This is a question which has fascinated people over the centuries and they have devised wild and unfulfilled predictions about when it will be. And yet one day this world will come to an end and the Lord Jesus has given us practical teaching and warnings about it.
He was asked when the Kingdom of God would come, bringing the present state of the world to an end. He gave an interesting answer in His reply by saying that the kingdom had already come. This kingdom, He said, is ‘within you’. People were looking for startling signs and imagined the Kingdom would mean the overthrow of Imperial Rome’s rule, yet Jesus said, it is nothing to do with that at all. His very presence among them was bringing the Kingdom of God to all those who believed in Him, repented of their sin and received Him and His teachings by faith. It was ‘within them’! Some had already entered that Kingdom by receiving Christ into their hearts by God’s wonderful grace. The Lord Jesus was now truly the King of their hearts and lives. That teaching and truth is as relevant today as then. As the carol says ‘Where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in’. That carol also says ‘How silently , how silently, the wondrous gift is given, So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven’.
The Lord Jesus also taught that one day He would come again in great glory and power. He would be visible to all humanity, and His wonderful Kingdom would be an open revelation and made up of all those saved through Him, by faith in Him. So the kingdom of God has in a very real sense already come spiritually within those who believe in Him. When Jesus comes again it won’t be as at His first coming, silent and concealed, but will be absolutely open and glorious. It will also be unexpected and take the world by surprise. What will be happening when Jesus returns? Rather than the world looking for it, instead it will be a day just like any other. Jesus said that people will be getting married, going to work and simply getting on with life. Then Jesus will return and the world will be shocked and awed into silence and will try to escape from Him.
1 Timothy 1 vs 15
