The Present and Future Kingdom

I'm going to read you a series on prophecy. I went clear back and started in Genesis 3.15, which is actually the first gospel message. Which is, you're in trouble and I'm going to save you by sending somebody. That's what it is. That's the first gospel message. So the gospel is a huge subject that actually begins in Genesis and ends in Revelation 22. In fact, when we keep the eighth day, that is the culmination of the gospel of the kingdom. That's the culmination of the gospel of the kingdom. Because Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom every place He went. And I'll show you what I mean as we go through this. It's a little, not real organized, because like I said, I hadn't planned on doing a sermon. I've mentioned this before, but this is so important for us to grasp. And that is, God's kingdom never went away. God never left His throne. God's kingdom has existed since God made His first creation. The first thing He created, He's in charge of it. God's kingdom has always existed. So when we talk about the gospel of the kingdom of God, and we get aimed towards Christ coming to establish that kingdom, it's not like it doesn't exist. He's actually coming to reestablish it. Because what happened was, God gave Adam and Eve dominion over the earth. Remember that in Genesis? This is yours, and I'm going to lead you and help you and love you and guide you, and you're going to have dominion over this earth. And when they rejected His kingdom over them, His rule, and I think it's the word kingdom too we need to explore. I mean, to have a kingdom, you have to have a king. The United States is not a kingdom. The United States is a republic. God does not have a republic. God doesn't have an oligarch. It is a kingdom. And they were living under God's kingdom. He ruled over them. And when they rejected Him, He took their dominion away. He said, okay, you now have decided you're going to make your own choice of good and evil. Therefore, you're not under my dominion anymore. That means your kingdom is going to be taken by somebody else. And the dominion He gave to humanity was taken over by Satan. In fact, even in the New Testament, Jesus calls this the kingdom of Satan. So what happens was they were under the kingdom of God. They got kicked out of Eden. Okay, you want to do it on your own? You can't. You will either be under my rule or Satan's rule. That's your choice. You choose Satan. So you now live under that. You will now experience good and evil, which actually now works out in God's plan. We have to all be exposed to good and evil. To love means you have to be able to make choices. To have self-consciousness, you have to be able to make choices. He had to give us a choice. God was going to introduce evil to us. He let Satan do it. He let him. Satan didn't sneak into the kingdom of God.

He let Satan come in. He let him deceive them, tempt them, test them, and they made a choice. And God said, okay, this is the way we'll do this. Every human being will have to choose, and you'll choose by experiencing evil. And so for all this time, these thousands of years, we've been living under the dominion of Satan. He's called what? The God of this world, the prince of the age. I mean, you think of all the things he's called. He is. It's his dominion. He's ruling over us. But that rule is very limited. It's not like he grabbed control of God's kingdom. He couldn't have. God let him go in to Eden, and God's allowed him to have dominion. But even that's very limited. The whole Bible is about God saying, no, you can't do that. I'm going to send a flood. No, you can't do that. I'm going to cause Nebuchadnezzar to go insane. No, you can't. You know, the whole thing is God stepping in and saying, no, you're very limited in what you can do here. And you're limited in your time. There's one prophecy that talks about how Satan gets very angry at the end because he knows his time is short. In other words, you get some power here and you get it for a limited time because I'm still God and it's still my kingdom and you now have your little kingdom. So humanity and its dominion has actually lived under the dominion of Satan for all this time. And that's what we live in. So Jesus comes along and he starts talking about the kingdom of God. That wasn't new information to the people in the Jewish world, but they equated the kingdom of God in a very limited sense. The kingdom of God was the Messiah coming, a person sent by God, to restore Israel to their place over all the nations. He was going to restore Israel and then all nations would come into sort of this pyramid with Israel on top. So it was the restoration of them as a people that was the core message of their idea of the kingdom because they would rule with the Messiah over everyone.

When you get down to it, they killed Jesus not so much because of his conflicts with Judaism. He had a lot of conflicts with Judaism, but that's not why they killed him. They killed him because of who he said he was. He said he was the Messiah and he was the king.

And the idea of an illegitimate carpenter's son being the king was totally unacceptable. It couldn't be believed.

So Jesus came and he started telling about the kingdom's coming, this future tense, the kingdom's coming, and he eventually started saying, and I'm going to be the king of that kingdom. And then he started telling them, but what's going to happen is I'm going to be killed, be resurrected, and then come back. Think about that. We all know that. He told him, I will be crucified. I will die. I will be in the grave three days and three nights, and I will return. In John 14, one of the last things he told his disciples was, I'm going away and I will create a kingdom and I'll come back.

So we have this future kingdom, not a new kingdom, but a restoration of God's kingdom in which Jesus would be the king. And I don't even have time to go into this today, but if you've been following the Bible studies we've been doing in Romans, I had to go through, or did go through the section and have to, but I'm doing it chronologically. And I just love that section in Romans where he says, Jesus is the second Adam. And if you read the places where Paul says he's the second Adam, it's well, basically Adam lost his dominion. So humanity has been doomed in this mess. Satan will be replaced as the God of this world, and Jesus Christ becomes the second Adam because he became flesh and he gets the kingdom. He now gets the rule over the dominion of humanity. Funny, God and man, right? Yeah, you can't rule over yourselves, but I had given it to Adam because you're my children. He failed. You've all failed ever since. So Jesus comes as a man for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons is to defeat Satan and become the king. The dominion he gave Adam is now given to Christ, but it's the kingdom of God.

So Christ comes as the second Adam. That's a fascinating concept right there.

So he comes and he tells them that the Son of Man is going to rule. Let's go to Matthew 25.

I have to watch my time. When you don't have a planned sermon, you can speak for three hours. Matthew 25. And of course, this is the end of the Olivet prophecy. Matthew 24 is all about, I'm coming back. I'm coming back in power. You're going to see me coming back, right? So it's all about that future, which we're going to talk about on the Feast of Trumpets. We're going to talk about during the Days of Unleavened Bread. I mean the Days of Unleavened Bread, during the Feast of Tabernacles. We're going to talk about that time when he comes back. But he makes an interesting statement here.

Let's look at verse 31. He says, When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory, and all the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as the shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

And he talks about how the Son of Man is going to come and judge the world, and judge all the nations.

The term Son of Man is very important. Son of Man is used in the Old Testament just to mean a human being. You know, this person is the Son of Man. You're the Son of a Man. You're a human being. So the term itself wasn't unique, but it became unique. In the way Jesus used it, based on one scripture. We're going to do that in a minute. So here we have this future, right? Matthew 24, he's going to come in the clouds. All the nations will be gathered together. And of course, you can go to the Old Testament scriptures about the Messiah, and they all prophesy the same thing. The difference is, in Matthew 24, he's saying, I'm this one. I'm the one that's going to come back. I'm the one those scriptures are about. This is why they killed him. It wasn't just because he taught against the, you know, all the Pharisees' oral law. He goes way beyond that. He was saying, I'm that Messiah. I am the one those prophecies talk about. And I'm going to come in a future time, and I'm going to establish God's kingdom on the earth. So we have the future. But there's times when he talked about the kingdom interacting with humanity right now.

During his time, he actually told the Pharisees, the kingdom of God is going to be taken from you and given to somebody else.

Israel had been God's representatives of his kingdom. They represented the kingdom of God. Oh, you have to just look through the Psalms. How many times did David praise God as king, as ruler over the universe, controller of all things? You know, he didn't believe the kingdom of God was just in the future. God was on his throne.

But there was something missing. I mean, he lived in a time of Satan's dominion. But God was always there, and God kept. Always had those who represented him. Ancient Israel represented him. When Jesus came, the religious leaders who were supposed to be the representatives of the kingdom of God failed by denying him. And Jesus said, I'm taking the kingdom away from you and giving it to somebody else.

And all through the New Testament, the New Testament writers say, if you have become a follower of Jesus, you are a citizen of the kingdom in heaven.

We're already citizens. You know that. We talk about it all the time. How can we be citizens of something that doesn't exist?

But we still live in Satan's dominion. I'm not saying God's kingdom is established on this earth right now, but there's representatives of God's kingdom on this earth. Let's look at something that Jesus said. Luke 11. Luke 11.

Just trying to remember all these scriptures. I wrote them down and thought, oh man, I had like 50 in my head, but I couldn't remember all of them. Luke 11.

And let's start in verse 14.

And it was, or he was casting out this Christ, casting out a demon, and it was mute. So it was when the demon was gone that the mute spoke and the multitude marveled. And Saul said to them, he cast out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons, which is just another phrase, another name for Satan. He's doing this because he's working under the dominion of Satan. See, they knew they lived under the dominion of Satan, which they saw the Roman Empire as a representation of that. What was the Messiah going to do? Come, overthrow the kingdoms of this world and restore Israel to the people of God. That's how they saw all this. We actually understand it's much greater than that. So verse 16 says, So this is how Satan works by defeating himself.

Is that what you're saying? His kingdom's going to fall now? I mean, he's being sort of facetious here, using hyperbole like he does all the time. Satan's kingdom is now at war with itself.

And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Because there were Jews that were exorcist rabbis who cast out demons by the power of God. Therefore, they will be your judges. Just go ask any rabbi that's cast out a demon. He will tell you where the power comes from. It comes from God. But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Now, Matthew, who's probably a little more accurate is, Luke is gathering information from different sources. And I always think Luke is so colorful. He always has little comments he makes that maybe Matthew or Mark don't because someone told him something. And he adds his little color in there. But he says the finger of God. Now, that's not incorrect. It may not be exact. What Matthew said was, by the Holy Spirit. In other words, what Matthew sees is the very Spirit of God came down into Satan's dominion. That's what Jesus is saying. And Luke just says, God put his finger in Satan's business.

He just, no, this is what I do. I'm still God. And Jesus is my representative. He represented the kingdom of God. He says the kingdom of God has come upon you. It's here. I am the representative of that because I'm the king of the kingdom of God.

So here he was. There's another place where, unfortunately, the King James usually has pretty good translations, but they have a problem here in Luke 17. Luke 17.

Let's see if I wrote down the right scripture. Verse 20. Now, when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, what are they looking towards?

What we're looking towards? When the Messiah comes and overthrows Satan's dominion and sets up God's kingdom, reestablishes God's kingdom on earth. They believe that. In fact, at the time of Jesus, one of the reasons so many people followed him was there was in Judaism a belief that Christ was coming, that the Messiah, you know, Christ just means the Messiah, the anointed one, the Messiah was coming. And when he saw Jesus doing all these miracles and so forth, and he started applying Old Testament prophecies to himself, a lot of people said he must be it. Of course, remember the first time he applied an Old Testament prophecy to himself was that sermon he gave, his first recorded sermon.

And he took a passage from Isaiah and said, you know, this is what the Messiah is going to do, and it's happening right now, and all his friends and neighbors tried to kill him. What? You're the king? No, the king comes in glory, destroys the armies of the world, brings Israel up into its exalted place as the leaders of all the world. Now, it does say all of Israel is restored at the end.

When the Messiah comes, he gathers and actually gives them a specific job to do. But they saw that as the center of what the Messiah was going to do, when actually the center of the Messiah's coming is to establish God's kingdom of the world, every place. So they sort of exalted themselves above what, I mean, they have a job, but that isn't, you know, that's not the focal point of this.

I'll tell you how that focal point has gotten so twisted over the years, and this isn't what the Jews would have believed at this time. I don't think so. At least, I haven't found any that taught it. But most Jewish rabbis today teach the Isaiah 52 and 53, the suffering servant who we say is Jesus, who the New Testament writers say they use those two passages to say that's Jesus. Most say today, no, that's the Jews.

It's the Jewish people that are the suffering servants. They're the ones who went through the Holocaust. They're the ones who were tortured. They're the ones who suffer because they are God's people, and when the Messiah comes, He restores them so that the whole world knows these are my people. So they take what we look at, not every Jewish rabbi. There are those who say, no, this has to be the Messiah. But there are a lot to teach that, no, that's us.

When we read that, that's us. We're the suffering servants who God will raise up to sit over on the throne. So when Jesus and His followers started using these passages, especially from Isaiah, to apply to Jesus Christ, that's why they wanted to kill Him. And that's one of the reasons why the Jews persecuted Christians, because they had a totally different understanding of the Kingdom of God. Here in verse 20, so He's asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, and He said, the Kingdom of God does not come with observation.

He says, you keep looking for these secret events. Now, He would tell them, especially in the Olivet prophecy, a lot of events that will happen. But He says, before we get into all the secret events, He says, nor will they say, see here or see there, for indeed the Kingdom of God is within you. Now, within you is a very poor translation. It's almost never translated that way in any other English translations. Even in most King James' aversions, though I have a little number beside that, and you look in your margin, and they'll say, that's not what that actually should be translated.

It's either in the midst of you or among you. Then He said to His disciples, so they have a question over this. Okay, wait a minute. The Kingdom of God is among you? No, they asked you a legitimate question. They asked Him this question over and over. When's it going to happen? Remember, after Jesus is resurrected, and in Acts chapter 1, He ascends into heaven. Remember the first thing they ask, or what they ask Him, the last thing they ask Him before He leaves? What are you going to set up the Kingdom? When are you going to do this?

And He says, you'll see Me coming back. And He leaves.

They're asking the same question. We're asking that question ourselves, aren't we? And as you and I live in a world that's coming apart, we ask this question all the time, when are you going to come? When are you going to save this?

So the disciples are a little confused. Okay, what do you mean the Kingdom is here with you? It's among you. He says, then He said to His disciples, The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, look here or look there. Do not go after them or follow them. In other words, there's going to be a lot of false messiahs, of false sightings of the Messiah. For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part of heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. He says, You'll see me coming. You'll know I'm coming. Now He gave us a lot of other things in the Olivet Prophecy. And of course, in Revelation, we have all kinds of information that we can look at and search for. But He says, You'll know it's really happening because you'll see me coming back. And I'm coming back to re-establish God's kingdom on the earth. But He told them, it's actually right here with you. He was a representative of the kingdom. You know, when the President of the United States visits another country, He is what? The representative of the United States. He is the President. He's not in His kingdom. He's in somebody else's kingdom. But the power of that kingdom is still behind Him. Jesus told them, I'm here. And I just love the way Luke puts it. God took His finger and put it right down in the middle of Satan's dominion and said, I'm here.

Satan knows he's going to take this away from me, and there's not a thing he can do about it.

The question of course still applies. What does that mean to us? Okay, there's a present and there's a future. In one way, the kingdom of God is here because Christ came and God put His finger here. Of course, He's been doing that all through Satan's history. It's putting His finger in Satan's plan, you know, because it's not going to work. But Christ came specifically to say, I brought you the message of the kingdom. And the power of the kingdom was shown in what He did. Healed people, did all kinds of miracles. Let's go to Matthew 13.

Matthew 13. As we go through this, these holy days not only have a future importance, they have...they point us towards how you and I should live every day now. Matthew 13. In verse 24, He says, He tells them a parable, the kingdom of heaven. That's very interesting. Matthew didn't say the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God seems to be what He actually said.

Why He said kingdom of heaven? I'm not sure. Probably because the kingdom of God comes from heaven. It comes from heaven. So it's a term of power. It is not of anything of this earth. It comes from heaven.

The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. And while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain was sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

So He gives His parable. The guy goes out and plants his field. The people are supposed to take care of it, don't take care of it. And when it comes up, part of its wheat and part of its tares. Tares is a weed that looks like wheat.

And so then you read through it and the workers say, should we go try to pull up all the tares? And He said, no, if you do that, you're going to pull up wheat too. Leave it alone. We'll sort it out at the harvest time.

Now, the disciples had no idea what that meant.

You know, we think, oh, it would have been great to hear all these parables. Most of the time when they get a parable, they go to Him and no one else is around and says, what did that mean? They have no idea what that means.

Look what it says in verse 36.

Then Jesus sent them all to do it away and went to the house and His disciples came to Him saying, explain to us the parable of the tares of the field. The answer to it said to them, He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. Back to that Son of Man. He takes that term that simply means a human being, but He applies it to Himself. And there's a reason for this. Every time He uses this, they know what He means. He's not just saying, this human being showed up and this human being is doing that because He's using it very specifically.

And the field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, and the tares are the souls of the wicked one. He says so. During this time period, He says, I'm going to be sowing now the seeds for those who are going to become the children of the kingdom. So when He returns, He has people to resurrect, people to change that will be part of His kingdom. And He said the tares, they're from Satan and his dominion. So this is the present day. We're living in Satan's dominion, but we're growing in it. And it won't be separated until Christ returns. But the enemy who sowed them is the devil. So now He explains it. The harvest is the end of the age. So the field right now, harvest is the end of the age, and the devil is running wild in the fields. And the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. And so He goes on and explains then how He's going to separate. Now He does give all the details. As we get into Revelation and other places, we realize this isn't just a process of, I show up and everybody is either burned up in the lake of fire or they're resurrected. There's two resurrections. The lake of fire is after the millennium. That's all not explained yet. He does a lot of times in these short parables. He condenses huge amounts of information into a simple little story. But the point is, He's saying, right now, this is what it is. The kingdom of God, God's still on His throne. Christ has come into the kingdom dominion of Satan. Actually He defeated Him. We can talk about that for an hour. All the places that talks about how He defeated Him and said, now I'm taking the kingdom away from you. Satan kills Him or has Him killed. He's resurrected, goes back to heaven, or He sits at the right hand of God waiting to return.

To do what? Reestablish God's kingdom on the earth. But the important thing here is that right now we're the children of the kingdom, the sons of the kingdom, living under Satan's...we're in occupied territory.

The earth is still God's. He just lets Satan have it for a while. We're living in occupied territory with a whole different set of values and laws and concepts. This is who we must become. Thinking, well, I've got it made. Jesus comes back, boy, I get changed. Yes, that's the promise. But it won't be fulfilled unless we go through the change that takes place. The gospel is about transformation. That's why Paul says it's the gospel of salvation.

Why? Because we must be transformed into the children of the kingdom now, being prepared for that time when Christ comes back. The Son of Man. Let's go to Matthew 26.

Matthew 26.

And let's go to verse... verse 57.

And those who had laid hold of Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were assembled. But Peter followed him at a distance. This is where they're taking him. The disciples are holding back, afraid of what's going to happen. Verse 59. Now the chief priests and elders and all the council sought false testimony about Jesus to put him to death, but found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. But last two false witnesses came forth. See, they had two people that agreed. One witness wasn't enough according to the law of God. You have to have two or three witnesses, they all have to agree. And they said, this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and build it in three days. The high priest arose and said to him, do you answer nothing? What is these men testify against you? But Jesus kept silent. And so the high priest orders him under the power of the living God or the authority of the living God, because he is God's representative. He's actually the representative of the King of God on earth. He represents it. Tell us, are you the Christ, the Son of God? Because this is the issue. It's not about whether he's going to tear down the temple and build it up in three days. I mean, they can't kill him over that. They finally say, we've got to know here. This is what they hate him for. You say you are that Messiah, that King, that Christ. Are you the Son of God? And Jesus said to him, it is as you said, "'Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven.'" He says, I'm telling you right now, the Son of Man is going to be with God the Father and the Son of Man is going to come back. He said, that's me. It says, they became so distraught, they started to rip their clothes apart and said, he must die. This is why he had to die. He had to die because of who he said he was. Because this meant the kingdom of God wasn't what they thought it was going to be and it sure couldn't be this carpenter's son.

And so they said he had to die. Why did he, when he said, Son of Man, when other people in the Bible are called to Son of Man, but why? Why are they so upset? And all goes back to Daniel chapter 7. They know exactly what he's saying. And you know, he calls himself the Son of Man all through the Gospels, over and over and over again. He's making a point. He's making a point and that point is Daniel 7.

Daniel's having the vision of the four beasts and in verse 13 he says, I was watching in the night visions and behold one like the Son of Man, someone who looks like a human being, coming with the clouds of heavens. And he came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him, the ancient of days. He said, the power. Once again, very Jewish word, the power. There is a power. It is God. The ancient of days is God. And then to him was given dominion. So given to the Son of Man is the dominion, the rule. That's what dominion means, rule. Satan has rule. Humanity was supposed to have rule. But it had to be under God. We didn't want to be under God's kingdom so they were under Satan's dominion. We've been stuck under Satan's dominion all this time, except for those who were called.

And he says, there will be a Son of Man, one who looks like a human being, who will appear before the ancient of days and he will be given dominion. And what did Jesus just tell them? You will see the Son of Man before the power, the very glory of God. And he will come. And to him was given dominion of glory and a kingdom and all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. And his kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed. In other words, when this one comes and Satan is finally removed, nothing ever again will disrupt the kingdom of God. They were filled with the loathing that he would say this is him. He must be insane. He must be demon-possessed.

He's claiming that this is about him. That's why it's so interesting that that's the number one way he referred to himself as the Son of Man. And then finally, at his very end there, where he knew when he said this, that was it. They were going to take him and kill him. He said, yes, I'm it. I'm that Son of Man. I'm not just any Son of Man. I'm that Son of Man. And he condemned himself because they were going to kill him after that. Because he said he was the Christ.

They said he was the King of the Kingdom. Two last passages here. I want to move now away from what Christ is saying and what's happening here in the Gospels. Tyed in Daniel, because you have to. That's the reason. The whole reason is, you say you are the King of the Kingdom. That's not possible. That's just not possible. He's blaspheming God.

That also sheds light on the Passover, doesn't it? It sheds light on the Passover. But it really sheds light on... He told him, I'm coming back. You can kill me. I'm coming back. And Satan's day is numbered. Unfortunately, because you follow Satan, your days are numbered too.

How was this interpreted then in the New Testament by the followers of Jesus? Well, just look at two places. Both by Paul. Paul is fascinating to me because Paul took the teachings of Christ, which were said in a Jewish context. No, and then he told his disciples, go preach this to the whole world. Well, how do you preach this to the whole world? It's said in a Jewish context. They went to the Jewish synagogues. They got up. They preached Jesus as the Son of Man. And what happened after a while? They got kicked out. You can't say He is the King. You can't do that to the Kingdom of God. And they said, yes, but He is. So they kicked him out. They had to find a way to say it then to the pagan world. And that's what Paul did. He took that message and brought it to the pagan world. And they started to respond to it. Colossians. Colossians 1.

Like I said, there's nothing new. You've heard all this before, but I want you to put it in the context of what we're going to be looking forward to in celebrating that future Kingdom. But what the New Testament writers then said was, you're already the children of the Kingdom.

We have to live like the children of the Kingdom now. Our viewpoints, our values, the laws we live like, everything is the Kingdom of God. And therefore, we become the representatives of the Kingdom of God in this dominion of Satan.

Colossians 1.9.

Paul says, For this reason we also, since the day we heard of it, do not cease to pray for you, and ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. So once again, Paul is just talking here from his heart to these people, the people in Colossae and very personal statements, that you may walk worthy of the Lord. He says, here's what you have to do now. This is what life is like now as a child of the Kingdom, that it's in heaven. You go into the Kingdom of God every time you pray. The Kingdom of God interacts with you every day because the Spirit of God is in you. But you live under the dominion of Satan. We live in his Kingdom, and yet we're in constant contact with the Kingdom of God, the very power of God, and with the King, both the Father and the Son. He said that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthening with all might according to his glorious power for all patience and long suffering with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has made us partakers of the inheritance. You know what the inheritance is? The Kingdom of God.

We are partakers of that. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love. That can be translated, transferred us. We have been transferred, while still living in Satan's dominion, we have been transferred into a relationship with God in His Kingdom. You have a relationship with God in His Kingdom.

It's hard to remember that, isn't it? Because we live in Satan's dominion, but we also really live. This is what we have to come to grips with. You and I actually live in the dominion of God. God is our ruler. He tells us what to do. He takes care of us. He guides us. He directs us. It is His dominion we want in our lives. We don't want Satan's dominion anymore. We want His. So we are children of the Kingdom now.

And then our last scripture, Ephesians 3. Ephesians 3. And verse 20.

No, that's not where I want to go. Where do I want to go? Ephesians. Let's go to Philippians. He's writing his stuff down during the song service. I mean, the song between the sermonette. Philippians 3. I think this is where I want to go.

Yes, verse 20.

Paul says, For our citizenship, are you a citizen of the dominion of Satan? No. No. Where there's only two kingdoms, gods and Satan's.

Where it have to be a citizen of one under the other.

For our citizenship is in heaven. That's our loyalty. That's our values. That's how we think. That's how we treat others. That's how we act every day. It's how we process our emotions. Everything is, we are citizens of that kingdom. And the United States, which I have loved living in the United States, and it has been an amazing place, mainly because we had the Bible and because of God's blessings. And in the end, it's still under Satan's dominion.

It's under Satan's dominion. Always has been. God just kept helping us along at times. But we're not the kingdom of God.

Our citizenship is in that kingdom. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here Paul explains, oh yeah, it's present, it's there, and you're part of it. But you're waiting for it to come. You're waiting for it to be established, reestablished. But you're already, you're already in that kingdom. You're already connected to that kingdom.

Who will transform when He returns, and for those who are prepared for that return, because you're children of the kingdom now, as we just, oh, as we read a minute ago. Who will transform our lowly body, that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. He's going to subdue Satan. Satan's already defeated. He's already been defeated. He just will accept it. It's not in His nature to do so. His defeat will be total, complete, and He will no longer affect anything in God's creation again. It's going to happen. He can't stop it.

So as we prepare for these holy days, think about how wonderful it's going to be. We're going to look at, of course, on trumpets. We'll be looking at the day of the Lord and all the terrible things that happen before Christ returns. But the focus is, Christ returns. The dominion of Satan will lead to nothing but death and destruction and all humanity will die if He gets His way. But Christ will return as God sends Him. And when He does, those in that first resurrection are those who have been prepared as citizens now to actually go into the Kingdom. And Christ will set up that Kingdom on earth and we will celebrate that for a thousand years. Or we will celebrate it for seven days. It represents a thousand years. We will celebrate that time. We will look forward to that time. But you know what's really the focal point of all of it is that last day, that last great day, the eighth day. Because that's the focal point. Because the Father comes to earth. Satan's gone. There is no dominion left but His. There is no power left but His. And people who have been changed because they've become His children in that Kingdom. And one of the most fascinating things, whenever I give a sermon on the last day, I don't get to this year, there's one passage I always read. Because at that time, when nudruesome comes, it says in 1 Corinthians, the Christ will give the Kingdom to the Father. He's been preparing this since Adam and Eve, since he said, go be under His dominion. You don't like the dominion of God. Go be under Satan's dominion. And I will save you.

I will fix this. And when it's all done, He gives the Kingdom to the Father. It's what the Father's planned all along.

So, yes, the Kingdom is in the future as far as the re-establishment. The finger of God is already in this world. It's in us. The finger of God is already here and is preparing people to be prepared for Christ when He returns.