Reasons Why The Kingdom Of God Remains A Mystery (A Hidden Truth) To Many

Application : Let us be willing to act on truth, not procrastinate, or we will risk loosing it. The secret to growth is to grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 3:18)

J. To the degree we participate in the ministry of the kingdom of God will be directly proportional to how much we will experience the blessing of God. Try it, and you will see immediately that to those who have more will be given, and they shall have in abundance.

Ray Steadman gives a very good illustration of the importance of obeying the truth of the kingdom of God when he writes:

But the contrasting idea is also true. If you don’t obey truth, it is taken away from you. This great principle is visible in international affairs:

1. Why, for instance, has Great Britain lost its empire and been reduced to a second rate power in our day after being the leading nation of the world for many decades? The answer is that the English people knew truth, which they failed to act on. They did not incorporate into their economic and national life the truth that they admitted widely as a people. They were false to principles they knew to be true, and, as a result, their scepter of power has been removed and they have sunk into relative obscurity. There is no other explanation for it. You can talk about economics, about politics, and other such things, but those are merely the processes by which this principle is worked out.

2. Why did the Roman Empire fall before the barbarian hordes after it had been queen of the world for centuries? The answer is that, when its paganism was confronted with the truth of the cross of Christ, it rejected that truth and fought back with fire and sword and wild beasts and cruel tortures. And the empire crumbled from within. All the wisdom of the Senate and all the experience garnered in centuries of world dominion was unable to hold that empire together.

3. Why are the Russian people now deprived of the right to worship, and of freedom of speech and of the press, and forbidden to travel abroad or even to read of other cultures? Because, when the truth of the gospel was widespread in Russia, as once it was, it was canonized and ritualized and evacuated of its content until it became a hollow shell of pretense and religious hypocrisy. When that happened the nation was rendered ripe for revolution.

4. What do you think is happening in the United States today? This nation is facing exactly that same possibility. The open rejection of the truth about Jesus Christ on the part of the American people, truth which they have known and seen, and the hollow pretense of obeying it when they really do not believe it, is dimming the light in this land and removing the barriers to savagery and violence -- and the barbarians are at the doors again. And evangelicals can be as guilty as anyone else in this respect.

This is the great principle upon which God determines history. It is illustrated in Israel, as Jesus goes on to show. He says,

"This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." {Matt 13:13 RSV}