The Kingdom of God Has Drawn Near
I would like to share some things about the kingdom of God, about what it is, where it is, how it is experienced, and why it is often NOT experienced by those who believe in it. There are countless ideas in the church-world today about the kingdom of God. Some say it is this, some say it is that, some say “lo here” it is in this doctrine, some say “lo there” it is in that movement. Others say that it hasn’t come yet, and that we must wait for it to come at the end of the world. Our confusion and unfamiliarity with the kingdom of God is a very unfortunate reality. The truth is, we should not be confused or unfamiliar with the kingdom of God. In fact, I will go as far as to say that the kingdom of God can become more familiar and real to our hearts than the outward creation is to our eyes and our hands. Or as Jesus says, there may be many here in this room who will “not taste death before they see the kingdom of God present with power.” (Mark 9:1)
Now before we say much about what the kingdom of God is, or how we experience it, I think it will be helpful to say a few words about a great enemy that we all have; an enemy that is an obstacle to all true spiritual understanding and experience. This enemy is your own natural mind or imagination, or your human faculty of reason. Perhaps you have heard me say this before, but the natural mind of man is NOT the faculty with which we can know or experience spiritual reality. The mind of man is a gift of God and it is very useful for natural things. It is necessary for learning math and history and for driving cars. But it is not the tool or instrument that God has given us for learning spiritual things. Spiritual things are shown to the soul of man by the Spirit of God, and they are known only as they are lived.
I could demonstrate this with multitudes of verses, but I hope I don’t have to do that. Let one verse suffice for now: “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Cor. 2:14. Spiritual things are taught by the Spirit, by the shining of His light in the heart. First we see and feel something of spiritual reality in His light. And then we come to genuinely know and experience truth as we abide and walk and live in it. I mean to say, we don’t understand spiritual realities further than we have seen them in their own light. And we don’t experience spiritual realities further than we have lived them in their own life. This has been the experience of every true follower of Christ from the beginning of the world.
It is therefore a great error, and a great danger, to use our reason, our brain, our opinion, to try to define and understand spiritual things like the kingdom of God. The only thing that you will obtain in this way is a collection of lifeless imaginations and empty doctrines that will hinder your knowledge of truth. By nature man is darkness. Darkness cannot imagine light, nor can it understand light by means of study. Light must shine into darkness, and dispel darkness, or we will have nothing more than dark opinions.
But when we DO begin to see and experience living, spiritual realities, we first of all discover that they are always entirely contrary to the imaginations of our own carnal minds. And second, if we are fortunate enough to possess a Bible, we also find that spiritual realities are nothing less than the inward fulfillment and spiritual reality of all of the pictures, descriptions, figures, words, types and shadows that have been shown to us in Scripture. The Scriptures are like a collection of arrows or fingers that POINT to a living, spiritual experience of God. But true knowledge, or true spiritual understanding, is not found in the arrows that point, or in the words that describe, but rather the actual living experience of what is being described.
This was what many of the Jews of the first century did not understand about spiritual knowledge, or about what it really means to know God. They thought they knew God because they knew the arrows and words that pointed to Him. But Christ said, John 5:39-40 “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”
True spiritual knowledge is NOT the knowledge of the Scriptures. No, this is another great error. The Pharisees knew the Scriptures better than you and I, but they would not come to the One that the Scriptures pointed to. The Scriptures are true, but they are not the living truth. They are true arrows that point to the living Truth. But I repeat, if you and I are going to know the living, substantial, spiritual Reality that the Scriptures bear witness of, then we must find it by experiencing its own light and life in our hearts. True spiritual knowledge is life and light, living and shining in the heart of man.
Returning now to the kingdom of God. Anyone can try to use their mind to imagine what the kingdom of God is, or where it is, or how it comes. But this is a foolish exercise for two reasons. The first reason we have already said: the imagination of man is shut out from peeking or prying into spiritual knowledge. And the second reason is that God has already given us multitudes of descriptions and pictures of these things according to His understanding in Scripture.
Very often, when Christians encounter a word in the New Testament, a word like “door”, or “way” or “rest” or “the kingdom of God”, we immediately try to define these things with our own ideas, or perhaps by looking into Greek dictionary definitions. We don’t consider the fact that these words already have a VERY SPECIFIC meaning and reality in the mind of God, and that God has often been testifying about these words or realities for centuries in the old covenant. In many cases, there are hundreds of pages in the Old Testament that illustrate or describe exactly how God sees these things, and how the heart of man must experience them. But rather than pay attention to these things, we just grab a New Testament word and begin to fill it with our dark ideas.
A large part of the Old Testament is God’s own descriptions and illustrations of His kingdom. God invested much time (hundreds of years) in attempting to describe and illustrate for us His own perspective of the kingdom of God. He used outward people, places, kings, battles, stories, pictures, prophecies, victories and defeats, over and over again in the books of Joshua, Judges, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings, 1st and 2nd Chronicles, to show us the nature of His kingdom, and also the nature of a contrary kingdom, the kingdom of self or sin. And He did this so that we could understand something of what Christ meant when He finally came and said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” These are the very first words of Christ in the book of Mark. And this same proclamation is repeated over and over again: “The kingdom of God is at hand.” “The kingdom of God has drawn near to you.”
Some Christians today speak of the Old Testament as though it has little or nothing to do with Christians in the New Covenant. But this opinion manifests a great degree of misunderstanding, because man has not changed since the fall. He has always had the exact same problem, and he has always stood in need of the exact same solution. And in different ways, using different forms of communication—words, pictures, stories, examples, figures, etc.—God has always been dealing with man about the same problem, and talking to him about the same solution.
Man’s problem has always been an inward, spiritual death, a terrible LACK of the life, nature, power, righteousness, light, and presence of Christ. In the beginning, man fell into a condition of spiritual death, a condition of separation from God. That is to say, in man’s fall, God ceased to live in him, to reign in him. God ceased to be the life and nature and power and truth and wisdom and righteousness that was governing man, and man became a vessel for another spirit. He became the kingdom of another nature, or a house where another strong man possessed all of the goods. This has always been man’s problem, and the source of all other problems.
Man’s solution has always been Christ. There is no other solution that man could ever possibly need or find, because Christ IS the life of God, the power of God, the righteousness of God, the wisdom, nature, light, and love of God. The only thing that man has ever needed was A BIRTH of the Christ of God, to be BORN AGAIN, and then filled with, and governed by the very life and nature that he lost in the beginning. This is the only salvation, the only redemption, the only Promised Land that Scripture has ever talked about, from Genesis to Revelation.
Man does not have a different problem now than he had 6000 years ago. And he is not in need of a different solution now than he was in need of 6000 years ago. I repeat, neither the problem nor the solution has changed. The only thing that changes in turning the page from the Old Testament to the New Testament in the Bible is the WAY that God describes this problem and this solution. Now don’t misunderstand me. Of course now Christ has come, the fulfillment has come, the new covenant has come in the person of Christ. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m simply saying that the Old Testament and the New Testament BOTH testify of the same human problem, and the same divine solution.
In the Old Testament this problem was described in all sorts of pictures, stories, outward types and shadows that clearly illustrated man’s great departure from the life and righteousness of God. God showed Israel their problem making use of pictures like outward slavery, oppression, death, captivity, uncleanness, leprosy, plagues, famines, outward abominations, fiery serpents, dirty temples, filthy idols, contagious diseases, military defeats, uncircumcised flesh, etc. All of these things, and many more, are the branches and fruits of the fallen adamic man—the man that lost the life of God.
And in the Old Testament, the one solution—JESUS CHRIST—is shown to us in countless pictures, types, shadows, promises, and prophecies as well. We see Christ presented to us as a tree of life, as a Seed of the woman, as the Seed promised to Abraham, as a Passover Lamb given to Israel, as a light in their dwellings, as a fire over their tabernacle, as a high priest, as manna that falls from heaven, as water that comes from a rock, or in the words of Paul, “they all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:3-4)
The Old Testament painted pictures using people, places, figures, symbols, stories, outward sacrifices, offerings, fragrances, victories, harvests, etc. And the New Testament declares the fulfillment of these things to have come in the person and power of Christ. But both the Old Testament and the New Testament tell the same story, and preach the same gospel. They both declare the same problem, and point us to the same Savior. They both, in their own way, declare that man has lost the life, light, nature, righteousness, and presence of God, and has become a home for all sorts of unclean spirits. And they both proclaim that the only solution to this problem is to experience a stronger man take back the house, overcome the enemy, and reign in perfect victory.
I repeat, the Old Testament contained pictures, types, shadows, promises, prophecies, illustration, symbols, of both man’s problem and of God’s solution. And in the New Testament, we read that Jesus brings in the fulfillment, the reality, the living substance of all the pictures and promises of God’s salvation. And why am I talking about all of this? Because it is important to understand that God has only had one view, one understanding of the kingdom of God from the beginning. First He showed us outward pictures, symbols, types, and shadows of this kingdom, with outward kings and lands and governments. And then He fulfilled all of these outward pictures and shadows by the coming of that which they all pointed to. The substance came. The reality came. The fulfillment came. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.”
What is the fulfillment? It is the end of the shadow and the arrival of the substance. It is the coming of the thing that has been testified of. To fulfill the law and the prophets is not to remove the law and the prophets, but rather to confirm them by bringing in and establishing the thing that they were speaking of. Let me give you an example. God spoke often in the Old Testament of circumcision, and how outward circumcision was necessary to having a relationship with Him. Did God change His mind about circumcision in the New Covenant? No, He FULFILLED His mind, He brought in the thing that circumcision was a picture of. Paul tells us, “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.” Here is the fulfillment of outward circumcision.
In the Old Testament we read of a temple, a temple that must be clean, and how the glory and presence of God must fill the temple. Did God change His mind in the new covenant when he allowed that outward temple to be destroyed by the Romans? No, He didn’t change His mind, He fulfilled His mind and His purpose by bringing in the inward temple that the outward one spoke of. 1 Cor. 3:16 “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Here is the fulfillment of the outward temple.
We could give multitudes of examples of this same thing. But the reason I am trying to explain this right now is because the same thing is true concerning the kingdom of God. The pictures of the temple were outward, and the filth in the temple was physical. But Christ came saying, the temple is inward, and the filth is in your heart. The pictures of circumcision were outward, and the flesh to be removed was physical. But Christ came saying that we need an inward circumcision, and that the flesh was the nature of man’s sinful heart. In the same way, the pictures of the kingdom were outward, and the king was a man named David or perhaps one of his sons. But when Christ was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered: “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'Lo here!' or 'Lo there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
My friends, the kingdom of God is the coming of Christ and His reign in the heart of man. It is the heart of man that lost His life, His nature, His government. It is the heart of man that was like a house taken over by a strong man, and or a land filled with uncircumcised flesh. It is the heart of man that resists His rule, and is governed by sin and self and Satan. And so it is the heart of man that must pray, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done” in my earth, as it is in heaven.
And let me make a quick comment about the translation of Luke 17:21. First, the word translated “observation” here means “ocular evidence”. In other words, Christ is saying that you cannot see the kingdom with the natural eye. And where He says “the kingdom of God is within you”, there are some translations that wrongly use the phrase, “among you”. The Greek word, however, will not permit this translation. It is very simply the word for “within,” or “inside of” you. It is the same word that Jesus used when he spoke of cleaning the “inside of the cup.”
Now, for many centuries the kingdom of God was indeed something that came with “ocular evidence”. It had a physical form, it was something that God had established in the natural realm, with natural men and natural wars on a natural land. Someone during the reign of David or Solomon could indeed have said, “Lo, here is the kingdom!” Or the Philistines, in great fear, could have said: “Lo, there is the kingdom of Jehovah!”
In the days of the prophet Samuel, God found a man who illustrated His understanding of His kingdom in outward ways. He called David a man “after His own heart,” because much of David’s life and kingdom demonstrated the nature of God’s kingdom. We can see in David’s story how the kingdom of God started small and grew, how it had a long battle with the house of Saul, how it waged war against uncircumcised flesh, how it made peace in the land by overcoming enmity, etc. Saul, on the other hand, gives us pictures of the kingdom of self or flesh, how it fights its own battles, and makes war against its own Savior. But all of these things were seen, in that time, with “ocular evidence”. All of these pictures and testimonies were outward, natural, physical, and temporary.
But when Christ came, He ushered in the fulfillment of these outward pictures. The fulfillment is not natural, but rather spiritual. It is not temporal, but eternal. It is not outward, but inward. It cannot be seen with outward eyes, but it is very clearly seen and experienced with inward eyes and inward senses. It is not fought with outward, carnal weapons, but rather with inward and spiritual weapons that “pull down strongholds, cast down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” (2 Cor 10:4)
Do you see? This is why Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.” It once WAS from here, from the world, in the world, expressed by worldly things and people and battles. But now, His kingdom is not of the world.
And what I am trying to communicate to you, in all that I am saying tonight, is that this inward, spiritual, powerful, eternal, kingdom or government (which is the fulfillment of every shadow) came from heaven in the Person of Christ 2000 years ago. The time was fulfilled, and the kingdom of God drew near. It came as the fulfillment of every promise, the substance of every shadow. It came in the Person of a great king who would set up his throne in the heart of man and put every enemy under his feet. It came to cast out the strong man, to defeat uncircumcised flesh, to overcome sin and self and darkness and death in the heart of man, where the problem was. And yet, despite all of the signs and miracles that proved that it had come, and despite all of the prophecies that had been fulfilled, the majority of the Jews missed the kingdom because their hearts wanted something else.
Do you understand that at the time of Christ’s coming ALL of the Jews were eagerly expecting the coming of God’s kingdom. They did not understand the nature or place or purpose of the kingdom, but they knew that God had promised a kingdom, and that He had given them the exact time of its arrival through the prophet Daniel. This is why everyone in Israel was asking John the Baptist if he was the Messiah. This is why King Herod asked the magi, “Where is the King of the Jews who has been born?,” and then killed all the children born in Bethlehem. This is why, when Christ told Nathanael that He had seen him under the fig tree, Nathanael immediately responded, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” This is why both the Pharisees and the disciples asked Jesus about the coming of the kingdom. And this is why when some of the Jews saw Jesus’ miracles, they tried to crown Him as the new king over Israel.
I don’t know how familiar you are with the book of Daniel, but it is one of the few places in the prophets where an angel gives us the interpretation of the visions that the prophet was experiencing. The interpretations of these visions, more than in any other book, describe the nature and coming of the kingdom of God. And there are descriptions of natural kingdoms, events, leaders, and dates that are so exact, that most liberal scholars say that it must have been written after the events that it predicts. But no, this book was written by Daniel during the Babylonian captivity, hundreds of years before Christ.
During the Babylonian empire, God showed Daniel several visions announcing the coming of the kingdom of God. In one vision he saw four beasts representing four kingdoms that would have sovereignty over the inhabited world. One kingdom was already there, the other three were to come. The first beast was the kingdom of Babylon, the second the Medo-Persian kingdom, the third the kingdom of Greece under Alexander the Great, and the fourth the kingdom of Rome.
Then the king of Babylon had a dream of a statue made of four different materials. And these four materials represented the same four kingdoms, and Daniel was shown more than once that during the fourth kingdom, the Roman Empire, the kingdom of the Messiah was going to come as a small stone, and grow into the mountain of God. He also told Daniel the exact time when the Prince of this new kingdom would come. He told him that there would be exactly 490 years (seventy sevens), from the order of the king to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem until the arrival of the Messiah.
I don’t want to focus on these prophecies, but I want you to understand something important that applies to us today. In the days of John the Baptist, the whole house of Israel was waiting for something called “the kingdom of God.” They had centuries of pictures, promises and prophecies, and finally, the kingdom arrived. Christ began His ministry in Israel, announcing and demonstrating the presence and power of the kingdom of God. He said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” (Mark 1:15)“Calling His twelve disciples to Him...He said to them: And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Matthew 10:7) He said, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Matthew 12:28) He said to one, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:60) “After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them two by two ahead of Him to every town and place where He was about to go...heal the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” (Luke 10:1,9)
2000 years ago, with the coming of Christ, the government of heaven or kingdom of God came to earth in the Person of Christ and the gift of His overcoming Spirit. God’s promise came, the fulfillment came, the substance, the reality, the inward, spiritual, and eternal reign of God drew near to man, and offered man freedom from a contrary kingdom and power. Now, we know from history that the great majority of the Jews missed the coming of this kingdom, and it is easy for us to condemn their great mistake. But my question for us today is, how well do we know this kingdom? Or are we also missing it because we desire something else?