David Jeremiah - Thy Kingdom Come
In the aftermath of World War I, the Red Cross recruited American young men to travel to Europe to help the suffering masses over there, and one farm boy from Missouri caught the vision. He was too young to apply, but he forged the date on his birth certificate, managed to join the Red Cross, and he became an ambulance driver in France. While there, he fell in love with the charm and elegance of the French design and architecture, and he took it all in, the ornate chambers of the palaces, the gardens in Versailles, the paintings in the galleries. It was just like magic to him. It was overwhelming.
Later, this young man returned to Europe with his wife and continued to dream of creating worlds of fantasy, lands filled of kings and queens and castles and palaces and heroes and villains and enchanted kingdoms. Today, if you visit one of Walt Disney's theme parks, you will see royalty everywhere.
Mufasa the Lion King, King Triton of, "The Little Mermaid," Queen Leia, Prince Charming, and of course, all the princesses like Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine, and so on. Now, people call Disney parks the happiest places on earth, but that's not quite true. I mean, they're also expensive tickets. They're long lines. If you've ever been there, you know there's frazzled parents trying to manage exhausted youngsters. Yet, even children want to go because they believe there should be a place where royalty is good and kings are needed and happiness rules the day.
C.S. Lewis said our longing for these worlds indicate a true desire in the human heart for a world where everything would be as it should be. Behind the myths, he said, is an ultimate reality that pulls us onward and upward. We all want a world like that. We look at the world that we live in now and we realize, at least from my perspective, I can't remember it ever being this bad. I came into the world toward the end of the Second World War, but even during the war there was excitement and patriotism to defend our nation. And now you have to wonder, if we would have to fight another war, if anybody would go and fight.
The thing that goes on in our world today just seems to, it's a downgrade. It's not what we would hope. You know, everybody says, you know, if you do everything right, the world will get better. Our world is not getting better, and in our hearts we know that. And the Bible says we groan for the coming of this new world. In his book, "Miracles," Lewis defined it as a real, unfocused dream of falling on human imagination. In other words, we dream about a Golden Age for this world because there truly is a better world available. Somehow, we know that in our hearts, and we also know it from our Bibles. There is a better world coming. I'm not talking about heaven. I'm talking about a better world on planet Earth.
Today, I want to tell you about a coming Golden Age with a great and glorious king ruling over a happy planet filled with noble people among whom will be all of you who are Christians. During the past year, I have been focusing on the great disappearance, the return of Jesus Christ, and the Rapture, where we go up to meet the Lord in the air. We also know that afterward the earth will endure seven years of tribulation, leading to the final battle of Armageddon. That's when Jesus will appear as lightning in the sky, returning to the Mount of Olives, entering the city of Jerusalem, and establishing his kingdom.
Revelation 19 describes the return of Christ and the defeat of the Antichrist at the Battle of Armageddon. Then we turn the page of Revelation 20 and there we read, "And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and cast him into the bottomless pit, shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished... And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them... And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years".
A thousand years is a millennium. That's what the word means, "mille," 1,000, "annus," years. And it tells us that Christ is going to come back to this earth, and for 1,000 years he's going to reign on this earth, and it's going to be a good experience. It will be the earth he intended us to have before sin happened. It will reverse all the curses that happened after Adam and Eve's sin. It will be a world like no other world. I never really thought about this much. Unlike most of you, when you think of the Millennium, you put it off in the future and you say, "Oh, that's something, I don't need to know much about that. That's gonna happen some time way in the future".
But stop and take note. If the Rapture came today, within seven years you and I will be in the Millennium, reigning on this beautiful new earth with Christ over a world that you cannot imagine how wonderful it will be, for 1,000 years. There is more information in the Bible about the Millennium than there is about any other subject. That's hard to believe, and you probably don't know that because a lot of the information is stashed in some of the minor prophets and in Isaiah and Ezekiel, and some of it in the New Testament, most of it in the Old Testament. We should give it our considerable attention because we're potentially only seven years away from experiencing this kingdom ourselves. We could be reigning with Christ within seven years on planet Earth.
I remember when that took hold of my heart and I realized, I should tell some people about this. This is an incredible thought. And this time on this earth, according to the Bible, is gonna be a time of happiness. Isaiah says it this way, "For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; and mountains and the hills shall break forth with singing before you, all the trees of the fields shall leap and clap their hands in the millennium". It'll be a time of global peace. Isaiah says the nations, "will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; and nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore".
The Bible says we will study war no more. There'll be no armories, there'll be no guns, there'll be no implements of war. The Bible says we'll take all of these things and turn them into implements of agriculture. Can you imagine a world without the threat of war? And then it'll be a time of prosperity. Everybody's gonna prosper in the Millennium. Listen to this. This is from Joel. "...The open pastures are springing up, and the tree bears its fruit; and the fig tree and the vine yield their strength... The threshing floor shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil".
Now, remember, this was an agricultural community, so that's how they would express prosperity. But here's another one. In the Bible, it says, during the Millennium the reaper will catch up with the planter. In other words, here's a guy planting, and he looks around behind him, and here's the reaper. And they keep running into each other, the planter and the reaper, because God will bless the ground so much during the Millennium that you'll hardly be able to keep up with the crops that will be produced on planet Earth. And then it's gonna be a time of harmony in nature. Everybody always likes to ask me this question, "Are there gonna be animals in heaven"?
We did a little test at "Turning Point" when we were doing a series some years ago, and we put out a bunch of emails to see which one would get the most response, and one of the emails was the question, "Will animals be in heaven"? It was responded to about five times more than any other thing that we had. And, you know, it's interesting because we have these statistics now that veterinarians are under supplied. Everybody's got a dog, I got two of them. Everybody's got animals, and we can't imagine, well, let me just help you with that.
First of all, if the Millennium is the prelude to heaven, here's what it says in Isaiah 11. "'The wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat... And they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain.'" That's hard to believe. All the animals will be at peace. This will be such a time of peace, even the animals will get along with each other. And it will be a time of spiritual revival. "'...The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.'"
Now, I'm gonna tell you something that may surprise you. Many of us have actually been specifically praying for this time to come since we were children, and we don't even realize it. Do you realize that Millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ will be the ultimate fulfillment of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray? Say this out loud with me. "'...Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.'"
Now, let's go back to the top of that prayer where we pray, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Every day, millions of Christians utter the Lord's Prayer in hundreds of languages, in thousands of diverse settings and situations. So it has been for the last 2,000 years. No prayer has been more frequently spoken, more meaningfully offered, and more urgently needed. Even now, as you listen to this message, someone somewhere is praying the 66 words of the Lord's Prayer.
And I want to suggest that when we pray, "Thy kingdom come," we're praying for two things. We're praying for the kingdom of God to come in our hearts, and we're praying for it to come on earth in this period of time we call the Millennium, the Golden Age that is in front of us. There are two phases to the coming of our Lord's kingdom. The first is the present reality of the kingdom of grace, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are a part of God's kingdom. Now, the kingdom of God is in our hearts. We aren't under any physical king. We are under the King of heaven, and the kingdom is in our hearts.
I want to introduce you to a phrase Bible scholars use to describe the kingdom of God. It goes like this, "already, but not yet". Already, the kingdom's in our heart, but not yet is it on the earth. One of these days, when Jesus comes back and the Tribulation is over, Christ will set up his kingdom on this earth and it will be the ultimate answer to the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come. On earth as it is in heaven". The Word of God does say that the kingdom of God is a present spiritual reality. At the same time, it is an inheritance which God will provide all all of us who are Christians. All Christians will go into the Millennium. Ultimately, there will be sin in the Millennium, and people wonder about that. But how many of you know, just because you're Christians, you don't necessarily have Christian kids?
So when they go into the Millennium, and they have children, some of them won't be believers. Some of them will rebel against God. So there will be sin, but it will be cared for quickly and dealt with by King Jesus. When we pray, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," this is a petition for God to reign. This is a petition that's in our heart. This is that hunger I was talking about. Lord, this world is so messed up. Could you just come and take over? Could you just come and make this world what you intended it to be when you created it before sin entered?
Jesus began his preaching ministry with the news of the imminent appearing of the kingdom of God. He said, "...Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand". He said, "...Let the little children come to Me, and do not despise them; for of such is the kingdom of God". He said, "...the kingdom of God is within you". That's where it is right now. He stood before Pilate and he said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight..." When the Holy Spirit descended on the 120 disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem, shortly after the ascension of Christ, the church came into sudden existence, and the word "kingdom" means the king's domain.
So, if you acknowledge Jesus Christ today, you're in the kingdom. I remember I was going through a period of time in my life and trying to figure out why sometimes things didn't go the way I wanted them to go, and I got caught up in this idea that I needed to pray, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". And how many of you know, trying to get your life in a position where it can reflect that is pretty tough, that your life is on earth like it would be in heaven? Come on, now. That's a big gap.
And so, you partially accept that, that you have some of that in your life, but you never have it perfectly. We will never be able to have thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven until we get to the kingdom. But we will have the King in our heart and he will help us. And this great kingdom of God, which is spread all over the world, made up of believers of every nation and tongue, continues to grow. And one day, all of us together will enter into the kingdom, and King Jesus will literally and physically be our king. And you know what the Bible says? The Bible says he's gonna be president, and David's gonna be vice president. Did you know that?
You say, "Well, why should I care about that"? Well, because the Bible says that what happens to us in the kingdom, how we administrate and help Jesus in the kingdom, is based on this verse. "He that is faithful in a little can be faithful in much". Be faithful in the little things and you'll be faithful in much. So what the Bible teaches is, how you do your job here in this world as the King of kings is in your heart will determine what responsibility you get when you get to the kingdom. In other words, you're gonna be surprised at some of the people who are in high places when you get to the kingdom. I'm just trying to help you understand that the way we live now will determine what happens to us when we get into the kingdom, what we will do.
The King will make an adjustment. He will make an evaluation. He won't need to hire anybody to do it because he knows everything about everybody, and instantly will be able to appoint us to the places where we can help his kingdom the most. When you pray for God's kingdom on earth, you're praying for the spreading of the gospel in this world, and you're praying for that time to come when all things will be made right and will be in a world governed by King Jesus that will be like nothing you can imagine, the kingdom of glory. In the upper room, Jesus told his disciples, "I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, so that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel".
By his kingdom, we mean first the kingdom of grace, which is in our hearts, but we also mean the kingdom of glory, which is coming after the Tribulation when King Jesus is on this earth. And it will be a time of spirituality too. In the verses that we read earlier, if you didn't pick it up, let me remind you, Satan won't be here. Can I get a witness? For 1,000 years, Satan will be locked up in the bottomless pit. No escape possible. He will have absolutely no influence over anything that happens in the Millennium, and we will still mess up. But we'll never be able to say, "The devil made me do it," because he won't have had any opportunity to do that. He will be locked away for 1,000 years.
You say, "Why would God do that"? Well, first of all, he proves to us that we can't blame Satan for everything. We have sinful natures, don't we? And those sinful natures also cause us to do things that we shouldn't do. But the kingdoms of this world in that day will become the kingdoms of the Lord and of Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. One day, one day, men and women, the Lord Jesus will be King over the earth. He will reign for 1,000 years, and everyone who is a Christian will enter into that kingdom and be with him to reign and rule over planet Earth. At least at the beginning there'll be no unbelievers on the earth, I can't imagine that. The talk shows will be different. The newscasts will be different. Everything will be different.
Psalm 145 says it this way, "They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom, and talk of Your power, to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom". Obadiah wrote this, he said, "'The day of the Lord upon all the nations is near... But on Mount Zion there shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions...' and the kingdom shall be the Lord's".
We should think of this whenever we look at the map. Right now, the brooding nation of Russia spreads from Central Europe to furthest Asia, and beneath it is Mongolia and China. Nearby, is India, and the Global South is composed of Africa, Australia, South America. The United States and its familiar boundaries rest between the Atlantic and Pacific, with Canada above and Mexico below. Among the smallest nations is tiny Israel, only 71 miles at its widest point, and a mere 263 miles from north to south. I'm gonna just take a moment and tell you that the Bible says those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed. We need to support Israel. This is not whether or not they deserve the land.
You know how they got the land? God gave it to them. It was God's land to start with. He gave it to them, and he's not done. And the Bible says that very soon the boundaries of Israel will stretch from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and Zion will be the capital of the world. Jesus will reign from his throne. During the kingdom, Jesus will be on his throne in Jerusalem during the thousand-year reign we're talking about. And all the nations will fall into place under his authority, and peace will reign, and the holy people will populate the government, and a scepter of righteousness will be the scepter of his kingdom.
The Millennial kingdom will have no need for rescue missions or welfare programs or food stamps or relief agencies. The world will flourish under the hand of the King of heaven. The Bible is filled with prophecies of a coming age of peace and prosperity, and it will be a time when war will utterly be unknown. Not a single armament plant will be operating. Not a soldier or sailor will be in uniform. No military camps will exist, and not one cent will be spent for armaments of war. Not a single penny will be used for defense, much less for offensive warfare. Can you imagine such an age? When all nations shall be at perfect peace, all the resources available for enjoyment, all industry engaged in the articles of a peaceful luxury.
The venerable J. Vernon McGee put it in his own words this way. He said, "The Millennium is God's answer to the prayer, 'Thy kingdom come.' When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we say, 'Thy kingdom come. In earth as it is in heaven.' That is the kingdom which he is going to establish here on this earth, and it is called the Millennium". Whenever you pray the Lord's Prayer, you're praying for that kingdom to come.
Back in the 1970s, my friends Bill and Gloria Gaither were busy with family life. And one evening, they entertained two friends who told them about a sermon they'd heard from a preacher named Jim Crabtree. Crabtree was so excited about the return of Christ that he ended the sermon by walking through his congregation and shouting, "The King is coming! The King is coming! The King is coming"! After their friends left, Bill and Gloria kept talking about the glorious moment when the King will come amid a coronation processional.
So Bill sat down at the piano and composed a melody while Gloria set aside her housework and wrote the lyrics to the song, "The King is Coming". Yes, the King is coming, but so is the kingdom, and the Bible gives us some prayers that we can pray as we look forward to that day. One of them is the one we've been praying during this service. "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". The second prayer is a one-word term I learned early in life because I grew up with the King James Version of the Bible, as many of you did. And in the King James Version of the Bible, the apostle Paul closed his first letter to the Corinthians with this word, "Maranatha".
And you know, we have a Maranatha Church in our community. "Maranatha" has survived as a word everybody knows about, but do you know what it means? The word "maranatha" means, "O Lord, come". So, the first prayer you can pray is, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, Lord". And secondly, "Maranatha," "Come, Lord Jesus," and then the last one is the last words of the New Testament where we read, "...Even so, come, Lord Jesus"!
You know, folks, we don't have much of an appreciation for the things that are gonna happen in the future, but let me tell you something. They're gonna happen anyway. And the more we can learn about them and the more we know of God's great plan helps us to understand a little bit and maybe be a little more patient. This has never been the world God wanted us to have. This is a world tainted with the sin of mankind, but there's a coming world when there'll be no sin, when there'll be no crime, when there'll be no poverty, when there'll be no sickness, when death will happen only very seldom.
And the Bible says during that time a person who is 100 years old will be considered a child. That's what God has in store for us. "Lord, help me to pray this prayer. Lord, I want to have happen today in my life as much as possible thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Help me to live like that". Some of you are gonna have a big adjustment when you go into the kingdom. Some of you won't have much at all. "I want to be among those who make a small adjustment when they go into the kingdom because they've been living under the King's orders for their whole life". I hope that's true for you too.