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Part
13 THY
KINGDOM COME
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in
heaven...Thy kingdom come...” (Mat. 6:9). I
will do you a special favor today. I will change that prayer somewhat. But
it is not really I that am changing it — the church world has changed
it. When they were through changing it they liked it a lot better. From
then on they have prayed it the new way: “Our Father which art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy saints go to heaven...” Isn’t that
what a lot of people are praying for? Vast multitudes believe a false
doctrine that is called “The Rapture of the Saints.” It means “The
Going of the Saints.” This idea is based on the scripture that says,
“If I go away you will also go away...” Ah — how does that text go?
“If I go away I will come again and receive you unto Myself.” The Lord
Jesus never said that He would come and take us to heaven; He said He
would come and receive us unto Himself, unto a Person, not a place, unto
union with Him in all that He is. What the church world is looking for
today is not the Lord’s coming, nor yet the coming of the
The Lord’s prayer, however, does not refer either to the Lord’s
coming or our going — its cry is, “Thy Kingdom come!” What is the
Lord’s title when He comes? In what office does He come? We have said
that He is coming as King. No, He’s not. People testify that Jesus is
their Saviour, Healer, Baptizer and Coming King. But He is not a coming
King. When He comes He does not come as King. He is already King. He is
the King eternal. He rules over all. When He comes He comes as King of
kings. There is a great difference. Let us put Him where He belongs. Let
us not drag Him down to just a king level — for the world has had a
bumper crop of kings. He comes as King of kings. But I’m going to tell
you something — He had better come soon, because there are very few
kings left in the world at present! If the revolutions continue and He
waits any longer He will be unable to come as King of kings because there
will be no kings left! But that is not what He is talking about.
“John to the seven churches which are in
The Bible is a book of faith and hope. It looks, not backward or
downward, but forward and upward. Its face is ever set toward the Dawn. It
always points us toward the best that is yet to come — the completion,
maturity, fullness, consummation. In its first pages we read of the heaven
blest
Then Jesus came! The message He gave was the
And as He, the firstborn Son of God, preached, so He would have His
many brethren preach. When He commissioned His Twelve, He sent them forth
two by two, and charged them, saying, “As ye go, preach, saying, The
Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the
dead and cast out devils.” When He commissioned the Seventy, He sent
them two by two before His face into every city and place, whither He
Himself was about to come, saying, “Into whatsoever city ye enter and
they receive you, cure the sick that are therein, and say to them, The
Kingdom of God is come nigh to you.” When He was traveling through
Peraea, and one of His disciples asked leave to go and bury his father,
the King said to him, “Follow me; leave the dead to bury their dead; but
do thou go and announce the Kingdom of God.” And as the King bade, so
His brethren did.
When the persecution arose about Stephen, Philip went down from
The petition for the coming of the Kingdom brings us face to face
with the supreme concern and purpose in the heart of Jesus. The Kingdom
was His dearest dream, the one consuming passion of His life. As a child,
when He studied the holy scriptures and communed with His heavenly Father,
the reality of the
When Jesus turned aside from the carpenter shop that day, He set
out to proclaim the
“Thy Kingdom come.” An incredible statement — three simple
words in both English and Greek, yet they open to us a realm so vast and
glorious that one approaches the thought like a little boy with a pail
standing before the fathomless seas, wondering how to fit it all into his
bucket. There is no way one can contain it, no way one can comprehend or
articulate all that is here. The preachers in the church systems have
misinterpreted this petition. They think that the prayer for God’s
Kingdom refers to the end of the world or the so-called second coming of
Christ. But when Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” He is
not speaking of the end of the world, or the rapture of the saints, or the
return of Jesus, but the coming of the Kingdom. He means that we are to
pray that God may reign here upon the earth, yea, even here in this earth
which we are; that men here may acknowledge Him as King, that life here
may express and accomplish His will in earth as it is in heaven. “But
rather seek ye the
This is not a prayer that we might be taken away from this planet
to some far-off heaven somewhere, but it is a prayer that heaven may come
down to earth, that joy may swallow up sorrow, that peace may overtake
strife, that love may overcome hatred, that fullness may cancel
limitation, that weakness may be overwhelmed by might, that mortality may
be swallowed up of life, that sin may be banished by salvation, that the
knowledge of the glory of the Lord might cover the earth as the waters
cover the sea so that the earth itself and all within it may BECOME
HEAVENLY. It is a prayer for the “new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness” as men’s lives are brought under the sway of the WHAT IS THE K
The dictionary defines “kingdom” as “a government or country
headed by a king or queen; a monarchical state; a realm or domain.” The
word “kingdom” is made up of the noun “king,” and the suffix “dom”.
“Dom” is a noun-forming suffix to express rank, position, or domain.
For example, a dukedom is the domain over which a duke has authority or
exercises rule, and in the abstract the rank of a duke. In like manner a
kingdom is the domain and the people within that domain over which a king
exercises authority and rule. It is the “king’s domain”.
“Kingdom” is thus a contraction of “king’s domain”. The term,
Many of us who do not come from a country where the king or queen
is sovereign, may have some difficulty grasping this idea of a kingdom.
But it should easily be understood that no king is a king unless he has a
kingdom to rule over. No sovereign is a sovereign without a state under
his control. The state is composed primarily of three things: people,
territory, and government. Without people, territory, and government no
man is a king. And though there be people and territory, except the king
possesses SOVEREIGNTY — SUPREME POWER AND
How glibly the masses in the church systems pray this prayer! It is
repeated hundreds of millions of times daily without any serious intention
of it happening. People pray it without the foggiest notion of what the
words mean, and have no disposition for it to be fulfilled in them
personally in any practical way. There is far too much at stake. When all
is said and done, most of us from our earliest childhood believe that we
are the king of our own castle. We want to do things “our way.” We
determine our own destinies, make our own decisions, chart our own course,
set our own goals, choose our own priorities, arrange our own affairs, and
govern our own lives. We become highly skilled specialists in selfish,
self-centered living where all life revolves around the epicenter of me,
I, mine. Millions sanctimoniously and religiously pray, “Thy Kingdom
come,” thinking it is something outside of themselves, is some distant
age, under other conditions — and have no intention whatever of
abdicating the throne of their own inner wills and hearts to the King of
Glory. They are utterly unwilling to surrender the sovereignty of their
lives to God. They are no more prepared to accept the sovereign rule of
Christ than were those men who shouted at His crucifixion, “We have no
king but Caesar!”
So, if I sincerely, earnestly, and genuinely beseech the Spirit of
God to rule in my life and experience, there to establish His Kingdom, I
can only expect that there will be a most tremendous confrontation. It is
a foregone conclusion that there will follow a formidable conflict between
His divine sovereignty and my self-willed ego. And this, precious friend
of mine, is the true BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON! S. D. Gordon ably stated it
this way: “With this prayer go two clauses that really particularize and
explain it. They are included in it, and are added to make more clear the
full intent. The first of these clauses gives the sweep of His will in the
broadest outlines. The second touches the opposition to that will both for
our individual lives and for the race and for the earth.
“The first clause is this, ‘Thy Kingdom come.’ The second
clause is, ‘Thy will be done.’ In both of these short sentences the
emphatic word is “THY”. That word is set in the sharpest possible
contrast here. There is another kingdom now on the earth. There is another
will being done. The other kingdom must go if God’s Kingdom is to come.
These kingdoms are antagonistic at every point of contact. They are rivals
for the same allegiance and the same territory. They cannot exist
together. ‘Thy Kingdom come’ of necessity includes this, ‘the other
kingdom go.’ ‘Thy Kingdom come’ means likewise, ‘Thy King come,’
for in the nature of things there cannot be a kingdom without a king. That
means again by the same inference, ‘the other prince go,’ the one who
makes pretensions to being the rightful heir to the throne. ‘Thy will be
done’ includes by the same inference this: ‘the other will be
undone.’ There are the two great wills at work in the world ever
clashing in the action of history and in our individual lives. In many of
us, yea, in all of us, though in greatly varying degree, these two wills
constantly clash. Man is the real battlefield. The pitch of the battle is
in his will. The greatest prayer then fully expressed, sweeps first the
whole field of action, then touches the heart of the action, and then
attacks the opposition. It is this: THY Kingdom come, THY will be
done’” — end quote. When I pray, “Thy Kingdom come,” I am
willing to relinquish the rule of my life, my own will, my own ways, to
give up governing my own affairs, to abstain from controlling my own
destiny in order to allow the indwelling Christ to be raised up within me
as the personality of my being.
The word “kingdom” is from the Greek word BASILEIA meaning
“rule” or “reign”. Sometimes I wish that everywhere the word
appears in scripture it had been translated “reign” or “kingly
rule”. I think that says something that “kingdom” does not, at least
to our modern minds. Kingdom makes us think of land and people, of riding
horses, pomp and ceremony, maidens and knights, castles and motes and
walls and laws and all of that. Even Pilate asked Jesus if He were a king,
implying, “What kind of a king are you?” Jesus replied, “My Kingdom
is not of this world — that is, my Kingdom is not after the order and
systems of earthly kingdoms. It is the rule of God by the Spirit.”
To the first believers “evangelism” was merely the sharing of
good news. In fact, “evangel” or “gospel” means good news. The
good news of a new and marvelous Friend — the man Jesus who had walked
the roads of Galilee with them, helped them mend their nets by the
lakeside, played with their children, healed their sick, even raised their
dead, talked to them in familiar yet fascinating words about the Kingdom
of God — the glorious new order of the reign of God where sin, sickness,
oppression, cruelty, war, famine, and death would pass away and all men
would live in righteousness, peace, joy and power in the Holy Ghost. THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER
There is very special meaning and deep mystery in the words, “Our
Father...Thy Kingdom come.” Earth is full of misery, sin and death. Many
are the schemes of science and politics for correcting and mending
matters, and God knows they need mending. Each man has his own nostrum,
every quack his own panacea — but every council and summit, every
invading army and self-assertive leader, every carnal effort of man leaves
God and His Christ out of account, making every plan doomed to failure. We
shall mend matters only by finding God as reality, and deliverance comes
only when HE is enthroned as King.
Someone says, “But — is not God King now? Is not the world His?
Are not all men in His sovereign hands? Does not the Most High rule over
all? Has He not always been King?” That is perfectly true! I do not
forget for one moment that even now the earth is the Lord’s and the
fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein. “God is King of
all the earth” (Ps. 47:7). He is a King upon His throne. “God sitteth
upon the throne of His holiness” (Ps. 47:8). He has a regal title, high
and mighty. “Thus saith the high and lofty One” (Isa. 57:15). He has
the ensigns of royalty. He has His scepter. “A scepter of righteousness
is the scepter of Thy Kingdom” (Heb. 1:8). He has His royal crown. “On
His head were many crowns” (Rev. 19:12). He has His jura regalia, His
kingly prerogatives. He has power to make laws, to seal pardons, which are
the flowers and jewels belonging to His crown. Thus the Lord is King. He
is a great King. “For the Lord is a great King above all gods” (Ps.
95:3). He is great in and of Himself; and not like other kings, who are
made great by their subjects. That He is so great a King appears by the
immensity of His Being. “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the
Lord” (Jer.
God is a glorious King. “Who is this King of glory? The Lord of
hosts, He is the King of glory” (Ps. 24:10). He has internal glory.
“The Lord reigneth, He is clothed with majesty” (Ps. 93:1). Other
kings have royal and sumptuous apparel to make them appear glorious to
beholders, but all their magnificence is borrowed; God is clothed with His
own majesty; His own glorious essence is instead of royal robes, and “He
hath girded Himself with strength.” Kings have their guard about them to
defend their person, because they are not able to defend themselves; but
God needs no guard or assistance from others. “He hath girded Himself
with strength.” His own power is His lifeguard. “Who in the heaven can
be compared unto the Lord? Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened
unto the Lord?” (Ps. 89:6). He has a pre-eminence above all other kings
for majesty. He has the highest throne, the richest crown, the largest
dominions, and the longest possession. “He hath on His vesture a name
written, KING OF While
we deliberate, He reigns. When
we decide wisely, He reigns. When
we decide foolishly, He reigns. When
we serve Him humbly, loyally, He reigns. When
we serve Him self-assertively, He reigns. When
we rebel and seek to withhold our service, He reigns.
At a given moment in history it may seem to be true that the
rulership of the world is not in the hands of God but in the hands of
selfish and ruthless men. Caesar sits securely on his throne; Christ
perishes on a cross. So it appears. But not so. It was easy for the Roman
Governor, Pilate, to make this mistake. How very impressive an empire that
covered the whole of Europe and reached into Africa and
What consolation and understanding is inspired by the blessed
knowledge that in spite of all the bluster and might exhibited by the
kingdom of darkness, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! But, dear one, if
you will examine the basis of that Kingship, the Kingship of the Lord from
the beginning of the world, you will find that it rests on God’s
Creatorship. He is Lord of the world and men and rules and overrules in
all their doings because He is their Creator with divine plan and purpose
for their destiny. But God wants to be King in and by Jesus Christ —
that is to say, He wants to be King by virtue not of His power, but of His
love. He wants men to reverence and obey Him not because they are afraid
of Him, not because they are out-witted and out-maneuvered by Him, not
because they cannot help themselves, but because they love Him. It is
reconciliation, union, oneness with man that the heart of God is after.
Let us meditate deeply upon these words: “Our Father...Thy
Kingdom come.” Whose Kingdom is it? Ah, it is “our Father’s”
Kingdom. Not the Kingdom of the Lord God of the Old Testament, not the THE KINGDOM — PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
The prayer, “Thy Kingdom come,” points to the Kingdom as
something still to be realized. How can that which is already fully
realized be requested to come? As yet it is in some way in the future. And
yet, in other places in the scriptures it is spoken of as actually
existent, a present reality. How can this be? The reality is, both
premises are true — the Kingdom is both present and future. There are
many indications that for Jesus the
Again, “Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots
go (or “are going” — Moffatt, as also Goodspeed) into the
The clearest meaning of the Greek can always be ascertained by
usage. The way a word is used reveals its true meaning — the meaning
that the Holy Spirit of inspiration puts upon it, not the meaning our
English translators give it. It is a thing of wonder — the Holy Spirit
has faithfully, powerfully and indisputably recorded for us the precise
meaning of the word here translated “within”. The Greek word is ENTOS
meaning simply, according to Strong’s concordance, “inside; within.”
The word is used in only one other place in the whole New Testament, in
Matthew 23:26. It is the Lord Jesus Himself that uses the word on both
occasions, and notice what He says. “Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and
platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind
Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within (entos) the cup and platter,
that the outside of them may be clean also.” No one can argue that ENTOS
means “in the midst” or “among” in this place — it clearly means
“within”. “Within” is contrasted with the “outside” of the cup
and platter and plainly speaks of the pollution within the hearts of men,
not in their midst or among them. The evil in men is not something apart
from them or outside of them but something rooted deeply in the inward
nature.
The question follows — how could Jesus say to the same Pharisees
that both corruption was within them and the
So note — not to the disciples who followed Him and kept His
sayings, but to the Pharisees in their spiritual blindness He spoke these
amazing words: “The
The Bible says that “God is the Father of the spirits of all
flesh” (Num. 27:16; Heb. 12:9). We might ask, “Who, really, is
entitled to think of God as Father?” God is the Father of all men. Some
men walk as children of the devil, for they walk after the flesh, after
the serpent nature. But God is still the Father of their spirit. There is
a special sense in which God is the Father only of those who are reborn of
Him through the Holy Spirit of re-generation. To these He gives, in a
blessedly unique sense, the “spirit of adoption” or the revelation of
their sonship, whereby they cry, “Abba, Father!” The Holy Spirit
quickens their spirit to know that they are sons of God and to enable them
to walk in that realm. Nevertheless, the fact remains, universal and
unalterable, that God is the Father of the spirits of all men. If we had
no spirit from God the Holy Spirit would be unable to quicken our spirit
and make it alive unto Him. Father Adam is declared by the Spirit of
inspiration to be “the son of God” (Lk.
While the
If I did not believe in the ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God
in all realms and everywhere and over every thing throughout the
vastnesses of infinity, and if I believed that this world was to continue
to be misruled and misgoverned as it is; if I believed that sin and sorrow
and death and wicked men and vile institutions were to continue unto the
end, I should despair of humanity and of God. But God never gives up. God
reigns! The good news which our Lord Jesus Christ came to preach is
“good tidings of great joy to all people.” Praise God for the good
news! God reigns! — that is the good news. God shall be Victor! God
shall put every enemy under His feet and our feet! He is Lord of ALL!
The gospel that Jesus preached was the gospel of the Kingdom. He
announced that He had come to found a Kingdom; He claimed the title of
King for Himself; and in the Sermon on the Mount He gave us the laws, the
principles, the very constitution of that Kingdom. Well, what kind of a
Kingdom is it? Across millenniums of time the answer of the great apostle
Paul rings clear: “The
Righteousness is right attitude, right motive, right living out of
the spirit. You see, my beloved, it is not just righteousness by man’s
standard, not external obedience to the law, not outward conformity to
society’s norms, not mere human goodness. There is more than one kind of
righteousness. Paul says, “For they being ignorant of God’s
righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Rom. 10:3). The
The
The Truly
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