INTRODUCTION
THE GOLDEN PROMISEAnd Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold (Matthew 19:28,29).
This is one of the most remarkable promises that the Lord made to His faithful followers. It is the promise of a “golden future time” for all saints that gives greatest meaning and encouragement to our determination to “keep the faith,” especially in the midst of the troubles and challenges of the present time.
The apostle Paul wrote, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (I Corinthians 15:19). He knew that the present world, despite its many attractions and promises and what we might be able to achieve in it, has little of truly lasting value to offer the believer. He was therefore awakening us to the truth that our real heritage and reward for faithfulness is in a promised land just across the river – or as the Lord put it, “in the regeneration [a coming world order] when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory”!
Hence, the apostle added, “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:17,18, NKJV). This glorious heritage of the saints that the apostle speaks of, which will be possessed in the promised earthly kingdom of our Lord, is what we want to peep beyond the curtain of time to preview in this book. As the “Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, wrote, “Courage, you that prayerfully work and toil for Christ with success of the very smallest kind, it shall not be so always; better times are before you. Your eyes cannot see the blissful future: borrow the telescope of faith; wipe the misty breath of your doubts from the glass; look through it and behold THE COMING GLORY”![1] (Emphases added.)
The coming glory of the kingdom will, however, not be limited to the nation of Israel, as might be supposed from how the Lord put the promise in our opening Scripture. The big picture, delayed for reasons that we will discover, is unveiled in a latter version of the promise:
And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations [all nations]: And he shall rule them with a rod of iron (Revelation 2:26,27).
It will be a global affair! “Ask of me,” the Almighty declared to the coming King, “and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Psalm 2:8).
Although it is quite evident, I would like to emphasise from the outset that the kingdom that is the primary interest of this book is not the present spiritual one, which the Lord said “is [already] within you” (Luke 17:21). Rather, it is the physical, or earthly, kingdom that He enjoined us to speed up in prayer: “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:9,10). It is the one that the prophet Daniel wrote about: “In the days of these kings [the political leaders of the “latter days”] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom” (Daniel 2:44). Truly, the fact that this coming earthly kingdom – commonly called the millennial kingdom because of its inaugural one thousand years (see Revelation 20:6 and Daniel 7:27) – was the first thing the Lord told us to request for in prayer bears out the high place it occupies in the purpose and plan of God for His people. As we will discover, however, it is actually the present spiritual kingdom that matures into the coming physical one. Now, you would have to wait and see exactly what I mean by that. Suffice to say here that this gestation of the kingdom is much like that of a baby that must be conceived and nurtured for a season in the womb – “within you,” as the Lord said – before its revelation to the world!
THE GAME PLAN
The primary lens of the “telescope of faith” through which we will preview “the coming glory” of the promised kingdom in this book is from “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass”:
And when he [Christ the Lamb] had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou was slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth (Revelation 5:8-10).
In undertaking this preview of our kingdom reign with the Lord, we will not be engaging in a mere intellectual exercise. We will be looking closely at the Scriptures quite all right, but they must come alive! This is what I call a stimulated vision – a vision that breaks forth from closely studying the Scriptures. It is what the apostle meant by “the eyes of your understanding being enlightened”! You could call it a “revelation,” for as he also wrote, “Eye hath not seen [the natural eye, that is], nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (I Corinthians 2:9,10).
And inasmuch as this work is an inspired description of a future time, you are encouraged to approach it with like mind, believing that the Lord, in answer to the apostle’s prayer, is able to give you further enlightenment. In other words, if you encounter a spot in the projected picture that you believe you could touch to create a yet sharper, brighter and better picture, why not, it couldn’t be better!
In developing this vision of the coming kingdom, I will be calling upon several witnesses. While some of these witnesses are well known and have been celebrated, some, not being fully understood, have been regarded with suspicion. Yet they all testify, wittingly or unwittingly, of wonderful “things which must shortly come to pass.” By the time we are through, you would be able to see how almost every aspect of the present world order, especially your personal experience, testifies of the promise of another coming one that is incomparably better and beckoning.
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come (I Timothy 4:8).
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