom of God was introduced by John the Baptist

as something that was at hand.

Jesus came upon the scene and there is abundant evidence

that this Kingdom was actually established during the ministry of Jesus in the world,

and it exists now and has throughout this, the Christian, or church dispensation.

There has been a lot of discussion and speculation about the Kingdom of God.

C. I. Scofield, for instance, who published a reference Bible,

makes a distinction between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven,

and many Baptist preachers who followed his suggestions on the subject,

instead of clarifying the issue,

have rather confused it.

So, what we have now is to try and introduce the subject

and outline the Old Testament teachings on it next.

If the Lord wills, we will go into the Kingdom as it is taught

and brought out in the New Testament Scriptures.

Of course, the first thing we need to do is define this expression,

Here is as good a definition as any as to what is the Kingdom:

“the Kingdom of God,” or “the Kingdom of Heaven,” whichever you prefer to call it.

"The Kingdom of God is righteous men under Christ,

ruling the earth in righteousness.”

That goal has not been attained as yet,

but we are going to see it in its full manifestation and working order in the millennium,

that thousand years period that lies out ahead of us in the next age.

Because the Kingdom is to receive its full manifestation

in that righteous reign of Christ and His saints on the earth for a thousand years,

a number of Bible students of considerable ability

have taken the position that there is not any such thing as the Kingdom now,

and will not be until the millennium comes.

I think they are entirely wrong on that.

When we get that far along in the development of the theme

I mean to try to present Scriptures that to me abundantly teach

the existence of the Kingdom now in what we might call its spiritual phase

as it is manifested in the workings of the church of Jesus Christ.

Now, having defined this Kingdom as righteous men under Christ,

ruling the earth in righteousness,

we pass on to the next proposition that we would like to try to set forth.

That has to do with the principle of the establishment

of the Kingdom of God on the earth and among mankind.

Now, here is the theory on which I work in my Bible study in general:

God responds to man as man responds to God.

God reacts to mankind in ways that are in harmony

with the way that man responds or reacts to God in the various situations

that come up in life in the dealings between God and mankind.

If that statement seems a little remote and unclear to you,

I will try to illustrate it by a passage of Scripture.

In Genesis 6.6, we have a situation that is in the days before the flood.

The Lord came down from heaven

and looked upon the scene of abomination that existed among mankind

as a result of mixing of the wicked race of Cain with the righteous race of Seth.

That was an unseemly thing,

a thing that was displeasing to God.

It was a thing that God has never endured for any length of time.

It seems that as long as righteous people maintain their separation from the world,

and especially from the false religious world,

God will endure a lot in the way of sin from mankind in general.

But, any time that God’s own people begin to depart from their own separated walk and position,

then you may confidently look for judgment to soon come.

Back to our passage of Scripture –

When the Lord looked down on that condition that existed among mankind,

the Scriptures tell us that the Lord repented that He had made mankind.

He was grieved at His heart.

He resolved that He would destroy the race of men that He had created upon the earth.

The indications in that passage and situation are simply this:

that it was a result of what the Lord saw actually existing and going on among mankind

that He repented.

He actually changed His mind,

He changed His attitude,

He changed His intent and purpose concerning that order of things.

He resolved as a result of the wickedness of mankind to bring a flood of waters upon the earth

and destroy that ungodly generation.

That is one illustration of the many that could be brought forth

how that God responds or reacts to mankind.

He responds in harmony with the way that man responds or reacts toward God and His rules

for dealing with His special people in the world.

Related to that principle I have tried to set forth another illustration of this principle also.

This is that from the endless reaches of eternity,

Christ, as the eternal Son of God has been present,

and has been upon the scenes as they arise,

to furnish whatever in the way of virtue and power that the rising or existing situation demands.

We can find abundant Scripture proof to satisfy my mind on that point.

You take, for example, the statement of Scripture

that it pleased the Father that in Christ all fullness should dwell.

When did it please the Father that in Christ all fullness of the creation of this universe

should dwell in His Son?

It is one of these timeless, eternal things.

You can not go back to remote reaches of the past and set down a stake for a milepost

wherein God originally devised this plan of causing all the fullness to dwell in His Son.

The way things have worked out God has made this creation,

and He made it through the agency of this eternal Son of God.

And, to the best of my ability to determine from the teachings of the Scriptures

it has always been God’s purpose to bring this creation into an eternal state of permanence in glory.

He will bring this into the state that will continue in an unchanging and undecaying manner forever.

It will also be sealed in Glory forever through the works and virtues of His eternal Son.

Maybe that is a pretty weighty proposition.

Maybe it needs some illustrating and setting forth in clearer terms.

I trust the proposition will come out as we advance in our further discussion

that from the endless reaches of eternity past,

Christ is the eternal Son of God and has been present.

He has been upon the rising and existing scene to furnish those things and situations

with the sealing virtue to bring them into eternal harmony with God.

This is whether it is angels, whether it is mankind, or whether it is the material creation itself.

Nothing, it seems to me was created in its final estate.

That all things that were made have been made in a tentative state,

or a state of expectation for the purpose.

Also, that these various personalities and things of the creation

should receive some work, or virtue at the hand of the eternal Son of God,

and from Him to draw whatever virtue they need to bring them into eternal glory.

I would like for us not to dismiss that from our minds,

but to use it as a foundation matter

and go now to try to outline the Kingdom development

as it is brought out on the Old Testament Scriptures.

We stated in the beginning that the Kingdom did not actually come into existence

until Jesus came into the world and began His public ministry.

The Kingdom had been introduced ahead of Him by John the Baptist.

Regardless of that fact,

we can go back to the beginning of the creation of mankind upon the earth

and see the shaping up of the Kingdom subject or doctrine

even with Adam in Eden before the fall.

We read the story back there and in the first and second chapters of Genesis

how that God created man in the image and likeness of God,

setting apart from the rest of His creation infinitely above other living things upon the earth.

Man was created in image and likeness of God,

and got intelligence and spirit out of that likeness that the animal creation does not have.

I have heard the statement many times that in his created estate Adam was a perfect man.

It all depends on what you call perfect that determines whether that idea is true or not.

If Adam had been all that perfect,

how was it he was tempted by the devil and not only went down in sin himself,

but cast the entire race down as well?

I have heard many a preacher state from the pulpit

that Adam was a perfect man,

but have never heard one of them explain then

how it was that this perfect man fell into sin.

Here is what seems to me what actually are the facts in the case:

Adam was perfect insofar as he went,

but he did not go nearly far enough.

He was perfect in the sense he was created in the image and likeness of God.

He was perfect in the sense that he had not done any sin

He was perfect in the sense that he did not know anything about sin at all.

He did not know the difference between good and evil.

That teaches me that in his created estate,

Adam was neither positively good nor positively evil for our present purpose.

The next question that comes up is why God would make a man in the condition in which He made Adam.

It looks like He would either make him positively good, or positively evil.

That situation throws us right back into the last proposition

that we tried to lay down and that is that God made the creation including mankind

with the goal and purpose

that man should be brought into full and eternal harmony with God into eternal glory.

This not from something that existed within himself,

not from something that he might reach out and take from the creation that existed around him,

but from something he should receive by his own will and choice from Christ,

the eternal Son of God.

He has been on the scene from eternity to furnish mankind and the rest of the creation

with the sealing virtue that they needed to bring them into full and eternal harmony with God.

Now, back to our Kingdom theme

and the covenant that God made with Adam there in the Garden of Eden,

wherein we will try to illustrate what we have been talking about.

In the creation of Adam,

he was given the lordship over all the rest of the creation,

over creeping things, fishes of the sea, and over the earth itself.

There is the root idea for the Kingdom of God that was introduced “at hand” by John the Baptist,

the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In this original creation, meaning the creation in which Adam was placed.

He was placed in a Garden which seems to have been a specially prepared place in the earth

in a land called Eden.

The garden seems to have been a place in Eden

and it was in substance a testing ground for mankind.

There were four manner of trees in the garden –

the Scriptures tell us that there was every tree

that was beautiful in sight.

Also, in the midst of this garden was the “tree of Life,”

and the “tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

There is not any doubt in my mind that though God gave His commandment to Adam

not to eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

that Adam had to exercise his own faculties in that matter.

I think beyond a doubt that God gave him consent and permission

to eat of the fruit of the tree of Life.

He commanded Adam not to eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,

told him in the day he should eat thereof, he would surely die.

The devil came on and appealed to Adam through Eve.

Adam then made up his mind and made his own choice

and partook of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Now, I can not help what you think,

I think that the tree of Life was there in open view before him.

I think there was not any fence around it.

I think that Adam could have had in his own choice and will and accord,

have put forth his hand and taken of the fruit of the tree of Life and eaten it, and lived forever.

Also, that the fruit of the tree of Life would have sealed him in eternal holiness.

His will would have been merged completely in the will of God,

as ours will be in the Resurrection Day.

Adam would have come to eternal glorification through the eating of the fruit of the tree of Life.

You may say if such a thing be so,

then where does Christ come in?

My thought is that Christ is in that tree of Life,

and if Adam had eaten of its fruit,

he could have taken of the virtue of Christ that he then needed

and that would have eternally sealed him unto God.

You say if such a thing had happened,

then where would the slain Lamb have come in?

My answer to that one is that I do not know.

On the other hand, Adam, being the federal head of the human race,

not only was he personally involved in his transgression and fall,

but his decision as to moral and spiritual condition by nature

was the decision for the whole race as well as for himself.

Though the slain Lamb may have been, and probably was,

in the mind of God from eternity,

there was not a slain lamb presented to Adam until he became a sinning soul.

Immediately, from man’s viewpoint, geared to time and space as our minds are,

the slain Lamb was the only efficient thing to rescue man and redeem him

and bring him into eternal glory.

He was presented to Adam and Even in those animals

that were slain and their skins were taken and coverings were made for this sinning pair.

The blood of the slain animal was pointing forward to the slain Lamb,

Christ on Calvary’s cross,

and the covering of the skins referring to the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ

placed upon us whereby alone we are worthy to stand accepted and justified in the sight of God.

Now, in the Edenic Covenant,

Adam was given lordship over the creation that then existed

and he was told to have dominion over all of it.

The peculiar thing is that even before his transgression and fall,

before sin and death became the dominating principles in the creation,

Adam was told to subdue the earth and creatures that then existed upon earth.

If it were a sinless creation,

if the pain of sin was nowhere about it,

if the author of sin, who is the devil?

He was remotely removed from the earth,

then what was there to subdue in this creation over which Adam was given lordship?

I am not going further into that subject right now,

other than to suggest that even back there

that there was a controversy between God and the devil over the lordship and rulership of the earth.

Instead of God arbitrarily denying the claim of the devil,

banishing him from the earth,

God determined,

as He always does, deals fairly and justly with all parties concerned.

He chose to defeat and prove illegitimate the claim of the devil

through the works and virtues of Christ, the eternal Son of God.

Just remember this as we pass,

that evidently the earth was not in full subjection at the time that Adam was given lordship over it.

But in his being given lordship he was to bring it under his authority and under his subjection.

Incidentally, from the creation of Adam he was made a brother to the earth itself in his body.

From the creation of mankind,

the destiny of the earth itself has been unalterably bound up in and with the destiny of mankind.

That is why the curse came on the earth itself at the same time it came upon Adam.

Adam brought not only the curse upon himself,

but he likewise brought the curse on the earth, which is his own kinfolk.

He was brother to the dust of the earth,

and so, the destiny of the earth are unalterably bound together.

I will try to outline to you what I deem to be the import

of what is commonly called the Edenic Covenant.

Man was placed there, not a sinner, not positively righteous, but an intelligent being,

and was given the choice between God and the devil.

The choice was between accepting the virtue of Christ that he then needed,

that would bring him eternal harmony with God,

or of eating of the tree of the devil.

He had the opportunity of hearing the devil’s side of the thing.

The great appeal in what the devil said to Eve was

that if you eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,

then you will know right and wrong, you will know what is good and what is evil.

The attraction was that if she knew what was good and what was evil,

she could choose the good of her own intelligence and ability

and be freed from the necessity of walking with God by faith.

That is a great attraction even to God’s most faithful people today.

We would just a lot rather walk by sight than by faith.

We are dealing with this Kingdom subject in the Old Testament outline.

It is brought out most prominently in the various covenants

that have been given to mankind under various situations.

The next covenant is the covenant that was made with Adam

after his transgression of the commandment of God and the fall under the curse of sin.

God got around to man without the judgment upon the serpent, upon the woman, and upon the man.

He said to Adam that in the sweat of his face,

he would eat bread in sorrow all the days of his life.

The earth would bring forth thorns and thistles to him

and the picture is one of service to a cursed creation.

Man who was made the lord of the creation,

placed in that position of servitude to a stubborn and unproductive earth.

The order has been reversed –

the original order of things that the earth,

the whole creation as meant to serve mankind.

Everything that exists was to have some direct or indirect office for the comfort,

the well-being, and the happiness of mankind.

That order was all reversed in the transgression and fall of mankind

from then until now in various degrees.

Man has been the servant of the earth over which he was supposed to be the Lord.

The peculiar thing about this covenant with Adam after the fall

is that it merely said to him that he will eat bread and toil and sorrow all the days of his life.

Then, he will be overtaken by death and his body will go back to that earth from whence it came.

Did you ever stop to meditate on that thing – that the story ends right there?

Adam’s death and his return unto the earth – yes sir, that story ends right there.

What in the world does that mean?

Does that mean that the cause of mankind is utterly lost

and there is not any hope for it whatsoever?

Why bring up a thing like that?

Simply to try to jolt the minds of people into an awareness

of what these various covenants of God has made with mankind are all about.

Now, I have indicated already that in my estimation God had a way of saving Adam before the fall.

That was the eating of the fruit of the tree of Life,

and getting whatever virtues he then needed to seal him in eternal holiness to God.

After the transgression, this was all changed.

The slain lamb came upon the scene

and the slain lamb has been on the scene every instant of time from then until now,

and shall be so even to the end of the world.

From the fall of Adam, there has not been but one plan of salvation.

John the Baptist came introducing something new –

it was not a new plan of salvation.

Jesus took up that new gospel when He began His public ministry,

but He did not start preaching and practicing a new plan of salvation.

What He actually did was to preach and practice

a new way of God’s dealing with a special people that God had set apart to Himself in the world.

Getting back to where we were, we are not able to conclude from the fact

that the final pronouncement upon Adam was that he should die and return to the earth

from which he had come and not to conclude that Adam or his cause

to the cause of humanity was eternally lost.

The matter of Adam’s salvation had been taken care of back there in the slaying of those animals

with whose skins he and his wife were covered.

That issue had already been settled once and for all.

In God’s covenant of dealing with his people.

In Adam’s day, man was left in a rather hopeless condition

as far as his welfare in this world in concerned.

When Cain came upon the scene he and Abel were tested out

as to the manner of religion and religious walks that they would choose for themselves before God.

Cain, in order to win a religious argument and silence the voice of truth on earth

rose up and slew his brother, Abel.

Then the Lord came upon the scene and pronounced the curse on Cain.

Cain said, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”

God rather repealed his harshness of that decree that he had pronounced upon Cain

and said that the one who finds him better not kill him.

We find then, Cain going out from the presence of the Lord,

and instead of being the hunted one,

wandering on the face of the earth, according to the curse that was placed upon him,

he went over there and became a prosperous businessman, a great builder,

a builder of a city and the founder of a mighty civilization

from the material standpoint that existed down to the time of the flood.

Now, that is not the picture of this constant fugitive from justice

who lived his whole lifetime at the point of starvation.

Now, I did not bring that subject up to tell you for certain what that is all about.

The only suggestion that I have to offer at this point is this:

That God is so just in His dealings with mankind

that He allows even a murderer to have his own will and determination

in the matter of religion and the manner of life that he chooses for himself.

Cain got some freedom that Adam did not get in the covenant

that the Lord made with Adam.

I have given you the only possible explanation I know for it.

The point, as we pass, so far as Adam and the covenant with him is concerned,

this Kingdom proposition is concerned,

is a long, long way off.

The Lord of the earth has become its bondservant.

He shall live in sorrow,

and die as the bondservant of that earth,

and that is all there is to it.

There are a lot of things in there I would like to know,

but that I do not know.

We must pass and get our next glimpse of the Kingdom development

as it comes out in the covenant with Noah after the flood.

A definite step forward was taken in the covenant with Noah,

but a part of the race was placed in subjection.

Noah was the man who walked with God,

who was perfect in his generation,

and came with his family through the destructive waters of the flood.

He came out on the other side and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord.

The Lord smelled the sweet odor of burning flesh.

There is nothing in the world that stinks any worse.

It was sweet to God because it was His Son paying the ultimate price

for the redemption of mankind from sin.

The result of that offering that Noah offered unto God,

God made a new covenant with him

and He set the rainbow in the heavens as a sign of the covenant.

The rainbow in the heavens was a sign of the covenant.

The rainbow puzzled me for a long, long time.

Finally, I got that thing figured out to my satisfaction,

whether it is to anybody else or not.

The rainbow is produced by the conflict between the sunshine and the storm clouds.

The rainbow appears right at that point where the sunshine is driving the storm clouds away.

It is the picture of Christ as the Son of man winning the victory over the devil

and gradually defeating every claim that the devil has to mankind and the creation.

God would not forget about His covenant with Noah.

That rainbow is set up there in the heavens

to remind us of the glorious works of Christ,

even though it does involve the ugliness and terror of the storm clouds.

There is the basis of God’s covenant with Noah after the flood.

Human government was placed in Noah and said that He who sheddeth man’s blood by man

shall his blood be shed.

There is the setting up of the course of judgment in the hands of mankind.

That is a long step from where Adam was back there in bondage to the earth,

no more, and no less.

God blessed the three sons of Noah,

or at least made pronouncements upon them even for the remote future,

and I do not know very much about all of that.

That is to point out that Shem got the spiritual blessings,

Japheth got the material blessings,

Ham and his descendants were an inferior people and were to be in subjection to their brethren.

Well, I do not know what all that has to do with the Kingdom proposition.

A part of the race makes a great step forward toward the Kingdom idea,

and yet, a part of the race is to be in slavery, in subjection.

We could spiritualize greatly on that.

We have come out with the proposition, I think,

that Shem stands as a type of the church,

and Ham, the type of Israel until the law of Moses.

We had better forget that subject right there and go on to something else.

We must pass next, and note the Kingdom development as it comes out in the Abrahamic Covenant.

The Abrahamic Covenant definitely promised the Kingdom in the seed of Abraham.

No doubt, there were times at least when Abraham thought,

at least one time he thought Ishmael might be the promised seed.

Certainly there was another time when he thought Isaac would be the one,

the seed of promise.

He was mistaken in both instances, of course,

and the real, ultimate seed is Christ,

who came into the world as the Son of Man.

Now, you will find this discussion with Abraham all the way from Genesis 12

through mainly Genesis 17.

The Abrahamic Covenant is in a way the most complicated of them all.

The reason is that the Abrahamic Covenant embraces all other covenants that come after it.

This means the Law Covenant,

the Kingly Covenant,

the church Covenant,

and the Millennium Covenant.

They all have their foundation principles, their seed germ in the covenant with Abraham.

About all we are going to say about this Abrahamic covenant as we hurry to conclusion

is that the Kingdom was definitely promised,

that in his seed all the families of the earth would be blessed

and his seed should be as the stars of the heavens, sand upon the seashore for a multitude.

That could be taken both literally and spiritually,

and a king should come forth out of his loins.

The New Testament definitely teaches us that this seed out of whom all the blessings should come,

through whom the Kingdom itself should finally be fully established,

is Christ rather than either Ishmael or Isaac.

We pass that Abrahamic covenant with that brief notice

and we notice next the development of the Kingdom idea as it comes out in the Law Covenant.

It was given to the nation Israel

after that nation had grown into a group of several million people

when they came to Mt. Sinai after their deliverance from the Egyptian bondage.

The Law Covenant, beginning of the law of Moses to Israel and Mt. Sinai

has some very puzzling and mysterious things about it.

Why did God give the law in the first place

when they were not going to keep it?

I think that God gave them the law because they demanded it,

and the upshot of the whole Law Dispensation was a vain attempt

to attain to the Kingdom of God through the keeping of the law

on the part of mankind through a system of fleshly righteousness,

through a system of standing upon their own works and merits.

You know the Scriptures say that God said to Israel after the law had been given

that if they would keep all the laws, commandments, and precepts

He would lead them into the land.

He would establish them there,

and they should actually inhabit the good land flowing with milk and honey.

Here is the thing that has recently presented itself to my mind that makes sense.

I think that in every generation while God was dealing with Israel under the law

that He gave them the law in the first place because they demanded it.

Man has always liked better to stand on his own works and merits

than to live and walk before God by faith.

I think God worked with them and tried constantly to lead them from that law dominion and rulership,

to give it up as a hopeless and impossible thing.

He wanted them to fully embrace a walk by faith with Him.

Read Hebrews 11 and many characters who were mentioned under the Law of Moses,

and not one of them won a victory by keeping the law.

Every one of them won their great victories by faith,

and that while they were under this law dispensation.

God’s preference is a walk by faith, not by law.

When Israel came to Kadesh-Barnea God said, Go in and possess the land.

If they had done so,

they would have gone in by faith, not by law.

You take the period of the judges – it had lasted, about 400 years –

that has been mysterious and puzzling.

But, in sum and substance, after Israel was in the land,

God’s dealing with them under the theocracy, or rule of the judges, from God’s viewpoint,

was not a thing in the world but repeated efforts

to get Israel to forsake the walk by law of fleshly commandments,

and embrace rather a walk before Him in faith.

The judges won their victories by works of faith, and never by works of law.

Every time a judge would rise up on the scene, Israel was called upon,

not to step out upon the precepts of the law, but by faith in the God of Israel.

When they did so, they won great victories.

Then what? They would turn right around and embrace that Law Dispensation

again and the upshot of it was that when Christ,

their anointed one, came to Israel under the law,

they rejected Him and crucified Him on the cross of Calvary.

I think we are fully justified in the proposition that the Law Covenant

was a vain attempt on the part of Israel to attain under the Kingdom of god

by their own works and merits.

This is exactly the way of a lot of people,

well meaning at that, are trying to stand on exactly the same ground before God today.

The Kingdom Covenant was renewed to David.

In the meantime Israel had fully rejected the theocracy and said,

“We want a king like the other nations have.”

God gave them exactly what they asked for.

Saul was as worldly-minded, fleshly a king as one could possibly be.

His rule was an utter failure, both from the material and spiritual standpoint.

After they had 40 years of Saul’s rulership,

then God raised up unto them David to be the king of His choice,

using instead of a great giant of a man, a shepherd boy.

Guiding David as David walked by faith, notably when he slew the Philistine giant Goliath

and his obedience to spiritual principles.

So, he was established finally as king over all Israel,

and it looks like the millennium would have come,

but it did not come.

It came nearer coming when David was fully established as king over all Israel

than it ever did in all their national history.

But the thing that was still wrong was that Israel was still under that Mosaic code,

the do’s and do nots, and the flesh just will not be subjected as long as it is in this world,

and Satan is the god of this world.

The Davidic Kingdom was foredoomed to failure when it was confirmed to King Solomon.

God said he would establish Solomon’s seed permanently on the throne.

Solomon had walked according to His laws and statutes.

Solomon did not do that very long.

He got off to a good religious start.

We find him in his older days going to church with those idolatrous wives of his,

burning incense to their idol gods

and so the Kingdom was wrested out of the hands of Solomon’s son,

Rehoboam, and the spiritual Israelites,

such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.,

began to look with a prophetic eye down to that other son of David,

that seed of the woman that goes clear back to Eden.

He was that anointed one whom God would not anoint with oil as He did David and Solomon,

but whom God would fully anoint with His own Spirit,

who was Christ, who was also Mary’s son.

From then on, the Kingdom began to be centered fully in Him.

No wonder that after the humanity had gone through so many trials and failures

and the glorious day of David had come, and then had faded.

Israel had sunk into a physical, spiritual and political night,

such as they had not known in early centuries.

No wonder it was a joyous surprise that John the Baptist,

sent forth to the people sitting in darkness in the shadow of death,

when he came with the announcement,

Repent ye, for the Kingdom of the heavens is at hand.

Now, when you go into that New Testament study of the Kingdom,

you take right up where I left off.

The Old Testament Scriptures serve as a necessary background and introduction to the Kingdom

as it is presented in the New Testament.

The Kingdom was new, and yet, it was not new

when John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness.

As the thing God was going to put over to humanity,

that idea was already some 4,000 years old.

Let me repeat,

that the Kingdom actually had its establishment when Jesus began His public ministry.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 2