The Kingdom of Heaven: Understanding Its Interim Reality

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1. "He is indeed the Son of David. In chapter 2, His right to reign was affirmed by the oriental kingmakers that we know as the wise men or the magi. Who in their own understanding are the wise men. Who in their own understanding of prophecy and through the direction of the Spirit of God were led to confirm that this was the King. That is affirmed again in chapter 3 by the testimony of John the Baptist who was the foreordained forerunner to the King." [01:20] (34 seconds) ( | | )

2. "Finally, you come to chapter 11 and Jesus denounces the sinful nation of Israel for rejecting Him. And He promises them severe judgment. Then closes chapter 11 with an invitation. Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So out of the message of judgment comes again. The message of grace, an invitation." [03:26] (28 seconds) ( | | )

3. "For centuries they had awaited the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth. They had awaited the times of refreshing, the restoration, the granting back of the glory and the blessing that was man's before the fall. And when it was offered to them, they refused it and they lost it in that generation. And so as you approach chapter 13, you enter a new dimension. A new perspective. A new perspective in the ministry of Christ." [05:28] (32 seconds) ( | | )

4. "Because they rejected the King, the Kingdom in its full fulfillment had to be postponed. And it had to be postponed to a future time. What time? The second coming of Christ. You see, that's why Christ is coming a second time, to bring the Kingdom that was refused the first time. He came and His message was this, repent for the Kingdom is at hand." [07:39] (24 seconds) ( | | )

5. "God is a God of His Word. And if God just set the Kingdom aside and said, forget it, I gave you one shot at it and dropped it, then His prophecies would not come to pass and His Word would be violated. And so it is postponed until they believe. And the day will come when they do, you know. For example, Zechariah says, the day is coming when they will look on Him. They will look on Him whom they have pierced and they will mourn for Him as an only Son." [08:34] (25 seconds) ( | | )

6. "And when the kingdom of God comes into the hearts of men internally, then it will realize its full fulfillment externally as Christ reigns on the earth for a thousand years in the millennium spoken of in Revelation 20. And so when we talk about the full fulfillment of the kingdom, we mean that kingdom which comes to pass on the earth both internally. That is in the hearts of believing people and externally as Christ rules and reigns as king on the earth." [10:08] (26 seconds) ( | | )

7. "We need to understand chapter 13. Because it's talking about our time, our period. What it will be like when the king has been rejected and the kingdom postponed until He comes again to set up His kingdom, what's it going to be like? This describes, believe me, it describes Christianity in 1982 to the very T. It's amazing. Our Lord said it would be this way. And each of the parables discovers another facet of this period, and you'll see how they perfectly parallelize." [11:58] (35 seconds) ( | | )

8. "Now, there were some, there was a remnant who received the king internally. And there are today those who received the king internally. But someday there will be a massive response. And when the kingdom comes internally at the level that it does in the tribulation time, then it will come externally in the wonderful millennial reign of Christ on the earth for a thousand years." [10:59] (23 seconds) ( | | )

9. "And in our day, God is mediating His rule on the earth. From the earth through the believers who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And we are God's agents to speak the Word of God, to hold up the standards of God, to bring to men God's will and way and moral values. And we are here to call men to enter into God's kingdom." [22:49] (20 seconds) ( | | )

10. "And there will be a day in the future in the tribulation when God will anoint 144,000 Jews. And those Jews will mediate in the sense that they will take God's message to the world. And there will be a worldwide revival so that innumerable Gentiles and the nations of the land of Israel are saved. And then Christ will come back and mediate His own kingdom on the earth again." [22:49] (18 seconds) ( | | )

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