KINGDOM - OLOGY 17

The Mediatorial Kingdom will be preceded by this and tribulation

            In those final hours before His passion, our blessed Lord gave instruction to His apostles and through them to the Church, what could be expected in His absence from them.

“A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father” (John 16:16).

“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore, the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep your's also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me” (John 15:16-21). The greatest practice was revealed in His last supper experience where love is shown by His own through the washing of the word performed through the symbolic act of feet washing shown by the Master Teacher. Born again (Happy) are those that follow His example! He warned them in ch. 14 what men would think of this example He left them. But love your btother as I have loved you to the end which is coming.

“These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogue: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service . . . But now I go my way to him that sent me . . . These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:1-2, 5, 16).

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:1-3).

            The teaching of the apostles was in complete agreement with the instruction given by the Lord. Paul warned the churches in Asia Minor that they "must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22). Peter admonished the Brethren: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings: that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Pet. 4:12-13). In greater detail the Lord described the course of the age.

            “And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places . . . They shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake . . . All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matt. 24:6-7, 9, 8).

            But Christ was even more specific as to conditions that would immediately precede the setting up of the Mediatorial Kingdom. Unprecedented tribulation would overtake the entire world. “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:21-22). Ans we are being set up in our own country for this as conditions are made worse each day. Each country has their own Pharaoh.

            During this period of time a rider on a white horse appears among men, masquerading as the human solution to all the mounting problems of earth. But he is no sooner established on the throne of the revived Roman Empire, that all the smooth talk of peace and prosperity are turned into the most absolute and tyrannical dictatorship the world has ever known, and there follows progressively worldwide military operations, wholesale famine and impoverishment, and death on a scale so unprecedented that within the short space of a very few years, more than one half the population of the world is dead (Rev. 6:1-9; 9:15, 18).

            Running parallel to the depredations imposed on mankind by the Antichrist, there are the judgments of God being poured out upon nations of mankind. Six seals are torn away from the title deed of the earth by the Lord Jesus standing in heaven, and providential judgments are unloosed upon the earth (Rev. 6). The tearing away of the seventh seal brings the immediate judgments of God upon the earth under the symbols of seven angelic trumpets (Rev. 7:1; 8:1-9, 21; 11:14-19). So horrendous and awesome is the prospect that heaven itself is hushed into silence for the space of half an hour (Rev. 8:1). The blowing of the seventh trumpet announces that Christ is about to take over the throne of the Kingdom and reign when the seven last bowls of wrath have run their course. It is then that Christ breaks through the clouds of heaven and establishes His kingdom in the earth (Rev. 19:11-20:10).