The Kingdom of God is at Hand, Part 1

What else did Jesus teach? Well, you may know Jesus Christ as your Lord, and your Master, your Teacher, your Savior, your Messiah, or even the high priest who is in the heavens. And those are all correct, and those are all wonderful things. Indeed, Jesus is fulfilling all of those roles. But most importantly, Jesus can personally become your King. You can be preparing for God's Kingdom now. You can become a disciple of Jesus Christ and be preparing to serve in that Kingdom for all eternity. Matthew 13, beginning in verse 44. Jesus said, The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. Treasure is something that you strongly desire. It's something that you want to possess, something of great value and importance to you.

Verse 45, The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and he bought it. So the kingdom of God isn't just limited to the analogy of a treasure. It's like the precious, beautiful pearl that's so valuable that someone sells all they have. They give up everything they have so that they can possess that one pearl of great price. That's how much we should desire the kingdom of God. What else did Jesus teach? Matthew 19, verses 23 and 24. Again, I want you to notice how I mentioned earlier that Matthew uses the terms kingdom of heaven and of God interchangeably. They both mean the same thing.

Jesus said to his disciples, I say unto you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. So we should desire to enter that kingdom because it is so wonderful and so beautiful. And the completion of what God had always intended for mankind is something that we should desire to enter. Verse 24, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. You see that Matthew uses both terms interchangeably, something that we should desire to enter into. Let's go now to Matthew 19, verse 28. Jesus said to them, in the new world, that is the world tomorrow that we look forward to, that we long for, in the new world when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. So Jesus is teaching that I have disciples and my disciples are to be given very special rewards within my kingdom. They will be given rewards of opportunities to serve mankind, to love and serve and teach and mentor, and to give to mankind all the knowledge and the wisdom that they have received about Christ and about God the Father.

Continuing here, verse 29, And everyone, that includes all of us in the audience here today, and everyone who has left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or fathers, or mothers, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, someone who had to give something up in order to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, shall receive a hundredfold whatever it is you have to give up, whether it's a home, or a relationship, or a job, whatever it is, because you're fired because you're Christian beliefs, whatever it is that you have to give up, that you take as a loss, you will receive the blessing a hundredfold for whatever that was, and inherit eternal life.

So we see that Jesus taught wonderful, exciting promises to His disciples who would become part and prepare themselves in this lifetime to preach the Gospel, to be part of that mission, and also to prepare themselves to serve in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God has, like any kingdom, particular requirements, and this is what the Kingdom of God will be composed of. First of all, it will be composed of a government, and that government will be managed, will be governed by a loving, ruling family, God the Father, and Jesus Christ, and the saints, the disciples who were being prepared at this time to be part of the servant government of that family.

Next is territory. That territory will include our Earth, the world, and the entire universe. If you look beyond our Earth, the rest of the planets, even in our own solar system, look like unfinished furniture. Why do they look like pitted, unfinished furniture? Because it's always been part of God's plan that once the Kingdom of God is established on Earth, that all of those planets will also have the blessing of receiving life and will come alive and will be planets of living, growing, abundant life instead of the desolate way that the planets exist in our universe today.

Subjects. The subjects will be mankind. Those who lived through some very difficult, terrible times to come will be those who will become part of mankind that exist into the new world, into the Kingdom of God. So the subjects will be mankind. Those who lived through the very terrible events ahead, and also angels, will be part of the subjects of that Kingdom.

And the system of law will be God's law as revealed in the Word of God and God's way of life, what we say is God's value systems, the things that are important to God and part of His will. So the Kingdom of God, Jesus taught, is a great gift. The Kingdom of God is His greatest gift to humankind. In the Garden of Eden, because of the sin of Adam and Eve, they, representing all of mankind, sinned, of course, and their disobedience cut them off from God.

And the Garden of Eden was lost. And at that time, God said to Adam and Eve, in essence, He said to all of mankind, Okay, you don't want me ruling over you? Well, you go and form your own governments. You go and form your own cultures and societies and see how well that works. And what we've seen through the thousands of years since that's occurred is that we have done a terrible job governing ourselves as the human race. Our history is littered with war after war.

It's littered with pestilence. It's littered with disease. It's littered with famine. It's littered with a small number of wealthy people, but most of the people on earth living in abject poverty. That's been the history of mankind since Adam and Eve sinned. And the Kingdom of God will restore that garden paradise that God originally created in Eden.

As it says in Revelation 2, verse 7, To him whoever comes, I will give to eat from the tree of life. If you remember that story in the Garden of Eden, there were two trees. There was the tree of life, which should have been the tree that they desired, Adam and Eve.

And there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And they decided to take of that tree and sin entered the world. But God, once again, for all mankind, to those who overcome, He's going to give the ability to eat of that tree of life that provides eternal life and a loving relationship with God, continuing which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

And that's what God is doing. He's bringing paradise back. He's returning with the Kingdom of God. Luke 12 and verse 31, But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you. Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. You see, it's been part of God's desire, His plan for thousands and thousands of years, to restore that paradise on this earth.

And it's His pleasure to usher in the kingdom of God. He wants to give it to mankind as a gift. He wants us now, who are understanding, whose eyes are being opened to this message, to become His disciples. It is His good pleasure to call us and to prepare us to be part of that new world. What did the prophets teach? Acts chapter 3 and verse 21. Luke was inspired to write this. But Jesus must stay in heaven, this is after He had ascended to heaven, Jesus must stay in heaven until the time comes when all things will be made right again.

You see, my friends, things were made very wrong when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. But there's going to come a time, and Jesus will stay in heaven until the time when all things will be made right again. God spoke about this time long ago, when He spoke through His holy prophets. And when we look at the Old Testament, we see that the message of the prophets was yearning, longing for the kingdom of God someday being established on this earth.

And the good news is that that kingdom is close, that kingdom is at hand. Daniel chapter 2 and verse 44, we'll take a look at some examples of the prophets. Daniel said, and in the days of those kings, that is, in his prophecy, the kings that would reign, the governing kings of end time history, and in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. So that was the prophecy of Daniel himself. Now, what I want to emphasize here is that in biblical prophecy, mountains and hills are symbols of God.

So what this prophecy is saying is that in the latter days, the government, God's government, will be established above all other governments that have ever existed on this earth. And all people will come and want to learn about God's ways.

Verse 3, many people shall come and say, come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his path. So we get an indication here that we'll see later on that even the very attitude and nature of mankind towards God will be changing, from one of rebellion and animosity to one of desiring to learn more about God's way of life. This will be a time of spiritual awakening for all nations. It's as many people will come and say, let us go up to the government of God, to his house, to Jerusalem, and learn more about this great God that we can serve.

Verse 4, he shall judge between the nations and rebuke many people. They shall beat their swords in the plowshares and their spears in the pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Picture a world where people take metal implements, and instead of making weapons out of them, swords that kill and butcher other human beings, that they take those metals and they make plows, and they make things for the benefit of mankind, and it creates food, and it creates abundance and prosperity for all human beings, instead of man trying to kill other human beings with weapons of war.

And notice, neither shall they learn war anymore. When we come into this world as little children, as small babes, our minds are neutral. We had to be taught to hate other people. We had to learn how to hate other people. But in contrast to the world that we live in today, the people at this time will not learn to hate. They will not learn about war anymore. It will be a concept that will be foreign to them. It will be a time of true world peace and re-education, because those people who live through some very terrible times ahead, who live into that world, will have to learn things new.

They'll have to be re-educated, because they'll have come out of our present evil age, and they will have to learn about God's way. So there will be some re-education that will be needed. But before these things happen, I must be very frank with you and tell you that God prophesies some trouble ahead for this world today. Daniel 12 and verse 1, he says, at that time, and that's a code phrase for meaning the end time, the time of our age, at that time shall arise Michael the great prince, who has charge of your people, and there shall be a time of trouble.

Such has never been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered. Everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. So Daniel the prophet says that at the end time there will be a time of trouble, a time of severe trouble that will affect every nation on earth at that time. Matthew chapter 24 and verse 21, because at that time Jesus said there will be much trouble.

There will be more trouble than there has ever been since the beginning of the world until now, and nothing as bad will ever happen again. Now, biblically these are known as the great tribulation and the day of the Lord. But we'll be covering that in future seminars, not particularly in detail today, because we wanted to give an overview of the kingdom of God and emphasize the good news about this kingdom. But we must be aware that God prophesied some very troubled times ahead for this world and for the United States.

Again, biblical code for the end time are these kind of phrases that you'll often see in the prophets and phrases that Jesus himself and the disciples make in their writings. Phrases like, at that time, or in the latter days, or in the last days, or at the time of the end. These are code phrases from the Bible, meaning the very times that we live in today near the conclusion of mankind's rule over himself.

Matthew 24, verse 22. God has decided to make that terrible time short. Otherwise, no one would go on living. But God will make that time short to help the people He has chosen. That comes from the New Century version. And basically, what the Scripture is saying is if God does not intervene and stop the events of this troubled time that are just ahead for this world, humankind would destroy itself from off the planet. Mankind has never created a weapon that he has not used on himself.

Mankind created biological weapons. It was used in World War I. It was used recently in Iraq by Saddam Hussein against his very own people. Mankind invented nuclear weapons. It was used against the nation of Japan. Of course, we know that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. North Korea, two nations that are not very friendly towards the United States or the rest of the world, are developing nuclear weapons. Some very terrible events are coming upon mankind soon. And if God does not literally send Jesus Christ and intervene and stop mankind from destroying himself, we would obliterate everything on this planet.

Chapter 24, verse 6, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. You will hear about wars and rumors, and you will see a world that is very sick. A world that is very distressed. And sure enough, what do we see in our world today? Well, we've recently experienced what's known as the Moslem Spring, which were a series of civil wars, a nation after nation, in which people are tired of being controlled by dictators and are throwing off the governments in their nations.

What kind of governments will replace them in Egypt, in Libya? We really don't know. They could be governments that are even worse than the ones that were there before. But we see a nation after nation in the Islamic world a series of civil wars. Again, we see Iran and North Korea now developing nuclear weapons, and they are unfriendly nations.

We see a war that's known as the Mexican Drug War. Do you realize there have been 40,000 fatalities through the Mexican Drug War? Now, if we had a military war in which 40,000 people died, that would be front-page news, wouldn't it today? But yet, we rarely hear about this Mexican Drug War that now has left Mexico and come up and is affecting the southeastern part of the United States, including Texas, that is causing the death of many innocent people. And of course, we have the ongoing continual Israel and Palestinian conflict between two peoples who have been awarded with each other for thousands of years.

Verse 7, For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places. And what do we see in our world today? We see that presently 25% of the United States needs rain desperately, especially the state of Texas. It has dramatically affected many crops in our nation, and food prices are rising because of the drought that is existing in these states. In March of 2011, an earthquake, a very severe earthquake, hit Japan, and there is a nuclear plant crisis.

They don't know what to do with all the radioactive water that has escaped inside of those plants. They don't know how to contain it because if it leaks out, it can kill millions of people. There have been recent floods in Missouri. A hurricane came up the eastern coast, of which we're receiving some of the water from Hurricane Lee today. The United Nations says that 500 million people live in a state of, quote, absolute poverty. 500 million people. They report that 1 billion people on Earth live on less than $1 a day.

What kind of life can you have on living on $1 a day? Can you educate your children? Can you feed your family adequately? Can you have hope for the future in this world if you're living on $1 a day? The United Nations reports that every year 15 million children die, the slow, torturous death of hunger.

That's the world that we live in today. Jesus said that there would continue to be times until the end that we would hear of famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places.

Verses 11 and 12. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow old. We had an individual a few months ago named Harold Camping who predicted that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011. Jesus did not return. He is a false prophet. Now he has changed his date until October. And I can boldly tell you that Jesus Christ will not return this October. Recently another individual named Warren Jeffs who identifies himself as a prophet was convicted of having inappropriate relations with young girls that he termed spiritual marriages. And he's now spending prison time as he proclaims to be a prophet of God. And we'll see more of that coming in the future. We love growing cold in our own beloved Cleveland. And I grew up in the east side of the city of Cleveland, so I have a very affectionate relationship with the city. Anthony Soule, we've all read about him. I believe it was eight women that he murdered, or at least their bodies were found on his property. Certainly just unbelievable, disgusting people in our world today who are harming so many others. Flash riots, you may have heard that phrase, that's a new thing where young people text each other and say, let's meet at a certain place at a certain time in a half hour and let's cause problems and difficulties and have a riot somewhere. And also, of course, the greed and the worldwide financial crisis. A lot of people are struggling because of their finances, they've lost their jobs, they've lost their homes.

A lot of employers who are making good money, who have good incomes, are still sending jobs overseas and affecting Americans because they're greedy. Because it's never enough. The amount of money they make never satisfies them. It's never enough. And if thousands upon thousands of Americans lose their jobs, they don't care. They've become greedy and self-absorbed because the love of many has grown cold.

Almost every day goes by and you hear of some suicide bombing somewhere in the world. An individual straps on a bomb and they walk into sometimes even a religious sanctuary, a mosque or a church or someplace and they blow themselves up. And many innocent people just in there trying to worship God in their own way. And we find that this is continuing to happen throughout our world today because the love of many is growing cold.

So what's the duty of the faithful? If we understand that we need the kingdom of God, if we understand that this world needs the kingdom of God, what can we do? Well, Jesus said in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 13, But he who endures to the end shall be saved. That's the kind of person that will enter the kingdom of God. What did he mean by that? Well, endurance is spiritual strength. It's not physical strength. It is a spiritual strength. It comes from Jesus Christ who himself is the source of all strength. And God is willing to give his disciples, his called out, his chosen a very special gift to help them. He gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit, which gives his people the ability to have added endurance and spiritual strength, allows them to grow and to achieve things in their own lives that they could have never achieved themselves. Also, endurance is spiritual strength because it comes from strengthening by fellowshipping with those who have the same understanding. It's strengthening by seeking the kingdom of God first in our lives, having our priorities of living right and waking up every morning and saying, Father, I want to do your will, your will, not mine, be done. So it's he who endures into the end is the one who will be saved, not one who abandons their faith, who believes and accepts Jesus Christ as their Savior and wants to be a disciple for a week or a month or part of their lives. No, it's that person who sticks with it, who endures throughout their entire lifetime and desires to be a faithful, growing disciple is the one who will be saved.

Matthew 24, verse 14, and this gospel, this good news of the kingdom, will be preached in all the worlds, the witness to all nations, and then the end will come. So the job of the faithful is to work together in a spirit of unity and harmony, to preach the good news to this world, to let them know that there is a better world coming. And that world has a king, and that king is Jesus Christ. And the faithful pool together, their emotional and financial and physical resources, and they fellowship together because they know that this was the commandment of Jesus for His faithful disciples. To preach the gospel in all the world as a witness to all nations before the end would come. And this is the very reason why we published the Good News magazine, over 30 informative booklets, Bible study courses, vertical thought youth magazine, the Beyond the Day television program, and public seminars like we're having today, because the faithful have a commitment everywhere they can to preach that good news to the world.

The second seminar that we will be addressing soon will be, Why the World Needs the Kingdom of God. We'll be having a 10-minute break before we begin the second seminar, but before we do that today, we're very pleased to have a special musical presentation. I've had the good pleasure of knowing Mark and Theogram since 1977, when my wife and I were sophomores at college, and Mark was a teaching assistant. Mark is an internationally recognized composer of religious hymns. His hymns are also in our own hymnal in the United Church of God. He's published his own hymnal, and his hymns are sung by many people throughout the world. I'm very pleased to present to you Mark Graham, who will be performing a song entitled, A Song in the Night. Then we'll have a 10-minute break, and we'll come back for the second session.

We live in a world that grows darker each day, the storm clouds roll in, the sun fades away, but for those God has called, there's work to be done, before the bright light of his kingdom will come. Like a song in the night, the good news must be, let it fly, or the earth let it sail, or the sea, till the whole world is heard of the soon-coming king. A song in the night will sing, a song in the night will sing. Though the warfare is fierce, though the battle seems lost, to be part of God's plan is worth any cost, and in every land, lying under the sun, through children of clay, God's great work shall be done. Like a song in the night, the good news must be, let it fly, or the earth let it sail, or the sea, till the whole world is heard of the soon-coming king. A song in the night will sing, a song in the night will sing.

So lift up your heart, and lift up your voice, let the feeble grow strong, let the weary rejoice. In the darkest of hours, there's a song to be sung, till the day when God's kingdom has finally come. Like a song in the night, the good news must be, let it fly, or the earth let it sail, or the sea, till the whole world is heard of the soon-coming king. A song in the night will sing, a song in the night will sing.