Kingdom Parables, Part 1
Matthew 13:1-2
I want to begin a new study tonight on the Kingdom of God. In particular we’re going to look at Matthew 13 and the eight parables given there. Before we get to the specific study of those I want to give you some general information about the Kingdom of God, and we’ll spend a coupe of weeks on general information, then get to the parables.
By the way, this is one of the advantages of coming on Wednesday night to Bible study. This forum allows us to get a little deeper than we do on Sunday mornings, and gives me the opportunity to provide you with some theology and doctrine that is not specifically geared for Sunday worship.
So let’s get started. One of the primary purposes of Matthew's gospel is to present Jesus Christ as the King. It begins in chapter 1 by showing His lineage as the Son of David, the Messianic line. In chapter 2, His right to reign is affirmed by the wise men or the magi who in their own understanding of prophecy and through the direction of the Spirit of God were led to confirm that He was the King. You see it in chapter 3 by the testimony of John the Baptist, the forerunner to the King.
Then in chapter 4 we find the King in conflict with Satan and the very fact that Jesus overpowered Satan, conquering the kingdom of darkness, was a clear testimony to the fact that He was God's chosen anointed King. Only God's King could overcome Satan.
Then in chapters 5, 6 and 7, He speaks as a King and gives the principles of His kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount.
In chapters 8 to 10 you find the credentials of the King where you discover three chapters full of miracles. Interestingly enough in those same chapters you begin to see a rising rejection of Him as King. It's a very strange situation. The greater the evidence that He is the King, the greater the rejection He receives.
Then when you get to chapter 11, you find Jesus denounces the sinful nation of Israel for rejecting Him. And He promises them severe judgment.
And yet, chapter 11 with an invitation, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
In chapter 12, rejection reaches its climax as Jesus is accused of being Satanic. And Jesus then pronounces a final judgment on the leaders and says - You're beyond the point of being forgiven.
But even chapter 12 closes with another invitation. Verse 50, "For whosoever shall do the will of My Father who is in heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother."
So, Christ has been proven to be the King. The people have rejected Him as the King. He has pronounced judgment on them. And yet offers an invitation to whoever will believe.
Now that background is important as you approach chapter 13 because the stage is set.
Israel has rejected the King, therefore Israel has rejected the Kingdom. You can’t separate the Kingdom from the King.
For centuries they had awaited the Messiah. For centuries they had awaited the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth. They had awaited the times of refreshing, the restoration, the granting back of the glory and the blessing that was man's before the fall. And when it was offered to them, they refused it and they lost it in that generation.
And so, as you approach chapter 13, you enter a new dimension, a new perspective in the ministry of Christ. You can see the shadow of the cross looming ahead. The Jewish leaders are looking for an opportunity to kill Him. In fact, before long, He’ll be on the cross and they will say it outright. Jesus is not our King. We have no king but Caesar.
So they have rejected the King and therefore, they have rejected His Kingdom.
Now, the question that immediately comes into my mind is this: If Jesus came to bring His Kingdom to earth, and to provide that which was promised and they refused Him and refused His Kingdom, then what happened to the Kingdom?
That is exactly the question answered by Matthew 13. In this chapter, we are told what is going to happen. Now here’s the sticky wicket: The ultimate fulfillment of what the Kingdom is cannot come until the nation of Israel receives the King. So, at this point, the Kingdom had to be postponed to a future time.
What time is that? The second coming of Christ. You see, that's why, in part, Christ is coming a second time. He came to bring the Kingdom but thaey refused. His message was “Repent for the Kingdom is at hand”. And the message of John the Baptist, His forerunner, was the same. Repent for the Kingdom is at hand. And the message of the Apostles chapter 10, verse 7, was the same. The Kingdom of God. They were preaching the Kingdom, the Kingdom, the Kingdom. And the people said no to the King and no to the Kingdom and the Kingdom therefore was postponed.
Why didn't God just eliminate it all together? Because God made a promise to Abraham and God keeps His promises. And that's why He's coming back and will again offer that Kingdom and this time it will be received.
God is a God of His word, and if had God just set the Kingdom aside and said, “I gave you a chance and you refused so forget it” then His prophecies would not come to pass and His word would be violated.
And so, it is postponed until they believe. And the day will come when they will receive Christ as Messiah.
We know that's to come and we believe it to come in the time known as the great tribulation. At that time, also, it says in Revelation 7, there will be so many Gentiles saved they will be unable to be counted. And innumerable hosts from every people, tongue, tribe and nation across the globe.
So when that day comes, you have the nation of Israel redeemed as well as world-wide Gentile salvation. And when the Kingdom of God comes into the hearts of men internally then it will realize its full fulfillment externally as Christ reigns on the earth for a thousand years in the millennium, spoken of in Revelation 20.
And so, when we talk about the ultimate fulfillment of the Kingdom, we mean that Kingdom which comes to pass on the earth both internally, that is in the hearts of believing people, and externally as Christ rules and reigns as King on the earth.
Now, had the Jews chosen to receive Him the first time, that’s what would have happened then. Had they believed, they would have received the King internally and they would have received the Kingdom externally. But they did not believe. And so, the fullest fulfillment was postponed.
Now there were some who did receive the King internally. And there are today those who receive the King internally. But someday there will be a massive response and when the Kingdom comes internally at the level that it does in the tribulation time, then it will come externally in the wonderful millennial reign of Christ on the earth for a thousand years.
We know what happened in the past, and thanks to prophecy we can know what will happen in the future, but what happens in the middle?
This is the period that some theologians have called "The Parenthesis" or "The Interim". It is a period that is not seen in the Old Testament.
Jesus calls it the mystery. That is that which was hidden from time past. They didn't see this period of time. That's where Matthew 13 comes to shed some light.
In chapter 13, you have a series of eight parables and in those parables, Jesus describes the interim period. He describes that parenthesis in which we live. We're in that period. And that is what makes this so compelling for us because if we can understand what Jesus says about this period, then we can understand how to be about doing what He wants done in this period.
What it will be like when the King has been rejected and the Kingdom postponed until He comes again to set up His Kingdom? Here’s how the Lord said it would be, and each of the parables discovers another facet of this period and you'll see how they perfectly parallel our time.
Now, this is called the mystery of the Kingdom. That doesn’t mean that it's a secretive thing that can’t be known, but rather something that was hidden and is now revealed. That's the biblical use of the term. They didn't see the church age coming in the Old Testament. This was something they didn't know. They only saw the Messiah coming and setting up His Kingdom.
Now here’s one of the unique things about the Kingdom during the church age: the Kingdom exists in the absence of the King. Jesus, at this point, is in heaven. That is not to say that He's not present in our midst; obviously He is.
But in terms of physical presence, He is at the right hand interceding for us in heaven awaiting the time to return to earth.
So this chapter describes this period of time when the Lord Jesus Christ is ruling on the earth though He Himself is absent.
Now to help us get that in our mind, let’s think about this concept of the Kingdom. It is such a big subject with so many possibilities and ramifications we could spend hours and months and years studying the Kingdom, but let me see if I can reduce it down to something you can really grab on to and get the heart of the matter.
There are two basic aspects of God's Kingdom and you need to understand these at the very beginning.
First, is God's universal Kingdom.
Now that's relatively simple to understand. God rules everything and everyone forever. He is the sovereign; He is the creator; He is the sustainer; He is the beginning and the end of all things; He dominates all things; He rules over everything and everyone forever.
I’m not going to take the time to develop that one; it is a given and we know it.
But then there's a second aspect of God's Kingdom. And theologians use different terms to describe it and identify it and I’m a little torn myself on the best way to label it, but I’m going to use the term the "mediatorial" Kingdom.
That is it is mediated through some other agency or individual or individuals. And the only place you find the mediatorial kingdom is on earth. It is a direct reference to God's rule on earth.
I think this is what Jesus referenced in Matthew 6 when He prays, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
On the one hand you’ve got the "as it is in heaven". That’s the universal rule of God. On the other hand, you’ve got the "on earth" which references the earthly mediated Kingdom of God and the request is actually, “God, rule on the earth the way You rule everywhere else.” Now that seems to indicate that the earth is somehow isolated in the midst of God's universal Kingdom as a point of rebellion. And it is the only place in the universe where the rebellion exists.
Can you imagine that? In God's great glorious universal Kingdom there is a little tiny stage of rebellion. Why is it that way? Well, when God created the world, He designed to rule on the earth through human instruments. It is to be under God’s rule through a mediator. Now keep that in mind; that’s important.
Originally, God designed to rule on the earth through Adam and Eve. And He said to them, “Have dominion over the earth”. In essence He was saying, “You rule in My place.”
But what happened? They fell prey to Satan. And they forfeited their rule to Satan. Satan became the God of this world. Satan became the prince of this world. Satan became the monarch of this world.
And there is now ruling in the earth, a usurper.
But God isn’t through. He then comes back and says, “I still want to mediate My rule on the earth. I want My will known, I want My Word known, I want My principles known, I want My moral standards known, I want people to be subjects to Me, and so I want to call men into My Kingdom. And He designed to do that and He did that and has done that from that time on.”
Follow the book of Genesis, you'll see that God mediated His rule on the earth through patriarchs, great godly men who knew the mind of God, the heart of God, the will of God and gave that expression of His will and heart and mind to the people of their time. You see them there.
And you can trace the men that God used. You find men like Seth and the Noah and the Abraham and the Isaac and the Jacob and the Joseph and even Melchidezek, who was the priest of the Most High God.
Then God called out a nation of people who would be His human agents to mediate His rule. And it was the nation Israel and what was Israel's calling? Israel's calling was to give to the world the Word of God. The statutes of God, the principles of God, the mind of God, the heart of God, and to share with the world the knowledge of the true God.
God, in particularly, called out prophets and priests and kings to be His key human instruments to mediate His rule on the earth. And you have that all throughout the Old Testament.
Then you come to the New Testament, and all of a sudden, God directly gets involved in mediating His Kingdom through the human instrument Jesus Christ. And Jesus steps into time and space and He tells us what God is like and He tells us what God's standards are and He preaches the Kingdom of God and He calls for people to be subjected to the Kingdom of God and He is mediating God's Kingdom, as it were, to men.
Jesus is rejected. He goes back into heaven and yet, immediately the message goes on and it is carried by the Apostles. And the church becomes the agency. And in our day, God is mediating His rule on the earth through the believers who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We are God's agents to speak the Word of God, to hold up the standards of God, to bring to men God's will and way and moral values and we are here to call men to enter into God's Kingdom.
And there will be a day in the future, in the tribulation, when God will anoint 144,000 Jews and those Jews will mediate in the sense that they will take God's message to the world and there will be a world-wide revival so that innumerable Gentiles and the nation of Israel is saved and then Christ will come back and mediate His own Kingdom on the earth again.
At that point, the mediated Kingdom is merged into the eternal Kingdom which is known as the new heavens and the new earth. And all that once began at the creation will end at that final merger, and we'll go into eternity that way as a part of the Kingdom of God.
We’ll stop right there. Let’s pray.
