Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, peached this message on March 30, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
Darla Hunter and I were on some vacation days this week, so there’s no PowerPoint. We’re going to do things the old fashioned way. Hopefully you brought your Bibles. You can turn to Luke chapter 10. And if you did not bring your Bible, you can pull out that pew Bible and turn to page 921.
I don’t know what page your Bible is, but I do know the Pew Bible is 9:21. If you’ll turn there to Luke chapter 10 and I will be reading verses 1 through 20.
After this, The Lord appointed 72 others, and he sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself was about to go. He told them, the harvest is abundant, but the workers are few.
Therefore pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. Now go. I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Don’t carry a money bag, traveling bag, or sandals. Don’t greet anyone along the road.
Whatever house you enter, first say peace to this household. If a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on him. But if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house eating and drinking. What they offer for the worker is worthy of his wages.
Don’t move from house to house. When you enter any town and they welcome you, eat the things they set before you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them the kingdom of God has come near you. And when you enter any town and they don’t welcome you, go out into its streets and say, we are wiping off even the dust of your town that clings to our feet as a witness against you, know this for certain. The kingdom of God has come near.
I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town. Woe to you, Chorazine. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the miracles that were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.
And you, Capernaum, Will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will go down to Hades. Whoever listens to you, listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me. The 72 returned with joy, saying, lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.
And he said to them, I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Look, I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing at all will harm you. However, don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. May we pray?
Heavenly Father, as we look at your word once again, we thank you that you have given it to us with a desire that we know it and that we understand it. So we ask that you would empower us today to see what your Holy Spirit wants us to see and know how to apply that to our lives. In Jesus name, Amen. Jesus is headed to Jerusalem and he is sending out 72 of his followers to let those know that he is on the way and they are to preach about the coming kingdom. We share today not just about the kingdom, but also our fuller understanding of what the Gospel is.
But we want to be looking at some principles here and some connections with how we also are supposed to present the Gospel when we go out into the world. We started out with Jesus sending them out in pairs of two. And just as a matter of introduction, there are three things we want to consider about why he sent them out in pairs of two. There’s the practicality of it, there is the propriety of it, and there is the practice of was very practical that two people would be sent out. According to Ecclesiastes 4, verses 9 through 12, we read two are better than one because they have a good reward for their efforts.
For if either falls, his companion can lift him up, but pity the one who falls without another to lift him up. Also, if two lie down together, they can keep warm. But how can one person alone keep warm? And if someone overpowers one person, two can resist him. It was just going to be practical that they would go out in pairs of two.
But it’s like that in our sharing the Gospel today. It is supposed to be a team effort. It makes it easier. It’s just practical when we work in pairs, or as families, or with friends, but entirely as a body of Christ and what we are to share with the world. But not only was it the practicality, but was the propriety of the matter, because according to the law, a proper witness of anything that happened had to be established by two or three people.
In Deuteronomy 19:15, we read that a fact must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. And then in 2nd Corinthians 13:1 we read every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. One person sharing the Gospel with someone isn’t always enough. But if a second person, a third person. Eventually they hear it enough.
They hear a testimony that comes from many people about the power of God working in people’s lives. And it just gives credence to what they are saying. There is more propriety to it. The third thing is about the practice, and that just became the practice of the early church, that this is what they were going to do. And throughout the Book of Acts, we find that they were sending out people two by two.
In Acts, chapter 8, verse 14, they sent Peter and John together. In Acts, chapter 9, when they wanted Peter to come to them, they sent two men to summon Peter. And then we find in Acts chapter 11 that Barnabas and Saul went out together in order to share the gospel. What was it they were doing? Why were they going out?
Well, it’s because this is where Jesus was about to go himself. The job of the 72 here is to prepare the way for Jesus. Jesus was going to be in those places eventually, but he still wanted his Father followers to announce the arrival of the kingdom. Likewise, God chooses us to be involved in sharing his gospel with the world. He could send angels to proclaim the gospel in the skies.
He could do it all by himself. But it’s a great honor and a privilege to us that he wants us to be involved, just as he did with these 72, to preach the kingdom of God. There’s some key words that we’re going to look at as we just kind of walk through the text and talk about each of them today. And the first word is pray. Jesus said, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.
We should all be concerned about praying that God will send out more workers. And in this case, when I’m talking about workers, I’m talking about the missionaries that we send out, the evangelists that go and preach the gospel. We’re supposed to be involved in praying for them that God will send them, as well as giving them finances that they might proclaim the Gospel of God. But not only are we supposed to pray for others to go, but then Jesus tells them specifically, and here’s the second word, go. We’re not just supposed to pray that others will share the gospel and finance them to do that, but God calls us to go individually, ourselves, but we are also to be workers in spreading news about the kingdom and the Gospel of Christ.
That’s why in Matthew 28, 19, 20, Jesus said, Go, speaking to all of them, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe everything. I have commanded you and remember, I am with you always to the end of the age. It’s our commandment that we are to go and share the Gospel. The next word I want you to think of is beware. It’s not going to be easy sharing the gospel because Jesus says, I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
Witnessing is not a task without dangers. Sharing the gospel in our country may feel difficult, but in other countries it can mean that you’re giving up your very life in order to do that. But we have the promise that we are like lambs. We are sheep in the pasture of our good shepherd who promises to watch over us, to care for us, and to provide our needs. But in addition to being knowledgeable about that, we’re supposed to be aware that we we’re out there among wolves.
We have an enemy who is not passive. Satan is very aggressive in his desire to harm us, to keep us from presenting the Gospel of Christ. In 1 Peter, chapter 5, we read this. Be sober minded. Be alert.
Your adversary, the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone that he can devour. Resist him firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world. Our enemy is not passive. He is aggressive in his desire to harm us. The next word I want us to think of is depend.
Jesus says, don’t carry, and he gives them a list of things that they’re not supposed to take with them. Imagine going on a cruise or a vacation and not taking anything with you. The type of need that that would leave you in. Jesus is wanting them to learn to depend on him for all that they needed. And I want to say, when we’re presenting the Gospel to people, that’s especially true if we don’t feel like we know exactly what to say to every person or we don’t feel like we’re very eloquent at sharing the Gospel.
It’s in our sense of need. It’s when we actually lack that ability that we turn to God and we depend on him that he will supply us with the right words so that we know what to say. Next thing is, hurry, hurry. Jesus said, don’t even stop to greet anyone along the road. In other words, he was saying, you’re on mission here.
You have something that you are supposed to be doing. Don’t be delayed in doing what I have commanded you to do. Get to your destination. And he’s been talking about the harvesters going out here, when it comes time to harvest the field, it’s time to harvest the field. You can’t wait another week or two weeks or a month because you may lose everything.
Jesus says you need to work while things are ready for you to spread the Gospel. Sharing the gospel is supposed to be our priority in life and the ordinary things of life. Even as simple as greeting people should not keep us from our primary task. We need to be in a hurry about sharing the gospel because the time is growing short. The next word here is seek.
He tells them to seek out a person of peace. In other words, God is going to make it evident to them when there is someone who really wants to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. And once they found that person, they were supposed to stop and spend time with them and share with them about the kingdom. So it is when we go about our day to day life, we should be continually seeking for people of peace that might be interested in hearing the gospel. We do that by sharing a verse of scripture that means something to us.
Or we can say, you know, I was reading the Bible this morning and God really spoke to me, or one of my friends shared something to me. I heard a great song on the radio today that was a spiritual encouragement. Somebody prayed with me at church. Can I pray with you? Any of these little things that you say, just like looking for a person of peace, if their ears perk up and they say something to you that lets you know that hey, they want to hear more, I can present the gospel to them.
We should be always seeking people to share with. God expects that those who work in the ministry should have their needs met by those that they work with. That’s the other concept here. He said, don’t feel obligated to pay them back because they’re going to provide for your needs as you stay with them, they’re going to feed you, they’re going to give you lodging. This is further spoken of in First Timothy 5, 17, 18 where it talks about especially those that are full time in ministry deserve the wages that they receive from their ministry.
We read there that the elders who are good leaders are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching. And this isn’t just a verbal or a mental acknowledgment and honoring them because it says, do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain because the worker is worthy of his wages. People that are in full time ministry, people that are evangelists, people that are missionaries, deserve that. They have a living provided for them because they are continually sharing the gospel with the others. The context here is the worker is worthy of their wages after seek.
The next word is oblige. You’re not going to see it in the text, but to oblige means to do as someone asks in order to help or please them. And what Jesus is telling them here is to eat and drink whatever they offer you. And again, he emphasizes that, eat the things that are set before you. You are obliging these people so that you can help them and not offend them.
Jesus was warning the 72, as he tells us, don’t offend people that are being kind to us by being picky about this food that they serve us. He was saying, even if you go into a household where the cook is a bad cook, they’re to eat what was set before them. Missionaries to other cultures are faced with this all the time. We had a couple in our church one time, and he was going to help his wife, so he decided that he’d make soup while she was at work. And when she came home, she tasted it, and there was some crunchy stuff in there.
And he said, well, I couldn’t find the spices, so I just substituted with this stuff called potpourri. So she was so happy that her husband had cooked for once in his life, she ate it. But a more extreme thing is there was a missionary, and they said that they were being served the most expensive delicacy the person could offer them, and that was raw ground beef with a raw egg on top of it. How many of you had that for breakfast? I mean, you’d be worried about food poisoning, much less how it tastes.
So the missionary looked at it, said, well, if I just gobble it down, you know, and don’t breathe and don’t smell it, maybe I can get rid of it really quickly. So that’s what they did. And the husband called his wife over, and she quickly brought out another plate with another raw hamburger patty with another raw egg on top of it. And the man explained. He said, you must be starving that you would eat so fast.
So the missionary ate very slowly, that second portion.
But we need to do this in all things. This is part of what Paul said in First Corinthians, chapter 9. He said, I’m going to become all things to all people, going to oblige them in their customs, in their home. I’m going to oblige them with what they eat, because I don’t want to offend somebody where they don’t hear the Gospel. He said to some he was going to be a slave, to others he would be a Jew.
To those that were under the law, he would go by those customs in their house. But those that were not under the law, he was going to go by the customs in their homes. I become all things to all people so that I may be every possible means save some. This all applies also to our speech, supposed to be always seasoned with grace. And we’re supposed to speak the truth, which can be hard for some people to hear, but we’re supposed to speak it in what?
We’re supposed to speak it in love. When you’re witnessing to people, don’t try to offend them. Go to the other extreme and oblige them so that they’ll listen to what you have to say. Then Jesus tells them, heal the sick, because healing would be a sign of God’s presence in them and give credence to their message. The people that were sick were in need.
So I would say that when we’re going out to share the gospel with people, we need to see what they’re other needs are. If they need a coat and they’re cold, they’re not going to stand outside and listen to you share the gospel. When it’s 20 below, you need to do what you need to give them a coat so that they’ll listen. If somebody’s hungry, you need to feed them so that they’re not hungry and they can listen. We can also offer healing by sometimes just being kind to people or giving them an encouraging word or asking to pray for them.
All of these things about giving people what they need. The purpose of it is so that they can hear the gospel of the kingdom. The next word is speak. He says, speak, and this is what you’re to say, the kingdom of God has come near you. They didn’t understand the full gospel at this point because Jesus had not died on the cross, he hadn’t been buried, and he hadn’t been raised from the dead.
But they did acknowledge that he was the Messiah, the coming king, and they were going to share that with people. Jesus was about to enter these towns himself as he was headed to Jerusalem, and they are being given a warning to accept the kingdom that he was coming to offer to them. So it is in Matthew 6, verses 33 through 34, we learned that our priority that we’re to be talking about is God’s kingdom. It is to be our priority, not only to talk about it, to seek it first. Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God.
And his righteousness. And all these things will be provided for you. Therefore, don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own in our minds. Seeking the kingdom of God is to be more important than seeking our daily needs.
Think about how much time and energy you spend thinking about what you’re going to eat at your next meal and preparing it and working so that you can pay for the food. The kingdom of God is supposed to be more important and more on our mind than these simple things.
The next word is warn, where Jesus talks about wiping off the dust on your feet. The Jews would do this when returning from a foreign country. It was a symbol of leaving behind what was unholy and what did not belong. Those that did not accept their message were going to be as foreigners in the Kingdom of God. It was a warning to them as they shook the dust off their feet that if you are refusing what we have to say about the kingdom, then you are rejecting God.
And the warning here is that the kingdom of God eventually will come with a time of judgment. It’s emphasized in verse 14, it talks about judgment. In verse 15, it talks about Hades and eternal suffering. And it gives the warning four times in verse 16. If you reject, if you reject, if you reject, if you reject the kingdom of God, then you are going to face eternal judgment.
After the warning, Jesus talks about the victory. He says he watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. And here it’s in the context that as these were preaching about the kingdom of God in it was leading to Satan’s fall, it was leading to his demise. Every person that would hear about the kingdom, that would accept the kingdom, it would be another victory for the Lord and it would be a defeat for Satan. The 72 came back in verse 17 and they said, lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.
It says that they said this with joy. They were excited. Their perspective was focused on what they had been doing. But Jesus said, that’s the wrong perspective to have here. That’s the wrong focus.
He said, look, I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the powers of the enemy, nothing at all will harm you. What you did isn’t because of yourselves. It’s what I gave you. But he said, however, and this is the proper perspective, don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but instead rejoice that your names are written in heaven. They were supposed to be rejoicing that they knew that they were part of the kingdom of God.
This idea about our names written in heaven is talked about in Revelations, chapter 20, verses 11 through 15, where we read about the judgment of God when he sits on his white throne one day and judges all of the world. John says, I saw a great white throne, and once seated on it, earth and heaven fled from his presence and no place was found for them. I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. And the books were open. Here we have a multiplicity of books, but there was another singular book which was opened, which is the Book of Life.
And John tells us that the dead were judged according to their works by what was written in the multiplicity of books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, the death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them. And each one was judged according to their works. The kingdom of God eventually will end in judgment before the new world is ushered in. And at that point, those that are judged that are found unworthy, it says that they, with death and Hades, were thrown into the lake of fire.
This is the second death. It’s the final death. It’s the lake of fire. And it tells us anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life. Here we have the singular book was thrown into the lake of fire.
So the other side of that is those whose names were written in the Book of the Life were going to not be an eternal fire, but would enter the kingdom of God throughout eternity. It’s this perspective that we’re supposed to have. We’re supposed to focus not on what we’re doing in this world, even the things that we do for Christ, but we’re supposed to be looking forward to the time that we spend with him in eternity. I want us to take some time today to look back to the Old Testament, where Daniel and Daniel 2 talked about this kingdom that was coming, the kingdom that they understood was coming. And Daniel prophesied about it.
In your Pew Bible, it’s page 782 if you want to turn there with me. Now, we’re not going to read the whole chapter. We’re going to kind of skim through it. But in Daniel chapter two, we read, in the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams that troubled him and sleep deserted him. And the king was so disturbed that he called in the Chaldeans.
Those were all of his advisors. And he said this word to them. My word is final. If you don’t tell me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn Limb from limb, and your houses will be made a garbage dump.
When was the last time you were torn limb from limb? Doesn’t sound very comforting, does it? I don’t usually remember my dreams, but to know what my wife dreamed, I mean, that is what is being asked here. The king is asking something impossible. He says, I want you to tell me my dream, and then tell me what it means.
Verse 10 says, the Chaldean said, no one on earth can make known what the king requests. And then in verse 12, because of this, the king became violently angry and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. The decree was issued that the wise men were to be executed, and they searched for Daniel and his friends to execute them. Daniel, it tells us, came to the king and he asked for some time he wanted to pray about this. And he goes to his friends and ask them to pray with him.
And God tells him the dream and its meaning. In verse 27, Daniel answered the king, no wise man, medium, magician, or diviner is able to make known to the king the mystery he has asked about. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. And then in verse 31, Daniel goes on to talk about the dream that Nebuchadnezzar had. And he describes the dream starting at verse 32.
On this statue there was a head that was pure gold. Its chest and arms were silver. Its stomach and thighs were bronze, its legs were iron, and its feet were partly iron and partly fired clay. And as you were watching, a stone broke off without a hand touching, struck the statute on its feet of iron and fired clay and crushed them. And then the iron, the fired clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were shattered and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors.
And the wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statute, it became a great mountain, and it filled the whole earth. Daniel goes on in verse 39 to talk about how each of these represents a kingdom, the first being the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar himself, the head of gold. And Daniel says, and after you, after this head of gold, there will arise another kingdom inferior to yours. It’s going to be like silver instead of gold.
And then another, a third kingdom of bronze, which will rule the whole earth. And there will be a fourth kingdom that will be as strong as iron, for iron crushes and shatters everything. And like iron that smashes, it will crush and smash all the others. You saw the feet and toes partly of a potter’s fired Clay and partly of iron. This one will be a divided kingdom, though some of the strength of iron will be in it.
You saw that the iron was mixed with clay, which would be weak, and that the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly fired clay. Part of the kingdom will be strong and part will be brittle. You saw the iron mixed with clay, and you see that the peoples, now plural, will mix with one another, but they will not hold together just as iron does not mixed with fired clay. Daniel’s talking about a one world government that existed four times in history. That desire for a one world government goes all the way back to the Tower of Babel.
At the Tower of Babel, they were going to build a tower. They wanted to reach to the heavens. They wanted to exalt themselves above the Lord. And because they had one language and they had one set of customs, they had one menu that they all ate out of one recipe book, everything was similar. It allowed them to be joined together.
And that joining together as a one world government under the control of men was going to be an evil thing. So God did something to separate them and disperse them. So here’s your test for the day. What did God change their language all of a sudden? They didn’t speak the same language anymore.
And they, they separated out into different parts of the world and they developed their own customs, they had their own languages, they looked different. They weren’t a one world government. But still that desire to have a one world government continued. And Nebuchadnezzar came along and he set up the kingdom of Babylon. And he wanted everybody to have the same religion and he wanted everybody to eat the same food and everybody to have the same language.
And after him, the Greeks came along and we have the kingdom of Greece having a one world government. And then the Medes and the Persians had the. The third world government. And finally it came down to Rome up to the time of Christ. That was a one world government, that in order to be part of it, you had to speak Latin, you had to follow the customs of the Roman people.
That’s what the statue was showing here. But then that Roman Empire was finally conquered. And we get down to the feet, and we get down to the toes. And now instead of it being this united one group of people, one language, one set of customs, Daniel says that there will be multiple peoples and they’re going to be mixed with one another, but they’re not going to be able to hold together because they’re going to be from various places with various heritages. Various languages, various cultures, various religious practices, and that’s where we are in the world today after Rome fell down, that multiple nations are trying to join together, they’re trying to hold together, but because of their differences, it makes it very difficult.
It tells us in verse 44, in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. Here’s the promise of the coming kingdom. That’s going to be different. This kingdom will not be left to another people. It will crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end.
But it tells us that it itself will endure forever. This is the kingdom that Jesus was telling the 72 to go out and begin to preach about. Verse 45. Then it says that you saw a stone break off from the mountain without a hand touching it. This isn’t a kingdom of mortar and bricks and stone that men have put together.
It’s a kingdom that comes and it’s made without any hand of man touching it. Because this kingdom is a stone that is going to come from God Almighty. Daniel says that it crushed the iron, the bronze, fired clay, silver, and the gold. The great God has told the king what will happen in the future. The dream is certain and its interpretation reliable.
After Babylon, Greece, Medo, Persia and Rome, in the days when the world is trying to hold together by its own wisdom and power, God initially stepped into this world. His foot came in the form of a tiny baby Jesus Christ. He came in to set up his kingdom. But instead of setting it up in the way that former world leaders had, he didn’t rouse an army. He didn’t set out to conquer people.
Instead of it being formed by the hands of men, it’s going to be formed without human hands, because God himself is going to break off a stone, the rock, the cornerstone, always referring to Jesus Christ, the coming king. And just as his disciples didn’t understand what was going on, this was all based on God’s wisdom. Because God’s kingdom is different than that of men. It’s not going to be according to the wisdom of men. It will not begin with a conquering king or by wars that take over the world externally.
Instead, Jesus came not riding on a mighty horse, but he came riding on a humble donkey. And instead of building a kingdom on the dead bodies of those that he conquers, Jesus allows his body to die on the cross so that on his body the new kingdom might be built. Instead of externally forcing a new language on people and making people change their customs on the outside, Jesus said, my focus is going to be on your heart, that you’re going to change from the inside out. And eventually he will wipe away all remnants, all desires, all customs, all memories of all the former world governments. And the promise is that eventually he will establish a new world, a new creation.
And he did come in peace. But eventually there will be war, there will be judgment. That is yet to come. Now, Nebuchadnezzar could not understand his dream without the explanation from God. And so it is that the followers of Jesus, they didn’t completely understand what Jesus was telling them in their day.
But praise the Lord. We have the rest of the New Testament where the writers explain to us more about what the kingdom of God means and how we are to live in it. That explanation came partially through Jesus Christ and then later His Holy Spirit as he led in the books of Acts and all of the letters and finally the book of Revelation. We don’t have a complete understanding of how it’s all going to work out today, but we know that it’s going to be taken care of by God the Father. It is this kingdom that we are also supposed to declare, just as the 72 declared it.
And it is this kingdom that we have to choose to belong to it, or we’ll face the judgment that was warned about in the text. So how are we supposed to apply this today? The first thing is you need to answer this question. Are you able to rejoice because you know for certain that your name is written in heaven? Do you know without a doubt that you are a citizen of God’s kingdom and you’re not going to have to face judgment?
Do you know that your name is written in the book of life? If you can’t answer that positively, then my encouragement to you today is take that pamphlet home that says, what is the Gospel? Read that pamphlet and respond to God so that you can know that you are a part of his kingdom. But if you can say yes, I’m rejoicing today because I know that Jesus is my Savior. I placed my faith alone in him for my salvation.
I know that I’m going to spend eternity with him. Then I’m going to ask you to play baseball with me this week. Okay, Everybody know what baseball is? How many bases are there? Come on.
Three. One, two, three. And home plate. Okay, your first base is. Take that.
What is the gospel home with you. Don’t leave it sitting in the pew today. And that’ll get you to first base. Is that something you can all do? Just take it home to get to second base.
I would ask you to read the entire booklet. Just read it through once. In order to get to third base. I want you to go back and read each page, one page at a time, and then try to say in your own words what that particular page says. And if you want to score, if you want to get to home plate, I want you to share that pamphlet with someone, maybe someone in your family, maybe a friend.
It may already be another believer that you’re just going to share the pamphlet with. I’ll even let you score a run if you just hand that pamphlet to somebody and ask them to read it. Okay, I’m trying to make it really simple. But do something with the message today because the Gospel is of utmost importance and we want to know that everyone here today is part of the Kingdom of God. That they can be certain and live their life knowing that they live within God’s kingdom and then knowing that that we will all go out with enough concern and love for our family members and our friends and those we work with that we will also share with them about the Kingdom of God and not just depend on God sending out missionaries and people that are full time workers in the Gospel.
It’s up to us individually to do the work of the kingdom. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the certainty of your promises that your kingdom is here working in our midst now, but eventually it will be fulfilled with the second coming of Jesus Christ. When he sets all things to right, he removes all tears, he removes all evil, Father, and he takes away all memories of the evil nations and peoples that have been in charge in the past.
We thank you that he paid for this, Father, through his death on the cross. Let us be ever thankful to him and desirous to share with others the great joy that we have in his name that we pray. Amen.