KINGDOM OF GOD
DR. JIM DIXON
REVELATION 19-11
FEBRUARY 28, 1993
Her Most Excellent Majesty, by the grace of God Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, Sovereign of the British Order of Knighthood—that is the official title of Queen Elizabeth II. But even the most faithful English citizen has to smile just a little bit at the loftiness of the words.
Oh, it is true that the military has sworn its allegiance to her and not to the civil government. It is true that theoretically the Queen has power to remove the Prime Minister. Theoretically she has power to block any act of Parliament. On paper, the United Kingdom is a kingdom. It is an old-fashioned monarchy, but the truth is no king or queen in England has blocked an act of Parliament since 1707. Queen Elizabeth II knows that her power is on paper only. She knows that. Now, if she were to block an act of Parliament, she would create a constitutional crisis. She would create a war that inevitably she would lose and ultimately even her power on paper would be taken from her.
Her condition, in a sense, is like the condition of so many monarchs the world over. Their power is limited and even those monarchs whose power is great, their power is finite, and it is temporary. But the Bible tells us that there is one throne that endures forever, one kingdom that will never end. The Bible tells us that kingdom is the kingdom of God. It demands your absolute submission. I tell you, biblically there is no subject more important for your life or mine than this subject of the kingdom of God. The Bible tells us the kingdom of God truly is the hope of the world.
Now the kingdom of God biblically is approached in three ways, and I would like us to examine each of these three. First of all, biblically the kingdom of God is described soteriologically. Now the word “soteriological” comes from the Greek word “sozo,” which means “to save.” It comes from the Greek word “soterm” which means “Savior.” It comes from the Greek word ” sotirios,” which means “salvation.” The Bible tells us that the kingdom of God is the only source of salvation. If you do not enter the kingdom of heaven, you will not go to heaven. The kingdom of God has power to save.
One of my favorite stories concerns a British man whose name was Campbell. Years ago, he was taken captive by King Theodore who was King of Abyssinia. Of course, many years ago, modern day Ethiopia was called Abyssinia. King Theodore was then on the throne, and he captured this British citizen named Campbell. Campbell had not done anything wrong, but he was British, and King Theodore hated the British and so he put Campbell in his fortress city of Magdala in a prison there and he threatened to execute him. When the British government found out about this they were enraged, and they demanded the immediate release of Campbell, but King Theodore and the Abyssinians refused.
What followed, I think, was one of the most incredible moments in all of history. The British government decided to teach the Abyssinians a lesson and they decided to give a lesson to the world. They sent an army of 10,000 men—sent them by sea on a fleet of ships which passed through the Indian Ocean and came to the shore of Abyssinia by the Red Sea. The 10,000 men then hiked 700 miles across the Abyssinian desert and there they ascended to the fortress city of Magdala demanding the release of Campbell. The Abyssinians did not resist. King Theodore was overwhelmed, and he was stunned.
The British took Campbell, and they carried him seven hundred miles back to the sea, put him on one of the ships, and brought him back home to England. The project took 6 months. It cost the British government $25 million, an incomprehensible sum of money back in those days and all because England wanted the world to know it had power to rescue its people.
Now we would all have to admit that the power of earthly nations and kingdoms is limited. The truth is there is no nation, there is no kingdom that in the deepest sense has power to rescue you. There is no kingdom that really has the power—no earthly kingdom—to rescue you from loneliness and emptiness and meaninglessness. There is no nation, there is no kingdom that has the power to rescue you from sin. There is no earthly nation that has the power to rescue you from death, no earthly kingdom that can rescue you from Satan, no earthly kingdom that can rescue you from hell. Only the kingdom of heaven can do that. And that is why the Bible speaks of the kingdom of heaven soteriological, because the kingdom of heaven alone has power to save—to save you from sin, from death, from hell itself. The kingdom of heaven has power to save.
Now, when Jesus Christ came into this world, the kingdom of heaven invaded the earth. When Jesus Christ came into this world, the King of heaven was in our midst and the gospel message began to go forth to receive His reign, to receive His kingship, to enter His kingdom that you might be saved. Jesus Christ is King of Kings the Bible tells us He is Lord of Lords. Jesus Christ said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and he who believes in Me will never truly die.” Jesus said, “Fear not. I am the Living One. I died, but I am alive forevermore.” He says to all who believe in His name, “Because I live, you will live also.”
We all know the death rate is 100%. Everybody dies. No one has power to save you but the King of heaven, Jesus Christ, and this is the gospel message with which we have been entrusted. The Bible says, “Unless you are born anew, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.” You are only born anew when you receive Jesus Christ as King. You can take Christ as Savior, but you will not have Him as Savior unless you also take Him as King. He is King of Kings. He is Lord of Lords. A Christian is someone who has embraced the reign of Jesus Christ. As you embrace the reign of Christ and you commit your life to His service and you embrace His kingship and you invite Him to come and sit on the throne of your heart, then you are born anew. He sends His spirit to dwell within you and you are saved. You are saved.
You know how Jesus told us the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy that man went and sold all that he had and bought the field. Jesus wanted us to understand the kingdom of heaven is worth all that we have. Why is it worth all that we have? It’s worth all that we have because it has the power to save. It has the power to save you from sin and death.
Now sometimes biblically the kingdom of heaven is spoken of ecclesiastically. The word “ecclesiastical” comes from the Greek and biblical word “ecclesia.” The word “ecclesia” is sometimes translated “congregation.” It is sometimes translated “assembly,” but normally it is rendered by the word “church.” You see, the greatest manifestation of the kingdom of God in this age of the world is the church of Jesus Christ. The great purpose of the kingdom of God in this age of the world is to build the church of Christ. Jesus said, “I’ll build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
In the year 537, Justinian, who was the Emperor of the Eastern Roman or the Byzantine Empire, completed construction of the Hagia Sophia. The Hagia Sophia was the greatest church Christendom had ever seen. It was built near the Bosphorus which joins the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, built in Istanbul, which was then called Constantinople, a city which joins two continents—the continents of Asia and Europe. It was a marvel to behold. The Hagia Sophia had a dome that was one hundred feet in diameter. Its dome was 189 feet above the marble floor below. It was inlaid with gold and silver—40,000 pounds of silver built into the altar area alone.
When Justinian, the Emperor, went into that structure and he saw it completed for the first time he said, “Oh Solomon, I have surpassed thee.” In those centuries that followed its completion, people said the Hagia Sophia is the supreme accomplishment of the kingdom of God—the supreme accomplishment of the kingdom of God. What a ludicrous statement!
Now, if the purpose of the kingdom of God were to build church buildings—if that were the supreme purpose of the kingdom of God—then we could have said yes, the Hagia Sophia was the supreme accomplishment of the kingdom of God. But the supreme purpose of the kingdom of God in this age of the world is not to build church buildings but rather to build the church. Now, certainly the church needs buildings, but the church of Jesus Christ transcends bricks and mortar.
Of course, it was May 28, 1453, when Mehmed II brought his Islamic Ottoman Turkish armies into Istanbul, or Constantinople, and conquered that city. They took the Hagia Sophia, and they converted it to a mosque. Today, the Hagia Sophia still stands. Barb and I saw it two years ago. It is a marvel. Today it is a museum but it never truly was the church. There was a time when Christians met there but it has never been any more than just a building. The true church of Jesus Christ is a committed community. It is a community committed to the King of Kings and it’s a community committed to each other. The purpose of the kingdom of God in this age of the world is to build that committed community.
Now I would like to take a moment and just focus on the word “committed,” and then the word “community.” I do not believe Christians are committed enough. I think the great reason that the church of Jesus Christ is so inept in America today is because men and women of Christ are not really committed.
Tim Gill is the founder and chairman of Quark, Inc., a computer software giant headquartered here in Denver. Tim Gill is a gay man. He is a self-avowed, practicing homosexual. According to the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, he is giving $1 million to help the gay and lesbian cause here in the city of Denver, $1 million. I marvel at the commitment, the commitment of gay people to the gay cause. I marvel at the commitment of gay people to the gay community. You want to know why the gay community is able to sell its agenda to the nation. I will tell you it is because they are committed.
Do you want to know why the church of Jesus Christ seems to be losing almost every battle they fight? It’s because the people of Jesus Christ by and large are not committed. God wants you to know your commitment to His kingdom, your commitment to His church, will have its reward. He tells us this very clearly in the word of God.
You know, people invest in many things. I read just recently where NASA and the Strategic Defense Initiative people at the Pentagon are concerned about planet earth, that it might be hit by an asteroid. Now they tell us that there is a 1 in 10,000 chance—one chance out of 10,000 that during your lifetime an asteroid will hit planet earth and it will destroy all life as we know it.
The people at the Pentagon want the SDI fully developed in order that they might have the power to deflect such a potential asteroid hit. People in the Congress are saying, “Well, I’m not sure we need to spend the money because it’s probably not a good investment. The odds just aren’t that great.” It is 1 in 10,000. The odds are that an asteroid isn’t going to hit in our lifetime and it’s only a 1 in 10,000 chance.
Now it seems strange to me that the Colorado Lottery which people invest in you’ve got only a 1 in 1,000,000 chance. You’ve got a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of getting the big pot. One in one million! Not 1 in 10,000 but 1 in 1,000,000, and yet people invest in it. Vast numbers of people invest in it. I’m not saying it’s immoral. I’m just saying it’s not a very good investment.
Now, God wants you to know that when you invest in His kingdom, it’s a great investment. You cannot make a better investment. He wants you to invest your money. He wants you to invest your time. He wants you to invest your talents and abilities and He promises you your investment will be rewarded. There’s a 1 in 10,000 chance an asteroid is going to hit planet earth. There’s a 1 in 1,000,000 chance you’re going to win the Colorado Lottery, but there’s a 1 in 1 chance that you’re going to stand before God. The chance is 100%. Each and every one of you are going to stand before God—every one of us—and our investment will be rewarded. We need to be a committed people, committed with our money committed with our time—committed with our abilities and our talents. We need to be committed to the King of Kings and we need to be committed to His people, which leads to that second word “community.”
You know, if the church of Jesus Christ in the middle ages misunderstood the purpose of the kingdom of God—if they thought the purpose of the kingdom of God was to build ornate structures—we shouldn’t laugh at them because I’m not sure we understand the purpose of the kingdom of God in our time either. You see, a lot of people seem to think that to be part of the church simply means going to church. A lot of Christians today seem to think that to be part of the church of Christ only means that you come to church. You might listen to preaching and teaching. You might sing. You might enjoy the music and all of that is great. Do not get me wrong. I think that’s great but that’s not really what it means to be part of the church of Jesus Christ because the church of Jesus Christ is a community—committed to the Lord and committed to each other. Yes, we come together to worship but we worship as a community. Yes, we come to be instructed but we come to be instructed as a community and we are called into community.
God wants us to learn to care for each other. God wants us to learn to love each other. God wants us to learn to bear one another’s burdens. He wants us to learn to encourage and exhort, even to rebuke, each other for the sake of the kingdom of God that we might truly be the committed community.
When you come to church and you sit in the pew and then you leave and get in your car, you’re not really being the church. You’re going to see as we approach the months ahead that we’re going to be calling each one of you into community. We are now developing ministry strategies that will facilitate your coming into committed community. I ask you even now to be praying about this. This is a great work of the kingdom of God in this age of the world to invite men and women into the committed community and then to build, to build that committed community which is the church of Jesus Christ.
Finally, sometimes in the Bible the kingdom of God is spoken of “eschatologically.” Now the word “eschatological” comes from the word “eschaton,” which means “last things.” You see, the Bible tells us that in the end times, in the last days, at the consummation of the age, the kingdom of God will come with power. It will come to fruition. It will come politically. Jesus Christ will rule the world.
Now, in times past, there have been Christians who adopted a theology called postmillennialism. In this theology, Christians believe that they would actually take the world for Jesus Christ politically. They believe that they would conquer the world for the kingdom of God. They believe Jesus Christ would come again someday, but they believe that when Jesus Christ would come in the future, they would already have conquered the world for Him. I mean, everybody already will have bent the knee to Jesus Christ and we can just put the red carpet out and Christ can come, and everyone’s already been conquered for Christ. Postmillennialism. It is very optimistic. I mean, men and women who believe this really believe that they were going to conquer the world for Jesus Christ and establish the kingdom of God before Christ came.
The problem is the Bible doesn’t tell us that. I mean, the Bible does send us into the world to make disciples. The Bible sends us into the world as missionaries to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nation and to invite people to come into the committed community, but the Bible also prophesies that this world is going to be taken for Christ only when Jesus Christ comes again.
The Bible tells us that when Jesus Christ comes again at the consummation, the Antichrist will more or less be in power and the world will be in the midst of Armageddon and then Christ will come. The Bible says, “Behold, He is coming with the clouds. Every eye shall see Him. Everyone who pierced Him and all the nations of the earth will cry out on account of Him.” The Bible says, “The Lord Himself shall descend heaven with a cry of command with the archangels call, with the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ shall rise.” Jesus Christ said, “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense to repay everyone for what He has done. I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.” Jesus Christ said that He would one day come in all of His glory and all of His angels with Him. He said, “I will sit on My glorious throne. Before Me shall be gathered all the nations and I will separate them one from the other as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” The Bible tells us that at the consummation when Jesus Christ comes again, the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever.
A few weeks ago, I was at a Focus on the Family conference in Colorado Springs with Dr. James Dobson. I have tremendous respect for Dr. James Dobson. I believe he is one of the great men of God that God has raised up in this century for the work of the kingdom of Christ. As he shared with us at this conference, he shared that he had been kind of depressed. He shared that he had been in a period of time when there had been despondency. He said he had felt that way ever since the elections in November. He said he felt like all the causes that he had poured his lifeblood into, all the causes that he felt that Jesus Christ had called him to labor on, he felt like all those causes were failing. He felt like he was losing the battle wherever he fought. He said he just felt broken and you could see his despondency. We stopped in the middle of the meeting just to pray for him.
Yet I really must say we shouldn’t expect to win politically, to conquer the world for the kingdom of Christ politically. We should not expect that. I mean, the Bible does not tell us that that’s going to happen. I think we should labor in the political arena, but understand the kingdom of God is spiritual. Jesus said, “In this age of the world, My kingdom is not of this world. If it were of this world, my servants would fight.”
There have been Christians in times past who tried to establish the kingdom of God militarily, as during the time of the Crusades. There have been Christians in times past who tried to establish the kingdom of God politically, as during the Byzantine Empire. It does not work. We are never going to establish the kingdom of God politically. It goes forth in power spiritually and it will impact political things as it goes forth.
I think there is no time for despair. There is no time for depression. One day Christ will come again, and His kingdom will prevail politically, but until that time, we are called to labor in faithfulness, knowing that God anoints the ministry of His people and nothing is in vain. Nothing is in vain, and we have been called to faithfulness.
I must also say Jesus Christ is not a Republican or a Democrat. He really is not. When He comes again, He’s not going to be riding on a donkey or an elephant. In our passage of scripture for today, it clearly tells us in apocalyptic language that Jesus Christ will be coming on a white horse. In the Roman and the Greek world, a white horse was what a king used when a king came to conquer. You see, He’s not going to be coming to take sides. He is going to come to take over. He’s going to come to conquer. The Bible tells us that He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. He is King of Kings. He is Lord of Lords and He will rule the nations with a rod of iron. Until that day, we are called to faithfulness.
You know, there are times, I think, when it seems as though God is not on the throne. There are times… I mean, don’t you ever feel sometimes like God isn’t on the throne? Things don’t always seem to be going well. Surely, you’ve had stretches in your life when you’ve felt like that.
Somebody on our staff has a good friend who just went through an incredible tragedy. This friend is a Christian, a young man, fairly newly married. One day two weeks ago, here in Denver, as he and his wife got up, his wife had a headache. They did not think anything of it. As the day went on the headache became more severe. They went to the doctor. The doctor said he thought that this guy’s wife maybe had a sinus infection. He gave medicine for that. They left the doctor’s office at just about noon and so they went to McDonald’s to get a quick lunch.
They went through the drive through, and they made their order. As they were coming up to pick up the order, his wife said to him, “I think the medicine is starting to work.” Those were the last words she ever spoke. She had an aneurysm and she slumped over, and she died right there in the McDonald’s fast-food lane. They have a 20-month-old baby boy. This dad has to explain to this child that he’ll never see his mother again. You have got to know he’s hurting. I mean, the pain is incomprehensible. He loves Jesus Christ. His wife loved Jesus Christ. It must feel like God isn’t on the throne in a situation like that. I mean, that has to be as tragic a situation as you could ever find. It has to feel like… Is God on the throne?
You see, the Bible tells us that God is on the throne and one day the Christian living and the Christian dead will be united forever in the kingdom of God, and this is the great hope of the church of Jesus Christ. We do not labor in vain and our suffering is not in vain. One day we will be united forever with the people of Christ in the kingdom of God’s Son. We live in this hope, and we know that even now in the midst of the pain and in the midst of the suffering, Christ cares. When we weep, He weeps. I mean, right now the Bible says Satan is the ruler of this world. We’re in the midst of a lot of suffering and pain, but Satan, the Bible says, is a usurper and one day Jesus Christ will come in power. The kingdom, eschatologically, it will come at the consummation and God will make things right. Until that day, we labor faithfully.
So, biblically we take a look at the kingdom of God, and we realize it is soteriological. The kingdom of God has the power to save. It is an invitation we give to the world to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We view the kingdom of God ecclesiastically. It is a committed community, a community of Christians committed to Jesus Christ and committed to each other. The kingdom of God biblically is also viewed eschatologically. It is yet to come. Jesus Christ will come a second time to receive His people unto Himself and He will come to judge the nations and the kingdoms of this world will become His and He shall reign forever and ever. Let us close with a word of prayer.