I’ll take Psalms 8:1 and 16:2 with me into the harvest today.

My Shepherd met me this morning and drew me into His green pastures to Luke 17:20-21:

Luke 17:20 ¶ 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:

Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.*

We’ve been in this passage before. When I decided to present these devotions publicly, I set down some rules. I did not want the pressure of preparing my devotional thoughts for public distribution to interfere with my personal time with my Shepherd. Therefore, I made a rule that I’d stay with whatever the LORD gave me in my morning devotions. This morning, instead of waking up singing a Psalm or Psalms, I woke up with this thought: “the kingdom of God is spiritual in nature and physical in impact.” And my thoughts ran along that line for some time. When I entered the green pastures of His word, I sought out Luke 17:20-21 to ponder the Kingdom of God that is “within you.”

Along the still waters, I thought again about the distinction between the kingdom of God that is “within you” and the kingdom coming at His appearing. The Pharisees and Jesus’ disciples believed the promise God made to Israel that He would restore the kingdom to the Jews (Acts 1:6). They rightly expected a restoration of “the kingdom” Israel held from the Exodus (c1461 BC) to the transfer of “the kingdom” to Nebuchadnezzar (c609 BC).* A span of about 852 years.

Jesus as the promised Messiah, the king of David’s line, to establish His kingdom by restoring “the kingdom to Israel” and opening the door to the kingdom to include the Gentiles. Israel refused Jesus as the Christ of God, and God left “the kingdom” with the Gentiles, promising to give it to “a nation” that would bring forth its fruit (Matthew 21:43). The rule of Christ on earth over this kingdom is unique.

When the Pharisees “demanded” of Him when “the kingdom” they anticipated would appear, Jesus explained it would come “not with observation” because, He explained, “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:30-21). This is not how the promised millennial kingdom of Christ appears. Jesus said the kingdom the Pharisees sought would not be a “Lo here! or lo there!” situation.

After he answered the Pharisees’ question about the kingdom they expected, he explained to His disciples that the return of the Son of man to set up His physical kingdom on the earth would come with observable, unmistakable signs. Jesus warned us not to think that kingdom has begun until specific observable and evident signs are fulfilled (Luke 17:22-24). He warned against anyone who says Christ has returned or that He is present on Earth to rule on the throne of David with a “rod of iron” (Luke 17:23; see Psalm 2:9; Revelation 2:27; 12:5; 19:15).

The present kingdom is spiritual: we are translated into that kingdom by the Spirit when we, who by His Cross have been delivered from the power (authority) of darkness, and exercising our liberty from bondage to Satan, we turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18), obeying the glorious gospel to repent (Acts 17:30) and believe on Jesus Christ as the risen Lord (John 6:29; Romans 10:9-13). At the moment our faith embraces His grace, we are translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son  (Colossians 1:13). This is “the kingdom of God [that is] within you.” The one that comes “not with observation” (Luke 17:20-21).

It is spiritual in nature, but it has a significant physical impact. For while the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (physical), they are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4). We war not against “flesh and blood,” but we do “wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). We all agree the “powers” ordained of God (Romans 13:1), which hold the “sword” of civil justice (Romans 13:4), refers to governments whose rulers are appointed to be ministers of God to be a “revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Romans 13:4). These “powers” are under the authority of Jesus Christ the Lord (Matthew 28:18).

Many principalities and powers come under rulers (archons) who have rebelled against the “Prince of the kings of the earth” (Revelation 1:5). The word translated prince in Revelation 1:5 is the word translated principalities in Ephesians 6:12. Jesus is over these principalities. If they rebel against Him, we “wrestle against” them. Our spiritual power is in the spiritual weapon we wield: the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:17b). When the children of disobedience obtain power over the sword of civil justice, we wrestle against them with the Sword of the Spirit. Our spiritual warfare manifests in the physical world (Acts 12). The spiritual kingdom manifests in the physical world. It is spiritual in nature, but has a massive physical impact in this world.

In the valley, I knelt in the shadow of the Cross, where Jesus defeated Satan and broke his hold on mankind (Hebrews 2:14), because He was the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2). And so when Jesus arose from the grave, all power was given to Christ, including any power Satan once had over mankind and the kingdoms of this earth (see Matthew 4:8; 28:18; Romans 1:4; see Ephesians 1:18-23). Right now, He reigns from Heaven over the earth and commands the rulers of this earth through His disciples organized in His ekklesias. They are commanded to repent and believe on the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. The world is given the opportunity to willingly bow its knee to Jesus while the Church is on earth. When the saints are removed, the world will be delivered over to Satan for a short time (Revelation 12:12). During this time, God will send forth the signs of His soon return, and then, as lightning lighteth one side of heaven to the other, He will return, and we will return with Him (1 Thessalonians 3:13). Then unwillingly or not, “every knee will bow (Philippians 2:11; see Isaiah 45:23 and Romans 14:11). And we will rule and reign with Christ.

To serve Him now, in His present kingdom, He said, standing in the midst of His churches, with that voice as the sound of many waters: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

At the table, He anointed my head with His oil and filled my cup with His grace. Goodness and mercy followed me as I followed Him into His harvest.

Praying for revival! 🙏

Going live asap:

https://rumble.com/v72n7ky-shepherds-pasture.html

[*The word  ἐντός (En-tos’) is used only two times in the New Testament: Luke 17:21 and Matthew 23:26. It means the same thing in both places, inside, within. While ἐν can convey the meaning of among (Matthew 11:11, etc.) and is sometimes translated within (Matthew 9:21; etc.) this is driven by context. The word used in Luke 17:21 is used only twice (see above), and here it is contrasted with what is without, or on the outside. The kingdom of God is not on the “outside of the cup,” it’s on the “inside.” It is apparently Jesus meant to say the kingdom of God is not something observable, but rather that it was something invisible to the physical eye. Clearly, in this passage, Jesus was correcting a misconception the Pharisees had concerning the kingdom of God that He came to offer in His first coming. They expected the physical kingdom to appear. But Jesus distinguished what that word would mean when He returns, from what the kingdom of God He came to offer in His first coming. However, if someone insists otherwise, it does no violence to my point. There is the kingdom of God that comes “Not with observation,” and this kingdom appears now, whereas the kingdom that follows His very observable return to the earth comes with many observable indications, and will be observable in the world.]

[**I use the date Josiah died, and Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem and made the Jews subject to his rule. GOD, through Jeremiah, declared the prophecy concerning the transfer of “the kingdom” to His servant, Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 25:8-11—c605 BC—this warning by the prophet Jeremiah began in the thirteenth year of Josiah (Jeremiah 25:3)). Nebuchadnezzar took Judah out from under Egypt shortly after Pharaoh Necho did it immedately after he sew Josiah in the battle of Meggido, about 609 BC. Many date the beginning of the “captivity” to when God destroyed the Temple by the hand of His servant, Nebuchadnezzar (c. 586 BC). But we know the “Babylonian Captivity” was prophesied to last 70 years (Jeremiah 25:12). This transfer must have happened well before the Temple was destroyed (c586 BC), for Cyrus decreed the return in c539 BC (586-70=516). Darius the Mede defeated Babylon, which was in league with Cyrus the Persian, who defeated Nabonidus, king of the Babylonian Empire, in Elam (Persia/Iran) in c539 BC. Cyrus made his decree in the first year of his reign over the Empire (Ezra 1). The transfer of the kingdom from Judah to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon occurred in c609 BC, in the year king Josiah died.]