The Gospel of the Kingdom of God

Content of the Gospel — Steve Gregg

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The Gospel of the Kingdom of God

Content of the GospelSteve Gregg

Discover the profound significance of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, a message preached by Jesus Christ that will regain relevance after the Church is raptured. In this enlightening teaching, Steve Gregg reveals the distinction between the terms "Kingdom of God" and "Kingdom of Heaven," shedding light on their usage in the Gospels. By examining biblical references, Gregg emphasizes the vital connection between the kingdom and its king, emphasizing the transformative power of being born again and the subversive nature of the Kingdom of God. This thought-provoking exploration invites listeners to embrace an alternative society founded on loyalty to the true King.

Transcript

In addition to being called the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is the most common term for the gospel used in Scripture, it is at least four times in the Scriptures referred to as the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. In fact, this is the term that is used when we are first told of Jesus preaching the gospel. In Mark chapter 1 verses 14 and 15 it says that Jesus went throughout Galilee preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God.

And later in his life, in fact very near the end of his earthly ministry, Jesus in Matthew 24, verse 14 said, This gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness to every nation, and then shall the end come. So Jesus spoke of the gospel of the Kingdom of God as the gospel that must be preached in all the world. It's certainly the gospel he preached.

Last time I mentioned that there are theories held among some Christians that maybe there are different gospels for different eras. There is a very strong dominant position held by many evangelicals today called dispensationalism, which teaches that there are different gospels for different times. So Jesus preached the gospel of the Kingdom, but when the Jews rejected the Kingdom, another gospel became relevant, and that was called the gospel of grace.

And that was preached by Paul, largely, and is preached today by the Church. But when the Church is raptured, it is said, then the gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus preached will become the relevant gospel again. And that gospel will be preached by the 144,000 and so forth, and is the relevant gospel for the Jews primarily, and for Gentiles at periods other than the time of the Church.

This I do not agree with. I do not accept this. It says in Revelation 14, verse 6, that John saw an angel flying through the heaven, preaching the everlasting gospel.

Now, if the gospel is everlasting, presumably it has no end. And if it has no end, it must be relevant to all time. And I do not believe the Bible indicates that there is any tolerance for additional gospels to that which Paul taught.

In Galatians 1, 8, Paul said, if we or an angel from heaven would preach to you any other gospel than that which we have preached, let him be anathema. Now, the question is, of course, whether Paul preached the same gospel Jesus did or not. And what I tried to show as we were running out of time last time, was that what Jesus preached was the message of the Kingdom of God.

When you turn to Paul's preaching, his was also the gospel of the Kingdom of God. It is true Paul preached the gospel of grace, but that is not a different gospel than the gospel of the Kingdom of God. In fact, in Acts chapter 20, verses 24 and 25, Paul was speaking to the Ephesian elders, and he said that he had gone about preaching the gospel of the grace of God, and in the very next verse he said he had gone about teaching the Kingdom of God.

So quite clearly, the gospel of the grace of God and the gospel of the Kingdom of God were what Paul preached. They are not different gospels, but just different ways of talking about the one gospel. But this emphasis on the Kingdom of God in the scripture concerning the gospel certainly makes it incumbent upon us to know what in the world the Kingdom of God is, and what the message of the Kingdom of God is.

Now, when I was growing up, I thought the Kingdom of God, and I said this last time, was basically synonymous with heaven. And this I thought because I often encountered in scripture the expression, the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, I'm sure you have read the New Testament and have found that expression too.

Interestingly, once again the dispensationalists, I don't mean to pick on them, but they just happen to be the ones I end up disagreeing with the most, but dispensationalists actually teach that the Kingdom of God is one thing, and the Kingdom of Heaven is another. These are different expressions for different entities. Now you might say, why would anyone say that? Well, in some passages they have to say that in order for the rest of their theology to work.

But let me just say this. It is, well, to put it as kindly and yet severely as I can, I believe it is nonsense to say that the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God are not the same thing. And that can be demonstrated beyond question.

For one thing, you will find the term Kingdom of Heaven only in one book of the Bible, and that's the Gospel of Matthew. Only Matthew ever uses the expression Kingdom of Heaven. Now what's interesting is, of course, Matthew records many statements of Jesus that are also recorded in the other Gospels.

But when you find the same statements of Jesus in the other Gospels, where Matthew records Jesus saying Kingdom of Heaven, all the other Gospels record him as saying Kingdom of God in the same statements, in the same context, on the same occasion. In other words, the term Kingdom of Heaven, when it is used in Matthew, means the same thing as the Kingdom of God, which is the term favored by the other Gospels. Now sometimes even Matthew uses both terms, and he quite clearly does so in a way as to demonstrate they are identical in meaning.

Look, for example, if you would, at Matthew chapter 19. We just need to get over this hurdle first, because if we're going to study what the Gospel of the Kingdom is, we need to understand whether or not the Kingdom of Heaven is the same thing as the Gospel, I keep saying the Gospel, the Kingdom of God. Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Heaven.

The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Are these the same thing or different things? Well, if you look at verses 23 and 24 of Matthew 19, then Jesus said to his disciples, Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.

Now, notice Jesus says the same thing twice. In fact, he says that he's saying the same thing twice because he introduces the second statement. Again, I say unto you as if let me repeat myself here.

But in the first case, he uses the term Kingdom of Heaven and the second case term Kingdom of God. This is not too surprising if these terms are interchangeable and they are. And as I say, you can I won't give you the passages right now myself.

I could. And I'll let you do your own research on this. But you'll find that where there are parallel statements about the kingdom in Matthew and in other gospels, the other gospels always use the term Kingdom of God where Matthew has Kingdom of Heaven.

Now, why is this? Well, I believe that both expressions are abbreviated forms of of an expression comes from Daniel chapter two in verse 44, where Daniel said in the days of these kings, the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom. Now, if the God of heaven sets up a kingdom, then that kingdom would be the kingdom of the God of heaven. Or you could abbreviate as the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven.

In any case of means from or originating from. So it is the kingdom that originates from heaven or from God who happens to be in heaven. And we know that Matthew or I don't know if you agree with this, but most scholars certainly would agree with this.

And I think I think the evidence is very strong that Matthew wrote his gospel for a Jewish ethnic audience. And we find him, for example, laying more thickly on quotations from the Old Testament to show that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, because I'd be more meaningful to the Jews. And Paul or Matthew doesn't explain Jewish customs where Mark, for example, recording the same incident for a Gentile readership in Rome does explain them.

For example, in Matthew 15, you have the story of Jesus disciples being criticized for not washing their hands properly before they ate in the ritual manner. No explanation is given of this custom. But when Mark in chapter seven records the same incident, Mark gives an aside.

He says, you know, the Jews, they wash their hands all the time whenever they come in and they wash their tables and their couches and their bowls and everything. Because Mark's readers were not Jewish and would not be familiar with those customs. So Mark has to explain that the Jews have these customs.

Matthew just gives it as if his readers would be very familiar with that. There are many, many evidences that Matthew wrote for a Jewish audience. And we also know this, that the Jews were very cautious about using the word God.

In fact, many modern Jews still will not write the word God G.O.D. They'll just write G dash B because they feel that to use the word God comes very close to to to uttering the name of God. And the Jew, if he is pious, wants to be very careful not to utter the name of God in vain. And they figure, well, the less you utter the name of God, the less likely you are to utter the name of God in vain.

And so they don't they don't avoid it altogether. But many times Jewish people will not use the word God. They'll use the word heaven instead.

So that where we would say God bless you, a Jew would more comfortably say heaven bless you. Or the prodigal son, a young Jewish boy who ran away from home and decided to come home. Remember when he says, I will arise and go to my father and I'll say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.

What's he mean? I've sinned against God. But he says heaven because Jews do that more readily. They're more cautious about using the word God and heaven stands as a substitute for the word God for them in many cases.

And Matthew writing to a Jewish audience seems to substitute the term heaven in the phrase kingdom of God for the word God. So that you find Matthew and none of the other writers substituting this phrase kingdom of heaven for that which we know to be kingdom of God and the other gospel. Now, which of these expressions Jesus used? I can't say.

Maybe he used both. Matthew actually uses both. And maybe Matthew really is the one who records the actual wording Jesus used and Mark and Luke change heaven to God.

Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe Jesus always said kingdom of God. But Matthew feared that his Jewish audience might get a little bit concerned about such frequent mention of God and occasionally change it to heaven.

I don't know. But it can be demonstrated beyond question. If someone simply wants to compare the scriptures in Matthew with their parallels in other gospels, there's no question.

But kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are the same thing. What a shame that I have to spend five minutes or more establishing that point, which one would know instinctively if it weren't so widely taught otherwise. Anyway, I want you to know that that's where we're beginning.

So you find the term in Mark and in Luke that Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God. In Matthew, he's preaching the kingdom of heaven. Now, this kingdom of God or of heaven is certainly an important matter.

We find that when John the Baptist, who preceded Jesus, began to preach, he began to preach that the kingdom of God is at hand. Or in Matthew 3, 2, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. In Mark 1, 14, it says when John was thrown into prison, then Jesus went about preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.

And it says, saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, therefore, and believe the gospel. So John preached that the kingdom of God is at hand.

When John was in prison, Jesus began preaching the same message. And when Jesus gathered to himself his disciples, he taught them about the kingdom of God. In fact, when he used parables, his disciples would come to him and say, Lord, why do you speak to these multitudes in parables? They don't understand the message.

And Jesus says, well, because it's not given to them to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God or of heaven, depending on which gospel you're reading. But unto you it is given. In other words, I will explain to you so that you will know what these mysteries of the kingdom of God are.

I don't let these strangers out here in the crowd know all these secrets. I'm not going to cast my pearls before a swine. So when Jesus told his parables, he usually introduced a parable saying the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, depending which gospel you read, is like this.

And so he's obviously telling what the kingdom is like. He says the kingdom is at hand. He says the kingdom is like this.

And then later he sent out 12 disciples in Matthew, chapter 10, and later still he sent out 70 in Luke, chapter 10. To preach the gospel in various villages of Israel. And he said, when you go into these villages, tell them the kingdom of God is at hand.

And when you leave the village, say the kingdom of God has come near you. You can see this. His message just shot through with this issue of the kingdom of God, whatever he means by that.

Even after Jesus was crucified and resurrected, we read in Acts, chapter one in the opening verses that Jesus over a period of 40 days would appear to his disciples and speak to them about, guess what? About the kingdom of God. In fact, as I mentioned earlier in Matthew 24, 14, Jesus said this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations. And then shall the end come.

Obviously, it's important enough that Jesus isn't going to bring about the end of history until this gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached to every nation. It's an important message has to get to everybody. Now, in the New Testament stories of the apostles in the book of Acts, primarily, we read, of course, preaching of the kingdom.

We did. We looked last week at the various passages and the specimens of Peter's and Paul's preaching, especially, and their frequent reference to the kingdom of God. And even the closing verse of the book of Acts says that Paul spent two whole years in his own rented house teaching and preaching the things of the kingdom of God, none forbidding him.

So, you've got the historical portion of the New Testament opens with John the Baptist preaching the kingdom of God. Jesus preaches the kingdom of God. Even after his resurrection, he spends 40 days teaching them about the kingdom of God.

And the historical section of the New Testament, the book of Acts, ends with Paul preaching the kingdom of God. This is not a peripheral matter. This is the core matter.

And if you were not capable of telling me what the kingdom of God is, would you not feel somewhat at a disadvantage? If you are called upon to be among those that preach the gospel of the kingdom to all nations, what is the gospel of the kingdom? Well, it is not different than the gospel of Jesus Christ that we talked about last time. It's a different name for it because it emphasizes something different. The gospel is concerning the man Jesus Christ, the Lord and the Savior, who died for our sins and rose again.

The gospel is about him. But what is it about him? Well, the Bible teaches that when Jesus rose from the dead, he ascended to the right hand of God and he sat down on a throne. We sang tonight words that are actually a quotation of Jesus himself.

In Revelation 321, Jesus said to him that overcomes, I will grant to sit with me upon my throne, even as I have overcome and am seated with my father in his throne. Jesus isn't waiting for his opportunity to sit on his throne. He is seated on a throne.

He is ruling. That's why we call him king of kings and lord of lords. Kings only are kings if they have a kingdom.

And so Jesus is the king. He has a kingdom. And this is sort of the upshot of the first part of the gospel.

The first part of the gospel is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The second part is what Jesus is doing now and what he established when he came. He is the king.

He is at the right hand of God, ruling. And this is the message we have. We have a message of a kingdom.

You know, Jesus said, I believe it was in Matthew 11. He said, you know, of those born among women, there is not a reason one greater than John the Baptist. Yet, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John.

Doesn't that sound like a weird statement? Ever read that and think, what? Isn't that kind of a contradiction? That among those born of women, there is a reason none greater than John the Baptist. And yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. How could this be? Well, among those born of women would be those who have only been born once.

Jesus told Nicodemus, you have to be born again or you can't even enter the kingdom of God. You can't see the kingdom of God unless you are born again. In John 3.3 and John 3.5, he made those statements.

You have to be born spiritually to see and to enter the kingdom of God. John the Baptist did not have this rebirth as near as I can tell. He was the greatest once born guy.

Actually, in Luke's parallel to the statement, maybe the King James translation just added this, I don't know if it's in the Greek, but it says among those born of women, there is not a reason a greater prophet than John the Baptist. But he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. What I understand this to mean is that when it comes to people who have only been born once, they just don't get any better than John the Baptist.

And there's never been a person of the Old Testament type who had a greater message than John the Baptist. Because the Old Testament prophets all predicted that there would be a kingdom and that God would establish a kingdom under the Messiah. But John the Baptist, unlike any of them, was able to say it's here and there he is.

Now, the person who is in the kingdom has something to say even more than John. John said the kingdom is at hand. You and I can say the kingdom is here.

I'm in it and you can come in it too. That's the message. Now, that's the good news, apparently.

Now, I'm going to show you from Scripture that that is what the Bible teaches about the kingdom of God. In order for us to really understand how Jesus and John the Baptist expected people to understand their words, the kingdom of God is at hand, you've got to realize that this phrase, kingdom of God, it was not preached in a vacuum by these men. The Jews knew the expression.

In fact, it was the very thing they'd been eagerly looking forward to. You know the last question the disciples asked Jesus before he ascended in Acts 1.6? He said, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? Now, that is not just what the disciples wondered. That's what everyone was wondering when Jesus showed up or when John showed up.

Are you the Messiah? Is the kingdom coming? And sure enough, they said the kingdom is coming. And to the Jews, that had a distinctive meaning. And that meaning came out of the long history of the prophetic scriptures.

Now, let me take you back, if I could, to the very first time in the Bible that it ever mentions that God had an interest in a kingdom. That God was a king and would have a kingdom. Exodus chapter 19.

This is just after the Jews had come out of Egypt. They had not yet come into Israel. And the Exodus was just fresh in their memories a couple of months back.

They were brought to Mount Sinai where God eventually gave them the Ten Commandments and many other laws and statutes. And there at Mount Sinai, before the law was given, God begins to tell Moses to tell the people certain things that would give them an idea of what the significance is of what God had in mind when he got them out of Egypt. And he says this to them in verses 5 and 6. In Exodus 19, 5 and 6, God said to Moses, Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine.

And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. Now, this was Moses' message to the children of Israel.

If you will obey my voice indeed and if you'll keep my covenant, then you will be, among other things to me, a kingdom of priests. Now, notice this. When we think of the kingdom, is it not very natural for us to think of a kingdom as a place? Whether you think of it as heaven or some other place.

When we think of the kingdom of God, maybe most naturally you might think of a location somewhere. But the Jews who were given this promise, you will be my kingdom if you obey my voice and keep my covenant. They weren't established in any particular place.

They were just passing through and they kept passing through for another 40 years. But that didn't prevent them from being his kingdom. They could be God's kingdom with or without a place that they could settle.

The qualifications for being God's kingdom is that they treat him as a king. You see, king and kingdom go together like servant and master, father and son. You know, we all know that salvation comes through a relationship with God.

But a relationship with God is not... when we say, you know, you've got to have a relationship with God when you're witnessing something. You know, we're not talking about religion, we're talking about a relationship with God. An awful lot of people when they hear the word relationship, it's got all kinds of modernistic baggage of what a relationship is.

A lot of people, especially women, think of almost a romantic kind of relationship with Jesus. Some of the modern songs, modern choruses and so forth and popular Christian songs often sound like someone singing a romantic song to Jesus. Now, am I opposed to romantic songs to Jesus? Depends.

Depends on what it reveals about the heart of the person who wrote or sang the song. You know, if we are to agree with the tradition that the Song of Solomon is a picture of Christ in the church, I'm not sure that it is, but there's a longstanding tradition that it is, then there's romantic talk between Christ and the church in that Song of Solomon. And I don't think it's inappropriate.

The problem is modern people often can't think of any dimensions of meaningful relationship except romantic relationship. That's why people get divorces so frequently. They can't think in terms of a committed relationship, a submitted relationship.

All they can think about is a romantic relationship. And so when the romance has gone from marriage, they figure, hey, nothing to hold this marriage together, let's go get another one. And that is the mindset of our age.

So when people think of a relationship with Jesus, I think a lot of people don't even know what a relationship means. A relationship is anything that can be described with a preposition. I have a relationship to you right now.

I'm in front of you. You have the same relationship with me. You're in front of me.

We happen to be facing each other. I have a relationship to this pulpit. It is behind me.

I'm in front of it. That's a spatial relationship. But between personalities, there can be various kinds of relationships.

My children and I have one kind of relationship. My children have a different kind of relationship to each other. I have one kind of relationship with my wife.

I have another kind of relationship with other people's wives. Very different. There are different kinds of relationships.

And so also when we say, well, you need to have a relationship with God, the next question is, what kind? If salvation comes through a relationship with God, what kind of relationship is it? Well, throughout the Scripture, these are the models we get. Shepherd, sheep. Father, son.

Lord, servant. King, subject, follower. And this is the kind of relationship that we are called into.

We're being called into a kingdom. Now, the Jewish people were the original people that God gave the offer. You can be my kingdom.

Notice, kingdom is not related essentially with a place. It's a people. And it's true today too.

The Queen of England, though she doesn't have any real power anymore, but she has symbolic power. There's people all over the world who consider themselves part of the Commonwealth, part of the kingdom, under the crown of Great Britain. And it doesn't matter if they travel to another country.

If they're not in a British Commonwealth country, they're still part of the kingdom. They're still under the same crown. And with ourselves.

It doesn't matter where we are. We're in the kingdom if we are subject to the king. That's the conditions he gave them.

If you obey my voice, and if you keep my covenant, you'll be my kingdom. Now, that's the first time God ever mentioned having a kingdom. And notice there was no offer of this to the Gentiles.

Just to the people of Israel whom God had brought out of Egypt so recently. However, if you'll turn a little further into the Old Testament history to 1 Samuel chapter 8, you'll find there was a change in the relationship between Israel and God. And it was initiated by them.

Now, between the time of Moses, which we've been reading about in Exodus, and the time that we're about to look at in 1 Samuel, there's about 300 or so years during which the Israelites had no earthly king. They were a nation, and they even eventually had territory, a land of their own, but they didn't have a king, nor were they supposed to. Because God said he wanted them to be his own peculiar people.

Not like other nations. He wanted them to be unlike other nations in that he was their king, they didn't need an earthly king. In fact, during the period of the judges, that 300 or so years between Moses and Samuel, there was actually one occasion, I won't take you to it though, but in the book of Judges in chapter 8, after Gideon, one of the judges, led the people to victory against the Midianites, the people were so enthusiastic and grateful to him, they said, You are our deliverer, you've delivered us out of the hand of Midian, you rule over us, and your son and your son's son rule over us.

Now let's set up a dynasty, the Gideon dynasty. You can be our king and your son after you and your grandson. And Gideon said, No, I will not rule over you, and my son and my grandson will not rule over you.

The Lord is your ruler. Gideon, during the period of the judges, understood this was a special nation. They're not to have an earthly king.

They're supposed to have God as their king. That's what makes them his kingdom. Now, in 1 Samuel chapter 8, in the first seven verses, let me just read this to you.

Samuel was the last of the judges. And the reason he was the last is because of what happened in this chapter. It says, his children were briefly given that role, but they never really functioned very much in it.

It says, Now it came to pass, this is 1 Samuel 8, 1, when Samuel was old that he made his sons judges over Israel, and the name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba, but his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, Look, you're old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make for us a king to judge us like all the nations. That's the wrong thing to compare yourself to when you're God's special people.

Make us a king to judge us like all the nations have. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. So Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me that I should not reign over them.

Now this was an official act on the part of the rulers of the people of Israel, the elders. They said, We're kind of tired of this arrangement of God being our king. I didn't say it quite so crassly as that, but that's what God said they're doing.

They don't want me as their king anymore. They want some man as their king like all the nations have. So he said, They have not rejected you, Samuel.

Don't take it personally. They have rejected me that I should not reign over them. And this was the official rejection of the kingdom of God by the nation of Israel.

And from that point on, they had kings, earthly kings. Saul first, and then David, and then David's successors. And when the kingdom split in the days of Rehoboam, there was another whole batch of kings up in the north.

And then there was a whole batch of kings up in the south. 19 altogether and 20 in the south. And all these earthly kings.

But although the Jews rejected the kingdom of God for themselves, God did not reject them for his kingdom. At least not finally. Not at that point.

Instead, he said, Well, I'll let you have it your way and I'll have it my way. And, of course, after Saul was a failure and eliminated, God chose David. And he said, I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart.

Now, the idea of choosing David was that if the people want to have the king, OK, he can be the earthly king. But there's still if they're going to be my people in a sense, their king has to be subject to me. It's an interesting thing, because throughout Israel's history, although they had kings like other nations had, they had an arrangement that other nations didn't have.

And that is there were prophets of God who told the kings what God wanted them to do. And the kings had to do it or suffer the consequences. One of those kings who did suffer consequences for not doing it was Saul, the first king.

The prophet Samuel said, OK, go out and annihilate the Malachites. He didn't do it. Samuel said, Well, you rejected the word of the Lord.

The Lord rejected you from being king. And God has sought another one. He called David in there.

And David, David was much more aware that he was not to arrogate himself above God. He was a king under God so that God was still the king and the people had what they wanted, a figurehead king. But but really, God was still in charge as long as their king was under God.

But that still wasn't the ultimate arrangement. The time came when God said that he would establish in one of David's descendants an eternal kingdom. He's going to restore what he was looking for in the first place.

And this is mentioned in Second Samuel, chapter seven. In Second Samuel, chapter seven, David and his friend Nathan, the prophet, were lounging by the fire in the big room, the great room of the castle, I'm sure. And David shared with Nathan, you know, I've had an idea.

I kind of feel funny. I live in this big palace. And yet God's ark, which represents God's own presence, is out there in a little old tent.

And here I am living in a palace and God's living in a tent. I just kind of feel guilty every time I look out the window and see that little tent God's living in. And he didn't say what he had in mind, but Nathan knew where he was going with it.

And Nathan said, do what? Do everything that's in your heart. The Lord's with you. And what, of course, David was implying, I'm going to build a temple.

I want to build a palace for God, just like I have a palace for me. Of course, he could have done something else. He would have gone out and lived in a tent, too.

But he preferred not do that. So he decided he'd build a palace for God as well. And Nathan encouraged him at first.

And when Nathan left that interview with David, God grabbed him and said, Nathan, I didn't tell you to say that. I've got something for you to say to David. You go back and tell him this.

And here's what Nathan came back and told David. Beginning at chapter 7, verse 12 of 2 Samuel. He said, when your days are fulfilled.

Well, actually, I could read a little earlier because it does begin earlier. Verse 10, moreover, I will, well, it's even earlier than that, but I won't bother to read it. I don't want to go all the way back.

Verse 11, since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies, also the Lord tells you that he will make you a house. Now, David wanted to build God a house. But David said, I'll build you a house.

Now, he wasn't talking about a palace like David was talking about, because David already had one of those. The word house in scripture, especially the Old Testament, functions two ways. It can mean a house like a building, or it can mean a household, like in David's case, a dynasty, the house of David.

The dynasty of David. And that's what really God is saying. I'm going to build you a dynasty, a house, that kind of house.

And in verse 12, when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you who will come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. This is an eternal kingdom.

And I will be his father and he shall be my son. Now, there's a sense in which this prophecy was fulfilled in Solomon, because he was a son of David, came out of David's loins, sat on David's throne after him and built the house. He built the temple.

All those things that he said his son would do. But there's one thing he didn't do. He didn't sit there forever.

And another thing he didn't do. He wasn't literally the son of God. Now, there's nothing wrong with God using the term son of God non-literally.

And sometimes he would do that. I mean, in the sense that the king of Israel was sometimes considered to be the son of Jehovah, just like the kings of the pagan lands were sometimes called the sons of Chimash or the sons of Baal or the son of whoever the god was. But in this sense, it's quite literal.

Because this verse 14, the first line of it is quoted in Hebrews 1 5 as being about Jesus. It says, To which of the angels did he say at any time, I will be to him a father and he'll be to my son? Obviously referring to Jesus. So here's a prophecy that has a partial fulfillment.

We might even say a short-term fulfillment in Solomon, but has a long-term or secondary fulfillment in Christ. Now, especially the part, I will establish his kingdom forever. From this point on in Israel's history, this prophecy became a defining statement of Israel's hope.

Namely, that someday God would send one of David's descendants who would sit on his throne after him. And that descendant of David would rule forever over a divinely established kingdom. And that kingdom, of course, how could it be anything but just, righteous and secure if it was under a son of David? In fact, the Jews forever afterwards thought of the kingdom of God as being very much like the kingdom of David.

And justly so. I mean, David reigned during what we'd have to call the golden age of Israel's history. The time before him was kind of unsteady.

The time after him got pretty unsteady. But in his age, there was peace round about. I mean, he went out and made wars.

They always won. All the nations eventually were paying tribute to David. Israel was the bright star of the region.

Everyone was under their heel. David was the ultimate ruler of the Gentiles and of Israel and God's glorious shepherd king and so forth. And all these things about David became eventually parts of the expectation of what the Davidic king would be who would eventually come, who came to be called eventually the Messiah in the thinking of the Jews.

The word Messiah means the anointed one. It's not used in the Old Testament much, but it's on occasions it's used. It was used much more in popular Jewish rabbinic talk than it was in the scriptures.

But it was taken up quite unashamedly in the New Testament as a reference to Christ. The word Christ, in fact, is the same word as the word Messiah. Messiah is the Hebrew word for anointed one.

Christos or Christ is the Greek word for the same thing. It's the same word, just different language. So Jesus is that Messiah.

But throughout the Old Testament, after this time, God would send prophets who would add to the portrait. I mean, the Jews knew this much from this point. It's going to be a son of David.

He's going to rule. He's going to build a house somehow of God. He's going to be in a special sense God's son.

But although that didn't always convey divinity to the Jewish mind, many of the Jews didn't know that he'd be God's son. In fact, you might remember a time when Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son will he be? And they said, David's son. Because that's the orthodox thing for a Jew to say.

And he said, well, then why did David call him his Lord? And they couldn't answer. And the reason they couldn't answer is because they didn't realize that son of God meant literally son of God. They thought son of God was maybe a figure of speech.

And that any good person who served Jehovah might be called a son of God. Even the Jews as a whole in Hosea chapter 1 were called the sons of the living God. So, they didn't realize the Messiah would actually be not only the son of David but also the son of God.

In fact, that's how Paul opens his description of the gospel in Romans chapter 1. He says, I've been separated unto the gospel of God. Interesting word, separated unto, because as a Pharisee, the Pharisee means separated one. And the Pharisees were separated unto the law.

Paul says, I'm not a Pharisee anymore. I'm a Pharisee unto the gospel. I'm separated unto the gospel of God.

Which he says was predicted by the prophets and the law and so forth. And he says, which is concerning his son Jesus Christ, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh, but was declared to be the son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. So, he says this gospel of Jesus is gospel about he who is at once the son of David, which is a term the Jews came to use for Messiah, the promised one.

And he's the son of God, declared so by the raising from the dead. This is the dual identity of Christ, son of David, son of God. Now, as the prophets went on, they all mentioned this kingdom.

That God would someday establish a kingdom under this Messiah figure. And I don't think there's one prophet in the Old Testament that doesn't in some sense allude to it. Jonah, it's a little squirrely trying to find it in there in the book of Jonah.

But Jonah is a type of the Messiah. That as Jonah was three days, three nights in the belly of the whale, so should the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. So, Jonah even the book of Jonah even points to the Messiah, although there's not a direct prophecy about the Messiah in Jonah apart from that.

But among the things that were prophesied, Daniel in interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream, in Daniel chapter two in verse forty four, he said, and I mentioned this earlier, in the days of these kings, now these kings refers to those represented in the four metals of the image that Nebuchadnezzar had seen a head of gold and a chest of silver and a belly of bronze and legs of iron, feet of iron and clay. These all represent successive Gentile empires, Babylon, Mediapersia, Greece and Rome. And in the days of these kings, the God of heaven will establish a kingdom, he said, will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed.

So the Jews from Daniel's time on knew that in the reign of these kings that Nebuchadnezzar had seen, the last thing was the Roman Empire. They should anticipate that God would set up this prophesied kingdom of the Messiah and it would never be destroyed, unlike the head of gold which was destroyed when the chest of silver took over and the chest of silver was destroyed when the belly of bronze took over. When the stone that was cut without hands on the mountain would come and grow into a great mountain to fill the whole earth, that one would never be destroyed, never be left to other people like the other kingdoms before it had been.

So God said that during the time he didn't use the word Roman Empire, but we recognize the legs of the images representing the Roman Empire from later history. During the time of the Roman Empire, God would establish this kingdom. OK, so a bit of a time frame was given there.

In other passages in the Old Testament, there were several other predictions about the Messiah. I don't want to go over them all now. Some are in your notes, but they could be multiplied by the score.

There are probably literally over a hundred, maybe, well, three hundred. It is said that Jesus fulfilled three hundred prophecies from the Old Testament in his earthly life. So there are hundreds of these prophecies.

Now, not only did God prophesy that the kingdom would be restored, it was also announced, and that at the beginning of the New Testament. And I mentioned already in Matthew 3, 2, it says that John the Baptist came preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Later, he was put in prison, and according to Mark 1, 14 and 15, Jesus preached the same message, the kingdom of God is at hand.

And then the kingdom was rejected again by Israel. This time, when it was offered by Jesus Christ himself, whom we, of course, as Christians, what makes us Christians is the fact that we recognize he was him. He was the guy.

He was the king. He was the Messiah. Israel as a whole, as a nation, did not receive him as such.

The remnant did, and this is something we won't get into in detail, but in every generation in the Old Testament, there was a remnant in Israel who were the true believers of God. They were, in reality, what the whole nation was in theory. They were the ones who really were faithful to God's covenant, and they did obey his voice.

These people, the remnant was there in every generation from Moses on, and they were there when Jesus was born. Joseph and Mary, Zechariah and Elizabeth, they were among the faithful remnant in Israel. Simeon in the temple who prophesied over Jesus, he was one of the faithful remnant.

Anna, the old prophetess who came and saw Jesus in the temple, and she went out and spoke to those who looked for redemption in Israel. She was part of the remnant, so were those she spoke to. There was a faithful remnant in Israel, and Jesus came and gathered them out of the nation of Israel by his preaching, and that remnant we now call disciples, or Christians.

But the point here is that when he came, his message was, the kingdom of God is at hand. Now, that's what he said at first. Near the end of his ministry, he starts saying things like, the kingdom of God is here, has come.

So it seems clear that Jesus intended to convey the notion that the kingdom of God was introduced while he was here. You know, it's very interesting to me that those of the dispensational view hold that Jesus actually came to introduce a political, Davidic-style kingdom to the Jews, but the Jews weren't ready for it, and they rejected it. And so he took his offer of that kingdom away, and he won't bring it back until the millennium, when the Jews are ready for it.

When they're ready to accept it, he'll give it to them, and that'll be at the end of the church age, and so forth. It's a very strange reconstruction of scripture, to suggest that Jesus offered them a political kingdom, but they didn't want it. And so he took it away, and he's going to bring it back later.

The Bible actually indicates that the Jews did want him to bring a political kingdom. In John 6, 15, after Jesus had fed the multitudes, it says, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take him and make him a king by force, he withdrew into the mountain to pray alone, and sent his disciples back across the lake. Interesting.

John 6, 15. The Jews were in fact ready to make him king. He had a multitude of at least 15,000 people there.

He wasn't the first to come along who could have raised up a resistance movement to the Romans. He probably could have been more successful, especially with his miraculous power. He could have pulled it off.

He didn't want to pull it off. That was not the kind of kingdom he came to offer. Furthermore, to suggest that Jesus somehow came to offer one kind of kingdom, but failed to really bring it to pass, is another strange reconstruction of the gospel.

Because in John 17, in verse 4, when Jesus was praying his final priestly prayer there in John 17, verse 4, Jesus said to his Father, I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. Now, if the Father gave him the work of coming and establishing a political kingdom like that of David, Jesus didn't finish that work.

He failed. And it had to be postponed. But Jesus apparently was not aware of anything he'd been sent to do that he hadn't accomplished at the end of his life.

He said, I have accomplished it. I have finished the work that you gave me to do. If he came to introduce the kingdom of God, then he must have done so.

He must have done so. Because he said he'd finished what he was sent to do. Now, if someone says, well, he wasn't really sent to establish the kingdom of God, well, then was he lying when he offered the kingdom of God? Was this not a bona fide offer? Now, listen, Jesus, if he didn't come to introduce the kingdom of God, sure wasted his breath a lot, because that's all he ever talked about.

If he was going to postpone this for a couple thousand years, he should have given some instructions maybe about what we should do during those two thousand years and forget this kingdom stuff until it comes around. But Jesus, I believe, teaches that the kingdom of God, not only did he not fail to introduce it, but he was here and has not gone away since. In Matthew chapter 12, in verse 28, when Jesus was accused falsely of casting out demons by the power of the devil himself, or Beelzebub is the term they used, Jesus answered them that this was basically a ridiculous suggestion since that would put Satan in the position of casting out Satan.

But he said in verse 28, Matthew 12, 28, But if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, which surely is what he was suggesting was the case, then surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. It's overtaken you. You've encountered it.

It's here. If I'm casting out demons by the spirit of God, then you have just been confronted with the kingdom of God. It's here.

It's not somewhere else. It's not later. In Luke chapter 17, on an occasion late in Jesus' ministry, it seemed to some of the Jews that he had promised a kingdom and it hadn't materialized, and they were challenging him on that.

And it says in Luke 17, 20, Now when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God does not come with observation. It is not visible. You're not going to observe it with your eyes.

Nor will they say, See here or see there. For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you. Now, within you has been interpreted at least a couple of different ways.

Many people think, New Agers in particular think, that Jesus was saying that the kingdom of God is in every man. However, this would require that we have Jesus use the term kingdom of God in a way that has no precedent in scripture and is totally disconnected with the whole Jewish hope in the Old Testament of the kingdom. It is certainly not the case that the kingdom of God is in every man.

Certainly it was not in the hearts of the Pharisees. He told them on another occasion they were their father, the devil. They weren't in the kingdom.

And so it seems very unlikely that when he said to them, The kingdom of God is within you, Pharisees, that he meant in their hearts. And yet that's the way many people take it because of the way the King James and the New King James have traditionally rendered it. The same word within can be translated among or in the midst of.

And this is how I personally think he should be translated. The kingdom of God is in your midst. The kingdom of God is among you.

And by this he meant the same thing as what God meant the first time he mentioned kingdom. Those who keep his covenant, those who obey his word are his kingdom. And here was a crowd of people.

The Pharisees were in there, but they weren't in the kingdom. But there were people there who were right there in their midst. The citizens of the kingdom were right there in the crowd, right here among you.

The kingdom of God. You haven't observed it, but that's to be expected. It doesn't come with observation.

People won't say, oh, here it is or oh, there it is. Now that certainly flies in the face of the notion that somehow there's this visible political kingdom that Jesus promised and anticipated. No, it's not going to come that way at all.

You see, the kingdom of God that Jesus announced was indeed the kingdom that the prophets had prophesied. But it did not come in the exact manner that the Jews thought it would. Because they thought only in terms of politics and force and an earthly kingdom.

That's what everyone thinks about until they're instructed properly. Remember when Jesus was before Pilate in John 18, 36? Pilate said, are you a king then or not? And Jesus said, well, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would have thought that I should not have been taken by the Jews.

But from now on, my kingdom is not from here. And he was not saying my kingdom is not in this world, because that would not be correct. He had already said to the Pharisees, the kingdom is here in your midst, and they weren't in heaven, and they probably didn't end up there either.

But he said, my kingdom is not of this world. It's not an earthly kind of kingdom. It's not generated from this world.

It doesn't operate on the same principles as the kingdoms of this world. The kingdoms of this world justly fight to protect their kings. My servants don't do that, because that's not the kind of kingdom mine is.

Now, it's obvious that Jesus introduced a different concept of the kingdom to the Jews than that which they anticipated, although it was the kingdom that was prophesied. They had just misunderstood the prophecies. So when Nicodemus, who was a well-schooled Jewish rabbi, came to Jesus, in fact, he was called the teacher of Israel.

Nicodemus was. Jesus said that to him. Are you the teacher of Israel? You don't understand these things? And here, the teacher of Israel, this great rabbi, esteemed among all the Jews, and even a member of the Sanhedrin himself, comes to Jesus, and Jesus says, unless you're born again, you won't even see the kingdom of God.

Why? Well, because spiritual things are spiritually discerned. The natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him, because they're spiritually discerned, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, 14.

So, you've got the kingdom of God cannot be seen unless you're spiritual, because it's spiritual. It's not political. Now, you didn't have to be spiritual to see David's kingdom.

All you had to do was go to that part of the world, and it was everywhere. His palace, his throne, his crown, everything was visible. Jesus said, ah, the kingdom of God doesn't come that way.

Not the way I'm bringing it in. It's in your midst already. It has overtaken you already.

It's not of this world. It's a spiritual kingdom. You can't see it unless you're born again of the Spirit of God.

Now, what is the kingdom then? Well, in my understanding, the kingdom of God isn't really anything else but what God defined it as the first time he mentioned it in Exodus 19. If you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, you'll be my kingdom. The kingdom of God is made up of people who obey his voice and keep his covenant.

And this is the kingdom that he has introduced. Now, believe me, I'm not here just giving a Bible study about the kingdom of God, but more properly about the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom. What is our message to the world? We live in a world, and I think people always have, where people are cynical about rulers, cynical about politics, and justly.

I mean, there's hardly been an age where politicians haven't given great occasion for their subjects to be cynical about their motives and about their goodness and their integrity and so forth. But there is good news. There is a king who has integrity.

There is a king who will never disappoint, so long as our expectations are realistic. He will disappoint you if you expect him to do things he's not in his program. But he will never promise one thing and do a different thing.

He will never do anything unjust. He will never fail to protect and to provide for those who are his subjects. There's never been a king like this before.

There have been good kings in some lands in history, but the best of kings only in measure approaches the ideal king who is the Messiah. And our message is, he has come and he has established a kingdom, and you've got a choice to make. Which kingdom do you want to be in? To whom will you submit? You know, when the apostles came to Thessalonica, was it there? Yeah, I believe it was there.

There was a lot of trouble there, as he did in many other places. But the particular trouble he got in was because Thessalonica was a Roman colony, and they were very patriotic Romans in that city, although it was not in Rome or even in Italy, it was in Greece. But it was a city where the citizens had citizenship.

And Paul was accused, the magistrates there, as they put it, that this man is preaching that there's another king, one Jesus. Now, did they get the message wrong? Did they hear Paul wrong? Paul never denied that that was the message. Of course, they misunderstood, just like the Jews did.

They assumed that if you've got a king, you've got a political structure. If you've got a political structure, that's in contrast to Caesar, who had already the monopoly on political structure in that part of the world. And therefore, if there was another king, he must be a rival to Caesar.

That's what the Jews accused Jesus of being when they took him to Pilate. That's what the people in Thessalonica thought Paul's message was. Now, Paul indeed thought there was another king, one Jesus.

Another Lord, not Caesar. But he did not mean to imply that Caesar could no longer sit on his throne as long as Jesus was in power. Jesus is already in power.

He's already on the throne at the right hand of God. But the Jews did not believe that his subjects are loyal to him unto death, like all good subjects of any king would be. They happen to live or domicile in other kingdoms of the world.

But our citizenship is in heaven where our king is. According to Philippians 3.21, our citizenship is in heaven. That's where Jesus is.

And being converted to Christ means nothing less than this. Whatever I was loyal to before I was a Christian, I'm no longer loyal to with my ultimate loyalty. My ultimate loyalty is now transferred to Jesus who can command me to walk into a meat grinder, and I'll walk into that meat grinder because he's king.

Now, we are very much at a disadvantage in this country, although in many respects we've got a tremendous advantage. I mean, we've got more freedoms. We've got all kinds of things.

We're more prosperous than any nation in history. We're really advantaged in some senses, but sometimes our advantages are the same as our disadvantages in spiritual things. You know, if it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, then the man who's rich is advantageous to be rich, but not very advantageous spiritually.

He can't enter the kingdom of heaven very easily, about as easily as a camel can go through the eye of a needle. So that which is an advantage in one sense can be a disadvantage in another sense. Or as Jesus put it in Luke 16.15, that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God.

Different value systems here. But there are many advantages we enjoy in this country, but one of the disadvantages that our very advantages have conferred to us is that we don't have a clue what it means to have a king. We don't have a clue what it means to have a lord.

In this country, we're all lords. Always have been. This country was established on the principle there are no lords, there are no kings, although there were still lords over slaves for a while, but we got rid of them too about a hundred years ago or so.

So, we don't have slavery as an institution, we don't have a king, and therefore we have never known what it means to have a lord or to have a king. We have to learn it from scratch. In the Roman Empire, when the disciples went out and said, there's another king, or even when they said, Jesus is lord.

Everyone knew what a lord was. There were slaves and lords. Even Caesar was called lord.

A lord is someone who owns you, and you're chattel to him as it were. He owns you and you have nothing, no rights except to do what he says and deliver his pleasure. Now you might say, well that doesn't make the gospel sound very good newsy, if we're coming under that lordship.

Well, let me tell you something. If you're not under the lordship of Jesus, you're still not free. Jesus in fact said that if the Son makes you free, you'll be free indeed.

You're a slave before you come to Jesus. It's just a slavery that your flesh lacks. Jesus said, he that commits sin is a slave of sin.

And yet the Son will make you free. He said, if you continue in my words, then you're my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free. This slavery to Jesus is freedom.

All other freedom is slavery of the most deceptive and destructive type. It's not like we have the choice to be free or slave. It's just dependent, we just decide who we're going to be a slave of.

And the good news is we don't have to be a slave of the demons and of sin and of the devil and of the system. There's another system, another kingdom, an alternative society. In the midst of this society, in the midst of every society on the planet earth, wherever the gospel's gone, there's arisen a little germ that grows into, or a seed that grows into a great mustard tree.

And it becomes a great shelter for the helpless and the homeless. It becomes an alternative society in the midst of another society. It's a counterculture.

It's an alternative kingdom under another king, one Jesus. It's like an enclave within a country. An American military base in Germany.

Well, it's in German territory as far as geographical boundaries are concerned, but it's an American enclave. They speak English there. They're really loyal to another government, not Germany.

They've got a mission to do, and that's why they're there. But they're not really caught up in the politics and all the affairs of Germany. I mean, they may have a concern or interest in it, but that's not really what they're there for.

They're there as representatives of another country. Now, the interesting thing is that the Bible indicates that the kingdom of God is a kingdom at war. Not physical war, but spiritual war.

And its warfare is against the kingdoms of this world. And in Revelation chapter 11, it says that eventually we'll hear this declaration from heaven, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever. There is a futurity about the kingdom as well as a presentness of it.

And here's how it is. Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It's very little, but you plant it and it grows into a great tree.

Or he said it's like leaven that a woman put into three measures of meal, and it spread out and infested the whole thing. And infested isn't the right word, but permeated the thing and caused the whole lump to rise. The kingdom of God is, in other words, a subversive movement.

But not subversive in the sense of trying to overthrow governments. Jesus had no interest in overthrowing Pilate. People tried to get him interested in that, by the way.

They came to him in Luke chapter 13 and said, Do you know what Pilate did to your fellow Galileans? He slaughtered these Galileans as they were offering their sacrifices in the temple. And you know they wanted him to get involved. You know that they told him that so he'd get outraged and say, This tyranny of these Romans, we just can't take this anymore.

I'll use my powers to overthrow this wicked man and set up a good government. Jesus certainly disappointed them if that's what they thought he would do. He said, well, do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than anyone else? Unless you repent, you'll likewise perish.

They always try to get Jesus involved in politics. One guy came up to Jesus in Luke chapter 12 and said, Lord, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me. The kind of thing you go to court about.

And Jesus said, man, who made me a judge over you in these matters? But you beware of covetousness, for a man's life does not consist of the things that he possesses. See, Jesus, he was interested in his own kingdom, which had spiritual values and spiritual interests, but in its own way, as you see history of the Roman Empire, especially after Jesus came and the apostles went out, it was a very subversive movement. Eventually it overthrew the Roman Empire.

Unfortunately, not before it was somewhat corrupted itself and replaced the Roman Empire with a fairly corrupted form of Christianity. But the point is, the message of the gospel goes out and it converts and it brings, and the kingdom grows at the expense of other kingdoms. Because I was once loyal to the USA, which is my kingdom.

And other people I know are loyal to Germany and others loyal to Japan and so forth, because they were born there, that was their kingdom. But then I got born again. And I got born into another kingdom with another king.

And my loyalty is now with him. I'm still here. I'm domiciled here.

I'm an ambassador here. I'm a stranger and a pilgrim here, according to Peter. And I am here, but I'm here as a secret agent of another kingdom.

And I make no secret of it. In fact, we're here, as a matter of fact, to undermine and overthrow the power of Satan in this region. That's what we're here for.

We're on a secret mission. So secret, most Christians don't even know about it. In fact, they think we're here to do the things that good people, any good people would try to do.

Reform society, reform politics, whatever. I mean, any good person would be interested in doing that. They don't seem to understand my kingdom is not of this world, but it certainly is here.

It's like leaven in a lump. It's like a little seed that grows into a great tree. And it eventually is destined to rule the whole planet.

But in the meantime, you've got to be like David's mighty men. Remember, God had the prophet. I'll close here as quickly as I can.

God had the prophet Samuel go to the house of Jesse to anoint a king to replace Saul. Now, Saul hadn't died yet. In fact, he didn't die for an uncomfortably long time after that.

And nonetheless, Samuel went and he poured oil over David's head and said, God's chosen you to be the next king. Well, it's interesting. The scripture says at that time, the spirit of God came upon David.

And the next verse says, and the spirit of God left Saul. Now, who then was the real king from that point on? As far as God is concerned, the anointing was gone from Saul. He was no longer the anointed one.

The anointing was now on David. There's no question in God's eyes. David was the king.

Only problem was in the people's eyes. Saul was still king in Saul's eyes. He was still the king.

So you've got two kings in conflict. David, who is not at that point trying to assert his role as king, but he was God's choice and had been anointed as God's king. And then you got Saul, the rejected king, who was asserting his kingship wrongfully.

Well, of course, that older king began to persecute the new king and David had to flee for his life. But the scripture says that initially 400 people and later 600 joined David as he fled from Saul. And they had to share in his running away from the armies of Israel because Saul pursued them with armies and tried to kill them off.

And they were greatly outnumbered by Saul's troops. And these people who followed David were told an interesting demographic description given in scriptures. Those who were discontented with Saul's administration, apparently those who were in debt.

These are the ones who became the refugees from Saul's system to follow David. David was not yet generally recognized as king, but some people recognized him as their king. It says these 400 made him their captain and they suffered with him.

They were persecuted with him. They put their lives on the line with him. And eventually Saul was dead and David came to be acknowledged as the universal king of the whole nation.

And those men who had been with him became his cabinet and administration and so forth. Army generals, whatever. Now, in the story of David, there is a deliberate type and shadow of Jesus.

I don't think I would have to work very hard at justifying this to anyone who's studied both the Old and the New Testament, knowing how much the New Testament leans on the story of David and the imagery of David's life as the foreshadowing of the Messiah himself and of his kingdom. And we are living at a time where the king has been anointed. The spirit came down on him in the form of a dove when he was baptized.

But there's other kings out there who do not acknowledge his anointing. They do not acknowledge that he is God's choice. The day will come when all acknowledge it, where every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Everyone's going to acknowledge this someday. They haven't yet. In the meantime, for the past 2,000 years, we're in a situation analogous to David's men, following an invisible king, adhering to an invisible kingdom, and taking the heat for standing against the visible system.

And the kingdom exists as long as there is a king. And Jesus did establish the kingdom. Now you might think it's strange.

Sometimes the Bible talks about the kingdom as something that's here. Sometimes the term is used in a futuristic sense. Both are true.

Just like it was true of David. When David was anointed by Samuel and when he had followers, his kingdom existed. It was just an underground kingdom.

It was a hidden kingdom. It was an invisible kingdom. It was a hated kingdom.

But it came to be a universally acknowledged kingdom. And so also the king that we follow. To follow him now is not to just jump on a glory bandwagon.

As we are beginning to see more and more in our own time, and as Christians have always known in other times of history, the kingdoms of this world are not friendly toward our king. Sometimes they pretend to be. Our grandparents and great-grandparents grew up, if they were in America or in Christendom, they grew up in lands where the governments of this world pretended to be friendly toward Jesus.

But Jesus makes some pretty severe demands on people's lives, and most of those kings were not willing to submit to them. There is a summons to the kingdom in the scripture. And Jesus' gospel was, the kingdom is here, you can come in if you like, but it costs you something.

And in another session, not tonight, next time I'm going to talk about what the conditions were stated for coming into his kingdom. But when you are converted, you do come into his kingdom. Paul said this in Colossians 1.13. He said it's already happened to those of us who are Christians.

He said that God has translated us out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of his own dear son. That's past tense. God has already translated us out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus.

It's happened, it's here, it exists. And we're there, we're in it. Paul put it another way in Romans 14.17. He said the kingdom of God is not food and drink, as if it were somehow coextensive with Jewish ritualism.

But the kingdom of God, he said, is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Now that sounds like good news, righteousness. Righteousness is the same word as justice in the Bible.

Doesn't everybody wish they lived in a kingdom where justice prevailed? Where the king was actually just? Well, the kingdom of God is justice, righteousness, and peace. There hasn't been peace in this world for several thousand years. But the kingdom of God is a kingdom of peace.

That's why it's symbolically described in Micah 4 and in Isaiah 2 as people taking their swords and beating them into plowshares. And their spears into pruning hooks. Because they used to be warlike, hostile people toward each other.

But when they come into the kingdom of God, they have no use for these swords anymore. They're not hostile. They're like Jesus.

They love their enemies. They love each other. Now they just want to cultivate.

They need farming implements, not war implements. And the kingdom of God is a place of peace. Paul said the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

I can't imagine anyone who's out there that if the gospel was presented to them accurately, they wouldn't see something in there desirable. If you came up to anybody and said, listen, what do you think about this present administration? What do you think about the way the country's going? What do you think about the laws of the land? You'd probably get mostly cynical remarks. I would imagine.

And if you said, well, how would you like it if you lived in a society, in a system, which was ruled by a man who never violated the purest justice? Everything he did was absolutely just and right. And that kingdom was always at peace. At least those who were in there at peace.

It's kind of interesting because it's always at war, too. It's one of those mysteries of the kingdom. Jesus said in John 16, 33, I think it was, he said, these things I've spoken unto you that in me you might have peace in the world.

You have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I've conquered the world.

Now you're in him and you're in the world. In him, you have peace in the world. You have tribulation.

There's war and there's peace at the same time. But the peace is the defining feature. The defining feature of the Christian life is not frustration with the hostile world.

The defining feature is I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. And where Paul put it this way in Philippians, chapter four, he said, he said, be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your request known to God and the peace of God. Which surpasses all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

That's good news. Now, when we tell people, you know, you can have righteousness, peace and joy if you come to Jesus, we need to make sure they know we're not talking about the worldly versions of that. They currently go out and party on the weekends to get happy.

But the kind of joy that Jesus offers isn't the equivalent of that. We don't have Holy Ghost bartenders in the real kingdom of God. People aren't staggering around acting drunk in the real king.

Jesus never did that to anyone. I never read of it in the book of Acts. I mean, that's that's not the kind of happy.

We're talking about. She said, cheer up, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.

You'll have tribulation in the world, but be happy. Cheer up. You've got something to be happy about.

What is that? How happy is the man whose sins are forgiven? How blessed is he against whom the Lord does not impute iniquity? There's great joy. The problem is it is a joy of a spiritual sort. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

It's spiritual. It's not political. And Jesus didn't give us any reason to believe it would be political.

Eventually, when his kingdom is universally acknowledged, it's not because he comes in with with an army and tanks and missiles and just conquers people that way. He conquers people the way he said he conquered people in his parables. The kingdom of God is like a sower who sowed seeds.

The seed is the word of God. It fell on certain hearts. Some hearts produce good fruit.

Others didn't. In the story of the wheat and the tares, same thing. The kingdom of God is like a man who sowed seed.

A bad guy sowed some bad seed. Some tares grew up there. Eventually, those will be pulled out.

But the only ones that will be left in the universal kingdom of Christ when his kingdom is universally acknowledged are those who have wanted to. Those who have made a decision to surrender to the king and to follow him. What we have for people is an invitation to be transported from one kingdom into another with all that that implies.

Now, I said an invitation, but really it's more like an ultimatum. Paul said in Acts chapter 17 in verse 30 or 31, he said, In times of ignorance, God winked, but he now commands all men everywhere to repent. That's an ultimatum, not an invitation.

Look at one more scripture with me, if you would, and that's in Matthew 22, one of the parables of the kingdom that Jesus told. Well, Matthew 22. From the beginning, and Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said, The kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son.

And he sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding. And they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants also saying, Tell those who are invited, See, I've prepared my dinner.

That's good news. You're welcome to a feast. My ox and my fatted cattle are killed and the things are all ready.

Come to the wedding. But they made light of it and they went their ways, one to his own farm and other to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully and killed them.

But when the king heard about it, he was furious and he sent out his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their city. Now you get invited to a wedding and you say, Sorry, I've got something else to do. And the guy invited comes out and burns your house down and kills you.

What kind of invitation is that? That's an ultimatum. We're not allowed to give out that kind of invitations, but a king can do that. The king says, Would you mind coming to my son's wedding? That is a command appearance.

And you don't say no to the king. That's something else we don't understand about kings. We need to.

The king says, Please come to my son's wedding. No, I've got something better to do. Okay, boom, you're dead.

I'm angry at you. Now, is this God? I believe it is. Certainly we see that in God.

He offers a kingdom ultimatum. He doesn't get down on one knee and beg people to come into his kingdom. Would you please accept my son into your heart? He says, Listen, I'll tell you what.

You submit. You repent of your sins. You put your whole faith in me.

You submit to me as a servant to a lord, as a subject to a king, and we'll talk about it. We'll talk about you being one of mine. We'll talk about you being in my kingdom.

Is it worth it? You bet it's worth it. What do you get if you don't come into that invitation? Now, let me just say this. As we close, I'll just give you a certain illustration.

I heard some other preacher give a long time ago. Likening the kingdom of God to the kingdom of David, or likening Jesus to David, is, I think, a legitimate thing to do biblically, at least in measure. There were a number of people who loved David.

It is said even of Saul that he loved David. In a passage, it says that Saul was tormented by demons, by evil spirits. His men said, Let's find someone who can play music well, and when he plays the harp, maybe the demons will go away.

So they found David. David came in and played the harp. This was when Saul first met David.

He wasn't angry at him for anything at this point. And David came in. Every time the evil spirit was tormenting Saul, David came in and played the harp, and the evil spirit went away.

And it says, And Saul greatly loved David, and he made him his armor bearer. Saul loved David. But before long, he was hurling javelins at David.

What was the problem? There was sort of a disconnect there. You love him. You always hurt the one you love.

Is that it? You love him, so you kill him. My wife would be scared when I say, I love you, if that's the way love is expressed. But that's not the way real love is expressed.

That's a kind of love. There are a lot of people who say they love Jesus. I mean, they do like it when their demons are tormenting them to remember the name of Jesus and get calm again.

As a little kid, whenever I'd have bad dreams, I'd wake up and read a few verses out of the Bible, maybe feel a lot better, and went back to sleep. I really love that. Great feeling.

It's a great feeling if the name of Jesus brings sweetness to your mind and to your heart and settles your calms, your fears, and so forth. There's a whole bunch of people around the world who, it could be said of them, they love Jesus in this way. They think positively of him.

It makes them feel good to think about Jesus. But, like Saul, as soon as he began to have an inkling that David was not just someone to play the harp for him, David was here to take the kingdom. Not that David had that in mind, but God had that in mind.

As soon as he saw that David was a rival for the throne, that's when he started hurling the javelins. That was the end of his love for David. And there's a lot of people, I think, like that.

As long as Jesus' name is like sweet music to their ears and calms their fears and charms our fears and bids our sorrows cease, as long as he's that to us, we like that. But as soon as we begin to realize, hey, he's here to take over. He's here to take my throne from me and sit there in a place.

A lot of people don't love him anymore after that. There was somebody, though, in David's life who did love him, even at that point. And that was Jonathan.

It is said of Jonathan that he greatly loved David. In fact, the love of David and Jonathan is compared favorably against even the love between a man and a woman. They were so affectionate and committed to each other.

Jonathan was, he stood to lose as much as Saul did by David being king, because Jonathan was the next guy to be king after Saul. But Jonathan loved David, and he took off his ring, took off his sword, took off his armor, and gave it to David. He said, I know that the Lord has chosen you to be the next king, and when you are king, I'll reign with you.

That love that Jonathan had for David is different than the love that Saul had, because David, Jonathan knew that he was going to have to give up his throne to David, but he said, I still love you. I'll just reign with you. You'll be the ruler.

I'll be second. I'll be under you. But you know what didn't happen? Jonathan never did rule with David.

There's a reason for that. David came to be persona non grata in Israel. Saul began to persecute David.

To stand with David became a very dangerous thing. Ask the priest at Nob, who inadvertently supported David by giving him the showbread. Saul killed 80 priests, accusing them of being complicit with David.

To be on David's side was a dangerous thing. When David fled from Saul, you know where Jonathan went? Home to Saul. Did he still love David? I'm sure he did.

His love for David was far more than Saul's. But he did not flee into the wilderness with David. He did not give up his position and his throne.

And I think probably, if we could ask Jonathan, I frankly think Jonathan's in heaven today. I hope so, because I'm quite fond of him from reading about him. But I think that the way Jonathan probably thought about it was, well, I can do David a lot more good by staying here in the palace.

After all, I've got my father's ear. My father's the one who's persecuting David. If I stay around, maybe I can kind of pull some strings, kind of throw some influence around here, maybe make things a little better for David.

If he thought that way, he was singularly unsuccessful. In fact, he eventually had his father throwing javelins at him, too. And eventually, when Saul died, Jonathan and his brothers died with him.

And when David came to power, Jonathan was nowhere to be found. He had stayed with Saul. He loved David.

He was even willing to let David be his king. But he wasn't quite ready to go out and live in the cave. He wasn't quite ready to have his neck on the line.

And Jesus said, he that seeks to save his life will lose it. Jonathan lost his life, sadly, tragically. But there was another group of people who loved David.

It doesn't ever say that they loved David. It does say that Saul loved him. It does say that Jonathan loved him.

But the 400 men that went with him, who made him their captive, it never says, these men loved David. It doesn't have to. These men did love him in a way that shows so much you don't have to talk about it.

There was a time David was living in a cave and Saul was after him. And David just said, man, would I ever love to have a drink out of that well in Bethlehem where I grew up. Man, would I like that.

Four of his mighty men heard him say that. They snuck off without his permission. They broke through a garrison of the Philistines, brought back some water from the well, and said, David, we heard you wanted some water.

Here it is. We just risked our lives for it. And David wouldn't even drink it.

He poured it on the ground. He said, I can't drink this water. This is your blood.

You guys risked your lives for me. Now, they never said, David, we love you. And the Bible doesn't ever say they loved him.

It doesn't have to. They showed that they loved him. Their lives were on the line.

They left their comfort zone. They left their palaces and their homes in Israel. And they went out and lived in the wilderness with David.

But eventually they reigned with David. Now, I think we know that the gospel calls us into a love relationship with our king, with King Jesus. The question is, what kind of love? Almost everyone loves Jesus.

Have you ever noticed all the religions think highly of Jesus? The Muslims think he was a great prophet, second only to Muhammad. New Agers, they think he's wonderful. In fact, they've been over backwards to try to prove that he was one of them.

The Mormons think pretty well of Jesus. And the Jehovah's Witnesses do. Actually, even the Buddhists probably have positive things to say about Jesus if you really pin them down.

But the thing is, they don't follow him. Everyone thinks the name of Jesus is a worthy, good name, noble name. Great guy.

Whoever had anything bad to say about Jesus himself. People who say things bad about Jesus, they're not really thinking about Jesus. They're thinking about Christians they've known.

They've seen Christians who have not really represented Jesus to them well. But when people actually... Do you remember that movie? Some of you are old enough to remember. Monty Python, Flying Circus.

They did a movie called Life of Brian. It was scandalous because it was thought to be a life of Jesus, which was greatly perverted in the movie. Well, I read an interview with the guys who did that.

And they said, well, we originally were planning to do a life of Jesus parody in this movie. But in our research, we read the Gospels. As we read about Jesus, we realized Jesus was a good guy.

We don't want to do parodies about good guys. So they didn't make Brian Jesus. Brian was supposed to be Jesus in their original plan.

But they made Jesus himself. Jesus played himself, as it were, in the movie. And Brian was another character.

And they went off on his story and made him out to be sort of a false messiah. It was a weird movie, but like everything Monty Python did. But the thing is, even they, blasphemers, probably atheists if you ask them, they couldn't bring themselves, once they really read the Gospels, to put Jesus down.

They couldn't find any fault with him. Even Pilate, cynical, hater of the Jews, hater of Galileans, when he met this guy, he said, I can't find anything wrong with this man. See, Jesus, anyone who really does research knows that Jesus is a good guy.

And has fondness toward Jesus. But that's not the same thing as being a disciple of Jesus. That's not the same thing as being in his kingdom.

Because his kingdom is a kingdom under persecution in this world. His kingdom is a hated kingdom. It's an underground movement.

But it's a movement that the Scripture says is going to win. And the kingdoms of this world will someday be the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. And when we call people by the Gospel, we've got good news for them.

The good news is this. The system you're in isn't the only one available. There's an alternative society over here.

We've got another king, one Jesus, and he's a good one. And he's never treated anyone badly. And someday his kingdom is going to take over this place.

But if you join him now, and this is the only opportunity you get in this life, you're going to have to bear a cross. You're going to have to die to yourself. You're going to have to not just love the sound of the name of Jesus because it's music to your ears.

You're going to have to say, I'll step down from my throne, I'll put him in my place, and I'll follow him even into the wilderness if it comes to that. I will give up my comforts. I will give up my life if I must.

Because this is the only kind of loyalty that is fitting to a king. And it's the only kind of commitment that the Bible defines as a saving response to the gospel. Now you might say, well, Steve, couldn't there be some people saved who don't, they couldn't verbalize it quite like that, and they don't quite understand all that.

Yeah, people can be saved without being able to verbalize it, but they can't be saved without having that relationship. A lot of people when they get saved never heard even the word Lord for some reason. Bad preaching.

But still when they receive Christ, they still in fact embrace him as a person embraces the Lord, and they really are saved. They might not even know the meaning of the word repentance or the meaning of the word Lord, but they may well have truly repented and truly have embraced him like a servant of the Lord. I believe people can be saved if they can't say why they're saved in some cases.

But I don't believe the Bible ever acknowledges anyone to be saved who isn't committed to Jesus as king. Like those 400 men were committed to David as their king before the world agreed with them. If you're going to wait for the world to agree with you, it'll be too late.

So the gospel we have is indeed good news. You can come into a kingdom, a kingdom of justice, of peace, of joy. Now it's got its persecutions, it's got its unpopularity for the time being, but so what? What is time compared to eternity? And so the gospel that Jesus preached is that the kingdom of God has come.

In him, he is the king. And the summons of the gospels and of the book of Acts and of the rest of scripture is come into the kingdom. To do this you must have a king.

You cannot have Jesus if you don't have a king. He can't be your savior and not your lord because he's only one person. If you have him, you have a savior and a lord because he's both.

If you don't have a lord, then you don't have a savior because he's both. You either have Jesus or you don't have Jesus. If you have Jesus, you've got a king.

If you don't have a king, you don't have Jesus and you don't have a savior either. There's not several classes of commitment that make people Christians. There's one gospel, not two, three, four, five.

There's one king and there's one call to the kingdom. And it's a summons from a king. And therefore it's a command that we have for the nations.

Next week we will talk about specifically what the Bible says Jesus and the apostles have to say about how one makes that transfer from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. Obviously it's a transfer that God enacts. God makes it happen.

You can't get there from here on your own. But it doesn't happen to everybody, even though God wishes it would. So there are some things that are expected, some things that are the conditions for making that transition.

At least as I understand the scriptures, that's the case. And that is what we'll talk about next time. Week after next I want to talk about what is salvation.

Certainly the gospel is sometimes called the gospel of salvation. But what is salvation? Is it just a ticket to heaven or is there more to it than that? There's a great deal more. All right, let's close with prayer and we'll call it quits tonight.

Thank you, Father, for this evening. Thank you for the patience of those who've sat through the whole thing. And especially those who've come a long way.

But actually regardless of how far you've come, we've all come a very long way from where we were before we became your followers. And I pray that we'll go further still. I pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit will simply give us the revelation of Jesus Christ as Lord and as King.

And us, his servants, your servants, for his sake. And we pray, Father, that we will understand this well enough that when people who are not Christians are on our heart and we feel that you're leading us to share with them, we will know what it is that we really have to offer them. It's not a message about going to heaven primarily.

It's a message about a King and about a kingdom. And all that is involved in obeying your voice and keeping your covenant and being your kingdom. I pray, Father, that your kingdom may come and that your will may be done more fully in our lives as a result of our having spent this time in the scriptures together and on the macro also in all the world.

We pray for the success of those who are preaching your gospel in foreign lands. And in this land, Father, those who are preaching, many of them in great danger, like David's men, really putting their lives on the line in order to be faithful to you and your calling in life. I pray for them, that you'd encourage them, that you'd give them success, even that you'd protect them, Father.

And I pray, Father, that we might go from this place either knowing or hungering to know more. What your call and your commission is for us, because we don't want to waste this short time that we have to be effective spiritual sabbats.