"And this
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole
world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then
shall the end come" (Matthew 24:14). Let us first analyse this verse,
noticing its particular words.
"This Gospel
[literally, 'good news'] of the Kingdom [literally, 'the
royal reign'] shall be preached [this particular word
means 'proclaimed', 'announced', 'heralded'] in the whole
world [=the whole inhabited or habitable earth] for a
testimony [=for a witness: Dr. Weymouth in his version
translates that phrase - 'to set the evidence'].
Now with that analysis,
let us build it all up into its full literal statement:
'This good news of the
royal reign shall be heralded in the whole inhabited
earth, to set the evidence before all the nations; and
then shall the end come.'
That is a remarkable
verse, for it comprehends nothing less than the whole
mission, work, meaning and purpose of the person,
incarnation, life, death, resurrection and exaltation of
Jesus Christ, and it carries that through as the very
meaning and business of His Church. It is a very
comprehensive verse indeed.
But we must get behind
this tremendous statement, try to get inside it. It is
then to be noticed that what is called the Gospel, the
good news - everything that Christianity has to say and
to give - is defined in terms of a Kingdom, a sovereign
rule, the outworking of a Kingship. Of course, we are so
familiar with the language and with the idea that perhaps
we have never really stopped to think what that means.
Why is Christianity not spoken of as something else -
'this gospel of the communal state', 'this gospel of the
social state', or some other designation? It is called
'the gospel of the sovereign rule, the royal reign'; in
other words, the gospel of the Kingship of Jesus Christ.
It is that, and nothing less and nothing other than that.
CHRIST'S
KINGSHIP OF HEAVENLY ORIGIN
And that leads us to a
further enquiry and investigation. Where did that idea
originate and come from? Now it is very difficult for us
to trace back the idea of kingship so far as man is
concerned. We do not know who was the first person to
hold the title of king. We can see the idea in its
primitive form evolving, developing, until it reached the
full status of monarchy; we will return to that in a
moment. But what we do know from the Bible is that this
did not begin with man at all. It began in Heaven with
God. The idea of royal reign, sovereign rule, was with
God, and was transmitted to His Son Jesus Christ before
ever this world was created, and before there ever was
such a thing as kingship on this earth, either in
principle or in actuality. The Bible tells us that God
appointed His Son Jesus Christ as the Heir of all things
(Heb. 1:2), and that God speaks of His Son as His King.
It comes out in one of the psalms, where God is speaking:
"I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion"
(Ps. 2:6). That is a prophetic utterance concerning the
Lord Jesus, as you well know. The idea of kingship
originated with God and was centred in His Son Jesus
Christ.
ANOTHER
KING
The next thing that the
Bible makes known to us is that someone was jealous of
that. The highest created being among the angelic hosts
found in his heart jealousy of God's Son and allowed that
jealousy to take such a hold upon him that he projected a
device and a scheme and a movement to supplant God's Son
and to secure that rule in himself and for himself. That
revolt against God's determination concerning His Son
took place somewhere outside of this world, before the
present order of creation was brought into being; but God
proceeded according to plan and according to purpose, and
through the instrumentality of His Son created this world
to be the realm of His Son's dominion; and in it He
placed man.
The next thing was that
that being who had by his revolt, his rebellion, been
cast out of Heaven, made his way forthwith to the realm
of God's appointed and pre-destined King. The story is
known how, for the time being, he gained his point
through a subtle, deeply laid plan of deception - his
appeal to man's soul-life. He gained his point by winning
man over to his side; and thus he became, for the time
being - as even Jesus recognised and acknowledged him to
be - "the prince of this world" (John 12:31,
etc.) although illegitimately so. There you have the root
of the whole matter, the background of our passage of
Scripture.
THE
VICTORY OF GOD'S KING
Of course, God is not
going to tolerate that for ever. God is not going to be
spoiled of His intention, neither is His Son going to be
deprived of His inheritance. The story of the incarnation
finds its explanation there: it was the coming of God's
Son into this world in the flesh to take up this whole
matter of God's intention, and of His own (the Son's)
inheritance, and of man's place in that inheritance, and
to fight it out to a final, glorious triumphant issue.
And seeing that it was not something official, but a
spiritual and moral matter, it went right to the depths
of things - of the very nature of sin and wickedness, out
of which it all came. It focused upon and dealt with all
that evil, as personified in the Evil One himself. Jesus
met it, He took up the battle of the eternal rule, the
royal reign, and fought out all its implicates to a
victorious issue. 'By His Cross He triumphed', and in His
Cross He 'stripped off the principalities and the powers,
made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it'
(Col. 2:15). He plucked the sceptre from the hand of the
usurper, and cast out, as He said, the prince of this
world (John 12:31); and, rising triumphant from death and
the grave, received at the hands of His Father the
Kingdom, together with 'all authority in Heaven and in
earth' (Matt. 28:18), 'the Name which is above every
name' (Phil. 2:9), and the place 'far above all rule and
authority, every name that is named' (Eph. 1:21). That is
the great drama that the Bible contains and sets forth;
and out of that issues what is called the Gospel, the
good news - the good news of His royal reign in virtue of
all that He has done.
THE
NEED FOR HUMAN KINGSHIP
Now we come back to the
human side, the history of kingship, rulership. It is
quite clear that it commenced in a very simple way. First
of all the principle was found in expression in a family.
Trouble in the family has a very long and remote history.
It seems that almost immediately the family existed there
was trouble, and somebody in the family had to take
authority. The first kings, although they were not called
that, were heads over families. Thence their authority
extended to the tribe, and from the tribe to the tribes,
and from the tribes to the nation. And then, as far as
they could, they tried to get kingship over a number of
nations, and finally over all the nations.
But our point is this.
This situation was brought about by reason of
circumstances and man's need. A ruler or governor - a
king in principle or in name - was a necessity, for
somebody had to adjudicate in man's troubles and decide
in matters of strife, whether in families or tribes or
nations; somebody had to give the verdict of right or
wrong. Because of the further circumstances of conflict
in the world, antagonism setting people against people,
tribe against tribe, nation against nation, somebody must
take up the cause and lead out in warfare to victory.
Because peace was not the normal state of things, but
'dispeace' - anything but peace - somebody must assume
the responsibility of trying to provide man with peace,
of trying to secure peace and establish peace.
Thus kingship has as
its components these ideas of adjudicating, of judging,
of determining the right and the wrong, of leading
against that which threatens man's well-being, and the
very integration of man, and of establishing peace. These
are the constituents of kingship, as we find it in its
development. The kingship exists because of the existent
conditions, as something set over against them. This
gives us the background and the principle of the matter.
KING
OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
In a far, far greater
realm than the temporal and the earthly, the Lord Jesus,
as God's King, has taken up those very issues. These are
components of His Kingship. In this world everything has
gone wrong; a state of anarchy and iniquity - of
'inequity', unfairness, wrong from man to man - prevails.
It is what the Bible sums up in one word:
unrighteousness. It affects all man's dealings with man,
all human relationships and transactions. The whole
system of human relationships just is not right; it is
not straight, it is not 'fair and square' - it is
unrighteous. The whole question of unrighteousness is
bound up with this matter of Kingship; and it is
therefore very significant that, in a day when, in that
marked-out nation of Israel, the Kingship, the sovereign
rule, the royal rule of God was intended to be displayed,
the worst state of unrighteousness existed.
But in the midst of it
all - all this unrighteousness, yes, even of the kings
themselves - a prophet rises up and shouts: "A
king shall reign in righteousness"!
(Isa. 22:1). A beam of light is thrown right forward to
this One who was coming. We know that the Lord Jesus, in
His life and death, took up this whole question of
righteousness - in the first place as relating to the
rights of God. His first aim, His first task, was to
bring God His rights, His due, to put things straight
with God where man is concerned. How much Gospel is
contained in that! Paul's whole wonderful letter to the
Romans is really gathered into that idea of God requiring
righteousness, of man being unable to provide Him with
it, and Jesus Christ stepping into the breach and
satisfying God in this matter on man's behalf. And having
done that Godward, he proceeds to do it amongst men, and
where this royal reign of Jesus Christ is found in men's
hearts you have justice and truth and equity, 'fairness
and squareness' and rightness - all that is meant by
righteousness. He 'reigns in righteousness.'
KING
OF PEACE
Then, as to this matter
of conflict. It goes far beyond the wars amongst men.
Whence come all these wars? They emanate from that Evil
One who has struck this universe through with conflict,
contention, strife, hatred, malice. This great warfare in
the universe is first of all spiritual before it becomes
temporal, and it was from Satan that it came. We know
quite well that it is here. We know that in our hearts;
before Christ takes them as His throne, there is no
peace, and there is no peace there apart from Him. We
know all about contention and strife within ourselves; we
know, too, that it is the most difficult thing to live
with other people for long without finding some
contention, some strife, some antagonism. In the realm
where Christ is not Lord, it is there. Perhaps
Christians, more than anyone else, sense the antagonisms
that are abroad. Satan has concentrated his forces and
attention especially upon Christians, to destroy the
testimony of what Jesus has done; to spoil this royal
rule by undercutting and undermining its meaning of
oneness, fellowship, unity. Fellowship and unity is a
real battle in any realm, but perhaps more among
Christians than anywhere.
But there is a King to
lead out to that battle. This royal rule means that there
need not be this state of things, that there can be
victory over human strife and contentions and divisions
and antagonisms and malice and all this. He has gained
the victory over Satan's terrible work of rending this
universe asunder and making it one mighty realm of
conflict. Christ, we are told, has "made peace
through the blood of his cross" (Col. 1:20). The
idea of a King was, as far as possible, to keep and
establish peace. No king has ever done that for very
long, or within more than a limited realm, but Christ has
entered that hostile kingdom, led forth into battle, and
secured peace.
Here, too, while we
know naturally, in our own hearts, the elements of strife
and contention and warfare, in Christ we know the other
side. We know that He has brought His reign of peace into
our hearts. "We have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ" (Rom. 5:1), and the peace of God
passing all understanding garrisons our hearts (Phil.
4:7), but while there is so much more needed, and we have
always to be on our guard and always to be standing into
His victory in this matter, nevertheless there is the
glorious fact that we do know something of a fellowship,
a blessed and wonderful fellowship amongst ourselves as
God's people, which is unique, which is not known after
its kind anywhere else in all the universe. The most
precious and blessed thing that Christians have inherited
through the sovereign Lordship of Jesus Christ in their
hearts is their fellowship with one another. How much is
bound up with that! How much we owe to one another in
Christ, how necessary we are to one another, how
impossible it is to get on without one another simply
because God is against our getting on without one
another. We find that to try and get on without one
another simply brings the Lord into controversy with us.
Righteousness and peace
- these are the elements of His reign. The enemy is
overthrown, his captives and victims are released, peace
is established; whilst the guardian within attends to the
question of the establishment of righteousness. All this
is our need, as it ever was man's need, and He has met it
completely, fully. Now, that is all framed by this
wonderful word 'Gospel' - good news. But there are
multitudes - perhaps there is even one reading these
lines - who do not know this wonderful work that Jesus
Christ has done, who are not in the good and enjoyment of
the peace with God, and peace in their own hearts, that
we know. This all seems to them so strange, although
perhaps they look on us wistfully and enviously. This
fellowship among Christians is an impressive thing; it is
not something feigned, put on or made up. We have known
of unsaved people coming into Christian gatherings, and
going away, if not actually saved, yet saying to one
another, 'There is a wonderful atmosphere there. You feel
that these people have got something that others have not
got.' They speak of the impression made upon them by the
wonderful fellowship of God's people, and that
constitutes a testimony. It is, in fact THE testimony;
it is the evidence.
SETTING
THE EVIDENCE
So I follow on at once.
This good news of the royal rule or reign, in these terms
of spiritual values - inward life, blessed fellowship,
strife overcome, righteousness established - this good
news is committed to the Church and to the heralds to
take into all the nations. But note that it is not just
somebody going out and announcing it as a theory. We need
to get hold of this quite strongly. There would be a
very, very different situation in the world today, as the
result of Christianity and evangelization, if this one
point had been more firmly and clearly grasped. While it
is the work of the herald to make the announcement, the
passage we have been considering does not just stop
there, with 'This good news of the royal reign shall be
proclaimed in the whole inhabited earth'. It does not
stop there, and that is just where the failure and
weakness lies. It continues: 'shall be proclaimed... FOR
A WITNESS'. Weymouth's translation, which I
quoted earlier, gives us the very heart of the matter. He
says: 'to set the evidence'. The herald is not just
announcing some abstract theory, or even fact,
objectively. He is there actually to set or provide the
evidence that it is so.
Go back to your New
Testament, and what do you have? You have the heralds
going into the inhabited earth, right enough: but what
are they doing? Are they just walking into some city and
getting up onto a platform and making an announcement,
and then going off? Do they make the announcement, and
then go on to the next place and the next place and the
next place, till they cover the whole inhabited earth
with the announcement? Did they do that? They certainly
did not. They had a better apprehension of their
business, and of what the Lord meant, than that. The
meaning that was in their hearts and minds of being in
any place was this: 'Something has got to be established
in this place which will be concrete evidence that Jesus
is on the throne!' Whereas the announcement of some
teaching, some objective truth, might never have bothered
anybody, when they went in on that ground and with that
idea and motive, all Hell rose up to say, 'We will quench
that thing here if we can!'
So you have an apostle
going into a city and making the proclamation, and Hell
rising up and stirring up men to stone him, drag him out
of the city, and leave him for dead. When they have
withdrawn, he rises; and what does he say? 'I have made
my announcement in this city - I will go to the next
one'? He goes back again into the city, right back there.
Why? He says, 'We have not got the concrete evidence here
yet. We have not got that which is the embodiment of this
testimony; until we have, we hold on. The Devil is not
going to have his way about this matter.'
And so in every place
they left behind something that was concrete. It was not
just a word thrown out into the air. There was something
there which was the embodiment of the truth that Jesus is
Lord, and that Satan's kingdom is not universal. It has
been broken into here and here, and in that which is left
behind is the evidence. Read about those churches again,
those vessels of the evidence; read about them. There
they were in that place, persecuted, assailed, going
through a terrible time, and yet - and yet - holding the
ground: because they knew that if they did not, Satan
would have it, and they were not allowing that. They were
committed to this royal rule. And so the proclamation was
more than a proclamation. It had in view a setting of the
evidence, the establishment of a witness there. It is
good to hear local companies of the Lord's people
speaking of themselves like this: 'We are here to have a
witness in this place.'
Now, THAT is the
purpose of the heralds, THAT is the
function of the churches. That is why we are here on this
earth, as Christians - namely, that wherever we are, at
home, in business, or anywhere, we may provide the
evidence that Jesus is Lord. That will be the explanation
of the suffering and the opposition, and all the efforts
of the Devil to quench us and drive us out. We are there
as evidence of something. As I said a little while back,
if only this had been grasped and held and understood
from the beginning, what a different situation there
would be. The preaching of the Gospel seems to have so
largely resolved itself into giving out the truths, the
doctrines, of Christianity; but there has to be something
far more than that. There is need that everyone who felt
themselves so called should say: 'Yes, but there has to
be concrete evidence that this is true. There must be
proof positive about this matter, embodied in something
here that declares that Jesus is Lord.'
Have you set the
evidence? Are you standing for that? That is the
challenge in the proclamation of the Gospel. It is good
news, but that good news has to be embodied in something
that constitutes its very evidence and proof.
A
CHALLENGE TO CHRISTIANS
It is a challenge to us
as Christians, it is also a blessed, helpful explanation
of very much. It does explain why the Devil hates us so
intensely. It explains all the pressure that is brought
to bear upon us by him. It explains that stirring up,
that terrible stirring up, which is always the prelude to
some activity of the enemy, 'If only we can prevent that,
spoil that, in some way upset that - !' So it is an
explanation and a help to know that. And it is a
challenge to us Christians that we are not going to be
moved until the Lord moves us. Yes, the Lord may move us,
the Lord may take us up, the Lord may lead us away, but
by the grace of God the Devil never shall. We are not
standing where we are just for our own interests, to get
something that we want. We are standing in far more
serious issues than that - in nothing less than this
great cosmic conflict between the two princes, the two
kings. We are there to set the evidence. It is a very
great challenge to us.
A
CHALLENGE TO THE UNSAVED
But it is also a
challenge to anyone reading these lines who is not the
Lord's. The challenge is this: There are only two
kings in this universe. There is no neutral zone in
this matter, there is no 'no man's land' here. There are
only two rules, two kingdoms; Christ, God's eternally
appointed King, and the Devil, the usurper from of old.
We make the declaration, the announcement to you that
"Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil. 2:11). God has
appointed Him Lord, and He is Lord by right of His own
conquest of the Devil. It is for you to decide in which
of the two kingdoms, realms and governments you are. That
is the challenge which has to go into the whole inhabited
earth, and you cannot get out of it.
If you do not believe
that you are in the kingdom and rule of Satan, if you are
not definitely committed and given to Jesus Christ, I can
give you the most perfect and complete proof of it, if
you will accept it. Try to get out of Satan's kingdom!
Try to become a Christian! You will find that it does not
happen and go through automatically. You will at once
discover that spiritual forces rise up, and the thing
becomes full of complications and difficulties. They rise
up from within you - either revolt or antagonism at the
idea, or questions and doubts about it, or fears
concerning it. Immediately you move in this matter you
find that other things begin to move - not that you have
moved them, but that they begin to move of themselves.
The Old Testament
illustration of this is Israel, God's people, in Egypt.
They were in bondage, but things were fairly quiet until
the idea of their going out of Egypt was mooted. But
immediately this thought of an exodus from Egypt began to
take shape, then things began to happen. It seemed that
the whole kingdom was in a ferment, working itself up to
the final furore to prevent this. Now, you go on quietly
without thinking of coming to the Lord Jesus, and, while
you may have questions and may not be having an
altogether lovely time, nevertheless your life may be
comparatively easy. But when you begin to contemplate
coming to the Lord Jesus and entering into His reign and
kingdom, then you discover, without your doing anything
at all, that things begin to work, things are happening
to stop that. They come up from within, and they come
from without. No one is born into the Kingdom of Heaven
without conflict, without a fight; and what a fight it is
for some souls - a long-drawn-out fight until they are
through. As I said, you can put this to the test. You
make a gesture toward Jesus Christ, and you will find
that you are in a bondage that you did not know of
before. It is there, it is a fact. But, blessed be God,
there is victory for you with the Lord Jesus Christ, to
get you out of that bondage, right through into His
victory.
But my immediate point
is this. We are declaring that Jesus Christ is God's
King, and that the final rule of this universe is vested
in Him. By nature we are born into the other kingdom, the
kingdom of the Evil One, to whom we belong. The Bible
says that we are 'children of darkness' and 'children of
wrath'. We are children of the Devil by birth, for Adam
put us all into his power and into his hand. Jesus came
to rescue us, to get us out, to bring us into His own
reign. Where are you? That is the issue presented. It is
announced, declared. It is a tremendous thing, for
eternal destiny hangs upon your response to this.
And it is a solemn
thing - oh, that men realised it - to have in any
neighbourhood a testimony, to the Lordship of Jesus
Christ. The whole of such an area is going to be judged
one day because that company was there with this
testimony. Yes, it will mean judgment. The indictment
will be: 'But you knew it was there: Your house was
visited, you were told, you were invited; Jesus Christ
was right there in the midst of that people. You would
not have it. You either ignored it or rebelled against it
or repudiated it. But it was there in evidence. You
cannot say that you did not know.' It is a tremendous
thing for God to plant in a district a living testimony
to the Lordship of His Son. All in that district are
going to be judged by their attitude to that.
Do not misunderstand or
misinterpret this. It is a spiritual matter. This is
God's method, to put down in the nations something which
is a set evidence to the great fact of the Lordship of
His Son, and to judge everything by it. It sounds stern,
but we must be faithful, and we must warn as well as
entreat. In love for your soul we would say, Do not abide
under the flag of the usurper. Here is God's King, and we
proclaim to you this good news of His sovereign rule.
And when the evidence
for it has been set, says this word in Matthew, "in
the whole inhabited earth", God's time will come for
winding up the dispensation. I will not go further into
that, but there is very much bound up with it. The
dispensation waits for that, and therefore there is an
urgency about things, because we never know, in a day
like this, when the testimony will have found its last
declaration in this world. Whereas the kingdom of Satan
is ousting the personal messengers, they cannot close
down the air. This Gospel of the sovereignty, is getting
through, for it is, in truth, sovereign.
May the Lord help us as
His people to meet the challenge as to the real meaning
and purpose of our being here on this earth. And if you
do not belong to the Lord Jesus, if you are not in His
Kingdom, may He help you to meet the other challenge - to
forsake the false usurper's flag and dominion, and seek
citizenship in the Kingdom of our Lord.