Luke 17: 20, 21
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
I desire to say a few words about the kingdom of God in two connections, or at least in two ways. First of all, the kingdom of God is God’s own intervention; God has intervened in the history of this world by means of His kingdom. On the one hand, we have God’s intervention, and on the other, the means God has of regulating persons. There are two features that have marked God’s dealing with men: the one is intervention, and the other is regulation. You can trace these through the Scriptures. You take the first chapter of Genesis, where God said “let there be light” (v 3); there surely was intervention: in the midst of the darkness and the chaos, God said “let there be light”, there was divine intervention. And if there had not been divine intervention, there would be darkness and chaos continuing to this very day. But God in His goodness intervened physically and said, “let there be light”: what an intervention that was! And then there was an ordered, regulated system of things; there was the sun and the moon ruling: the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. That preserved the physical universe from further chaos, because there was regulation; first of all, there was intervention, and then there was regulation. It is a wonderful thing to think that this earth is regulated; this earth in which we live is regulated by the sun and the moon. Without the sun and the moon, it would revert to chaos—physically, I mean; it is the principle of regulation.
Take the history of Joseph, the history of Egypt: God intervened. The famine was coming, and God intervened by means of Joseph; through his wisdom, he was given pre-eminence in the land of Egypt. That was God’s intervention; but then the decree was, “according to thy commandment shall all my people regulate themselves”, Gen 41: 40. There was not only intervention, but there was regulation. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, God intervened and brought His people out of Egypt, and brought in regulation to maintain them in the wilderness. The manna came every morning, even when they rebelled, even when they were unfaithful and departed; every morning the manna came; every morning when they rose up, they found the manna, even rebellious as they were. The manna was an intervention, for feeding and regulation.
Now, in the kingdom of God we have this principle of intervention. God has intervened in His mercy, and His grace to men, and He has established a kingdom. In this first scripture that we read, the Pharisees are asking about the kingdom of God. The kingdom was a promise; God had promised that there would be a kingdom. Daniel said, “And in the days of these kings shall the God of the heavens set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed … itself shall stand for ever”, Dan 2: 44. He spoke about other kingdoms that have come and gone—Babylon, the Medes and Persians, and the Grecian and the Roman have come and gone—kingdoms of nations have come and gone, but there is a kingdom established that will never be destroyed. It was promised in the Old Testament and these Pharisees had some light as to it, and they asked when it was to be manifested. And Jesus said, “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you”; the kingdom of God had come. And how true it is today, that the kingdom of God has come. God has been pleased to intervene by the coming into manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ: by that blessed, perfect Man that we have been speaking about today, the dependent One, every movement He made and every word He spoke was in the light of the mind of God; and not only what He was externally, but what He was inwardly—every motive He had, every feeling He had inwardly was thoroughly in keeping with the mind of God, and was altogether for the pleasure of God. What a Man Jesus was when He was here; what an intervention! Darkness on the face of the deep, moral darkness; and light came in: “I am the light of the world” (John 8: 12), Jesus could say. Not only did He live here a perfect life, but He undertook the great work of redemption that the kingdom should be established, that persons could righteously come into this kingdom. The crux of it, shall we say, the whole work of it, was undertaken by our Lord Jesus Christ, in His sufferings, in His death, in the outpouring of His precious blood. You think of Him sustaining being forsaken of God; He sustained the penalty of death, poured out His precious blood, was buried: all these movements on the part of the Lord Jesus. He became the willing Victim that there might be a righteous foundation for the kingdom of God. He is no longer in the grave, He was raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father and highly exalted; and the kingdom exists today. The Lord’s words when He was here were, “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you”. We might say today, “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you”; the kingdom of God is available for every one here. It is available for every man, woman and child; it is the great result of God’s intervention, that the kingdom of God exists. It does not yet exist publicly; it has not yet come by observation. It is here in mystery; nevertheless it is here. A day is coming when the kingdom is going to be established publicly, when those who have refused the glad tidings of the kingdom of God will come under the severest of judgment; and the whole scene will be cleared in judgment. The kingdom of God will be set up, and the Lord Jesus Christ will be pre-eminent publicly for a thousand years. And He will maintain order, peace, prosperity in this very earth in which we are. Men are baffled, statesmen are baffled. Some people say they long for the sort of statesmen there were in the last century, and so on; the fact of the matter is that the best statesmen who ever lived could not do anything in the present chaotic state of things amongst men. There is such a rising tide of organised lawlessness threatening government; government is weak in the presence of the organisations of lawlessness in the world. There is only One that can settle it; and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will settle it for God’s glory and the blessing of men. That is when the kingdom is set up publicly, but nevertheless at the present time is a reality as a result of the intervention of God, as a result of the completion of the work that the Lord Jesus undertook, and the fact that He is highly exalted.
Now, the kingdom is available for every repentant sinner; every sinner who repents, every one who owns allegiance to our Lord Jesus Christ, every one who confesses Him as Lord, the kingdom of God is available for such to come into for their protection, in order to regulate persons. The great One who regulates persons—the true Joseph—is our Lord Jesus Christ. The will of God is done in His kingdom; the kingdom is the area where God’s will is done, where, as has been said, ‘the moral sway of God’ (FER vol 3 p280), the kingdom of God is down here. Would you be in this kingdom? Would you be committed to the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord, and confess Him as Lord? Would you come by way of being one of His disciples into God’s kingdom? What a wonderful area it is; it is an area where there is divine regulation. Just the same principles that will apply in the world to come when the kingdom is set up publicly apply now in that area. Things will be divinely regulated in the world in the age to come; the Lord Jesus is willing to regulate every one of us.
Now what we read in Romans is that “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking”; it is not a material thing, but the first word it says is “righteousness”. Now what sinners need is righteousness. They may not realise that, they may think that their needs lie elsewhere, but the sinner needs righteousness. He needs to have a righteous standing that God can view him as righteous. You say, Is that possible—I who am a guilty sinner: is it possible that God can view me as righteous? It is if I repent: righteousness is available; it is in the mind of God for every man, righteousness. It is established in Christ; it is realised in the power of the Holy Spirit. “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness”. It is not only the standing before God in righteousness, but regulation as in God’s kingdom, regulated by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, by subjection to Him, by being committed to being here for His pleasure; not for own pleasure, not doing our own will, but as committed to the will of God, there is the regulation of righteousness. It has been spoken about as like planets in orbit around the sun; it is righteousness, it is regulation, it is the regulation of the sun, it is the law of gravity. You might say that it is mysterious; it is the law of gravity that maintains the planets in their orbit round the sun. And so the believer who is in the kingdom of God is regulated by his attachment—by the mysterious power of attachment and affection for our Lord Jesus Christ. He is maintained regulated in righteousness down here.
Now, that is not just a glorious impossibility; it is available for every repentant sinner who comes and commits himself in faith to the Lord Jesus and to the will of God down here. This kingdom is available now, and this righteousness, the regulation of righteousness. You think what that means to God, to see believers down here in regulation in righteousness, in righteousness. You think of the lawlessness in the world around us, and each one of us—even believers—have a lawless nature. We need the Spirit of God to maintain us in this divine regulation, which are speaking about, which is found in the kingdom of God.
And then it says “peace”, peace with God—it is a great matter to be at peace. It does not mean that we will not have griefs, we will not have sorrows; there will be difficulties to face. The path of discipleship was never meant to be easy; it was never an armchair affair. There will be difficulties to meet and burdens to carry, and sorrows to bear; but the kingdom of God is peace, as regulated by the Lord Jesus Christ, as maintained in our committal to Him in the power of the Holy Spirit, there is peace—a deep peace. The hymn says,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
(Hymn 238)
—even when there are difficulties, when trials come, there is peace in the kingdom of God. It is a great matter to commit things to God, to leave things in God’s hands, trusting in God. That is the way of peace, and this is found in the kingdom of God.
And then it says, “joy in the Holy Spirit”; there is satisfaction, satisfaction of soul. There is the satisfaction of every right desire in the kingdom of God. Remember that woman in John 4—I think of that incident when I think of joy in the Holy Spirit; the Lord says to her, “whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”, John 4: 14. It is the drinking of the living water. Now, this does not mean drinking once and for all: the Lord says, whosoever “drinks” of the water which I shall give him. It is not a question simply of having received the Spirit; it may be weeks ago, or months ago, or years ago. It is a constant matter, it is a characteristic matter: “whosoever drinks of this water”; there is satisfaction in drinking of the living water, of deriving constantly “joy in the Holy Spirit”—“righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”. What wonderful regulation, kept in orbit with regard to our Lord Jesus Christ, held in the power of gravity, in the power of attraction to our Lord Jesus personally, and maintained here in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Well, may the Lord help us to have some light as to God’s kingdom existing now, and to desire to enter it, and to be maintained in it; to appreciate what has come in through God’s intervention and come under divine regulation.
For His Name’s sake.
CHICAGO
9th April 1978
First published here, lightly edited and not revised by Mr Renton