What is the Kingdom of God?

Many people have heard the term “Kingdom of God,” but few really understand what it is. Throughout the entire Bible, this was the central message! John the Baptist preached the kingdom of God, Jesus preached it, and the apostles preached it. The last question that Jesus was asked before He left the earth was, “Lord, will you at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” The coming kingdom of God is the message that God wants to convey to every person on earth. The crucial question is-will you be a part of it?

King Over All the Earth

We want to let everyone understand, straight from scripture, what the kingdom of God is all about. We’re going to start in the Old Testament.

And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be — ” The LORD is one,” And His name one. (Zechariah 14:9) [NKJV]

Now this is the prophecy in Zechariah 14, which is the Armageddon chapter. This is where all the nations of the world come down against Israel, to battle against Jerusalem. It’s at that time that Jesus Christ comes back, fights for the nation of Israel, and takes over the world. This passage says that the Lord shall be King over all the earth. That’s the Kingdom of God. In that day there shall be one Lord, and His name one. Now, this is so important, that we want to show you several other scriptures that somewhat say the same thing. In Daniel we see a description of the time when human governments will be put down and the kingdom of God will be established.

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. (Daniel 2:44) [NKJV]

It simply says, in the days of these ten kings, symbolized by the ten toes, shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom that shall never pass away. It shall never be destroyed. It shall stand forever. Another prophecy of the coming Kingdom of God, this is when Almighty God will personally rule this world, is in Revelation, chapter 11. This is actually the seventh trumpet prophecy.

Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15) [NKJV]

How Do I Become Part of the Kingdom?

The next big question we have is, “If there’s going to be this wonderful kingdom, where there is going to be peace on earth, good will toward men, how do become a part of that, will I be here at the time. What’s it take to enter the Kingdom of God?” In the Bible there is a phrase, “The gospel of the kingdom.” Now, everyone who God ever sent to this earth always preached “the gospel of the kingdom.” Even in the Old Testament, that was the centrality of their message. This is so important because there is so much in the Bible, it is easy for us to get off track, and develop a particular specialty, and forget what the heart and soul of the gospel really is. It is the gospel of the Kingdom. We’re going to find out here that John the Baptist preached it, Jesus preached it. The Apostles preached the gospel of the kingdom. And that’s what we are doing in this prophecy series, we are preaching the gospel of the kingdom. And that’s what every person should witness about, should preach about. Just so you really get it solid in your mind, we want to show you the scriptures that tell us this explicitly:

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:1-2) [NKJV]

So, John preached the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. If you will cross reference, we are talking about the exact same thing. The kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of god are synonymous. To prove that to yourself, in case you are interested, by cross referencing Matthew and Luke. Sometimes Luke called it the kingdom of God. Matthew a lot of times called it the kingdom of heaven. But it’s the exact same term. You’ll see the same parables taught. But we are talking about the preaching of the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ also preached the same thing:

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. (Matthew 4:23) [NKJV]

So John preached it. We know it was preached by Daniel, when he said, “…in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom.” That was the kingdom of God. Jesus preached it. And the, most importantly, he sent us to preach it. He commissioned His disciples in Luke, chapter 9, where Jesus commands His disciples to preach the gospel of the kingdom.

He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. (Luke 9:2) [NKJV]

What Does It Take to Enter the Kingdom of God?

So, we’ve settled the issue. We should be preaching the kingdom of God, even here as we’ve entered the 21st century. The big question is, when we preach the kingdom of God, what do we say? We described the kingdom of God as when human governments will be put down and Jesus Christ will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Now, that’s our hope. If you don’t like the way things are going in the world right now, just hang on a while, before long, all of these governments will be put aside. We’ve that several different times in the prophecies. It happens over and over again, that the thrones are going to be cast down, that the governments are coming down, and will be replaced with the government of Almighty God Himself, with Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But the most critical question is, how can I be involved? How can you be involved.? What does it take to enter the kingdom of Go? For the answer to that, let’s turn to the words of Jesus Christ Himself.

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (John 3:1-5) [NKJV]

You Must Be Born Again

Nicodemus went to Jesus and he flattered Him. We know you are a teacher come from God. He was saying these nice things. Jesus said, Nicodemus, you must be born again or you cannot enter the kingdom of God. He just went right for the issue. And I think this is something very important right now. We’re living in a time when preachers try to be tactful and very careful not to offend people. But Jesus was on a mission. And He wanted to spread the truth. And He came right the crux of the matter. He said to Nicodemus, you must be born again, or you cannot enter the kingdom of God. But this term, “born again,” has been bantered about until it has almost lost its meaning. You can ask everyone, “What do you mean, “born again?’” and they’ll say, “Well, you believe on Jesus Christ, you’re born again.” But we need to make sure we really understand it, because Jesus said, except we are born again, we will not enter the kingdom of God. So, we are not dealing with optional equipment here. We are dealing with a salvation issue. This is a heaven or hell issue. This is eternal life or eternal damnation. So, we cannot be careless with it. We cannot be trivial or trite with it. We have to make sure that we really understand what this term is, being “born again.”

Now in order to understand it we need to take a look at where salvation was authored. We kneed to take a look at calvary. We all know that Jesus came to this earth to purchase salvation for all of us. So the big question is, what happened on that cross. How did this transform the human race. How does this take us out of lost condition and bring us into a saved condition. What really happened there.

The Three Steps of Calvary

The Bible teaches that there are three steps to the work of Jesus Christ at Calvary, the death, the burial and the resurrection. These are the three steps of Calvary. Now if we are going to accept what happened on that cross, this is what we often times call, “accepting Christ.” We refer to, “Accept Christ as you personal Savior.” Well, how do I do that. How do I know when I’ve done it Biblically and sculpturally? Do I just hope that I do it right, and maybe I’m save and maybe I’m not? These are really critical and important issues, because they all deal with interconnecting with God. Every prophecy in the Bible points straight to the setting up of the kingdom of God. And the capstone of understanding the Bible is to know how to enter the kingdom of God. That’s what we need to talk about.

So, the Bible teaches us that the plan of salvation was accomplished by Jesus Christ on Calvary, and we must accept what He did there. We accept the work of Jesus Christ by obeying the gospel. Now, the gospel of the kingdom is the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, resulting in entering the kingdom of God. But, how do we obey the gospel? Lets go now to 2Thessalonians, because it tells us there the consequences of not obeying the gospel.

…and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2Thessalonians 1:7-8) [NKJV]

Not knowing God is equivalent to not obeying the gospel. So how can we obey the gospel if we don’t know how to obey the gospel. We are told the gospel is “the good news.” The Bible does describe this for us. The Apostle John wrote, concerning the gospel:

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,… (1Corinthians 15:1-4) [NKJV]

So, the gospel isn’t just “the good news.” The good news is more than that. The good news is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The good news is that we can have eternal life. The gospel not only tells us that we can have eternal life, but how to have eternal life. And that gospel is that we have been redeemed and can be born again through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.