THE KINGDOM

In Matthew 1 we have the genealogy of the King.
In Matthew 2 we have his birth.
In Matthew 3 we have the herald of the kingdom.
In Matthew 4 the preparation for the king.
In Matthew 5-7 the constitution of the kingdom.
In Matthew 8-9 the credentials of the king.
In Matthew 10 the message of the kingdom.
In Matthew 11 the rejection of the kingdom.
In Matthew 12 the unforgivable sin
In Matthew 13, the mysteries of the kingdom

Jesus never intimated that his conception of the kingdom was any different than the prophets. Jesus' conception of the kingdom was a physical, literal, visible kingdom over which the Jew was in the ascendancy. However... His warning to Israel is that before that kingdom can come, there has to be a moral righteousness by the restoration to man of the image that Adam lost. And that's the part that the Jew rejects. Bragging that his ancestry is from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which it is; the Jew forgets that his remotest ancestry is from the MAN who lost the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, Adam; who lost not only the physical visible earthly kingdom of the world, but also the moral righteous kingdom of God, made in God's image and God's likeness.

So the Lord Jesus Christ comes, he has no formal definition given, so all the Jewish hearers must have understood when he spoke of the kingdom, he doesn't give any formal definition of it. He understands that all the Jews are waiting for an earthly literal visible physical kingdom to come. They're waiting for the kingdom to come that God took away from Coniah and Zedekiah, in Jeremiah 22 and Jeremiah 52. The gospels connect the kingdom proclaimed by Christ as identical with the one proclaimed in the Old Testament.

The events attending the appearance of Jesus Christ in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are identical with the appearances that are supposed to attend the old testament prophecies in regard to the kingdom.

So, in comes the King with the message of the kingdom. Only once in a while does Jesus Christ hint that the kingdom of God is a moral, righteous, invisible kingdom. The references to the kingdom of heaven are always to an earthly, literal, visible physical kingdom. But the constant warning and undertone of the passages is clear, that there has to be the coming of an invisible, spiritual, moral, righteous kingdom of God, before there can be the coming of a literal, visible, messianic, davidic, palestinian kingdom of heaven. The differences between these two kingdoms are numerous. But suffice it to say that there is no kingdom of God from Adam to Christ, only the kingdom of heaven; and there is no kingdom of heaven from Coniah (Jer.22) to John the Baptist. Now there's a real nugget.

So, since both kingdoms show up with Jesus Christ, we are not surprised to find the words "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" used interchangeably in SOME instances.

So Jesus shows up. He's said to come as the King of the Jews, the LORD God will give to him the throne of his father David; He'll rule over the house of Jacob, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. (Luke 1:30-33)

This is the smiting stone promised by Daniel. And yet, all fail to see that his first coming is not a smiting stone; his first coming started to be that, but winds up into something else. And of course that's where all the scholars and theologians bust their necks and never recover. They think the smiting stone of Daniel 2 was fulfilled at the first coming and that therefore the kingdom is now here and that the Gentiles are spreading it. Wrong again. The Gentiles have never spread anything but hell on earth. (That's their "calling", ha, ha.)

The kingdom of men is the kingdom that's here now, as it was in 606 B.C., 587BC when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, and as it was when Christ showed up. And Christ shows up as the King of the Jews to announce the kingdom of heaven that Daniel prophesied about, and they take him out and nail him to the cross!

This is the kingdom that was covenanted in 2Samuel 7:11 to David, it was the kingdom that was prophesied in Jeremiah 23:5, it was the kingdom that was "at hand" in the ministry of John the Baptist, (Matt.3:2), it was the kingdom that was postponed in Matthew 13, rejected in Acts 7, 18, and 28, counterfeited in Revelation 13, and never realized until Isaiah 11 at the second coming of Jesus Christ.

At the crucifixion of Christ, we have the final momentous tragic scene with Christ before Pontius Pilate. All the forces of heaven and hell are combined, and upon which all history centers, upon which no history of anyone has been exempt, Jesus is before Pilate, and Pilate says: "Behold your KING"

And they say crucify him, and Pilate says, "Shall I crucify YOUR KING?"

And they say, "We have no KING but CÆSAR."

And here the Jewish nation, the called out people, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's people, that were called out of Ur of the Chaldees, for an earthly literal physical inheritance, in an earthly literal physical visible land, are called out and given all these promises, and here in John chapter 19, this same people suddenly renounces their God-given birthright, like Esau, they sell it out for a mess of pottage, they deliver their king to the Gentiles, who are running the kingdom of men, not the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of heaven, and here, earthly political temporal power passes from Israel to ROME! Not Russia! ROME!

In this climatic and disastrous moment, the Jewish people renounce their God-given heritage as a nation of priests, the peculiar people, the chosen treasure, and say, "We have no King but Caesar." (ROME!)

And if that weren't enough, the Roman King at this particular time, is Tiberius, who was diseased and half-mad! And that's the man that the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob took instead of their Jewish Messiah.

They crucified Jesus and said THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. All history, B.C. and A.D. hinges on that one focal point; it hinges on a Jewish Messiah on a cross, the man of God who came to his own and his own received him not.

You cannot study or understand history without the Jew.

And the reason why there are people today in America who think the Roman Catholic Church is a fairly good church and you shouldn't speak against it, is because those people have rejected what the Bible has shown about the history of the Jew.

The Jew renounces his birthright and hands it over to Rome, and Rome takes it, and Rome has had it ever since.

I say this because, if you think I'm prejudice about the Roman Catholic Church, and you betray your ignorance along these lines, let me tell you right now, I know what your trouble is without even knowing you or having never met you: You actually believe that because the Roman Catholic Church still operates and still has power, that perhaps it might be the church to whom Jesus gave the keys and said the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I want to tell you something, friend, the only reason Rome is still in power today, is not because Jesus gave it any authority, (other than the authority that he gives Satan - 2Cor.4:4, Rom.13:1-5), the reason Rome continues today with the power it does, is because the JEW forfeited the earthly temporal power that God had given him as a nation of priests and kings and handed it to Rome. The transaction for the power of the Pope is not found in Matthew 16, where the priests think it comes from, it is found in John 19:15, at the crucifixion where Rome is killing the Jewish Messiah. God never gave Rome authority to do anything except DAMN the earth!

So the Lord Jesus Christ dies with THREE inscriptions on his cross, for Shem, Ham and Japeth. (Hebrew, Latin, and Greek - Asia, Africa, and Europe)

And these three inscriptions would tell you the nature of the Roman church.

The Greeks are the Gentiles, from Javan, Gen.10. Anybody knows that the Hebrews are from Shem. But WHAT is the Latin? The Latin represents HAM, north African negro church.

So Christ dies on the cross, is buried and comes back up from the dead. And the last statement that he makes to his disciples on this earth has to do with a literal earthly physical visible messianic davidic kingdom. "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6b)

The spiritual kingdom in between the two comings of Christ does not nullify the coming literal, visible, earthly, davidic, kingdom promised to the nation of Israel.

If you ever make the mistake of thinking that men are getting better, history becomes unintelligeable, and if you ever make the mistake of thinking that the Jew is not the center of history, then history is just a series of wars between gentiles as they try to kill each other and take over the earth.

The kingdom could have come up through Acts 7. The Lord Jesus Christ was no longer sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high, but STANDING! Ready to return! When the Jewish rulers again rejected their King, and stoned Stephen, we see a transition away from the Jews unto the Gentiles, with representatives of the three sons of Noah being saved; Ham in Acts 8, Shem in Acts 9, Japheth in Acts 10.

(See the Future for Israel message next. Thanks. --Richard :)