{"id":19201,"date":"2017-09-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-021\/"},"modified":"2017-09-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T05:00:00","slug":"the-coming-kingdom-021","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/the-coming-kingdom-021\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coming Kingdom 021"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[85],"series_event":[470],"sermon_service_type":[474],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19201","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-matthew","series_event-the-coming-kingdom","sermon_service_type-wednesday-evenings","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"The Coming Kingdom 021","sermon_date":"20170927","sermon_month":"9","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4986,"sermon_slides":4987,"sermon_mp3":4988,"sermon_id":"927171838145","series_or_event":470,"service_type":[474],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":85,"chapter_and_verse":"13:47-52","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nThe Coming Kingdom\n\n9-27-17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Matthew 13:47-52\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lesson 21\n\nLet\u2019s open our Bibles to Matthew\u2019s Gospel, chapter13 and if you\u2019re joining us for the first time we\u2019re right in the middle of a study on The Coming Kingdom.\u00a0 And we\u2019re trying to take a look at what does the Bible teach about the doctrine of the Kingdom.\u00a0 And as we\u2019ve carefully developed this study all the way through the Old Testament, I think we\u2019re in lesson 21, we saw that the kingdom has a concrete meaning as defined in the Old Testament.\u00a0 And the kingdom of God was offered to the nation of Israel on a silver platter by Jesus Christ.\u00a0 And what did first century Israel and her leadership do with that offer?\u00a0 Rejected it!\u00a0 Remember what chapter that happened in?\u00a0 Chapter 12.\u00a0 So chapter 12, really verse 24, is the hinge because there the religious leaders had attributed Christ\u2019s miracles to Satan, or Beelzebub.\n\nSo Matthew 12 is followed by Matthew 13, see how logically the Gospel of Matthew is arranged.\u00a0 And since the kingdom has been rejected and the kingdom is not going to materialize until national Israel in the future receives the offer, Jesus begins to describe the course of the present age while the kingdom is absent.\u00a0 The kingdom isn\u2019t cancelled, it\u2019s postponed.\u00a0 So since the kingdom is postponed what is going to be the course of the present age with the kingdom in postponement or abeyance.\u00a0 And this is where Jesus begins to develop this concept in what\u2019s called the interim age, the interadvent age.\u00a0 It\u2019s an age of time that\u2019s been going on for about 2,000 years.\u00a0 It\u2019s an age of time that we\u2019re living in still today as we speak.\n\nAnd he begins to explain it in eight parables.\u00a0 So while the kingdom is not here, the first parable is the parable of the sower which teaches that the gospel is going to be preached faithfully in this age and the whole world is going to be won to Christ\u2026 right?\u00a0 NO!\u00a0 In fact, the gospel seed is only going to be fruitful on one soil.\u00a0 And this obviously is not the kingdom because you see that the earth is not going to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord in this age.\u00a0 And Satan, of course, is very, very active during this time period.\n\nAnd then the second parable that explains the course of this present age is the wheat and the tares and as we\u2019ve studied this parable teaches that it\u2019s going to be difficult to distinguish between the saved and the unsaved within religious Christendom.\u00a0 And of course that parable can\u2019t be revealing the kingdom because the tares, unbelievers, grow to such a quantity that they have to be bundled up at the end of the age.\u00a0 And again you see the activity of Satan.\u00a0 Who sowed the tares amongst the wheat?\u00a0 The devil.\n\nThe third parable was the mustard seed and as we carefully studied the mustard seed what we discovered is that Christendom will experience great numerical and geographical expansion from a humble beginning and yet will ultimately morph into something that God never intended.\u00a0 It will represent an apostate form at great variance from its pure origins.\u00a0 And we noticed that an\u00a0 herb in this parable becomes a tree.\u00a0 Now an herb and a tree are different species.\u00a0 So what is being explained, I believe, and we\u2019ve carefully gone through this is that Christian starts pure but it develops into something that the Lord never intended, into an apostate form of religion by the time you get to the end of the age.\u00a0 And you might factor in there Revelation 17, the great harlot that will cover the face of the earth with false religion.\u00a0 My understanding of the parable of the mustard seed fits that.\n\nAnd then we saw the fourth parable which is the parable of the leaven.\u00a0 Now is the leaven a good thing or a bad thing?\u00a0 We\u2019ve defined it as a bad thing because a lot of people will tell you the leaven good and it fills the whole earth, the gospel is going to spread over the whole earth but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what Jesus is saying.\u00a0 What He\u2019s saying is Christendom will experience ever increasing internal corruption throughout this age.\u00a0 And we went through many, many reasons why this cannot be the kingdom of God.\u00a0 The primary reason is the leaven typically in the Scripture is always something evil, not good.\n\nAnd then Jesus began to speak to them in private parables and you\u2019ll notice that the disciples would be very depressed by this point because they thought the kingdom was coming and Jesus is saying not only is the kingdom not coming but the age you\u2019re entering into now is an age of apostasy and deception.\u00a0 So He kind of takes them into private\u2026 the prior parables He had spoken to them in public; He was in a boat off the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and the crowds were kind of gathered on the beach shore to listen to Him teach, but now He goes, verse 36, into the house that He came out of and He begins to sort of cheer them up by saying yes, this age is not going to be the kingdom and yes, there\u2019s going to be a lot of difficulties in this age but cheer up because God is still working.\n\nSo He reveals to them the parable of the earthen treasure, verse 44, and that\u2019s this idea that national Israel will remain in unbelief throughout the present age and will not be converted until this age ends.\u00a0 So this parable is not talking about personal salvation; the man in the parable is not a guy getting saved.\u00a0 The man is who?\u00a0 Jesus, who pays the sacrifice for the treasure, Israel, during this age.\u00a0 So the sin debt for Israel is being paid for but don\u2019t expect Israel\u2019s conversion until this age is completed.\n\nAnd now when you go down that road, as we explained last time, the kingdom can\u2019t be present in this age, can it, because the kingdom is contingent upon who\u2019s response to the gospel?\u00a0 Israel\u2019s.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Jesus says to the Jews in Matthew 23:39, \u201cFor I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say,\u201d speaking to Israel, \u201c\u2018BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!\u2019\u201d\u00a0 So because Israel is not going to say that prayer until the end of the age the present age can\u2019t be the kingdom.\u00a0 But at the same time God is still at work because through His death on the cross He\u2019s paying the penalty for Israel\u2019s sins.\n\nAnd then we saw very briefly the parable of the pearl of great price, verses 45 and 46, and this parable, as we studied it last week, says the Lord is going to gain a treasure from amongst the Gentiles during this age.\u00a0 So this unique age of time that we\u2019re living in, this interadvent age, this time period between the two comings of Christ, First Coming and Second Coming, the primary people that are getting saved today are not Jews, although Steven is here and many Jews do get saved in this age.\u00a0 But the fact of the matter is the majority population within Christendom is Gentile, non-Jewish.\u00a0 And this is the pearl that the Lord pays for through His death on the cross.\u00a0 So once again this parable is not about a lost sinner who gets saved; that\u2019s a misunderstanding of the parable.\u00a0 The man is not a lost sinner but the man is who?\u00a0 Jesus and He is laying down His life so many, many Gentiles during this age can come to faith.\n\nThat sort of catches us up and we just have two more parables to cover before we\u2019re finished with Matthew 13.\u00a0 So let\u2019s look at those two parables tonight, the parable of the dragnet, verses 47-50, and then the parable of the householder, verses 51-52, then we\u2019ll make some concluding comments about the teachings of Matthew 13.\n\nSo notice first of all this parable of the dragnet.\u00a0 Notice, if you will, Matthew 13:47-50. Jesus says, \u201cAgain, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish<\/em> of every kind;\u201d so \u201cevery kind\u201d would be good fish and bad fish, right;\u00a0 [48] \u201cand when it\u201d that would be the net, \u201cwhen it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish<\/em> into containers, but the bad they threw away. [49] So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, [50] and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.\u201d\u00a0 So that\u2019s a pretty severe parable there.\n\nBut what is this teaching?\u00a0 What it\u2019s teaching is there will be in the present age, while the kingdom is in postponement, the existence of the righteous and the wicked together.\u00a0 They will grow up side by side, sort of like the parable of the wheat and the tares and the good fish and the bad fish will exist together in the same net and they won\u2019t be separated until the age has run its course.\u00a0 So is this particular parable, like any of the other parables, teaching the present existence of the kingdom of God.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to say no, none of these parables that Jesus is articulating teach the present existence of the kingdom of God because these parables are describing a spiritual pattern which is completely different than everything that\u2019s been revealed in the Old Testament concerning the kingdom.\n\nSo this parable teaches the coexistence of good and evil.\u00a0 So we\u2019re living in an age of time where we are not going to Christianize the world; I wish it were true that we could.\u00a0 The whole world is not going to be won to Christ but you\u2019re going to have believers and unbelievers living together side by side, just like you have good fish and bad fish existing in the same net.\u00a0 And it\u2019s a time period where there\u2019ll be many, many salvations but at the same time, even though God is at work who else is at work?\u00a0 Satan!\u00a0 In fact, when you go back to verse 39, which is the parable of the wheat and the tares, it says, \u201cand the enemy who sowed them is the\u201d what? \u201cthe devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels.\u201d\u00a0 So it\u2019s a time period where God is at work saving many, many people but the devil is at work with his projects as well.\u00a0 This will be the normal pattern in the present age and that won\u2019t change\u00a0 until the second coming of Jesus Christ.\n\nAnd beyond that there\u2019s this giant net of bad fish and good fish together, because when you drop back to verse 47 it says, \u201cfish<\/em> of every kind.\u201d\u00a0 And then in verse 48 it says the net \u201cwas filled\u201d and in fact there were so many fish in the net that they had to draw it out of the water into the boat and the idea of drawing something there is the idea you\u2019re pulling it but with resistance.\u00a0 So it\u2019s a giant net with all kinds of fish in it, some good and some bad.\u00a0 So again it\u2019s revealing the coexistence of good and evil until the fish are separated by Christ at the end of the age.\n\nArthur Pink puts it this way: \u201cThe result is that there is a mixed<\/em> profession. The net gathers in \u2018of<\/em> every kind.\u2019 Just as at the beginning of the age there were the wheat and tares, so at the end of the age (to which this parable conducts us) there are bad fish as well as good. Now . . . the fact that this net gathered in bad fishes as well as good ones was no reflection<\/em> upon the skill of the fishermen. But on the other hand, they were<\/em> responsible to distinguish between the good and the bad fish after<\/em> they had entered the net, and they were responsible to separate the one from the other.\u201d\u00a0 [A. W. Pink (2005). The Prophetic Parables of Matthew Thirteen<\/em>. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software]\n\nSo the separation occurs after these fish have existed in this net for a lengthy period of time.\u00a0 And beyond that when you look at verses 48 and 49 very carefully you see that there\u2019s no separation between the good fish and the bad fish until this age has run its course.\n\nGoing back to verse 48 again, it says, \u201cand when it\u201d that would be the net, \u201cwhen it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish<\/em> into containers, but the bad they threw away.\u201d\u00a0 Now when does this separation happen.\u00a0 [49] \u201cSo it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous,\u201d so don\u2019t expect the coexistence of good and evil to be stopped or halted.\u00a0 Don\u2019t expect it to be separated until Jesus Christ personally returns to the earth, takes His seat on David\u2019s throne, launches His 1,000 millennial kingdom, and then and only then will the righteous reign.\n\nSo many times as Christians we\u2019re disappointed with the course of this age; we wish things would be different, we wish things could go a different direction.\u00a0 Many times we get disappointed with our own churches but the fact of the matter is Jesus says this is a normal expectation that we should have in this present age; we should not expect perfect righteousness. We can call for it, we can work for it, we can pray for it but this parable is teaching don\u2019t expect it until Jesus Christ returns.\u00a0 So the actual separation that we so frequently desire is not going to happen until Jesus comes back.\n\nSo this is basically the same message, this parable of the dragnet is the same message as the wheat and the tares.\u00a0 The wheat and the tares began his sequence of parables, first was the sower, then came the wheat and the tares, the second parable.\u00a0 And now we\u2019re to the second to the last parable in eight parables total in Matthew 18 and so He is basically ending the chapter, or the sermon if you will, to these disciples privately.\u00a0 He\u2019s ending it with the same information that He started it with, the coexistence of good and evil.\u00a0 The wheat and the tares teaches the exact same thing.\u00a0 The wheat and tares parable number two is it\u2019s going to be difficult to distinguish between the saved and the unsaved within professing Christendom.\n\nSo there are an awful lot of people out there that will talk the Christianese, they\u2019ll even carry great big Bibles with tabs in them and they\u2019ll take notes and they\u2019ll listen to the right Christian radio station and they\u2019ll show up to church because that\u2019s what you do in the United States, particularly in the south, you go to church because it\u2019s cultural.\u00a0 But they have never been born again, they have never been regenerated.\u00a0 And in fact, some of those unsaved people can look a lot like the saved people. \u00a0The example I\u2019ve used on this is Judas.\u00a0 Jesus said, to the disciples, one of you is going to betray me and everybody didn\u2019t point the finger at Judas and say it\u2019s him, what did they all say?\u00a0 Is it me?\u00a0 Is it I?\u00a0 Is it me?\u00a0 Because Judas, even though he was unsaved, even though he is called a child of the devil in the Gospels, Jesus said of Judas it would have been better for him if he\u2019d never been born.\u00a0 He\u2019s called the son of perdition, which means son of destruction.\u00a0 In fact, that title \u201cson of destruction\u201d is only used of two people in the Bible, the first is Judas, John 17:12 and the second one is the antichrist, the man of lawlessness, also called the son of destruction, the son of perdition, 2 Thessalonians 2:3.\n\n[John 17:12, \u201cWhile I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.\u00a0 2 Thessalonians 2:3, \u201cLet no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come<\/em>, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;\u201d KJV]\n\nSo Judas was just as unsaved as the antichrist; in fact, the devil, John 13:27, entered Judas remember.\u00a0 [John 13:27, \u201cAfter the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, \"What you do, do quickly.\u201d]\u00a0 And yet Judas looked very pious, he looked very spiritual, he looked very religious and this is the kind of an outworking of the parable that Jesus is giving here, both with the wheat and the tares and the parable of the dragnet is going to be difficult to distinguish between the saved and the unsaved within professing Christendom.\u00a0\u00a0 So He starts the selection of parables with that message and He ends it with that message, so obviously this is a pretty important subject for Christ.\u00a0 The wheat and the tares can\u2019t be the Kingdom of God any more than the fish and the dragnet can be, because of the activity of Satan and the increase of unbelievers throughout the present age.\n\nNow before I leave this particular parable of the dragnet let me just try to straighten out something that confuses a lot of people.\u00a0 A lot of people, verses 49 and 50 believe that this is talking about the rapture of the church.\u00a0 It says, \u201cSo it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, [50] and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.\u201d\n\nNow there are many people who believe that the rapture will not come before the tribulation period, which is what our belief it, pre-tribulational, but they believe it comes at the end of the tribulation period and they think that this is a reference to the rapture here.\u00a0 If you go back to verses 41-43 this is the wheat and the tares, it says:\u00a0 \u201cThe Son of man will send forth His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, [42] and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [43] Then THE RIGHTEOUS WILL SHINE FORTH AS THE SUN in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 People think that also is dealing with the rapture.\n\nIf you go over to Matthew 25:46, which is the sheep and goat judgment, a similar judgment at the end of the age, and\u00a0 you look at the very end it says, \u201cThese will go away\u201d that would be the goats, \u201cinto eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.\u201d\u00a0 And people think that these parables that Jesus is discussing here are references to the rapture.\u00a0 But let me just explain something; these cannot be references to the rapture because at the rapture of the church to be taken, is that a good thing or a bad thing?\u00a0 It\u2019s a good thing, and if you\u2019re left behind that\u2019s a bad thing.\u00a0 In all of these parables the opposite is happening; those that are taken are taken off into judgment.\u00a0 So being taken is a bad thing and being left behind to enter the kingdom is a good thing.\u00a0 So these parables here are teaching the exact opposite of the rapture.\n\nAnother common misunderstanding, if you just jump over to Matthew 24:36-41, it says this: \u201cBut of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. [37] For the coming of the Son of Man,\u201d Matthew 24:37,\u00a0 \u201cthe coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. [38] For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, [39] and they did not understand until the flood came and\u201d what? \u201ctook them all away;\u201d see that, those that are taken are taken away into judgment in the flood.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.\u201d\u00a0 And then immediately following these verses that everybody thinks is the rapture, but it\u2019s not, it says: \u00a0[40] \u201cThen there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. [41] Two women will be<\/em> grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.\u201d\n\nNow if\u00a0 you put this in context what you\u2019ll clearly see is that those that are taken are taken into judgment because verses 40-41 follow the story He just told about Noah\u2019s day, when those that were taken were taken away in judgment by the flood waters.\u00a0 Those left behind is a good thing (after the judgment is over) those that are left it\u2019s a good thing because they enter the kingdom.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 \u00a0So what you find over and over again in Matthew is the people that are taken are taken in judgment.\u00a0 The people that are left behind after the judgment happens are then taken into the kingdom.\u00a0 So what Matthew is talking about is not the rapture, because the rapture is the opposite; with the rapture being taken is a good thing, not a bad thing.\u00a0 But in Matthew\u2019s Gospel being taken is a bad thing and not a good thing.\u00a0 Are you with me on that?\n\nSo what is Jesus talking about here?\u00a0 He\u2019s not developing rapture truth, particularly in Matthew\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 If you want to understand rapture truth you don\u2019t get it from Matthew\u2019s Gospel; you get it from Paul\u2019s writings, primarily.\u00a0 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.\u00a0 [1 Thessalonians 4:13, \u201cBut we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. [14] For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. [15] For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. [16] For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the<\/em> archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. [17] Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. [18] Therefore comfort one another with these words.\u201d]\n\nJesus is dealing with, in these parables, the interadvent age which ends with the end of the tribulation period, the second coming and the manifestation of the kingdom.\u00a0 So Jesus is dealing with a period of time that started all the way back in Matthew 13 and goes right on through the tribulation period, to the end of the tribulation period where God finally brings forth His kingdom and when He brings forth His kingdom those on the earth at the time that are taken away it\u2019s a bad thing because they\u2019re taken away into judgment.\u00a0 And being left behind is a good thing because you now enter the kingdom.\u00a0 Do you follow?\u00a0 That\u2019s not what the rapture is about; when the rapture happens, seven years before the tribulation period takes place, those that are taken, is it a bad thing or a good thing?\u00a0 It\u2019s a good thing!\u00a0 And those being left behind, is that a bad thing or a good thing?\u00a0 That\u2019s a bad things, it\u2019s the inverse in Matthew\u2019s gospel.\n\nSo Matthew, Christ as he\u2019s teaching in Matthew, is dealing with a broader scope than just the age of the church.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to be talking about the age of the church, hopefully next week we\u2019ll start getting into it.\u00a0 But Christ in these parables is talking about something bigger than the\u00a0 church age.\u00a0 He\u2019s talking about something a bit broader; it starts in Matthew 13 and it goes all the way through the seven year tribulation period and stops when Jesus brings His kingdom to the earth.\u00a0 And I just wanted to throw that in because many, many people are very confused about the subject of the rapture today and one of the reasons for their confusion is they\u2019re going to the wrong books of the Bible to define the rapture.\u00a0 Jesus is not talking about the rapture here; He\u2019s talking about His judgment at the end of the tribulation period, where being taken away is the bad thing and being left behind is a good thing because you\u2019re a believer and you\u2019re entering the kingdom.\u00a0 It\u2019s the inverse or the exact opposite of the rapture.\n\nAnyway, that\u2019s pretty much the parable of the dragnet; it teaches the same message as the parable of the wheat and the tares, the coexistence between good and evil until Christ returns and establishes His kingdom.\n\nAnd then we come to the very last parable in this sequence and this is the parable of the householder and the parable of the householder is found in verses 51 and 52.\u00a0 This is parable number eight.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what it says, look at Matthew 13 and notice verse 51, \u201cHave you understood all these things?\u201d They said to Him, \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 [52] And Jesus said to them, \u2018Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old.\u2019\u201d\n\nSo what is He trying to teach here in this last of eight parables?\u00a0 And what it\u2019s teaching, I think, is this: these New Testament truths that we\u2019ve just studied in Matthew 13 as revealed by all of these\u00a0 parables must be considered alongside Old Testament revelation, everything that the Old Testament has revealed up to this point concerning the kingdom, in order to comprehend the totality of God\u2019s kingdom agenda.\u00a0 So if you want to understand the kingdom and you want to understand the conditions that will exist upon the earth before the kingdom is established, you can\u2019t just read the Old Testament.\u00a0 I mean, you can read everything there is to know in the Old Testament about the kingdom but your information will be partial.\u00a0 Your information will be incomplete because that Old Testament information doesn\u2019t tell you anything about what the heirs of the kingdom or the sons of the kingdom will experience up until the kingdoms establishment.\n\nSo if you want to understand the kingdom and you also want to understand what the believers, or the sons of the kingdom, or the heirs of the kingdom, will experience before the kingdom actually comes to the earth, you have to read both the Old Testament and you have to read the New Testament, particularly Matthew 13.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what he means by a householder coming out with old treasure and new treasure.\u00a0 The old treasure would be all the Old Testament information about the kingdom.\u00a0 The new treasure would be everything He just revealed in Matthew 13 about what the sons of the kingdom or the heirs of the kingdom will experience before the kingdom is manifested.\n\nSee, a lot of people are out there today with a fragmented understanding of God\u2019s program, because they\u2019ve given themselves to one part of the Bible or another part of the Bible and they\u2019re not looking at the Bible holistically, they\u2019re not looking at the Bible in its completion.\u00a0 And this the problem with experts.\u00a0 I was asked one time if I wanted to be an expert or a generalist.\u00a0 What is an expert?\u00a0 An expert is someone who knows more and more and more and more about less and less and less and less.\u00a0 That\u2019s an expert.\u00a0 Well, what\u2019s a generalist?\u00a0 A generalist is the exact opposite, someone that knows less and less and less about more and more and more.\n\nWhen I was a young seminary student people said do you want to be an Old Testament expert or do you want to be a New Testament expert and my answer was I don\u2019t want to be an expert of either; I want to know both of them.\u00a0 So that\u2019s why I declared my major in Bible exposition, because I didn\u2019t want to be one of these kinds of guys that could narrow down on the different verb tenses in Hebrew or Greek and regurgitate a bunch of data about it.\u00a0 I mean, \u00a0I\u2019m not denying that\u2019s not important but I\u2019d rather know less and less and less about more and more and more, because you can\u2019t really understand the Old Testament unless you have a knowledge of what?\u00a0 The New Testament.\u00a0 And you can\u2019t really understand the New Testament unless you have a knowledge of what?\u00a0 The Old Testament.\u00a0 So I wanted to be a generalist; I want to be the guy that\u2019s able to pull both together.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what Jesus is talking about here.\n\nDr. Toussaint and Dr. Quine, in their article in BibSac which is Dallas Seminary\u2019s scholarly journal say, of the parable of the householder: \u201cThe parable of the householder in verse 52 is the concluding parable, in which Jesus was saying that the disciples were responsible to teach these new truths\u201d in other words those truths found in Matthew 13, \u201cas well as the old truths of the Old Testament.\u201d\u00a0 [Stanley D. Toussaint and Jay A. Quine, \u201cNo, Not Yet: The Contingency of God\u2019s Promised Kingdom,\u201d Bibliotheca Sacra<\/em> 164 (April\u2013June 2007): 139.]\n\nSo the guy in this final parable comes out of his house, he\u2019s got old treasure and he\u2019s got new and [can't understand word] both.\u00a0 So we are to understand the kingdom program in its totality.\u00a0 We\u2019re not just to understand what the kingdom is going to be like one day.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve studied an awful lot of that, haven\u2019t we?\u00a0 We primarily get that information from the Old Testament, and as wonderful as having that information is we\u2019re actually to go a step further and understand Matthew 13 which is a description not of the kingdom\u2019s establishment; we already have that data in the Old Testament, the description of what the sons of the kingdom (that would be us) or the heirs of the kingdom will experience before the kingdom comes.\u00a0 So understand Old Testament and understand Matthew 13 and then you\u2019ll understand everything that God has to say about this important subject of the kingdom.\u00a0 So eight parables, and you put them all together and they reveal the course of the present age in Matthew 13 before the kingdom comes.\u00a0 Now here is kind of a summation of all eight parables.\u00a0 And here we go!\n\nNumber 1, the current age is not the kingdom.\u00a0 Do you agree with that?\u00a0 I mean, do you see world peace breaking out and things like that?\u00a0 No!\u00a0 Do you see Satan bound?\u00a0 No!\u00a0 We\u2019re to put on the full armor of God; that command makes no sense if Satan is bound today.\u00a0 This age is not the age of the kingdom, it\u2019s an age of counterfeit sowing, that\u2019s the devil\u2019s sowing, planting seeds, and satanic activity.\u00a0 It\u2019s an age where outer hindrances that many times are satanically inspired hinder the spiritual life of the child of God and we discovered that back in Matthew 13:20-22 in the parable of the soils, didn\u2019t we.\u00a0 It says, \u201cThe one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;\u201d\u00a0 but what happens?\u00a0 [21] \u201cyet he has no firm<\/em> root in himself, but is only<\/em> temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises\u201d do you notice that?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t say \u201cif affliction and persecution arise, it says \u201cwhen affliction and persecution arise\u2026\u201d\n\nSee, when we go through a trial as a Christian we\u2019re so shocked, oh my gosh, how could God allow this to happen?\u00a0 Well, if I\u2019m understanding the parable of the soils correctly, tribulation and affliction is normal... are you with me on this? \u2026normal for the child of God in the present age.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the Apostle Peter, I think it\u2019s over in 1 Peter 5 if memory serves me, he says don\u2019t look at your trials as if some strange thing were happening to you, it\u2019s not strange at all; it\u2019s normal for the kingdom heir in the present age to experience\u00a0 persecution and affliction from the outside.\n\n\u201cThe one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;\u201d\u00a0 [21] \u201cyet he has no firm<\/em> root in himself, but is only<\/em> temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.\u201d\u00a0 See, it\u2019s outer pressure on the kingdom era,\u00a0 Verse 22, \u201cAnd the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world\u2026\u201d anybody in here worried about the world?\u00a0 Is your mind filled with worldly concerns, what\u2019s going to happen if North Korea or Iran launches a nuclear bomb; what\u2019s going to happen to the stock market, what\u2019s going to happen to the price of gold, what\u2019s going to happen to my 401Kk plan, which probably now is about a 201Kk plan.\u00a0 How am I going to afford to put my kids through college.\u00a0 What about inflation?\u00a0 I mean, these are all things that preoccupy us.\n\nIt says, \u201cAnd the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.\u201d\u00a0 See what he\u2019s describing is in the present age there are these outer hindrances that come into the life of the kingdom era.\n\nNumber four, he is explaining that there will be, throughout this age, a general hardness to the gospel.\u00a0 I would love it if every person I share the gospel with got saved.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve shared the gospel with countless people, even people in my own extended family and it\u2019s almost like you\u2019re talking to someone that\u2019s deaf and can\u2019t understand what you\u2019re saying.\u00a0 And we\u2019re sort of startled by that but Jesus made it very clear that the gospel is only going to be fruitful on one of four soils.\u00a0 It says in verse 23, \u201cAnd the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.\u201d\u00a0 Now a hundred, sixty, thirty, are those numbers going up or are they going down?\u00a0 They\u2019re going down.\n\nSo what he\u2019s talking about here is we\u2019re in an age of time where the gospel is not going to be received by most people, and even those people that receive it, their lives, many times, are so unconsecrated to God, they\u2019re not reading the Bible, they\u2019re not in prayer, they\u2019re not in fellowship with fellow believers, that the spiritual fruit that God wants to bring forth in their lives is short-circuited.\u00a0 There\u2019s an awful lot of people out there that I believe are saved and on their way to heaven but they\u2019re just not bearing the fruit that God would have them to bear.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Because of the outer hindrances in this age and the general hardness to the gospel.\u00a0 And this age,\u00a0\u00a0 as Jesus has carefully explained in the fishnet and the wheat and the tares is going to be an age where there\u2019s going to be a coexistence of good and evil.\u00a0 This age is also a time where God\u2019s program starts off with purity, we see that purity in the Upper Room, we see that purity in the 3,000 that got saved on the day of Pentecost.\u00a0 And yet as Christianity has spread out all over the earth in the last 2,000 years, what basically has happened to Christianity?\u00a0 It\u2019s become very, very worldly.\n\nAnd that\u2019s what Jesus is revealing in the mustard seed parable, where the herb grows into a tree; herbs and trees, as we have explained, are different species.\u00a0 So Christianity starts off pure but it morphs into something that God never intended.\u00a0 And\u00a0 you all watch Christian TV don\u2019t you?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t that bother you that people are on those Christian TV stations representing Christ and yet you know, just based on your knowledge of the Bible that the things coming out of their mouths have absolutely nothing to do with what the Bible says.\u00a0 They talk about a gospel of getting rich or whatnot and we\u2019re so shocked to see this happen, we\u2019re so shocked to see churches become liberal and seminaries become liberal, and we\u2019re shocked that certain preachers, in order to get people in the door never mention sin, they never mention hell, they never mention the exclusivity of Christ and yet their churches are packed out every week.\u00a0 And we\u2019re stunned at that, BUT why should we be shocked when we understand what Jesus is saying here, that Christianity is going to start pure and morph into something that God never intended?\n\nAnd it will also be an age in which Christendom will be gradually internally corrupted.\u00a0 Now you might be saying well, do you have any good news for us, this sounds very negative.\u00a0 The good news is through it all God is still working, because what do you have?\u00a0 At least on one soil there\u2019s fruit.\u00a0 Not that fruit wouldn\u2019t be there unless God was at work.\u00a0 And you now only have tares but you also have wheat.\u00a0 Who sowed the tares?\u00a0 The devil.\u00a0 Who sowed the wheat?\u00a0 The Son of Man, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 So clearly in that parable God is at work.\u00a0 And God is also at work because through His death on the cross He paid for the sin debt of the nation of Israel, although they haven\u2019t received it\u00a0 yet, by faith, the majority nationally, at least their sin debt is paid for.\n\nAnd we know that God is at work because He is also gaining in the pearl of great price a treasure from amongst the who?\u00a0 The Gentiles, which would be me, which would be you, and it would be every Gentile that has trusted in the Messiah that national Israel rejected.\u00a0 So don\u2019t get too depressed about it.\u00a0\u00a0 God is still doing things but certainly not the kingdom.\u00a0 He\u2019s not describing kingdom conditions at all.\n\nAnd where is Israel during this time period?\u00a0 Matthew 13:44, she\u2019s hidden.\u00a0 [Matthew 13:44, \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again;<\/em> and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.\u201d]\u00a0 So she will remain in unbelief and really will not experience regeneration, salvation, until really the end of the tribulation period.\u00a0\u00a0 And it\u2019s going to take really the monumental events of the tribulation period to shake Israel of her false security so that she will trust in her Messiah.\u00a0 And if Israel is in unbelief during this age and the manifestation of the kingdom, as we have studied very carefully, is connected to the obedience of Israel, can the kingdom be present in this age.\u00a0 It\u2019s impossible.\u00a0 See that.\n\nSo anyway, these nine things, the current age is not the kingdom, it\u2019s an age of counterfeit sowing and satanic activity, it\u2019s an age of outer hindrances, it\u2019s an age of hardness to the gospel, it\u2019s an ate of the co-existence of good and evil, it\u2019s an age where Christendom becomes worldly and internally corrupted.\u00a0 It\u2019s an age where God is a work and Israel is hidden.\u00a0 Those nine points sort of summarize everything that Jesus has been trying to teach here in Matthew 13.\u00a0 And if you give yourself to a hard study of Matthew 13 you won\u2019t walk about in this world with unrealistic expectations of what God said he would do.\u00a0 I mean, praise the Lord that anybody gets saved.\u00a0 Sometimes we think gosh, we\u2019re going to just win the whole world to Christ and I think we ought to try, but we ought to be realistic about it as well, based on the parables Jesus has revealed here.\n\nNow I\u2019ve got about 13 minutes left before we open it up for questions.\u00a0 I want to deal with one quick thing here at the end and some of you have asked me about this and it has to do with why Matthew 13 does not teach a mystery form of the kingdom?\u00a0 Many, many people will tell you that the kingdom is here in some kind of mystery form.\u00a0 And a lot of very good people will teach this; my professor, J. Dwight Pentecost, who I agree with on 99.99% of issues, taught this doctrine.\u00a0 And let me give you four quick reasons why the mystery form of the kingdom is not being revealed here in Matthew 13.\n\nThe first reason is that the phrase, \u201cmystery form of the kingdom\u201d is never used in Matthew 13.\u00a0\u00a0 As we\u2019ve gone through Matthew 13 has anybody been able to locate the phrase \u201cmystery form of the kingdom\u201d?\u00a0 It\u2019s not there!\u00a0 What is used is Matthew 13:11 which says, \u201c\u201co you it has been granted to know the\u201d what? \u201cmysteries of the kingdom of heaven, [but to them it has not been granted.]\u201d\u00a0 What is a mystery?\u00a0 It\u2019s a new truth.\u00a0 Vine puts it this way: \u201cIn the N.T, it [myst\u0113rion<\/em>] denotes, not the mysterious (as with the Eng. word), but that which, being outside the range of unassisted natural apprehension, can be made known only by Divine revelation, and is made known in a manner and at a time appointed by God, and to those who are illumined by His Spirit.\u201d\u00a0 [W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger, and William White, Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words<\/em> (Nashville: Nelson, 1996), 424.]\n\nMystery is a new truth, that\u2019s all it is.\u00a0 And what Jesus is revealing here is new truths about the kingdom.\u00a0 What are the new truths?\u00a0 It\u2019s what the kingdom heirs will experience on the earth before the kingdom comes.\u00a0 That\u2019s the new truth.\u00a0 It in no way teaches a present spiritual mystery form of the kingdom, as many people argue.\u00a0 We know that mystery here means a brand new truth because Jesus says \u201cmany prophets and righteous men desire to see what you see, and did not see it and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it<\/em>.\u201d[Matthew 13:17b]\n\nHe says later on, verse 35, \u201cI will utter things hidden since the foundation of the world.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 What\u2019s hidden?\u00a0 Not the concept of the kingdom but what the kingdom heirs will experience before the kingdom comes, because if you\u2019re a believer in Jesus Christ your birthright is you are a citizen of that coming kingdom, you\u2019re going to enter it.\u00a0 But there\u2019s going to be some difficulty before that happens.\u00a0 That\u2019s the new truth.\u00a0 It\u2019s sort of like what Paul said in the Book of Acts when he went on his first missionary journey.\u00a0 He said through many, what? trials we enter the kingdom of God.\u00a0 But we will enter the kingdom of God as Christians, that\u2019s part of our birthright, but before we enter it what can we experience and expect?\u00a0 Not a few trials but many trials.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll find that in Acts 14:22.\u00a0 [Acts 14:22, \u201c\u2026\u201dThrough many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.\u201d]\u00a0 That\u2019s the mystery.\u00a0 Do you follow that?\u00a0 It\u2019s not saying here\u2019s a mystical form of the kingdom that\u2019s present on the earth today.\u00a0 Arthur Pink, I won\u2019t read that whole quote, defines mystery the same way.\n\n[The eleventh verse of Matthew 13 supplies yet another key, in the word \u201cmysteries<\/em> of the kingdom of heaven.\u201d In Scripture the term \u201cmystery\u201d signifies a Divine secret<\/em> made known by the Holy Spirit. This is confirmed by what is told us in verse 35, namely, that Christ was here uttering \u201cthings which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.\u201d Thus, in these parables, Christ was making known that which was outside<\/em> the scope of O.\u00a0T. prediction, something which God had not<\/em> made known to Israel through the prophets. This needs to be carefully noted, for it refutes the popular interpretation of these parables.\u201d\u00a0 A. W. Pink (2005). The Prophetic Parables of Matthew Thirteen<\/em>. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software]\n\nSo what Jesus is revealing is the experiences of the kingdom\u2019s sons.\u00a0 Jesus refers to us as the sons of the kingdom.\u00a0 Now what did he Apostle Paul say?\u00a0 Galatians 4:7, \u201cif a son then an heir.\u201d\u00a0 So we are heirs of the kingdom, we\u2019re going to enter the kingdom, but before we enter the kingdom there\u2019s going to be a lot of tribulation.\u00a0 That\u2019s what he\u2019s revealing here.\u00a0 That\u2019s the new truth.\n\nSo Dr. Toussaint, who I think has it right, says this:\u00a0 \u201cthe former\u201d that would be the wheat, \u201cthe former the former are sons of the kingdom\u201d watch this very carefully because here\u2019s where the confusion is, \u201cnot in the sense that the kingdom is present but in the sense that as believers they will inherit the millennial kingdom.\u201d\u00a0 The mystery or the new truth is what we experience before we actually enter that millennial kingdom.\n\nBeyond that, to argue for a mystery form of the kingdom is to take the word \u201ckingdom\u201d as used in Matthew\u2019s Gospel and be inconsistent with it.\u00a0 As you study that word \u201ckingdom\u201d throughout Matthew\u2019s Gospel, the Greek word is basilea,<\/em>\u00a0 You ask someone well, what does it mean in Matthew 3:2, \u201cRepent for the kingdom of God is at hand.\u201d\u00a0 People say oh, that\u2019s the millennial kingdom.\n\nWell, what does it mean in Matthew 4:17, \u201crepent for the kingdom of God is at hand.\u201d\u00a0 Oh, that\u2019s the millennium.\u00a0 Well what did Jesus mean in the so-called Lord\u2019s prayer when He said we ought to pray \u201cThy kingdom come,\u201d what are we praying for?\u00a0 For the millennial kingdom of course.\n\nHow is it used in Matthew 8:11, that\u2019s the millennial kingdom.\u00a0 [Matthew 8:11, \u201cI say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven;\u201d]\u00a0 Well, how is it used when Jesus sent out the twelve to preach the kingdom.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s the millennial kingdom.\n\nOkay, well then what does it mean in Matthew 13:11, oh, that\u2019s different, that\u2019s a spiritual form of the kingdom. That\u2019s a mystical form of the kingdom. [Matthew 13:11, \u201cJesus answered them, \"To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.\u201d]\n\nOkay, then what does it mean in Matthew 24:14, where the gospel of the kingdom goes out to the ends of the earth in the tribulation period.\u00a0 [Matthew 24:14, \u201cThis gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.\u201d]\u00a0 Oh, that\u2019s the millennial kingdom.\n\nWell, what does it mean in Matthew 25:1, Matthew 25:34, where Jesus talks about people entering His kingdom.\u00a0 Oh, that\u2019s the millennial kingdom.\u00a0 [Matthew 25:1, \u201cThen the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.\u201d\u00a0 Matthew 25:34, \u201cThen the King will say to those on His right, \u2018Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.\u201d]\n\nWell, what does it mean in Matthew 26:29, where Jesus says you will be eating and drinking with me in My kingdom.\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s the millennial kingdom.\u00a0 [Matthew 26:29, \u201cBut I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father\u2019s kingdom.\u201d]\n\nOkay, so let me get this straight: every use if basilea<\/em> in Matthew\u2019s Gospel is referring to the earthly, physical millennial kingdom but the one exception is Matthew 13:11?\u00a0 I mean, come on folks, I was born in the morning but it wasn\u2019t yesterday morning.\u00a0 You can\u2019t interpret every single reference as the millennial kingdom throughout all of Matthew\u2019s Gospel and then get to Matthew 13:11 and make another rule out of it.\u00a0 But that\u2019s the way you have to go to argue that we are presently in a spiritual form of the kingdom based on Matthew 13.\n\nIt\u2019s also a misunderstanding of the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 You recall that we studied the times of the Gentiles, when was it, last spring;\u00a0 that\u2019s what the giant statue of Daniel 2 is about.\u00a0 What is the times of the Gentiles?\u00a0 The times of the Gentiles is the period of time in between the nation of Israel being deposed from its homeland by Nebuchadnezzar by Babylon, that started in 586 B.C. and what ends the times of the Gentiles?\u00a0 Jesus Christ coming back, that\u2019s the stone cut without human hands that shatters the feet of the statue and destroys the antichrist\u2019s kingdom; then that statue grows and grows and grows and grows until it fills the whole earth.\u00a0 That\u2019s the end of the times of the Gentiles.\n\nSo what\u2019s happening in between?\u00a0 These different body parts of the statue: head of gold, Babylon ruling; chest and arms of silver, Medo-Persia ruling; belly and thighs of bronze, Greece ruling; legs of iron, Rome ruling; feet of iron and clay, the antichrist\u2019s empire (yet future) ruling.\u00a0 And so in this vision called the times of the Gentiles it\u2019s very, very clear that there would not exist on planet earth any form of the kingdom.\u00a0 The kingdom itself will not manifest itself until that stone cut without human hands destroys the feet of the statue.\u00a0 You see that?\n\nSo what this is revealing is until that happens don\u2019t expect the Davidic kingdom, don\u2019t expect the millennial kingdom, don\u2019t expect a spiritual form of the Davidic kingdom, don\u2019t expect a mystery form of the kingdom, you\u2019re not going to have it.\u00a0 And to interpret Matthew 13 as if we\u2019re in some kind of spiritual form of the kingdom is to directly contradict that statue.\u00a0 So the whole idea would contradict the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 That\u2019s why Merrill Unger writes: \u201cHow futile for conservative scholars to ignore that fact and to seek to find literal fulfillment of those prophecies in history or in the church, when those predictions refer to events yet future and have no application whatever to the church.\u201d\u00a0 [Unger's Commentary on the Old Testament<\/em> (Chicago: Moody, 1981; reprint, Chattanooga, TN: AMG, 2002), 1643.]\n\nHow did Jesus teach us to pray?\u00a0 \u201cThy kingdom\u201d what? \u201ccome.\u201d\u00a0 Does that prayer make any sense if we\u2019re already in the kingdom.\u00a0 Why would you pray for something to come if you\u2019re already in it?\u00a0 What we\u2019re praying for is the earthly kingdom to come that\u2019s going to shatter the antichrist\u2019s empire at the end of the times of the Gentiles.\u00a0 And until that time period arrives don\u2019t expect the kingdom to manifest itself.\u00a0 So when folks try to argue for a spiritual form of the kingdom now, based on Matthew 13, is to contradict what Daniel revealed back in the sixth century concerning the times of the Gentiles.\n\nAnd then finally, number four and with this I\u2019m finished.\u00a0 How did this mystery form of the kingdom start?\u00a0 The guy who brought it into our circles is a man that I love like a father, he probably taught me more about theology than anybody living; he has since died so he\u2019s with the Lord, but when I was in the classroom at Dallas Seminary he taught us the origin of this mystery form of the kingdom idea.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how it started.\u00a0 Dr. Pentecost in Philadelphia was pastoring a church and in his evening study one of the great \u201ckingdom now\u201d theologians, a guy named Oswald T. Allis, would come in and listen to Dr. Pentecost teach.\u00a0 And then before Dr. Pentecost could end the study and give a proper greeting to him\u00a0 this guy would run out the door.\u00a0 And this happened over and over again.\u00a0 Finally Dr. Pentecost caught up to him and said why do you keep coming to my class when you don\u2019t agree with anything I have to say.\u00a0 And Allis said I wanted to see how you guys (dispensationalists) tie the whole Bible together and what I\u2019ve been able to understand is you have no unifying theme to the Bible.\n\nNow I do think we have a unifying theme to the Bible, it\u2019s the glory of God.\u00a0 But Pentecost, and this is what he told us in class, made him so angry to hear that from a theological opponent that he (watch this very carefully) he set out to prove\u2026 he set out to PROVE that the kingdom is the unifying theme of the Bible.\u00a0 Therefore he got to Matthew 13 and he tried to argue that the kingdom is present.\u00a0 Now where did he come up with this idea?\u00a0 He didn\u2019t come up with it through careful exegesis of the biblical text (which is what we\u2019ve been doing in this class); he came up with it because he was trying to throw a bone to the other side of the ledger, the other side of the equation.\u00a0\u00a0 And I think even a man as skilled in the Bible as Dr. Pentecost, with that agenda\u2026 do you realize how dangerous it is to come to the Bible with your own agenda?\u00a0 You talk to anybody in forensics or criminal investigations that\u2019s really good at what they do and what they\u2019ll tell you is they do not try, when a crime has occurred they don\u2019t try to come up with a theory for the case, in other words figure out who the bad guy is before all the evidence comes in.\u00a0 The danger is once you come up with your theory of who you think the bad guy is what are you going to try to do?\u00a0 Make the data fit your theory.\u00a0 So you try to remain as objective as you possibly can until the evidence clearly points to somebody and they become the accused, or later the convicted at that point.\n\nSo it is a very dangerous game to say I have an agenda and I\u2019m going to come to the Bible and make it fit.\u00a0 And we\u2019re all prone to this given our sinfulness and as much as I admire and respect J. Dwight Pentecost I believe that\u2019s what he tried to do.\u00a0 He was so upset over what Oswald T. Allis was saying that he came to the Bible and tried to find the kingdom all the way through the Bible, even to the point of interpreting the word kingdom in Matthew 13:11 differently than how the word is used everywhere else.\n\nSo at that point Dr. Pentecost is not doing exegesis.\u00a0 What\u2019s exegesis?\u00a0 Drawing out from the text what is there.\u00a0 He\u2019s doing eisegesis, reading into the text what is not there.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the origin of this mystery form of the kingdom.\u00a0 And Dr. Pentecost, because of his prominence convinced countless people that this mystery form of the kingdom was there.\u00a0 Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who I like also, teaches the mystery form of the kingdom.\u00a0 I myself, sitting in Dr. Pentecost\u2019s class, believed in a mystery form of the kingdom and it really wasn\u2019t until Thomas Ice, in a private conversation with him, and then Dr. Toussaint in classes I had with him straightened me out on the whole subject.\u00a0 Had I not been straightened out by those two individuals I\u2019d be sitting here today teaching a mystery form of the kingdom based on Matthew 13.\n\nNow progressive dispensationalists, Darrell Bock and his group, currently at Dallas seminary, who teaches that Jesus is now reigning on David\u2019s throne, all they did is take the advances of J. Dwight Pentecost and build on them.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0\u00a0 The next generation always outdoes what the former generation handed them.\u00a0 So because of this conversation that Pentecost had with Oswald T. Alyce he started to see a mystery form of the kingdom in Matthew 13 that frankly is not there, and now the next group has come along and built on that foundation and now they\u2019re arguing that the kingdom is here, not just in mystery form but in Davidic form, and Jesus is reigning on David\u2019s throne.\u00a0 If you send\u00a0 you sons and daughters to Dallas Seminary they\u2019re going to teach you that carte blanche<\/em>.\u00a0 And the whole concept is a myth; we\u2019re not in the kingdom, there is no spiritual form of the kingdom currently, the kingdom is yet future so the mystery form of the kingdom is eisegesis, reading into the text what\u2019s not there rather than exegesis, drawing out of the text what is there.\n\nAnd I use names like Arnold Fruchtenbaum and J. Dwight Pentecost to illustrate that even good people can do it and if good people can do it and they\u2019re at a much higher caliber than I am at then I could do it too, couldn\u2019t I?\u00a0 So I have to really watch myself carefully to make sure I\u2019m not saying things that I want the Bible to say.\u00a0 I need to be saying what the Bible actually says and adjust my view accordingly.\n\nSo the mystery form of the kingdom is not used.\u00a0 You have to hold inconsistently to the use of the word kingdom.\u00a0 You have to ignore the times of the Gentiles concept.\u00a0 And you have to move into eisegesis rather than exegesis.\u00a0 I went a little long but can you bear with me for just a moment.\u00a0 I just want to show you that I\u2019m not totally crazy.\u00a0 Toussaint writes: \u201c\u201cIt is often alleged that the Lord predicted a form of the kingdom for the Church age in His parables, particularly those in Matthew 13. For many years dispensationalists have referred to these parables as teaching a mystery form or a new form of the kingdom...\u00a0 However, nowhere in Matthew 13 or anywhere does the Lord Jesus use the term mystery form. Rather, He refers to the \u2018mysteries of the kingdom of heaven\u2019 (v. 11); that is, the Lord in these parables is giving to His disciples new truths about the kingdom that were hitherto unknown. It is strange .that so many dispensationalists claim a new form of the kingdom is introduced in Matthew 13. Dispensationalists argue strenuously for a literal, earthly kingdom that is the fulfillment of the Old Testament when John, Jesus, and His disciples announced its nearness. Then suddenly these dispensationalists change the meaning in Matthew 13.\u201d\u00a0 [Israel and the Church of a Traditional Dispensationalist,\" in Three Central Issues in Contemporary Dispensationalism<\/em>, ed. Herbert W. Bateman(Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), 237.]\n\nAlva J. McLain, my last quote.\u00a0 Alva J. McLain, in his classic book, The Greatness of the Kingdom, <\/em>says, \u00a0\u201cThe fiction of a present \u2018kingdom of heaven\u2019 established on earth in the Church, has been lent some support by an incautious terminology sometimes used in defining the \u2018mysteries of the kingdom of heaven\u2019 (Matt. 13:11). The parables of this chapter, it is said carelessly by some, describe the kingdom of heaven as now existing in \u2018mystery form\u2019 during the Church age. Now it is true that these parables present certain conditions related to the Kingdom which are contemporaneous with the present age. But nowhere in Matthew 13 is the establishment of the Kingdom placed within this age. On the contrary, in two of these parables\u201d which we\u2019ve studied tonight, the parable of the wheat and the tares and the dragnet, \u201con the contrary in two of these parables the setting up of the Kingdom is definitely placed at the end of the \u2018age\u2019 (vss. 39 and 49 ASV, with 41-43).\u201d\u00a0 [The Greatness of the Kingdom<\/em> (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959), 440-41.]\n\nSo all of that takes us to the end of Matthew 13.\u00a0 Matthew 13 is not talking about a present form of the kingdom; it\u2019s talking about conditions that will prevail upon the earth where the kingdom\u2019s [can't understand word] while the kingdom remains in postponement.\u00a0 And next time we\u2019re together we\u2019re going to continue with the interadvent age but now focusing on the church age, the body of Christ, because a lot of people out there are trying to argue that the body of Christ is the kingdom and I\u2019m going to try to show you that the body of Christ is a wonderful thing, I wouldn\u2019t trade it for anything, but it\u2019s not the long awaited kingdom.\u00a0 I apologize for going long tonight, we will stop at this point.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t