THE
VICTORIOUS KINGDOM
The
word victory means, success, winning out, overcoming.
I
don’t know of anyone who does not like be victorious or belong to those who
are. We love it when our favorite team wins and remains number one through out
their season. We love it when we work for a company that is successful, and we
like being part of that success. We also love to be on the winning side of a
war, but in order to be victorious, many times you have to have the right
mindset.
For
example, during the Pakistan-India War, the
A
similar thing happened in our history. During World War II, many raised
With
this in mind, let’s talk about the victorious kingdom that every Christian
belongs to. Long before the
In
his dream, he saw this great image with a head of gold, breast and arms of silver,
a belly of brass, and legs of iron with feet part iron and part clay. Daniel
was able to tell the king what he saw, and then he interpreted the dream for
him starting in:
Daniel 2:37 "You, O king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has
given you a kingdom, power, strength, and glory; 38 "and wherever the children
of men dwell, or the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven, He has
given them into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all -- you are
this head of gold. 39
"But after you shall arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then
another, a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 "And the fourth kingdom
shall be as strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters
everything; and like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in
pieces and crush all the others. 41
"Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter's clay and partly of
iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in
it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. 42 "And as the toes of
the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom
shall be partly strong and partly fragile.
43 "As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will
mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as
iron does not mix with clay. 44
"And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom
which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other
people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall
stand forever.
Daniel tells the king about four kingdoms. The head of
Gold represents the Babylonian Empire, The breast and arms of silver represents
the Medo-Persian Empire, The belly brass represents the Grecian Empire, and the
legs of iron with feet part iron and part clay represents the
Think
about how powerful a kingdom would have to be last for ever. If that doesn’t
describe a victorious kingdom then nothing does. Daniel has given us a timeline
of when this victorious kingdom would be started. It would happen during the
During
Jesus’ ministry, Peter made a great statement about Jesus being the Christ the
Son of the living God, and Jesus responded by saying:
Matthew 16:17 "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not
revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 "And I also say to you
that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of
Hades shall not prevail against it. 19
"And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you
bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be
loosed in heaven."
Jesus was going to build His church and He would give
Peter the keys of the kingdom or we could say church because the church and the
kingdom are used synonymously throughout the NT.
Jesus also said:
Mark 9:1 "Assuredly, I say to you that there are
some standing here who will not taste death till they see the
He also said:
Luke 24:46
Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for
the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, 47 "and that repentance and
remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at
We learn from verse 49 that when the Holy Spirit comes as
promised when they were in
Verse 47 teaches us that that the new law of that new
kingdom would begin in
Isaiah 2:2
Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the
LORD's house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be
exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. 3 Many people shall come and say,
"Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the
God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths."
For out of
All we have to do to confirm when and where this
victorious kingdom had its beginning is to go to book of Acts because Jesus
tells His apostles in:
Acts 1:8
"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and
you shall be witnesses to Me in
Just as Isaiah prophesied, the Law of God would begin at
Acts 2:1 When
the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one
place. 2 And suddenly there
came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole
house where they were sitting. 3
Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat
upon each of them. 4 And they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as
the Spirit gave them utterance.
One final proof that this was the day the victorious
kingdom began comes from our verse in Isa. 2:2, which tells when this prophecy
would occur in the latter days. Now notice what Peter says in:
Acts 2:14
But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them,
"Men of Judea and all who dwell in
These things happening on the day of Pentecost were
happening in the latter days or last days. When we put all the facts together,
there is no denying that the victorious
Some in religious world actual claim that the kingdom has
not come, and that Jesus must come again to establish it sometime in the near
future. They even agree that all the OT prophecies point to Jesus bringing in the
new kingdom during the
I find this way of thinking strange because Isaiah said
that Jesus would be rejected by men (Isa. 53:3). If Jesus had failed to
complete His mission in starting the
John 17:4
"I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You
have given Me to do.
If Jesus did not build the church/kingdom as prophesied
by the OT prophets, then we have the first promise that God could not keep, but
we know that this is not the case because after the day of Pentecost, the
Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into
the kingdom of the Son of His love,
Romans
14:17 for the kingdom of
God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Spirit.
When
Paul talks about Jesus coming again, he says nothing about Him establishing His
kingdom. Instead, he says when he come it will be for judgment, and He will
deliver the existing kingdom to the Father.
1 Cor. 15:24 Then
comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He
puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.
The
victorious
John
18:36 "My kingdom is
not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight,
so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from
here."
No matter how many nations have fallen or have risen over
the last 2000 years, none can make the claim of the
From the day of Pentecost to our present day the commands
of God have been taught and followed. Starting in Jerusalem, the apostles used
the keys of the kingdom to preach the truth, and that day about 3000 souls were
baptized into the kingdom and were added to the church by God (Acts 2:47).
Acts 2:38
Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit. 39
"For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar
off, as many as the Lord our God will call." 40 And with many other words he
testified and exhorted them, saying, "Be saved from this perverse
generation." 41 Then
those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three
thousand souls were added to them.
As Jesus commanded them, they preached the truth to the
world. As the kingdom/church grew in number and persecution began, the people
scattered and went into new areas preaching the good news of Jesus. We also
read about men like Paul who journeyed to new places preaching the truth and
growing the
Those who belonged to God’s kingdom had to face severe
persecutions at times and some of them even lost their life, but even when
these difficult times happened to the church, the church grew and continued to
be victorious. Now you might think that it would not be worth it to be part of
kingdom that has to face many adversities that will challenge your faith, but
those who belong to the kingdom and study God’s Word have no doubts that it is worth
it, because we know that even if we die for the cause of Christ, our soul will
continue to live forever, and at the day of judgment, we will be given a new
body like that of Christ that will endure forever as:
1 John 3:2
Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we
shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we
shall see Him as He is.
Also Paul said:
1 Corinthians 15:51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be
changed -- 52 in a moment, in
the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and
the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put
on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Every Christian that understands this idea and has the
right mindset knows that being in the
2 Corinthians 4:16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing,
yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which
is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory, 18 while we
do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are
not seen are eternal.
If you want to be on the winning side that is guaranteed
to win, and you want to be able to taste victory, then you need to part of
God’s victorious kingdom because only those that are in His kingdom will be
saved:
Ephesians 5:23 He is the Savior of the body.
The word body is the same thing as saying the church,
which is the same thing as the kingdom. If you are outside of the
A great question to ask at this point is how does one
become part of the victorious
The first thing we must do is hear the Word of God as:
Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Without the Word of God, we could not know how to be
saved, so we must hear what it has to say. When we hear it, study it, and allow
it penetrate our heart, it will produce faith.
Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6).
Once we believe in Jesus, our hearts will become pricked
because we will understand what God did for us through His Son because of our
sin, and we will realize that we are lost without Him just like the Jews were
at the birth of the church at the day of Pentecost. When they heard the Word of
God they asked, “What they should do” and Peter said:
Acts 2:38 Then
Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit.
Repentance is required to be saved because Jesus says
that we will perish if we do not repent in Luke 13:3. Repentance is a change of
heart, and it means that you will stop living your life by your own desires and
change your ways to God’s way. If you used steal, steal no more. If you were
liar, then lie no more.
One thing not mentioned in Acts 2:38 is confessing Jesus
as Lord, which also necessary to enter into the
Romans 10:9 If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that
God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
So far we have seen that you must hear the Word of God,
believe it, repent, and confess Jesus as Lord, but we also see that there is
one more crucial step in entering the victorious
Acts 2:38 Then
Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit.
Peter states that baptism is for the remission of sins
and those that gladly received the truth that day were baptized:
Acts 2:41 Then
those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three
thousand souls were added to them.
These same people were the ones that were added to the church/kingdom
by God:
Acts 2:47 And
the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
Jesus and Paul make it clear that it is at the point of
baptism that one enters into the victorious
John 3:5
Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water
and the Spirit, he cannot enter the
1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body
Since the church/body/kingdom are synonymous terms, it is
easy for us to see that baptism is the point that we enter the kingdom/body of
Christ. So, if you want to enter into the
James
1:12 Blessed is the
man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the
crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
If you are not in the victorious kingdom right now, I
hope you choose to be saved today so that you can taste the victory of heaven,
and if you already in the kingdom, I hope you continue to be steadfast in your
faith so that you will receive the crown of life that can only be obtained
through the victorious kingdom of God.