SEMESTER 5
168 – General Facts about the Kingdom “2”
BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CORRESPONDENCE
COURSE: THEOLOGY V LESSON # 68
ESCHATOLOGY – THE KINGDOM OF GOD – GENERAL FACTS ABOUT THE KINGDOM # 2
Read: Mat. 4:17-23
INTRODUCTION:
1. As we view our New Testament with respect to the kingdom, we find it saturated.
2. It is to be our message, our prayer and our goal.
3. “Mini-thesis” putting it into a small corner seems trite.
4. I am embarrassed that I have said or asked so little about it before.
5. Thus, I understand young men’s interest in the expansions and expanded expansions of “dead men’s brains” on this subject.
6. In the last lesson, we started to recognize general Bible facts:
i. Common message,
ii. Large segment of New Testament,
iii. Total in tenses,
iv. Viewed spiritually,
v. Viewed physically.
VII. IT IS A MYSTERIOUS KINGDOM – (MAT. 13:10-13
)
1. Let us know then that true understanding is given to us not grasped by us.
2. Throughout His ministry (pre and post passion) Christ taught His disciples of the kingdom.
3. Yet in Acts 1:6-7 we find they had a question about it and His last words were, “It is not for you to know.”
4. With these words before us, does today’s shallow and dogmatic speculation not seem wrong?
VIII. IT IS PARTIAL AND INTERMINGLED – (LK. 17:20-21)
1. The context here seems to relate this to the closing promises of the Old Testament. (Mal 4:2)
2. The question is really, “If you are the Messiah, when will the kingdom become obvious?”
3. In verse 23 and following, we see conditions which will make them “desire the days of the Lord’s coming.”
4. But for now the kingdom is not to be observable to the natural man.
5. The first work of the King is inward, and thus, it is among you who are the residents of this invisible kingdom.
6. It was in this very context of thought that Christ spoke to Nicodemus (Jn. 3:3) and to which Paul referred in I Cor. 15:50.
III: Satan’s kingdom on every street, with a member of the Kingdom of Heaven here and there.
7. Sometimes there is “kingdom against kingdom” in one household.
IX. THE PREMIUM ATTRIBUTE IS SUBJECTION – (MAT. 18:1-3)
1. The commission to Adam was submission, and the occasion of his fall was independent ambition.
2. Conversely, the Spirit of the Kingdom of Heaven is absolute subjection, self-abasement. (Lk. 22:24-26)
3. The illustration of the little child was not so much faith for salvation, as subjection for the kingdom.
4. It is the opposite of the attitude and appetite of the world. (Mat. 20:20-28)
5. It is a kingdom of giving, not getting. (Mat. 20:28)
6. Men would abuse and rob the children of the kingdom, but God will not allow it to be so. (Lk. 6:38)
7. Does all this seem offensive, illogical and repulsive to you?
8. Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God, though he looks at it. (Jn. 3:3)