The Scriptures paint a panorama that lays a foundation concerning the Kingdom of God. We find a thread running all the way through the Word of God about God’s Kingdom. In the Old Testament, when God called Israel out of Egypt, He had one thing in mind—they were going to be His people. He instructed Moses to tell them: “ ‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.” Exodus 19:5, 6. God intended that Israel would be a Kingdom of priests unto Him.
The time finally came under Samuel when the people cried for a king. Samuel grieved over it, but God said, “They have not rejected you, Samuel; they have rejected Me that I should not reign over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). And Israel remained in that position until our Lord came. At the trial before Pilate they cried again, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). They still weren’t prepared in their hearts to accept Jesus Christ as their King or their Lord.
God has had a plan from the very beginning that He would have a Kingdom—a Kingdom of priests. The plan was modified with a token that promised something further to come, when God said finally that He would take the tribe of Levi for His people and they would be His possession. That too failed. In the book of Revelation we find that God finally has a people who will be the kings and priests of God, who will rule and reign with the Lord for a thousand years (Revelation 5:10). John came, preaching the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus came, preaching, “The Kingdom of heaven is nigh unto you.” He sent forth the twelve and they preached, “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He sent forth the seventy, two by two, and they preached that the Kingdom of God had come. The book of Acts closes with Paul in Rome preaching the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is such a fantastic thing! When this walk with God came, we were aware that something more than just Christianity or “churchianity” needed to be preached. God had something more in mind than just building local churches. There was something of His Kingdom in the wind. God was bringing forth truths we had not seen before. Then we began to discover principles or laws that govern the age of the Kingdom that is before us. Through the prophets of old, God showed us that there would be this great time of opposition in which the saints would possess the Kingdom. The prophecies of Daniel tell of a stone cut out of the mountain without hands striking the great image—which was symbolic of all the great Gentile nations and empires that were to come after Daniel—and how that stone was the Kingdom of God, which would grow until it filled all the earth. This has been difficult for people to understand. In fact, even after the Lord was resurrected the disciples had only one intriguing question: “Lord, is this finally the hour that You are going to restore the Kingdom to Israel?” They still missed the wonder of it. The Kingdom of God is not to come—it has always been with us. It is here—it doesn’t come with observation. You do not say, “Lo here,” or “Lo there,” for the Kingdom of God is within you. The Kingdom of God is among you.
The parables in Matthew 13 taught that the Kingdom would coexist for a time in the world. Just as the tares and the wheat grew side by side, there was a possibility that the Kingdom of God would coexist even in a hostile climate for a time, perhaps for many centuries, which has proved to be true. But the time would come when the Kingdom of God would begin to prevail. In the meantime, anyone who ever saw the principles of the Kingdom and saw what the Kingdom of God was to mean would immediately face a challenge to his life such as he had never faced before. One of the parables compared the Kingdom of heaven to a pearl of great price, and when a man found it, he went and sold all that he had so he might possess that one pearl of great price. Jesus said the Kingdom of heaven was like a treasure hidden in the field, and when a man found it, he sold all that he had to buy that field. He bought a barren tract of land, full of rocks and stones that everyone passed by, because he saw there was a treasure in it that other eyes had not seen and no other heart had discovered.
God is trying to teach us too that the very thing we have found in this walk, others can pass by. We have found a treasure hidden in a field. No one can understand the total cost of discipleship we are willing to pay joyfully. With what willingness we give all for this walk, because it really is a walk of the Kingdom. God has opened the door for us and said, “This I want you to embrace. This is My Kingdom.” Christ said concerning this Kingdom, The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since then the gospel of the Kingdom of God is preached, and every one is forcing his way into it. Luke 16:16.
This is different than the days of the Church Age, when the congregation sang “Almost Persuaded” and on the fourteenth verse the old drunk finally staggered down to the altar. There seems to be a negative kind of selling. We run after the Lord, and say, “Lord, we want to follow You,” but He replies, “The birds of the air have their nests and the foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). In that negative way, Christ shook loose the light-hearted adherents, the shallow believers who only mentally accepted the truths He brought, but did not commit themselves wholly, irrevocably to them. The Lord said, “No man, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).
With all the things God has set before us to walk in, I think the greatest is His promise: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and these other things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). It doesn’t make any difference what the world is seeking. It doesn’t make any difference what you seem to lay aside. Once the Kingdom of God has priority in your life, in your thinking, in all that you seek, you can never again be a loser. Those who have sold all to obtain that pearl of great price will gain everything. Those who have seen all their earthly roots disappear, who have their roots in heaven, are the branches of our blessed Lord. He is the vine and we are the branches. We hang low, bearing fruit unto God. No matter how many times those branches are mutilated they can never be severed from the root. We only bear more fruit as a result of the pruning and the purging.
“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and these other things will be added unto you.” This was uppermost in the hearts of the New Testament believers and ministries. The New Testament believer was concerned about the Kingdom of God. He was not so much concerned about his own self or what befell him; he was so persuaded that everything belonged to the Lord (all the glory and the power) that he considered himself to be expendable. Today I think people have reversed their thinking from what a disciple should really feel. They are trying to build kingdoms to themselves, until the issue is not the Kingdom of God, but the many different kingdoms in many different realms that man is building to himself, something again that has to come down.
How did those believers and ministries in the New Testament relate to one another? What did they really think? What were they seeking? How can we find out what made them tick? What were they looking for? What were their ambitions, their goals? What made them live the way they lived? Recently I reread every one of the epistles to get the feeling in my heart of how those believers felt about the Kingdom of God, how they felt about one another, and what it meant to be a ministry in the days of the New Testament, because I believe it is all coming back again. Once again the Lord is building that same intensity and purity within the Church and within the ministries. Once again we see ministers and believers who are completely without personal ambition, as they seek first the welfare of the whole Body and place their own welfare second. Many of our pastors are self-supporting, and those who are not self-supporting are living sacrificially, putting the Lord above everything else. They feel things within their own spirit toward one another. With a few Scriptures, I’d like to paint a little picture of what those New Testament believers believed and how they related to each other. Some of it will break your heart.
I don’t know of anything that stirs my heart more than the account of the time when Paul was in prison, and Epaphroditus, the apostle to the Philippian church, came with a gift. While he was there he became ill, and the church of Philippi received word that he was sick. Then Epaphroditus was worried over the fact that they knew he was sick. Those New Testament believers and their pastors and ministries were so closely related that they couldn’t bear to grieve one another.
For one of our Scriptures we will consider Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 2, verses 19–28. But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.
As a young man, Timothy had witnessed, probably at Lystra, the stoning of Paul, because Paul mentioned in his epistle, “You were eyewitness of my sufferings at Lystra” (2 Timothy 3:11). That was where Paul was stoned and left for dead. Probably this little boy, half Jewish and half Gentile, stood in amazement and wondered about this man who had told him so many things about the Lord. He watched Paul being stoned. After God revived him, Paul began to strengthen the brethren and went on to Derbe and Antioch. A beautiful bond was created between Paul and Timothy.
Paul called Timothy his son in the faith (1 Timothy 1:2). When he wanted to send someone to the church at Philippi he said, “I’m going to send you Timothy. I don’t know of anyone who will look after Christ’s interest as much as he will. He won’t be thinking about his ministry or what he’s going to accomplish or how he’s going to put things over; he will just be thinking about the things that belong to Jesus Christ.”
But you know of his proven worth that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father. Therefore I hope to send him immediately, as soon as I see how things go with me; and I trust in the Lord that I myself also shall be coming shortly.
But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow-worker and fellow-soldier, who is also your messenger (apostle) and minister to my need; because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I have sent him all the more eagerly in order that when you see him again you may rejoice and I may be less concerned about you.
Now let us read from Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 16, verses 7–18: For I do not wish to see you now just in passing; for I hope to remain with you for some time, if the Lord permits. But I shall remain in Ephesus until Pentecost; for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.
Now if Timothy comes, see that he is with you without cause to be afraid; for he is doing the Lord’s work, as I also am. Let no one therefore despise him. But send him on his way in peace, so that he may come to me; for I expect him with the brethren. But concerning Apollos our brother, I encouraged him greatly to come to you with the brethren; and it was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity.
Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. (Wouldn’t that be a good quotation to use on a wall plaque? “Let all that you do be done in love.”)
Now I urge you, brethren (you know the household of Stephanas, that they were the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves for ministry to the saints), that you also be in subjection to such men and to everyone who helps in the work and labors. And I rejoice over the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus; because they have supplied what was lacking on your part. For they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore acknowledge such men. There was a communication between the churches. Notice the love they had for each other and the bond that existed. We wonder if there was any jealousy or rivalry at all between these brothers.
Now when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened for me in the Lord, I had no rest for my spirit, not finding Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went on to Macedonia. 2 Corinthians 2:12, 13. To travel in those days was to take one’s life in his hands. Paul mentioned elsewhere that they were in perils of robbers. There were many dangers, many perils. He was worried about Titus. He didn’t know where he was. Even though a great door of ministry was opened up to him, he was restless in his soul, yearning after Titus. “Where is Titus? Where is Titus?” He walked the streets. There was no Western Union. There was no Bell Telephone. There was no communication system he could use to find out. How would he know? His mind was so burdened that he couldn’t preach and he couldn’t minister.
Later in 2 Corinthians 7:4–7 he wrote: … I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction. For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts without, fears within. But God, who comforts the depressed, comforted us by the coming of Titus (Titus was there now; he had showed up); and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more.
I can picture it so clearly in my mind. Paul was staying in a small, dimly lit room, where his eyes were probably smarting from the flickering oil lamps that provided barely enough light by which to see. Titus comes in and they joyfully embrace. They sit and talk about the people and about the churches. I just can’t feature them being interested in anything else. I can’t imagine Paul saying, “Well, I was just watching ‘Gunsmoke’ on television.” I can’t imagine that they were interested in the passing scene. Instead they talked about what God was doing, about the precious brothers, about the people who had broken through to a new place in God, and what was going on in the church at Corinth.
Talk about seeking first the Kingdom of God—they knew what it meant. They had few other interests. They had to work with their hands to make a living, but that didn’t bother them at all. No matter what Paul was doing, sewing tents or anything else, he could still say, “I don’t cease to pray for you day and night. Always you are before me in my prayers.” They had such love and such a sustained burden that they might be thousands of miles apart, walking across the Roman Empire preaching the gospel, cut off from communication in every way, yet daily they met at the throne of God. Always they were as one before the Lord Jesus Christ, praying for one another, loving one another so deeply. These New Testament ministries had a beautiful relationship. It was because the Lord was first. The Kingdom of God was ahead of everything. They didn’t love their lives unto death, and they weren’t counting the cost. They were knit together as one.
Do you want to read something that will stir your heart? Read the book of Philemon, the story of a runaway slave who had been converted while Paul was in bonds in Rome. He was sent back to his master, and Paul took upon himself the obligation of any indebtedness involved. The ministry in the slave came forth and soon the slave was the one in authority over his former master. Who can understand the principle of the Kingdom of God, that he who is least can become the greatest? As James 1:9–10 tells us: “Let the proud and rich man rejoice that God has brought him low; and let the humble brother rejoice that he has been exalted.” Who understands that reasoning?
How can we understand the thinking of the Lord? We will never understand it on a natural plane. How can we understand the King? How can we understand our own Lord, standing there with a glow of the Father resting on His heart, on the Passover night when the Word of revelation was so great? The Scriptures tell us, “Knowing that the Father had put all things into His hands, and that He came from the Father, and that He went to the Father, He laid aside His garments and took a basin and a towel and began to wash their feet” (John 13:3–5). What kind of a crazy kingdom was this? That is exactly what we are doing today. We are yearning and striving, ambitious to become servants of one another. We are following the same pattern. What we are doing is not a reasonable thing—not to the reasoning of man—as we give ourselves wholly to the Lord and to serving one another by the grace of God.
These New Testament ministries had strange ways and attitudes. Paul talked about the divisions among them that he recognized. Notice what he said about them. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to babes in Christ. Why? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men? What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. 1 Corinthians 3:1, 4–9. Do you understand what Paul was saying? How zealously those apostles refused to see a kingdom built around themselves.
In this day we cannot become partial in our submission to any one ministry. I think God has granted me to walk in faithfulness and deliver the Word that He’s given me to deliver. I have planted and I’ve cultivated, and God has had a way of bringing many ways of watering that Word. But I am nothing; it is God who gives the increase. Many men will come on the scene and all of them will be in the same position. I’ll be zealous for only one thing. Through the years, I have publicly rebuked those who gave any praise to me, sometimes even wounding deeply those who were rising in all sincerity to give me some commendation. In the same way I think that every man should rebuke those who come to idolize or eulogize him. The minute the men begin to look upon one another as the Corinthian church looked upon their leaders and the apostles who came to them, that day we mark the immaturity of that group. And God will not continue to bless it.
God grant that I never feel so insecure in myself, or about my place in God, that I have to see any men build a kingdom around me. God deliver me at this point from ever becoming a victim of the ego trip. And God deliver every one of the brothers the same way. Let there be no seeking of anything except His glory and His praise. Let there be this dedication to help one another.
I could have taken many things in this walk—money, praise, fame—but you know how zealously I have refused to do that. Consequently, I can look up to the Lord and say, “Behold, O Lord, the men who stand with me—how unselfishly they all walk.” I have been an example of walking unselfishly and seeing God glorified. And God has honored that by seeing that the Lord is glorified by every one of the ministries who have come up. I can’t point to one who has risen up to take the glory or the credit. I can’t point to any ambition, or strife, or contest between any of the brethren. That’s saying a great deal. Where could you find such a statement vindicated by fact?
We see the wholeheartedness with which these people walk before the face of the Lord. Some of them have a natural taste for gracious living, yet they work and live in sacrifice. I know how they live. I know how many of them have come to me and said, “I love you; I’d give my life for you,” and I know they mean it. We ought to be willing to lay our lives down for the brethren—this is the thing God was speaking all the way through.
Paul continues: According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But let each man be careful how he builds upon it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire. 1 Corinthians 3:10–15.
Paul is saying that God gave the blueprint and specified the materials that were to be used. God wanted to see it all built for Him, the way He wanted it, with the kind of materials He wanted used—gold, silver, and precious stones—in this beautiful temple of the Lord.
If any man builds something else, fire is going to try it. And that fire is in the earth now. Everywhere men’s works are being tried by fire. All over Christendom the hay, wood, and stubble are beginning to crackle and burn. The people grieve and mourn to see Babylon coming down and her smoke ascending up to the heavens. But there is a beautiful group of workers who are walking through the land, building according to the blueprints, with gold and silver and precious stones. They’re working at it humbly, avoiding the pitfalls of denominationalism, of building a kingdom to themselves. Quietly, unobtrusively, with no glory or praise except to the Lord, they are building the glorious temple of God in the earth—living stones, being set and cemented together in love. The fire blazing round about them is burning up the kingdoms and we will receive a Kingdom which cannot be shaken, to serve God with reverence and godly fear.
We see two perils in this walk: building a denomination—which we must avoid at any cost—and each one going off into a little private kingdom where his own sphere of work is so important that it becomes a kingdom to him. God has been very good to give me the antidote to that. The minute something comes up that I could rest in and glory in, maybe even gloat over, up rise six brothers who can do it better than I. Soon I find myself doing something else, and that kingdom has disappeared. Don’t be possessive of your place and your ministry. God can bring someone else along who can fill it. Whatever God gives you to do, delight in doing it. And when He says, “That’s all; move on,” then move on.
We don’t want to become so attached to anything that we worship the work of His hands above the Lord. How shall I know whether the King is greater than all of the other things? If God says to you, as He did to Abraham of old, “Lay it on the altar,” is it in your heart to take the thing you have prayed for and worked for and lived for, and tie it with a rope, place it on an altar and put a knife in its heart? The Lord doesn’t want any blessing He’s given you, or anything He has worked in you, to be greater than Himself. That way we know we will seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness if we love Him above even the good things He has wrought in our lives.
Any of us would give the Lord our garbage, “Oh, Lord, I love You so much. Look, I’m going to give You my filthy habits. Here is my temper with a little pink bow on it.” Big deal! He needs that? Why don’t you give to the Lord the good? Lay it on the altar. You may say, “After all, the Lord worked this thing in me. He can’t take it away from me!” Yes, He can. He wants to be first, even above what He has wrought in us. Then we know that we love the King and seek first His Kingdom, refusing any kingdom of our own.