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HOUSMAIL HM062
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August 2000 WHEN WILL THE KINGDOM COME "But of that
day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but
only the Father.” (Mark 13:32) "So, when they
had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the
kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times
or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in
Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:6-8) When
asked WHEN the
kingdom would come, Jesus told His disciples that He did not know! Not even the
angels knew! Only God Himself knew the precise time. (In passing, we note the careful distinction that Jesus drew here
between Himself and His Father. The Father knows something that Jesus does not
know! Jesus is NOT omniscient! Nor may we PRESUME to know what the Father has
not revealed, and Jesus does not know!) But
Jesus did not stop there. His answer contained something else far more important
than the mere timing of the restoration of the Kingdom. The disciples were to
wait in Jerusalem until they received the POWER which would come upon
them when they received the Holy Spirit. After that they were to bear witness
to what they had seen and heard during their time with Jesus. Before the Kingdom
could be restored, there was to be a time of PREPARATION. The
HEIRS of
the Kingdom had to be called together from out of the world. They had to be TRAINED for their roles in the
Kingdom. (Matthew 28:19-20) Only
after that work is completed, when the last disciple has been made and taught
to obey all the commandments of Jesus, only THEN can the Kingdom come! It has
been common in all ages for "would be prophets" to spend a great deal
of effort in Bible Studies which look for the SIGNS of the coming of the
Kingdom. But if we hear Jesus in the passages quoted above, the REAL priority
is to first discover what this POWER is that Jesus refers to ..... and
the secret of receiving THE POWER ..... and then after that, to bear witness
to Jesus in our generation. We must
learn not to waste the energies of heart and mind and strength on endless speculation
about all those "interesting" Bible topics, beloved by the Pharisees. Instead,
we must learn to devote ourselves to the all-consuming passion that is required
to: "Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner
of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of
your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true
righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22-24) It won't
be difficult to know WHEN Jesus is back! We will hear a trumpet call which wakes the dead! But
for some, it will be difficult in the extreme, to explain why they lack the power
that changes lives to make disciples who love and obey Jesus! Allon |