Now it should be evident from the imperfect nature of the kingdom of God, as we see it today, that there is yet to be a kingdom in which the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ is totally recognized. Christ Himself taught this.
The first parable of the kingdom is the parable of the sower. Jesus said that a man went out to sow seed. It happened that some of it fell on a hard surface where it was devoured by birds; some of it fell in shallow ground and sprang up quickly only to be scorched by the sun; some fell among thorns and was choked by them; and some fell on good ground where it produced in some cases a hundred handfuls of grain for one handful, in others sixty for one, and in still others thirty for one.
Unfortunately, many teachers and churchmen have gone from the statements that I have just been making to the totally erroneous assumption that because the kingdom of God comes wherever men believe in Christ and respond to the gospel, the kingdom in this sense will inevitably go on expanding until all or nearly all of the world believes. And they have devised a theory by which the Church militant becomes the kingdom of God on earth.
When the Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth and began His formal ministry, the kingdom of God came in another sense and was closer. In Christ it was among mankind. Thus, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is among you.” Now, as His Spirit works in the lives of those who have been given Him by the Father, there is a sense in which the kingdom also comes in men. Thus Paul, who went about "preaching the kingdom of God," defines it in its internal aspects as "righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17). This kingdom comes today whenever and wherever God's righteousness, peace, and joy transform a life and bring the fullness of spiritual blessing.
The second petition of the Lord's Prayer is related to the first one, for it is a request that the kingdom of God might come. What is God's kingdom? This question is not so easily answered as one might think. For the views of Bible teachers and commentators have often differed greatly. Moreover, the Bible presents so many aspects of God's kingdom and presents them in so many lights that any short answer is inevitably an incomplete and often misleading one.
