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enly kingdom and as having little or
nothing to do with real life here on
earth. Nothing could be further
from the truth . And the purpose of
Jesus' use of parables, in His own
words, remember, was to obscure, not
to enlighten.
The parable of the talents is one
which could only be applied to an
earth-ru ling Kingdom of God. Look
it up in Lukc 19. The successful
users of the talents supplied by God
are rewarded with
"ten cities"
(verse
17) and
''five cities''
(verse 19). Are
there ci ties in heaven? lf so, where
does the Bible so sta te?
Some Jobs In the Klngdom
The Bible plainly states that King
David and the twelve apost les will
be in the Kingdom of God. But
what will they be
doing?
Plucking
harps? No. Floating on clouds? No.
Wearing golden slippers? No.
What then?
Let's check on David first. Ezekiel
37 tells, as explained in Part 4 of
this series, of the resurrection of all
the past generations of Israel and
Judah-a physical resurrection:
bones, sinews, ftesh, skin and
breath. All those who said, "Our
hope is lost" (verse 11) a re resu r–
rected to hope eterna!! "And David
my servant
sha/1 be king over
them .
...
And they sha ll
dwe/1 in the
/and
[not in heaven] tha t 1 have
given unto Jacob my serva nt ... and
my servant
David sha/1 be their
prince
FOR EVER"! (Verses 24, 25.)
Now David wrote in Psalm 86:
" .. . For 1 am poor and needy."
Wouldn't you say that was an atti–
tude of"poor in spirit"? And ye t the
scripture we have just read clea rly
says David is going to be king of
Israel, here on this
earth ,forever!
How about that!?
If Israel is going to be here on this
earth, and David is going to be its
king forever,
where
does that put the
twelve apostles?
Jesus said- and that always seems
good authority tome: "And 1appoint
unto you a kingdom, as my Father
hath appointed unto me; that ye may
eat and drink at my table in my
kingdom,
and sir on thrones judging
the twelve lribes of l sraef'!
(Luke
22:29-30.) They must be the "meek"
who "inherit the
earth" !
Now if David and the twelve
22
apostles are busy down here on
earth goveming Israel (finally with
all its resurrected billions), do you
want to be in heaven
doing
NOTH–
ING?
God's Government
Jesus consistently preached
one
gos–
pel: the good n ews of the Kingdom
ofGod. Jesus preached that
one
gas–
pe! through the prophets of old who
wrote the Old T es tame nt ; He
preached it personally during His
life on earth; and He preached it
through the New Testament au–
thors, the apostles.
lt
has never been
a gospel divided- one kingdom
in
heaven and the other kingdom
on
earth- and
it
never will be. Tha t
one
gospel has
a!ways
been the gospel of
the Kingdom
ofGod
(or ofheaven)
on the earth!
The Kingdom of God has never
been just an ethereal idea, a spiri–
tual concept, a nebulous notion. Nor
has the Kingdom of God been by
proxy, through vicars or third par–
ties. The Kingdom of God is not an
emotional experienc:;e, a religious
dream, an opiate for the people.
The Kingdom ofGod is real!
The Kingdom of God is
world
government
located on the earth ,
performing every facet of sover–
eignty ever known to any earthly
government-and then sorne!
Isaiah and Micah make it plain.
Let's read Mica h. Governments are
composed of three basic functions:
executive, legislative and judicia l.
Micah says: " But in the last days it
shall come to pass, that the moun–
tain of the house of the Lord [the
government of the Kingd om o f
God] shall be established in the top
of the mountains, and it shall be
exalted above the hills [over all gov–
ernments, large and small]; and
people shall ftow unto it. And many
nations
shall come, and say, Come,
and Jet us go up to the mountain of
the LORD, and to the house of the
God of Jacob; and
he
(the God of
Jacob and the head of the
execurive
branch of that govemment] will
teach us of his ways, and we will
walk in his paths: for the
law
(the
legislative
branch of government)
shall go forth of Zion [not heaven],
and the word of the LORD from Je–
rusalem [the capi ta l).
"And
he
shaU judge (the
judiciary
branch o f gove rnment] among
many people, and rebuke strong na–
tions afar off; and they shall
beat
rheir swords into plowshares,
and
their spears into pruninghooks: na–
tion shall not lift up a sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war
any more .... and the LORD shall
reign over them in mount Zion from
henceforth,
even for ever'
(Micah
4:1-3, 7).
T he United Nations chose well
their motto: "Swords into Plow–
shares." But only the power of the
Kingdom of God
on earth
will bring
it to pass!
Tha t will be the
most .real king–
dom
this earth has ever known!
Your Job in God's Kingdom
If you turned to Micah 4 which 1
quoted above, you noticed I skipped
over a couple of verses. Let's notice
them right now: "But they sha ll sit
every man under his vine and under
his fig tree; and none shall make
them afraid : for the mouth of the
LORD of hosts bath spoken it. For
all people will walk every one in the
name of
his god,
and,we wilJ walk in
the name of the LORD our God for
ever and ever" (verses 4, 5).
Can this possibly mean that the
Lord is going to allow many gods to
be worshiped absolutely contrary to
His own first commandment-and
that "for ever and ever"?
No!
Since the purpose of God in cre–
a ting us is to make us members of
His family, sons of God, God as
God is God, THE SAVED
WILL BE
GoD! There is only God the Father
(one) and God the Son, Jesus (two),
in the God famíly
now.
But when
the las t trump is blown, the dead in
Christ resurrected and changed in a
moment and a twinkling of an eye,
then
Jesus will be the "firstborn
among
many
brethren" (Rom. 8:29),
and the Fa ther will be delighted in
"bringing
many sons unto glory''
(Heb. 2:
lO),
all wortby of worship
(Rev. 3:9), bom members of God's
family, each having different names
(Rev. 3:12) but
al/ sharing the name
GoD! All sharing in the government
of this earth in the Kingdom of God
for ever and ever.
So, "al! people will walk every
one in the name of his God," the
(Continued on page 41)
The
PLAIN TRUTH July 1977