WHERE IS THE KINGDOM?
ONE of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible is Luke 17:21. This is another example of the mistranslations found in our well loved King James version. As found in the King James version, Luke 11:20-21 reads as follows:
”And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, When the Kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say Lo, here, or Lo, there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
This has led many people to consider the phrase “the kingdom of God” to be a false and misleading term, referring not to a kingdom at all, but just to a mere state of mind. In this, they are greatly mistaken.
In the first place, the Greek word translated “within” is “entos” which really means among or “in the midst of”. This same word is correctly translated “among” 115 times in the King James Version. For example, John 1:26:
”John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not.”
Here is the same Greek word: certainly no intelligent man could have said to the people standing around John the Baptist, “There is a person standing inside of you, Whom you know not”, so it was correctly translated “among you”.
Actually, the correct translation of the Greek in Luke 17:21 is this:
”Nor will they say Lo, here! or Lo there! for the majesty of God is in the midst of you.” (Diaglott)
Correctly translated, it makes sense and is literally true; as it has been mistranslated, it is false and misleading.
Consider for a moment who it was that asked Jesus, “When shall the Kingdom of God come?” They were the Pharisees. Would Jesus Christ have told these Pharisees that the Kingdom of God was within them, in their hearts? Let’s see what He really knew and said about them: In the 23rd chapter of Matthew, Jesus Christ is talking directly to the Pharisees, and eight different times He denounces them:
“Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”
Are these the people who have the Kingdom of God in their hearts? In the 13th verse, He tells them,
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.”
In the 28th verse, He tells them what is in their hearts:
”Evenso, ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”
Is this the Kingdom of God? No; and it never will be ”within them”.
Then where is the Kingdom of God? Is it a real kingdom:-not a rarified shadow of a shadow, up on “Cloud Nine”. The Bible tell us what it is and where it is.
Naturally, the throne of God is in His Kingdom; where is that: King David and King Solomon sat on earthly thrones, and the Bible tells us that this was the throne of God. I Chronicles 28:5
“… the Lord hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord as King, instead of David his father “
Do you think that God will never occupy that throne? Then listen to Isaiah 9:6-7, speaking of Jesus Christ:
”For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David,”
and Luke 1:32:33, again speaking of Jesus Christ, says,
”He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord shall give to him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever: and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”
This confirms Jeremiah 3:17, which says:
“And at that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord.”
You may say, What of John 18:36, where Jesus Christ tells Pontius Pilate,
“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.”
Jesus was speaking to a Roman who represented the fourth and last of the Babylonian Order of Empires which God prophesied in the second chapter of Daniel. God gave these empires a charter to rule of 2,520 years, of which seventeen centuries were yet to come when Jesus spoke. Certainly Jesus’ Kingdom was not of this order. The Greek word wrongly translated “world” is “Kosmos”, meaning “order” or “system”. So Jesus told Pilate:
“My kingdom is not of this order: If my kingdom were of this system, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.”
This did not mean that His kingdom was merely a state of mind: It meant that He always keeps His word. Having promised the Babylonian Order of Empires 2,520 years to rule, He would not overthrow them before the appointed time.
The people knew that the time for the coming of the Messiah was at hand; but they didn’t understand that His first coming was to be as Saviour and Redeemer. They were expecting Him to come as King. Mark 11: 9-10 says that when Jesus came to Jerusalem just before the crucifixion, the people greeted Him as King:
”And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying Hosannah; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
And after His resurrection, the apostles asked Him:
“Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?”
They knew that this was God’s Kingdom though their expectation was premature. Jesus told His Disciples, in the 24th chapter of Matthew and the 21st chapter of Luke, of the signs of the end of the age and of His second coming, as King of kings, concluding with these words in Luke 21:31:
”So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand.”
This couldn’t possibly refer to a mere state of mind, for in that case the prophesied signs would have nothing to do with it, as some would have had this state of mind many centuries earlier, while to others It would never come. Neither can it be “spiritualized away” and transferred to some church – for Jesus Christ Himself told the chief priests, who were then ruling In Jerusalem
“The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” Matthew 21:43
When Jesus first came, the church of His day would not receive Him as Saviour; they rejected Him because He didn’t then come as king. When He comes the second time, the churches of our day will again reject Him because they will only accept Him as Saviour, but not as a real and literal King. Yet in spite of them He will return to reign over a real and tangible Kingdom. It is here on this earth. In Daniel 2:44, 7:18 and 7:27, we are promised:
“And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever. And the kingdom and dominion and greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.”
Who are “the saints of the Most High” who shall rule with God in His kingdom? Are they various people who have been selected by some church for special honor because of some act of piety? No, indeed! The Bible tells us who ALL of God’s saints are – note that: not just some of them, but ALL of them. It is in Psalm 148:14 which says:
“He also exalteth the horn of His people, the praise of ALL HIS SAINTS, even of THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, a people near unto Him.”
This is the same Kingdom of Israel where God’s throne has always been; and this throne exists to this day in ENGLAND, where the genealogy of the BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY PROVES THEIR DIRECT DESCENT FROM KING DAVID, just as prophecy had foretold. It is the same Israel, known today as the Anglo-Saxon group of nations, including the United States, the white parts of the British Empire, Germany, Holland and the Scandinavian nations. All parts of the Bible, when correctly translated, are consistent; and they all prove that God always keeps His word. His promises to Abraham Isaac and Israel, that their descendants would be “a great nation and a company of nations”, and that He would never forsake them, have been kept. We Aryans, the Israel of the Bible, are the living proof of this.
Oh England, my England, what has become of you?
No longer now the country that once so many knew.
Over 60 years ago we sang of lasting peace –
We’d create a better world, hostilities would cease.
We truly thought we fought to make a better place,
To erase discrimination from the human race.
But looking around today I have to face the truth,
That it was all for nothing that we sacrificed our youth.
The society we live in now has spiraled so far down,
With drunken, drug-filled youngsters rampaging through the town.
We cannot walk in safety down many of our streets,
Gone are the days of bobbies pounding their beats.
Children who cannot read or write; a penniless NHS
Pensions and mortgage scandals, we sure are in a mess,
Gas and water shortages yet prices simply soar
Councils cut our services yet demand more cash galore
To help illegal immigrants and provide for teen-age mothers.
Moral standards have declined, like so many others.
We ex-service generation just cannot understand
How nothing has worked out the way that we had planned.
Now we’ve grown old and helpless it seems quite indefensible
The ones who made the sacrifice are deemed to be dispensable.
Strict discipline is what we need, at home and in our schools,
Harsh punishment and public shame to those who break the rules.
Jimmy may sleep now in his bed, but puppets we’ve become
Expected to be subservient to the march of the E.U. drum!
