“When he spoke before, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once again I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once again” clearly show us that everything that was made — things that can be shaken — will be destroyed. Only the things that cannot be shaken will remain. So let us be thankful, because we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. (Heb. 12:26-28)
Jesus message was the kingdom of God. “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because this is why I was sent.” [Luke 4:43] He said the “good news” of “the Gospel” was about the kingdom, not just a Gospel of salvation. It included the entire cosmos. [Matt. 4:23] He sent his disciples out to preach the kingdom of God. He came back after the resurrection to meet with his men for forty days to teach them about the kingdom. [Acts 1:3] He said we would have everything we need in life if we first sought His kingdom and His righteousness. [Matt. 6:33] The first petition in the Lord’s Prayer is “thy kingdom come.” Jesus called his men, “disciples of the kingdom of God.” [Matt. 13:52] Paul said that everything in the universe that is not of the kingdom of God will be shaken and removed, but the kingdom of God is unshakable and permanent. [Heb. 12:26,27]
A Hindu chairman heard these words about the kingdom of God and said, “If this isn’t true, it doesn’t matter, but if it is true, nothing else matters.”
The kingdom is the character of God (His righteousness) universalized. The entire universe was created to work only one way – the way of Christ and His kingdom. Everything was created through Him and for Him. [Col. 1:15,16] Every particle in the universe and every living cell have the imprint of God’s kingdom. Everything is destined to work His way. The kingdom of God is God’s total order expressed in the individual, society and universe when all are surrendered to God and it will replace every unworkable world order. Jesus was a realist, not an idealist. He taught the way things were. He taught with “authority” meaning “out of the nature of things.” The sum total of reality was behind Him. He said, in essence, “this is the way things were created to work and you must come to terms with it.” Whether we come to terms by the process of elimination or by the process of seeking His kingdom is our choice, but in the end, the kingdom is unshakable.
The kingdom will rise out of the ashes of the world’s brokenness like leaven rises in a loaf of bread. All history is moving toward the establishment of the kingdom of God. The kingdom will come by the process of elimination of everything in the individual, society, culture, nation, world, history and universe that is contrary to its order. The world is in the process of eliminating every way that is not “The Way.” The world is finding out how not to live. There are many ways that the nature of reality will not support and only one way it will – the way of God’s kingdom. Nature will not support rulers that lord over people. It will not support a lust for power sought with lies and manipulation. Our bodies were not made for hate, resentments, self-centeredness, fear, guilt, and bitterness. We are allergic to evil and our bodies break down under its influence.
The world is committing suicide on alternatives to the kingdom of God. Everything contrary to God’s kingdom is breaking down. Socialism, totalitarianism, capitalism, and every other “ism” have failed or will fail. As the failures multiply, man becomes homesick for God’s house and His kingdom.
Malcolm Muggeridge understood this and has expressed this well in his book “Christ and the Media.” “Let us then as Christians rejoice that we see all around us on every hand the decay of the institutions and instruments of power, intimations of empires falling to pieces, money in total disarray, dictators and parliaments alike nonplused by the confusion and conflicts which encompass them. For it is precisely when every hope has been explored and found wanting, when every possibility of help from earthly sources has been sought and is not forthcoming, when every resource this world offers, moral as well as material, has been explored to no effect, when in the shivering cold the last log has been thrown on the fire and in the gathering darkness every glimmer of light has finally flickered out – it is then that Christ’s hand reaches out, sure and firm, that Christ’s words bring their inexpressible comfort, that His light shines brightest, abolishing the darkness forever. So finding in everything only deception and nothingness the soul is constrained to have recourse to God Himself and to rest content with Him.”
The kingdom is taken from the religious (Pharisees) who block the understanding of the kingdom from others. Matt 23:13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.” (NKJV)
The church did not reject the kingdom, it reduced it. “The greatest loss that has ever come to the Christian movement in its long course in history is the loss of the kingdom. The thing that Jesus called the Good News, the Gospel, has been lost. Not silenced, but lost as the directive of the movement. The Christian movement went riding off in all directions without goal and without power to move on to that goal. The substitutes became the goal. The church with all its manufactured claims of infallibility became the kingdom… A crippled Christianity went across the Western World leaving a crippled result. The church left a vacuum offering an individual experience now and a collective experience in heaven – later and vast areas of life were left out, unredeemed – economic, social, and political. Into that vacuum the earthborn totalitarianisms moved and said, ‘we will give you your inner experience, but we will take over the collective experience’ and an alien philosophy of life moved into the soul of Christendom. We are still in shock. It may be that God is applying the shock treatment to shock us back into the discovery of the kingdom. If that should happen there would be the greatest spiritual awakening that this planet has ever seen. For the half-answers are all breaking down and will break down progressively. Today we are in the midst of the greatest shaking, ideologically and outwardly, the planet has ever seen. It means the removal of that which can be shaken. It is the cosmic sifting hour. What does the cosmic scoreboard say? “Weighed and found wanting.” (Jones) All the world’s systems are breaking down – family, tradition, economic, political and religious)
WHILE THE KINGDOM IS TAKEN FROM THE RELIGIOUS, IT IS GIVEN TO –
The “see-througher,” not the “look-atter” – Those who look past appearances to reality. Matt 13:10-14 “And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”
The poor in spirit (Matt. 3:5) – those who know their need for God and need God’s righteousness not their own. These are those who don’t try to be good, but let come out what is already there.
The persecuted for righteousness sake. (Matt. 3:10) His righteousness is the enemy of the world system and when we seek to know it, we become its enemy. The good news is that while we make ourselves the enemy of the world, we make ourselves the friend of the universe which supports us. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is the prayer for His righteousness to be universalized.
The childlike – Those who live in the now and live out of their true self, who be who they be. Matt 18:3-4 “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Children live in the present and they are resilient.
The humble – Matt 18:4 Whoever will humble himself therefore and become like this little child [trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving] is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (AMP)
The broken – Peter was broken after denying Jesus three times and then was given the keys to the kingdom. Matt 16:19 “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Those see the value and sell out to get it. – Matt 13:44 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Matt 13:45-46 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
“Man needs nothing so much as he needs something upon which he can put his whole weight down in time and eternity, something that will not turn sour or stale through sickness, old age, or death and which will give him something to sing about except the fact of an Unshakable Kingdom.” (Jones) The kingdom gives us the art to paint, sing, and write about.
The seekers who give it priority – Matt 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (His righteousness = things like kindness, compassion, grace, love, etc.)
“At the heart of every earthly thing there is a sting; and that sting is that man is too great to be satisfied with things.” (Estelle Carver)
To nations bearing its fruits. Matt. 21:43 In the parable of the wicked servant (Matt 18:23-34) the fruit Jesus is looking for is passing on forgiveness He gave us. “It was offered to all and identified with none – a worthy exclusion and a worthy inclusion. The kingdom is Christlikeness universalized. He was it saving God’s kingdom from being identified with kingdoms of socialism, capitalism, communism, and kingdoms of the church…” (Jones)
The disciples tried to jam a universal order into a nationalistic mold when they asked Jesus “will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel” – Acts 1:6. They didn’t get it.
(Some quotes from E. S. Jones’ “Unshakable Kingdom”)
not sure what Chuck would say… it is over 1 page… 🙂 but can’t wait to read it!!!
Bravo, Jim! Agreed on all points . . . except the entire paragraph that starts: The church did not reject the kingdom, it reduced it . . .
The gospel nor the kingdom have ever been reduced or lost. The church (Christianity, Christendom, et al.) — God’s redeemed, yet fallible people — will never bring about or establish God’s kingdom. Historically we have misrepresented God, the gospel, and the kingdom ad infinitum since our “founding” at Pentecost, and many of us will do so until Christ returns. But we the church, et al., have never impeded the establishment or gaining of ground of God’s kingdom. That is impossible. Why? Because the kingdom of God IS, and its king already reigns and rules over all creation. Nothing and no one (not sin, the devil, death, not even the fallible people who are the church, et al.) have the ability to reduce or lose the kingdom or the gospel that proclaims it. God himself will restore in righteousness all things in heaven and on earth on that Day when he, the glorified king of kings and lord of lords, returns to earth. He is not waiting on the church, et al., to get its act together or to re-word its message so that it’s more theologically sound or more palatable to the masses. It has never been the church’s or the Christian’s or Christendom’s job to usher in the kingdom, but to testify to — in word and deed — its reality and its imminent triumph over its enemies. The kingdom is here and will soon ultimately triumph on earth, and that is of no consequence to the church’s, et al., success or failure in its witness. I don’t long for a planetary spiritual awakening. I long for the return of the Lord. I don’t have illusions that the world will come to Jesus before he returns. Far from it. The world (the majority of mankind), the scriptures promise, will reject him until he returns, except for the few he choses out of the world to be his own. So, then, he is not waiting for some kind of worldwide Christian revival to break out before he comes in his already-established kingdom, he is simply waiting for his father to say, “It’s time.” I am already a subject in his kingdom, under his supreme rule and reign. All he is asking me to do is watch for him and be ready to present myself acceptable when he comes to inspect my work.
Miss you, friend. I like your posts.
Brad
Ole’, Sir James. Seems you’ve been soaking E.Stanley for a good while. I well recall his classic: The Unshakeable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person. I agree, a great reduction DID take place in the vision of His people, and for too long that’s what’s been lived, preached, taught. Many more are getting it. Thanks be to God. Hugs from us.
Very interesting. I also have been studying the Kingdom. You might want to check out “The Gospel of the Kingdom”, by George Eldon Ladd.
Very nice . You may also want to check out Steve Jones daily blog on the Kingdom. Godskingdoministries. net as well as John Lewis, Age to Age Ministries. He also does a very interesting daily blog
Thanks for sharing this Robert !!
Excellent! I’ve read Stanley Jones (actually met him in California in the ’70’s) for 45 yrs. A clear and certain sound in a dark and squalid place. Methinks the shaking produces the breaking that produces the making of the sons of God. For which the whole creation groans!