This week, we will elaborate more on the proclamation of the Gospel of the kingdom referred to in Revelation 11:15-17 as the “seventh trumpet,” or message, to go forth.

         The seventh worldwide message to go forth is the greatest of all—the King is taking up His kingdom and will now rule over the earth. “Gospel” means “good news,” and the earth has never heard better news than this. Many have claimed to proclaim this message but have fallen short of doing so as Jesus and the first apostles proclaimed it, and they almost all do it the same way.

         A friend of mine, Robin McMillan, had a great insight about this when he said, “Most of the messages that have claimed to be the Gospel of the kingdom have really been about how to control people and get them to behave the way we think they should. Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the kingdom by demonstrating it and its power over all of the conditions on the earth.”

          Jesus basically went about saying (to paraphrase), “You know, we don’t have any lack in heaven. Watch what happens when heaven touches this little boy’s lunch.” Suddenly, what was intended to feed one little boy became enough for five thousand. Then Jesus would say something like, “You know, there are no cripples in heaven, so watch what happens when heaven touches this cripple.” The cripple was instantly healed. There is no death in heaven, so what happened when heaven touched a dead person? They lived. Then He said that when His disciples proclaimed this Gospel, the same evidence of heaven’s reality would accompany them.

         We briefly covered before how the first mention of something in Scripture was usually a profound revelation of its purpose, and let us again consider the first mention of God’s house in Scripture. This occurred when Jacob had a dream of the messengers of God ascending and descending on a ladder that reached into heaven. That is a basic revelation of what God’s house, the church, is called to be—the place of access to heaven. The messengers of God that we are all called to be ascend into the heavenly realm and then descend, bringing back evidence of heaven’s reality and its authority over the earth.

         As we also covered, Jesus is Jacob’s ladder, as He declared in His discourse with Nathaniel. Growing in kingdom authority is not just learning the principles and methods of the kingdom—it is growing up in all things into Christ, the King. We only have true spiritual authority to the degree that we abide in the King. As we abide in Him, we learn His ways—not just what He is doing, but why.

         In this same way, the ultimate declaration of the Gospel of the kingdom will come from the King through His people. Therefore, our goal is to not just hear the words of the Lord, but to hear the Word Himself. This is personal, and it is about relationship. Again, it is not just learning “kingdom principles” as so many have tried to present the Gospel of the kingdom. Rather, it is seeing the King and learning to see with His eyes, hear with His ears, and understand with His heart. This will always reduce down to loving Him and loving one another, to relationship with Him and with each other.

         Spiritual authority is founded on love. Jesus felt compassion for the sheep without a shepherd and He became their Shepherd. Jesus felt compassion for those living in darkness and He became their teacher. Principles can be helpful, but only if they lead us to relationship. The messages reduced to just principles become cold, hard, and bureaucratic institutions that may have a form of godliness but have lost the true power of transformation.

         This is not to reduce the kingdom to emotions, as many consider love to be just an emotion—it is much more. There are many types of love in Scripture, but we can be assured that God’s love is full of both grace and truth. God’s love is not based on our religious performance, but on His love for His Son who purchased us with His life. This is why and how our approach to God is through the blood of Jesus. This is like how the priests would never enter the presence of the Lord, represented by the Ark of the Covenant, except with the blood.

BOTTOM LINE: It’s all about Jesus. As Ephesians tells us, all things will be summed up in Him, and our life is summed up in Him. The Gospel of the kingdom is a revelation of the King, as we will cover in more depth next week.