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Part
23 THE
KINGDOM, THE POWER, AND
THE GLORY
”After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father...Thine is
the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen” (Mat.
The Lord’s Prayer comes to a close in a great burst of exultation
and exaltation with the words, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, forever.” In these words we proclaim that the world
belongs not to earthly rulers, but to God. The world does not belong to
kings, presidents, and prime ministers, or even to the people who inhabit
it. It belongs to God. The world does not belong to those who have wealth
and luxury and power. It belongs to God. The world does not belong to
those who have become famous, those who have achieved success and received
the acclaim of men. It belongs to God. The world does not belong to the
strong, to the tyrants and despots who rule over men with an iron hand,
nor to military men with vast armaments and powerful bombs at their
command. It belongs to God. The kingdom, and the power, and the glory
belong to God — forever. Empires, kingdoms, governments, and armies
perish. Wealth and luxury and riches pass away. Fame, position, and the
acclaim of men — none of these will last. They are all like the wind
that blows for a little while and then vanishes. In the world, we look at
the things that are seen, and we say these are the realities. That is the
premise of all modern science. But it is the things which are not seen
that are the realities. The things that are seen are temporal. The things
that are not seen are eternal. Only the Lord God and that which is
begotten of His Spirit endures forever.
This doxology is rooted in David’s doxology in I Chronicles
chapter twenty-nine. David had grown old, God had forbidden him to build
the temple — this was to be Solomon’s high privilege. David declared
his spiritual revelation of the kingdom and the temple and asked for
willing people to follow his generous example to donate of their means in
preparation for the erection. We read the result: “Then the people
rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they
offered willingly to the Lord: and David the king also rejoiced with great
joy. Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation: and
David said, Blessed be Thou, Lord God of
Let us remember that in this magnificent Old Testament prayer,
David had in mind the kingdom which God had promised to him. That from his
line there would come One who would be the Anointed One, the Messiah, the
Christ, and He would sit upon the throne of David and rule over this
earth. As David lifted his heart to God in prayer he saw a kingdom lying
in the future; he saw that kingdom as a mighty focal point, and he saw the
great rays of God’s revelation converging upon that focal point. In due
time the Father said to His Son, “Sit thou on my right hand till I make
thine enemies my footstool.” After His rejection, Christ was brought to
death through crucifixion, was buried and rose from the dead, ascended up
to heaven, and took His place on the throne at the right hand of the
Majesty on high. God says, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of
Zion” and He is bringing many sons home to glory — thus He is moving
world events toward the focal point when this kingdom shall be triumphant
upon the earth, when He shall reign from shore to shore, when
righteousness shall cover this earth as the waters cover the sea, and
righteousness and peace shall kiss each other in all realms forevermore.
Also we must remember that the kingdom does not come by human
manipulation. It does not come by ecumenical movements. The World Council
of Churches cannot establish this kingdom, neither can the united notions
of the United Nations establish it. It does not come by any man-made
program, nor by any human force, but is established in one way and that is
by the catastrophic and cataclysmic manifestation of God in His sons to
put down all unrighteousness and establish His kingdom here in power and
glory. And that is what you express when you say, “Thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, forever.”
Now, at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus acknowledges the
Source of the power every son of God needs to carry out the truth
expressed in this Prayer — the One who makes possible all the revelation
and the glory we have received. “For Thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory.” In modern English it says, “For the kingdom and
the power and the glory belong to You!” Through these words we are
expressing something like this: “Father, I know you can do it, because
you’ve got it all! Yours is the kingdom. Yours is the authority. Yours
is the power. Yours is the ability. Yours is the advice, the counsel, the
wisdom. Yours is the glory; the magnificence and majesty are yours! You
have what it takes to bring us to sonship. You have what it takes to
establish your kingdom in every heart and life. You have what it takes to
change the world.” When our children come to us and ask for things, they
ask because they know all the resources are in our hands and we will do
our best to provide their needs. This is what we acknowledge when we
ascribe to our heavenly Father the kingdom, the power, and the glory!
If our whole spirit, soul and body are in tune with this chord, not
only has the Lord’s Prayer found its proper ending but Jesus Himself has
reached His goal. Indeed, if we can conceive the end of the evolution and
history of the world to be a majestic hymn of praise resounding through
all the breadth and height of space, not a concert of instruments, but the
joyful expression of thousands of millions of redeemed and transformed
spirits, then no psalm or poem has approached this paean so nearly as
these immortal words: “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory!”
With these words the Prayer returns full cycle. We began with the
Father; we end with the Father. Just as the Prayer opened in an attitude
of reverence and honor, with the statement, “Our Father which art in
heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” so now it closes with the affirmation of
the greatness of our God, “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory, forever!” We have stood with the disciples watching our Lord and
listening to His gracious words as He taught the sons of God how to pray
to the Father in heaven. We have felt the awesome wonder of His simple
commanding majesty. Our hearts have burned within us as the blessed spirit
of truth has taken of Christ’s teaching and unfolded the expansive
potential we sons have through prayer. As I muse within my spirit about
the wonder of my sonship to God, there seems to be an intensified yet
inexpressible cry for the Father in heaven to become more fiercely real,
and all things earthly to become a fainter shadow. THINE IS THE KINGDOM
We began with the thought of the Father, who in the secret place of
His presence rules and reigns in love among glorified saints who are His
willing and loyal subjects; and we prayed that His kingdom might come
experientially within us upon this earth and in the whole world of
mankind. Now we remind ourselves that that kingdom is already here,
brought by the spirit and power of Jesus Christ into our very own lives
and hearts. “Thine is the kingdom!” My prayer is that the spirit of
wisdom and revelation from God may enlighten the eyes of all of God’s
elect to see that only God’s right is right; only God’s good is
goodness; only God’s power is power; only God’s glory is glorious;
only God’s law is law; only God’s love is love. All this has been
perfectly revealed to us in the person of the firstborn Son of God, Jesus
Christ.
The kingdom is God’s just because all things were created and
made by Him and therefore belong to Him. In the light of this truth I
would like to reaffirm something that the world at large, and many
Christians, seem to have forgotten: THIS IS GOD’S WORLD! Long before
time began, long before a single heavenly body inhabited the vast regions
of space — GOD WAS. When He told Moses to tell Pharoah that the “I
AM” had sent him, God was talking about His eternal, present-tense
existence, before anything else had been “framed by the Word of God.”
I cannot — try though I may — picture a time when there was nothing
but God in all the vast expanse we call space...not one star, planet,
solar system or galaxy. I cannot imagine what it could have been like not
to have a world with its towering mountains, its vast canyons, and its
majestic waterfalls thundering down from the awesome heights in
indescribable power, then sweeping on to the fathomless seas. The total
absence of all these things is beyond my poor, limited comprehension. But
the truth remains, as stated in the first four words of scripture: “In
the beginning God...”
Long before the worlds were made, long before the billows rolled
across the boundless seas, long before the mountains thrust their
towering, snow-capped peaks up through the clouds, long before there was
one flower, or the song of any bird, or the roar of any beast, long before
there was any light, or the glory of daybreak, or the beauty of the
sunset...yes, long before there was anything at all...THERE WAS OUR
HEAVENLY FATHER. Then the blessed Word of God rolls back the curtain of
antiquity and shows us God at work, creating all that is, and all that
ever was. This passage of scripture goes a mighty step further and
establishes for all time and eternity the ownership of this world and the
heavens above: “In the beginning GOD created the heavens and the
earth.” He made it, and it is His. No one can take it from Him. It was
then that God wrote His signature of ownership — a signature that
reaches from the earth to the farthest outposts of the cosmos.
There is an understanding that is developing in the consciousness
of the “called out ones,” those who are going beyond the static creeds
and empty traditions of the church systems and pressing on into the
purposes of God, to know that ALL the earth — is the Lord’s. Not just
a tree or two, not just a mountain or two, not just a nation or two, not
just the church, not just those apprehended to sonship, but all the earth
is the Lord’s and the very fullness thereof. We are His whether we know
it or not, we are His whether we like it or not, whether we desire to
serve Him, or whether we are presently in rebellion against His will. It
is both heartening and assuring to read such scriptures as these: “The
earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world and they that
dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1). God has everything in the palm of His
almighty hand. He is sovereign. Jesus is King! Jesus is Lord! Job said,
“In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath
(spirit) of all mankind” (Job
In the Convention for Forming a Constitution for the
The prophet Daniel penned these inspired words: “The Most High...liveth
forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is
from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are
reputed as nothing: and He doeth ACCORDING TO HIS WILL in the army of
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His
hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” (Dan. 4:34-35). God is saying
to us that HE IS SOVEREIGN. Another way to express that truth is: God owns
the earth and everything in it — He does what He wants to do and nobody
can stop Him from doing it. In particular He is sovereign with what He
does with the earth. God does not have to ask anybody’s permission to do
anything He wants with any part of the earth — and none can hinder or
resist Him!
Now, I was raised with the mentality that somehow the devil got the
whole thing and that the earth belongs to “the prince of the power of
the air” who is “the god of this world.” NO, IT DOESN’T! God owns
it all and He gives it to whom He wills. He has the right to appoint
stewards over creation based on His purpose and their faithfulness,
regardless of moral, religious, or other considerations. All who have
ruled over the earth and the kingdoms of men were given a temporary lease
from the Lord God Almighty and when their lease expired it was given into
the hands of others and none could change it or do anything about it.
If the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, then we need
to somehow come to understand that God has never at any time dealt with
satan on a percentage basis. God never did tell satan that he could have
ninety percent and God be satisfied with ten percent. Neither did God ever
say that satan could have ten percent and He, God, would settle for ninety
percent. WITH GOD IT IS ALL. ALL belongs to Him. First, because He created
it, and second, because He redeemed it. Just as you may temporarily leave
a valuable watch at the pawn shop and later return to redeem it, so God
assigned to satan a temporary and limited sphere of influence over the
creation, for the outworking of His wise and wonderful plan, but HE HAS
NOT CEDED OR TRANSFERRED OWNERSHIP OR EVEN ONE INCH OF IT TO SATAN FOR A
Ah, yes, even though the world has been redeemed, there are still
men in open rebellion against God. But this, too, shall end. As one has
written, “Not always, however, shall men be in opposition to our
Creator, for after all present travail is ended, and man has run his
course of self-will and rebellion, there shall be an inflow of the love of
God into every heart which shall draw the creature back to his Creator, to
serve Him with a whole heart, and worship before Him in complete obedience
to His will. So great a transforming power is the operation of His grace
in man, that we shall come to Him in love, and serve Him because we want
to serve Him, freely and joyfully.” Truly, the earth is the Lord’s,
and the fullness thereof!
But we must turn the words we are considering upon ourselves. To
say, “Thine is the kingdom,” is not simply an acknowledgment of
God’s rule, but renunciation of our own. If the kingdom is the Lord’s,
then it is not ours. But how feverishly we build little kingdoms of our
own — kingdoms of possession, kingdoms of power, kingdoms of
accomplishment, even religious kingdoms of control over other men’s
lives in the name of the Lord. Then like Nebuchadnezzar of old, we look
upon them with great pride and satisfaction, thinking that by our own
might and for the honor of our own majesty they have been built (Dan.
4:30). And it is a wonder that the Lord does not cut us down and drive us
into the fields even as He did that proud and boastful monarch. But He is
longsuffering and would teach us by this Prayer to voluntarily forsake our
silly thrones and yield our all to Him. Some years ago the Duke of Windsor
abdicated the throne of
“For Thine is the kingdom.” It is the Father’s kingdom. It
doesn’t belong to anyone else. It doesn’t even belong to Jesus. Paul
tells us that Jesus will turn the kingdom back over to the Father so that
all things would be understood as coming from the Father who is All and in
all (I Cor. 15:24-28). “Yours,” says our Lord, “is not the kingdom,
though you be called to sit down in it, and occupy honorable places in it;
though each of you has some place in it, from the least to the greatest,
some work and office assigned you by the Great King, to rule over a
portion of the works of His hands. Yours is not the kingdom; nor, as so
many of you come to think, when all of your efforts have failed, and you
have despaired of overcoming, is it the devil’s kingdom. We are indeed
the channel and supply of the kingdom unto creation, but our Father is the
source, so therefore we exult as obedient sons ought to exult, “Thine is
the kingdom!” THINE IS THE POWER
Now we pass on to the next phrase, “Thine is the power.” This
is not only a recognition of the power of God, but a confession of our own
powerlessness. We must be careful even in this walk of sonship lest we
suppose that we have something to contribute, that we can add something of
importance to the great purpose of God. You may have heard of the fable of
the elephant crossing a crude, rickety bridge with a mouse riding upon his
back. When the elephant stepped on to the firm ground on the other side of
the bridge the mouse crawled into the elephant’s ear and exclaimed with
elation, “Man, we sure made that bridge shake, didn’t we!” We are so
tempted to think that it is our own power that counts. We think that our
works, our dedication, our faith, our perseverance, our fasting, our
prayers, our holiness, our love, our gift, our ministry, our anointing, or
our influence count for something and contribute something to the power of
God and His kingdom.
Indeed, we can even deceive ourselves into thinking that we are
quite indispensable to God and that without us He would have little power.
The Pharisees held that opinion too, but Jesus pointed out to them that
God is able of the stones to raise up children to Abraham! Sometimes we
are concerned about our manifestation — the manifestation of the sons of
God. But I am not so concerned today about the manifestation of the sons
— I am more concerned about the manifestation of GOD in His sons! May we
recall the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel wherein He said, “Not by
might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech.
4:6). Although the Lord works through us, and creation waits eagerly for
the manifestation of God’s sons, it is HIS POWER and NOT OURS that
accomplishes the task. The words of the old hymn are still wonderfully
true: “Nothing in my hand I bring, Only to the cross I cling.”
There is sometimes a disparity between a piece of machinery and the
power that runs it. In such cases one has a choice — reduce the size of
the machine or increase the volume of power. A brother once related, “I
can remember the time when the threshing machine was run by hand in my
home community. Several shifts were necessary, and the work was very
strenuous because the machine had to be driven as fast as possible. Now it
is being done differently. By means of modern motive power a hundred times
as much is threshed each day. And the men need not work as much now as
they did before. It is the power that makes the difference. It threshes,
sifts and cleans the grain all in one operation, and saves the work of
many men.”
I often think of this when I observe the feverish activity of the
church world. We live in a world of aggressive and high-powered
leadership. Men are enamored, even in the religious world, of big
organization. Human leaders occupy the stage. God disappears from the
common view. The churches are infected with a virus of man’s greatness,
man’s personality, and of man’s great organization. Promotion is the
order of the day. We sing the praises of our leaders, and men claim to be
the great power of God. Their program, their ministry is going to save the
nation, change the world, and bring in the kingdom! We magnify their
statistical claims; exalt the masses who throng to their crusades,
advertise the great attendance, the membership, the size of their
buildings, the magnitude of their budgets, the coverage of their
television shows, the effectiveness of their outreaches. Yet, when one
walks the streets of our great cities there is little indication that
these ministries even exist! Crime continues to increase, public morals
are in the gutter, the divorce rate escalates, humanity is drowning in a
flood of drugs, violence, sex and godlessness. While we have unprecedented
religious activity we also have sin abounding and evil men and seducers
waxing worse and worse.
That the machinery has become too heavy is due to the fact that men
are operating it with human labor, fleshly strength and carnal means
instead of running it with power from above. They are filled with doctrine
and program, tradition and church activity, ceremonies, rituals,
entertainment, soulish excitement, sensational hype, and lying signs and
wonders, and though they profess it to be Christ’s work, they would not
know Christ if they met Him on the street. Oh, let us awake and turn from
such vanities and come to know HIM in the power of His resurrection! The
powers of heaven are at our disposal for they are our Father’s powers
and we are the sons of His love. And God does have a plan for the
salvation and deliverance of all humanity!
The scriptures clearly reveal how ownership is one of the central
thoughts in both creation and redemption, the link that binds them
together. Two things are always inherent in ownership — purpose and
responsibility. Do you not know that if a person makes or buys anything he
surely has some PURPOSE in mind for it? And is it not also true that when
a person makes or buys something he has a RESPONSIBILITY to it? The man
who purchases a good hunting dog has a definite purpose in owning the dog,
and if he is not a hunter he will not buy it. With ownership of the dog
there comes the responsibility for the dog, to feed and care for it and
treat it humanely. You have, I suppose, sometime bought something? As you
have paid your money for it and it was delivered to you did you not have a
plan for it? And are you not now responsible for it?
Take a simple illustration. More than thirty years ago
We are not in this life because we willed to come into existence.
The whole human race is not here because of its own will. GOD IS
While men are busy blaming others for the world’s problems, and
the devil for their own, God Himself as Owner of all takes His great
responsibility for all and therein lies the foundation of the whole scheme
of creation and redemption. Romans
I believe that God now loves all lost men and women. There are lost
men in jails and prisons and mental hospitals. They are in saloons and
brothels and in sickness and death and judgment and hell, and God loves
them all with an undying love. He still remembers them and remembers His
Son on the tree, suffering and dying on their behalf. And in the redeemed
body of this resurrected and glorified Son He now prepares a Royal
Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, a SON COMPANY, a KING COMPANY,
a PRIEST COMPANY, to restore mankind into the image of God again.
“Because all the earth is mine, ye shall be unto me a KINGDOM OF
PRIESTS!” is the word of the Lord. The earth, the world, and all they
that dwell therein belong to God first because He made them, and second
because He redeemed them.
In Romans chapter eight Paul, moved by inspiration, states that the
whole creation groans and waits for the manifestation of the sons of God.
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest
expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of
God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by
reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope. Because the creation
itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the
glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom.
These have received a vision of their destiny in God, of what they
are being prepared to do for creation. They are here by divine
appointment. They have been born for this hour. They have been called and
chosen and are being made faithful. They have been drawn out of and
separated from all of the religious realms that they might learn the
higher ways of the
I once heard of the freshmen of a certain university, who, at its
three hundredth anniversary, carried a banner with the inscription,
“This university has waited three hundred years for us.” I do not
hesitate to tell you that the universe has waited long millenniums for us
— the manifested sons of God! This manifestation is so stupendous, so
glorious, so powerful, so earth transforming, that creation can afford to
wait for it, yea, is willing to wait for it, and with glad anticipation
and joyful expectation does wait for it. “For the earnest expectation of
the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom.
I notice that
“Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen (nations) for thine
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for THY POSS
Earth’s power is very helpless power. Ah, yes, Jesus has real
power — “power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life” (Jn.
17:2). Other men spoke and their words died with their echo: Jesus spoke
and His words shook the world. Other men died martyr deaths and were not
long remembered; He died, and His cross now stands against every skyline.
He is the true King, the MAN WHO CAN. He has power — like dawn’s
banners, like the unseen constraint of the tides, like the fragrance of
rare perfume, like great music, like buried seed, like that spirit in
history which litters time with the debris of proud empires and wills that
the “meek shall inherit the earth.” Because all the earth is His, and because Jesus is His King, God is raising up the body of the Christ, a Royal, Kingly Priesthood, sons of the God of heaven to reign in mighty spirit power and authority over the earth, not to be little human dictators, 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 men by His spirit and live and rule in them in power and glory. The kingly nature in us is not to dominate other men’s lives, but to deal with and break the power of self-hood and rebellion and sin and death and the devil that men may be quickened to God. Kings have power and authority, priests reconcile in mercy and love. God’s Royal Priesthood shall reveal to all realms the awesome POWER OF GOD’S LOVE AND GOODNESS, until all men bow low before Him and with worshipful wonder and joy proclaim, “Thine is the power!” BY J. Preston Eby. [ENTER TEXT OF WRITING / SCRIERE HERE] |
Other Writings in This Series:
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