KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES 

"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."

 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

 Part 18

HOW THE KINGDOM COMES

(continued) 

            “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 15:11). 

            The “seventh trump” is the last trump — the conclusion of God’s great Kingdom process.  The day shall surely come when the kingdoms of this world, the rulerships of this world, the government of the United States of America, the governments of Europe, the governments of Mexico and Central and South America, the governments of Asia, the governments of Africa — the kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms of all the nations in your World Atlas — ARE BECOME THE KINGDOMS OF OUR LORD, AND OF HIS CHRIST.  They are all His now by ownership, as creations of His hand and under His sovereignty, but they are not His in a “Kingdom” relationship.  There is a time in God’s great Kingdom program when that truth is proclaimed out of the heavens: “The kingdoms of this world ARE BECOME the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ.”  That means that whatever is true of any man who has “entered the Kingdom” will be true of all the nations of this world, including both their inhabitants and their governments.   

            Who is the Lord?  Jesus is our Lord, for truly “God hath made this same Jesus...both LORD AND CHRIST” (Acts 2:36).  Not only do the Kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord, they also become the kingdoms of “His Christ”.  There are two items listed here as being involved in the rulership of the whole world.  The whole world is to become converted to the dominion of  OUR LORD and to the dominion of HIS CHRIST — His anointed ones, His body.  Christ means “the anointed.”  “But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you...” (I Jn. 2:27).  “HE (Jesus) shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.”  Those who have received the anointing of the Spirit that rested upon our glorious Head and Lord, those who grow up unto maturity in Christ Jesus as the sons of God, form the corporate body of  “His Christ”.  Let it be thoroughly known and understood that our Christ is the Lord Jesus, whereas His Christ is His anointed body which in union with Him walks in His spirit, hears His voice, puts on His mind, is transformed into His image, stands in His nature, power and glory, and does His will upon the earth.  They are the sons of God.  All nations, all the kingdoms of “this world,” shall be brought under the Kingdom dominion of the Lord Jesus and His Christ.  That is the immutable word of our infallible God! 

            Do you suppose that one fair morning some sons of God will show up in Washington, D.C., walk into the White House, the Capitol, and the Pentagon, requesting a meeting with the President, the members of Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff?  When all are assembled the sons announce, “Gentlemen, the Lord has sent us here and we are now taking over the entire country of the United States of America in the name of Jesus Christ.  We hereby dismiss the President and his cabinet, the Congress, all the department secretaries, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all other officials of the Federal Government.  You can all go home — we are in charge as of 12 o’clock noon today.”  Do you think that would fly in Washington?  No — God has an altogether different plan.  Our Lord Jesus Christ and His anointed body, His Christ, shall gain the government of the world by KINGDOM POWER — by the saving, delivering, transforming power of the Holy Ghost.  We love America.  We love China.  We love Russia.  We love all the nations of America, Asia, Africa and Europe and the far-flung islands of the sea.  America will be a better nation when our Lord and His Christ rule it with a rod of iron.  All the nations of the earth will be more blessed, prosperous, peaceful and righteous when the Kingdom of God rules in their midst.  In fact, they will be totally blessed, peaceful and righteous!    And that is on the agenda, my friend — that is God’s Kingdom Program in the earth! 

NOT BY POLITICS 

            In our recent Studies on the subject of HOW THE KINGDOM COMES we have seen clearly that the Kingdom of God does not come by force, it does not come by democracy, nor does it come by law or by any other method of human government.  In this Study we shall consider the great truth that the Kingdom does not come by any kind of politics.  Jesus never once discussed with His disciples their relationship to the government of Israel or to that of Rome, or what kind of political system they should aim to set up as the Kingdom of God.  Jesus did not institute any social reform, nor did He even suggest any political, judicial or legislative reforms.  He sanctioned no dream of a renovated government, apart from personal spiritual regeneration.  He did not denounce the Roman despotism.  He did not interfere with existing customs and institutions.  He did not directly attack governmental wrongs which certainly were rampant.  He did not start a great crusade against the evils of those times.  He let them alone.  He did not intervene in the affairs of statecraft, because the customs, the habits of men, the laws and institutions of society are but the expression of the human heart.  Put that right, and you make all things new.  Get the Kingdom of God within men, and you will soon have it without.  Righteous ways, righteous acts and righteous institutions will spring forth out of the hearts and lives of  transformed men.  That is the power and the glory of the Kingdom of God! 

            More than a century ago James Lewis penned these penetrating words: “The establishment of the Kingdom of God upon earth is slow work.  It requires not that men should be busy with the affairs of other people, but that they should come first to themselves, and mourn over the meanness of their own nature and the vanity of their own life; not that they should crusade against the evils of society, but weep bitter tears over their own sins; not that they should fussily seek to put the world right, but get put right themselves.  Whether the Kingdom of God does nor does not affect these external matters, we shall presently see.  But directly it does not deal with them.  It deals with the individual.  ‘The kingdom of God cometh not with observation’; it is hidden, internal, spiritual.  It is the establishment of righteousness in the human soul.  It is the subjugation of the powers of man to the mind of Christ.   

            “Men talk of this kingdom as mystical, unreal.  Let them try it for a month!  Jesus Christ aspires to a sway such as no Caesar, Emperor, or Dictator, has ever been able to command.  A rule of marching armies and clanging swords can do much.  That grand Roman power was mighty.  It could tax men and make them pay.  It could stretch its scepter over distant provinces, and awe men into submission.  It could say to one man, ‘Go,’ and he went, to another ‘Come,’ and he came.  It could command the bodies, the time, the thoughts of men.  It could send men to death, and even in his mortal pangs the poor gladiator must cry, ‘O Caesar, dying, I salute thee!’  One thing it could not do, even though it bound captives to its chariot wheels.  There is a part of man’s nature which coercion cannot reach; a path which the ‘lion’s whelps have not trod.’  To that region man can retire, and say to all invading powers, ‘Thus far shall you come and no further.’  That is the region in which the Kingdom of Christ prevails.  He will possess the heart of man.  He will control the passions, and govern the will, and purify the motives, and mold the life of man.  The whole nature shall be subdued to the quality of its Lord, and all the current of man’s being shall turn to Him.  The drunkard and drug addict shall deny his insatiable craving, the thief shall steal no more, the liar shall speak the truth, the immoral and perverted shall draw away from his lust, the slothful, lazy and opportunist shall devote himself to his work, and men shall be changed, captivated, charmed by HIS WORD.  They shall prefer HIM to their chief joy! 

            “You will have noticed that His promises of help reach the deep, eternal cravings of the human heart.  He has come, not to satisfy a craze, or gratify a whim, or minister to a passing fancy, but that men might have life.  The power of the kingdom of God is the love of God in Jesus Christ.  Our King comes to dwell with us, to be in us.  His throne is the heart of man.  It is not in word, in formularies, ordinances, creeds, laws, or governmental coercion.  It is in power.  It is the virtue of God in Christ Jesus which enters human weakness at the touch of faith.  It is ‘Christ in you.’  Fling open, then, the gates of your soul.  The Lord, strong and mighty — strong to deliver, mighty to save — waits to enter.  Let the King of Glory in!”   — end quote. 

            If you entertain the crude notion that reigning with Christ means sitting behind a desk over in Jerusalem with telephone at hand and television cameras running, you know nothing as you ought to know of that blessed Kingdom of God  which is “not of this world” and which “comes not with outward show,” but is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”  And I do not hesitate to tell you that when Christ comes in mighty power to bring the triumph of His Kingdom into new and vaster dimensions on this earth through the ministry of that body of sons so painstakingly and meticulously formed under His hand of dealing throughout this present age, vast multitudes of Christians will MISS HIS COMING because it will not conform to the manner, purpose or result that they imagine it should be.  Like the Jews two thousand years ago, these Christians will continue on with their religious games, singing, clapping, preaching, organizing, crusading, and waiting for a second coming and a kingdom that will meet their demands and fulfill their misguided expectations.  Ah, we blame the Jews for their blindness and unbelief, and of making the Word of God of none effect through their tradition, but are there not vast multitudes of the Lord’s people in our own day who are doing this very thing?  The Jewish nation was not ignorant of the teaching of scripture concerning His coming and Kingdom — in fact, they were good “fundamentalists”, anxiously expecting His arrival — but they had drifted so far from the Holy Spirit of God, that when the day arrived they did not know it because it took the Holy Spirit to reveal it.  And as the Jews of old failed to recognize the coming of the Lord and His Kingdom in their day, even so a sleeping church today fails to recognize the signs and events  that herald a new and glorious and fuller manifestation of that same blessed Person! 

            Arthur Eedle from England shared the following in an issue of his paper THE PROPHETIC TELEGRAPH.  “If the testimony of many hymns and choruses is to be believed, then Jesus is due to receive a warm welcome on His return.  In American terminology, He will be given a ‘ticker-tape parade.’  In Britain He will be received as on a day of Royal Coronation, with flag-waving and cheering, as He descends from the clouds with thousands of angels in His train.  But will ‘The Crowning Day’ really be like that?  Does the Lord intend to come in such a manner to receive the admiration of His people?  A moments reflection should be sufficient to dismiss such ideas as totally out of keeping with the Divine Character.  The image is born of human typology, how we as humans behave towards Royalty and VIP’s.  Well, not everybody, but most of us! 

            “In this brief writing we shall take a look at a few very important facts, in order to present an alternative picture of what the beginning of the Kingdom of God is like.  It may take some by surprise.  When Adam was first created, God was enthroned in his spirit.  He received all his leading and direction from God.  He looked to God as his creator and his provider, his director and his inspirer.  There was no thought  of taking things into his own hands.  At the time of the ‘fall,’ Adam in effect took the throne from his spirit and placed it in his soul.  But God would not sit on this throne.  He would only take His seat in man’s SPIRIT, not in his SOUL.  Hence He departed from Adam.  The Divine Life left him, and he became a creature subject to death.  Whilst God lived within him, he would live forever, because God is immortal.  But without the presence of God in his spirit, he became subject to death. 

            “The soul is the seat of self-consciousness, where SELF sits on the throne.  That is why God will not share the throne.  The spirit is the seat of God-consciousness, and only here will He sit.  After king David’s lapse from right living, he cried out to God, saying, ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a RIGHT SPIRIT within me’ (Ps. 51:10).  He never asked for his soul to be cleaned, mended, or renewed, because he knew that his sins had flowed from SELF-ENTHRONEMENT in his soul.  Here is the crux of the matter.  There will be no street ceremonies, no flag waving, no heralds running here and there, saying, ‘It’s here! Come and see!’  Why?  Because the Kingdom is INSIDE man, not for external observation (Lk. 17:20-21).  God is looking for a re-instatement of His position in man’s spirit.  He says to us in effect, ‘You cannot live without me.  If you try to run your own life, and satisfy your own desires, it will all end in death.  The only way in which you can enjoy life with me is to give me back the reins of government.  My government is not oppressive, but gently and firmly persuasive, because I made you, and I alone know what is best for you.’ 

            “All of us are born with Adam’s legacy to self-rule.  The throne has remained in the human soul ever since Adam sinned, and God does not live there.  But each and every person who is enlightened to this fact, and who desires with a whole heart to be under God’s government, can enter a new relationship with God.  A right spirit is granted, and God begins to dwell there once again.  This is not the end of the process, however, and it is important to see why.  The majority in the evangelical world speak about two parties, the Christians and the Non-Christians.  But this is an artificial distinction.  To accept Christ into one’s life is just a beginning, and there is a distinct possibility of God being subsequently dethroned.  We have seen young people ‘accept Christ’ and be baptized, only to reinstate their own kingdom firmly in their souls within a short time.  God is not mocked.  Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.  He who sows to the flesh, will of the flesh reap corruption.  He who sows to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting (Gal. 6:7-8).  Paul said to the Galations, ‘Are you so foolish? having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh?’ (Gal. 3:3). 

            “God is looking for an initial commitment to Him, a ‘conversion’ experience.  But He wants far more than that!  He wants there to be a steadily growing Kingdom of God within.  At our conversion we see the need for salvation and a state of ‘NEW MANAGEMENT’.  But our hearts are very deceptive..  We have no idea just how much we still hold the reins.  The Lord gradually engineers our circumstances to show us who is in control.  Therefore there should be a gradual replacement, whereby self-will is exchanged for God-reliance.  Jesus said that of Himself He was able to do nothing.  His total reliance was on His Father and the Divine Direction He received.  But don’t misunderstand.  Jesus chose to go that way.  He allowed His Father complete control of His life, not as a puppet, but as one who was utterly convinced of the Right Way. 

            “God’s sons are those who have, through many trials and testings, allowed God to take His rightful place in their spirits.  They began with but a small reliance on God, but grew to allow Him something approaching total control.  These are the ones whom God will ask to rule the coming world with Him, and under Him.  Antichrist is said to rule in the temple of God, showing that he is God.  What does this mean?  It means that there are Christians who are all for God’s ways, but struggle to retain their own rulership of their lives.  Satan sits enthroned in man’s flesh, in the soul of man that is not subject to God, but subject to human desire.  All those who thus retain self-dominion are collectively the antichrist.  Satan’s kingdom is equally inside man as God’s Kingdom.  These facts need careful pondering by us all”   — end quote. 

YOU CANNOT BUILD THE KINGDOM! 

            The Kingdom is coming.  “Thy kingdom come.”  Only if we truly believe the Kingdom is coming can we pray that prayer.  But primarily and fundamentally the Kingdom IS.  “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.”  The Kingdom that is, is coming.  Men speak of “building” the Kingdom of God, but in the truest sense the Kingdom it not built — it is.  The Kingdom grows and increases from age to age and from realm to realm, but only because it is.  The essential thing to be burned into our consciousness is that the Kingdom of God IS!  “The kingdom of God IS righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”  “The Lord reigneth!”  His reign is a present reality and shall increase from age to age until all things are subdued unto Him.   

            Nowhere in the scriptures are we instructed that we are to “build” the Kingdom.  We are told that we can “see” the Kingdom, “enter” the Kingdom, “receive” the Kingdom, “inherit” the Kingdom, and “proclaim” the Kingdom, but never build it.  What is the difference?  It is basic and profound.  For if we are to build the Kingdom, then it is something that we bring into life, something that we produce.  It is a structure that requires our effort  to raise up.  It is an institution that demands our ingenuity and work to establish.  But the Kingdom IS.  It is already in existence; it is a present reality, for it was prepared for us before the foundation of the world (Mat. 25:34).  Men who go out and try to build the Kingdom always fail for they are trying to do something that cannot be done.  Ah, yes, there is an increase of the Kingdom!   But it is not the increase of effort, but of life.  You can build a house, but you cannot build a tree or a fruit.  Things that are built are constructed by an external power; they contain no life.  But things that grow are produced by an inherent internal life and you cannot build them.  The increase and manifestation of the Kingdom is not one of man’s doing, but something of life.  That is why the Kingdom of God is within you.  It is the life of the Spirit bringing forth the image and glory of God in the lives and doings of men.  Jesus speaks of those who are “disciples” of the Kingdom, “stewards” of the Kingdom, “scribes” of the Kingdom, “teachers” of the Kingdom and “heralds” of the Kingdom.  But there are no “builders” of the Kingdom! 

            Many who have seen something of the promises and glory of the Kingdom of God have found it difficult to keep their efforts in the Spirit and cooperate with God to bless men and nations with the benefits and powers of the Kingdom.  The result of their misunderstanding of how the Kingdom functions has time and again manifested itself in carnal and fruitless efforts to “establish” or “build” a visible outward Kingdom.  While individuals and small groups of saints in the early days of the Church made claims concerning the “establishment” of the Kingdom in their day, this idea did not take on any great proportion until the time of the Emperor Constantine.  Prior to that Christians were openly persecuted by the Roman emperors and were accorded no recognition by the kingdoms of this world.  The gospel was despised and rejected by an unbelieving and pagan world.  This means that those who espoused the name of Christ suffered with Him because of their allegiance to His cause. 

            As one has written: “So far as the great body of professed Christians was concerned, this entire picture of persecution and ostracism on the part of worldly kingdoms was suddenly changed by Constantine, who himself professed conversion to Christianity.  In the year 313 A.D., this emperor put his signature to a decree reading, in part, ‘Henceforth in perfect and absolute freedom, each and every person who chooses to belong to the practice of the Christian religion, shall be at liberty to do so without let or hindrance in any shape or form.’  How the Christians must have read the lines with astonishment when they realized the implication of this change of attitude on the part of earthly governments!  Just emerging from ten years of the bitterest persecution by Diocletian, they were now free to meet and sing and pray and read their scriptures in the open sunlight, anytime, anywhere.   

            “And this was but the first of other favors that were shortly to come to them.  The historian records that ‘Constantine ordered the state funds to be used to rebuild their churches, ruined in the previous persecution; he donated land by the acre, built new churches wherever needed in the east or the west — magnificent, costly structures.  Christian ministers were exempted from taxation and became officials representing the government.  Even laymen were shown marked favor in political appointments.  Gift was piled upon gift, and privilege upon privilege.  Decrees were issued exhorting the public to abandon their ‘ancient superstitions’ and accept the ‘truth’.  Complete and expensive copies of the scriptures were furnished to Christians by the state, replacing those destroyed by former persecutors.  Could or should they decline these marvelous favors bestowed upon them?  Should they decline to avail themselves of the wonderful opportunity thus afforded to proclaim the gospel of the Son of God to the large audiences now forthcoming because of governmental favor toward the church?  Should they refuse to rejoice because now multitudes suddenly saw the light?’   

            “The church had endured persecution — bitter, death-dealing persecution.  Now the reverse was true and they were enjoying the favors of the state.  Could they endure prosperity?  What was to be their attitude toward this new development in the Christian experience?  How were they to view the future?  The great and sudden relief experienced by the lifting of the hand of persecution evidently had the effect that Satan desired it should, because the historical record shows that the great body of professed Christians at the time concluded that the days of waiting for the Kingdom had ended!  One historical writer, in telling about this, says, ‘When they were relieved of their persecution, and came into honor after having been so long reckoned the filth of the world, the cry was straitway raised up that the Kingdom of God had come.  The Millennium had begun.  The emperor was the visible favorite of God, the predestined overthrower of the powers of evil (by the sword, of course!).’ 

            “Following the last session of the Council of Nicea in the year 325, Constantine made a splendid banquet, about which the historian Eusebius, a bishop and one of the guests, has left us the following account: ‘The proceedings were sublime beyond description.  The soldiers of the emperor’s bodyguard were drawn up before the door of the palace with bared swords.  The men of God, over three hundred bishops, some of them bearing in their bodies the marks of the last persecution, passed by them proudly into the interior of the palace.  Some sat at the same table with the emperor.  One might easily believe he beheld an image of the very Kingdom of God.’ 

            “Following this, and amidst violent, stormy internal disputes, the nominal church multiplied, for the state was still friendly and the sons of Constantine improved on their father, for they not only favored the church system, but persecuted paganism!  The professed followers of the Master quickly caught the spirit, and with even more ardent zeal than was manifested by the strong arm of the state.  They, like so many others who are not willing to await God’s time or God’s way for the exercise of Kingdom powers, themselves took the law into their own hands.  Professed Christian mobs tore down pagan temples, shattered their idols, burnt their libraries, and slaughtered their priests.  There was no restraining them, so fierce was their faith and zeal for the alleged Kingdom of God. 

            “But the carnal mind was still ‘the god of this world.’  While the professed church as a whole entered into these revelries in connection with the establishment of a counterfeit kingdom of the Lord, there still remained a few true followers of the Master who did not share in this viewpoint and therefore did not enter into these unchristian activities.  Concerning these the historian says, ‘Some indeed during this century, were disgusted with the pride and arrogance of the clergy and aimed at spiritual simplicity and opposed the general trend; but the only fruit of their labor was that they were branded with infamy.’  Evidently this little flock of the body of Christ were branded as being anti-kingdom, even as it still is true of some today.  When the devil offered the kingdoms of the world to our Lord, He declined the gift, choosing the way of the cross and the life of the Spirit, while carrying out the Father’s plans which must precede the day when all the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.  But what the Son of man refused, the nominal church, centuries later, accepted, and installed a Roman bishop at the head, who, in the name of God, received the headship of the kingdoms of this world.  The great religious harlot was fully born, riding upon the beast.  From thenceforth it was woe unto those who dared to be anti-kingdom. 

            “These abortive Kingdom efforts, however, were not limited to the large body of professed Christians who finally became amalgamated into the Roman Catholic church-state system.  When the Protestant movement got under way, Satan still was active both with the small and large groups of Protestantism and almost without exception these have fallen prey to this master-stroke of delusion.  The Protestants, in separating from Rome, never completely passed out of the harmful shadow of the unauthorized kingdom.  Many of the Protestant systems united with the state.  Even today, most professed Christians confuse the present church system with the Kingdom, and when their hopes prosper or their activity is apparently blessed, and applauded by people in high places, they forthwith believe that the Kingdom of God must be here”   — end quote (author unknown). 

            Many other groups have made their own efforts at “building the Kingdom.”  Look for example at the Munzerites of the sixteenth century, who undertook to establish at Munster a theocracy or political kingdom of the saints; or the Fifth Monarchy men of the seventeenth century, who believed it was their duty to establish the Kingdom of God by force, and actually went through a form of electing at London Jesus Christ as Universal Monarch; or John Alexander Dowie who in the dawn of this century founded both the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church and the city of Zion, Illinois as a theocracy headed by himself as “Elijah the Restorer.”  Dowie ruled the theocratic community strictly and organized the Theocratic party, a political party to compete with the Republican and Democratic parties for control of the nation.  This party ran in the elections in both Chicago and Zion City as the representatives of the Kingdom of God on earth.  At the time of his sudden stroke and paralyses he was in the process of establishing theocratic cities in various parts of the world and proposed to purchase the entire city of Jerusalem from the Turks and turn it into a theocratic Christian city, the seat of the theocratic kingdom, in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ.   

            Dr. Dowie was but another in a long list of “kingdom builders” who imagined that they could “build” the Kingdom of God on earth.  They missed altogether the profound and wonderful truth proclaimed by Jesus when He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof” (Mat. 13:31-32).  The Kingdom is not like a house, or an institution, or a  government to be “built”; it is like a seed that is planted and by the spontaneous process of germination and growth becomes through the power of an indwelling life the expression and reign of God in the earth.  It is not the work of man by force, law, or politics, but the sovereign work of God by the  power of the Holy Spirit in and through yielded men. 

            For what purpose is God bringing us into sonship?  Many will point to the scriptures and say we are being perfected and brought into the fullness of God so that we can rule and reign with Christ when He establishes His Kingdom on earth.  I will not say that I disagree with this teaching except to point out that Christ has already established His Kingdom in the earth.  The “man” who planted the “grain of mustard seed” which is the Kingdom in its inception was none other than our Lord Jesus Christ.  But we need to be very clear as to what we have in mind when we speak of ruling and reigning with Jesus.  The idea that the Kingdom will one day be established in the earth, after the pattern of the kingdoms of men, and that God’s elect will assume outward positions of political and governmental power within its hierarchy is the same carnal-minded error that the people of Israel made when Jesus made His appearance among them.  As a result they completely missed Him.  How then shall we reign with Christ?   

            The first principle that must be very clear to us is that the power of the Kingdom of God is not political power — it is spiritual power.  “If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, T-H-E-N  THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS COME UNTO YOU” (Mat. 12:28).  The Kingdom of God is that domain where God’s saving, transforming power defeats all opposition, breaks down every wall, changes all that is contrary to God’s nature, mind and will, and brings men into willing submission to His authority.  Where the nature of God and the mind of Christ have mightily conquered, the state of things is called the Kingdom of God.  Where hearts are changed, where sin and error and darkness have been defeated, where truth and righteousness advance, where the will and ways of God are raised up as reality and life in a people, where the mind of Christ rules out of union with God — there the Kingdom of God has come and is advancing.  In the Kingdom it is no longer God ruling over you by sovereignty, but the life, mind, heart, nature, power, wisdom, knowledge, and will of God entering into you, becoming your very own reality.  How plain it is to see that this is NOT what happened in the days of Emperor Constantine!  The Kingdom of God is the power to transform.  Its citizens are a holy people.  Its kings and priests are all righteous, wise, and mighty through God.   

            What I have said before bears repeating — there is no greater truth than the truth that our Kingdom is a spiritual Kingdom, our King is a spiritual King, its citizens are a spiritual people, its ministry is a spiritual ministry, its authority is a spiritual authority, its dominion is a spiritual dominion, its laws are spiritual laws, its weapons are spiritual weapons, its priesthood is a spiritual priesthood, its sovereignty is a spiritual sovereignty, its power is spiritual power, and its rulers rule only by the Spirit, praise His wonderful name!  You do not “build” this Kingdom, nor do you exercise any kind of “political” power to further its cause.  IT MUST BE DEMONSTRATED IN THE AUTHORITY AND MINISTERED BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY GHOST.  That, my friend, is the power and  glory of the Kingdom of God! 

GOD RAISES UP MEN 

            In any kingdom there is order.  It is very important for us to know that every kingdom has order.  It has a king who is the ruler and it has the government which administers all the will of the king unto its subjects.  When we have been born of the Spirit into the Kingdom Realm of God, we have been born into a divine, celestial order.  Someone asks, “Well, how about organization?  Are we born into organization?  Doesn’t the Kingdom have some type of organization?”  No.  We are born only into an organism, a living body, whereby we receive our identity, our life, our destiny from our heavenly Father.  The Kingdom of God is a living thing.  The organism is CHRIST, the image of God.  To be born into the God family is to be born into the divine, heavenly order — the body of Christ.  Jesus Christ is the Head of this body, the firstborn Son, the first manifested Son, joined now by that glorious company of sons who come  into His image and likeness and are members of His body.  The whole company of sons, Head and body, is THE CHRIST.  “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: SO ALSO IS CHRIST” (I Cor. 12:12).  The order of sonship is the order of the many-membered Son of God.  And the order of the Son of God IS THE GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 

            The Kingdom of God, the Government of God, is not a method, system or organization.  Any thing that is “organized” is not the Kingdom of God.  There is one Christian movement that calls itself “Jehovah’s Organization.”  It is not.  God doesn’t have any organizations.  The body of Christ is not an organization, it is an organism.  Organizations are systems — organisms are living things.  God does not raise up or use organizations — He calls, ordains, prepares, equips, and uses MEN.  God always begins His purposes with a MAN, and consummates His purposes in a PEOPLE.  Under the Old Covenant the man was Moses, and the people was Israel.  Under the New Covenant the man is Jesus Christ, and the people is the sons of God. 

            Many other men have also been involved in God’s purposes throughout the ages.  When the time had come for God to have a nation as His witness in the earth, He called forth Abraham out of his homeland to go into a strange land.  There he was to bear a son, and that son would bear sons and someday God’s nation would be born because God had His man — Abraham.  When Israel, pressed beyond measure by Egyptian bondage, cried aloud for deliverance, God didn’t form a committee to devise a plan.  He raised up a man.  Pharaoh, the cruel and ruthless lord of Egypt, was mastered by Moses.  At the very hour when all that Pharaoh represented was tyranny and slavery, God was creating a mighty deliverer who would captain the forces of the Lord and lead them toward the Promised Land.   

            Israel cried hopelessly in the wilderness, wandered aimlessly, lost faith in divine intervention, and muttered agonizingly, “We die!  There is no Promised Land!”  God then strengthened the heart of His man, Joshua, to march across the Jordan which separated the desolate wilderness from the promised land of plenty.  At another time Ahab and Jezebel were out-maneuvered by the prophet Elijah, the thundering Voice of God.  Crises have always produced the grandest of prophets.  David and his mighty men brought deliverance to Israel from all their enemies that had been thorns in their sides from the days of Joshua.  Rome met its master in Paul.  He transformed its society for the magnificent glory of Jesus Christ the Lord.  From the turbulence of the Middle Ages came Martin Luther.  At a moment when religious life ebbed lowest, when spiritual light had all but flickered and gone out, God brought forth John Wesley to spark into being the revival that was to impact mightily Great Britain and the world.   

            So it has always been in the annals of divine history — time would fail me to tell of Gideon, who routed the enemy; of Samuel and the prophets who as God’s instruments subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in battle, and put to flight the armies of  the aliens.  God has never judged a nation, met a crisis, delivered a people, manifested His power, accomplished His purpose, or ushered in a new age by organization.  He has always matched the hour and need with MEN.  When God moved to end that first wicked age of human experience He did not organize the Ante-diluvian Flood Control Association to accomplish His purpose.  It was by faith that one man — Noah — “being warned of God of things not yet seen, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world” (Heb. 11:7). 

            No age in world history matches in crisis and potential tragedy the age in which we live.  On any moral chart, on any graph of spiritual decline, on any meter of danger and peril, this age is the age horrendous.  The age is catastrophic with dark predictions of terrorism, of nuclear war, atomic blasts, thermonuclear annihilation, deadly fall-out, or destruction of the earth by the sheer weight of over-population and pollution.  Will God leave this age Voiceless?  Will heaven fail to produce a Deliverer?  He has never done so.  He has always had His man.  As Basil Miller once wrote, “When God has selected His man, He has ground that man and polished him through the cauldron of human need and suffering.  And when the divine process was completed, the schooling finished, His lapidary stones for hewing character burnished His man to a bright hue.  God freed His man from obsolescent dogma and creed, and armed him with multifold weapons of spiritual warfare.  Then He lifted him forth to captain the forces of right, a thundering voice of prophetic power.  In the darkest hours of human night there has always been a lighted torch in the hand of God’s man.” 

            So it is today.  God has a Voice.  God is preparing to blow a trumpet and rally the armies of the Lord.  But this time it is not a solitary man.  It is a many-membered man.  It is a vast company of the sons of God.  The manifestation of the sons of God is the hope of this dying age.  Jesus was the seed planted at the dawn of this age as a preview of the Kingdom when Christ with His entire body of sons will appear in power and glory; and His many brethren are the harvest of that original seed to bring forth in the earth the completeness of God’s Christ and the triumph of His Kingdom in all realms.  The certain hope of a new age of progression into the unfoldment of God’s Kingdom lies directly before us.  The whole creation, that has groaned in travail and pain throughout the dark night of every dispensation from Adam, is soon to hear the joyous shout of the birth of God’s new man-child for this hour.  This man shall arise in the midst of the nations and will publish to all the world the glad news, “thy God reigneth!”   And the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall fill all the earth as the waters cover the sea. 

            I do not hesitate to tell you that I have never been able to work under committees, organizations, systems, creeds, rules and regulations.  Creeds are not broad enough, dogmas are too binding; organization, systems and rules are stifling and restrictive man-made instruments of carnality and death.  Those called to the Kingdom in this hour are given an assignment, a commission from the God of heaven Himself.  They are His ambassadors, representing His government.  Their orders do not come from headquarters in some distant city, nor from committees, counsels, boards, or bishops.  To heed the voice of men and change one iota of the assignment would be to betray the Kingdom of God.  It would be an act of treason against the Kingdom of Heaven.  Those called to sonship have come into contact with the Source of divine energy and power, of wisdom and knowledge, and there is no alternative but to obey the heavenly vision.  Our charge is to pursue the course set before us by the spirit of wisdom and revelation, taking our place within the ranks of that vast company of saints out of all the ages in their mission of bringing the Kingdom of God to pass in all the earth.   

            The men who have been the molders of the world for God have all been men full of faith and the Holy Ghost.  It requires no faith nor any Holy Ghost to carry on the ordinary program of the average church, for running a church these days is not unlike running a business or corporation.  It is all method, system, charisma, public relations, professional skills and program.  But faith and revelation cause men to venture into the unknown and develop  a reliance upon the unseen powers of God.  When there are no roadsigns of men’s traditions marking the limits of achievement, when there are no precedents, when there is nothing to go by, as far as sight is concerned, and one steps forward with nothing but the word of the Lord birthed within, depending upon God’s tremendous power, this externalizes the vision and demonstrates before all men the power and glory of the Kingdom of God. 

            All the great movements of God in the earth have been accomplished through men God has sovereignly raised up with a vision, a message, and an anointing of authority and power.  He has never used an existing organization.  The proof that the anointing is upon the man and not the movement, is that in every case as soon as the man passes from the scene the movement raised up by that man dies too.  It does not in every case disappear from the earth, but generally it stagnates, becomes more organized, and in most cases declines either spiritually or numerically, and eventually disintegrates or becomes something altogether different from what it was formed  to be.  The leaders who follow just “do not have what it takes” — they are not the man God raised up and anointed with His Spirit! 

            The religious systems are always exerting themselves to devise new methods, new plans, new programs, new organizations to advance the work of the church and secure enlargement and security for God’s work.  This method sinks the man in plan and organization — he becomes a cog in the mechanical wheel.  God’s plan has nothing to do with organizational structures — God’s emphasis is on men.  Men are God’s method!  “There was a man sent from God...”  The church world is looking for better programs; God is looking for better men.   

            You never heard of a prophet, priest, or king being voted for!  Prophets are very uncomfortable fellows.  They have a strange way that makes them, even when very young, extremely obnoxious to slow and unprogressive persons who love to be quiet and at ease, maintaining the status quo.  Prophets care for nothing but for God and His word, His ways, and His will.  That is how the Kingdom of God works.  God rules in and through men who are totally yielded unto His Voice and His Spirit.  If God has given us a revelation of His thought, and it is perfectly clear and spiritually sound, then what we have to do is not vote about it or even talk about it, but to do it, for it is His will.  Men who sit around tables “voting” about what course they should follow, obviously have not heard from God!  That is not the way nor the wisdom nor the power of the Kingdom.  The will of God once revealed is not open to discussion.  Jesus took no vote about His Kingdom activities.  He formed no committees to study anything, nor any organization to carry it out.  He was led by the Spirit of God and He ordained men who would be led by the Spirit, for “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). 

            “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.”  The dispensation that heralded and prepared the way for the Christ of God  was bound up in that man John.  “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”  “The Word was made” — not made a book, not made a doctrine, not a program, not a method, not a committee, not an organization — but “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14).  God came in the form of a man, “a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him in the midst of you” (Acts 2:22).  Jesus called twelve men as His apostles and gave them — not a plan, not a blueprint, not a system, not an organization — He gave them POWER.  “But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me...” (Acts 1:8).  This vital, urgent truth is one that this age of organization and machinery knows nothing about.  What the world needs today is not more machinery, not new organizations or more novel methods, but the PERFECT MAN.  “Till we all come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”  The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, the Holy Ghost flows through men; and I hesitate not to tell you that the Holy Ghost will flow most fully and perfectly through God’s PERFECT MAN, God’s NEW MAN, God’s complete CHRIST, God’s Government of Kings and Priests after the order of Melchizedek, the manifested sons of God.  The Holy Spirit does not come on machinery, but on men.  He does not anoint plans, but men.  He  does not reveal His will and His heart to boards and committees, but to men who walk intimately with God, men who qualify for the fullness of God.  This is the power and glory of the Kingdom of God!

            It is a great mystery, but it is a grand fact of truth nevertheless that Christ first reigns IN us that He may consequently reign THROUGH  us.  “Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, INHERIT THE KINGDOM prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mat. 25:34).  “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD?  Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD” (I Cor. 6:9-10).  “Now this I say brethren, that flesh and blood cannot INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD...” (I Cor. 15:50). 

            The word “kingdom” indicates the richness of the heritage of the saints.  It is no petty estate, no banana republic, no happy corner in obscurity.  I heard a good man say that he should be content with a cabin in the corner of Gloryland or a spot just inside the gate.  I shall not be!  The Lord says we shall inherit a KINGDOM.  We cannot be satisfied to inherit less, because less than that would not suit our character.  “He hath made us kings and priests unto God” (Rev. 5:10) and we must reign forever and ever, or be as wretched as deposed monarchs.  A king without a kingdom is an unhappy and unfulfilled man.  If I were a poor servant, a servant’s quarters would be a boon, for it would correspond with my condition and degree; but if I am made a son of God, an heir of God, a joint-heir with Jesus; if I am made a priest and a king, I must have a kingdom, or I shall not have attained to a position equal to my nature.  He who makes us kings gives us a Kingdom to fit the nature which He has bestowed upon us.   

            Beloved, I beseech you to strive more and more after that which the Spirit of God will give you — a KINGLY HEART;  do not be among those who are satisfied with the miserable nature of ordinary humanity or the childish hopes of the babes in Christ who throng to the churches which are merely nurseries for the birthing, care and educating of babes and which then stifle and threaten to suffocate the life out of these little ones with their own static creeds, lifeless traditions, and infantile programs.  They eagerly look for mansions and harps and golden streets and wings and white nightgowns in that glory world above, unable to comprehend that such glittering diadems are only nursery toys to God’s true kings; true riches are ETERNAL SPIRITUAL REALITIES; the true treasury wealth looks down upon the stars.  Do not sell yourself short, ye sons of the Most High!  Get a kingly heart — ask the King of kings to give it to you, and beseech of Him a royal spirit.  Act royally on earth towards your Lord, and for His sake towards all men.  Go about the world not as mean men in spirit and action, nor yet  in false humility as paupers and beggars, but as kings and priests of a race superior to the dirt-scrappers who are on their knees, crawling in the mud after fleeting earthly riches and transitory worldly fame.  What incredible loss shall be suffered by those who imagine that financial prosperity in this life is the sign of great faith, blessing and spirituality! 

            What the church world in general cannot comprehend is that the Christ does not rule alone but through a many-membered body.  Man in God’s image, man in Christ at the right hand of God, is God’s government in the Kingdom of God.  I have met men who professed that they have no desire, no ambition whatever to rule and reign with Christ.  It is enough, say they, to know that we are saved by grace and shall make heaven at last.  In fact, I have been greatly criticized and abused by some for my hope of inheriting the Kingdom of God and sitting with Christ upon the throne of universal dominion.  In the eyes of these accusers I am vain, conceited, self-righteous, presumptuous, heretical and power-mad, suffering delusions of grandeur because I cherish the beautiful hope of sonship and rulership in the Kingdom of God.  But I do not hesitate to tell you that Christ Himself has graciously bidden us to overcome and share with Him in His authority over the nations and all things.  He would both be King IN US and exercise His regal power THROUGH US.  “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne” (Rev. 3:21).  Such reward to His faithful followers is merely the tangible expression of the approval of God, and we may no more deny Him the pleasure of expressing that approval than we may renounce it once  it is conferred.  Someone has truly said, HE WHO DESPISES A THRONE DESPISES HIM WHO CONFERS THE THRONE.  It was one of our Lord’s rebukes to the Pharisees — “The glory that cometh only from God YE SEEK NOT” (Jn. 4:44). 

            As one has written, “God is exceedingly rich.  He is like a successful business man who has an enormous amount of capital.  God has a business in this universe, and His vast wealth is His capital.  We do not realize how many billions, countless billions, He has.  All of this capital is simply HIMSELF, and with it He intends to ‘manufacture’ HIMSELF in mass production.  God HIMSELF is the Business Man, the Capital, and the Product.  His intention is to dispense Himself to many people in mass production.  Therefore, God requires such a divine arrangement, a divine management, a divine dispensation in order to bring Himself into humanity.”  Praise His name!  As His kings and priests upon His throne the elect sons of God are the governmental arrangement by which and through which God dispenses Himself into His creation.  For that reason the whole creation continues to groan and travail for the manifestation of the sons of God.  What an opportunity to change things!  What an occasion to bless and heal and lift and transform the world!  It would be a crime against humanity, my beloved brethren,  to carelessly neglect and thus despise, as Esau despised his birthright, the position of responsibility and opportunity to bless and restore creation proffered to us by the illustrious King of kings and Lord of lords!  It would be a mean and despicable crime against humanity as well as God Himself to settle for a cabin  in the corner of Gloryland! 

            When you understand that God is dealing and working out His plan through ages, you have understood God’s purpose aright.  Is this age and the next the only ages that remain for this purpose to be fulfilled?  By no means!  God’s purpose through His body is “that in the ages to come He might show (put on display) the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7).  The message of this wonderful passage is just this: At this present time, in this age, God is showing (putting on display) the exceeding riches of His grace toward us through Jesus Christ.  Jesus is God’s revelation of His grace and kindness to the Church gathered out of the nations.  That is God’s purpose in this age.  But in the ages to come WE ARE THE DISPLAY, THE REVELATION OF GOD’S GRACE AND KINDNESS UNTO CREATION.  That which He has revealed to us in Jesus, and wrought in us through Jesus, will be displayed through us in ages yet to come that all creation by us may then experience His exceeding grace and kindness as we are now experiencing it in Jesus.  Hallelu-yah!  What a Saviour!   

            There are three very definite stages that transpire in God's great plan of the ages.  In this age the Church is being gathered out of the nations.  In the next age all the living nations shall come, and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain (kingdom) of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the law (authority) shall go forth of Zion (the sons of God), and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (the bride of Christ).  And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Micah 4:2-3).  All this shall take place when “the mountain (kingdom, government) of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains (strong kingdoms), and it shall be exalted above the hills (smaller kingdoms); and people shall flow unto it” (Micah 4:1).  In the age and ages beyond that all creation shall be dealt with and brought into harmony and relationship with God until all  things everywhere have been subdued unto Him and God becomes in glorious reality ALL IN ALL.  This in a nutshell is God’s wonderful plan of the ages. 

            “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen (nations) for THINE INHERITANCE, and the uttermost parts of the earth for THY POSSESSION,” says the Messianic Psalm.  Christ conquered, and He is conquering, and He is to conquer.  I claim this earth for God, for He made it.  I claim this earth for God, for the earth is the Lord’s.  The sea is His, and He made it.  His hands formed the dry land.  His power pushed up every mountain, and His fingers scooped out every valley.  By His wisdom all things were established.  I claim everything that comes out of the bowels of the earth for God, for “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” and “all the gold and the silver is His.”  I claim every man in El Paso, and in Miami, and in New York, and in Los Angeles, and in Hong Kong, and in Beijing, and in Moscow, and in Baghdad and in the whole wide world, and every man in their graves for God, for “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” and “it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves” and “He hath made all things for His pleasure.”  I am not willing to wickedly cede even one thing or one person to the devil, as do some, for the Christ came to reconcile all things and He is the Saviour of all men. 

            I proclaim to you, as the minister of God, that the body of Christ is here in this world for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.  Our destiny is something more than being a little group of saved people waiting to die and go to heaven.  The body of Christ IS the Kingdom of God  in this world and its King-Priests must reign until all things are under His feet.  Because all the earth is His, God is raising up a Kingly Priesthood to reign in mighty spirit power over the earth, not to be little human dictators, or an external, political kingdom of laws and systems headquartered in Jerusalem or London or some where else, but with an outflow of life and light and love, touching God with one hand, and humanity with the other, bringing the two together, that God may indwell all men by His Spirit and live and rule in them in power and glory.  The kingly nature in us is not to dominate over other men’s lives, but to deal with and break the power of self-hood and rebellion and sin and the devil that men may be reconciled to God.  Kings have power and authority, priests reconcile in compassion, mercy and love.  But once the reconciliation has taken place, and Christ is enthroned in men’s spirit, we deliver them up to God, even the Father, that GOD MAY BE ALL IN ALL.  That is the principle of the Kingdom.  We rule only to subdue men to God — THEN GOD RULES IN THEM.  That is the power and glory of the Kingdom of God!

To be continued...                                                                                                                                                                     J.