THE KINGDOM OF GOD DOES NOT COME WITH OBSERVATION
[p. 358] THE KINGDOM OF GOD DOES NOT COME WITH OBSERVATION
This is a very solemn scripture, speaking of certain days, the days of the Son of man, the days of Noah, and the days of Lot. Days cover in these instances a period before judgment, and that is why they are read because our days are now just before judgment; the judgment has not yet come, but it is imminent. We have also here the thought of the day of the Son of man — that has not yet come, it is immediate judgment as it comes: and the word ‘night’ is used too — ‘that night’. But what I have in mind is not to preach judgment but the gospel, and in order to do that I have read from verse 20, where we have the kingdom of God alluded to and certain persons asking about it. Maybe there are those here now who are asking in their minds about it. These Pharisees were asking the Lord about it, and, whilst there is no evidence that they profited by His answer, yet He did answer them. He is ready to answer any enquirer here, even although your enquiry may not evince much, or any, interest; He is ready to answer anyone who has any enquiry here at this time. And so He says, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation”, that is, it does not come with outward show, it is a matter of faith, when the Son of man comes. “As the lightning”, He says, “that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day”. But what the Lord says about the kingdom of God here reminds us of our period: it is not a period of sight at all, it is a period of faith; there is no blessing now apart from faith, it is the principle on which the gospel is presented. It is on the principle of faith to faith; the first referring to me (to be simple about it now) that I am presenting it to you on that principle, that I believe it myself — as Paul said, “I believed, and therefore have I spoken”, 2 Corinthians 4: 13. So that no unbeliever should preach the gospel, he has no right to preach the gospel, it is as one believes that he preaches; it is on the principle of faith in the preacher to the listener — faith is supposed to be in him too — it is on the principle of faith to faith. So that one hopes that faith will be active in every one; otherwise there is nothing for you. You may say, ‘Well, where does that come from?’ The Spirit of God says that “faith ... is the gift of God”. You may say, ‘Then I have to wait till I get the gift’. Yes; but it is a very solemn thing not to have it, it is a terrible thing not to have it. It is said, “All men have not faith” (2 Thessalonians 3: 2) — that is a terrible thing for them. So that it is for each of us to see about it, why it is I have not got it. Then we are told another thing, that “Faith cometh by hearing”, Romans 10: 17. I do not think that any one could really define faith; scripture speaks about it as to its effect in those who have it, what results from it, but to define it is another matter, as indeed with many things, they are indefinable, but very real. There are many many things in nature, even in our own selves, that we do not know of; it is well to admit our ignorance, but our ignorance does not disprove anything. We are conscious of many things we cannot define, but we know they are there, and so we are told that faith comes — that it is an active thing — it comes by a report. So that obviously, if you are to get it, you must have a good ear, you must use your ears. And then another thing that enters into this is, “He that cometh to God must believe that he is” — Hebrews 11: 6, not that He is a judge or that He frowns upon you, but that “he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him”. That is the line to take, do not wait for a definition of faith, or put the responsibility upon any other person if you have not got it; it is moving, it is existing, and the scripture tells you how it comes to you and that it refers to certain organs [p. 360] you have. Then use those organs, be simple about it; it comes by hearing, or by a report it says, and then hearing is by the word of God — it is not hearing anything or everything, it is the word of God. Think of God speaking at the present time, stop to dwell upon the great fact that God is speaking, it is the time of God speaking, not about judgment — He does speak about judgment, but in the gospel God is speaking about Jesus, it is worth listening to — “The gospel of God”, we are told, “... concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”, Romans 1: 1 - 3. Some of us own Him as Lord, we know Him personally, He is our Lord. He is God’s Son and God is speaking about Him; this meeting is to that very end that God should say a word about Jesus, and if you have an ear, do not fail to use it; if you have a conscience, do not stifle it, let it be active. The word of God is wonderful, it is “quick and powerful”, we are told, “and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow”, Hebrews 4: 12. There is nothing like it in the universe in that sense; it is “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do”. You see how the word of God brings us to God, and that God is speaking.
Well now, that brings me back to the 20th verse where the Lord, as over against the days of the Son of man which are future, speaks about the kingdom of God, and the Lord says, it does not come with observation. If an archangel came with a trumpet throughout this town and announced something — well, we would not need faith for that, we should pay attention to that. Presently, we are told, the everlasting gospel shall be preached by an angel and he will be flying in mid-heaven, it will be a quick matter and evidently open — flying in mid-heaven. We are being accustomed now to flying in mid-heaven.
[p. 361] Daniel became accustomed to flying too; not like these things they call aeroplanes that make such a noise; the Spirit of God tells us that when Daniel was praying and making supplications to God, the angel Gabriel flew swiftly to him, Daniel 9: 21. Angels are very agile, they represent executive power on God’s part, they do things quickly, they do them well. If you look at the book of the Revelation, you will see their number is immense, and it says they are “all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation”, Hebrews 1: 14. They are always active on our behalf, but they are not visible, the natural eye does not see — faith understands. But this angel Gabriel was a priestly angel, we understand, one that is very sympathetic, and, it says, he flew swiftly. Another allusion to angels is as seraphs. In the book of Isaiah a man is seen stricken. I wonder whether there is one here like that, smitten in his conscience because of his guilt; as soon as the word of God gets in and it searches out the depths of the being, the innermost part, we are told, then sin comes into view, it cannot help it. The spirit of man is said to be “the candle of the Lord”, Proverbs 20: 27. He goes round the crevices of your being, searching out the inner parts. Not that He needs to search out, but that you might be illuminated in your soul, and acknowledge the history. It is bad history — I do not care what you say you are or have been. If the Spirit of God went round the crevices of your heart, what would He discover? The woman in the 4th of John said, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did”. The Lord told her, He searched her out; it was a question of the word of God. But then her own spirit was in the matter too. God would not deal with an animal like that, an animal has not a sense like that; but God’s Spirit is to search out a man’s heart. So that, if there is any one like the one I am speaking of here, the Lord is searching you. It may be it is fifty years since you were [p. 362] first able to talk and walk. What will it disclose? It will disclose everything that is contrary to God; if there be anything that is according to the mind of God, that will come out too, and often young people are helped by being reminded that at one time they did believe. Maybe the world has choked that faith, but still it is a comfort that it was once there. But if there is anyone at all convicted, now is the time, and the Lord says here, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation”. That is, the authority of God is in mind, what God is is in mind, and it slips into your heart, you do not see it. Let any one here who is a christian look back on his history and see how the thing came in; maybe just a little bit of movement in your soul, but it got in. The kingdom of God is a moral thought here, as it generally is; it is a question of God, of what has come into the heart in the way of rule, of authority — surely He has authority over you! The wise man says to the young people, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth”, Ecclesiastes 12: 1 — “thy Creator”, that means He has authority. He has some right in your heart. If you do, He will get in, He has a way of getting in quietly, silently, but surely. Elihu tells us a good deal in the book of Job, how, in a dream even, God speaks. One has heard of God creeping in, as it were, in a dream. You wake up and all is changed — something has happened. God has done that, nobody has seen it, you did not even know it yourself, you could not give an account of it at the time; but there it is, a great change has come over you. The Lord says, it does not come with observation “Lo here, or, Lo there”. There are various bodies of people who make a noise, in this country and in America, some bringing round bands, etc. Now all that sort of thing is not necessary, it is not the way at all; the kingdom of God comes in a moral sense, in a silent powerful way, so that something happens and you know it; nobody else perhaps knows it, but you know it. Has it happened [p. 363] in your case? It has happened in mine, and I know in that of most of us, and heaven has taken account of the event. When God gets in in His divinely skilful way into a man’s heart and being, that is recorded above, that is history in heaven. No historian on earth would take the slightest notice of it, but it is history in heaven — God is keeping a record of that. Much is to follow that, you see. It cometh not with observation; it is the blessed rule of God coming into the being. But then, what a God! If He speaks to me, having got a footing, what will He say? Well, He will tell me about Jesus. The Holy Spirit is here for you, on your account, so that you might know about Jesus and about God. ‘It is your blessing to know Me’, God will say, ‘Your blessing depends on what I am going to tell you’. That is the kingdom of God, and it is very remarkable that it is said of the Lord Jesus, as He arose from the dead, that He presented Himself alive to His disciples after He suffered, and then that He was seen of them forty days, and then that He spoke to them of the kingdom of God. That is the idea. One would like to hear what He said to them. Luke says He spoke to them about the kingdom of God. What He would convey was that God was coming in, not with observation. Not indeed that the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost was not noticed, it was necessary it should be noticed in the things that were used, but there was no flourish of trumpets, as you say. There were three thousand affected at the first preaching, Peter’s preaching; one always feels like reading that sermon before one preaches; it was the first sermon after the Spirit of God came down. He refers to the Spirit sent down from heaven, or poured out, it is an imperative matter. It does not say Jesus is sent down. His Person is guarded in that way, but the Spirit is said to have been sent down and that is a priestly thought. The first preaching is wonderful, and the Spirit of God steals into hearts, three thousand hearts [p. 364] were affected by the rule of God; that is the idea, that God has rights in your heart and He gets in there. What they very rightly said, and what every one says when he is convicted of sin, was, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” They say that to all the apostles; they saw those men represented that thought, the kingdom, the authority, of God, and they say, ‘You are the ones to ask — what shall we do?’ And Peter told them what to do, he says, “Repent and be baptised every one of you” — for it is not a collective matter, you know. If three thousand were saved at once, each one of them repented, and each one was baptised. And he says, “Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. It is the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God in full result? Righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. What a volume of blessing there is in the kingdom of God! And yet the Lord says there is no great show about it, it comes not with observation, and men are satisfied and women are satisfied — righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Well now, having said that, which is the positive side of the truth. I just proceed to say a little about the days of the Son of man. That refers to the present time in a way, that is, the period immediately before judgment. The Lord likens them to the days of Noah and the days of Lot. The whole scripture is so useful as explanatory and as enlarging the truth so as to make it intelligible. Someone here perhaps is not saved, though he has heard preaching and preaching and preaching, as the antediluvians did. I do not suppose Noah had gospel meetings as we have them. I feel pretty sure he did not, but he preached nevertheless — he is called a preacher of righteousness, and we have the remarkable statement in connection with his testimony that, “My spirit shall not always strive with man”, Genesis 6 :3. It was a striving time on God’s part. The Lord said in His time, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11: 12); that is, there were some striving when the Lord was here. They saw what was available and they strove, they took the kingdom by violence — perhaps most of us have done that. But in Noah’s case the striving was all on God’s part. Think of the grace of God in striving, for that is what is meant — the Spirit of God is God Himself in all that He is feelingly and affectionately — that is the idea in the Spirit. The Spirit hovering on the face of the deep — that is like the Spirit of God hovering over this meeting. Suppose all were uncovered here, the Spirit of God would be hovering over us in the darkness waiting to get in; but we are, it may be, all christians and full of light. But the Spirit was hovering over the face of the deep, and the next mention we get of Him is striving with men in that antediluvian time, the days of Noah, not willing that any should perish. The days of man’s life shall be a hundred and twenty years, that refers to the period of grace, not the longevity of the people at all, and God was striving with men in the preaching of Noah in those days. Nobody was affected, as far as we see. It is quite clear that Shem was a converted man, as we speak, and I suppose Japheth and Ham too, for all the sons of Noah were blessed. But, as regards all others, there is not a word of one being affected, and yet there was the blessed Spirit of God day in and day out striving with men. Is there anybody here that God is striving with? The Spirit of God striving with you, seeking your soul, as I am speaking to you? It often happens. God makes you feel that He is intensely interested in you and wills not the death of the wicked, nor that any one should perish; that is the feeling that comes into your soul in the striving of the Spirit of God. But there is not a sign of anything of that here, and so the Lord likens His days to the days of Noah. The kingdom, He says, is in the midst of you, that means it was in Himself. But, now He has gone to heaven and the Spirit of God [p. 366] come down, the kingdom is still here in that sense. But now He is speaking of the days of the Son of man, that is the actual time of the judgment. What the Lord says about Noah here refers to the social side of human life, a side of human life that has great influence: He says, “They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage” — that is all social. You may say eating and drinking is a business matter; no, it is a social matter; a domestic matter, of course, but it enters into the social side of human life. They married and gave in marriage, that also is social. Then it goes on to Lot, and it says they ate and drank in his days too and “they bought, they sold”, — that is business, “they planted, they builded”. We have to eat and drink and do our business, but it is a question of enjoyment and fellowship, and that was how things went on in the days of Noah. I need not enlarge on how much social life keeps God out at the present time. I do not know anything perhaps that is more powerful amongst men than the social side, the tea-parties and the dances and the seaside excursions and the cricket playing and the tennis playing and the card playing, and the thousand things that have been invented to keep men going. Eating and drinking, the social side of things, the Lord says all that went on until the day that Noah entered into the ark. Now if there is one here who is specially interested in the social side of life and you are a Christ-rejecter up to this time, how solemn this is for you to listen to. The social side of the world is detaining you, and the Lord is warning you tonight that it is a question of the days of the Son of man, the days just preceding the day when He actually comes — and then what? Well, the Lord says, “The flood came, and destroyed them all”. There is hardly a book in scripture more attacked than Genesis and the flood is regarded as a myth by the clever people, the wiseacres of the world. But here is the Lord Jesus saying this. There are those [p. 367] who would say the Lord Jesus is attested to be the Christ and the Saviour of the world, and yet they deny the book of Genesis; they put a lie in His mouth, for He cites the book of Genesis. The Lord says, things are going on as usual, men having a good time with their sport and all that, without Christ “until the day that Noah entered into the ark”.
And then, as I was saying, there are those who are living in the business world. Many are kept from God through business: business is very attractive, one of the most attractive things to certain minds — making money. So the Lord says here about Lot’s days, they did eat and drink, etc. — all business. I am not saying the social side was not there, of course it was, but the Lord is presenting the other side of the picture. Maybe you are having a house built and you are putting off your salvation until that is done. Maybe you intend to go into business, into partnership with some person, you say, That is all before me now, I must put off everything else. You have to make a garden beautiful, you might say; many do that — shut out Christ by the garden. That is the thought — they bought, they sold — that is the commercial world; they builded, they planted — that is the architectural world; but it is all money — making, it is all business, and the Lord is left out, Christ is left out. That all went on until the day in which Lot went out of Sodom — that is the day, and that day is always present. Some of you here may be putting Christ away from you, your salvation, your eternal welfare, because of some of these wretched things, but the day is coming when the Lord Jesus will come. We know from the Scriptures that the saints will be caught up before the public display of Christ, and of course that is included in the days when the Lord comes. And then He warns us as regards these matters; suppose you are on the housetop and your stuff in the house — that is your business matters, your property — do not go for that; He stresses the urgency of judgment,
[p. 368] how rapid it is, how sudden and how awful. It is individual judgment here, it is not the great white throne, the point is the immediate thing; the great white throne does not take place till a thousand years after this. What the Lord is pressing on you now is the immediate thing that may happen tonight. Two men shall be in one bed, two men shall be in the field — it is the immediate thing, so that you must not flatter your soul with any thought of judgment being in the distance; it is the immediate thing if the day comes. “There shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken the other left”. It seems as if the whole twenty-four hour day is in mind, day and night, it is all called “the day”, the day of the Son of man, and it is the immediate effect if this happens. You are going on with your social and business matters and the judgment is immediate. They say, “Where, Lord?” and He says, “Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together”. It is a judgment that is silent, stealing into the bedroom, as it were, without any announcement, and one man is taken — most solemn — no one can go into the details of this — it is God. A man is taken. You say, ‘Where is he taken?’ Well, he is seized, it is a violent thought; there is no assize, no sessional judgment, the judgment finds you; wherever the carcase is, there will be the eagles. It is a Jewish picture but we understand it. It is what happens on the earth that the person who is seized is taken away from the place of blessing, the one who is left is left for blessing. But the point the Lord is making is the quickness of the thing so as to impress us with the madness of putting off the question of salvation, “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation”, 2 Corinthians 6: 2.