One Second After Christ Returns

This week, I read a book. As you know, I read a lot of books, and I was handed a book by Scott Ashley a few weeks ago, one of our fellow council members and managing editor of The Good News.

He said you might be interested in this. It's a fictional work. It's called One Second After.

It's a fictional work, but it's based on a scenario of a very real possibility. It's one of these post-apocalyptic type books that – and it was a very depressing book. You wonder, well, why read a depressing book? And I thought, yeah, that's a very good question. Because by the time I got to the end of it, which I started it, I had to get to the end of it. But because I was familiar with the topic and wanted to see how they treated it, I did push on through it. It essentially tells the story of what life would be like one second after the detonation of a nuclear blast in the upper atmosphere above the United States that would not kill people but would essentially knock out all of the electronic infrastructure of the United States.

From coast to coast, everything electronic would be fried. It's called electromagnetic pulse. It is a very real possibility. It can happen. I've read government studies and reports by scientists that say that by the configuring of a nuclear weapon, set off 100 miles in the upper atmosphere, lying aside across the country, two or three of them, that would create a nuclear blast and essentially a very powerful pulse that instantly would fry every electronic circuit. The entire electric grid would go out. Cars would stop in their tracks because our cars today are run on computer.

Trains would stop. Theoretically, airplanes would fall out of the sky because their electronic circuitry would be fried as well. Essentially, what would happen is we would revert to an early 1800-type culture and society in one second, just like that. And it's a very real possibility. Should China, North Korea, Iran, or some other country decide or work it out, it is a very real threat. This told the story of what happened in one community in the hills of North Carolina, a small town, and how things progressed through a family in the small community over a period of several months up to a year.

And it's a very, very disturbing picture. I won't go into all the details, but if you could imagine nursing homes, hospitals, people beginning to die because of life support. Medication would run out. There's no communication. You cannot talk with your next-door neighbor. You cannot talk with the state, the city next door, except by going there. Just imagine 1825, and we're not ready for that. It's a very disturbing situation, very real scary possibility. Now, that's not my topic today, but I think we all recognize the world is full of a lot of bad news and real possibilities when we focus on it. And we don't go around focusing on it all the time, nor should we in one sense.

However, there are realities that are there. This week I was talking with a member who came for some counseling, and this individual was having some difficulty dealing with stress and just needed to talk it through. And we got to talking about the stress they're encountering in their life, in different areas of their life, and creating a great deal of anxiety. And in the course of the conversation, we all, you know, every one of us has stress coming from whatever source on the job, in the families, looking at the world, in the church. Stress comes at us from all different sides at times.

In talking with this individual, they mentioned that they, how they have begun to be affected even by listening to the news on their television and the radio, and how depressing it was. And in particular, we, and I said, yeah, I know, I've stopped watching a lot of news on television, especially a lot of talk news in the chatter on cable. And we both commiserated that we basically stopped watching Fox News.

Now, I know for some who watch Fox News, really thinking that that is God's channel, that may seem blasphemous. But I didn't consciously do this, but several months ago, I just stopped watching it on a regular basis. Now, occasionally, I will catch Fox News Sunday morning or a 6 p.m. newscast, but I stopped watching all the chatter that endlessly goes on.

It was so negative. And I found the stress levels creeping up on me, and I found my attitude. I didn't like what I was, how I was beginning to think, because there's a lot of negativity. And even if you agree philosophically with some of the positions of Sean Hannity or some other individual, just to mention one, the approach, the attitude, the constant attack, begins to, after a while, at least to me and to this individual, realize, I had to turn it off, because it just was raising the stress levels. I believe, and as I shared with this individual, I believe 10 years of this cable news, talk radio, and just looking at a 10-year period, I think it has severely damaged our approach to life. That's my personal opinion. And I say that just as a personal reflection that I've had to stop and back away from, because I've found that it infiltrates your thinking. I've found that it even infiltrates the way we think within God's church.

And it has been very disturbing for me to reflect over the state of the church and the state of the world, and how sometimes, as they often do, they mirror each other. And the negativity, and the stress, and the approaches seem to be coming, you know, from the same direction, and rather than us having the perspective that the Bible teaches about, as Joel was even mentioning, toward authority, toward individuals in responsibility, or toward one another, rather than this being our perspective so much because of the hours we may spend listening to a particular political or philosophical point of view from the media, we begin to take that on, and even think that it's godly. I mean, I've even had some people tell me that so-and-so on Fox News is preaching the gospel.

And I think, what did you just say? You may agree philosophically on certain points, but they're not preaching the gospel. I mean, I've had members say that.

That's another subject altogether, but I just reflect how this things. And all of this, my reading a very depressing book, and even counseling with a member who was just feeling the stress of life as a whole, encroaching and creating anxiety, illustrates very forcefully the need for all of us to be sure we are grounded from the perspective of the one source of good news that is available to us, and to be thoroughly grounded in that good news, which is the gospel of the kingdom of God, which is at the heart and core of the Bible's message and of our mission in the church. This week, tomorrow morning, we begin a nationwide broadcast of our Beyond Today program on WGN television at 8 30 a.m. Eastern time. And as we have told you, that is going to give us nationwide coverage through cable television in the United States. We've already had that in Canada, of our program and an exposure of the church and its message to hundreds of thousands, millions of people. Now, we should remind ourselves that we will be preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. We will be doing it in a way that is going to a broad, mass audience, not necessarily you and I, but to an audience that is making a first contact, a very broad audience, and in the manner and in the way that Mr. Armstrong did, in terms of trying to reach the mind of the mass audience with the message of the kingdom of God. We should remind ourselves, brethren, I think of the depth of that message, of the kingdom of God, the centrality of that message within the Old Testament, within Jesus Christ's preaching, and that of the New Testament church and our goal today. Why? Because the core of our mission as a church is there.

Everything we do flows from that core message of the gospel of the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ as its head. And we need to be sure that our focus is on that sure hope of the kingdom of God. It's our anchor of knowledge in a world that is very dangerously adrift, and a very dangerous world, and is hostile to that knowledge. Our anchor is in that message and all of its fullness, all of its ramifications. And there's a need for us to just always be sure that we are thinking of that, focused on that, anchored in that, and grounded in that, because that is the central message of God for this world. In Mark chapter 1 and verse 14, I'd like to just take us through a number of scriptures to remind us of that this morning. Mark chapter 1.

In verse 14, we find at the beginning of Jesus's ministry where John was put in prison, he came to Galilee, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel. His message was a message of change. Change your life and believe in this message. The time is fulfilled.

This is the message that Jesus Christ came to give. In Matthew chapter 4, Matthew 4th chapter.

Verse 17, From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And in verse 23, he went about all of Galilee preaching or teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. This was his message. He was announcing it. He was explaining the various ramifications. And he says, he was healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. He would lay hands upon them. He would heal the sick. And so there was physical healing. But also you can understand that in the process of people hearing this message of the kingdom, there was also a spiritual healing that was taking place.

As they began to understand the message of a new world, of a new way of living, and the hope that it offered, and that way of life. And so this was again what he did. Luke 8.

Verse 1, Now it came to pass afterward that he went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, and the twelve were with him, his disciples.

This message of the kingdom was at the heart and core of Christ's teaching from his very beginning, and we see it throughout the Gospels. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John use the term kingdom of God in 53 different occasions. It's very clearly laid out as part of what he came and what he taught, and what he passed on for his disciples to teach as well and to preach. Here in Luke, in chapter 9, we find in verse 1 that he called his twelve disciples together, and he gave them power and authority over all the demons and to cure diseases, and he instructed them to take this message and to go out and to proclaim it, and they did.

In verse 2, he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. This is what he charged his disciples to do, to show the power of that kingdom. He gave that to them, and again, the healing was in a physical, miraculous sense as well as in a spiritual sense. In chapter 10 here of Luke, verse 1, after these things, the Lord appointed seventy others also, and at a short period of time for a mission, he took seventy others of the disciples, sent them out two by two before his face into every city in a place where he himself was about to go in advance of what he was doing, and in verse 9 we are told that he instructed them to heal the sick and say to them the kingdom of God has come near to you. That phrase, come near to you, certainly speaks to the reality of, through Jesus as the Son of God come in the flesh as a fully human being, yet fully God as well at the same time bringing that message of the kingdom. And it was there in his person, because he was the head of that kingdom, and he was also there delivering his message and the impact of it as it had come near. Anytime a person comes in contact with the message of the gospel, the truth of God, the scriptures, and they begin to respond to it. They begin to understand that message of a coming kingdom. They begin to understand of a way of life to live, to treat one another. That kingdom, in a sense, has come near to them in the reality of that message. It's not coming the fullness of the reality of Christ's return, the establishment of it over the earth as this other prophecies and scriptures show. But to the degree you and I have responded in our lives and it has impacted our life, the kingdom has come near to us. We've invited it into our life. We live by it. We teach it. We model it to the best that we can. And that is how that scripture applies and how it is fulfilled. Certainly in the time of Christ, even in a more direct sense, as the Son of God, it had come near to them and meant it there. But wherever that gospel has gone in the intervening period of time, it has come near to people. Their lives have been changed by the knowledge of that kingdom, its preaching and its teaching. In Matthew 5, in this very well-known sermon on the Mount, the kingdom of God, that message, was the theme of Christ's teaching in his ministry. He pointed people to the kingdom. In verse 3 of Matthew 5, as we know, he said, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Same kingdom, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, used interchangeably there. But to have that attitude of being poor in spirit is to be in the attitude and the frame of mind of a citizen of the kingdom of God. The sermon on the Mount has sometimes been called the constitution of the kingdom of God, the bylaws, if you will, the point-by-point framework and plan of citizenship, explaining citizenship within the kingdom of God. And he says here in regard to that, in verse 10, he said, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And so that is brought out there as well.

In verse 19, he shows the impact of living by the laws and obeying the laws of that kingdom.

He said, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches them so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever does and teaches them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Verse 20, for I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

And so Christ here emphasized in just one passage, others could be cited, the importance of obeying the law, which is again at the heart of the framework of the kingdom of God, the law of God.

In chapter 7 of Matthew, in verse 21, he said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.

And here he begins to show, you know, since to refine the attitude of one who will be in the kingdom, the attitude of one who is submissive to God's will, who is willing to give their life up in one sense and be submissive to the complete will of God. Some would say that, and he's pointing out here that some have that frame of mind and feel that they are. And he says, just by perhaps giving lip service to it, you know, not everyone who says to me, Lord, or claims the name of Lord, it takes more than just claiming the name of the Lord or professing the name of the Lord to enter the kingdom of heaven. And whether you're talking about ultimately entering it at the time of the resurrection or allowing it to be a part of your life and preparing you in advance of that kingdom now, it takes more than just lip service. It takes a submission of our will to the will of God to be able to be a part of that kingdom. We all know Matthew 6 and verse 10, where he instructed us to pray, thy kingdom come.

Matthew 6 and verse 10, he says, as he instructed us to pray, he said, our Father in heaven, how will be your name? Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And then in verse 33, God's people are to also seek first the kingdom of God as a top priority in life, to seek it, to keep moving day by day, month by month, year by year, through the seasons of our life toward that kingdom, knowing that it is coming and it will come with his return.

We all know, without turning to them, the multiple parables in Matthew 13, parable of the sower and the seed for one, the parable of the steward, like in Luke 19, Matthew chapter 20, Matthew 22, Matthew 25, many, many parables he gave to illustrate various aspects of the kingdom and what it would be and how it would be accomplished, who would be in that kingdom.

Various aspects are illustrated by the multiple parables that he gave to sometimes hide from the multitudes of full understanding while giving explanation to his disciples, his closest disciples, but all to illustrate various aspects of the kingdom.

In the evening before he died, when he changed the symbols of the Passover, he said, you will recall that he had longed to take that meal with his disciples because I will not take it again with you until we will be with you in my father's kingdom. In Matthew 26, he mentions that.

And so he pointed again to the future aspect of the kingdom. And in the book of Acts, we can turn there to chapter 1. Acts 1.

After his death and resurrection, in that period where he appeared multiple times to his disciples before his final ascension to the Father, we are told here in verse 3 that he presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs being seen by them during 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. So even after his death and resurrection, and what could be described almost like a, for his disciples, the ones that were there left in the apostles, a graduate or a post-graduate symposium of instruction during this period of time where he appeared to them. And I often read this verse and thought, man, what teaching must he have given to them in that period of time? How deep and much deeper were the instructions regarding the kingdom of God that he gave at this time? How powerful that must have been?

And while they are not necessarily recorded here by Luke, I think we could, you know, as we read what they taught through the book of Acts, through the epistles, James and Peter, John, we can get a glimpse of some of the deeper things he must have revealed and taught them at that time that then were magnified and brought forth when they had the Holy Spirit fully after the day of Pentecost. And they went about their life's mission of preaching the gospel in the various places to which they were sent. And we read about that message and what they did. Because, as we know, they were given that commission to take the gospel, the message of the kingdom, after that period of time, take it, to preach it, and to provide for it. Now, you can turn to Acts 2, and I think you can begin to see how that message of the gospel began to be magnified and unfolded. In chapter 2 of Acts, we find that the sermon Peter gives on Pentecost.

And just looking at parts of it, we can begin to see what he focused on. And as he began to deepen that message, in verse 22, he said to the audience there, men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man, attested by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you've taken by lawless hands of crucified and put to death, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. Here in three verses, in one sense, Peter kind of summarizes the life, sacrifice, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is a vital part of the message of the gospel, a very important part of the message of the gospel as well. We will not enter the kingdom of God, except through Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. We have no relationship with God. We have no forgiveness of sins, except by that sacrifice. He makes intercession for us today as our high priest and as our elder brother, because he is the living head of the church. He is the door, as he said. And so, again, in three verses, Peter, here in this sermon, speaks of the life, sacrifice, and his resurrection on this day when the church began with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In 2 Peter 1, we see some of the broader concepts brought out as well. 2 Peter 1. And, again, just thinking back to what we read there in Acts 1.3 of a kind of a postgraduate symposium of those during that period of 40 days when Jesus appeared and spoke to them of things pertaining to the kingdom of God and what then came through in the subsequent work that they did. We could turn here in 2 Peter chapter 1 and in verse 10, read something and perhaps learn a little bit about that where Peter writes, Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.

So we have a responsibility to make our calling and election sure. Brethren, I think as we all realize it, that is a lifetime endeavor. God calls us. We are part of His elect. We have that special relationship that He gives to His people as adopted sons grafted onto the family in that sense. A calling and we have to make it sure. And there are times when that will be in jeopardy as we go through trials or as we may falter, as we may sin. And we have to be diligent, He says, to make that calling and election sure so that again, knowing that if we do those things, we will never stumble. For so, in verse 11, an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So Peter speaks of some of the broader concepts of the kingdom of God in this section here. During his ministry, sums it up near the end of his ministry and again, perhaps reflecting some of the teaching that was there during that period after the resurrection before the final ascension.

What about the Apostle Paul? You know, the book of Acts records much of the work of the Apostle Paul as one of the other apostles.

He raised up many congregations in various cities. And what was his message? What was he teaching? Well, let's go back to Acts 14 and look. Acts 14. And verse 22. Let's start in verse 21 to get the flow.

When they had preached the gospel to that city and made many a disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying, we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.

We will enter the kingdom, but it will not be before we've gone through many trials and experiences. But again, echoing Peter, we have to make our calling and election sure to enter into that kingdom. This was, again, at the heart of the core of what Paul taught in Acts 19. In verse 8, He went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. Three months, teaching.

Persuading, teaching. And if he's in a synagogue, you know that he was rolling out scrolls of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, the various Old Testament, what we call the Old Testament scrolls. That was their Bible in the synagogue. And out of that, he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God. Really, think about what that is saying, because this was what Paul was preaching from in a synagogue of the Jews here. Out of the only scriptures they had, they didn't have the gospels there. They didn't have any of his writings. All they had were the writings that we call the Old Testament. So he went through them book by book, passage by passage. Micah, Hosea, Amos, and the other prophets talking about the kingdom of God, showing what those scriptures really did mean.

That Christ was the Messiah. That he came to inaugurate that kingdom through the church, and began to preach it. And that those Jews there, as well as ultimately the Gentiles by this time, could become a part of the church, become a part of the elect, and begin to live by the teachings, the laws, the way of the kingdom of God. This is what he did.

Paul taught the kingdom of God wherever he went. It was his heart and soul and his ministry.

He taught the things relating to the kingdom of God, and he looked at himself and his companions as fellow workers for the kingdom of God. He mentions that in Colossians 4 verse 11.

He said, we are all fellow workers for the kingdom of God. And that's what we are all are even to this day. Fellow workers. As we believe in the coming kingdom, as we live today to the best of our ability by the precepts, the teachings of that coming kingdom, as we model it, talk about it wherever we have opportunity, as not only lights, and you look around, I understand we have new lights here in the room here today. They're not humming and buzzing like they used to, which is really what a light should be, right? A light should be not giving off a lot of noise. That annoying sound. But it should give light.

And we're also told that as lights, we should be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us when we have opportunity, when we may be asked, or when there's an appropriate time to do that. Not that we go door to door. Not that we make ourselves annoying with people by just preaching religion to them when they're not interested, when they're not ready, when they don't want to hear it. But when there's an appropriate time to speak, and certainly then in an overall sense, as we are part of the collective body and work of the church, we are all fellow workers. For the kingdom of God, we're ambassadors for Christ, for that kingdom.

If we really would believe that, and I know you do, I could go down row by row, individual by individual here, and ask you, do you really believe in the kingdom? Do you believe it's coming? Yes, sir. Yes. We all do that, and we all do. But I think we all should also realize deep inside is where the real belief hits home, because that's what drives our mood, our emotions, and certainly our actions and our whole lives. And it's there. Sometimes it gets submerged by the stresses of life, and we panic, or we get caught up in the poles of the flesh at times, and it's still there, but we're distracted. Or sometimes our behavior just doesn't really model a citizen of the kingdom of God. What I'm saying is that when we really believe it, and we really believe it, I mean, we really believe it, then we know that we're all in this together.

As fellow workers for the kingdom of God. At the end of the book of Acts, there's always, there's a scripture I've always appreciated the way the book of Acts ends.

Chapter 28, Paul is in Rome under house arrest. And people come to him, verse 23.

When they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning till evening.

Do you know that there are more prophecies of Christ's first coming than there are of his second coming from the Old Testament?

Multiple, multiple prophecies from the Old Testament about his first coming.

And so when it says here that he persuaded from the law of Moses and the prophets concerning Jesus, that's what he did. He preached the gospel from the Old Testament to those that came from morning till evening. Verse 30 tells us that he did this for two whole years, in his own rented house, received them all who came, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him. Preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of that kingdom, the one who is going to bring it and inaugurate it over all the world.

Those who followed Christ's footsteps, Peter, Paul, James John, all the apostles and all true ministers of the church from that day forward have taught that message that he taught, that Christ taught. That is testified from the apostles' letters and what we know from the early church and makes it very clear that they taught about the kingdom of God. In my studies of early church history, that period beyond the Bible in the late first, second, late first century into the second, third, fourth century, those whom we can identify with any semblance of certainty of being a remnant of this church of the book of Acts, a group here, a minister there, where we find them preaching of the kingdom of God and of its literal coming to the earth, we find evidence and bits and pieces of that through history. And one of the reasons that we can feel an affinity with them, if not a certainty that they are a part of the church, is because they are labeled by historians as heretics, especially if they preach the idea of a coming millennial reign of Jesus Christ. Because by the fourth century, that was completely overturned in any teaching of what was the church at that time. Not the church of God, but the Gentile church that became something completely different from what Jesus founded. Because the idea that eventually became accepted that the kingdom of God was now on the earth through the church. And any idea of a coming kingdom with Christ as the head, beginning with a thousand-year reign and rule and spreading throughout the world and ultimately the universe as the scriptures do show, were dismissed as allegory. And the church became the kingdom on earth.

That's another story, but that is not the true gospel. That is not the gospel of the kingdom of God.

As we've seen here, Christ introduced the gospel in his ministry. Paul preached it. And as we've seen here in the book of Acts, Paul preaches the gospel from the Old Testament. And that tells us a number of things that you can go to the Old Testament, you can preach the gospel out of it, you don't would not always have to go to the gospels and the epistles. That's because the gospel is older, if you will, than this period of the New Testament early period. The gospel is called, in Revelation chapter 14, it is called the everlasting gospel. The everlasting gospel.

Revelation 14 and verse 6, where we find this vision in John of an angel flying through the heavens at the time of the end, carrying the message of the everlasting gospel.

And which tells us that the gospel is not bound by time, it's not bound by a particular epic, such as the first century or our century. It has always been a part of God's purpose and God's plan. And certainly in the Old Testament period, the gospel was preached to them.

It's interesting, if you would, turn over to Hebrews chapter 3 and 4.

Hebrews chapter 3, toward the end of chapter 3 of Hebrews, he tells and shows how Israel's unbelief and fate caused them to die in the wilderness. They did not enter the Promised Land.

Let me get to Ephesians. I did a Joel Wharton. I was in a different book here.

Hebrews chapter 4. Okay. Hebrews chapter 4.

And he says in verse 2, For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them, them being those in the Old Testament, and the Israelites especially, who did not enter into the Promised Land of the latter part of chapter 3. The gospel was preached to them as well as to us as well as to them, but the word did not mix, they heard, did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

That's what it says. Just to read what it says, the gospel was preached to us as well as to them.

It's a gospel that is an everlasting gospel. They had the gospel preached to them, but they didn't understand it. Now, they didn't understand it for a number of reasons. What we don't need to go into completely was not mixed with faith. They didn't have God's Spirit.

There will be a time when they will, as Romans, the book of Romans shows, they will have the full opportunity to hear and to understand and respond to that gospel. That time is coming.

That is in the future. But the kingdom of God was proclaimed by God's servants even before Christ's ministry. You can look at several Psalms and see prophetically into the kingdom of God through that. The book of Daniel shows us that Daniel was given insight into the coming kingdom of God in chapter 7 of Daniel. In verse 27, we read where he had this vision of the future, Daniel 7, and verse 27. And he says, Then the sovereignty, power, and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom.

You know, the world that that prophecy, as well as all of Christ's teaching about the kingdom, that world is yet to come. It is summed up in what we read in the book of Micah. Let's just turn quickly to the book of Micah. Chapter 4, well-known verse to us.

Micah chapter 4.

And verse 3, this one verse in a sense summarizes that coming kingdom, where it says that he shall judge between many peoples and rebuke strong nations afar off. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

But everyone shall set under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

That's the vision. Micah paints it, comes out of the book of Isaiah, found in the book of Isaiah as well. They will learn war no more.

Whenever the gospel of the kingdom has been preached, it is toward this end, toward this vision, toward this goal, to make it live within the minds of the people.

The wonderful world tomorrow, the coming kingdom of God. We go to the Feast of Tabernacles every year to get a foretaste, to vision that. This is at the heart and core of the message of the gospel. It is toward this end, a time not yet here, but will be brought in Christ's own time. In a sense, I told you the book that I read this week, the very depression that I read the very depressing book called One Second After.

Well, God's people read this book, and prophecies such as this in Micah, and live and dedicate their lives to the message, to hope, and to the preaching, and to the work of the gospel of the kingdom of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because we believe that that is the world that will come one second after Jesus returns.

You see, the world is a very scary place, and people who write very realistic scenarios like this and make them into movies. In the last five, six, eight years, there have been a number of different movies made. I haven't seen them. I've read about them. They're called post-apocalyptic movies where the world has been destroyed or a part of it, and there are only a few survivors left. You've seen them. You've read about them, and they paint a very bleak picture, very, very bleak picture. New York is destroyed by a tsunami, all of this.

And there's always a fascination. There's always a market for that, by either a book or a movie of that nature, and they're depressing. I've read from a point of view that mankind is evil, mankind is bad, he'll destroy this earth, and there's no hope.

We read the Bible, and we read some very scary things true, but we also read it within the context of the Gospel of the Kingdom, so that we know that one second after Jesus returns, this world will begin to develop. That won't happen overnight. As we can see, get glimpses and pieces of it, it will be rebuilt along a different line. That's why when I put down a book like what I read, I say, man, I'm sure glad we have a very, very, very, very, very have some hope. I'm sure glad we have some hope, that it's not going to end like that.

Now, as I said, when God's Church preaches the Gospel of the Kingdom, it's toward this end, to make it live within the minds of people. That's what we are to do.

God will add whom he will, as that work is done. Romans chapter 10 says that that Gospel has to go out. People have to, they cannot hear unless someone goes or is sent, and that message goes out.

And so that's what we do as we preach the Gospel and endeavor with our limited resources and our size and all to reach as many people in the most effective way as we possibly can and continually test in our media to find the most effective means of reaching people with the news of the Gospel.

That's why we are taking this step of broadcast television to augment all of our other efforts with the media at this point, and that's why we should pray for its success, the ability to do so.

Because this vision lives within us, to fill us with a desire to make it available to as many as possible. So, brethren, pray for the success of the Gospel, going to the lives of people.

Pray that they will hear. Pray that they will respond. Pray that they will have the ability to grasp that there is a message of hope, that God's Spirit, as it causes that seed to be sown, will draw them deeper into an understanding through literature, through study of the Bible, through even contact with you and others like you, people who are dedicated to the Kingdom of God, who are fellow workers of the Kingdom of God, who have given your lives to that Kingdom, and then can begin to live by that in anticipation of the reality to come after the return of Jesus Christ, one second after.