Great Bible Doctrines
Lesson No. 9: The Kingdom of God, The
Church
Date: July 17, 2002, Wednesday Evening Adult Bible
Class
Speaker: John Phillis
We are continuing in our study on the Great Bible
Doctrines. Tonight we will discuss the Kingdom of God, the
church. God’s church is an important subject, and it is
necessary to have an understanding of the church.
As we talk about the first part of this lesson this evening, we
point out the fact that the Kingdom of God on earth is the
church. Certainly there is one and only
one. The Lord, as the King over His Kingdom, does
not rule over many kingdoms. He only has
one. The church plays a vital and absolutely
necessary role in God’s plan of salvation. Many people in the
world today believe that the church is not very important.
Many people believe that the church is an “after thought” of God’s,
that His original plan was foiled by the Jews when they rejected
Jesus and had the Romans kill Him. They believe that God had
to develop some kind of “fall-back plan,” and that plan was the
church.
But the church is integral to God’s overall plan for
man. It has been that way from the beginning. We
see in Acts 2, verse 47, that those who are being saved are
“added to the church” [“praising God and having favor
with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily
those who were being saved.”]. That verse points out a
very important aspect of the church. What would people be
added to, or what would they belong to, if there was not the
church?
THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS PRESENTED IN THREE PHRASES:
Phase 1: The Kingdom, Or Church, In
Prophecy.
Phase 2: The Church In Preparation.
Phase 3: The Church In Perfection.
Phase 1: We can go back and look and see THE
KINGDOM, OR CHURCH, IN PROPHECY. It has been in God’s
mind from the beginning.
God foretold the coming of the Kingdom on the earth in the
Old Testament. He was very specific about it. He
revealed that it would come during the time of the fourth worldly
kingdom after the Babylonian empire of Nebuchadnezzar. That
proved to be the Roman Empire. That prophecy is
contained in Daniel, chapter 2, verses 31 through 45 [see
verse 40, “And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as
iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything;
and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and
crush all the others.” See also verse 44, “And
in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom
which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left
to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these
kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”].
If we turn to the New Testament and look at Luke, chapter 2,
verses 1 and 2 [“And it came to pass in those days that a
decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be
registered. This census first took place while
Quirinius was governing Syria.”], and Luke, chapter 3, verse
1 [“Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius
Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being
tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the
region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of
Abilene…”], we see that, in fact, when Jesus came
to the earth, and during the time of His earthly ministry, what was
the empire of the day? It was the Roman Empire. And, of
course, we know that it was during that period that the Kingdom was
established. We will look more at this point later.
But to continue in our thought of prophecy, Isaiah said that
this Kingdom would come in the “last days,” Isaiah, chapter
2, verse 2 [“Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the LORD’s house Shall be established on the
top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all
nations shall flow to it.”]. Isaiah even told that the
place of its establishment was Jerusalem, Isaiah, chapter 2,
verse 3 [“Many people shall come and say, ‘Come, and let us
go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of
Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His
paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the Word
of the LORD from Jerusalem.”].
So Daniel speaks of the time of the establishing of the
Kingdom, and Isaiah speaks of the location where the Kingdom
would be established.
God also revealed the scope of His Kingdom as a world-wide
Kingdom. It would be for all people, Isaiah, chapter 2,
verse 2 [see above]. Of course, this concept would be
quite foreign, and, in fact, would be objectionable, to the Jews to
think that the Kingdom would be open to all people, as they were
thinking in an “earthly” sense Yet, Isaiah in the long ago
said that it would be.
Also in Daniel, God foretold the nature of the Kingdom, that
it would be an eternal Kingdom. It was something that was
not physical in nature, or temporal, but would be eternal and last
forever, Daniel, chapter 2, verse 44 [“And in the days of
these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall
never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other
people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms,
and it shall stand forever.”].
And God foretold that this Kingdom would have a world-wide
mission, that being to teach all nations, Isaiah, chapter 2,
verse 3 [see above].
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