STEVE GREGG: THE KINGDOM OF GOD

[Music] well i guess you mentioned me uh saying a few words about the book i don't sell books but i've written a few books um you can't buy them from me because i don't sell them but you can buy them from other places if you want to like amazon and places like that i have written a few books not very many for the years i've been in ministry i've been in ministry for 50 years this year i started in 1970 and it's exactly 50 years since i've been in the ministry in that time i've not written very many books all together five one it was a little tiny book i wrote back in 1976 then there's two books that are still in print uh and one of them is about the book of revelation once about the hell but recently just really at the end of last year when i was here last december i had a plan that in 2020 i would take oh maybe three months off from travel and to write a book about the kingdom of god that's the subject i'll be talking about today but uh the kingdom of god is a subject i've taught about since about 1974. now i've been teaching since 1970 but from 1970 to 74 i don't think i knew enough about the kingdom of god to make sense of it enough to teach on it but i've been a christian most my life raised an evangelical church and it's amazing how little i knew about the kingdom of god and part of that is i don't know just because it wasn't talked about very much and part of it was that i had made certain assumptions about the phrase when i encountered it in scripture which i now see were you know not the right assumptions to make i couldn't have even defined the kingdom of god probably until i've been in the ministry for several years uh but since 1974 it's been the major the major concern in my teaching i mean i think everything in the bible is about the kingdom of god once you know the paradigm that jesus was talking about everything is part of it uh but i had thought for years that maybe i'd write a book on it i don't write many books but it seemed like if i wrote a few i should at least write one on this subject so i decided last december when i was actually here that i would spend the first three months of 2020 writing a book on the subject uh i hoped three months would be long enough i didn't know covid would lock us all in involuntarily and give me a lot of opportunity to undistractedly write but i didn't really get started on it until february i was busy with some other things and i started at the beginning of february and by the end of february i'd written the whole book and it was much too long to be a single book so i decided this is going to be two books book one and book two on the same subject they both have the same title the title is empire of the risen sun and and uh and they have subtitles the first book is called there is another king the second book is called all the king's men and it turns out that the first book is uh really pretty much a development of my teaching series called the kingdom of god and the second book is mora development in my teaching series called genuinely following jesus which is about discipleship both of them were going to be part of the original book idea what part giving the concept in part given the practical application to it but i was hoping the whole thing would be about 300 pages as it turned out it was closer to 900 pages that i wrote so i knew that if i published a 900 page book some people say wow that's impressive but most people never open it i don't i don't open a 900 page book because i'm a slow reader i never get done with it and so i'd rather write something short enough not to be intimidating so i wrote two shorter books the first of which actually is coming out in within about 10 days it's already out on kindle just came out this last weekend on kindle and the hard copy will be out um october 15th um that's the first book and the second is also complete and at the publishers and it's coming out a bit later i don't know when now that's i think what steve wanted me to let you know and it explains why on the itinerary i'm currently on which is from california to indiana i'm speaking in several places why it seems like in almost all the places i'm speaking i'm speaking on this subject because those who've invited me knew i wrote a book and they wanted me to speak about the same subject so that's what i'm doing today and where this really is going to be a q a i'm hoping to speak briefly now that will honestly i'm not very good at speaking briefly i have to i just have to confess my fault here i tend to be verbose and i tend to try to be very thorough i'm going to try to be less so so that we can leave some time for questions and answers and not keep you out too late tonight the kingdom of god is a term you'll encounter frequently in the new testament although if when you first start reading through the new testament you're more likely to encounter the kingdom of heaven because the book of matthew uses the term kingdom of heaven no other book in the bible does you'll never find the term kingdom of heaven except in the book of matthew but it's found there oh i forget how many times 20 something times and the term kingdom of god which is its equivalent is used in matthew only five times uh when you come to mark and luke and john well i should say mark and luke because they're more parallel to matthew than john is but you'll find many of the same statements of jesus that are in matthew where in matthew he uses the term kingdom of heaven but in mark and luke the same statement uses the term kingdom of god and that's because both terms are interchangeable now not all theologies accept this fact some try to make some kind of distinction between the kingdom of god and the kingdom of heaven that simply can't be done all one has to do is look at the many times that matthew mark and luke record the same statement in parallel and you'll notice that matthew generally has kingdom of uh of heaven and the other two consistently used kingdom of god it's clear they're paraphrasing uh kingdom of heaven which is a jewish expression uh the jews when they spoke about god they tried not to do so too frequently not to use the name or the word god very frequently because they didn't want to cheapen it and so it was common for the jews to take some euphemism and replace the word god with the euphemism like the most high or the almighty or the ancient of days or something like that these are not officially titles of god but they became titles of god because jews in trying not to use the word god overly much so as to make it common they would use some other term like that and a very common term they used is heaven to replace the word god for example we know uh the prodigal son a jewish boy presumably when he decided to come home he said i have sinned against heaven and in your sight he said to his father while sinning against heaven means against god when jesus asked the pharisees the baptism of john was it from men or from heaven of course he means from men or from god is john sent by god or is he sent by men and this is a common place in hebrew usage and the fact that this is the case even in matthew that he recognized that when he used the term kingdom of heaven it's the same as kingdom of god which he used less frequently can be seen for example in matthew 19. in matthew 20 matthew 19 verse 20 3 and 4. when the rich young ruler had been told what he had to do to become a disciple and he had actually declined and walked away sorrowful jesus remarked to his disciples the following words in matthew 19 23 he said to his disciples assuredly i say to you it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven and again i say to you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god now you'll notice in verse 23 he used the term kingdom of heaven in verse 24 uses from kingdom of god he said exactly the same thing about each in fact before he said the second thing he said i say it again so he's in others he says i'm repeating myself here i'm not making a new point i'm not making a new point about another subject i'm making the same point again with greater emphasis and you see he used kingdom of heaven and kingdom of god interchangeably now that's because jesus did jesus was a jew speaking to jewish audiences so he would sometimes use the term kingdom of god but apparently very free more frequently say kingdom of heaven just observing the jewish sensitivity about overuse of the word god now mark and luke wrote to gentiles and assumed that they would not necessarily use or understand the jewish idiom uh whereas matthew did write to a jewish readership uh mark and luke simply take the times when jesus said kingdom of heaven and render them kingdom of god because they they knew that's what what he's talking about the terms are in fact interchangeable so don't be confused and i have to say the reason it took me longer than it should have to understand the term kingdom of god or the concept is because when you start reading the new testament you start with matthew and that's where right from the beginning you find john the baptist in matthew 3 saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand now in mark this the message given by jesus when john was put in prison in mark 1 15 is the kingdom of god is at hand but it's the same kingdom not a different one as you go through matthew you find the kingdom of heaven the kingdom of heaven all the time the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed seed in a field the kingdom of god is like leaven put into a lump of dough the kingdom of god i'm sorry matthew says the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to make a marriage for his son and so forth the parables are about the kingdom of heaven but where any of those parables appear in mark or luke they are about the kingdom of god so just to get that straight but when you read matthew before you read the other gospels you become acquainted of course with the term kingdom of heaven and that gives the impression at least it gave me the impression when i was younger that it means heaven the kingdom of the kingdom must be heaven because when i talk about the kingdom of saudi arabia or the kingdom of tonga or any other kingdom and give it a name i mean the kingdom that is called this the kingdom that is called saudi arabia so i thought the term kingdom of heaven meant the kingdom that is called heaven and therefore the kingdom and heaven were synonyms and i thought oh okay and as a evangelical in this country that grew up with the tradition that jesus came to take us all to heaven and that the main mission of jesus was to keep us out of hell uh it is it only made sense that he'd always be talking about heaven and and so forth the problem is that i i guess i had to say i didn't look carefully enough is that the things jesus said about the kingdom whether he used the term kingdom of heaven or kingdom of god the things he said about the kingdom were not things you would say about heaven for example um the the kingdom of heaven is like a field in which uh wheat and tares were sown and they grew together and they would continue to grow together until the end of the age and then they'd be sorted out well the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of god is a field with the children of god and the children of the devil growing together until the end time i mean that's what he described it to mean is does heaven have children of the devil growing in it um how in what way is heaven like a mustard seed you know the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that begins very small grows into a great tree in the bird's nest and its branches but heaven that's that certainly is not true of heaven heaven is not getting bigger and and having birds nest in the branches and so forth i mean there's there's so much that jesus said about the kingdom that didn't make sense if i was thinking of it as heaven and of course it was getting to know the concept from the old testament that made started to make sense of the meaning because when jesus first preached the first recorded sermon words of jesus are in mark 1 15. it says there in verse 14 that he came in when john was put in prison jesus came to galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of god and he was saying the time is fulfilled the kingdom of god is at hand or literally has drawn near in the greek the kingdom of god has drawn near repent therefore and believe the good news that's mark 1 15. so jesus said the kingdom had drawn near it was coming here and it was he said the time is fulfilled that's the first line in fact the first word in the greek text is fulfilled fulfilled is the time is how it reads in the greek fulfilled is the time the kingdom of god is at hand now that statement the fulfilled is the time obviously that's language of of a plot resolution you know the time is fulfilled suggests there's been a time previously anticipating this fulfillment this is fulfilling a hope this is fulfilling something that was expected and and and he's saying it has come it has drawn near what you were looking for all these centuries the past to jewish people has now arrived and so in order to understand what jesus and john the baptist were announcing we have to understand what the jews were expecting now i'm going to tell you i think what jesus was announcing was not exactly the same but certainly was not exactly the same as what the jews were expecting but it was not entirely different and so let me just tell you what the concept of the kingdom of god is now the first time god ever spoke of wanting or having a kingdom was after he brought israel out of egypt brought them to mount sinai and he said to moses there in exodus 19 verses 5 and 6 he said if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all the nations for all the earth is mine says the lord and you shall be a kingdom of priests to me and a holy nation now this of course he said this is what you shall say moses to the children of israel tell them that if they will obey my voice and keep my covenant they will be a kingdom to me they'll be my kingdom and they'll be a holy nation now notice when you talk to them being a kingdom he wasn't talking about when they die and go somewhere else he wasn't talking about something that was going to be on another planet or out in outer space or out in heaven somewhere else he's talking about right there on earth they would be a holy nation among among the other nations that were not holy there were all the ordinary nations but they were a special set apart holy nation and a kingdom of priests now the simple definition of a kingdom in any context is that of a government or nation a society i think would be the best way to put it that is governed by a king if you have a society governed by congress or by you know president or a you know separation of powers you don't have a kingdom in fact the american government was founded specifically to avoid being a kingdom all the people who founded this country had lived in countries that were kingdoms in europe and they didn't want that they didn't want kings but a society governed by a king is a kingdom all you need to have a kingdom is a king and somebody who is governed by him his subjects now god was saying to israel i want to have a kingdom and you're i'm choosing you to be my kingdom but you have to you have to act like i'm a king you have to obey my voice you have to keep my covenant and if you do you'll be a kingdom to me of priests and you'll be a holy nation now notice the kingdom of god then as god first refers to having a kingdom is first of all on planet earth not somewhere else second it was a people not a place it was the people of israel who would be obedient to him well we're told to be but we know that israel's history was such that they were very seldom obedient to him and very seldom kept his covenant they worship baal they worship molech they've made a golden calf right from the very beginning these people were continually strained from god and betraying him and although he was their king for many centuries especially during the period of the judges during which you read several times in the book of judges in those days there was no king in israel which was a good thing because god didn't want them to have a king in israel he was their king they went about 380 years probably in the period of judges with no no earthly king by the way they had judges that god raised up but they weren't kings and when gideon one of those judges delivered israel from the midianites the people said to him in uh in judges chapter 8 they said you have delivered us from the midianites rule over us gideon you and your son and your son's son which obviously meant they wanted to set up a hereditary dynasty began with gideon he'd be their first king and then his son would be next and so forth and gideon rejected this he says i will you know i won't reign over you and my son and my son's son won't god will reign over you in other words he knew they were god's kingdom they weren't going to be ruled by a man there they had a greater privilege that they were ruled by god and so they continued without an earthly king until the end of the period of the judges but at that time again israel getting antsy for to be less connected to god and more like other nations they came to samuel the last of the judges they said make us a king to reign over us like all the nations and samuel was displeased and he spoke to god about it and god spoke to him and said don't don't be all upset about this they're not and don't take it personally they're not rejecting you they're rejecting me that i should not reign over them now notice when they ask for an earthly king god took that as a rejection of him reigning over them they have not rejected you saying they've rejected me that i should not reign over them in that sense they formally decided we don't really want to be the kingdom of god anymore now god allowed them to continue to have a special relationship with him even though they had kings but he had to choose the kings at least the initial kings uh and and also the kings under the law of moses had to um you know read the torah the the law and had to obey god they had to answer to the prophets so these these were going to be earthly kings but they were subject themselves to god and his instructions through the prophets and the law so in a sense they were kind of still the kingdom of god but not in the same original sense and under the kings they became very corrupt they became more corrupt than they ever were in the period of the judges and they strayed from god there hardly any years in the monarchy period when israel was faithful to god the northern kingdom broke off and had 20 uh or 19 evil kings no good ones the southern kingdom had oh maybe uh 15 evil kings about and about five good ones so out of almost 40 kings there were five good ones and 35 evil ones and that's not a good record even though they're supposed to be god's people they were all worshiping baal and moloch and these other gods so in other words the kingdom of god had pretty much dwindled down to something that it was not they were not really the kingdom was kind of a thing of the past but the prophets came and they said god would send a king and would restore his kingdom among israel and and they looked to him as uh what they called the messiah the word messiah i'm sure you know is the hebrew version of the greek word christos or christ and both words in their original languages mean anointed one and specifically an anointed king saul the first king was anointed with oil that's how he became king david was anointed with oil the second king that's the way a king was installed by anointing so the jews spoke of the anointed one that would come meaning the new king that would be anointed to rule and his kingdom would be a restoration of the glories of an earlier day of israel yeah the best days of israel in the old testament were in david's reign david was a good king the nation was largely righteous compared to later times and god was so pleased with david a man after his own heart that he made a promise to david and said you know i'm going to establish your kingdom forever one of your seed is always going to reign over israel and in fact the messiah himself will be of your seed so the jews had this expectation that somebody descended from david would rise up and be kind of like a second david david was a great conqueror a great warrior and a great ruler for the most part i mean he has his flaws but in his reign israel became most the most prominent nation in the near east he brought other nations under his tribute moab and ammon and edom and the philistines and others and because of that he actually had an empire not just the kingdom of god it was the empire of david because he was he reigned not only his own country but all the surrounding countries that were conquered by him that's that's an empire and so the jews or i should say israel was very proud of themselves very happy with the the what was like in david's day they're very prosperous very rich he was possibly the most powerful king in the world at that time there might have been some in places that weren't very near him that were more powerful but the point is it was israel's greatest time it was the golden age of the kingdom for israel when david reigned and so when the prophet said that the messiah would come and he'd be like david he'd deliver his people he'd reign over his people in righteousness he'd conquer these the gentiles all these things were taken by the jews to mean the messiah would be pretty much like david he'd come and he'd david had delivered them from the philistine bondage and so whatever whoever people were oppressing israel at a given time they thought when messiah comes he'll drive those people out certainly when jesus came israel was oppressed by the romans and so in his day they thought the messiah when he comes will drive out the romans but it'd be a military thing and then he would sit on the throne of david in jerusalem and reign as david did not only over israel but over the gentiles that would be conquered by him this is what the jews expected and this would be in their opinion the restoration of the kingdom of god under david's successor the messiah now is entirely a political picture that they had and no surprise i mean why wouldn't they david had been totally a political leader i mean he's a spiritual and godly man but he was it was a political kingdom that david ruled over so they had every expectation that the messiah would establish israel again as a political kingdom even after jesus rose from the dead the disciples had not been fully disabused of this idea because the last question the disciples asked jesus before he ascended in acts 1 6 was will you restore at this time the kingdom to israel now it is in fact the case that jesus did come to restore the kingdom to israel but his disciples were not in a position to understand what is meant by israel at that point because that would it would only be the remnant of israel that the prophets really were referring to the faithful of israel who in fact did come to messiah they did come to jesus when he was here and became his disciples and the kingdom itself they understood wrongly too and again it wasn't their fault except that jesus had given them hints that he wasn't there to establish a political kingdom when he sat with nicodemus in private conference he said in nicodemus unless you're born again you won't see the kingdom of god and then a few verses later said unless a man is born of water and the spirit he will not enter the kingdom of god obviously there's something spiritual has to happen to enter this kingdom in luke 17 and verse 20 the pharisees demanded of jesus when the kingdom of god would come notice the kingdom of god was something to come it's not something you die and go away to when you die they were expecting the kingdom of god to come and jesus didn't hold a different view than that he said the kingdom of god does not come with observation men will not say lo here it is or lo there it is but he said the kingdom of god is in your midst it's already here it already has come it's just here in the crowd how so what is a kingdom it's a kingdom it's a society reigned by a king he was the king he was the messiah and there were people even in the crowd among them who were already part of his they were subject to him they were his disciples not everyone was but the kingdom of god was there infiltrating in their midst when jesus was accused of casting out demons by beelzebub in matthew chapter 12. uh he answered uh i figured around verse 20 maybe verse 25 through 28 something like that or 2 or 29 he said you know if satan casts out satan then his kingdom cannot stand so there's a kingdom of satan but he said but if i'm casting out demons by the spirit of god then the kingdom of god has overtaken you that has arrived and you didn't notice it so there's two kingdoms jesus said there's a kingdom of satan which would not do well if satan was casting out satan and there was a kingdom of god that was manifest by the fact that jesus was casting out demons by the spirit of god now everything jesus said indicated the kingdom was there and yet on one occasion after jesus fed the five thousand with the loaves and the fishes it says in john 6 15 it says when jesus saw that the multitudes were about to take him by force and make him king he sent the crowds away and withdrew to a private place to pray and notice he was not into it they wanted to make him king in that way that they were thinking they wanted him to you know stir up the israel like the judges had done or even like david had done and drive out the romans and sit in jerusalem and rule like a regular king that was not jesus plan jesus plan was in fact to set up a kingdom and it would be in fact on earth and it would in fact be with him reigning over his subjects but it would not be politically connected necessarily with any one nation like israel it would be international he's going to draw all men to himself if he was lifted up and and jews and gentiles alike who would embrace him as lord and king would be thereby brought into the sway of this kingdom of his now paul of course spoke this way very clearly in colossians writing to the christians there in colossae about what had happened when they became believers in colossians 1 13 paul said that you god has transl has has delivered you from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his own dear son so paul saw christians have been brought into the kingdom now that doesn't mean that in some mysterious way we're up in heaven in the sky i know you can probably think of a verse in ephesians that says we're seated in christ in heavenly places but the kingdom is about is not in the sky it's it's here it's now it has a future in eternity when jesus comes back it'll be universal and the new heavens and the new earth but it's not doesn't have to wait till then and that's important to know because there is a theological position out there very broadly taught in fact it's uh central headquarters seems to be in this state of texas in dallas uh but it's been around a long time and there are other hubs of that teaching that teach that when jesus came and said the kingdom of god is at hand he actually was planning or offering to establish the very kind of kingdom they were looking for namely to drive out the romans and him sit in jerusalem forever as king right there then and then and have a political nation just like david had the dispensational view holds that jesus was offering that but that the jews rejected it and therefore it was postponed and that the kingdom was not established by jesus it was a failure basically because of the jews rejecting him but that at the end of time jesus will return and then he'll establish the kingdom as the millennial reign after he returns they can see the kingdom of god to be the millennium and why because they say jesus did not establish the kingdom when he was here even though he said he did even though he said i mean he promised it was at hand it had even come already but somehow he failed strangely it'd be an amazing thing if the main thing jesus came to do was he was a failure at it in fact it'd be especially strange that he would pray at the end of his ministry in john 17 4 and say father i have finished the work that you sent me to do well if he had in fact failed to do the work god sent him to do it's a very strange boast on his part and there is no scripture anywhere that suggests that the kingdom was postponed from the time jesus and john the baptist said it was at hand there's not a clue in scripture anywhere that it wasn't or is not still now jesus taught us to pray and i knew this prayer all my life though some of the lines i didn't know what they meant among other things your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven again i was raised with the idea that the whole purpose of jesus was the same as the purpose of religions religions generally speaking seem to play the function it doesn't matter which religion it is whether it's hinduism buddhism you name it judaism even christian religion religions tend to have the primary appeal of something that will make you have peace at the time of death and give you a better afterlife that if you do your religion right you do the rituals you do those you keep the morals that when you stand before the judge at the end of time he'll say you're all right come on in in other words a religion for most people and it doesn't matter we're talking about christian religion or any other religion a religion is a way of getting past the security detail in heaven at the judgment day and it has i mean it does require some rules to be kept every religion has its rules and they might be moral they might be ritual or they might be both but the idea is if you do the rules you'll you'll get what it was all about and that is to go to heaven instead of hell when you die but jesus had very little to say about going to heaven honestly we have mistakenly thought that his all his talk about the kingdom of heaven is about heaven and that's how people got the wrong idea that jesus is just here to make sure you go to heaven instead of hell jesus hardly ever spoke about hell though he spoke about it more than any other person in the bible paul didn't ever mention hell by name none of the epistles in fact do revelation mentions it a few times and and jesus mentioned a few times but although the gospels record the events of about 39 days distributed through three and a half years of jesus life apparently the gospel writers felt these 39 days would be a good sample of what of what jesus was about what he did and taught generally there's only about four of those days where he seems to have said anything about hell which means about one day out of ten it's not an emphasis jesus hardly ever mentioned hell it's not like he didn't believe in it he did and i do too but it wasn't his emphasis by any means neither was going to heaven his emphasis was the kingdom the kingdom is at hand the kingdom is like this the kingdom is like that all the parables about the kingdom when jesus sent out the twelve two by two in matthew 10 he said go tell these villages the kingdom of god is at hand he sent out the 70 in luke chapter 10 and said go out and tell people the kingdom of god everything's about the kingdom in fact you know after jesus rose from the dead it says in acts chapter 1 that jesus spent 40 days appearing to the disciples and speaking to them of things concerning the kingdom of god even though the jews had rejected him he's still talking about the kingdom of god it's not postponed in fact paul knew nothing of it being postponed the last verse in acts says that paul remained two full years in a rented house receiving all that would come to him and speaking to them of things concerning the kingdom of god it's a one-stringed instrument in the new testament whether it's paul whether it's peter whether it's jesus whether it's john the baptist there's only one message there it's the kingdom of god and it's not about what happens when you die there are ramifications when you die obviously if you are in the kingdom of god now you'll be in the kingdom of god assuming you remain loyal to the king you'll be in the kingdom of god forever even after you die it's an eternal thing it never ends but it's not the emphasis of jesus and paul in the new testament is very seldom have anything to do with the next life people are marvel at how little is said in the bible describing heaven or hell i mean they're there but one says well when we go to heaven we'll be like this or will we do that will we recognize it will our pets be there you know i mean people have all these questions about heaven and when they call my show and ask us i have to i'm sorry the bible tells us almost nothing about it we have no details except that we'll be with jesus we'll be absent from the body and present with the lord until the resurrection then we'll be with him even in body but but the point is that the bible is not about the next life it's like religion is and that's why christianity even the preaching of the gospel as we have heard it traditionally has not been about the kingdom of god though jesus said this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world as a witness to every nation and then the end shall come so the end can't even come until the gospel of the kingdom has been preached throughout the world now thankfully there's lots of zealous people preaching the gospel as missionaries but i don't know how many are preaching the gospel of the kingdom because i was a pretty well educated conservative evangelical preacher for some years and if you'd asked me what the gospel was i would have said well the gospel is that despite our sinfulness god loved us and therefore he sent jesus to die for us he died for our sins he rose from the dead and and he expects us to believe in him so that when we die we'll go to heaven instead of hell i mean that should i would imagine the most evangelicals listeners are saying yeah that kind of hits on the main points that's kind of right right isn't that the gospel well if it is no one told jesus or paul because neither of them ever preached it that way neither did peter we do have samples of sermons that were preached by peter and paul in the book of acts to unbelieving audiences and they never said those things they they they never emphasized the universal sinfulness of man though they believed in it you see we know what they believed in because they wrote epistles to christian churches where they're not evangelizing they're preaching to christians about christianity and we know they believed in these things we know they believe in all men are sinful we know they believe that jesus died for our sins in such a way as to atone for them in some way and we know that of course jesus rose from the dead and that uh and that there's a a lot of things that christians know that were not mentioned when they preached the gospel in the book of acts you will look very hard to find in the sermons of peter or paul much that gives much indication of the doctrine of the atonement because apparently god is the one who most of all needs to understand that doctrine we may not understand it very well at all if we become part of christ's kingdom it works for us the atonement covers us we are saved we are justified by what jesus did but it's not knowing about that fact that makes it so it's so whether we know it or not but but we're not necessarily christians automatically there is something that makes us christians what makes us christians is the same thing that made the disciples christians when jesus came and called the four fishermen they left their nets and became his followers when he came to matthew at the receipt of custom he called him said follow me he followed him and jesus called lots of people to follow and when they did they were his disciples and it says in acts 11 26 the disciples were first called christians at antioch so you became a disciple by not saying a sinner's prayer not by raising your hand with every head bowed every eye closed you became a christian by leaving your old life and becoming a committed follower of jesus christ jesus said come unto me all you who labor in heaven laden i'll give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me you'll find rest to your soul but what does it mean to take a yoke upon you well yoke is put over the backs of animals to make them serve and be directed by the man who's driving you know the cart or the plow in other words taking his yoke means that we become under his rule under his control we learn from him we become learners and followers of him that's that's becoming that's coming to christ but i always preached in the early years and i always had it preached to me when i was growing up in the church that to become a christian means you say a certain prayer and it has something to you know asking jesus to come into your heart i never read anywhere in any verse of the bible about asking jesus to come into your heart and certainly no one in the bible became a christian that we know of by saying a prayer you can say all the prayers you want to but if you don't follow jesus you didn't become a christian following jesus being a disciple is what a christian is and following jesus means you embrace him as your lord and your king if you have not done that you're not you haven't entered the kingdom yet you haven't embraced him as savior yet now i was also raised believing that you could have jesus as your savior without really necessarily having as your lord that is one of the strangest and perhaps most damaging doctrines in modern american evangelicalism because the bible nowhere teaches it and teaches the opposite in romans 10 9 paul said if you confess with your mouth jesus is lord and that has the same ramifications saying he's king the lord is your absolute ruler the king is your abs i mean these are different a head of a body is an absolute ruler of the body all these images of christ that we're supposed to recognize is he's the absolute ruler when you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from dead you'll be saved he becomes your savior at the time that you acknowledge him as your lord so when you come into the kingdom you come into eternal life you know the rich young ruler came running to jesus saying what good thing must i do to inherit eternal life and jesus said you know give to the poor things and keep the law and give the poor the man said you know he went away sorrowful and when jesus saw that he said to his disciples how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god now having eternal life which is what the man was asking about was the same as entering the kingdom of god but he didn't get either because he didn't he didn't enter the kingdom of god he didn't have eternal life and the disciples who then can be saved notice in that conversation having eternal life entering the kingdom of god being saved these are all used interchangeably you see a king in the bible and probably in other contexts other than the bible too but especially in the bible a king was someone who saved his people as well as ruled over them a king was the savior of the people you remember i said that the people wanted gideon to be their king they started saying you have saved us from the hand of gideon be our king when samuel anointed saul as the first king of israel some said how can this man save us and then later he did save some people and rameth gilead and and he delivered them and then they said okay hail the king held hell saul the king would be the one who would save you'll find this to be in the psalms i in in hosea god says you know i will be your king i will save you the the idea is the king is the one who rescues his people and then out of gratitude they raise him up even in this country after the revolutionary war the leadership of george washington caused uh the victorious you know colonists to say you should be our king you remember he was offered a position of king but he rejected it and he chose you know a different system not a monarchy in this country but it's kind of the natural thing throughout history that the person who saves the nation is kind of considered to be in the position to be offered the rule of the nation and contrary wise the person who is ruling the nation it's his obligation to save the nation the ruler is the savior so if you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord or ruler then you will be saved salvation is found in christ's lordship in christ's kingship and when you embrace christ's kingship you have entered the kingdom of god you've been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of his son so the kingdom of god is really comprised of those people who have embraced christ as lord and king now i had almost said the kingdom of god is the church but the problem with that statement is church might refer to the institutional church and of course the institutional church is not the same thing as the kingdom this is the mistake the roman catholics made in the middle ages they believed the kingdom of god was the roman catholic church now this is only because they understood church in an institutional way and it was them as far as they were concerned it is true that in biblical terminology the kingdom of god is the church because the true church is not the institutional church it is those who are members of the body of christ and he's the head having a head is the same as having a king you as as christ is the head of all the members of the body he's the king of all his subjects it's just different different metaphors the way uh to speak of his lordship if you're not in the body of christ you're not in the church you might be in the institutions you're not in in god's church you're not in christ's church he's not your head but if he is your head then he's your king and your lord and you're like a follower and you're a subject of him so the true church comprised globally of all who really are disciples of jesus in reality is also you know it's the same comprised the same as the kingdom itself now i'm gonna actually close with this or just make a few more points because i don't want to go as long on this as i am tempted to remember i wrote 900 pages on this recently and i have an eight eight lecture series on it uh at our website and it's very very hard for me to compress this it's been i don't know if you realize it's been almost an hour now and so i do need to wind this down but there's so much more to say i will say this the kingdom of god you'll find in the bible sometimes it talks about entering the kingdom of god sometimes it talks about inheriting the kingdom of god and it's very important that we understand the difference here because i encounter frequently teachers who think they're teaching the kingdom of god and and what they're saying is somewhat close very close to the truth but they they're just wrong about one important thing they say we are the kingdom of god therefore we are king's kids and therefore we should reign in earth as king's kids we should not be living poor we should not uh be persecuted and trampled on we should be ruling as princes and kings we are kings kids we should live in prosperity we should live in victory we should have dominion and uh and actually there's one particular very famous uh teacher now now deceased he died in a plane accident uh miles monroe was his name uh who wrote many books about the kingdom of god and much of what he wrote was commendable but he had this this flaw he kept he saw being in the kingdom meaning you're a king now he was just off by this amount when we entered the kingdom of god that's what we do now when we inherit the kingdom of god that's what happens when jesus comes back jesus said when the son of man shall come in his glory and his angels with him he'll sit on the throne of his glory matthew 25 31 and he'll call all the nations before him and he'll separate them like sheep and goats and he'll say to the sheep enter into the kingdom in heaven he said he said inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world you inherit the kingdom when jesus comes you enter the kingdom now in fact if you don't enter it now you won't inherit it then but what's the difference it's simply this at this stage though the kingdom exists and christ is reigning from the right hand of god those who embrace his kingship and lordship today come as subjects to the king when jesus comes back paul said if we endure we'll reign with him it we will reign with christ when we inherit the kingdom it's like a prince inherits a throne from his king and a scepter when a king dies his son inherits the kingdom that means he rules he gets a throne he gets a scepter we will inherit the kingdom as co-rulers with christ we enter the kingdom in this phase as simply subjects of christ we're not we're not living like king's kids now because the war is not over and the king's kids are in the trenches you don't live in the palace and live like a king when you're on the battlefield when the battle is over then we go to the the palace and then we inherit thrones and power and authority and so forth so uh this is i think a mistake some people make when we talk about entering the kingdom of god we're talking about becoming a follower and a disciple of jesus christ a servant of christ a member of his body over which he reigns a servant in his household a subject under his reign that's what that's what it means to be in the kingdom and this kingdom grows as more and more people become part of it and you know what shrinks is the kingdom of satan because everyone is really pretty much in god's kingdom or satan's kingdom and when someone gets converted out of saints kingdom into god's kingdom god's kingdom has gotten bigger but satan's gotten smaller which is why he puts up so much resistance he doesn't like it but you see the growth of the kingdom is predicted to be successful in the story of the dream of nebuchadnezzar with the you know the image with the many metals and so forth i can't go into it if you're not familiar with it i think you probably are there was a stone that struck this image in the feet and it grew into a great mountain to fill the whole earth daniel said this is what that's about in the days of these kings in the context the roman empire would have to be the kings he's talking about in the days of these kings the god of heaven will establish a kingdom which will never be destroyed and it shall consume all these kingdoms and it itself will last forever it's typically like a stone growing to be a whole mountain to fill the whole earth this is what has happened in the 2000 years since christ established his kingdom when he sat on the right hand of god there were about 120 followers now one-third of the human population identifies as christian about 15 you know uh how much about 1.5 billion that's about one five that's or two billion there's about a third of the human population is called christian though we know that's institutional church christian we don't know how many are really disciples but even if it's one out of ten or one out of a hundred that's still hundreds of millions all over the world that's a big growth from 120. the kingdom grows like a little stone originally into a great mountain to fill the earth and in revelation 11 15 it says the time comes when the seventh trumpet is blown that it says an angel says the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our lord and of his christ and he shall reign forever so he becomes universal king every knee will bow every tongue will confess that jesus christ is lord and when that happens we will be reigning with him uh so this kingdom has a destiny in fact it's the trajectory of history history has no sensible transcendent meaning except in terms of what god is intending to do what he began to do through israel in the old testament which he now does through those who are subject to christ as king and what eternally will be the case when jesus returns and we're reigning with him uh so you know history isn't just a bunch of random things that you know don't mean much and runs in cycles it's a trajectory that god has established after man fell god set up a system of salvation that would include as many people in his kingdom as would be willing to come and would be saved there and would someday reign with him and and of course the rest will be judged but this is the the whole message really of the bible is the kingdom of god but the ramifications it has for us is to realize that when i became a christian i didn't just get a ticket to heaven and now i have to all i have to do is kind of hope i don't apostasize before jesus comes back and lose my salvation or something like that but rather i got recruited into a kingdom i have a living king and i'm i'm recruited into his kingdom which is at war against another kingdom and that makes me an active participant in warfare it it turns the whole world not into a playground but a battle ground and it's uh it gives purpose for existence humans if you're not involved in promoting the kingdom of god you're not involved in reality you don't understand the world you're in you don't really have any transcendent purpose other than perhaps in your own mind to survive long enough to be saved when you die you know when you go to heaven but god has a plan for the earth that's why we pray your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven your will be done that's the kingdom of god and jesus said of course in matthew 6 33 seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things be added to you there's only one thing we have to be aimed at and that is the promotion of the kingdom of god not just for my personal salvation i used to think that that meant i need to seek most of all that i would be a part of the kingdom or that the kingdom would have some realization in in me no it's not about me it's about it's about frankly christ's global claims you know everything seems about me if i'm a narcissist which most of us are by nature when i understand the kingdom of god grows it's not about me it's about god it's about his kingdom it i'm i'm dispensable if i if i go on the mission field and i die in a shipwreck before i get to the mission field it's not gonna not gonna it's no no big thing in the grand scheme of things god's kingdom is gonna continue to make its conquests but my presence in it while i am alive only my life only has meaning if i'm seeking his kingdom and his righteousness and if i do so i really don't have to seek anything else everything else i need to be added to me so this is the the wonderful the gospel of the kingdom there's another king one jesus and we don't have to be serving the the brutal king that the world serves we can serve a king that's going to share his throne with us at one time and paul said the kingdom of god is righteousness and peace and joy in the holy spirit that's a that's a pretty good way to live to have righteousness and peace and joy through the holy spirit those are benefits of being in the kingdom the kingdom itself is the society of those who follow jesus and embrace him as king and are loyal to death to their master so i'm going to just close with that that's been exactly uh one hour and we're not going to go any longer on this so we can have some time for q a and i think steve you're probably going to moderate that aren't you okay we do have a mic set up over here so if you do have questions i would like for us to kind of begin with any questions around the topic we have uh some people online i have a couple of questions about the kingdom of god on facebook and youtube so if they're watching on facebook or youtube they can't enter in any of your questions in the comments section and we'll try to get to them uh those in-house if you will just kind of make your way over here if you have any questions uh the first one comes from rachel on facebook and you kind of led into this pretty well as you distinguished between uh the difference between entering the kingdom of god and inheriting the kingdom of god as i believe the verse she mentions in galatians 5 21 quotes inheriting i believe right it is uh she says thanks for mentioning the dispensational view at one time i was told there was a difference between the kingdom of god and the kingdom of heaven and i could not grasp galatians 5 21. what does this verse mean to a dispensation okay well um i have to say that dispensationalists do typically make a distinction between the kingdom of god and kingdom of heaven but while i was a dispensational teacher for many years and since leaving that system i've tried to get clarity by reading dispensational authors about this for the the life of me i cannot really make sense of it i think they don't they are concerned not to identify the two as the same thing but they don't all agree as to what it is i looked up online uh john walvoord former uh chancellor of uh dallas theological seminary uh a bastion of dismissalism and online i found a thing he'd written on the kingdom of god versus the king of heaven and i read it and it just made me totally confused it sounded like he was totally confused it just the statements just didn't make sense and i've never been able to now i will say this when i was younger something that my teachers told me made me think that they feel that the kingdom of heaven is in some way identified with the church including not the true church but the institutional church because you've got the wheat and the tares in the kingdom you see i mean the kingdom of god is like a man who sowed good seed but his enemies sowed tares and so forth so they say well if there's sweet and tares in there and if there's birds in the branches of the mustard seed kingdom of heaven that's that refers to infiltration with evil so i think they tended to take the kingdom of heaven to mean something like the visible church or something like that which was corruptible but that the kingdom of god was something like when jesus comes back and establishes the millennium now if any dispensation is listening to no that's not how i differ distinguish them um it's not my fault no one has made it clear and now this is the impression i got from my dispensational teachers and when i have tried to get clarity on that from others dispensations they're just all over the place with it but the truth is it's really a fool's errand to try to find a difference between the kingdom of god and kingdom of heaven because the bible uses them as interchangeable terms for the same thing the one kingdom there's only one kingdom the kingdom of christ and the god it is called the kingdom of god it's called the kingdom of heaven and it's even called the kingdom of christ in the kingdom of god's dear son and the kingdom of uh god and christ once paul uses in ephesians 5 the kingdom of god in christ so these terms there's only one kingdom that's being talked about with all these terms there's not two or more different kingdoms that the bible's concerned with because many passages simply say the kingdom without modifying and if there's more than one in the new testament to think about this would be very confusing well which one are they talking about this time you know now what does galatians 5 21 mean well this is at the end of a list of what paul calls the works of the flesh beginning at verse 19 the works of flesh are manifest which are these and he lists all these horrible vices and says this is what the flesh produces when you walk in the flesh of course a couple verses earlier said if you walk in the spirit you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh but these are the works of the flesh and at the end of that in verse 21 it says and those who do these things will not inherit the kingdom of god and um likewise the same thing is said in in first corinthians 6 verses 9 and 10 where paul again lists he says do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of god and he lists neither you know neither adulterers and idolaters and fornicators and things he lists quite a few things and he says they shall not inherit the kingdom of god so both galatians 5 21 and and 1st corinthians 6 lists these sins says people who do these things meaning those who do them without repenting of them you know obviously all christians have done some of those before they were christians but those who are unrepentant fornicators unrepentant idolaters and drunkards and so forth they will not inherit the kingdom of god which to my mind suggests this since inheriting the kingdom of god means reigning with christ when he returns there may be some people who actually are christians but they stumble around they're not really very they're not as obedient as they should be i mean they intend to be but they're kind of not fighting the good warfare and they mess up a lot and their life is really a reproach to christ and when he comes it's not like they not like they didn't take him seriously since they didn't they didn't live their lives and fight the warfare in such a way as to avoid those patterns and they they will not reign with christ but maybe they'll be the ones reigned over by the others so you know what if we're gonna reign with christ who are we gonna reign over i don't know the bible doesn't say who we're gonna reign over maybe the animals like adam and eve did or maybe the maybe aliens from other planets or maybe people on this earth who who really did embrace christ but it wasn't as uh compelling to them it wasn't it wasn't their whole life i don't know this is something that's not made clear but what is clear is that persons who do not live a holy life or at least are not determined and habitually seeking to live a holy life will not reign with christ they will not inherit a throne with him i think that's what paul is saying in both the passages where he says people who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of god yes i think so because even people who are true loyalists to jesus stumble i mean the apostle james said in many things we all stumble stumbling is of course falling but it's not falling permanently and it's not a pattern we do not stumble in terms of literal walking we don't stumble all the time we stumble when we're careless we stumble when we're weak we stumble when we're not paying attention but but when we do stumble we don't just make that a pattern we just say oh i don't want to do that again you know you're embarrassed of it you hope no one saw it you hope no one will ever know you did it because it's embarrassing it's not what you want to do you want to walk if you trip over a root of a tree when you weren't paying attention it's it's not what you intended but you were careless and fell and and everyone stumbles sometimes but they don't christians don't walk in sin they stumble into sin but they don't walk in it they walk in love they walk in the spirit they walk in holiness that's the walk of a person who's taking jesus seriously brian on youtube says hello brother steve what is the best activity or quality that a disciple should do or have in the kingdom of god in other words what should i dedicate myself to well of course jesus uh indicated that the the mark of a disciple is that you love one another as he loved us this is the law of the kingdom in fact james refers to it as the royal law meaning the law of the king it's royal because it's from the king and it's the law of for the believer and he identifies the royal law as love your neighbor as you love yourself um so certainly obeying jesus doesn't mean memorize uh 613 laws and try to make sure you don't you know mess up on any of them that was judaism you know that's the law at sinai but it is in fact it's walking in the spirit and the fruit of the spirit is love it is walking with jesus and seeking to be like him as it says in first john two i think it's verse four maybe it's verse six i think it's verse two second first john two four perhaps he says if anyone says he knows him he ought to walk even as he walked so you know if you're walking with jesus you're you're like a kid walking with his dad and and noticing you know imitating his dad you know because he wants to be like him and to imitate christ to obey christ uh really it doesn't come down to learning a lot of rules it comes down to having the spirit of christ which means you're like like him internally and he he gives you that if you walk in the spirit he produces love so the one thing the one thing that's indispensable in following christ is love and love of course is not what the world calls love i mean there's virtually everything in the sermon on the mount would be a good illustration of what loving your neighbor looks like that's what that's for that sermon and um in fact in that sermon jesus near the end of it said in in matthew 7 12 whatever you want others to do to you do that to them this is the whole law and the prophets so the whole rule of life for the believer is to do to others what you want done to you which is the same thing as love your neighbor as you love yourself it's the same law put in practical terms but what it points out is that love is not a way of feeling it's a way of doing what you want done to you you do that that's loving your neighbors you love yourself so you don't have to like them you don't have to have an emotion of love toward them sometimes you can't control whether you have emotions of one kind or another we don't our emotions don't come on our command you know they are sometimes they assail us and we can't get rid of them immediately but we can still do the right thing uh and so if i know that i would want to be treated or responded to a certain way i have to make sure i respond to and treat somebody that way out of love for god and have love for them it doesn't mean i have feelings for them it means i respect them as in the image of god and i value them as i value myself that's that's loving them as i love myself and it is not just as i say feeling it's doing uh uh when when the the lawyer asked jesus in luke 15 you know what's the great commandment he said love your neighbors you love yourself and he said well how do i do that who's my neighbor then comes the story of the good samaritan and at the end of that jesus said so which of these men who came upon the man who fell among thieves was a neighbor to him it was who who was loving him who was who was loving his neighbor and he said well he him that showed mercy on him of course what the good samaritan had done is endangered himself to save this man's life and gave his money and gave you know gave up his day's agenda in order to make sure this man was cared for i mean this is loving your neighbors you love yourself it's interesting because love we always think of as having a strong emotional component and liking does and if we like something a great deal we say we love it but love agape love which is the mark of discipleship the mark of the kingdom isn't necessarily liking something god so loved the world that was cursing him and thumbing his nose at him he didn't like it but he loved it you know he gave his only begotten son greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life that's something you do not something you feel i don't think jesus felt real good about the you know the caiaphas and those guys who were and the soldiers that were beating him up but he loved him he laid his life down for him that's what love is it's uh it's it's almost entirely practical if you can cultivate feelings of fondness at the same time it makes it easier it's easier to serve and lay your life down for someone you're fond of but even if you're not fond of them you're supposed to love your enemy and do good to those who who despitefully use you and bless those who curse you this is what jesus that's what the king says that's the law of the kingdom the royal law any general q a questions from anyone we got for anybody that's online that wants to okay well i'll one more question on the kingdom of god okay um what are we praying i know you touched on this but we can just what are we playing when we pray thy kingdom come yeah uh yeah i mean jesus said the kingdom of god had drawn near and was in your midst so why do we need to pray for the kingdom to come well the kingdom of god has come to earth but it hasn't come to every corner of the earth it is going it's moving that direction but the idea is again the the prophet daniel said the kingdom of god is like a little stone that grows into a great mountain to fill the whole earth so the stone has arrived and it's even a growing mountain it's it's actually spread out internationally but it needs to go to every creature i mean to preach the gospel to every creature uh need to disciple all nations there's in other words the coming of the kingdom i believe is the infiltrating of the world and society by the power of the kingdom when jesus said the kingdom of god is like 11 that a woman put into three measures of dough until the whole thing was leavened our dispensational friends say well the leaven is evil and the kingdom of heaven is is uh is infiltrated by evil that's what he's saying why well because they say leaven has to be evil who said that just because leaven does refer to evil things sometimes like sin is compared with leaven jesus didn't say 11 was evil he said the kingdom of heaven was like leaven he didn't say it was like a lump of dough that somebody infiltrated with leaven no the kingdom itself functions like leaven and love it causes the hole to rise and a you know a rising tide lifts all ships you know i mean it's like the whole world has been made better everywhere the kingdom of god has been preached and embraced that's why western civilization differs from india or or china uh or you know tribal africa i mean these these cultures that have not embraced or been changed by the kingdom of god you you wouldn't want to live there after you've lived somewhere like this you know i mean uh society has been transformed by the kingdom of god and when we pray your kingdom come it just means it's it's continually coming the leaven is continually spreading and continually impacting i think that's what we're praying for until finally every knee bows and every tongue confesses that jesus christ is lord to the glory of god the father that's when it we don't have to pray for any more of it you know if it's universal at that point so that's how i understand that go ahead yeah i've got a question anna i guess a confirmation uh in mark chapter nine when jesus uh was right before he was transfigured he's talking to um the people and he says surely i say to you there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of god present power he's talking about the coming of the holy spirit right there right that is certainly one of the best explanations of it there are some other possibilities but that is certainly one of the best explanations first i kind of was wondering on that yeah anyways um my second and this is more question is when jesus was talking to the pharisees and uh and he said the kingdom of god is indeed close to you was what did he mean by that in particular because he was directing it towards the pharisees right with the kingdom yeah in the king james version that verse which is luke 17 21 says the kingdom of god is within you you know yeah the king the king james says uh it doesn't come you won't say low here it doesn't come with observation it's it's within you and that's talking about general well yeah here's the thing when many people have taken the king james rendering and made it say he's talking about something internal the kingdom of god's an internal uh you know awareness or or you know surrender to god or something like that but you're right he wasn't talking to obedient disciples he's talking to the pharisees who were his critics so he it certainly wasn't in them but uh the word within you uh as every new translation including the new king james there's i don't think the king james has any other translation that agrees with that translation uh the same word can mean in the midst of you that is within the group not within you as individuals but within this crowd here within you or within you plural within this group or more properly among you or in your midst this is uh almost every as far as you know every new translation translates it either the kingdom of god is among you or the kingdom of god is in your midst which as i said the kingdom of god is a society of a king and his subjects and there was jesus the king right there and in the crowd some of them were his disciples so the kingdom was already infiltrating that that lump of dough right there as leaven it was within them in that sense so he's not talking about it within an individual though we would not deny that the persons who are in the kingdom of god also have an internal you know righteousness peace and joy in the holy spirit but but the kingdom is not primarily a focus on what's going on inside an individual but what's going on in the global claims of christ being pressed upon the rebellious world in the warfare against the kingdom of satan of course there's a great deal of emphasis in the bible on what's in your heart too but the kingdom of god is not primarily defined that's what's going on inside of me it's more like what am i inside of i'm inside the i'm in the kingdom i enter the kingdom it doesn't enter me per se i have to enter it it's a larger society of uh followers of christ worldwide as the kingdom thank you thank you for that question jason i've been reading your uh teaching in in proverbs so as we're talking about the kingdom of god uh how would we as within the kingdom of god here apply proverbs to our to our lives to our lives and in the kingdom okay how would in the new testament realization of the kingdom and our participation how would proverbs apply to our lives how would we actualize and and and respond to the proverbs well the bible said in colossians paul says do not be unwise but knowing what the will of the lord is uh being wise is very important in fact james said if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask of god who gives tommy liberty and it'll be given to him uh jesus at the end of the sermon on the mount said he that hears these words of mine and obeys them is a wise man who builds his house on a rock and he who hears my words and does not obey them it's like a foolish man who builds us see wisdom true wisdom is following christ but proverbs and a few other old testament books like ecclesiastes r and job are what we call wisdom literature there it's actually a genre of hebrew writing where uh wise men like solomon uh mostly solomon more than any other would write uh proverbs and and other instructions in the case of proverbs usually to his son about wisdom he says seek wisdom whatever you seek above all things seek wisdom you know cherish it as the apple of your eye he compares wisdom like a beautiful desirable woman that you want to court you you know she speaks to you and calls to you and and says you know i mean there's the first uh eight chapters especially of proverbs are personifying wisdom as a desirable woman and in contrast to the the boisterous woman who's trying to seduce you the other direction so forth foolishness is like a harlot uh wisdom is like a desirable woman and and then the proverbs themselves after about chapter eight are mainly just individual aphorisms about wisdom now we should be wise and wisdom is wisdom now we have to understand what the proverbs are and wisdom literature in general wisdom literature is different than say the torah laws it's different than the prophets which are pr you know predict things there are no technically proverbs are not promises nor specifically commands they are illumination about what wisdom would demand and of course it's a given you want to do the wise thing not the stupid thing so what proverbs does it it examines tendencies and causes and effects and says let me just define wisdom first of all wisdom is knowing what is the desirable end and knowing what steps from where you are you should take to get there so if you want to uh you know you want to be a a great surgeon and and discover a cure for cancer what probably you want to take some steps of getting a medical education you know uh i mean there might be other ways to discover a cure for cancer but in all likelihood you'll probably get a scientific education you you might get a scientific education and never find a cure for cancer or you might not get an education and find a cure for cancer but if you are if you don't know the outcome but you know the outcome you want there are certain steps you would take that would be wise that would tend toward the result you're seeking whereas other steps would not so proverbs assumes most people would like to be rich rather than poor so he says you know work hard the diligent man you know he'll have abundance but the you know the the sluggard you know he'll be in want and he'll be begging and so forth now that's not always true a sluggard might win the lottery and a very diligent man might live in a third world country where no matter how hard you work you're gonna be poor i mean it's not a promise of god it's not one of the promises of god and it's not a prediction per se it's it's a uh generalities that would direct a person in the steps of wise conduct given the idea that they have a certain desired uh result they're seeking for so you want your kids to be good people so discipline them and the rod will drive the wickedness out of them usually you know train up your children in the way they shall go and when they're old they will not depart from it normally i mean it's not these are not promises there are people who do discipline their children and train them up well and their kids don't turn out as good as they hoped so you know the bible says a soft answer turns away wrath well not always but if you want to if someone's angry at you and you want to stop them from being angry answer softly rather than being aggravating in your words it's a wise thing to do it won't always guarantee the result but it'd be stupid if you want that result to do anything else so the idea is don't do stupid things do wise things there's no guarantee that being wise will give you the results that you hope but it's certainly the most intelligent way to pursue them so you know if you want to calm down somebody who's angry at you speak gently and calmly and politely to them it's more likely than not going to calm them down if it doesn't then it's an abnormal situation but you know sometimes it doesn't happen that way you if you want to get rich work hard don't be a sluggard now a slugger might get rich if he inherits a fortune from his you know uncle but generally speaking sluggards are poor and remain poor so basically proverbs is wisdom literature and the jews loved wisdom literature they wrote several apocryphal books of wisdom literature too the wisdom of cyrac and so forth but um they did not intend for them to be promises of god so when someone says well train up a child the way he go when he's old he will not depart from it so i i can guarantee my kids will follow christ and i kind of thought that way too at one time but but the truth is i've seen too many cases where it's not true including uh some godly people in the bible like samuel whose children went bad children have their own free will but if you the best chance you have of having your children turn out well and not depart from the ways of righteous is instill them as early as you can that's the idea give them a good start um so proverbs i i think proverbs is applicable to all life at all times it's not strictly speaking in old testament ethic it's uh it's basically wisdom is wisdom i mean do you want to get home safely drive on the right side of the road and try to stay pretty close to the speed limit that's wisdom you might still get hit by a drunk driver and die but if you'd like to get there safely you're not very wise to be driving on the wrong side of the road and uh weaving around the road and so far i mean there's there are things you do that would tend toward the result you want and it would be only a foolish person who would want that result and not do those things that's what wisdom literature is basically talking about would it be good to when we're just reading scripture in general try to glean is this a principle or a promise yeah in the different examples to be very helpful yeah we sometimes just think oh it's in the bible it's the word of god it must be a promise of god but we have to understand the genre of the literature sort of like people say well you know i know revelation is literally true because you know god said he says what he means you know well he does say what he means if we don't understand the type of literature he was using we won't know what he's even saying much less what he means you know it's not so simple as to say i'm an american i read this like an american written book and i'm going to apply it like a an american would read an american book no it's a jewish book it's a jewish book that's very ancient and from a culture that had certain presuppositions and the way we understand it is to get as much as possible into under the skin of the people who wrote it and then to whom it was written and some people say well then you know shouldn't uh shouldn't the bible be understandable to a child well much of it would be most of it would be to a jewish child but i'm not a jew and i didn't i wasn't raised in that culture i didn't even speak the language i can't even read it in its original language a jewish child when he's a certain age could read it in hebrew i can't i have to go to school to learn that a greek child would know would speak fluent greek by the time he's probably four or five years old i'd have to go to college for that many years to learn fluent greek you know i mean we have to study just to get to the cultural place that every uneducated person at that time already was what they took for granted we don't take for granted until we study their culture and their language and so forth so uh i mean people can be very simplistic about the bible and i think god sometimes honors that you know people who don't have a bible education they just see some of the bible and the holy spirit quickens that verse to them and they just take that as a promise and and it actually is a promise god's given them but anyone who studied the bible as it was intended to be understood would realize uh they're a little naive they're not taking it right but god's honoring their faith anyway you know i think uh god's not us god has a lot of compassion on the humble and he's hidden things from the wise and prudent that he's revealed to babes but uh there's no virtue in being stupid about things when we could understand him better with just a little bit of uh effort you know yes all right so my question is for someone who may not understand the difference between the two like um the per the lady was asking earlier if somebody is seeking the kingdom of god what are they seeking and where do they search for it okay where do you seek the kingdom of god how do you seek for it where do you look for it again to seek something means to make that your your object your goal like uh when a sheep was lost the shepherd went out to recover the sheep uh when the lost coin was lost the woman swept the house until she could find and recover the coin when we seek the kingdom it means that our aim and our efforts are for the uh for the success and the promotion of the kingdom of god uh both in our own lives and in the world generally certainly our our own lives first but not if we get stuck on that say i'm spending my whole life just trying to make sure i get to that i've that i fit in i qualify you're kind of wasting some of your life you need to get past that first hurdle and know that i'm in i've surrendered to jesus now i need to help other people i need to see that kingdom spread i need to use my if i if i'm not a missionary i'm not a preacher if i'm a plumber or a carpenter or a lawyer well at least i can perhaps in a small way at my job promote the kingdom of god by being an example speaking to people about christ and even more the money i earn i can give to people who are preaching the word of god i mean there's many ways that any vocation god calls me to whether it's what we might usually call a secular vocation or a ministry vocation anything we do we do because of one object that we have that we're seeking and that is that that the reign of christ would be universal that christ would be that that every knee would bow and confess him as lord and so it's like of course if you're called to be a preacher or a missionary or something like that a radio broadcaster like myself then obviously your work is directly involved in trying to promote the kingdom of god and seek its its its victories and seek its prosperity in the world it's sometimes not as obvious when a person is a i don't know a journalist or a you know an office worker in a cubicle or something like that how it is that their work is seeking first the kingdom of god but it's all in the matter of where your priorities are what is it you really want your life to account for you want you want to account for the kingdom you want in other words it's different than say seeking wealth if if she said seek first wealth what would that mean it would mean that you do all you can to get rich that you do all you get you know best education you can get the best kind of job you can that you uh you might even do some shady dealings to make sure your wealth increases at the expense of someone else but jesus didn't say to seek wealth it's it's what is the what is the goal and object of your whole existence it's got to be the kingdom of god and so uh even when you're raising a family and especially because all cr almost all christians do try to raise families not all do but most well you're raising your children to promote the kingdom of god your marriage you conduct yourself in marriage towards your wife or your husband in such a way that it can promote the kingdom of god and that and that can very directly do so by being especially in an age where marriages are horrible and breaking up in large numbers for you and your wife having a a peaceable godly faithful relationship that you know everyone says whoa how come how come they don't have the problems we have well because we are following the king and we're you know our our marriage our life our finances our child raising even our recreational time it's all devoted to the interests of the kingdom of god because our goal is that the kingdom of god will prevail and that there will be no more opposition to christ someday and although we may not expect to live to see that day we play our little role in everything we do is chipping away at that goal that's what seeking the kingdom means i believe and the second part is where do you search where do you search well it's not somewhere else that you have to go there and find it the kingdom of god is in your midst it's here you know i mean wherever christ has been preached there are people who have responded and who are followers of christ now of course not everyone who has made some kind of response maybe joined a church many of them have no idea of serving christ and don't even want to but you do find where the gospels preach that god's heart has touched some people and and converted them and they are devoted to jesus and and you want to be one of those and you want to make more of those that's seeking the kingdom of god you don't have to go anywhere other than where you are unless of course god tells you because being in the kingdom means he's your king you do what he says if he says okay sell everything you have and go to you know pakistan and preach the gospel there and i know people who have received calls like that i'm not one of them but some do well then you do it but if he says listen take care of this wife for me and this these children for me you know raise them for my glory bring forth much fruit for the kingdom of god in your family life or in your job or or if you if there's limited opportunity just with the money you make at your job give as much of it as you can to the promotion of the kingdom of god where you see it being done promote justice not social justice social justice is injustice it's the opposite of biblical justice but seek real justice because the bible says that jesus said one of the weightiest matters of the law is justice and mercy and faithfulness he rebuked the pharisees he said you pay your tithes that's a religious thing to do but you neglected the weightier matters of the law justice and mercy and faithfulness christians should be seeking to live justly remember it says in micah what he's shown you a man what is good what lord requires of you that you do justly do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with god if you seek injustice it means that when you see injustice uh as the opportunity arises you speak against it you do what you can to write it you uh in other words if there are unjust practices in even in government although it's not our goal necessarily to bring in the kingdom through governmental action because it can't be really brought that way but if we live for christ we will influence society in general which will ultimately influence politics too i mean for example if i vote and most christians do or should if they can i want to i don't want to vote for a party i don't even want to vote for a candidate per se i want to vote for principals i want to quote for i want to vote for justice if there's for example if i consider that the murder of unborn babies is a horrendous injustice against them against their rights then i'm going to want to vote for justice i'm gonna i'm gonna see okay if this vote's gonna get more of those babies killed or and this other vote will get less of them killed it's kind of you know i'm going for the one that's gonna promote justice uh if we see that certain people are uh some minorities or whatever and a vote a certain way will uh preserve their actual rights i don't mean give them special rights but but preserve the rights they literally have before god that's justice you know i mean in other words even our political involvement can be a reflection of our commitment to the values of the kingdom of god justice especially but uh but even apart from voting we only get to do that every four years or every two years or whatever every day if we see injustice in the place we work we see corruption we see cheating we see you know our companies doing something to defraud customers or something i mean that's an injustice we might even lose our job if we speak up about it but that's that's just being loyal to the king the king is against injustice now of course we have to understand there are some people who teach a sort of a social gospel that think the only thing important is to try to get rid of social injustice and and political injustice and that's not the gospel but it's also not the gospel to say well all that matters is that we go to heaven and it doesn't matter how bad the world gets uh you know if you try to improve it you're just polishing the brass on a sinking ship you know like some people have said you know where's god it says about jesus and this is a very good scripture for you to be aware of and many christians are not apparently aware of it about the king about jesus as the king in isaiah 42 and you'll recognize this as a verse that's quoted in the new testament in matthew about jesus in his ministry it says in the first four verses of isaiah 42 behold my servant meaning jesus whom i uphold my elect one in whom my soul delights i have put my spirit upon him he will bring forth justice to the gentiles he will not cry out nor raise his voice nor cause his voice to be heard in the street a bruised reed he will not break a smoking flax he will not quench he will bring forth justice for truth he will not fail nor be discouraged until he has established justice in the earth and the coastline shall wait for his law now that doesn't sound very much like a mission to get people to go to heaven particularly it sounds like his mission is to establish justice among the gentiles to establish justice in the earth the kingdom of god is going to be concerned about the weightier matters of which the first jesus said is justice so justice in our dealings with each other making sure i'm not cheating someone make sure i'm not exploiting someone or oppressing somebody making sure i'm not you know in a little little way uh giving myself an advantage that i don't deserve in a situation and at the expense of someone else that's injustice just living a life again what you would that men would do to you do that to them that's the whole law and the prophets so if i'm doing something that's a you know at to the disadvantage of someone else that's unjust i wouldn't want them doing that to me i need to stop doing that and if i see someone else doing it to some innocent victim if i were that victim i'd want someone else to speak up and and address it so i should do so if that's if i have the opportunity i mean we don't have to go out scolding everyone we see doing things wrong we'd lose our voice very quickly and probably not change as much as we hope but there are times when god would move you speak about that and you should think that's not really about heaven that's about the kind of worldly you know laws or whatever well worldly laws are where justice isn't is is enforced or not you know uh and i said that social justice is not justice it's injustice and it's very simple to see how social justice is about group rights true justice is about human rights individual rights for example social justice identifies certain groups as disadvantaged and they might be a racial group or a gender identity group or they might be a economic group the poor and and then there's others of course straight white males who are the advantage group and they have to be punished so that this other group can help that's what reparations is about you know all the white people are guilty for slavery even though most of us never had none of us ever had a slave and most of us were not descended from people who own slaves but we're guilty just because we're in the group and therefore we should be punished and and people who are in another group some of their ancestors did suffer injustice at the hands of some white people but these people didn't and and most of their ancestors really didn't either because they came to this country after slavery was abolished well they they somehow are supposed to be rewarded because of their group the bible's totally against that god in the law did not allow israel to favor their own just cause over that of gentiles who lived in their midst they were supposed to be equally just to the foreigner in their midst just as they had been in egypt foreigners and they were supposed to you know be compassionate and just the foreigners even though the israelites had a history of slavery they'd been slavery for centuries but a later generation that had never been slaves they weren't given special treatment in court because they had ancestors who were slaves in fact the law specifically says you shall not favor a rich man in his cause in court but two first ladies says you shall not favor a poor man you know it's economic groups racial groups certainly gender groups are not supposed to be as a group judged justice in the bible is color blind it's gender blind every person has responsibilities and rights whether man woman uh minority majority status even if they're homosexuals they have human rights and uh and we should not say well i don't like well you know people of such and such a race or i don't like you know women or i don't like you know uh whatever group and therefore i'm not going to treat them right that's that's what social justice is about but it's not real that's injustice it means that if i'm innocent i may be punished for what someone else did an ancestor of mine but in it says in ezekiel 18 the father shall not be punished for his son's sins and his son will not be punished for his father's sins the soul that sins is the one that's going to be punished punishment belongs to the person for their own individual responsibility and if for example all the people who make a certain amount of money are going to be punished so that they can redistribute the advantages to people who are below a certain income level that might sound very charitable but it's not just because the person who's having the money taken from it might have justly earned it by working their brains out whereas the person who's been given that money that they didn't earn might be somebody sits around plays video games and smokes pot all day but i mean that may be why they're poor you just can't say this economic group should be punished to help this group or racial group or whatever the fact that you know some certainly black people at one time in this country were very much oppressed obviously and that's a terrible thing and it's been redressed it's been redressed by law and by war but uh the fact that some black people still are kind of stuck in ghettos and places like that uh well it's a very sad thing and i'm not making light of it but ben carson was raised in the projects by a poor single mother and he got an education he got out of the hood you know and he uh became a surgeon and then an influential man in government so i mean the fact that a person a woman a homosexual a a black or hispanic person or someone else that's considered to be maybe in a disadvantaged group in some way can get out of there if they want to means that uh people's destiny lies a lot more in their effort and and what they choose than in some kind of fate they have by being part of a group um i mean should we give reparations to all the japanese because in world war ii we put them in camps that wasn't a very nice thing to do it's very a very tragic thing to do but i don't hear the japanese saying okay because of that my my grandmother was in a internment camp so you owe me money well they i think they know better i think they know that it was a bad thing maybe even an unjust thing but it had nothing directly to do with them or me you know it's justice meets out individual rewards commensurate to individual responsible acts of individuals and if you if you you know punish a whole family or whole race for the individual's actions that's not justice and so that's why social justice is really not justice it's marxism and it's uh it's class warfare it's what it is which is what marx taught so anyway being just being merciful being faithful being loving those are the things that that's how you seek to promote the kingdom of god any any questions inside we got one last question online uh doug from kansas asked this is not a kingdom of god question but a general question uh he says i've been listening to your christian character series and it has caused me to think through what it might be like to have a calloused conscience the questioning in my mind was if one's heart becomes hard or conscience hardened would the person recognize they are in that condition the answer that comes to me is that person might go for days never feeling or recognizing sin in their life that needs to be repented of well your heart can harden we have to realize that our character our inner man our spiritual being is not static it is dynamic it gets better or it gets worse but doesn't just stay the same by default if you do not work at overcoming sin in your life sin will work at overcoming you in your life and you'll become more and more in bondage to it we have to cultivate character by trust in god by prayer by obedience by you know basically doing what christians are supposed to do but and waging a warfare against uh our lusts that wage war against the soul peter said but if we don't do that if we just float it gets worse now it gets worse especially if god is convicting us of something we do and we ignore the conviction our heart becomes our conscience becomes more numb and it's very common for people to feel very guilty about something they do initially but as they don't as they ignore the conviction and keep doing it the conviction goes away they they become callous just like when you learn to play guitar you injure your fingertips and you might say well i'm not going to do that anymore or if you keep playing the guitar the calluses grow and you don't feel the same thing you're still doing the same kind of you're afflicting your fingers the same way but the feeling is gone and um leprosy is a disease that you know causes people to lose body parts but it doesn't eat those body parts away leprosy makes it impossible to feel pain in their appendages which means that where we're favoring our hands all the time like the other night my wife was walking into someone's house and didn't know there's kind of brick step there and she kicked it hard broke didn't break her toe but she did some damage i mean we do that kind of thing all the time but because it happens when we feel the pain we say oh i'm going to correct it i'm not going to keep doing that but if you felt no pain you could destroy yourself before you knew it everybody put your hand on a fire and you didn't know you'd done it pain is a good thing it lets you know hey that's you got to stop doing that when you lose sensation when you lose con the ability to feel conviction your heart has become calloused or hard now he said uh if your heart has grown hard would you know it well i'm sure some people would not the very hardness of heart is a feature that makes you unaware of the condition of your heart um and there are people that are apparently given over to a reprobate mind that paul talks about which apparently refers to someone like we'd call a sociopath they don't have any conscience they don't know right from wrong or care about it they have no sense now a person gets that point i don't know how they'd be redeemed unless it was through the miraculous answers to of the prayers of their friends and family they might you know god could break through the hard heart but this makes it so urgent that we attend to our heart you know it says in proverbs 4 keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life you can't just neglect your heart keep it like a garden keep it from the the bugs and the weeds and things like that because it's vulnerable if you don't attend to the garden it's going to be overrun with weeds and bugs you're going to lose lose what you had the heart's that way too maintain it keep it keep short accounts with god when you feel conviction repent if you don't repent you'll feel less conviction that doesn't mean you're doing the right thing it means you're losing touch with what the right thing is and you become more endangered but um yeah i do believe people can get to the point where they will never again feel the conviction they need to feel which is prerequisite to their conviction and repentance but um but sometimes people seem very hard and god gets through to them anyway that's probably through the prayers of their mothers or their fathers or friends or somebody because uh i think that once a per the harder you get the harder it is for even to know your heart because you're losing touch you're at least you're losing sensitivity about things so this may be a good good way to close uh lori asked or she mentions other authors or speakers on this subject i'm assuming the kingdom of god that you recommend after the last time you visited i read some works by michael heiser who had similar views so uh so on this subject who might we read in tandem well michael heiser i honestly don't know his views about the kingdom i know he writes about the unseen realm he writes about demons and angels and of course that all has reference to the kingdom um i mean his emphasis seems to my mind to be elsewhere than on specifically the kingdom but what he does believe and say about the kingdom might be very close to what i'm saying because frankly a lot of a lot of good writers are giving more thought than they used to to the kingdom of god people like n t wright and uh and and lesser known people too uh i i can't just say i recommend whatever this man or batman says about the kingdom when you read my book if you get around to read my book on the kingdom that you'll see that i quote these people and i critique them i either say this is right what they're saying and biblical or this part of what they said is i think they're missing it a little bit so there are many authors uh george elden lad in his book the gospel of the kingdom was a very popular one for a long time and and uh actually you know he's pretty good on it but he there are some things that as a historic pre-millennialist i think he's seen differently than i would um so i can't really say there's a book on the kingdom of god and author that says exactly everything that i would recommend but a lot of them come pretty close i really like a book called the kingdom of god by a guy named john bright now the interesting thing he was this is he wrote it you know a generation ago um and it was a very uh a very well-known book he wrote an excellent book he himself was a little bit more liberal than i am as a christian i mean he it sounded like he wasn't so sure isaiah wrote the whole book of isaiah for example which i'm sure isaiah did but uh i think he was maybe in a more liberal school but you wouldn't necessarily know it reading this book he he goes through the old testament and develops the idea of the kingdom of god in tedious detail i i loved the book he had so much helpful historical information about you know israel and the and the nations around it at the time it's just brilliant um and and uh frankly i recommended this book to somebody and they wrote to me so i started reading i'm not really feeling it you know and i have to say about his book it's a very scholarly and informative book and the first three quarters of the book anyway is going through israel's history in a lot of detail which i appreciate but maybe not everyone would but when he gets to the latter chapters where jesus is now introduced in jesus gospel and his what he established he's right on the money it's a very very good book it's called the kingdom of god by john bright i think it was written in 1953 if not mistaken but there's a lot of authors who come awfully close to what i would agree with i mean it's it's not a new idea what i'm teaching is not a new idea it's just not the prevalent idea that's taught in evangelical american preaching at this present time and i think that's largely because of the influence of dispensationalism the uh evangelical churches of america have been very thoroughly uh influenced by dispensationalism which has obviously this idea that the kingdom was postponed you know until jesus comes back which is very different from what the bible says and and quite uh to my mind fairly misleading so i can't just recommend one author i i do quote a lot of authors in my book but obviously since i'm everyone thinks their views are you know right i could recommend my books but they're not quite out yet except by kindle at this moment thank you awesome awesome wow he is taller than me bring this down here so uh uh just just to kind of uh let you know why i specifically wanted steve to talk on this topic is for what he just mentioned right there i think the the church has greatly been misinformed about the kingdom of god and its present state and how we need to be kingdom aware and to draw distinction like steve did but between what i believe and what steve talked about tonight the distinction between that and some really charismatic we are bringing in a kingdom of god now and it's a very man glorying type uh teaching it's not that at all it's quite the opposite it's a man's subject to god uh mentality and approach that we really need to to embrace to honor our king and so as a pastor i feel a a deep responsibility the very responsibility that steve uh mentioned whenever jesus said what he intended for us to do was to preach the kingdom and so i know that the lord is is leading me to better understand that so i can be a more faithful subject to my king as a pastor serving under my king and make sure that that i am representing him as a king and and the expectation that we would be subjects to this king and that we would bow our knee to him and and our hearts to him and loyal service to him and so he's a majestic king ain't he though he's beautiful and he's worthy he's worthy of that and you know we think of of kings as we've learned and grew up you know watching movies and how they honored the king and the king was to be to be revered and you you approach the king as someone that's just higher than you and all that and that goes against man and his pride and and so if we deliver a gospel that's absent of that people will devour it up say yeah i like that but if we're going to be faithful in in the gospel of the kingdom it's one that says bow your knee because your king's here and so uh uh thank you steve for sharing that i'm excited i got a a a copy of uh the first book and uh i know i'll be getting a copy of the second book i'm excited about reading that in the meantime uh i do encourage you to go to the narrowpath.com and uh check out uh the thousands of lectures and and um expositional teaching line by line through the bible um various uh topical messages and i enjoy the debates some of those you can catch on youtube but they're they're all on the uh the narrow path website and also one i use probably the most is the narrow path app so go on your safari or your uh the app store and the ipad or the iphone ipad any of those and i believe you can also get it on the android correct steve yeah you yeah for a while it was different and i had been from from it's a different app content awesome good so i encourage that so uh for those of you that have commutes um i know my brother justin was talking about and i've done it myself i i listened during the commute uh if if you have your list of those that you like to listen online you might consider listening to the narrow path also i believe it is of the lord so thank you steve for sharing tonight and we steve is on a very tight schedule uh praise the lord the the harvest is plenty and the laborers are few and so although i know we would have loved to spend more time with steve uh the harvest is plenty and the laborers are few and so the lord sometimes has to spread his laborers out and we don't get to spend as much time as we would like to together and that's why i mentioned to steve if nothing else we got all eternity uh but we want to spend some time down here together also so uh keep uh steve and dana in in your prayers your grandson also who's traveling with them uh and as they've got quite a few miles left on the road that they're going to be putting on and so just pray that the lord would protect them get them to where they need to be and even if a fog was to settle in oh like a uh george muller you know the story of the ship the lord can lift the fog to make sure you get to your appointments and and we'll be praying for your safety and the efficiency of your trips father we thank you for this time and this time in your word we love your word it is such a beautiful gift that you left to us to be able to seek you and to know you but it's the gift of your holy spirit that enlightens us and instructs us and we thank you for that personal tutor that you would say to us i want you to know me and i pray that you would continue to reveal yourself to us specifically as we've requested tonight in our hearts to better know our king and i pray that you would truly reveal yourself to us as individuals that we would know your king so we could be better subjects to our king in jesus name amen [Music] you

Channel: Chocolate Bayou Worship Center

Views: 3,260

Rating: 4.9512196 out of 5

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Id: SZinsde-vEE

Length: 117min 17sec (7037 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 08 2020