"Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, Forever"
by
T. Austin-Sparks
Chapter 1 - What is the Kingdom?
"Verily I say unto you, There be some of them
that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death,
till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom"
(Matthew 16:28).
"To whom he also shewed himself alive after his
passion by many proofs, appearing unto them by the space
of forty days, and speaking the things concerning the
kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3).
"But when they believed Philip preaching good
tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of
Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and
women" (Acts 8:12).
"And he entered into the synagogue, and spake
boldly for the space of three months, reasoning and
persuading as to the things concerning the kingdom of
God" (Acts 19:8).
"And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom
I went about preaching the kingdom, shall see my face no
more" (Acts 20:25).
"And when they had appointed him a day, they came
to him into his lodging in great number; to whom he
expounded the matter, testifying the kingdom of God, and
persuading them concerning Jesus, both from the law of
Moses and from the prophets, from morning till evening.
And some believed the things which were spoken, and some
disbelieved" (Acts 28:23-24).
"Then cometh the end, when he shall deliver up
the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have
abolished all rule and all authority and power. For he
must reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his
feet" (1 Corinthians 15:23-24).
"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father,
which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom
come... And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us
from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, for ever. Amen" (Matthew
6:9,10,13).
I do not know what version of the Bible you have in your
hand, but if you have a modern translation you will find
that the second half of Matthew 6:13 is not there.
However, the people who made this version from which I am
reading put a footnote, which says: "Many
authorities, some ancient, add For thine is the
kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen." Now, I am not going to have any argument with the
authorities, but I believe we have very good reason for
retaining the second half of that verse, and I think that
the ministry that the Lord has given me for this week is
based upon that questioned half-verse. I am going to
speak about something in the Bible that some men say is
not in the Bible: "Thine is the Kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, for ever."
WHY SHOULD THOSE WORDS BE
RETAINED?
Before we can go on any further we must state why we
believe that that half-verse ought to be there. The whole
Bible, especially the New Testament, is built upon those
three words: "Thine is the KINGDOM"
stands over the whole Bible; "and the POWER"
stands over the whole Bible; "and the GLORY" - all the Bible is gathered into that. The New
Testament is especially true to those three words, so
that half-verse which is questioned is justified by the
whole Bible.
We read that wonderful word in 1 Corinthians 15:23, which
looks right on to the end of the Bible. It says:
"Then cometh the end, when he (the Son) shall
deliver up the kingdom to the Father." The Kingdom
belongs to the Father, and Jesus included Himself in that
prayer: "Our Father, which art in heaven... Thy
Kingdom come." In the end the Son will deliver up
the Kingdom to the Father: when He has done the work of
the Kingdom He will hand it to its right owner. You will
notice that this is very comprehensive: "Then cometh
the end... when he shall have abolished all rule and all
authority and power." Those are three very rich
words: all RULE, all AUTHORITY, and all POWER.
You cannot get outside of that! That comprehends every
form of opposition to the will of God, and it says that
all that opposition will at last be subjected and
subdued. In a minute we are going to ask the question:
'What is the Kingdom?', but here we begin with this very
comprehensive thing: "Our Father, which art in
heaven... Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in
heaven, so on earth... For thine IS the
kingdom." The Kingdom is that which is above all
other rule and authority and power that is against the
will of God. 1 Corinthians 15:23 says: "Then cometh
the end." The end of what? EVERYTHING that is
opposed to the will of God. That little word: "Thy
will" is a tremendous word! It reaches out to the
uttermost bounds of everything opposed to the will of
God.
Now the Lord Jesus knew what He was talking about. I
expect you have used those words many, many times, for
they are called 'The Lord's Prayer'. Whether that is the
right title or not we will not discuss, but it came out
of a vast spiritual knowledge; and this is one of the
things, dear friends, that we must recognize in order to
get an enlarged spiritual understanding: that in every
small fragment that came through the lips of the Lord
Jesus there was a whole universe of meaning. When we use
these words: "Thy will be done", how little we
understand of what we are saying!
THE BATTLE FOR THE KINGDOM OF
THIS UNIVERSE
Let us see something of the range of that one fragment
- "Thy will be done".
From before the foundation of this world, and all through
the ages, there has been an immense cosmic conflict, and
that conflict always had one issue: 'Who shall have the
kingdom of this universe?' There was the One to whom the
kingdom belonged, and it belonged to Him for ever and
ever; and then there was the other one who aspired to
have possession of that kingdom, and whose ambition was
to be the "god", the "prince" of this
world. And so, at some point, this great conflict
commenced, this great cosmic conflict for the control of
this universe. Once again we go back to 1 Corinthians 15:
'He must reign till He has PUT DOWN all rule, and
authority, and power' - and that is what is going on now,
and we are involved in that conflict. That will explain a
very great deal!
We have a kind of microcosm of this whole conflict. In
our arrangement of the Bible it is contained in
twenty-eight chapters. It is only a little pamphlet,
called "The Book of the Acts of the Apostles",
but the Apostles never gave it that name! I would like to
know what they would have called it. I know what I would
call it, but that title is far too big and far too
difficult: "A Microcosm of the Conflict of all the
Ages." We think that the Book of the Acts is just a
history of apostolic times. Well, it is that, but oh! it
is the story of the conflict of the ages. In this little
book heaven and hell are in deadly conflict, and the
conflict concerns the kingdom. It is very impressive that
this book BEGINS with the kingdom and ENDS
with the kingdom. It begins by saying that Jesus, after
He was risen, appeared unto His disciples "by the
space of forty days, and speaking the things concerning
the kingdom of God" (1:3), and in chapter 28:31, the
end of the book, the Jews were crowding into the little
apartment of the Apostle Paul and he was "preaching
the kingdom of God". These three words stand
wonderfully over this little book! The Apostles and all
the workers in that book were fighting the battle of the
kingdom. They never arrived at any place in the world
that then was but that this battle commenced. They went
everywhere 'preaching the kingdom of God', and their
arrival in every place was always anticipated by the
rival to the kingdom of God. They were working out this
little fragment: "Thine is the kingdom." It was
not just a little bit of ritual, or a formal prayer: it
was the battleground of the universe.
Now where in the New Testament did this real battle
begin? It really began almost immediately after the Lord
Jesus had said to His disciples: "There be some of
them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of
death, till they see the Son of man coming in his
kingdom," though perhaps I ought to say that it
entered upon a more intensive phase from that time. There
ought to be no chapter division between Matthew 16 and
17, for after that verse it goes immediate]y on to say:
"And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and
James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a
high mountain apart: and he was transfigured before
them." Now there are those people and teachers who
think that the Transfiguration was the fulfilment of
those words: "the Son of man coming in his
kingdom", but that is only half the truth. What was
the meaning of the Transfiguration? The Gospel by
Matthew, as you know, is the Gospel of the Kingdom, and
the Transfiguration was the manifestation of the King in
His glory. You must have a king before you have a
kingdom, so in the Transfiguration you have a
foreshadowing of the King in glory. The Kingdom is vested
in the King. They came down from the mountain - and what
would you expect to happen? Well, you would expect that
those men would go out into the world and say: 'We have
seen the King in His glory', but Jesus said emphatically:
"Tell the vision to no man until...". Until
when? "Until the Son of man be risen from the
dead."
Now link together two little words. "Tell the vision
to no man UNTIL...". Then He said:
"Tarry ye in the city (Jerusalem) UNTIL ye be
clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49), and UNTIL
'ye receive the promise of the Father' (Acts 1:4). That
little word 'until' links two things together.
'Until the Son of man be risen' - that involves
the Cross. 'Until ye receive the promise of the Father' -
that involves Pentecost. The Cross and Pentecost
introduce the Kingdom. Before the Cross it was: 'Tell no
man!' After the Cross and Pentecost they went everywhere
preaching the kingdom.
We are answering the question: 'What is the Kingdom?' I
hope I am not tiring you. I am only laying a foundation,
and in a few minutes I will be saying something which I
think will be helpful, but we must be clear as to what
the Kingdom is.
First of all, the Kingdom is not a realm, but the
personal rule of a Person. It is the dominion of a
Person, that which belongs to that Person. You see, you
must be very clear about that, because the whole conflict
centres in the question of to whom the Kingdom belongs.
The Kingdom is the sovereign government of God over all.
It is the will of God deciding everything eventually.
Only in a secondary way is the Kingdom a sphere, or a
realm, and it is the realm in which God's will is
absolutely sovereign: "Thy will be done, as in
heaven, so on earth." God is absolutely sovereign in
heaven, and there no one ever challenges His will. Angels
and archangels bow in adoration and submission to the
will of God in heaven, and if the Kingdom becomes a
realm, it is only the realm in which it is like that.
You will be able to tell from that whether you are in the
Kingdom. It is so easy to talk about the Kingdom, and to
say "Thy kingdom come", and "Thine is the
kingdom", but the fiercest battle that ever raged in
the history of this world rages over that Kingdom.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Perhaps some of you are not quite sure of the
difference between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of
heaven. I have often been asked that question. Well, I
think the answer is quite simple. If you look in the
Gospel by Matthew, and remember that that Gospel was
written for Hebrews, the phrase is usually "The
kingdom of heaven", but if you look where it was
written in Greek you will find that it is "The
kingdom of God". This is not always so, because
there were always some Hebrews even amongst the Greeks,
but it's a general distinction. To the Jews it was the
Kingdom of heaven. Well, the Jews understood heaven, and
the Greeks did not, but they quite understood deities.
They had 'gods many', and 'god' was a kind of
comprehensive term for them. So "The Kingdom of
heaven" was all right for Jews, for they understood,
and the Greeks understood "The Kingdom of God".
Well, that is only a technicality, and it has not helped
you very much, but it is part of the answer, at least, to
what is the difference between the Kingdom of heaven and
the Kingdom of God.
THE KINGDOM IN THE HANDS OF THE
ENTHRONED KING
Let us try to come to a close with something quite
helpful. What have we been saying? The dominion belongs
to God: "Thine is the kingdom." The securing of
that Kingdom for the Father was committed to the Son, so
that the Lord Jesus has the Kingdom of God vested in
Himself, and as He moved from His Cross He said:
"All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and
on earth" (Matthew 28:18). So after the Cross, in
the Book of the Acts, the Kingdom is in the hands of the
enthroned King, Jesus Christ.
Now your problem arises, and here is something that is
going to test every one of you. It has been my problem
many times. If Jesus is on the throne of the Kingdom, and
all authority is committed unto Him, what about things
like this?
"Are they ministers of Christ? ...I more: in
labours more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in
deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty
stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was
I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day
have I been in the deep: in journeyings often, in perils
of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my
countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the
city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea,
in perils among false brethren: in labour and travail, in
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often,
in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are
without, there is that which presseth upon me daily,
anxiety for all the churches" (2 Corinthians
11:23-28).
And Jesus is on the throne! I venture to say that if you
were in any one of those things you would ask the
question: Is Jesus really on the throne? If all authority
is in the hands of Jesus, why all this? And this is not
the only list of Paul's troubles! Now, Paul, are you
quite sure that the Kingdom belongs to Jesus? When
something goes wrong, some tragedy enters into our life,
when some great sorrow overtakes us, is not our first
temptation to ask the question: Is the Lord really Lord?
Please, Paul, answer my question! And Paul will answer by
saying: 'This is all the battle of the Kingdom. Oh, no,
things have not gone wrong. They are all going right, for
this all says that the devil does not like what we are
doing. If you will only wait until the end, you will
see.' And it was this Paul who wrote: "Then cometh
the end... when he shall have abolished all rule and all
authority and power." You see, we just look at the
things of the present, but Paul looked through the
present to the end.
Well, were all these sufferings for nothing? Was Satan
lord after all? What are we doing here tonight? Millions
and millions have come this way and owe their debt to the
Lord through this Apostle Paul. I can see a picture: a
great multitude which no man can number, out of every
nation and tribe and tongue, and the Lord Jesus standing
with His arm around His Apostle Paul and saying: 'Look,
Paul, do you see this great multitude? Do you remember
that night when you were shipwrecked, and that day when
they beat you with rods? Paul, this is all the fruit of
that. The Kingdom has come and your sufferings have
brought the Kingdom in.' That may be a bit of
imagination, but I believe there is a lot of truth in it.
It depends on how we look at things. Do we interpret
these adversities as the victory of Satan, or do we
interpret them as the way of the Kingdom and look through
to that day when He shall have subdued all rule and
authority?
Well, we have got out into a big realm! How much more
there is in "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be
done"!
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