Have You Not Read S2E17 - The Kingdom Age

The Kingdom of God as Present and Future

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Podcast. Thank you. Hello my name is Chris Giesler and with me is Michael Durham and we've got a question from one of our listeners and it reads like this. You are teaching on the kingdom of God a lot.

I just heard comment today that people get confused about the kingdom. We cannot be in the kingdom age because Jesus is in heaven but he will come again and bring the kingdom with him to rule from David's throne in Jerusalem.

How would you respond? Well I think I.

Respond by encouraging anybody who's interested in this phrase kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, which is used interchangeably and as synonyms from Matthew to Luke and so on, I would encourage them to read, go read what Jesus had to say.

Use a concordance, strong concordance if you if you'd like or search program on your Bible app and and just go read not just the verses but just that the context, the verses in their context, you know the stories, the sections in which Jesus seems to be talking a lot about the kingdom and then how does he talk about the kingdom?

Does he talk about the kingdom as something that is far away and distant and future or does he talk about the kingdom as something that was very near and indeed present? And I think it's going to help you answer your question.

So right off the bat for instance in the Gospel of Mark, Mark chapter 1 verse 14, Jesus was, he came preaching, came down through Galilee and he was preaching the gospel and doing his ministry and in verse 15 comes forth and he says the time was fulfilled the kingdom of heaven is at hand, which means it's within reach.

The expression means at hand means something that I can without moving the rest of my body just reach out and touch. That's what that's what it means literally. So Jesus says the time was fulfilled the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.

So he's preaching his message, his news, himself as the king and he comes and he preaches the gospel, the gospel of the kingdom. Luke, in the Gospel of Luke talks again and again about Jesus preaching the gospel of the kingdom and he's talking about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God.

Jesus tells many parables about the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. So for instance in Matthew 12 there was this controversy between him and the Pharisees, Sadducees, the ruling Jews and it all happened when he cast out a demon, when he delivered someone from demon possession and the Pharisees were very jealous and angry of course and they said oh he does this by the power of Beelzebub, the rulers of the demons, that's how he's doing this.

And Jesus just pointed out the ludicrousness of their of their accusation and so in Matthew chapter 12 and verse 25 Jesus said every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.

If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself, how then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges.

So Jesus was just simply pointing out your argument does not hold water, it's ludicrous on the face of it. But now he takes the opportunity to say something about the kingdom of God, something about the kingdom of heaven.

He says in verse 28 of Matthew 12, but if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, and that being true, it's a conditional sounding statement, but it's saying since I'm doing this surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.

And then he goes on to explain it's simply a matter of finding the strong man and plundering his goods and that's exactly what Jesus was up to. Later on in the Gospel of Luke he'll address his listeners and there was a concern that the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God was going to appear in some physical fashion.

And he says to them, it's not going to arrive with signs and particular types of appearance where you can say here it is or there it is. But that's what they were anticipating because kingdoms have borders, kingdoms have standards, kingdoms have political power and soldiers and authority, right?

And walled cities and so on. And Jesus told them, it's like, no that's not how it works. The kingdom of God is among you in your midst. And he begins to teach them a different way of understanding what he means when he talks about the kingdom.

And one of the best chapters in the Bible to consider about the nature of the kingdom is Matthew 13. Right after he finishes talking about the kingdom of God in Matthew 12, he gives several parables about the kingdom, beginning with that first big parable about the different soils.

The same seed, the same sower, but different soils. And he's simply explaining why is it that different people respond differently to the preaching of this good news. But he identifies that those who came to him wanting to know more about the parable, he says in chapter 13 verse 11, he says, he answered and said to them, because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

So some are going to understand, some are not, based upon the grace of God to understand the mysteries, the realities, the revealed nature of the kingdom of heaven. And after that big parable about the soils, he starts into a parable of the weeds and tears, of the parable he put forth to them saying, the kingdom of heaven is like.

He tells that parable and then he tells a parable about the mustard seed in 11. The kingdom of heaven is like. The kingdom of heaven is like. He has another parable, a parable of the hidden treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like.

Also the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great price. And the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea. So he, time and again, he tells these stories and you begin to denote a pattern that all are kind of connected to the parable of the sower of the soils.

There is a sowing of the seed and then you watch the results. With some, the seed really takes, really takes. It's kind of like it becomes somebody's treasure. It's the thing that they're all about. The seed is planted and it's a hidden but suddenly it bursts forth and it produces 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold.

And it's kind of like the the leaven hidden in the dough and the mustard seed which turns into a tree. How surprising is that? And we have in the parable of the soils this notion of planting. Some things don't go well, some things do go well, but then there's a harvest at the end.

We see this very same structures in the parable of the wheat and the tares and in the drawing in of the fish by the dragnet. So this whole chapter is just chock-full of ways in which Jesus is talking about the kingdom.

And that's not the only chapter, of course. He talks about it in various other chapters in Matthew, even on into Matthew chapter 25 where he's describing the nature of the kingdom of heaven in terms of ten virgins, five wise, five foolish, faithful servants and unfaithful servants.

And then concluding with the picture of his return to sift everybody, sheep and goats. Just like the sifting of the wheat and the tares at the end of the kingdom age. Just like the sorting of the dragnet of the good and the bad fish at the end of the kingdom age.

And so what is Jesus saying? He's saying the kingdom of heaven is like this. This is what it's gonna be like. And this is all very important information because the current age Jesus has pronounced a curse upon.

He's very clear in Matthew that the old covenant system being run by covenant-breaking stewards is under the judgment of God as a wicked and perverse generation. That's another good word study. Look up in your concordance.

This generation. That phrase, this generation in the book of Matthew. Jesus pronounces judgment on this generation. It's all gonna pass away. It's gonna be under the judgment of God. But what happens when not one stone is left upon another in the temple?

What happens when Jerusalem is destroyed? I mean is there anything left after that? Well sure there is. It's called the kingdom of heaven. It's called the kingdom of God. Of course there's still the people of God.

There's still the worship unto the true Lord. Surely there is still the promises of God being fulfilled in Christ. And so that's why Jesus tells so many kingdom parables. And now it's interesting when we go back to the book of Daniel.

We have language about the kingdom of heaven. We have language about the kingdom of God. And there's a contrast that happens in Daniel chapter 2 where King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and he wants the wise men to tell him both the dream and the meaning of the dream.

Big challenge. But by the Lord's grace Daniel is able to do both. And he tells him, he tells the king about a vision where there's the kingdoms of men. And we know these are the kingdoms of men for two reasons.

One, they're in the shape of a man. And two, they're standing on the ground. And so you have a head of gold and a chest of silver. And you have a waist and thighs of bronze. And then you have legs of iron and feet of iron and clay.

And in contrast to this great statue which is the four kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. In contrast to that there is a stone, a rock, uncut by human hands. And it is hurled from from heaven.

And it crashes into this statue, these kingdoms of men. Not into the head of Babylon. Not into the chest of Persia. Not into the waist of Greece. But into the feet of the fourth kingdom, Rome. Signifying an era in Rome where we have these, you know, these ten toes referencing ten Roman emperors.

And we're told in Daniel 2 verse 44,. And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom. Well there you go. So in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom. What would you call that kingdom?

Perhaps you would call it the kingdom of God. Perhaps you would call it the kingdom of heaven.

Yeah, that's so interesting. I've always wondered where did the thief on the cross, when he says to Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. So the Jews were, this idea was something that they would have known.

About from Daniel. It was exceptionally entrenched. Even when John the Baptist came preaching, everybody came out and said, well, we're kind of running the calculations here and it's about Messiah time.

Are you the Messiah? You know, because Daniel will give a prophetic clock before he's done with this book. So here in Daniel chapter 2 verse 44, it says, In the days of these kings, which kings? We just, well, we read in verse, the previous two verses says, as the toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly fragile.

As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men, but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. And strength and instability is a great way of talking about the first ten Roman emperors.

I mean, you have Julius assassinated, you have insanity in Caligula and Nero, and you have the year of the four emperors where, after Nero dies, you have Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian all in the space of a year.

But there also is strength, right, in Augustus and Tiberius and Claudius, and Vespasian himself was pretty strong. So you have a great description of those first ten Roman emperors and these ten toes in the Roman emperor.

Now, it says, speaking of those toes and focusing in on that, that's when verse 44 says, In the days of these kings, these kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom. So it's during that time period of the ten emperors.

Well, Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus Caesar. He did his ministry during the time of Tiberius, the son of Augustus, and by the time of Vespasian, Jerusalem had been destroyed, the Old Covenant had been brought to an end.

So everything that was extremely significant for the beginning of the New Covenant and the conclusion of the Old Covenant all happened in the space of these kings. When the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, was set up, right, and so we read that this kingdom will never be destroyed.

So we have the beginning of when the kingdom is set up and we're also told this kingdom shall never be destroyed. So it starts at this particular time and it's never destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people.

It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever. Well, there's only one person who is said to be given the kingdoms to break them in pieces and that is the Messiah in Psalm 2, okay.

So when we look forward in Daniel and in the clock that we receive, the prophetic clock that we receive in Daniel chapter 9, of course in chapter 7 we're told again these four empires are ultimately pan out as the all-powerful empire but the dominion which will never be destroyed is given to the Son of Man who ascends to the right hand of the Father on clouds of glory.

Of course we know that also refers to Christ and his ascension. But when we get to Daniel chapter 9 and Daniel is doing the math and he's praying to the Lord and saying hey it's been about 70 years since our first exile, Lord can we go back to Jerusalem?

Can we go back and get things started again? Yes, of course, but with a hope of not 70 years fulfilled but of 77s yet to be fulfilled. And God tells Daniel from the year of a decree to rebuild and beautify Jerusalem, which is 457 BC with the decree of Artaxerxes, you can read about that in Ezra 7, 70 sets of seven forward so 490 years from 457 BC and you land directly into the life and ministry of Christ.

So in Daniel 9 it says okay there's there's seven sets of seven, there's 49 times of trouble when they're rebuilding the walls in Jerusalem under Nehemiah, and then there is 62 more weeks, okay, so you add that to the 7, that's 69 weeks, that's 483 years and then you have the week of Messiah.

You have the week, the all-important week of Messiah in Daniel 9. Well if you count 483 years forward from 457 BC with with the decree from Artaxerxes, you land directly on to the second year of Tiberius reigning according to Luke chapter 3 when John the Baptist is doing his ministry and Jesus comes out of the crowd and gets baptized.

So right on the dot, right at the proper timing from Daniel, the Messiah does show up. So another way of acknowledging when does the kingdom begin, it begins in the days of these kings, to be precise, 483 years after the decree of Artaxerxes, the Messiah shows up.

So we know when the kingdom of God comes. Yeah. Because the king just showed up and got anointed and the heavens parted and he got anointed right there, the Holy Spirit coming down in the form of a dove.

Yeah. Here's your king, right, and Jesus never denied that. He denied that his kingdom was of this world. It's not like a kingdom of men. Remember the kingdoms of men are shaped like an idol of a man and their feet are on the ground.

But his kingdom comes from heaven and overcomes all of that. Yeah. He tells Pilate that, you know, my kingdom is not of this world. He didn't say my kingdom is not in this world. Right. It.

Doesn't derive its power from this world. It's not of this world. Right. He, notice.

His followers are in this world. In fact, he prays in John 17, Father, do not take them out of this world. He said they are in this world, but they are not of this world. He said that of his subjects.

He said that of his people. Well, that's the nature of his kingdom. It is in this world, but it is not of this world. Right. So Daniel calls it, says that the God of heaven set up a kingdom. This gives us the language in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John of a kingdom of God, a kingdom of heaven.

It is centered in the person of Jesus Christ. He's the king. He's the one who was elevated to the right hand of the father and given a name which is above every name. Right. So he is the king. So there was a good part of that question that you read.

There was a concern. Right. And so you talked about.

The timing of when these things happen. And the questioner was asking about, well we can't be in the kingdom of heaven now. But you explained the timing. And there's a little bit about the nature of the kingdom.

In Daniel 7 18, he talks about the kingdom. And he says this, but the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and ever. Jesus has a similar discussion with the Pharisees in Matthew 21 43, where he's talking about the kingdom.

He's talking about the Pharisees who supposedly have the kingdom. And he says to them, the kingdom will be taken away from you and given to a nation that will give fruits, give proper fruits. And so the questioner was asking about, is the kingdom later?

Is the kingdom now? How are we to live in light.

Of the kingdom being now? Yeah. So that's what Jesus' parables are all about. Right. So when he says the kingdom of heaven is like, he's setting up the framework for how we're supposed to understand that.

He talks about servants serving in a way for the glory of their king, serving in faith and in hope and not wasting and rejecting his reign. We see him not despising the small things. You put a little bit of yeast into a humongous pile of dough.

It's gonna take a while. It's silent. It's quiet. It's mysterious. It's hidden. But eventually you see the results. A mustard seed is very small. But in this, don't despise the small things. And in fact, it's not a small thing.

It's your everything. Sell out for that buried treasure. Sell out for that pearl of great price. It's a commitment of the entire person here. So when you just read the way that Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven, that'll help you understand what it's like to follow him as king, to love him as king, and to rejoice in his promises, to live in the.

Light of his hope. Yeah. The way that the questioner said that they heard the comment, it talks about, but he will come again and bring the kingdom with him and rule from David's throne in Jerusalem. And that's pushed off to the future.

He'll bring the kingdom at his second coming. But this seems to be stating, no, he's brought the kingdom already. Yeah. And we're to live in light of that. So we.

Need, we do need to take seriously the language of Jesus reigning on David's throne in Jerusalem. We should take up that language 100 and follow that all the way. So when we think about that, how is that described for us in the New Testament?

We have these promises in the early Old Testament, you know, 2nd Samuel 7 and then Psalm 89. But then these promises about the king coming from David and reigning upon his throne are forwarded all throughout Isaiah and Jeremiah.

So in the latter prophets, we hear more and more about it and it becomes more and more clear and rather large actually. The promises keep on getting bigger. By the time we get to Acts chapter 2 and Peter now filled with the Holy Spirit, how does he interpret that?

Right? So how does Peter, the apostle whom Jesus had just spent this time with and opened his eyes to understand the scriptures, how does he understand that? Well, first of all, at Pentecost he preaches that the arrival of the Holy Spirit is the fulfillment of the prophecy Joel concerning the New Covenant, which ushers in the last days of the Old Covenant, which brings judgment.

But whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Who is that Lord? He begins to identify that Lord and he begins to preach from passages that David wrote. And after he quotes from David for a little while, he says in verse 29 of Acts 2, He, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

This Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses, therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see in here.

For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. So Peter says that David, David was a prophet. He knew this promise that the Messiah would be raised up by God to sit on David's own throne.

So Peter says David knew this, and so foreseeing this, what David did was prophesy of the resurrection of Jesus. Notice what Peter says. Peter does not say in connection to the Christ reigning on David's throne, that David then being a prophet prophesied of the return of Christ.

No, he prophesied of the resurrection of the Christ. Because after Christ rose from the dead, where did he go? He ascended at the right hand of the Father, and Peter says this is how, this is how the Christ sits on David's throne.

Right. Why is that? Why does it work that way? Well, you have to go all the way back. Go all the way back to Genesis 14. David reigned from where? From Jerusalem, the city of peace, the city of Salem, pronounced in the Hebrew, Ereshelem.

The city of Salem, a king sat there long before David sat there, and his name was Melchizedek, and he was a king of righteousness, the priest of God Most High, and Christ is of the order of Melchizedek.

He is the great high priest, he is the king of kings, and he is the true prophet, and he sits upon the throne in the order of Melchizedek that David sat upon. Ultimately, these shadows are fulfilled not in an old covenant Jerusalem made of stone, but in the new covenant Jerusalem.

When we read about the Jerusalem from which Jesus reigns, Galatians 4 says it's the Jerusalem above. Hebrews 12 says it's a Jerusalem upon a Mount Zion that cannot be touched. So, 100 Jesus does reign on David's throne in Jerusalem, 100%.

But you see, when we read the text, when we read the apostles, we find out that this Jerusalem and this throne is way higher and way bigger, more impressive, more grace-filled than anybody in the old covenant could have possibly imagined.

And that's a good thing. Yeah, for sure.

It's interesting that it ties it to the resurrection, and then when he's resurrected, he doesn't say all authority in heaven on earth will be given to me. Jesus has been given to me, present tense, because of the.

Resurrection. Yeah, straight up. And immediately, and this is where the New Testament really helps us, immediately we are told he gets all the authority. And when he ascends to the right hand, we have several pictures of that, both in prophetic Old Testament language, but also in the New Testament, in visions, and so on.

He's in charge. He's the king. So, if we're gonna ask the question, I think it's a very important question to ask, and I think the listener who submitted the question is thinking, well, by asking this question, to hone in on this, we're really asking, when did the kingdom begin?

Well, Daniel says it happened in the days of these kings. Daniel says it happened in the 483rd year of the 490 year calendar. Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's in your midst. I'm casting out demons.

Behold, it is here. Right, Peter gets up and preaches. Jesus is now reigning from David's throne in Jerusalem. So, I think there's a whole chorus of voices in the scriptures that says, he is reigning now.

Right. One thing that comes to my mind is Jesus's prayer when he's teaching his disciples how to pray. He's not teaching them to wait, like we'll get to heaven one day. He says, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And this is before the resurrection, but he's teaching them to pray in this way, that God's kingdom would be here on earth. And we see that happen with the resurrection. Yeah, and so.

We really ought to be feeling his authority. And what is it like to live in his kingdom? Well, we should be feeling his authority. The scriptures are to be read in the light of Christ. They are the scepter of his lordship, the scepter of his authority.

So, we ought to be submitting ourselves to the scriptures in the light of Christ because he is the king. We ought to be living in the light of his reign, confident in his ability to bring about all that God has promised.

We should have hope and the way in which we relate to one another in our churches and in our families, thus our businesses and education and in health and so on. And the way that we relate to the state in terms of its role as a servant to punish evildoers and so on.

Our relationship to everything in this world has to be seen in the light of Christ and all things he has, the.

Preeminence. Right. Well, I think that wraps it up for answering that question. Let's move on to our time of what we are grateful for. Michael? I'm grateful for my.

Father, grateful for my dad. Thankfully, he's had a great year. He was pastoring in the ministry for over 40 decades, not 40 decades, he's not that old, over 40 years. And he's really had a good year driving school buses and he actually ended up on the news the other day.

And so he got his 15 minutes of fame, that was kind of fun. But yeah, he's doing well. I'm thankful that he's still with us and I'm greatly appreciative of him and his influence. Yeah. I am actually.

Very grateful to Joel who does a lot of work here at the church, both in recording these podcasts and in running sound and in training others to help with sound. He does a lot of things behind the scene and I'm very grateful.

For his hard work. And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?