Your Kingdom Come … on earth … Are we really ready?

Your Kingdom come.  We pray for God’s Kingdom to come. Do we realize the full implication of these words?  And do we live like it?

^{Mt 6:10} thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.

We want earth to be like God’s Kingdom.  Of course.  Do we really?

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Your Kingdom Come ... on earth ... Are we really ready? is article #5 in the series: The Lord's Prayer. Click button to view titles for entire series

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In this post, we’ll look specifically at part of Matthew 6:10.  God’s will is going to be discussed in Part 5.  For now, we’ll just look at praying for God’s Kingdom to be on earth.

So now – given the words of Verse 10,
what about these words from Jesus?

The Great Commission

Mt 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

These verses are from what’s known as The Great Commission.  Jesus’ words to the remaining eleven disciples after His death and resurrection.  Words also intended for us today.

And what do these verses have to do with each other?

The New Jerusalem

These words are from John – in the Book or Revelation.

This – what we read in Revelation – is when God’s Kingdom will come to earth.
After the tribulation.
After all the Seals – including one that was so bad that we read –

The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer

Rev 8:1 When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.

Rev 8:2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.

Rev 8:3 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. 4 The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

and the Trumpets –

The Trumpets

Rev 8:6 Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.

Rev 8:7 The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

Rev 8:8 The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, 9 a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

Rev 8:10 The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— 11 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

Rev 8:12 The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.

Rev 8:13 As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: “Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!”

Rev 9:1 The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss. 2 When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3 And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6 During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.

Rev 9:7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. 8 Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. 10 They had tails and stings like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months. 11 They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.

Rev 9:12 The first woe is past; two other woes are yet to come.

Rev 9:13 The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns of the golden altar that is before God. 14 It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of the mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.

Rev 9:17 The horses and riders I saw in my vision looked like this: Their breastplates were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow as sulfur. The heads of the horses resembled the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and sulfur. 18 A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulfur that came out of their mouths. 19 The power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails were like snakes, having heads with which they inflict injury.

Rev 9:20 The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

and The Plagues –

Seven Angels With Seven Plagues

Rev 15:1 I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. 2 And I saw what looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and over the number of his name. They held harps given them by God 3 and sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb:
“Great and marvelous are your deeds,
Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways,
King of the ages.

Rev 15:4 Who will not fear you, O Lord,
and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Rev 15:5 After this I looked and in heaven the temple, that is, the tabernacle of the Testimony, was opened. 6 Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues. They were dressed in clean, shining linen and wore golden sashes around their chests. 7 Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever. 8 And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.

with the Bowls of God’s wrath – which ends with these two –

The Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath

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Rev 16:12 The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East. 13 Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 14 They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.

Rev 16:15 “Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed.”

Rev 16:16 Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

Rev 16:17 The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, “It is done!” 18 Then there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder and a severe earthquake. No earthquake like it has ever occurred since man has been on earth, so tremendous was the quake. 19 The great city split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. God remembered Babylon the Great and gave her the cup filled with the wine of the fury of his wrath. 20 Every island fled away and the mountains could not be found. 21 From the sky huge hailstones of about a hundred pounds each fell upon men. And they cursed God on account of the plague of hail, because the plague was so terrible.

Sounds bad, right?

So now – do you realize that when you pray for

you are praying for all these things to happen before God’s Kingdom can/will come to earth?

Some people (maybe even many people?) think that peace can come to the earth now – as long as we have good negotiators in the middle east – and other parts of the world as well.  But there’s nothing in the Bible to indicate that there will be “peace” on earth before the event below, which we read about in Daniel 8, where the Angel Gabriel explains the meaning of a vision given to King Belshazzar –

The Interpretation of the Vision

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Da 8:19 He said: “I am going to tell you what will happen later in the time of wrath, because the vision concerns the appointed time of the end. 20 The two-horned ram that you saw represents the kings of Media and Persia. 21 The shaggy goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes is the first king. 22 The four horns that replaced the one that was broken off represent four kingdoms that will emerge from his nation but will not have the same power.

Da 8:23 “In the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a stern-faced king, a master of intrigue, will arise. 24 He will become very strong, but not by his own power. He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy the mighty men and the holy people. 25 He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior. When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes. Yet he will be destroyed, but not by human power.

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Let’s look at that last verse from the NIRV –

So the NIV says “when they feel secure” in verse 25.
The NIRV says “When people feel safe” in that same verse.

Going back to the original Hebrew, one sees that those entire phrases are actually one word –

7962 שַׁלְוָה [shalvah /shal·vaw/] n f. From 7951; TWOT 2392d; GK 8932; Eight occurrences; AV translates as “prosperity” three times, “peaceably” twice, “quietness” once, “abundance” once, and “peace” once. 1 quietness, ease, prosperity. Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.

Whether it’s actually peace, prosperity, quietness or abundance may not really matter.  People today somehow look at all the turbulence in the world and think all of it can be solved by providing jobs – even to people with the most extreme religious or political views.  Jobs will lead to abundance and prosperity – and peace will somehow be the result.

And so we have had political leaders all trying to negotiate peace all around the world – with the almost “holy grail” location being the middle east.  Get peace there – and everything will be good.

I submit – get peace there – and we’re one more step closer to being in the Daniel 8 scenario.

Ironically, those who are doing this to achieve world peace are, in a fashion, setting up the likelihood of exactly that.  But if anything, it would be the false “shalvah” from Daniel 8.  And if God deems that the time has come, the Revelation scenarios will indeed come – and the real peace will be forthcoming after that.  After all the other things described above.

So what does it mean?

I’d say – when we pray for God’s Kingdom to come to earth, we should also be preparing for that very event.

We don’t know when it’ll happen.  It could be before I even finish writing this.  It could be right after you read it.  It could be years from now.  Or longer.  We just don’t know.

Sure – Jesus said it would come soon, right?
So one could wonder – will it really come?

What Jesus said –

Note – in this verse, Jesus said that others will way “The time is near” – and that we shouldn’t listen to them.

Jesus Is Coming

Rev 22:20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Rev 22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

These words at the very end of the Bible are translated in the NIV as Jesus saying that He will return soon.

And yet – going back to the original meaning of that word translated as “soon”, we see –

67.110 ταχύς, εῖα, ύ; ταχύb (adv.); ταχέωςa; ταχινόςa, ή, όν; τάχιον: pertaining to a very short extent of time—‘quickly, hurriedly, swift, speedy.’ Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd edition., Vol. 1, p. 643). New York: United Bible Societies.

And so we see that what He really said was that He would come “quickly” – “all of a sudden” – not that He would come soon.  And since His return will be right after all of those things happen – then one shouldn’t imply that the events will come soon either.  Rather – they will come quickly.

To that end, we also read –

So when the time comes – then As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.  In other words, as soon as the time that God has determined for “The End”, then it will come quickly and suddenly.

Conclusion

Just in case the time is near, are you ready for this?

Just in case the time will come before you die, are you ready for this?

What if it comes after you die – but while your kids and friends are still alive?

How about your grandchildren?

At what point are you willing to say that you no longer care about people that you don’t know – but your family or extended family do know?

Assuming that you are saying the Lord’s Prayer – including

Are you also praying for help to accomplish your part of The Great Commission –

so that those other people we just talked about – and even others that will not be known to you or your family – may also be prepared for all the things that come with God’s Kingdom coming to earth?  BTW – the best way to be prepared is to be saved – and not have to go through them at all.  Are you doing your part for that?

If you are – I’m sure Jesus is pleased with what you are doing.

If you aren’t – why not?

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