Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadQuiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return: 44. Blessed Kingdom Days
TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 44. Blessed Kingdom Days
Other Subjects in this Topic:
Blessed Kingdom Days
The third thing is the Kingdom. Our Lord Jesus will begin reigning upon and over the whole earth. The Jewish nation, now a radically changed people, will become the first nation of the earth. The Kingdom will be a time of Jew leadership in all the earth. All the wealth of glowing promises which fills up so much of Isaiah and the other prophets, will find fulfilment. The new Israel will be a nation of radiant faces and thrilled hearts. All other nations will gladly do them homage, and be wondrously blest through them.
The central city of the world will be Jerusalem, the Jew capital. Over it will be continually the pillar of fire and cloud, as in the wilderness days, the open evidence to all of the presence of God. Jerusalem will then be the joy of all the earth. The great mission of this new Jew nation will be the same as in the beginning. It was created to be a messenger-nation, God's messenger-nation, to all the peoples of the earth. That mission will become the passion of the Jew-heart. Through their ministry the Gospel of the grace of God will be taken into every corner and nook of the earth, until everybody everywhere has heard the blessed news. It will be a time of worldwide evangelization beyond what has ever been dreamed of.
Meanwhile there will be another blessed ministry at work. Those who have been raised, and, with the living, caught up into the Lord's presence will become partners with the Jew in their blessed work. They will reign over the earth, and over the Jew, while the Jew reigns upon the earth, each reigning at the word of the same Lord. These will be the great body of redeemed ones who have followed the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. It will be made up, not only of those included in the Church, but of all, since creation's natal day, who have followed fully, and walked faith's narrow way. What a wonderful fellowship in service that will be, with the worthies of these Old Testament pages, and many an unknown saint of God, true to Him in some hidden-away corner.
We will have our resurrection bodies in those days. Our Lord Jesus' life on earth after His resurrection gives us the illustration of what that means. He was in a place simply by willing to be there, regardless of space, or of material obstructions like a wall. In our glorified resurrection bodies we shall be able to be wherever our Lord sends us, on sweet errands of service among men. Some morning He may say to some one, "Do this errand for me in Boston, minister to this group, or this needy child of mine." And instantly you will be in Boston in the midst of the exquisite delight of service; then back into His presence; then maybe off for an errand in Calcutta; then back to His side again. What blessed days of service those will be!
Sometimes I have wondered if we shall be allowed to help in old, loved fields, where we worked until our tired-out bodies had to be taken away for rest, or where they refused to work longer, and were laid away in the dust. Here, say, is an Englishwoman, who has been pouring her life out in tireless service among the Arabs of northern Africa. There has come into her heart a burning love for Africa such as comes only from touch with it, and with the Master Himself. But the "earthly tabernacle" is weak and has to be taken off to a different climate. And so the whole life plan changes, and service is taken up for the wondrous Lord of the harvest elsewhere, where He has plainly appointed, while the old passionate love for the left-behind African field still burns. Will she now be allowed, in the new wondrous body, to minister in the old place, and visit the old blessed haunts?
I do not know. But I think it likely. It is not contrary to anything in the Book. It would seem the natural thing. Would not William Carey love to pick up the thread again in India, and Hudson Taylor in China, and Judson in Burmah, and Keith Falconer in Arabia, and Sam Hadley in Water Street, and dear old Booth and Moody everywhere, with headquarters up with the Master in the heavens, and blessed service among men wherever He appoints? What a time we shall have reigning with Him!
The Kingdom is to continue on the earth for a thousand years. But some will render only a "feigned allegiance" to our Lord Jesus. It will be the popular thing to be good. So a testing time will come again to the earth. Satan, chained during these Kingdom days, will be loosened out again. Why? That those preferring him may. so choose. God hungers for our love, but only for a freely given love. The one thing He regards most is the free choice of each one's will. This final testing time of evil will end in the destroying of evil forever.
Then will come a final gathering of all people living on the earth into God's presence. Those who have not been raised at Christ's coming, are raised now, and, with the living, judged by the Judge of love and purity. Then this old earth and the heavens surrounding it shall be burned up, and in their place shall be a new heavens and new earth. And then all the race shall live on terms of sweetest intimacy with the Lord Jesus, even as in early Eden days. And our Lord's Eden plan will at last be realized.