The Kingdom

Although the work of grace is called "the kingdom of Heaven", we do not in the present state see the manifestation of Christ's kingdom in the temporal government of this world. He said, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." John 18:36. If his kingdom, and its present manifestation, was like those of the world, then we might expect his subjects to use carnal weapons for its establishment and defense. His kingdom is not from hence, i.e., it is not of the character of worldly kingdoms, but its conquest in this age are victories of peace and not of war.

"When he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation [outward show, margin]: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Luke 17:20-21. For WITHIN YOU, we read in the margin, AMONG YOU.

Our Saviour did no surely mean to say that the kingdom of grace was in the hearts of the Pharisees, for on another occasion he called them "hypocrites", and said, "Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in." Matt. 23:13. The kingdom of grace was among them. He who was the living embodiment of divine grace vouchsafed to men, was moving among them, performing his miracles, and speaking as never man spoke. It might be said in that sense that the kingdom of God was among them. If we take the question they asked as meaning when shall the future kingdom of Christ come, we learn by his answer that when it does come there is no necessity for any to say, "Lo here, or lo there" for the kingdom itself will be manifested in the visible presence of the king in his glory, who will be seen by all, "As the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day." Luke 17:24. As St. Matthew records, where this same illustration is used with reference to Christ's coming, "So shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Matt. 24:27.

Because the gospel is called a kingdom (kingdom of grace, as before shown), it will not do to treat it as Christ's kingdom of glory for those scriptures which speak of Christ's future kingdom cannot be applied in this present state. There are many persons, however, who claim that the gospel is the only kingdom of Christ, set up at the day of Pentecost, and that through its proclamation the world is all to become converted and thus a millennium be brought in. We do not learn from our Saviour's teachings that he contemplated an entire conversion of the world as the result of preaching the gospel, but quite the contrary. In one of the parables of our Lord, that of the sower of seed, we read, when the blade was sprung up and the tares of the enemy's sowing appeared, the householder said, "Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn." Our Lord's explanation of the parable was, "the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels." Matt. 13:30, 38, 39. From this we see that the wicked are to exist on earth, as well as the righteous, until Christ's coming.

In his teaching respecting his second coming, as recorded by St. Luke, he compares the state of the world with that in the

DAYS OF NOAH AND LOT.

In these words: "And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." Luke 17:26-30. As there was no world's conversion before the flood, or before the destruction of Sodom, so there will be none before Christ's second coming. Before the flood we read of mankind, "Every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually." Gen. 6:5. If such is to be the state of the masses when Christ comes, it surely does not indicate a conversion to truth.

St. Paul has borne testimony concerning the same time in his epistles, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils." 1 Tim. 4:1. And in his next letter he gives more full details of the state of lawlessness that is to prevail just before the Lord shall come, in these words, "This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; from such turn away." And again, "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." 2 Tim. 3:1-5, 13. To look about us at present we see more prospect of an immediate fulfillment of these predictions of St. Paul than of any approximation to a world's conversion.

St. John in his view of Christ's coming with his angels, under the symbol of a rider on the white horse with the armies of Heaven following him upon white horses, says, "And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army." Rev. 19:19. According to his testimony, in another portion of this revelation, these armies of earth are gathered by means of the deceptive miracles of spirits of devils. When they are thus gathered, Christ comes "as a thief." Rev. 16:14, 15.

POPULAR ERRORS

Some persons have claimed as proof of a millennial kingdom this side Christ's coming, the words of the prophet Isaiah, "And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Isaiah 2:2-4.

It is said this refers to a time when wars shall cease, and when all nations shall receive the truth of God. Compare with this the prophecy of Joel, which also introduces the coming of the "great day of the Lord." "Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision." Joel 3:9-14.

Joel speaks of the "day of the Lord" the time of the "Judgment" and "the harvest". Our Saviour said, the harvest is the end of the world. St. Peter says that in the "day of the Lord", the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the new heavens and the new earth shall follow. 2 Peter 3:10, 13. And Isaiah says that that day shall lay the land desolate, and the sinner shall be destroyed out of it. Joel, then, is speaking of the same time as Isaiah. The statement in Joel is the command of God to beat their plowshares into swords and their pruninghooks into spears. In the other case the "PEOPLE shall go and say" that the "nations shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks."

Joel speaks of the "day of the Lord" the time of the "Judgment" and "the harvest". Our Saviour said, the harvest is the end of the world. St. Peter says that in the "day of the Lord", the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the new heavens and the new earth shall follow. 2 Peter 3:10, 13. And Isaiah says that that day shall lay the land desolate, and the sinner shall be destroyed out of it. Joel, then, is speaking of the same time as Isaiah. The statement in Joel is the command of God to beat their plowshares into swords and their pruninghooks into spears. In the other case the "PEOPLE shall go and say" that the "nations shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks."

THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION

At all in these testimonies when we get a proper understanding of them. In Joel we have the waking up of all nations to the battle of the great day of the Lord. In Isaiah we have the fact that the truth of God shall be "exalted above the hills", i.e., that the truth of God shall be spread all over the earth, not for the conversion of all, but, as our Saviour said, "preached in all the world for a witness and to all nations". While the way is thus being opened that the Bible may be placed before all nations in their own tongue, that all may be without excuse when the Lord comes, "many people" seeing this "do go and say" just exactly what the Lord, by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, said they would say. The Lord says of such in the next words that they are "soothsayers like the Philistines". Isaiah 2:6.

The facts of the present time are just with the Lord said by his servants should be: "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse," "iniquity abounds," and "the love of many waxes is cold." As for the problem of war, see the vast armies of nations with bristling bayonets, and other weapons of war with which a whole regiment can be hurried to death in a few moments. Look at the great war ships with sides covered with two feet of solid steel, then look at the great guns constructed to throw a missile that shall pierce those plates of steel and shatter the ship to fragments, and say if this repeating of what the prophet Isaiah said they should "say", is not the "peace and safety" cry which St. Paul said would be uttered when sudden destruction was about to come upon them? 1 Thess. 5:3.

To make the scriptures teach a conversion of the world, and a complete establishment of the kingdom of grace over all the earth before the coming of Christ, we should have to introduce some important changes in their statements. If it is said, This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world until all are converted, and then the end shall not come for one thousand years, then we might conclude that there would be a millennium of bliss before the end. But, alas for such a theory! when the gospel is preached "for a WITNESS, then shall the END come."

FEW SAVED.

If all the world is to be converted, surely the whole of them would be ready to meet the Lord when he comes, and for once we should have to say, broad is the way that leadeth unto life, for all the world are walking in it, instead of "Wide is the gate, broad is the way, that leadeth unto destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it." Matt. 7:13, 14. The statement of this text, however, will ever be true even until Christ's actually coming, for in speaking of that event he say, "Fear not little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. . . . Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he shall return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the Lord when he cometh shall find watching." Luke 12:32, 35, 36.

When he comes, he will find, not the masses ready, but a little flock. He himself has asked, "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" Luke 18:8. The very manner of asking the question implies a very strong negative as the answer. He will not find the masses ready.

There is no conversion of the entire world before his coming, but on the other hand, as we have seen already, a great apostasy, iniquity abounding, and the love of many waxing cold, and the solemn admonition of our Lord to his people is, "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." Luke 21:34, 35.

Instead of the whole world converted to God, it will be true to the end that it is "through much tribulation" that we must enter the kingdom of God. (Acts 14:22), and that "In the last days perilous times shall come" (2 Tim. 3:1, 2); and we must watch, lest being led away by the error of the wicked we, "fall from our steadfastness," and the Lord coming suddenly find us sleeping.

The Lord grant that we may be of the watching ones, all ready to meet him at his coming, and enter with him into his kingdom of glory.