Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to a new week of Telling the Truth with Stuart and Jill Briscoe.

Jill Briscoe: Jesus said once, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?" We invite the Lord Jesus Christ to be our Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ, we invite King Jesus to come and do what he wants to do in his kingdom. The Kingdom of God is within you.

So right at the beginning, I want to ask a few questions here. Have you let down the drawbridge? Is he in? Has there come a moment where you realize that you've been running your life and what you need to do is to welcome the King? The Kingdom of God is within you. Now, the Kingdom of God is within me, is the Kingdom of God within you?

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe shares how you can experience the joy of letting Jesus be King of your life. But first, did you know the Book of Revelation is meant to encourage you in turbulent times? It's a fascinating but mysterious book. It's apocalyptic, prophetic, and pastoral all at once.

And we want to help you dive into its encouraging message by sending you Stuart Briscoe's series, End Times: What's Going On? It's our thanks for your financial support to keep this broadcast going strong. So call today to request your copy and uncover God's plan for the end times. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill Briscoe with the start of her message, Finding the Kingdom.

Jill Briscoe: Jesus invited a lost world to become citizens of a sphere of spiritual experience called the Kingdom of God. Here, they would enjoy the privileges and responsibilities of knowing the King. I'm excited to start a series using the parables. Through the parables that Jesus taught, these parables are earthly stories with a heavenly meaning, we'll discover what this rich life in the kingdom is all about.

Now the Kingdom of God's a big subject. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is a spiritual reality. A spiritual reality is just as real as a physical reality. You can't see it, you can't put it under a microscope, but actually, it's even more real than a material reality. For material things will pass away, but spiritual things will never pass away. But when you talk about spiritual things, it's a little hard to get a handle on them because we like to touch and feel and see so that we can really understand, we human creatures that we are.

Now Jesus taught right at the beginning of his ministry that he had come to be King of that kingdom of spiritual reality in people's lives. The Kingdom of God, first of all, is a present reality, he said. "The Kingdom of God is near you," he said. John the Baptist had been preaching, "The King is coming, the King is coming." And when Jesus came, he pointed him out and then he got himself put in prison for his trouble.

And as soon as John the Baptist was put in prison, in Mark 1, it says that Jesus began his public ministry. And the very first sermon that he preached is recorded for you in Mark chapter 1. He said, "The Kingdom of God is among you. The Kingdom of God is near you." What did he mean? Well, he meant, "I'm the King and I'm here, so the Kingdom of God is among you. Where I am, there the kingdom is. The time has come, so you repent and listen to the good news." That was his first sermon.

Now at the end of his life, as he came into Jerusalem on that donkey, if you remember, what were people calling out? "Hosanna, Hosanna!" Where were they getting all that from? "Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord." Well, they were getting it from the prophets, where we were told that the king, the coming king of this spiritual kingdom that can be experienced, this sphere of spiritual experience in human nature, the king would come riding on a donkey into the holy city, Jerusalem.

That was prophecy, that was history written in advance. And Jesus fulfilled that prophecy when he came into Jerusalem. And that's why we call it Palm Sunday. Everybody took those palms and welcomed the King into the city. So the Kingdom of God was a big subject when Jesus was around. If you count up how many times he told stories and parables and metaphors and similes about the Kingdom of God, it is more than any other subject that he talked about.

There are more sermons Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God than anything else he preached. It was a present reality because he was physically present in a Jewish body in an area of the world called the Middle East for 33 years. Secondly, the Kingdom of God is a future reality. There will be a coming kingdom. He taught his disciples to pray, "Pray thy kingdom come, thy will be done as in heaven, so on earth." There is a kingdom in heaven. Jesus is the King of that kingdom.

And there is a coming kingdom when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, every tongue, whether they want to or not, that Jesus Christ is King and is Lord of lords and King of kings. And you can read all about that in the Book of Revelation and many other places as well. So this sphere of experience called the Kingdom of God is anywhere that Jesus is King. It will be in the future as Jesus said when he was on earth, it was near them, among them.

Now, one day Jesus stood before Pilate, if you remember, when he was just about to be crucified. And Pilate had quite a talk with him. If you like, you can just turn to that because it's quite a relevant passage. It's John chapter 18. Let's have a look at that for a minute. Jesus has been arrested. And if you look in verse 33, Pilate goes back inside the palace after talking to the enemies of Jesus, summons Jesus and asks him, "Are you the King of the Jews?"

"Well, is that your own idea?" Jesus asked. "Or did others talk to you about me?" "Do you think I'm a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people, your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you've done?" Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place." "You are a king then," said Pilate.

Jesus answered, "You're right in saying I'm a king." Another Gospel says, "You've said it, thou sayest, thou hast said it." "You are a king? You've said it. In fact, for this reason I was born, born to be King. And for this I came into the world to testify to the truth." Part of that truth is the truth about himself, that he was God incarnate, King of heaven. "Everyone on the side of truth listens to me." "What is truth?" Pilate asks. And then he goes out and says, "I find no fault with this man."

In fact, Pilate instructed the people who were putting the crosses up to write in three languages so everybody would get the message: "This is the King of the Jews." And of course, the Pharisees and the leaders of the people were furious. And they came to him and said, "Take that down. We don't want that hanging over his head. If you want to write something, put 'He claimed to be King of the Jews.'" And Pilate says, "What I've written, I've written." And he was just about fed up with them.

And so it was left. Jesus was the King and he spoke of the Kingdom of God being the place where he was because he's the King of the kingdom then when he was on earth for those 33 years. But he also spoke about a future reality: "My kingdom is not of this world." And of course, you remember the story of the two men that were crucified with Jesus, the two thieves. And remember what happened? One of them started reviling Jesus and cursing him and all the rest of it.

And the other one said, "Hey, we better be careful what we say. We deserve to be crucified. This man has done nothing wrong." And he turns to Jesus, remember? And do you remember what he says? "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." That little phrase makes a lot of people believe that perhaps that thief had been around one of Jesus's meetings. How could he possibly have known about the Kingdom of God and all of those things? Why would he have said that?

And so it does make one curious to know why he turned to Jesus. Was it something he saw in the way Jesus was dying, or had he heard him speak? Had he heard Jesus say, "The Kingdom of God is near you and I'm the King"? Had he seen people healed? Had he seen Lazarus raised from the dead? We have absolutely no idea. But we do know he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into my kingdom."

And at that point, Jesus turned to him and said, "Today you'll be with me in paradise." I think the thief must have been wonderfully surprised to find himself in the kingdom of heaven that very same day. The future kingdom is after death, after death. And of course, when everything's wrapped up, there will only be the Kingdom of God. There will not be the kingdom of this world anymore.

Guest (Male): That's Jill Briscoe on today's Telling the Truth. She's headed right back to God's Word for more on the joy of letting Jesus be King of your life. But before we dive back in, if you ever wonder what the end times hold for humanity, there's no better place to look than the Book of Revelation. And while many shy away from this mysterious book of the Bible, it contains so much encouragement for you today.

We want to help you uncover the mystery of the end times with Stuart's eight-message series, End Times: What's Going On? In this long-awaited series, Stuart dives into the apostle John's writings in Revelation to help you make sense of this mysterious book of the Bible. You'll uncover the key promises it contains for the end times and how its prophetic words can strengthen your faith today.

End Times is our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience life in Christ through the ministry of Telling the Truth. So call today to request your copy of the series when you give to help more people experience life. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org.

For many, our smartphones have become our social connection. But we want to help you make a spiritual connection with the Telling the Truth mobile app. You can listen to daily programs, engage in Bible reading plans, journal, and share your thoughts and prayers on the community wall. Get the Telling the Truth app through your app store or log on to tellingthetruth.org/mobileapp. Now, once again, it's Jill Briscoe.

Jill Briscoe: The future kingdom is after death, after death. And of course, when everything's wrapped up, there will only be the Kingdom of God. There will not be the kingdom of this world anymore. So Jesus said there was a future reality to the Kingdom of God. And he also said there was a present reality to the Kingdom of God. And he also said there was a spiritual reality for those of us that live since he died and before he comes. Because the King is coming to wrap it all up.

And in Luke 17, he addresses some of the people that were asking about this. If you want to turn to that, that's another relevant passage we can look at. Luke 17. Once having been asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God does not come visibly, nor will people say, 'Here it is, there it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you."

Then he said to his disciples, "The time's coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. Men will tell you, 'There he is, here he is.' Don't go running after them. For the Son of Man in his day," his day being the second coming day, "will be like the lightning which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected, etc., etc."

The Kingdom of God is within you. So the Kingdom of God was among them because the King was there. The Kingdom of God is coming. Today we shall be with him in paradise when our time comes to face death and go through that door. And of course, the King and King and Lord of lords will reign forever and ever in his coming and final kingdom. And the Kingdom of God is a spiritual reality for you and I now.

There's a children's chorus that says, "May the flag fly high in the castle of my soul when the King is in residence there," something like that. I love that chorus. "May the flag fly high in the castle of my heart when the King is in residence there." The Kingdom of God can be within us. That's our present reality. So the Kingdom of God is anywhere, it's the sphere of spiritual experience where Christ is King.

So how does the King get into residence in the castle so that we can put up the flag and say, "Hey, the King is in residence there"? How does he get in? You let down the drawbridge. There comes a point where the drawbridge which represents your will is let down over that chasm that separates you from Jesus, and you welcome him into your life.

When he comes in, he does not come in to sit just inside the door. He comes to sit on the throne, so you have to get off it because self is on the throne before Jesus ever comes into the life. And you enthrone Jesus. You know we sing that beautiful, beautiful chorus, one of my favorites: "I see you Lord, high and lifted up on the throne of my life."

So you put down the drawbridge and you ask him in. Not only to be resident, but to be president. Not only to be resident, but to be president. Jesus said once, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?" We invite the Lord Jesus Christ to be our Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ, we invite King Jesus to come and do what he wants to do in his kingdom. The Kingdom of God is within you.

So right at the beginning, I want to ask a few questions here. Have you let down the drawbridge? Is he in? Has there come a moment where you realize that you've been running your life and what you need to do is to welcome the King? The Kingdom of God is within you. Now, the Kingdom of God is within me, is the Kingdom of God within you? The only reason the Kingdom of God is in me is that one day I let down that drawbridge and I invited him to come to the throne of my life and my heart where he rightfully belongs.

So when I think of the Kingdom of God, it is the sphere of spiritual experience that I can enjoy here and now on the way to the Kingdom of God when I die. And there's a grand assurance about that that we'll also talk about later. Now, in this Word of God, there is much, much teaching about the Kingdom of God, and much of it is in Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus began to use parables to get his point about life in the kingdom across. This kingdom where riches, spiritual riches, can be enjoyed.

And why did he use parables? That's a question many, many people asked, and even the disciples asked it. If you turn to Matthew 13 for a minute, read that passage about his disciples coming to him and asking him that very, very question. Verse 11 of Matthew 13. He'd been telling the story of the sower, and I'll be taking some of the main parables and taking them apart for us and applying them. But he had just been teaching the parable of the sower, and the disciples in verse 10 come to him and ask, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"

He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, he will have an abundance. Whoever doesn't have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables. Though seeing they do not see, though hearing they do not hear or understand." And then he uses the prophecy of Isaiah that talks about people's hearts being hard and eyes being blind.

"Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn or be converted and I would heal them. Blessed are your eyes because they do see, your ears because they hear, etc., etc." Now, you might say, "Well, that doesn't explain to me why he spoke in parables." It seems that he was being rather mean. He was making it difficult. He was hiding the truth that would help people come into this wonderful sphere of spiritual experience so they could really know God.

Well, basically speaking, it is a little bit difficult to understand, but Jesus only began to use parables after he was rejected by the leaders of his people. That's the only time he began to use parable and metaphor. When the leaders rejected him, he used stories, parables, similes, and metaphors to communicate the truth.

Jesus said, secondly, that these parables would be understood by those with faith or that were coming to faith, that were searching, that were seeking, that had hearts that said, "I really want to find some hidden spiritual treasures for myself." But it would remain obscure to unbelievers. It would remain obscure to unbelievers.

Now, these earthy stories with a heavenly meaning used familiar images, if you remember: leaven, sheep, bridesmaids, publicans, wheat, tares, lost coins, etc. And the parables had to do with God's working in human history and the human heart. They were parables of the Kingdom of God. They had truths hidden within them that Jesus wanted people to search for, to dig for, to look for.

Why? He wants us to be sincere. He wants us to show a little bit of effort, not indifference. If he had left his treasure lying on the top of that field that the man was digging in, it would have been trampled underfoot. He hid it in order that people might search with all their hearts. He said, "You'll find me when you look for me and search for me with all your heart." He wants us to be serious about finding him. He wants us to be serious about the search for spiritual reality.

He came to reveal secrets of spiritual reality to those who really wanted to find them. So he says, "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world." Then he says to his disciples, "Blessed are your eyes cause they see them. Father, I thank you you've revealed them unto these babes and you've hid them from people that are too clever for their own good, ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth."

Guest (Male): That's Jill Briscoe on today's Telling the Truth, and she'll be right back to answer some important questions about today's message. Revelation is a mysterious book of the Bible, but there is a beautiful message of hope for followers of Christ contained in this final book of Scripture. And as Christians, we should all examine what God has in store for the world to come.

In the eight-message series, End Times: What's Going On?, Stuart explores how Revelation teaches you to prepare for God's plan for the future. You'll gain a deeper understanding of the events yet to come and grow in your confidence of God's sovereignty. Request your copy of End Times today when you give a gift of any amount to Telling the Truth. You can give online at tellingthetruth.org or call 1-800-889-5388. Now, here's Stuart and Jill with one final word on today's program.

Stuart Briscoe: Well, Jill, it's interesting. People either are infatuated by the kingdom or they're absolutely terrified of it. Why do you think that is?

Jill Briscoe: Well, I think we're infatuated with the fact that there's another kingdom, and it's invisible and it's spiritual. We know there's something else other than just the stuff we can see and handle. And yet we're terrified by it because we can't see it and we can't handle it. But the key thing that we need to remember about the kingdom is that the King is Jesus.

The King is not a mean, angry God who wants to do us harm. He's a King of love. He came to earth and he died for us. He wants to be in our life, he wants to rule our life, and he wants to lead us into all the spiritual riches that the kingdom has to offer. So we shouldn't be afraid. We should embrace the King and embrace the kingdom.

Stuart Briscoe: That's right. And for those of you who haven't yet let down that drawbridge and invited Jesus in to be King, I want to encourage you to do that today. It will be the best decision you ever make.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us for another edition of Telling the Truth. Join us next time as we continue our series, Finding the Kingdom. For more resources from Stuart and Jill Briscoe, visit tellingthetruth.org. This program was a presentation of Telling the Truth.