Centrality of the Kingdom of God

Good morning to you, brethren. It's good to see all of you on this last great day. It's always a little bit of an adjustment to the mind to realize this is a separate feast in its own right.

The seamlessness of the sun setting on the Feast of Tabernacles and the sun as it sets introducing the last great day. Mr. Walker mentioned to you that my wife was able to come to services this morning. We had been looking forward to that for all of the feast. She appreciates very much your prayers on her behalf. I have been reminded on multiple occasions, and so I should correct the... I don't know if it's a matter of correcting.

I should finish the comment made on the first day that the tumor that was removed was benign. A number of people had come up and asked, you didn't state the status of the tumor, and it was benign, for which we were very grateful. She's been at our residence here at the feast recuperating, enjoying the family, and today felt up to coming to services. On the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles, I spoke to you about the Kingdom of God.

And I stated to all of you that it was a unique gift that the Church had to give to this world. A message of hope. I think you tasted once more on this day of the last great day, the nature of that message of hope in Mr. Robert Corbett's sermonette. That message is one that, in its breadth and in its scope, uniquely has been given to the Church of God. I mentioned to you on the first day the reason for the blindness that exists. It isn't because it cannot be understood or there is a lack of information in the Scripture. It is simply the overwhelming challenge of being able to accept the Kingdom of God and all it encompasses in the face of long-standing, profoundly, deeply rooted beliefs that would have to be discarded in order to embrace the Kingdom of God.

I closed the sermon at that time saying to all of you that I doubt that it is widely understood how deeply and how profoundly the Word of God teaches the Kingdom of God and left you, I hope, with the impression that I would fill that out on this last great day. One of the speakers, I forget which one it was, made the comment of the fact that we have a speaker's teleconference prior to the feast so that everyone can give a brief review of his message.

That way we're not giving the same message. And when we came to this particular message, one of the speakers made the comment or asked the question, what did this particular sermon have to do with the last great day? And I thought it was a very appropriate question and wanted to acknowledge it to all of you because as I launch into the sermon, there are probably some of you who will have the same question.

The answer is rather succinct. The Millennium is no more the Kingdom of God than Oregon is the United States. We have spent the Feast of Tabernacles rehearsing one chapter in the story of the Kingdom of God. And when the sun set last night, we entered yet another chapter. The Kingdom of God is not so narrow as the Millennium. And so its relevance is there, whether this be the Feast of Tabernacles or the last great day, or frankly, next Sabbath if we went home to continue on from there.

The Kingdom of God is the centerpiece of all of God's Word. It is interesting to note how many and how varied the theological sources and theologians are who will very readily and very quickly state to you the truth that I have put forward. I'd like to quote from five or six of them. And you will have to listen carefully because typical of reference sources, the phraseology and the terminology can be rather high and the manner of speaking can be rather academic. But if you can get beyond the academia, you will hear the profoundness of their recognitions. From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, a very widely used biblical reference in the article on the Kingdom of God, came this statement.

It, meaning the Kingdom of God, its use by Jesus is by far the most interesting aspect, for it is His watchword, or a comprehensive term for the whole of His teaching. Can you make it any more central than that? Is there a way to describe centrality better than that? There is a comment that I will come back to later that continues from there.

It says, there are those to whom it appears self-evident that what was the leading phrase in the teaching of Jesus, meaning the Kingdom of God, must always be the master word in theology. I am unashamedly one of those, and I believe all of you are also. But this is said with an edge. There are those to whom it appears self-evident that what was the leading phrase in the teaching of Jesus, must always be the master word in theology, while others think this to be a return from the Spirit.

I will not leave that phrase dangling, but you will have to wait until later in the sermon for me to come back and address it. William Barclay, very well known for his New Testament words and for his commentary. In his New Testament words under the Greek terms soteria and sozine, and also the words xenos, pericois, Barclay in his New Testament words takes Greek words out of the New Testament and then brings them down to the place where we common people can understand what they're talking about.

The word sotere or soterei is the Greek word for salvation, and he is describing what that word means. And he says regarding salvation, he said, we can begin to enjoy it here and now. You are enjoying it here and now. You have been basking in it for seven days. But its full impact, that is of salvation, and its wonder will only come to us in the day when Jesus Christ is enthroned King of all the world. It is quite true, and I think Barclay wrote this at the beginning of the 1900s, it is quite true that the second coming of Christ is not a popular doctrine, but it does conserve the tremendous truth that this world is going somewhere.

And when the world reaches its final consummation, so will salvation be finally perfected.

You know what I find it fascinating that these scholars of our society are capable of stating more eloquently even than we what we believe, and yet they don't. What a paradox.

Another quotation from Barclay speaking of the word paroikos, the Greek word for resident alien.

He said, the Christian community is a body of people who live in this world, but who have never accepted the standards and the methods and the ways of this world.

Their standards are the standards of God. They accept the law of the place wherein they dwell, as all of us do. We admonish our members to always respect the laws of the land, the community of the state and of the nation. It is the way of Christianity. They accept the law of the place wherein they dwell, but beyond them, that is beyond the civil laws to which we give obeisance, and above them, transcending all the laws of our land.

For them, that is for the resident alien, there stands the law of God. The Christian is essentially a person whose only real citizenship is citizenship of the kingdom of God. You know, brethren, when I read that, I thought, this has been the fabric of who I have been and all the people that I know from as early as I can remember in this church. It states very simply but eloquently who we are. The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, another very widely used and respected reference source in the article, Kingdom of God, says, this expression, Kingdom of God, represents an idea which is deeply rooted in the thought of the Old Testament and which constitutes the central theme of the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the synoptic Gospels, meaning Matthew, Mark, and Luke. To go into another realm, the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910 edition in the article, Kingdom of God, from the Catholic Encyclopedia, the following quote, at every stage in His teaching, His being Jesus Christ, the advent of this kingdom, its various aspects, its precise meaning, the way in which it is to be obtained, form the staple of His discourse. So much so that His discourse is called the Gospel of the Kingdom.

The last I would like to quote to you is from the Schaff Herzog Encyclopedia from 1889, Article Kingdom of God. The phraseology here is more flowery than all the rest of them put together, which is sad, because the message is more profound than all the comments I have read so far. I will read it to you twice, because it's difficult to wrap your head around the verbiage. The idea of the Kingdom of God is the central idea of the whole dispensation of revelation. The Kingdom of God is the end and motive of all divine revelations and institutions of the old and new covenants, yea of the creation and promise from the beginning.

Can you include anything more than that? Were there any holes? Was there any place in the Bible you could go to and say, this is exempt? Was there a time from as far back as God has existed, backward in time, forward into eternity, that was not covered by that statement? The idea of the Kingdom of God is the central idea of the whole dispensation of revelation. Not talking about the book, it's talking about things revealed. From as far back as things have begun to be thought about or revealed, the Kingdom of God was in place. It is the end and the motive of all divine revelations.

It is the goal of every utterance of God and of every institution, of every system established in the old and new covenants, yea or yes, even of creation and promise from the beginning.

How on earth does something so central and so clearly and so broadly understood as that disappear from Christian teaching?

I won't take you through the long route of history. I will simply lay it on the doorstep of two men in two camps. In the early years of Christendom, the Catholic Church was divided into Eastern and Western churches, one based in Constantinople, the other in Rome. Two men, one in the East and one in the West, are credited with being able to erase the teachings of the Kingdom of God from Christendom. Erygian early in the East, Augustine later in the West. Both used exactly the same vehicle for removing it. Erygian lived between 185 and 254. He was able, in his teachings in the Eastern Church, to fundamentally remove millenarianism, or the belief in the millennium, a part of the Kingdom of God, from the teachings of the Eastern Church. It remained in the Western Church for a couple of more centuries. It wasn't until the time of Augustine that it tumbled. Augustine originally was a pronounced champion of the millennium. But as time went by in Augustine's life, he eventually accepted the belief in one universal resurrection.

And when he espoused the belief in one single universal resurrection, he then had to dismantle his own belief in the Kingdom of God. In his famous book, The City of God, Augustine is credited with ending or bringing down the belief in the millennium in the Western Church.

Both Augustine and Erygian used allegory to deconstruct the theology. Augustine, so you understand what I mean by allegory, gave an allegorical explanation of Revelation 20. You and I hear Revelation 20 a minimum of once every Feast of Tabernacles. Sometimes, we will hear quotations two, three, or four times. And we look at it, and we understand it very clearly as a statement of what is. Both of these men said, no, it isn't what it is. It's an allegory. The first resurrection mentioned in Revelation 20, Augustine simply said, referred to the spiritual rebirth of baptism. A little Twilight Zone music. And it went on. The 1,000 years, well, that was simply a Sabbath of 1,000 years. After 6,000 years of history, this is symbolic of the whole of eternal life. In other words, the number 1,000 is intended to express perfection. You know, I've heard numerology taught from the time I was 13 years old, and I have never heard 1,000 within the Word of God as a symbol numerically of perfection. But for Augustine, it worked. The result was by the use of allegory, these two men were able to remove the teachings of the Kingdom of God from both Eastern and Western churches.

And at the time of the Reformation, it simply continued on in the same vein.

I would like to now demonstrate to you, category by category, meaning section by section, block by block within the Word of God, that you can go nowhere just as Shaphir's Aug said, or the Kingdom of God is not the central message of the Bible.

Every year when you and I assemble for this Feast of Tabernacles, we are given a liberal dose of the reality that the Kingdom of God is indeed central to the Old Testament. The Book of Isaiah is so full of Kingdom of God, scriptures, descriptions, that it's from beginning to end. It starts that way, it ends that way. The minor prophets also carry that same hope. Ezekiel does also, as does Jeremiah.

And so I don't have to impress upon this audience the presence of the teachings of the Kingdom of God in the Old Testament. The beating of swords and the plowshares from Isaiah and Micah.

The lion and the lamb. All of the pictures, the blossoming of the deserts, the abundance, the establishment of the throne of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. All nations flowing to his throne to be taught. They're all Old Testament. And so there really isn't a great deal of need for me to spend time in the Old Testament. And so, simply as a token, let's go to Isaiah 9.

In Isaiah 9, there is a section that was adopted by Handel and placed within his oratorio, the Messiah. It begins in verse 6, and it says, For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders. And his name will be called mighty counselor, or wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and peace. There will be no end.

Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with justice, a judgment and justice, from that time forward, even forever.

As I said a moment ago, the millennium is not the kingdom of God.

It is that chunk of the kingdom of God that is easiest for the human mind to wrap itself around.

It is the part that is closest to where we live today and therefore the most exciting because we have limited capacity to see down the road.

There's a scripture, interestingly enough, that followed immediately after the formation of the New Testament Church.

But I want you to turn to, and it's in Acts chapter 3.

It is interesting that a scripture in the book of Acts says more about the centrality of the kingdom of God in the Old Testament than any scripture in the Old Testament.

There are times, I think all of us are aware, that when you're in the midst of creating history, it is difficult to summarize the history of which you are a part. And so it falls to the lot of people who come later to look back and say, in summary, here is a summarization of this entire period. You see, there is not a place in the Old Testament, or there's not even a collection of Old Testament scriptures that will tell you as much as these three verses in Acts chapter 3. In a sermon shortly after the day of Pentecost and the forming of the Church, Peter stood and he made these comments. Now, you and I, and I'll make the connection now, you and I think of the things that I just mentioned a moment ago about the land blossoming, the desert blossoming, wild animals becoming tame once again, war ceasing to exist and man learning war no more, all of these things coming back to the beauty of what God wanted in the beginning. I mention that because Peter does not use the phrase, the kingdom of God. He uses a phrase which identifies the product of the kingdom of God. Don't lose that connection. He said in verse 19, to his audience, repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before. When is he going to send Jesus Christ?

He's going to send him at the time that the kingdom of God is announced.

Where is he now? He's in heaven. Verse 21 speaks of heaven receiving Christ, which it did, until the times of restoration of all things. The term, the time of the restoration of all things, is synonymous with the kingdom of God in that this is what the kingdom of God accomplishes, will accomplish the restoration of all things. But notice what he said about the restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

You see, you and I don't necessarily have the words of men like righteous Abel. We don't have a lot of the words of Enoch. We don't have a great deal of sermon material from Noah.

We know they are in the catalog of saints. We know they were holy men. Peter, simply with a gloss, says every single solitary one of God's holy prophets has spoken about the restitution of all things from the time man was created.

That verse in Acts encompasses the Old Testament with tremendous eloquence. I'd like to stay within the Old Testament, and I'd like to bridge Old with New with a special area. That area is Daniel. Because it was not until the captivities of Israel and Judah that a change of focus, as it were, came on the scene. A sense of pointing man to an awareness of what we would refer to as carnal nations, carnal empires, really does not take place until the times of Daniel. With Israel having gone captive earlier, with Judah now in captivity, God begins to reveal to Daniel the future of the world, a future that will run from the days of Daniel until a specified time. And what is interesting is, in Daniel's visions, what is revealed to Daniel about the kingdoms and the governments of this physical world always lead to exactly the same conclusion point. Daniel chapter 2.

Nebuchadnezzar's famous image, a dream that he either had forgotten or conveniently said he had forgotten and asked his wise men to interpret its meaning, but also to tell him what the dream was. We all know the image. In fact, we saw it again in the video earlier in the feast. And as that video demonstrated, we move from kingdom to kingdom to kingdom to kingdom, from Babylon to Persia to Greece to Rome, into its successive resurrections, the last of which being tentos of iron and ceramic clay, which will be smitten and broken to pieces. Daniel chapter 2, speaking of the feet of iron and miry clay and the kingdoms that they represent.

Verse 44 says, in the days of these kings, the kings represented by the tentos, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the kingdom shall not be left to other people. It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Five chapters later, in Daniel 7, Daniel was once again placed in a position to receive a vision and its interpretation.

Daniel 7 and verse 15, Daniel said, I, Daniel, was grieved in my spirit within my body, and the vision of my head troubled me. I came near to one of those who stood by and asked him the truth of all this, and so he told me and made known to me the interpretation of these things. Those great beasts which are four are four kingdoms which arise out of the earth, but the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever. Then I wished to know the truth about the fourth beast which was different from all the others, exceedingly dreadful, with its teeth of iron and its nails of bronze, which devoured broken pieces and trampled the residue with its feet. The interpretation is in verses 26 and 27. The court shall be seated, and they shall take away all his dominion, the beast just described, to consume and destroy it forever. Then the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people, the saints of the Most High.

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominion shall serve and obey him.

As Daniel was introduced to world politics, world governments, he was introduced to the fact that no matter what route they travel, no matter the centuries between, no matter their actions and deeds, in the end of it all, they will all succumb to the kingdom of God.

The saints will rule, and they will rule forever and ever.

The book of Revelation is, in one sense of word, an updated Daniel.

Revelation is Daniel's revision 500 years later. You see, by the time Revelation was written, the first kingdom had come and gone, the second kingdom had come and gone, the third kingdom had come and gone, the fourth was well along the way. Revelation simply took Daniel and placed it in updated clothing.

Revelation chapter 5 is the great song that is sung by the heavenly host at the time when Christ comes forward as worthy to open the seven seals that are placed upon this book. And the song that is sung by a choir beyond comprehension, beginning in verse 9, says, you are worthy to take the scroll and to open the seals, for you were slain.

And you have redeemed us, and it needs to be understood that the angels who were singing, the heavenly hosts who were singing, are not a whole lot different than any modern group that sing a song. The lyrics of the song are about someone. Rarely are the lyrics about the singer, unless the singer happened to write the song autobiographically.

The choir is singing the song, and the song is about you. And every deemed us to God by your blood, we are the redeemed, out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

It didn't represent the whole of it, but it was nice to hear Mr. Walker go through the catalog of fescites, and your brethren from every continent were represented, if you kept track of continents. You had greetings from Europe and from Africa, and from Asia, and from South America, and from North America, of those redeemed.

And the choir went on to say, and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on this earth. I don't need to take you through the remainder of the Revelation Scriptures. Probably the one additional one that would round it out would be at the blast of the seventh trumpet in Revelation 11.

There's an inauguration point for the kingdom of God. It would be at the sound of the last trump and the descent of Jesus Christ, and his feet touching the Mount of Olives. That's probably as close to an inauguration as you could find. In verse 15 of Revelation 11, it says, then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

The books, both Old and New Testament, that deal with the nature of politic, the nations of the world, only have one focus. They're all going somewhere. They're all eventually going to the place where a kingdom that is eternal will replace them all, and it is the kingdom of God in which Christ will rule and the saints with him. Every book, when analyzed, especially the Bible, must be analyzed by section.

I earlier read to you a comment, and I will reserve, as I said, my comments on that comment until later, but there is a strong tendency within the Christian world to segment the Bible and to allow part of it to become archaic and outdated and therefore no longer relevant, and others to be looked at as highly relevant. One of the places where that relevancy issue occurs is when the Old Testament ends and the New Testament starts.

What is the first occurrence of the New Testament era? If you pick up your Bible, what is the first occurrence of the New Testament era?

Chronologically speaking, you'd have to say the first occurrence of the New Testament era is the miraculous conception of John the Baptist.

Six months into his mother's pregnancy came the next occurrence, and it's found in the book of Luke. I think the nature of most of us is to assign greater or lesser status to comments based upon who made them and the context in which they made them and how much authority we assign or power we assign to the person making the comment. Six months into Elizabeth's pregnancy, a statement is made to another lady, and it carries about as much weight as it is possible to assign to a comment. The comment is made by the archangel Gabriel. Our awareness of the angels Michael and Gabriel are such that in their faithfulness and loyalty they only speak to man at God's behest, and they do not alter or editorialize upon the message that God has given. And so, as the angel Gabriel speaks, it is nearly as good as if God Himself were speaking.

In what is referred to as the Annunciation, meaning the announcement to Mary that she was to become the mother of Jesus Christ, Gabriel made the following comment. Verse 30, Then the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Do you want to know how the New Testament begins?

Do you want to know what the New Testament focuses on?

Well, you just had it. You just had the introduction to the New Testament. Nine months later, this child was born.

Twelve years later, we see a slight glimpse of his life, and a journey to Jerusalem.

And in the early 30s, we see a man who goes into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights of fasting, who is tempted repeatedly by the devil, and one of those specific temptations is recorded for our edification.

At the end of those 40 days, and at the end of that testing, if you go back to Matthew 4, which has probably the most thorough accounting, if you happen to have a red-letter edition of the Bible, and you were to say, what were the first official words out of Christ's mouth after he had reached the place where he felt qualified to go forward as Messiah? And I say that in the sense of, we remember the miracle of the wine at the wedding feast, and Christ telling his mother, this is out of sequence. My time is not yet. I am not yet to the place where the formality of moving forward with a title and an office has arrived. Well, following the temptation, it had arrived. What were the very first words uttered by Christ recorded in your Bible following the temptation? You'll find them in Matthew 4, verse 17. From that time, from the time he came out of the wilderness and had regained his strength, Jesus began to preach and say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You know, it's an interesting situation, and it has higher relevance when you stop to think, what was the last thing Christ had to face?

Before he could say, I am now ready to officially take upon my shoulders the mantle of office. The last thing that he had to face before this verse was this challenge.

The devil in his third and last temptation took him to the top of an exceedingly high mountain. This had to be envisioned and showed him all of the kingdoms of this world and their glory, and said to him, all of it, all of it, I will give to you if you will bend your knees and worship me.

Have you ever stopped to consider that Jesus Christ never uttered a word of rebuttal to the offer?

There's not a word that says you can't do that. You can't deliver on that.

When the statement is made regarding Satan that he is the God of this world, he was offering to Christ a kingdom early and without pain, without a crucifixion. He says, I will give you all of it. You know what? That would have been a very cheap trade. And Satan knew it. To trade Christ his position forever so that he could be over all the world would have been a very, very small trade.

So when Christ left the wilderness, ate and drank sufficiently to regain his strength, and began to preach the kingdom of God, he had just walked away from all the kingdoms of man.

In the Sermon on the Mount, when Christ gave his first inaugural teaching to his disciples, teaching that has never aged and has never become tired or tattered or weary, teaching to those men that is as relevant to you and to me as it was to the 12 of them, what did he say to all of us about how to focus our life?

I won't turn there. I'll simply quote it to you, because you all know it.

It's Matthew 6.33 that says to every single person in this room, seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added.

He says you can spend your lifetime worrying about your housing, worrying about your wardrobe, worrying about your physical possessions, worrying about your food. He says there's no end of things to worry about in this life.

He says let me give you a prioritization for life.

Seek first the kingdom of God and the requisite righteousness to attain it.

That's what he means by seek the kingdom and his righteousness. And I'll take care of these other things.

He said if I have a census of every sparrow, and that census is always up to date, I think I can take care of you.

He said when I can take the animals of this world, and I can dress them in finery that the best haberdasher and the greatest Paris designer can't even begin to come close to, I can take care of you.

But he said in return I expect something from you.

I expect that the first thing in your life is the kingdom of God, and the righteousness necessary to one day be there.

And I'll take care of the rest.

The children's Bible stories that are prevalent in Christian teaching focus on incidences, feeding so many thousand here, walking on water, turning water to wine, raising a lame man, healing a blind man. And they become so much the fabric of the Bible that the choice, little statements about the whole of it get swallowed up.

Luke chapter 8.

Luke chapter 8 starts out with one of those summary statements that bypasses all the spectaculars and all the fascinating and all the interesting stories, and it comes down to a simple synopsis of what was going on as Christ went here and there and elsewhere. Luke 8 verse 1 says, It came to pass afterwards that he, Jesus Christ, went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.

Did he heal? Yes, he did. Did he raise people from the dead even? Yes, he did. Did he feed crowds? Yes, he did. Did he give the blind sight? Yes, he did.

Did he awe his disciples by walking on water and calming the storms? Yes, he did.

What was his focus?

Going to every single solitary town and community in the entire area and preaching to them the kingdom of God. Later on, the disciples reached the place where it was their turn.

He sent them out later, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God.

As we move from the disciples, Jesus Christ, we can go to a place that could be seen as another junction. Christ died, He was resurrected, 40 days He spent with His disciples, and then He ascended to heaven. If you look in Acts chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, you will find that Jesus Christ's last parting words to His disciples, as they were saying to Him, give us information, give us revelation, tell us all sorts of things. When are you going to come back? We do need to know these things, Jesus Christ said fundamentally and politely, it is none of your business.

Preach the kingdom of God.

If you read Acts chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, they had their questions. He said you don't need the answers. What you need to do is you need to preach the kingdom of God. I want to take you now to an area that in the world of Christendom is looked at as the area where the demarcation line occurs. I made the statement and I'll read it again. There are those to whom it appears self-evident that what was the leading phrase in the teaching of Jesus must always be the master word in theology, while others think this to be a return from the Spirit to the letter. In Christian theology, the Spirit of the law and the Spirit of the word began with the calling of Paul. The letter ended with the other disciples in Jesus Christ. Christ is not seen as the demarcation line between old and new covenant. The true champion of Christendom for the new is one man, and that man's name is Paul. So the comment from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia was a veiled reference to those who believe what preceded Paul and those who believed what followed. The irony of it is Paul didn't see himself as any different. There's a great event in Acts 19 where disciples of John who had been baptized by John were met by Paul, and they had not had contact since their baptism by John, and they began to talk about the Holy Spirit, and they said they didn't even know there was such a thing as the Holy Spirit.

And so Paul began to teach them. What a classic, fabulous segue for a new covenant thinker to tell these old covenant men baptized by John how to get up to date with things.

You talk about a classic opportunity to set the stage. Acts 19 verse 1, it happened while Apollos was in Corinth that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus and found some disciples, and he said to them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said to him, we've not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And he said to them, into what then were you baptized? And they said, into John's baptism. And then Paul said, John had been baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him. That is, on Christ Jesus. And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And then Paul laid his hands on them. The Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. Now the men were about 12 in all. And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading, concerning the things of the kingdom of God. Boy, did he blow it. Boy, did he blow it.

The book of Acts ends with the apostle Paul in prison in Rome.

Can you be in a more Gentile area than Rome? In the sense that Rome was the capital of the world, the capital of the Gentile world, you had the best possible Gentile grandstand to speak from.

And he was there for two years in prison. For the two years that Paul spent imprisoned in Rome, but free to take all the guests that he wanted and to entertain anyone who came to him, what did he talk to them about for two solid years? This is how the book of Acts ends. The last two verses of the book. Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.

You know, I can read that statement from Isby, and all I get out of it is, you didn't read Paul.

You and I, as Christians, often go back to certain books of admonition written by Paul to congregations at that point in time. One of them is in Galatians. Galatians chapter 5. Everyone is familiar with the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit.

As Paul warns the church in Galatia, and ironically, Galatians is one of those books where people really go at trying to deconstruct everything prior to Paul.

You know, I said, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.

Notice verses 19 through 21 of Galatians 5.

These are not the works of righteousness. These are the works, well, they speak for themselves, which is what Paul said. Now, the works of the flesh are evident. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfishness, ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in times past, that those who practice such things will not go to heaven.

Looks like some of you are reading from different translations.

Would it surprise you to find out that he said the same thing to the Ephesians?

I'm not going to read these to you. Ephesians 5 verses 5 through 7.

He said, here are conducts that are unacceptable, and if you live them, here are the consequences. And by the way, they are the same consequences as those that ended verse 21. You won't inherit the kingdom of God. He also said it to the Corinthians who had their problems in 1 Corinthians 6 verses 9 and 10.

When Paul talked to Gentile churches about conduct unacceptable and what it would cost them, it was going to cost them the kingdom of God.

Paul didn't change anything. Nothing altered. No eye blinked.

Nothing changed.

Brethren, the kingdom of God is the centerpiece of all of the teachings of the Word of God.

From beginning to end. There is no other message. There is no other direction. There is no other place people are going. I said in the first sermon, you and I have been given this in a fashion that is unique.

This day and what it celebrates, what Mr. Corbett was saying to you in the sermon, and I'm sure what Mr. Walker will be saying to you this afternoon, only emphasize the uniqueness of it all. As I said at the beginning when I used the simple analogy that Oregon is not the United States of America any more than the millennium as the kingdom of God.

Every Oregonian is an American, but he is a part of a greater body. The millennium is but a part of a greater body.

Mr. Corbett used the springboard for his message, a scripture that I'd like to take you back to, and emphasize a piece of it that was not central to what he needed to emphasize. The grand question was asked, why did God bother with us? And when I look at us, I wonder why he bothered with us. You know, all of us look in the mirror, and the older you get, the more you wonder why bother. You get rickety, you get less useful, you reach the point in time where you can't do much, and much has to be done for you. And, you know, life is one of those things where, given enough time, you realize there's just not much here.

For a while we were made lower than the angels, but we were made so that all things would one day be placed in subjection under our feet. The profound statement that completely, completely goes over the head of Christendom. This is a statement in verse 8 that says after the quotation, for in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him.

There's only one stipulation. It speaks of Jesus Christ being over everything, and it is stipulated that means everything except the Father.

You know the same stipulation applies here. What we've celebrated during the Feast of Tabernacles and what we're celebrating today in the last great day is just the beginning of something that we can't grasp. All does not mean from North Pole to South Pole.

All does not mean this planet. All means all. All does not mean part. All means all. When this kingdom has no end, it is not meaning a kingdom that has no end only chronologically. It is a kingdom that has no end geographically. There is no boundary that says you have just passed out of the kingdom of God going west or east or north or south or up or down. It has no end, and you and I will be over all of it.

1 Corinthians 2.9 makes the statement, I has not seen nor ear heard, nor can the mind of man comprehend what God has in store for him. It is a personal pondering at times that God gives us this fall festival in its two segments in the way that he gave it because it encompasses as much as we can wrap our heads around.

I can wrap my head around the millennium, and I am thrilled to think of the day coming when every human being who has never had an opportunity will have a genuine opportunity.

Beyond that point in time, humanity ends and a spirit world begins, and the scope of that is just a little bit past where you and I can wrap our heads around.

Romans chapter 8 is the last scripture I'd like to read to you.

You can roll this one around in your own head because what it portends is awesome.

Romans 8 and 19. Let me begin with 18 because Paul is talking about the problems of life and the challenges of life, and he had a lot more than most of us. And he said, you know what? I consider that the sufferings of this present time aren't worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. He said, you know, I've been beaten, I've been stoned, I've been thrown in the gladiatorial ring, I've clung on to flotsam and jetsam out in the Mediterranean in a storm. I have been through the ringer, but when I look at all of it, it doesn't compare with what I'm looking forward to. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly awaits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope. Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together unto now.

And not only they, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly awaiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies. How do you wrap your head around the entirety of creation groaning in anticipation for the day when you and I become spirit?

I went to a 3D theater in San Antonio last year, and they were showing walking on the moon.

Hard to wrap your mind around the Cinemax movie theater and your 3D glasses and the awesomeness of this stark, two-tone, bright light and black shadow environment. And knowing that there are millions, billions, trillions...

We don't know how many bodies like that sitting out there. They're empty, desolate.

And you and I live on the one jewel in the universe. And all of creation groans in anticipation of the day you and I become sons of God.

As I said to you earlier in the sermon, though it was flowery and though it was grandiose in every respect, the statement from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia regarding the Kingdom God was indeed profound.

The idea of the Kingdom of God is the central idea of the whole dispensation of revelation.

The Kingdom of God is the end and motive of all divine revelation and institutions of the old and new covenants, yea of the creation and the promise from the beginning. You and I, brethren, have been given a very special gift, the opportunity to understand that Kingdom and to proclaim it to this world.