What is the Kingdom of God?

Matthew 24:14

And this Good News of The Kingdom shall be preached in all the home-world for a witness to all nations and after that the consummation shall come

Comments: ^{Matthew 24:14} During the Great Tribulation/Time of Jacob’s Trouble ^{Matthew 24:21, Jeremiah 30:7}, it is the Everlasting Gospel of the Kingdom that will be preached. How many pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc., preach the Good News of THE KINGDOM, today?

During this present time of favor ^{2 Corinthians 6:2}, the Good News [the Gospel] of Grace is being preached, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved ^{Acts 2:21}, as it should be, but the Gospel of the Kingdom should not be neglected.

The Kingdom of God is presently within us ^{Luke 17:20-21, Romans 14:17}, but there is a physical kingdom coming that is still future ^{Matthew 20:20-23}, and it will not come without horrendous travail (birth pangs) ^{Matthew 24:15-21}.

Isaiah called the time of the birth pangs, The Indignation ^{Isaiah 26:20-21}. Jeremiah called it The Time of Jacob’s Trouble ^{Jeremiah 30:7}. Jesus called it “Great Tribulation such as was not since the beginning of this world no nor ever shall be [again]” ^{Matthew 24:21}. One of the 24 Elders in Heaven, called it The Great Tribulation ^{Revelation 7:13}.

The horrific time described by all these is a time when terrible suffering or death must be endured to be saved. Believers today are saved by believing in our hearts, confessing Jesus with our mouths, and calling on the name of the Lord to be saved. Paul wrote about it to the Romans, and Peter declared this to be the case on the day of Pentecost.

Many believers, today, are suffering and dying for their faith, but the vast majority are not. We are not yet living in the time of the birth pangs ^{Matthew 24:8} when we must “endure to the end to be saved.”

Believing in our hearts and confessing with our mouths to be saved is not synonymous with enduring to the end to be saved ^{Matthew 10:22}.

Since practically the day the Holy Spirit descended and made the bodies of all Believers temples of God, Christians have been persecuted in one place or another. But Joel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jesus, and the Elder in Heaven foretold a time when eternal life would depend on either dying for our convictions or enduring to the end to be saved. This will be a global persecution of horrendous magnitude. That time has not yet arrived.

^{Matthew 24:14} When Messiah comes with the armies of Heaven to defeat his enemies at the Battle of Armageddon, he will establish a physical kingdom here on earth. This is the Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus preached the first time he came.

And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness the girdle of his reins The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them And the cow and the bear shall feed Their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox And the nursing child shall play in the hole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put its hand in the den of the yellow-viper They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea –Isaiah 11:5-9

This is the kingdom the prophets foretold.

After the resurrection/rapture ^{1 Thessalonians 4:16-18}, during the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, which is the time of the birth pangs, the Good News of THE KINGDOM that Jesus preached, will once again be front and center.

Jocelyn Andersen is the author of several non-fiction books, including, Redemption: Bible Prophecy Simplified, a Study of HOPE.

Note from the editor: I read my Bible every day, always picking up today where I left off yesterday. I call this my “on-track” Bible reading. I have been doing this for over 44 years. It was the best advice I was ever given, and it changed my life. If you are not presently doing the same, I invite you to join me. How much you read on a daily basis isn’t important. It only matters that you read, feeding your spirit with a prayerful dose of the living and powerful Word of God.

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