There are four stages in which the kingdom comes. The first stage of the kingdom is the proclamation stage.
Much of the evangelical church is at this stage. They can teach about it, but there is no powerful manifestation of it. John taught accurately the things concerning Jesus but he never did a miracle.
The cutting edge of the kingdom is its ability to move in the miraculous. Without a manifestation of the miraculous there can be no advance of the kingdom. There is no other answer to Islam and other religions but the power of supernatural signs and wonders and miracles. God loves to manifest himself in this way. God loves a fight because he never loses.
John was not that light although he was a burning and a shining light.
That light was fist of all the person of our lord Jesus Christ, he was the beginning of what the bible calls that light, which is later on called the light of the world.
It was the life which was the light, it was the way he lived which was the light, it wasn’t what he knew or even what he taught.
John was a light, but he wasn’t that kind of light. When the church comes on the scene, what is said about Jesus being the light and life is the same thing that is said about the church. But it was never said about john the Baptist.
Most of the church in this nation is living in john the Baptist Christianity, and has never crossed the line into the practical manifestation of the kingdom of God. We have to come into it ourselves and then get the whole church there, and then we will be powerful.
Mark 1; 14Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
Jesus preached what is called the gospel of the kingdom. The word for time here means- an opportune moment. Jesus called for repentance and faith. What does it mean to preach the gospel of the kingdom and what is the real issue?
This is how Jesus began his ministry- he didn’t say I have come to heal your hurts, or bodies, mend your marriage, and fix your finances. These things are by products of the kingdom but they are not the heart or essence of the kingdom.
Jesus preached the kingdom of God. And until this transfer of relationship to God takes place, He could only temporarily solve their other problems.
If I can get you to rightly relate to God as king and as lord, it is not difficult to solve all the other issues, because those issues are by products of independence.
A lot of preaching of the gospel that we have been familiar with does not preach the gospel of the kingdom. And as a result it produces a spurious response.
People will come to Jesus to get their marriages fixed, bodies healed, hurts and hearts mended and all these wonderful things Jesus will do, but this is not the issue of the kingdom . This is a common misconception. The issue of the kingdom is his lordship over our life.
The only place John mentions the kingdom is here
John 3: 3Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, hecannot see the kingdom of God. 4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? 5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Nicodemus is the teacher of all Israel. And Jesus says to him, to his great surprise that the first priority for him is that he must be born again.
The purpose of being born again is not to be saved and go to heaven and have your sins forgiven. The purpose of being born again is so that first of all you can see the kingdom and secondly so that you can enter the kingdom.
We need to understand what the new birth really is because there is a lot of misconception about it. We equate it with being saved, to make a decision for Christ or whatever terminology that we want to use. It is not essentially any of those things. It is essentially an issue of seeing the kingdom and entering the kingdom.
In John’s first epistle he frequently speaks of being born of God and what comes as a result of it. When we are truly born again we are not overcome by the world, we overcome the world and so on.
The seed in our spirit has to be birthed in our soul. Born again speaks of fruit. The seed has to produce fruit, so we have to have the right kind of soil. There are other things that enter the heart so that Jesus cannot be formed in us.
If we are born again we don’t live as a prisoner of sin, we have the possibility of living in permanent victory over sin. Sin is referred to as being a master. Either Jesus is lord or sin is lord, let not sin reign as lord-king over your life. We are talking about king sin.
The devil doesn’t walk all over us, we walk all over him.
In John’s gospel we see that those who come to him are coming to him to be born of God.
Mathew concentrates on the kingdom of heaven, it is spoken of 57 times. Only five times does he use the description the kingdom of God all the rest of the time he uses the description the kingdom of heaven.
He is the only one who speaks about the kingdom of heaven. We need to understand what the difference is. But there is not that much difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven.
It is two perspectives of the same thing but it is important to see the distinction. The kingdom of God emphasizes the relationship. Because this kingdom in which we are called to live is a kingdom of relationship as is all the things concerning God.
The kingdom of heaven emphasizes two things; an environment which is produced by perfect obedience to God that disappears the moment disobedience manifests itself.
The environment of Heaven is a very fragile thing. It is an environment that comes automatically when God is perfectly obeyed, and disappears automatically when God is disobeyed. Can you see the impossibility of people going to heaven when they won’t live under Gods rule?
Someone who will not live in perfect obedience to God cannot be in heaven because they produce hell by their disobedience. It is an environment which is produced. They first have to be cleansed by being born from above.
The second thing we see about heaven is that it is a realm or sphere of rule and government. The bible talks about layers of heavens and Jesus passing through those heavens to sit on that throne. We are talking about the ultimate heaven where God’s throne is.
There are levels of the heavenlies that have been polluted by demonic activity. This is the most important region in which we have to establish the kingdom. It is more important to rule in the heavens, than what happens on earth because it is an automatic consequence of what has happened or is happening in the heavens.
To think that we can change the earth without populating the heavens is a delusion. We cannot do that and that is why many people never see any success. Because they are fighting a battle in the wrong place. Heaven itself is a place of ultimate rule and government and the power of it has tremendous influence upon the earth.
Math 4:23 Jesus went about all Galilee preaching the gospel of the Kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and disease and casting out devils.
We need to see the power of the kingdom.
We have to have this ministry of word and works working together. One without the other is an off balanced proclamation of the kingdom.
The purpose of the works is to produce a heart which is receptive to the word of the kingdom. The purpose of the works is not an end in itself, the purpose of the works is to produce a heart attitude which is receptive to the words of the kingdom.
Indonesia in the sixties was regarded as a 100% Muslim nation, there were a few Christians but they were so small and so insignificant that they were not statistically measureable. God sent a man to go out into his home town and just start to lay hands on the sick for every physical need they might have.
An Islamic community is always full of sicknesses and demons it is a by-product of the religion, they are filled with every kind of sickness and disease. So he went out into his own home town and began to pray for the sick. The lord said don’t try and get them converted, just tell them they are being healed by the power of Jesus name, and that is all he said, he was just being obedient to what God told him to do.
Over the next three weeks in his home town and region more than 2000 miracles took place. The whole place was full of excitement. Into about six to eight weeks of this then an evangelistic team came into this region and preached the gospel of the kingdom. They capitalized on the miracles God had been doing through him. And as a result there was incredible rapped attention. Over the next eighteen months, they saw no less than 250,000 Muslims turn to Jesus Christ. And the Indonesian revival began.