Jesus
Christ was born to be a King.
Pilate therefore said unto him,
Are you a king then? Jesus
answered, you say that I am a king. To this end was I born..."
The word
gospel comes
from the Greek word Euaggelion, meaning "to declare glad
tidings." Of what, you might ask? Of a King and His coming Kingdom. Yet,
why do so many people think that the Kingdom of God is here
on earth now? Would God allow an evil thing like war to
exist if He were in charge? No. The book of Isaiah says,
"They will
beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore." Isaiah 2:4
So, when Christ sets up His Kingdom, He will stop all war.
Some try
to say that the church is the Kingdom of God right now,
but in fact, Christ clarified
that His Kingdom was not of this world. He said,
"My kingdom is
not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would
my servants fight, that I should not be delivered
to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence."
John 18:36-37
If the
Kingdom of God is not of this world, at this time---then who is
running the show? You might be surprised.
SATAN
RULES NOW...
1 John
5:19 says, "We know that we are children of God,
and that
the whole world is under the control of the evil one."
The Bible
backs this up. When Satan
tempted Christ, he offered Him all the Kingdoms of the world if
He would bow down and worship him. Christ did not say
"They are not yours."
"Again,
the devil took him up into an exceeding high mountain, and
showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And said to Him, all these things will I give thee, if thou will
fall down and worship me."
Matthew 4:8-9
When did
Satan begin his rule of the earth? Adam and
Eve chose Satan in the Garden of Eden. He has been the god of
this world from that day forward. Men chose the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is Satan and his system.
They rejected The Tree of (eternal) Life. Which is Jesus
Christ and His system. These trees are symbolic. No tree can give you eternal life, but
Christ can!
Adam and Eve rejected God's system and chose Satan and his system. Which
we are still under, to this present day. God will not
allow evil such as we see in this world to go on. The good
thing is that Satan is not
going to be the permanent ruler of the world. His time is limited and
has a cutoff date. He will be removed for good.
This time will sneak up on Satan and he will suddenly realize that the
jig is about up. The demons mentioned in the New Testament
also knew that they had a limited time. Some of
the demons of Christ time said in Matthew 8:29, "...What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of
God? Art thou come hither to torment us
before the time?" There is a day of reckoning
coming for the demons and Satan and they know it. At the
return of Christ, they will be gathered up and restrained in the
bottomless pit for 1000 years during Christ's reign on earth, as
we see in the book of Revelation 20:2-3.
SATAN
RESTRAINED FOR A 1000 YEARS!
"And he laid hold on the dragon, that old
serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a
thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut
him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the
nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled:
and after that he must be loosed a little season."
The Bible prophesies
that in the
end time, Satan will realize that his
days are short, and he will HAVE GREAT WRATH. All of a
sudden he will realize that he doesn't have much time left.
He will realize that God is getting ready to deal with him for
the first time in thousands of years.
"Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea,
for the devil is
come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knows that he
has but a short time." Revelation 12:12
Just as
Satan has ruled over physical nations, so will Christ too. It
is said that Christ will rule the earth with a rod of iron.
Revelation 12:5 says, "And she brought forth a man child, who
was to rule all nations with a rod of iron..."
"THE
KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD BECOME THE KINGDOMS OF OUR LORD"
Revelation
11:15 says, "And
the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in
heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the
kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and He shall reign for
ever and ever.
The New
Testament and the Old Testament agree that Christ will rule on
this earth. Below, in
the book of Zachariah, it says so plainly.
THE LORD
SHALL BE KING OVER ALL THE EARTH
"Then shall
the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as
when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet
shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which
is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives
shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and
toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley;
and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north,
and half of it toward the south.
And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for
the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea,
ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the
earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the
LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light
shall not be clear, nor dark:
But it shall be one day which shall be known to the
LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass,
that at evening time it shall be light. And it
shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out
from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and
half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in
winter shall it be. And
the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in
that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
Zechariah
14:3-9
THE GOSPEL
IS....the glad tidings that a
good King will finally rule the earth and set
up the wonderful Kingdom of God forever.
The Law will go forth from Zion. When Christ takes power, Satan will be
removed from power and cast into the abyss of Revelation...also
known as the bottomless pit. Here Satan will be restrained
for a 1000 years. The Kingdom of God will be the utopia
that all men have longed for. It will be over physical men
and physical kingdoms. Christ will indeed rule the earth
with a rod of iron. Zachariah 14:3-9 portrays the
exciting return of Christ and as it says,
"the Lord shall be King over all the earth."