Kingdom of God is At Hand, A First Century Perspective

Hello, it's William Bell with All Things Fill. Welcome to our study on the Kingdom of God. And in this video, we're going to talk about the Kingdom of God having drawn near. The Kingdom of God is at hand. In those days, the Bible said, Matthew chapter 3, verses 1 and 2, came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. So here is God, as the Bible had announced years before, several centuries before, that the Kingdom of God would come. Now, he has a shift in the message. The message is now the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near. Now, that statement is not made from a 21st century point of view. In other words, it's not made as though it were stated yesterday or any time in our recent history, but it was stated at the time that John the Baptist was on earth in the first century. And here's Jesus saying the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand or has drawn near. In other words, he was letting the people know that the Kingdom of God was about to come. In Luke chapter 11 and verse 20, Jesus on one occasion was accused of being the prince of demons, the prince of Beelzebub. He was accused by the Pharisees and the scribes, et cetera, as being the prince of Beelzebub because he was casting out demons. And of course, one of the questions he asked the Jews, he says, if I, by the prince of devils, cast them out, he says, by whom do your sons cast them out? He says, therefore, they would be your judges. He says, but if I cast out demons by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has come near to you. The Kingdom of God has come unto you. And, you know, when you think about that statement, it's taken from, it suggests the Exodus when the magicians were trying to defeat Moses in their magic. And there was one particular miracle, which they couldn't reproduce. And they said, well, you know, this is the hand of, this is the finger of God. And so Jesus was letting them know that a greater than Moses was there, that he had the power of God. And therefore he had come to deliver his people from the bondage of sin, just as Moses had come to deliver them from the bondage of Egypt and thereby calling their attention to the finger of God. And the Jews, the Pharisees would have known that reference. They would have understood the connection that Jesus was making there. But he was saying that the Kingdom of God had come to them. And that's why John the Baptist was announcing, being the forerunner of Christ, who had gone to prepare the way before him, was announcing to the people, repent for the Kingdom of heaven has drawn near. Now we take that from the perspective of the first century of the time that John was there announcing that the Kingdom of God was near. So it was not something that was going to be put off. So for people who are saying the Kingdom has not been established, of course, they are misapplying these words. Now let's dig a little deeper into this statement concerning the Kingdom of God being at hand. In the first chapter of Mark, after John had been put in prison, of course, for telling Herod that he shouldn't have his brother Philip's wife. And of course, later on, he was beheaded. But the Bible says from that time forward, Jesus came preaching the time is fulfilled. Now he's referring to the time recorded in the book of Daniel, which is where we started in our first video on this series. He started from that point with the prophecies of Daniel. And Daniel had given a time frame for the Kingdom, basically the 70 weeks. And here is Jesus coming saying the time is fulfilled. He uses a word which means filled up to the full. There's no more time that could be waiting for the Kingdom of God to come. He's very specific about that. He's very emphatic about that. And in Mark 1, 14 through 15, he says, repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. You know, repent and believe the gospel. And so, therefore, Jesus was saying the time has come. The appointed time has come. He uses the word kairos there. He says the appointed time has come. The time appointed in the scriptures, the time that the prophets had spoken about has broken into this world. And that's why when he was carrying forth his ministry and casting out the demons, he says the Kingdom of God has come nigh unto you. John the Baptist saying the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and Jesus likewise saying the time is fulfilled. So, we can't look for another time in the future. We certainly can't look for time in our future. And that means that anything associated with building a kingdom or Jesus coming back to a certain place on earth, as we talked in one of the previous videos, it's not geocentric, could not be the Kingdom of God. Now, here's a statement that Jesus makes. He connects the coming of the kingdom also with his personal coming, with his coming to judge the world. In the 16th chapter of the book of Matthew, and also in parallel chapters such as Mark 9, 1, also in Luke chapter 9, 26 and 27. But in Matthew 16, 27 and 28, Jesus connects the coming of the kingdom with his coming with the son of man and also with the time of judgment. But he says something very, very specific in that context. The Bible says for the son of man will come in the glory of his father with his holy angels and he will reward each according to his work. Now, Jesus is speaking in that context concerning the judgment. Now, my good friend, Don Preston has pointed out in many of his studies and on many occasions that there is no division of time between verse 27 and 28. In other words, whenever Jesus uses the term, he never uses that to introduce, number one, a new subject, and it never disconnects the previous verse from the following verse. In other words, they are one subject. They are meant to go together and they refer to the same event at the same time. And so we are assured that verse 27 is a passage related to the coming of Christ, the second coming of Christ, what we may call the parousia or the eschatological or end time coming of Christ. Well, here's what Jesus said concerning that. He said, assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here. In other words, there were people in his presence. And if you look at the account in Mark, you will find that it wasn't just his disciples, but there were others who were in his presence. And Jesus looked among them and said, there are some among you, because most of his disciples had died by the time the kingdom arrived, but there were still others who were yet alive. And he was addressing not just the 12, but he was addressing other people in the context. And he says, there are some standing here who will not taste death till they have seen the Lord coming or the son of man coming in his kingdom. Now, I realize that there are some who believe that he was talking about an event that would happen six days later, but none of his disciples died six days later. And that, of course, does not meet the terms of the context. He is talking about, as we said before, we're talking about the Lord coming in his kingdom. For those who would suggest that it happened six days later, they would have to acknowledge that the kingdom of God came six days later. And that was not the case because they were preaching the kingdom of God would come. The kingdom of God had drawn near that it was coming, but it had not yet come. As a matter of fact, in Luke chapter 18, Jesus spoke a parable to the end for some who thought that the kingdom of God might immediately appear. Now, that was at the close of his ministry when he was going up to Jerusalem to be crucified. How then at the transfiguration could that have been the coming of the kingdom? It was not. And therefore, he's talking about the kingdom coming in relation to his second coming in relation to the eschatological coming. But he said, there were some who were standing in his presence who would not die until they had seen the kingdom of God come with power. Now, what that means is either we have some people still living on earth who were present on earth at the time Jesus made that statement, which is absolutely just unbelievable. We could even say ridiculous, absurd. It just not is the case. Or we could call Jesus a liar and said he didn't know what he was talking about. By the way, there are men who did, in fact, and who do, in fact, say that. They said, well, Christ didn't know what he was talking about. The apostles didn't know what they were talking about. And some of these were very well respected Christian theologians who made that statement. Men like Rudolf Bultmann and Albert Schweitzer and others who makes that statement that the apostles were mistaken. Jesus was mistaken. They didn't know what they were talking about. Well, I assure you, Jesus didn't lie. And I assure you that there are no people who are still living on this earth that were present with Christ at the time that he spoke. Yet his words were before they all die, before some of them die. Rather, he says he would return. Now, all of them have now died. That means he returned. That's why, as we said in the previous video, the kingdom of God does not come with observation. If we're looking for it externally, we're not going to find it. He said, the kingdom of God does not come with observation. The kingdom of God is within you. It is a spiritual kingdom, which has been set up by God. As Jesus told Pilate, he says, you know, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, but I should not be delivered unto the Jews. So we focused on the kingdom being at hand. And when you look in the New Testament, throughout not only the gospels, the acts of the apostles, as well as the epistles, you see that the kingdom was about to come within that first century generation. And Jesus said in Matthew 24 in verse 34, assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. And he said it would be in connection with that event, with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, that they would know that the kingdom of God was near, that it would come before that generation passed away. So it arrived within the first century. That's when God fulfilled the coming of the kingdom of God. That's when he brought the temple, the kingdom temple back so that man could have access to God. So don't go looking in some geographical place to see if you can see a building and a king with a crown sitting on his head and someone walking around with a scepter in his hand. That's not the way you find it. You find it by studying the word of God and by understanding it, by believing it and by obeying his word and resolving to live according to the will of God. I'm William Bell with allthingsfulfilled.com. I encourage you to visit our website. Also subscribe to our newsletter so you can receive additional messages and studies in this area. And we also encourage you to leave us a comment if you're so disposed or if you have a question, we'll do our best to answer that question. Thank you for watching the video and we'll talk to you soon.