The Kingdom of Glory

Editor’s note: Yesterday, we shared an excerpt from The Coming Golden Age by Dr. David Jeremiah. You can read it here… and then continue reading below. Enjoy!

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Yet the Lord had much more in mind when He told us to pray,

Your Kingdom come.

This petition cannot be totally fulfilled by the present era of the church. When asked about His return, Jesus told the parable of the fig tree. Just as the budding of the fig tree heralds the coming of summer, the signs of the times will herald His return. 

So you also, when you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near. — Luke 21:31

In the upper room, He told His disciples, 

I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as My Father bestowed one upon Me, that you may eat and drink at My table in My Kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. — Luke 22:29–30

British preacher J. C. Ryle wrote, “By His Kingdom we mean first, the Kingdom of grace which God sets up and maintains in the hearts of all living members of Christ, by His Spirit and word. But we mean chiefly, the Kingdom of glory which shall one day be set up, when Jesus shall come the second time, and all men shall know Him from the least to the greatest.”1

Thomas Watson, one of the greatest of the Puritan writers, said, “The Kingdom of grace is nothing but the beginning of the Kingdom of glory. The Kingdom of grace is glory in the seed, and the Kingdom of glory is grace in the flower.”2

When the seventh trumpet sounds in the book of Revelation, loud voices in Heaven will shout, 

The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever! — Revelation 11:15

One day the Lord Jesus will be King over the earth and reign for a glorious cycle of a thousand years. That kingdom will be more than His citizens embedded among hostile nations as we see it now. It will be a geopolitical kingdom with Jerusalem as the royal capital. 

Psalm 145 says,

They shall speak of the glory of Your Kingdom, and talk of Your power, to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His Kingdom. Your Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations. — Psalm 145:11–13

The prophet Obadiah wrote, 

The day of the Lord is near for all nations... But on Mount Zion will be deliverance; it will be holy, and Jacob will possess his inheritance... And the kingdom will be the Lord’s. — Obadiah 1:15, 17, 21 NIV

We should think of this whenever we look at a map. Right now, the brooding nation of Russia spreads from central Europe to farthest Asia; beneath it is Mongolia, then China. Nearby is India. The global south is composed of Africa, Australia, and South America. The United States and its familiar boundaries rest between the Atlantic and Pacific, with Canada above and Mexico below. Among the smallest nations is tiny Israel — only about ten miles across at its narrowest point, and a mere 263 miles from north to south.

Yet one day soon, the boundaries of Israel will stretch from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates (Joshua 1:4), and Zion (Jerusalem) will be the capital of the world (Psalm 2:6).

• Jesus will reign from His throne, and all the nations will fall into place under His authority. 

Peace will reign, His holy people will populate the government, and a scepter of righteousness will be the scepter of His Kingdom (Hebrews 1:8).

The venerable J. Vernon McGee put it in his own simple way: “The Millennium is God’s answer to the prayer, ‘Thy Kingdom come.’ When we pray... the Lord’s Prayer, we say, ‘Thy Kingdom come... in earth, as it is in Heaven’ (Matthew 6:10). That is the Kingdom which He is going to establish here on earth, and it is called the Millennium.”3

Just as the angels in the invisible realms honor and quickly obey their King, so will it be on this planet. And so it should be with you and me now.

Three Prayers for You to Offer

The Bible gives us three prayers connected with the coming end of this age. The first is the one I’ve emphasized in this chapter and is taken from the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus said,

Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. — Matthew 6:10 

The second prayer is a one-word term I learned early in life because I grew up using the King James Version of the Bible. The apostle Paul closed his first letter to the Corinthians with the word

Maranatha. — 1 Corinthians 16:22 KJV 

This is a direct English translation of a Greek word meaning, “O Lord, come!” It was Paul’s exclamatory request to Heaven for the prompt return of Jesus Christ to set up His Kingdom.

Very similarly, the final prayer of the Bible is Revelation 22:20:

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

How many times have you looked toward Heaven and offered these three prayers in recent weeks? They should be on our lips as we observe the troubling headlines of earth. They should come to our minds when we face trials and temptations of all kinds. They should sound from our hearts whenever we see a beautiful sunrise and from our mouths as the sky explodes in color with the setting of the sun.

We should always make these prayers very personal, especially when we say to the Lord, “Your will be done.” It’s gripping to notice how that phrase appears at the beginning and ending of our Lord’s ministry. In His inaugural sermon in Matthew 6, as we’ve seen, Jesus taught us to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). And amid blood and tears, He prayed on the last night of His natural life,

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will. — Matthew 26:39

Because Christ surrendered Himself to the Father’s will in Matthew 26, we can pray with confidence and anticipation these glorious prayers that point toward His coming Golden Age: 

“Maranatha! Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”

In his book Praying Circles Around Your Future, Mark Batterson wrote, “Your prayers have the potential to change the course of history. In the grand scheme of God’s story, there is a footnote behind every headline. The footnote is prayer... Never underestimate the power of a single prayer.”4

If you want to start drawing circles around your future right now — and that of the whole world—then take a moment with me to pray this prayer:

Maranatha!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

1. J. C. Ryle, “Matthew 6:9-15,” Expository Thoughts on Matthew (Edinburgh, Banner of Truth Trust, 1856), https://ccel.org/ccel/ryle/matthew/matthew.vii.ii.html, quoted in Curtis Rose, The Lord’s Prayer (Castle Rock, CO: Renew Publication, 2014), location 267, Kindle.
2. Thomas Watson, “The Lord's Prayer,” from A Body of Practical Divinity: Consisting of Above 176 Sermons on the Lesser Catechism (London: Thomas Parkhurst, 1692), location 1140, Kindle.
3. J. Vernon McGee, Revelation, vol. 3, Revelation 14-22 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1991).
4. Mark Batterson, Praying Circles Around Your Future (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018), 20, 60.

Excerpted with permission from The Coming Golden Age by Dr. David Jeremiah, copyright Dr. David Jeremiah.

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Your Turn

Let’s pray that prayer together today and in the coming days! Come, Lord Jesus. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Maranatha! ~ Devotionals Daily