Part 1 of 6 – Kingdom of God

Equipping God's Saints (Followers of Christ) through the Prophecies of the End Times …

This will be the most important lesson ~ The Kingdom of God ~

Most people, even Christians, don't really understand what the Kingdom of God is. What do we mean by it? What do you and I have to do in order to be included in the Kingdom of God?

Zechariah 14 is devoted to the Battle of Armageddon. It's in Armageddon that Jesus comes to the earth and fights against the invading armies of the world governmental system under the Antichrist. That's when Jesus Christ will establish His Kingdom. Zechariah 14:9 says:

“And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.”

Another description of the Kingdom of God is found in Daniel 2:44:

“And in the days of these kings [speaking of the 10 kings symbolized by the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”

These are just some of the scriptures that talk about the Kingdom of God. One from the New Testament is Revelation 11:15. It's talking about the 7^th Trumpet sounding:

“And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”

When Jesus Christ comes back to this earth and establishes His Kingdom, that's what we mean when we talk about the Kingdom of God.

Now we will look at the “Gospel” of the Kingdom. Everyone that has ever been sent out to preach by God has been sent out to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. Let's look at some examples of people who have preached the gospel of the Kingdom so we can understand. We know what the kingdom of God is, but how do you preach the gospel of the Kingdom? Matthew 3:1-2 talks about John the Baptist:

“In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,

And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

He says “the kingdom of heaven”; in Luke it says “the kingdom of God”. Those terms are synonymous. John the Baptist was preaching the gospel of the Kingdom.

Matthew 4:23 shows that when Jesus came, He preached the gospel of the Kingdom:

“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.”

What were they saying when they preached the gospel of the Kingdom? We are going to notice that when Jesus sent His disciples out to preach, He explicitly told them to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. Luke 9:2 says:

“And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.”

What do we say when we preach the gospel of the Kingdom? We tell people about the Kingdom that Jesus is going to establish on earth. Then we explain to them what they must do to be included in the coming Kingdom of God. In John chapter 3, Jesus talked about the Kingdom to a man by the name of Nicodemus. John 3:1-5 says:

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:

The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

This is the first time we hear the term, “born again”. Jesus is the one who coined the term. I'm talking about a spiritual birth, not a natural birth. What do we mean by this term, “Born Again”?

A lot of people talk about being born again and most people don't really know what it means. Let's investigate the term “Born Again”. Let's talk about when salvation was authored by Jesus Christ at Calvary.

We know three things happened at Calvary.

1. Jesus died
2. Jesus was buried
3. Jesus rose again

Think about it for a moment ~ Born Again ~ That's why He called it born again; because He purchased it with His death, His burial and His resurrection. It's the three steps of Calvary. It makes so much sense. However, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “YOU must be born”, so we're going to have to figure out how we can be born again.

Let's talk about a term which is very popular among us today ~ Accepting Christ ~ Accepting Christ as your Personal Savior. How do you do that?

What this really means is we accept the work of Calvary. Since Jesus died, was buried and rose again for us, we can accept His work in our life so that we don't have to die, be buried and raise again. We only have to spiritually die, and are spiritually buried and spiritually raise again.

We accept Christ by obeying the gospel. In 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8, the Apostle Paul wrote:

“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:”

Here, the Apostle Paul said that we need to obey the gospel. We can't really obey the gospel if we don't know what the gospel is. We need to have a well-defined definition of what the gospel really is. We are getting ready to find out, explicitly, what the gospel is.

Resources: The anointing of the Holy Spirit and God Almighty, of whom I am accountable to. I have prayed diligently and am led to follow and support the teachings of Pastor Irvin Baxter from Endtime Ministries and his teachings of Understanding the End Times. I encourage you to visit his website at endtime.com.