The Kingdom of God Is at Hand

Okay. In the second session, we'll answer some of the questions that we closed with there in the first session. But we'll go back to the verse that we started with today, Mark 1, verses 14-15, and read it again. Jesus came to Galilee, and he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God. And he said, The time is fulfilled. And now you know what that means. The time was right for him to come. It was just the right moment in history for him to come. And the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. The kingdom of God is at hand. Many of his disciples at that time believed that the kingdom of God was going to happen right then. They believed Jesus Christ was there on earth, and that at some time during his adult life, after he began his ministry, that he would begin the kingdom of God at that time. That he would take back the kingship of Israel. Of course, the Jews at that time had the knowledge of him. And they believed that Jesus would just give the kingdom back to the Jews at that time. They didn't understand his far-reaching message, that it was for more people than just the Jews or the nations of Israel. But Jesus Christ came to preach the good news of the gospel for all mankind. Not just a few, but for everyone. And he said the kingdom of God is at hand. Here's another place where we go back to the original Greek word to see a little bit of what at hand means. Because if I tell you our break is at hand, if I had said that right before, you would know, I'm going to let you go out and have a cup of coffee right now.

But the way it's been translated is a little bit different than what the Greek says. At hand comes from the Greek word engizo, I-E-N-G-I-Z-O. It means to draw near something. It doesn't imply, one of the commentaries says, that something has actually come, but rather that it's close.

Now, Edgar Goodspeed, a Bible scholar, and several other newer translations of the Bible where they've gone back and they've looked at the meaning of those Greek words and re-translated into English, many of them now translate that verse, the reign of God or the kingdom of God draws near. So when Christ said, the time is fulfilled, it's the right time for me to be here. The time is right. The kingdom of God is near, is what he was saying. And certainly with him being there on earth, bringing the message that he brought, being who he was, going to do what he did in sacrificing his life and making possible everything for all of mankind, certainly the kingdom of God was near. Now, he was there. Now, that part of God's plan would be complete, the part that he would do. Live his life, live it in perfection, sacrifice it for us, and then be able to qualify to take over the kingdoms of the earth but also give us the promises of eternal life, forgiveness of sins, and the other things that he brought. So Christ would say, the kingdom is near. Now, you'll remember that before Christ said that, John the Baptist prepared the way for him, and John the Baptist came saying the same thing. John the Baptist came in Matthew 3, verse 1, saying, Repent, for the kingdom is, translated at hand, but now we know it means, Repent for the kingdom is near, he said. Now, we read Christ's words again, where he said, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near. And then he also gave him an action clause after that. Here's what I'm telling you. The kingdom of God is near, you need to do something about it. We'll talk about that a little bit more near the end of this session, and in the next seminar, in two or three months, we'll talk more about that. He gives them the action they take after he announces to them that the kingdom is near. I talked a little bit this morning that the whole world was focused on the coming of Jesus Christ. Everything in the Old Testament is directed toward His coming. And as we understand the Old Testament now, the kingdom of God is well, but the Jews at that time who carried forward His message, were focused on the coming of Christ. Christ said in Luke 16, verse 16, the law and the prophets, the Old Testament, were until John. Since then, the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it.

So before Christ's coming, the world was focused on the coming of the Messiah, the monumental event of human history. Since the time of John, since the time that Jesus Christ appeared on earth, that the king of that coming kingdom was now there and succeeded in His mission. Now everyone is talking about the kingdom of God. So you have the Old Testament focused on Christ, the New Testament focused on the coming kingdom of God. That's what is being preached from here on out.

Doesn't mean that the Old Testament is done away with. Doesn't mean that everything written in the Old Testament you can just throw out, because you can't possibly understand the New Testament. You can't possibly understand the will of God. You can't possibly understand Jesus Christ if you throw out the Old Testament. You have to have the whole Bible, the whole Word of God, to understand what His purpose is. In Hebrews it says, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, in times past the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, God spoke to people the fathers in past by the prophets, has in these last days, the days that we live in, spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things.

He's qualified to be king of the earth. He's qualified to come back and be king of kings and take all the kingdoms and governments of this world and put them under His domain. Today He talks to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the worlds. Jesus Christ was the God of the Old Testament. Through Jesus Christ the world was created. When you read back in the Old Testament, in most places where it says capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, it's talking about Jesus Christ.

He was the God of the Old Testament. He was the one who thundered out the commands to Israel. He was the one who opened the Red Sea. He's the one who gave Israel the Ten Commandments when He reintroduced them to the Ten Commandments. They've been in place since the beginning of the time of man. So when you realize that Jesus Christ, through whom God is speaking today, He was speaking through Him really in the Old Testament as well. There's no way the Old Testament, where Jesus Christ was the God that they knew at that time, that we could throw that out. Jesus Christ, it says, is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

What He told the people of the Old Testament was true. There were some rituals that He did away with. He no longer needed sacrifice of animals, because He was a sacrifice that surpassed all those, and no need for that. But the laws, the principles of life that He established for the people of the Old Testament, called the Ten Commandments the law, are still in effect today. And in the Sermon on the Mount, the very first sermon that He gave when He was preaching, and He came, He didn't do away with those Ten Commandments. What He did was magnify them, made them more complete.

And if you read through Matthew 5, 6, and 7, you can have absolutely no doubt that Jesus Christ, through whom God is speaking today, had every intention that the people that He called, and the law, and the principles and ethics of His kingdom, were based on those things that you read in Matthew 5. Not just a literal obedience in physical terms of what was required in the Old Testament, but now a much more far-reaching way of obedience that encompasses all of our minds, our heart, and soul.

So since the time of Christ, now we're focused on the kingdom of God. That's the next major event. Christ came at the perfect time in history for His message to be promulgated, or to be sent across the nations. Now we look forward to the second coming of Jesus Christ, when He will take the kingdoms of the earth and make them His own, and establish His government. We mentioned in the first slides this morning in the quotes, Jesus Christ was focused on the kingdom of God in everything He did. As you go back, as you read through the New Testament, you read His words, you'll see what He was focused on was the kingdom of God.

He came to tell us, all of mankind, the kingdom of God is coming. This is what you need to be part of it. He wants everyone to be part of His kingdom. God isn't willing that anyone should die. He will give everyone the opportunity to know His truth. He wants to give everyone eternal life. He wants to give them the promises He's made us.

And Christ spoke of the kingdom in everything that He did. You can see it running through it. He told the people, they didn't understand in John 18, verse 36, My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, He said My servants would fight. He told that to them. You remember the incident when He was being arrested, right?

And He saw them, My kingdom's not of this world. It's not My purpose today, He was saying, in this lifetime to set up the kingdom. They put their swords away and they let Christ be arrested. But even after He was killed and resurrected and they saw Him, in Acts 1, they asked, Now is the time?

Now will you return the kingdom to Israel? They didn't understand at that point. There was a long period of time, humanly speaking, between the time Christ died and was taken back up to heaven, and that He would return to earth. My kingdom is not of this world. It wasn't His purpose at that time to establish the kingdom, the literal world-ruling kingdom, on earth. He talked about the kingdom starting small. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all seeds. But when it's grown, it's greater than the herbs, then becomes a tree, so the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

It begins small, but over time it will take over the whole world. When Christ started His church, He was planting a seed of the kingdom. The kingdom wasn't there yet, but He was planting a seed of the kingdom. It would begin small.

On the first day of Pentecost, there were only 120 people there, assembled, of the thousands that heard His message. But over the time, between the time He returned to heaven and the time He returns to earth, it will grow. It will continue to grow, and when He returns, it will take over the entire earth.

His kingdom, His rule, His righteous rule, His behavior, and a world that's replete with all the blessings and all the good things that you can imagine.

He taught about the kingdom of God, and He did it in a number of areas through parables. You're familiar with a lot of the parables of Jesus Christ.

You can see that almost all of them are focused on the kingdom. Let's turn over to Luke 19, and look at this parable that you're all familiar with.

Luke 19 and verse 11.

Now, as they heard these things, Christ talking, He spoke another parable because He was near Jerusalem, and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately. So He gave them this parable to let them know that they would understand that, no, it's not, I didn't come right now to take over the kingdoms of this world.

And He said, Now, if we look at Jesus Christ, He came to this earth. He qualified by His life to become king of kings and take over the kingdoms of earth, but He came there to qualify and to return. So He called ten of His servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, Do business till I come. Notice ten of His servants, He called to them, and His commission to them was, Do business. Do the work until I come. Be about God's business. You've been called. You've accepted the call.

You go out and you do the business of the kingdom until I come. But as citizens, it says in verse 14, hated Him. They sent the delegation after Him saying, We don't want this man to reign over us. We can see that in the world around us today, don't we? The message of God is not well received by a lot of people.

We live here in a country where often, if there's anything to do with Christ, prayer, religion, Ten Commandments, what do we do as a nation? There's always someone there to say, We don't want that. We don't want to hear about it. We don't want it part of who we are. And it's not looked on well. And as He gives us parable, He says, There will be people like that. We don't want what you have to offer. We want to do things our own way and live in the world that we've created. And so it was that when He returned, having received the kingdom, at a future time, He then commanded these servants to whom He had given the money to be called to Him, that He might know how much every man had gained by trading.

What had they been doing with the gifts that He gave them? What had they been doing with the knowledge and the call, which is a gift that He had given to them? The first one came to Him saying, Master, your mina has earned ten minas. And He said to Him, Well done, good servant, because you were faithful and very little, have authority over ten cities.

Because you were faithful and little, have authority over ten cities. That's what He gave them. And He went on in the next verses, and the one who had five minas had gained five. And He said in verse 19, You be over five cities. And another came, saying, Here is the minum, which I have kept put away in a handkerchief. You gave me something. And He's saying, I did nothing with it. I just kind of hid it away. It was kind of there, tucked away in my mind. I knew it was there, but I didn't do any business with it.

I just kind of let it sit there. And He says, He's got an explanation for I feared you, because you are an austere man. You collect what you didn't deposit, you reap what you didn't sow. And He said to him, Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I didn't deposit, reaping what I didn't sow. Why then didn't you at least put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest?

But the man did nothing. He just heard, but he didn't do anything with what he was given. And God has a pronouncement, or Christ had a pronouncement in this parable on Him. Take what He's been given and give it to the man who multiplied His mina by ten. It's a lesson for us. When God calls, we have a choice to respond. When He preaches of the kingdom of God, we can hear it. We can accept what He has to say.

And we can tell Him by our actions as well as our words, we want what you have to offer. We see what that kingdom is. We see what you have planned, and we know that everything He has planned is for the ultimate good of mankind. Everything. Even the lives that we live now. And He says it's not going to be an easy life. We know we have trials. We have things that come our way. But God has a greater purpose for us and those who He calls, and the whole world in mind, than just what we're going through today. Ultimately, God has only good in mind for every human being who has ever lived.

He wants, it says in the Bible, every single person to receive eternal life. He wants every single person to be in His kingdom. He wants them to experience everything that He had prepared for man, that man said back at the time of Adam and Eve, we don't want it.

But He still wants to give it. When He calls, through this parable, He tells us, yes, you need to accept, yes, He did the work for us in that we could be forgiven and that we could receive the Holy Spirit, and without Him we could do nothing, but He expects us to turn our lives around and live in a different way than we had before. Who? Who will be part of His kingdom? Well, if we're talking about it now in the calling that God has, a few.

It's not His purpose to call every single human being today to His plan. It's not His purpose that everyone would hear His message and have eyes to see and ears to hear. As He says, a few are called now, and you can only understand the message of God if He draws you. There it says in John 6, 44, no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him.

It's a message that we need God's Spirit working with us to understand. And you know, and you've probably experienced as you look through the Bible, and hopefully even today as you read through some of the words that you see, an understanding and a meaning jumping out at you that you didn't understand before. That's God drawing you to Him. That's God opening your mind so that you can understand the truth of the kingdom, that you can understand the words that Jesus Christ said, the words that He preached, and that He still preaches to all of us today when we look in the Bible and we understand it.

2 Timothy 1, 9, again says, God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. It's not because of the good things that we do that we have anything or have a future. It's all because of Christ, all because of His sacrifice. Nothing we can do, any works we do from here on out, they're not going to earn us a thing. Jesus Christ already sacrificed His life. It was because of what He did that we have the hope that we do, and nothing I should say if I misspeak. Don't go here from here thinking that works earn us anything.

Jesus Christ did it for us with His sacrifice. But when we accept His call, the holy calling, there is a difference in life that we will live. It's not the way we live that earns us salvation.

It's Jesus Christ who gives it to us as a gift. He called us with a holy calling according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ before the world began.

Those who will be part of the kingdom in this world who will begin to understand that being prepared for it are those that God calls. And it's not everyone. Not everyone. In fact, it's just a few people now. In Acts 2, verse 39, it says, For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. He chooses. And many of us wonder why. Why us? We're thankful for us because it is a tremendous gift to know the truth of God.

It's a tremendous gift to understand God's plan and to be part of it and to let Him work with us, let His Holy Spirit be in this, that changes us from the people we were to the people He wants us to become, people that are of benefit to the people around us, to our families, to everyone we come in contact with, just as Jesus Christ was of benefit and a blessing to all of mankind when He was on earth and still is today.

If you want to be a blessing and a benefit to everyone you know, to your family, to your friends, to the people you work with, to the people you live in the same neighborhood with, respond to His call.

Let Him work in you what He wants to work, and your life will be different, and you'll find the purpose, the joy, the peace, and the opportunity to be a blessing to other people that you will never find any place else. But there's only a few now that God is working with. Matthew 13, verse 17, says, Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, but they didn't see it. And they wanted to hear what you hear, but they couldn't.

Those of us who have understood for a while, in part of His church, have tried to explain things to family members, tried to explain things to people we work with, their friends. And you know what? They just couldn't get it. They couldn't understand when they looked at the same words, or it just wasn't important to them.

Let's turn back to Matthew 13 and read a few of the verses surrounding that.

Let's pick it up in verse 10. Verse 17 is the end of Christ's explanation. In verse 10, the disciples came and said to Him, Why do you speak to the people in parables? Why don't you just come out and say what you have to say? Why do you speak to them in parables? And He answered and said to them, Because it's been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But to them, it hasn't been given. Some understand today. But some, even in Christ's time, weren't going to understand that. And then He goes on and talks about that and finishes with verse 16 and 17. Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears for they hear. For surely I say to you, many prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see, but they didn't see it. And to hear what you hear and didn't hear. A few. A blessing from God that we can see and understand. A privilege to know what He's taught us.

And you might ask, well, what about everyone else? Well, again, everyone else that God doesn't call in this lifetime will have a chance. Remember, God is an ultimately fair and just God. Every single human being who has lived will have a chance to know Him. They will all have a chance to understand. They will all have a chance at eternal life, and they will all have the same choice that you and I have today. Will we accept it, or will we reject it? Those that accept it will be part of His kingdom. The way they accept it is by saying yes with the words, but also saying yes by the actions of the way they live their life. The same ethics that Jesus Christ had. The same principles that Jesus Christ lived by. The same principles that the New Testament apostles, Peter, Paul, James, John, and the others lived by. The words of the Bible, following the example of Jesus Christ, that He set when He lived and He left for us forever. All people will have a chance later. We have it today. 1 Timothy 2, verse 3 says, This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. But it's not His purpose to call all men today. Just the few. You've seen, as we've talked this morning, that God has an order to the things that He does. The people of the Old Testament looked to the coming of Jesus Christ, and they were focused on that. They thought He was going to establish the kingdom at that time. That wasn't His purpose in that lifetime that He lived back then. It was His purpose to qualify so that He would return and set up that kingdom. But God does things in His order, based on the plan of mankind that He has for, that has been set since the time the world was founded. And some He calls today for a purpose, and the rest of mankind He will open their minds later. Colossians 1, verse 13, we can be thankful. He says there, He has rescued us from the power of darkness. We were all powerless over darkness. Just like mankind has been powerless over darkness and still is. Just like the people of the Old Testament proved, even though they walked, or even though they saw God, and all those mighty miracles He did, they were powerless over darkness. They couldn't keep those commands even in the physical sense. Because of our own selves, we can do nothing. There's absolutely nothing we can do and nothing that we can overcome. We are powerless over darkness, and the darkness that Satan has put on this earth. We can't overcome without His Holy Spirit. And except for a few in the Old Testament, they didn't have God's Holy Spirit. Those people who wandered in the desert simply didn't have it, and they couldn't obey. We couldn't either. But when Jesus Christ came, lived a perfect life, called us, our sins forgiven, we accept, He gives us the Holy Spirit, He had the power over darkness, and He's rescued us. So we don't have to have the same fate that the people who are subservient to that power are. He's taken us from the power of darkness, the ways of this society, the ways that things are done around us, and He's transferred us to the Kingdom of God.

He's taken us out of one, and He's given us the opportunity to be part of what He's preparing. People who are being prepared for His Kingdom. And that means, as we're being prepared, just like you go to school. You want to become an accountant when you graduate from college. You don't just go there and say, yes, I want to be an accountant, and four years later, don't do a bit of homework, have a degree, and think that you can go out and do the things.

You spend those four years learning, being prepared, ever increasing in the knowledge that you have. The same thing with any other profession. Engineer, teacher, doctor, nurse, attorney. Any profession that you have, even if it is in college, you prepare and you learn while you're there, and you become better at that all the time. God called us and transferred us to the Kingdom of God. Transferred us to His Kingdom, and during our lifetimes, when we accept that call, He's preparing us. Teaching us what is the lifestyle of that Kingdom. What is it, and how is it that people will live? Because they're not going to live in the Kingdom the way we live on Earth today. We live on Earth today with all of the problems that are attendant to us as we watch the things that are happening in the Middle East with question marks in everyone's minds. What's the end result of all those things that happened last spring in the Middle East? What's the end result of all these economic problems in Europe? What's the end result of all these economic problems that are kind of there in the United States, but we kind of just kind of ignore them? What about all the problems in families, in society, in morality? Can it really be that a society can sustain itself with the way that people live today in total rejection of everything that the Bible says and everything God set up? No, we won't live the way we live today. God's transferred us so that we begin to learn the lifestyle of His Kingdom so that when He returns, there is a group of people that He's called out. A group of people who have responded to His call that have taken that education and begun to learn and experience and put into practice in their lives the lifestyle, the morals, the laws, the ethics, the theology of that Kingdom just exactly the way Jesus Christ did when He was on Earth.

He's taken us out and rescued us from a society that's going nowhere and put us into a Kingdom that will last forever and ever and ever. That's what He's done when He calls us. A tremendous blessing, a tremendous opportunity. We don't have our Theosos to thank for it. We have Jesus Christ for it, in whom it says in verse 14, we have redemption and forgiveness of sins.

It wasn't His purpose when He called people and they responded to them to take them out and have them live in a separate place in the desert. He didn't take people and bring them all up to heaven to prepare them. Christ said in His last prayer before He was arrested, I don't pray you take them out of this world, out of this society, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world. They've been rescued from the power of darkness and transferred to the Kingdom of God. They're not of the world anymore. They have a different purpose in mind that God has given them, a different calling that they've been called to. And Christ said, just as I, just as Jesus Christ was not of this world, but He lived in it, He walked in it, He was able to have relationships with people, and yet He was stronger because of the Holy Spirit and the world around Him. He never compromised and He never sinned.

As the Holy Spirit grows in us, as we learn more, we become, over a process of time in our lifetimes, more and more blameless. Not that we will never sin, not that we will never slip up, not that we will never make mistakes, but as we walk with Christ more, that we would get to the point where we would be sinning less and less and understanding more and more and wanting more and more that life He's called us to.

He's called us out of this world, even though we still live in the world, and Paul says in Philippians, we're citizens of heaven. Now we have a different calling. We're still here, still work in this country that we live in. We still do the things.

We still make our livelihoods in it, and everything we do, we do it well. As Christ admonishes us, obeying our employers, or paying attention to our employers, doing things, understanding that now we're to be blessings to people, and the better employees we are, the better students we are, the better neighbors we are, we are a blessing to people and showing the lifestyle of God. But we are citizens of heaven, the kingdom that will come, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven. We're waiting. We know His call. We know the things. We know what He came to do. We know His calling. We responded to Him, and now we wait. Just like the people of the Old Testament were waiting for the Messiah to come, we wait for Him to return.

We know when He returns, He's going to set up the kingdom this time. This time, the world will be under His rule. The world will finally experience what God had planned. He'll change our weak mortal bodies and make them like His own glorious body, using that power by which He is able to bring all things under His rule. Citizens of the Kingdom. 1 Corinthians 15. So as this I say, brethren, this is Paul writing, Flush and blood can't inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit corruption. And then he goes on in that chapter. Let's turn to it. You don't need to listen to me. You can read it from your Bible. 1 Corinthians 15. As he's talking about the people that he calls today, the people that are preparing for him, the people that he will give eternal life to, along with everyone, eventually will have that choice at it, or that chance at it. He says, the flesh and blood can't inherit the kingdom of God. And he goes on and he says, behold, I tell you a mystery. Let's pick it up in verse 51. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. That last trumpet that announces so many things, but announces the return of Jesus Christ to this earth to take over the kingdoms of this world, at the last trumpet, we shall all be changed. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible and will be changed. The resurrection from the dead. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul says, the dead in Christ will rise first. Those who have lived their lives and responded to his calling, who remain faithful to the end, who lived the lifestyle and were ever growing in the knowledge and the grace of Jesus Christ. The dead in Christ will rise first. And there's a purpose that he has for those people. He's returning to earth, all glory, all power. Everything is about Jesus Christ. But those who are dead in Christ have a mission. And over their lifetimes, where they've responded to the call that he's given them, and they've done it the right way, being about his business, doing his business, increasing 10 minus to 20 and 5 to 10 as God gives us, he has a purpose for them, and something he's preparing them to. Revelation 1, verse 5 says, Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. He's qualified to do that, and he will return to do that, who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Every single one of us here, every single man, woman and child that's ever lived, he loved. They don't understand the scope of his love today. They don't understand what he's done. The rest of mankind will understand what he did in the future, who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, has made us a kingdom of priests to his God and Father. Made us a kingdom of priests. People that will be with Jesus Christ, when he sets up his government, he's going to have people assist him. Remember when we read the parable about the Ten Minas? And Christ was talking about those that had increased have authority over ten cities.

To another one, he said, have authority over five cities.

He'll have people working with the people who live over in to that millennial rule of Christ on earth. He's not going to put people in authority that don't understand his government. Not going to put people in authority over cities that don't understand the lifestyle. He came and he was a perfect example for us, and he's going to have people in authority that are perfect examples for the people under them. People that find themselves dazed by what the result of the way of life of this society brings on them, that will be there in that kingdom, will be taught, will be educated. They'll begin to experience the benefits of Christ's rule, but they'll have people teaching them. He told the apostles, the disciples, that he would put them over the twelve nations of Israel in that kingdom. He was preparing them for that role. He's preparing all of us for something that he wants us to do in his kingdom.

What he wants you to do may be different than what he wants me to do. We all have our own path to what God wants. My trials may be different than yours, because there are certain things that God needs to weed out of my life that he may not need to weed out of your life.

But there are things that he's preparing us for that he knows what his purpose for you is. He knows what role he has for you and for me.

And in this life, as we go through the trials and the challenges that we face, we can know that God has ultimately our good in mind.

Just like when Paul said, back in Romans 8, I think it was, that he counted it all... Well, that's a different place, but we talked about he counted it all joy for the trials that he went through. But he also said that what we will have in the kingdom is not even comparable to the sufferings that we have in the trials we go through in this life.

He understood that. It's difficult, physically speaking, but when we keep our eyes on the big picture of what God is working, and what his plan is, it's very good.

In Revelation 5, it repeats the same comment we had before. They sing a new song.

You, speaking of Jesus Christ, are worthy to take the scroll to open its seals, for you were slaughtered, and by your blood you ransomed for God's saints from every tribe and language and people and nation. You've made them to be a kingdom and priests, serving our God, and they will reign on earth, the kingdom of God on earth.

His preparation, his time, what he's doing, his will is that you be part of his family. Remember what we read back in the first session? Waiting for his adoption, or our adoption, as his sons.

That's what God's will is. He wanted mankind to be part of his family, part of the unity and part of everything that he created and founded from the beginning of the earth.

That's what you've been called to. That's what we all are looking at.

That's what Jesus Christ came to preach. That's what Jesus Christ came to talk about. The good news of the kingdom of God. The good news for every man, woman, and child that there is a better time ahead, and that everyone can have part of it.

The gospel of the kingdom of God, the good news of the kingdom of God that Jesus preached has among its elements.

It's an invitation to become part of God's kingdom at the return of Jesus Christ.

It's an invitation. We have to respond to the invitation.

We have to let God prepare us to be part of his kingdom at the invitation so that we're ready to do what he wants us to do.

It's not a life where Christ died and forgave our sins. Certainly that's part of it, but that we do nothing else.

You can't find anywhere in the Bible. Anywhere. And if you do, give me a call. We'll sit down and look at it. That all it takes is to accept Christ's forgiveness for our sins, and we do nothing else. He does it all for us. He's done it all for us. Without him, it's impossible. But when we're called, everything in the Bible says we turn our lives around.

We live the lifestyle of the kingdom. We let God's spirit direct us, change us, motivate us.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is an invitation to become part of his kingdom at the return of Christ, and it's an invitation now to train and qualify to assist him in the King of the Kingdom.

Again, as you read through his words, read through all the books of the New Testament, go back and look at the Old Testament with new eyes and read Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel. And you'll see that they were speaking of the kingdom because God made his end known from the beginning, as we talked about.

And those that he's called understand that. Those that he's called understand he's got a great purpose in mind. It was the right time for him to come. When he came back in the early years of A.D.

It's the right time for him to have called you and me. It's the right time for us to understand. It's the right time for us to live in a country where we can worship God without threat of a military walking in and arresting us for what we're doing. That wouldn't stop us from worshiping Him, but here in the United States, it's a good time to worship God in spirit and truth.

It's a good time to be able to understand and to assemble without the threat of any government or any group coming in to dissemble us.

That threat wouldn't stop us from doing it, but it's a good time. It's a good time to understand the commands of God and to be able to claim the religious freedoms that this country has given us.

It's a good time to say, I keep the Sabbath holy as God keeps it and tell your employer that religious right is protected under the Constitution of this government.

It's the right time for you to be called, the right time for God to put His Spirit in you, and the right time for you to be learning and training for whatever God has in mind for you.

That was His message.

Some of you may be wondering, am I really being called now?

I think I answered that this morning.

You wouldn't be sitting here today.

And the hundreds and thousands that are sitting in the seminars across the nation that are going on today, you wouldn't have come here if God wasn't calling you.

You wouldn't have come here if you didn't want to hear the truth that came from the Bible.

God drew you here. God opens your mind. God draws you.

If you read the magazine, if you listen to the TV program, if you read your Bible, most importantly of all, read it.

Read it daily and let God open your mind. Let Him speak to you, to words that come from that Bible.

And when you sit down and you read it, you'll see the things in there that you never saw before.

And when you do and when you understand what God's plan is, you have a responsibility.

When He draws you, He doesn't make you accept His call. He doesn't make you follow Him.

Many are called, it says in Matthew 22. Many. Many God opens their minds to understand the truths. But few are chosen. Few it be that will actually take up the life that He's called us to, that will use His Holy Spirit and actually walk the way that Christ walked, that will actually do the things that He did and follow what He has called us to.

Many are called. They understand, but then they go back, they put it on the shelf, and they don't think about it for a while.

Many are called, but few choose to follow Him. Those that choose to follow Him, He'll work with. He'll train, He'll educate, He'll progress. It's His will that you're in the Kingdom. It's His will that you live the role that He has prepared you for.

How do you respond? How do you respond to God's call?

Well, Christ said it in our key verse for today. He said, the time is right. The time was right for Him to come to earth.

The time is right for God to call you. The Kingdom of God is near, He said.

And if it was near when He said that almost 2,000 years ago, it certainly is nearer today.

The time is right for you to be called. The Kingdom of God is near, and He gives you your action statement.

Repent. Repent and believe the Gospel.

Do you know what repent means? It's a word that in some ways is underused in society today, in some other areas it's overused.

But repent means turn your life around. Turn it in a different direction.

It includes being sorry and asking God's forgiveness for the sins that you've committed. When you look into the Bible and you see the lifestyle, the commands that God would tell us to live our lives by, the morals that God would tell us to live our lives by.

And when we look at our lives in honesty and see we haven't done that, we tell them we're sorry.

And there should be a genuine, genuine part of us that wants to turn our life around.

Because just saying I'm sorry isn't repentance.

Saying I'm sorry and meaning it and then turning your life around and living it in accordance with the Bible, that's what repentance is.

Repent, Christ said. He told the Jews of his time that thought they were living by every word of God, and he showed them in the Sermon on the Mount and all the other topics that he discussed through his ministry.

They weren't. They had replaced God's commands with their own commands and made those more important at times. And we've done the same thing.

Turn your life around, look at the Bible, and begin living by the example that he set.

If you want the kingdom, if you want what he has to offer, do that.

And he says, believe the gospel. Believe it. Understand that what he said is going to happen really is going to happen.

There may be many people in the world who say, can happen. Our country is bigger than God. Our military is bigger than God. Our economy is bigger than God. It isn't so. What he said will happen will happen. Every word recorded in here, God has the power. He will make it happen, and it's been planned from the foundation of the world. Repent. Turn your life around. Begin living the life that's going to be lived for eternity by those that choose God, and believe what he has to say. Trust him and believe him.

There's many outside today that would say, well, we are doing what God wants us to do.

Christ says in a few places. One of them is here in Luke 6, verse 46, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do the things that I say? Many people call on God.

The words are there, but it's not just about talking the talk. It's about walking the walk as well.

Christ said, it's not enough to just say, Lord, Lord, you have to do the things that I say. If you love me, do the things I say.

In 1 John 5, it says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Live the lifestyle, the morals, the same way Jesus Christ did, the same way that will be in the kingdom.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do the things I say? Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, who actually puts him into practice, I'll show you who he's like.

He's like a man building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock.

And a house like that is pretty good when the winds come to blow in Florida, isn't it?

When the winds come to blow and the hurricanes come, we wish we could have our house foundation a lot farther down in the ground than what it is.

Build it on solid rock, and that rock is Jesus Christ. And that rock is the law of his kingdom.

And you live it with the Holy Spirit that he gives.

Let's turn over to 1 John. It popped up on the screen, but let's read a few verses in 1 John 2.

Let's begin with verse 3.

Of course, this is the Apostle John who walked with Christ during his ministry, the one whom the Bible says was close to Christ.

He knew what he was about. He knew what he believed. He knew what he behaved, how he acted, the things that he worked, as he walked with him for three and a half years. That Apostle John says in 1 John 2.3, Now by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments, if we live by the same standards and morals that he lived by.

He who says, I know him and doesn't keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth isn't in him.

But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

As you keep his word, God will develop the love in you as you go through your life.

By this, as we keep his word and the love of God is perfected in us, we know that we are in him.

He who says, he abides in him, ought himself also to walk just as Christ walked.

Makes it pretty clear.

Peter makes it pretty clear as well.

For to this you were called, because Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps.

Not the steps of man's interpretation of how he walked, but following in his steps, the very steps that are recorded in the Bible.

By the same words that he said, by the same principles that he gave his people to live for, or live by, and his church from the time until his return, and the time that will be there, and the way that mankind will live for eternity.

Do you want what Christ is offering? There is no gift. Greater. There's nothing in this earth that compares to it.

You can't name an amount of money. You can't come up with a number of houses. You can't come up with any position or title or anything else.

But if you want what God is offering, which is eternity, and to work with him and his kingdom, it says in Revelation, blessed is he who reads and hears, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it.

But the time is near. The time is near. The time is right for you to be called.

We could say the same words that Christ said back then, the kingdom of God is near. And it certainly is near. I'm not going to take much time. I'm going to put one more slide up there. You can write down Daniel 12, and you can read in Daniel 12, how at the time of the end, people will run to and fro.

Knowledge will be increased. And certainly as we look at our society around us today, there's never been a time in history where people can go to places all over the world.

It's nothing to say that you go over to Europe, South America, or whatever. It's a matter of hopping on a plane and being there.

And you know just by living your life that knowledge is increased at a pace that is unheard of ever in the time of history. It multiplies. I forget the statistics. You could repeat them back to me.

How fast our knowledge in every area is increasing. Daniel said, that will happen at the time of the end. Go and seal up the books, he said, until the time of the end. People will run to and fro, and knowledge will be increased. And Christ, in Matthew 24, in his Olivet prophecy, detailed the things that would be happening at the end of the age before his return.

He talked about four horsemen who would ride across the landscape. Those four horsemen have been riding for some time. He talked about false prophets who would come in his name and say things that he didn't say and pass them off as his.

Let's turn over to Matthew 24 for just a second, if you'll bear with me for another minute or two. In this prophecy, when the disciples asked him, what will be the signs of your coming? How well will you know when it is near? And he tells them all these things, leading up to verse 11. Many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. They'll say things that Christ said that he didn't say. His words are pretty plain in the Bible when you look at them. And because lawlessness will abound, love of many will grow cold. Lawlessness in this society, if we look at it, it's an anything-goes mentality. But he who endures to the end will be saved, and this gospel of the kingdom, the same gospel that Jesus Christ preached, will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come, Christ said. When there's a time when this kingdom, this gospel of the kingdom, can be preached everywhere, the end is very near. People can, in the remotest parts of the world, read Christ's gospel by the Internet today.

They don't need a TV station, they don't need a magazine. They can click on a computer, and they can see the gospel of the kingdom. Never a time like it in history. It's accessible to everyone. You can read down through some verses. Let's go down to verse 32. After Christ talks about these things and the signs that are there, he says, learn this parable from the fig tree. When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know summer is near. When you see these things coming to pass, when you see them happening, summer is near. So you also, he says, when you see these things, know that it's near. At the doors. The time is ripe. The kingdom of God is at hand, or the kingdom of God is near. Verse 36, but of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only. But he says, know this, as the days of Noah were, so will also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they didn't know. Until the flood came and took them all away, so will also the coming of the Son of man be. It may look pretty good out there, but all those buds on the tree will have blossomed. The time will near be near. He says, don't be fooled by it. When you see those buds, know the time is near, and even though if it looks like a time of peace and calm and whatever, read the times and know the time is near. Down to verse 44, 42. Watch therefore, for you don't know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed the house to be broken into two. Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of man is coming in an hour you don't expect. Who then is a faithful and wise servant? Who then has said yes to the calling that God has given them? Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.

Be about God's business. Well, I thank you for coming today. I hope you have heard some things that have made you think. And I hope that you take the calling of God and that you respond to it. In a few minutes here we'll break after we have a closing prayer, but you're all welcome to stay for as long as you like. There's many, several in the church in Jacksonville, God's church in Jacksonville, that are here. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you have. I'll be around for as long as anyone needs. If you have any questions, if you need anything, want anything, or if you want to visit, simply let us know and we'll be happy to do that. I think many of you saw on the way in, there's a number of booklets that are out there on the back table. Feel free to take any of those that you want. I think on the bulletin you have, it has our local church information. If you ever want to join us for Sabbath services, we meet at 10.30 on the Sabbath. And the information is there on the front page of your bulletin. Our local church website is there as well. Within a week or so, this seminar will be online at that website. The prior one is there as well if you want to listen to that. If you prefer to have a CD, just let us know and give us your address, and we'll be happy to mail those to you. We do thank you for coming. Please stick around with us and have some refreshments. I know there's some sandwiches and cookies and coffee and all those good things out there. To close this, we will ask our elder here in the Jacksonville area, Mr. Drexel Shiver, if he'll come forth and ask God's blessing on the food and to close the service.