Thy Kingdom Come

Editor’s note: In The Coming Golden Age, Dr. David Jeremiah teaches us what to expect in the future when Jesus returns and how the coming reign of Christ affects our daily lives today. The King is coming, and we have a part to play in this story that promises to set right all that is wrong and usher in a new golden age. Enjoy this excerpt. 

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Gerald Ford, his head bowed in reverence, was reciting the Lord’s Prayer when he learned he was about to become president of the United States.

He had gathered for a weekly prayer meeting in the office of John Rhodes, minority leader of the House of Representatives. Also present were Minnesota congressman Albert Quie and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. This group gathered each Wednesday to pray for the nation and for one another, but today was tense. They were on the cusp of an unprecedented moment in American history: the resignation of an embattled president. After each of the men had prayed individually, they offered in unison the Lord’s prayer:

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

Suddenly Rhodes’s secretary entered the room and said, “I know I’m never supposed to interrupt this meeting, but considering the circumstances I think I should. The White House just called and said Jerry Ford should come down to the White House right away.” 

No one needed to ask why. Congressman Quie asked, “Jerry... What if, when you have a press conference, somebody should ask you, ‘Where were you and what were you doing when you found out that you were going to be the president?’”

“Nobody’s going to say that,” said Ford on his way out the door.1

The Watergate Scandal is only one of thousands of crises that have jerked the history of the world like a rag doll. Think of other unexpected events that have upset the trajectories of the human story — the fall of Babylon in the days of Daniel; the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in AD 410; the victory of William the Conqueror in England in 1066; the assassination of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand that sparked World War I; the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941; the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

It seems history is lurching along with no rhyme or reason, subject to the blowing of the wind or the falling of the dice, and the world is destined to end in the ashes of ultimate catastrophe. Historian Henry Steele Commager said, “History is a jangle of accidents, blunders, surprises, and absurdities, and so is our knowledge of it.”2

But never forget the Lord reigns!

His throne is secure in the heavens, and He rules behind the scenes and beneath the surface of the tides of history. Like a river that flows beneath the ground then surges to the surface for all to see, His rule will burst forth with cascading power when Jesus comes again.

I want to impress upon you this fact: the millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ will be the great fulfillment of the prayer taught to us by Jesus:

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

Every day, millions of Christians say that prayer in hundreds of languages in thousands of diverse settings and situations. It has been so for the last two thousand years. No prayer has been more frequently uttered, more meaningfully offered, and more urgently needed. Even now, as you read these words, someone, somewhere, is praying the sixty-six words of the Lord’s Prayer.

I want to suggest that when we pray, “Your Kingdom come,” we’re praying for two parallel realities. There are two phases of the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus. The first is the present reality of the Kingdom of grace, the church of the Lord Jesus, which is growing in the world right now. Jesus is the King over the hearts of millions of people who are following Him in their homes and to the ends of the earth.

But the ultimate fulfillment of this second petition of the Lord’s Prayer will be answered as soon as Christ returns and sets up a visible, geopolitical Kingdom headquartered in Jerusalem. That Kingdom is the subject of this book.

The Kingdom of Grace 

I want to introduce you to a phrase Bible scholars use to describe the kingdom of God: already but not yet. Have you heard that? This phrase was coined over a hundred years ago by Princeton theologian Geerhardus Vos and made popular by another scholar, George Eldon Ladd, in the 1950s. The idea is that the Kingdom of Heaven is already here, but it has not yet come in its fullness.

Ladd wrote, “The Word of God does say that the Kingdom of God is a present spiritual reality... At the same time, the Kingdom is an inheritance which God will bestow upon His people when Christ comes in glory... The Kingdom is a present reality (Matthew 12:28), and yet it is a future blessing (Romans 14:17). It is an inner spiritual redemptive blessing (Romans 14:17), which can be experienced only by way of the new birth (John 3:3), and yet it will have to do with the government of the nations of the world (Revelation 11:15).”

Ladd continued, “Therefore, what we pray for is ‘Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.’ This prayer is a petition for God to reign, to manifest His kingly sovereignty and power, to put to flight every enemy of righteousness and of His divine rule, that God alone may be King over all the world.”3

Those of us who know Jesus Christ as our Lord are currently — at this moment — citizens of the Kingdom of God on this earth. We are walking models of those who have allowed the Lord to reign on the throne of our hearts. We are Kingdom people, infiltrating the earth for His purposes.

Jesus began His preaching ministry with the news of the imminent appearing of the Kingdom of God. He said,

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. — Matthew 4:17

He also said,

Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the Kingdom of God. — Mark 10:14

In Luke 17:21, He said, 

The Kingdom of God is within you.

When Jesus stood before Pilate, He said,

My Kingdom is not of this world. If My Kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight. — John 18:36

When the Holy Spirit descended on the 120 disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem shortly after the ascension of Jesus Christ, the church came into sudden and sublime existence. The word kingdom means the king’s domain; so, those who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord are His people, His possession.

• We are a spiritual Kingdom in a physical world.

Our Lord told us in Matthew 12:28, 

But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the Kingdom of God has come upon you.

Paul wrote,

For the Kingdom of God is not eating or drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. — Romans 14:17

In Colossians 1:13, he added,

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love. 

When you pray for God’s Kingdom on earth, you are praying for the spread of the gospel and the expansion of the church. When you pray for the missionaries God places on your heart, when you engage in mission trips around the world, when you give to ministries that are reaching the globe, when you intercede for your own local churches — you are echoing the prayer of Christ. You are asking God to let His Kingdom come to all the earth.

1. Dale Van Atta, With Honor: Melvin Laird in War, Peace, and Politics (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 470.
2. Henry Steele Commager, The Study and Teaching of History (New York, NY: Merrell Publishers, 1980), 74.
3. George Eldon Ladd, Gospel of the Kingdom (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 16–17, 21. 

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

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Your Turn 

The Lord reigns! Even in chaotic events, even in upending circumstances, even in scandals, His throne is secure. When we pray for His Kingdom to come, we’re praying that in His sovereignty, He will bring His power to us and others to spread the gospel and bring good news to everyone. Let’s pray for His Kingdom to come! ~ Devotionals Daily