Program 38: Thy Kingdom Come
Thy Kingdom Come
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Lord of the Sabbath
Program #38
Thy Kingdom Come
Kenny Kitzke
LawstSheep Ministries
If you are a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the promised Messiah of Israel, you have probably heard the words which He spoke known as the Lord’s Prayer. It may be that you can recite His words even if you have NEVER opened a Bible?
Can you finish the prayer Jesus said you should pray which begins, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name?” What comes next? It is found in Mat. 6: 10:
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
But, what does our prayer request mean? Why did Jesus tell His disciples to pray that the Father’s kingdom should come so that His will be done right here on the earth?
Well, if you harbor some belief that when Christians die they go immediately to heaven, you better turn up your hearing aide. Beware, you may have been duped by a modern “Bible Answer Man.” That idea turns the prayer of Jesus upside down! Jesus did not tell His disciples to pray that when they die (like He died) they would immediately rise up to the Father’s kingdom. There is a good reason He didn’t suggest that prayer. It is not what Scripture teaches will happen to you right after you die. Jesus DID NOT rise up to heaven at the moment He died, and neither will you.
Please, seek Truth and understanding from Scripture. Christians DO NOT rise to heaven upon their death. It is a myth of men, a religious tale; as pleasant as it may sound to our itching ears. I realize that you repeatedly hear pious sounding religious men saying things at funerals like, “Aunt Agnes has gone on to her heavenly home to be with the Lord.“ No way, Jose!
This is NOT what Scripture teaches has happened to Aunt Agnes. The more you understand the patterns and examples given in the feasts of the LORD, the more you’ll grasp why this is a false teaching and understanding in professing Christianity.
If you can make a free-will contribution of any size by check payable to Kenneth Kitzke for LawstSheep Ministries to support this Lord of the Sabbath radio program, I will send you a short Bible study pamphlet titled “After I Die” by mail or by the Internet. You will probably be as amazed as I was to learn the truth about death and the coming kingdom for the “dead in Christ” straight from lips of the Lord of the Sabbath.
Some professing Christians think that the Father’s kingdom has already come to the earth. Then you would not need to use the prayer that Jesus taught since it has already been answered! If you believe that we are establishing the Kingdom of God by our righteousness, run for your Bible right now! You too need to check out exactly what it reveals through the LORD’S holy days and feasts.
How long will you continue to accept this A-millennium prophecy teaching of religious men from centuries past? How many of them ever kept the feasts of the LORD which Jesus kept perfectly? Did they understand how the Feasts helped teach His disciples what was to come in the future regarding man, this earth and our King?
If you want to learn the Truth of what lies ahead for those who die in Christ, listen to the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the WAY to the kingdom of God which He asked you to pray WILL eventually come to the EARTH. He is the TRUTH and the soon coming King of this Kingdom of God that every eye will see come. Have you seen Him come yet?
He is the LIFE for His bride, His peculiar treasure, who will enter that Kingdom of God with Him and reign with Him for 1,000 years on the earth. With a day being like 1,000 years to the LORD, this millennium of future years represents the seventh-day rest revealed to the people of God, His church, by the Lord of the Sabbath in the Book of Revelation. It culminates the six-thousand year plan of salvation for mankind made by God from before the creation of all things. Halleluyah to the Lamb of God!
Called out Christians, both those alive and dead, are patiently waiting for the prophesied return of Jesus to the earth as King to rule the Kingdom of God on the earth. And, they rejoice over this prophecy because Jesus promised to have His disciples, His bride, rule and reign with Him on this earth. Let’s be clear about what Jesus revealed in Rev. 20: 6 about His saints and their future assured position in Christ:
Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.
Do you yearn to be one of the blessed and holy participants in the first resurrection? To be one of those who are born a second time from above? Then you should be celebrating Yom Teruah, the LORD’S holy day that pictures your future resurrection from the dead in a new eternal body at the sound of the last trump of God. Halleluyah! Rejoice before the LORD!
Think of the joy that the first fruits of the harvest of human souls will have when they finally see the Lord face to face? Can you even imagine what it will be like? Praise God and His Christ! And, who will be these first fruits in Christ? Well, do you remember the LORD’S Feast of Weeks, also known as Pentecost? That is where the answers are found in the plan of God. Keep the holy days of the LORD and these truths about prophecy will become more and more clear to you.
Even if you accept that a real Kingdom of God is yet to come to this earth in fullness only AFTER Jesus returns bodily to the earth as its King, AND that you will rule and reign with Him here on this earth for a thousand years AFTER the first resurrection of the dead, you will probably still have some uncertainties about how and when all this will happen.
You will quickly discover that sincere Christians have different answers for these reasonable questions. You will also discover that very few of them have any idea of which answers are consistent with the proclaimed Feasts of the LORD. Please understand that the exact times and ways these things will occur are simply unknown to any man.
However, there are many important things about the coming Kingdom of God that we can know. Let’s make sure we know about how Jesus will return. Angels told His closest disciples how Jesus will return, and even exactly where He would return, as they watched Him rise to heaven to again be with His Father. This is also our Father if we are a child of God with Christ as our brother. We find Christ’s return stated plainly in Acts 1: 9:
Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”
I’m truly sorry if you are one of those Christians who ignore or dispute this plain prophecy of the messengers of God. Perhaps you spiritualize it away thinking that He and His kingdom have already come back to live on the earth, but only spiritually in our hearts? But, Jesus rose from the earth in a glorified body that could eat and be touched. He did not have an intangible spirit body. And, I believe He will return the same way in a glorified, tangible body which every human eye will see!
If you hold the so-called A-millennium view of the future, I would simply ask if your eyes have seen Him descend in the clouds from heaven to the Mount of Olives in the same way He was observed to ascend from that very same place in Jerusalem in the Promised Land as prophesied?
The physical, observable return of Jesus to Jerusalem to save the lost sheep of the houses of Israel and Judah (also called Jews in the New Testament) may indeed have looked impossible when these “spiritualized” theories of the end-times were first expounded.
However, we have seen the reestablishment of a nation called Israel with our own eyes.
Israel has grown and prospered while surrounded by enemies and infiltrated within by terrorists. Do you think the long dead A-millennium Church fathers might have reached different conclusions about the coming Kingdom of God on earth had they seen what you can see by standing on the Mount of Olives today in the again existing nation of Israel?
It is my sincere conviction that as you study and keep the Biblical holy days and Feasts of the LORD, that the Holy Spirit of God will have you grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord of the Sabbath and the salvation plan for mankind and for yourself which they portend.
But, more potentially confusing is a widely held view among Christians that the “soul” of everyone who dies immediately goes up to heaven or down to hell or perhaps even into an intermediate place which the Roman Catholic Church calls “purgatory.” Is this supported by Scripture? No. The evidence is very flimsy indeed. In fact, there are many direct scriptures that suggest otherwise.
However, many Christians who believe their soul will go to heaven or hell upon death ALSO believe in the second coming of Christ and His 1,000 year reign as King of kings over all the earth. So, let’s return to that and see what the Feasts of the LORD seem to indicate about this great future event.
When I celebrate the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles, my joy comes from what is called the “blessed hope.” That hope is that I too can be resurrected from the dead at God’s last trump on some future Yom Teruah. Jesus will call those who died in Him to come up to meet Him in the air, rise in the clouds to go to the Father’s house in heaven with Him. It is at that time that you will be like Him and with Him forever in new glorified bodies and not when you die. How will you exist up in heaven without any body? Are you today a spirit being like God or the angels able to exist forever and never die?
If it is not already clear to you, it is in this change of our “tabernacle” (the body we have as mortal living souls) that we see another direct connection to the Feast of Tabernacles. In the wilderness, on the way to the Promised Land, the children of Israel dwelt in their own hand-made, temporary booths made from the boughs of trees. These tabernacles provided little shelter even from the elements and would lose their leaves in a week.
These booths had to be continually rebuilt during the long and trying 40-year journey in the wilderness as Israel kept moving following the cloud and fire from the LORD’S earthly tabernacle where He dwelt among them. They were under the direct care of God Himself who was leading and traveling with them. You would think they would trust Him and His providence for them to enter into the land He had promised to their fathers. As we know, they failed to trust and obey Him and DID NOT enter that Promised Land.
For us Christians today, we, as living human souls, made in the image and likeness of God like Jesus, are dwelling in bodies that are mortal and decaying. In time, because of sin, they will surely die and return to the dust of the earth from which they were made. Living in the age of the church, a type of wilderness where we are free from slavery to men, but not free from pain and sorrow, we too are heading for the promised Kingdom of God. Some children of Israel eventually made a permanent dwelling for themselves in the Promised Land. So too will we, the children of God, be given a new, permanent, incorruptible body (an eternal tabernacle) to dwell in as we finally enter the Kingdom of God on earth.
I could probably do another couple of programs on the many wonderful blessings we will have while living in God’s Kingdom on this earth. However, especially if you are old, handicapped, crippled or have been sickly, you will indeed REJOICE before the LORD in your new incorruptible tabernacle: a resurrected, spiritual, glorified body like Jesus received.
Just the idea of having a spiritual body that will not die again, one that was mortal but has now put on immortality, will be a great joy. That enemy of humanity, death, originating with the sin of the first man, Adam, is the last one you experience in this life. Paul says even that enemy will be destroyed by Christ by the end of the millennium. We read it in 1 Cor. 15: 25-26:
For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
Starting with the resurrection of the firstfruits from the dead, until the last human has died on the earth, death will eventually be completely swallowed up in victory. Here Paul says that at that time the prophecy in Is. 25: 8 shall have been brought to pass:
He will swallow up death forever, and the LORD will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for the LORD has spoken.
This is a world you can look forward to with great joy. Please understand this is in the soon coming Kingdom of God on the earth. This is NOT happening in heaven TODAY where the Father is dwelling now. Nor is it happening on the earth NOW. Christians, brethren, are still dying every day.
It will come to pass in the future time that we picture and celebrate when we keep the Feast of Tabernacles. It is the day of salvation that comes to the earth in the form of our resurrected King of kings; the day we have been praying and waiting for, the day He said was at hand (had not yet come), when He will have saved us from an everlasting death. The prophet Isaiah also saw it this way being glad and rejoicing as he wrote in Is. 25: 9
And it will be said in that day: “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.
But, not dying might actually be a curse if the world we are living in now, or the worst one that will exist just before the Kingdom finally comes upon us. We must realize that in the Kingdom of God we pray will come to the earth, and our life itself, will be far more wonderful than anything we have ever seen or imagined in this mortal body.
For example, during that 1,000 years Satan will be locked into the bottomless pit. He shall not tempt or deceive the nations any more. It will be a time of peace and prosperity. The Lord will rule with an iron fist and sin will disappear. Swords will be beaten into plow shares. Man will not learn war any more. I don’t think you will see armies or even police forces in the Kingdom. There will be no need for them. Men will no longer be wild or evil. Even the wild animals will become tame. We read this in Is. 11: 6:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
This is God’s plan. It is amazing! It is awesome. Animals once wild and ferocious will be pets for our children. He will bring it to pass in His Kingdom. I can only pray that you and I will be worthy of being there.
At the last trump I hope to follow the Lamb up from the earth to His Father’s house for the marriage supper. At the sound of the great trump, I will then leave the Father’s house and follow the King of kings back to earth on Yom Kippur. I will be His faithful covenant wife, like Israel was to be with the LORD, FOREVER.
Once returned to the earth with Him, the 1,000 year reign in the Kingdom of God on the earth will begin. After the Battle of Armageddon is finished, and the government of
God is established on the earth, things will finally be done on the earth as they were done in heaven. Righteousness, justice and peace shall cover the earth.
There is no greater joy that I can conceive than to reign with Him as a priest or king for this 1,000 years on the earth. I just can’t wait until we can all be there with Him. I truly pray each night, that God’s Kingdom come soon, just like our Lord of the Sabbath promised. I truly REJOICE at His Feast of Tabernacles. My spirit soars. I forget the wilderness that I will leave behind. There is no reason to look back. Remember Lot’s wife?
Jesus asked the Apostle Peter three times to feed His sheep with the Good News that the Kingdom of God was now at hand and we could pray for it to come quickly. We are like those sheep who are fed the Truth of God. We have the written and living word of God to eat as our daily bread.
He is the Good Shepherd over the sheep in God’s pasture. He is leading us to His Kingdom. At Passover each year, on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we eat His body and drink His blood of eternal life until, as He promised, He would drink it new with His disciples in the Kingdom of God. Halleluyah! We are justified, born from above with the Spirit of God, converted and made righteous in Christ by His sacrificial death as our Passover Lamb. It is then when our journey in our own personal wilderness march begins. However, we, like the children of Israel must endure to the end to enter the promised Kingdom of God to come.
Will we trust the Lord of the Sabbath to deliver us into His Kingdom? Or, if trials and tribulations come along in the wilderness of our lives, and the lusts of our flesh pull too hard, will we let go and stumble and fall and not enter into His Kingdom like the children of Israel who could not enter the Promised Land and died in the wilderness?
I pray that you have no doubt that this King and Kingdom is coming only to those who are worthy to be in the first resurrection of the dead. I pray that you are one of the saints who will return with Him from heaven to rule and reign with Him in His Kingdom. Be of good cheer and be comforted, brethren, and rejoice in the words of Peter, His chief Apostle, found in 2 Peter 1: 10-11:
Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into an everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
According to Peter, we can see just how deceptive the popular “once saved always saved” doctrine is that is taught by many Christian teachers. During our life in the wilderness of this world ruled by Satan, while we are still in these temporary tabernacles called our physical, corruptible, mortal bodies, Peter warns BELIEVING BRETHREN in the church of God to be even more diligent to make their entrance into our Promised Land, the Kingdom of God on earth, sure. Why all this concern by Peter if an intellectual belief in Jesus at one time in our life is all that is required of us to enter His everlasting Kingdom?
We all need to keep our faith in the blood of Jesus to save us from the past sins we committed and future ones which we confess. But we can‘t enter the Kingdom if we practice sin without repentance. We must endure and try with all our heart and strength to keep the commandments of God so we can be worthy to enter His Kingdom! Halleluyah!
Knowing this we endure, we strive to finish this race and receive our crown of eternal life at the first resurrection. We can rejoice even though problems beset us living in this temporary tabernacle. After all, this short, mortal life is like a vapor and will quickly vanish.
Many are called to Jesus by God His Father in this brief lifetime. But few are chosen to be with Him when He rules over the Kingdom of God on the earth. And, what can keep you from entering this Kingdom of God? The same thing that kept the children of Israel from entering the Promised Land. They stumbled and fell in the wilderness through disobedience, sin and a failure to trust the LORD and do exactly as He told them.
The children of Israel even desired to go back into slavery in Egypt just for the food they once had there! They backslid looking back rather than ahead to what the LORD through Moses had promised them. Thus, they did not enter the land flowing with milk and honey that He would freely give them if they would only obey Him.
My God is so awesome and gracious to me. How can I not worship Him as He told His people to rejoice before Him? As great as the Feast of Tabernacles is, our great Creator is NOT finished with us today or in the Kingdom. The last of the seven annual holy days of the LORD is yet to come. It is called the Eighth Day. The next two programs will review some of the most misunderstood prophecies in all of Scripture.
This is Brother Kenny hoping you will join me next Sabbath at the same time. Let us close with a wonderful song about the joy for us in God’s plan of salvation that I love to sing at His Feast of Tabernacles:
Do you know the great Creator?
Have you heard of His great plan?
Do you know He plans to change us
From simple mortal man?
To a spirit-born family rising up into the air,
Brethren gone before will join us.
I can’t wait till we’re all there!
Do you know the great Creator?
Have you heard of His great plan?
Do you know He plans a Kingdom
Spreading all across the land?
To a hurt and torn people
Needing peace and tender care.
Brethren, we’ll be there to guide them.
I can’t wait till we’re all there!
Do you know the great Creator?
Have you heard of His great plan?
Do you know He plans a new world
Coming down from Heaven.
All the former things to pass on
No more dying no more tears.
God Himself will be there with us.
I can’t wait till we’re all there!
And He who sat upon the throne
Says “Behold I make all things new!”
Write this for these words are trustworthy and true,
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
It is done!
He who hungers I will be His God,
He will be my son.
Do you know the great Creator?
Have you heard of His great love?
Did you know He sends these promises,
From heaven up above.
To a temple fitly builded,
One another’s burdens bear.
Brethren, faith and hope will bind us,
I can’t wait till we’re all there!
Brethren, faith and hope must bind us,
I can’t wait till we’re all there!
