THE OFFER OF THE KINGDOM – A Demand or An Offer?

An Absolute –

Here we are going to be talking about “The Offer of the Kingdom” and the nature of the decision that is necessary to surrender our reign and our will to the reign and will that our Father is offering.

First of all, the Kingdom of God, the reign of God, is an absolute, it is a fact. It is! God reigns! So the issue is not our establishing the reign, the issue is our relating to the reign. God reigns. That’s a fact. The issue is our relating to that reign. Jesus came preaching the gospel of this absolute fact that God reigns and that we were made for that reign. Man, woman, child, we were all made for the reign of God. It is an absolute fact. And unless we see that the reign is an absolute, unless we see that it is both absolute and our future is determined by how we relate to that absolute, we will be distracted by all the other issues of life and never settle the issue. Because the issue of life, the bottom line issue is, who reigns? That’s why it is central in the Gospels. The issue is who reigns! And the absolute is that God reigns! And, unless that absolute coincides with the reign in our heart, we will lose. The absolute is the reign of God.

A Demand or An Offer? –

The question comes then, is this Gospel of the Kingdom a demand or an offer? Is the Gospel of the Kingdom, is the reign of God, a demand or an offer?

My first impulse is to say that it is a demand. And those of you who have heard me teach on this before, realize that I had spoken of it as a demand, because it is an absolute.

And one of the reasons Israel rejected the Gospel that Jesus brought, is that it wasn’t a demand. It did not come with power. It did not come bending every knee. It did not come crushing every other kingdom and nation, as was prophesied in Daniel 2, for example. It came offered in such a way that it could be accepted or rejected. It was an offer.

The difference between a gospel that is a demand and a gospel that is an offer is the gospel that John the Baptist and all of those who preceded him preached, which was a gospel of demand. Do! – Don’t do! It was a gospel of requirements. And it required our performing to the demand. We call it the Law.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is a gospel of offer. We can choose to reject it or accept it. But it is different in nature to a demand, and that’s why it is an offer. The gospel of demand is a gospel of reformation, a gospel of change. The gospel that is an offer is a gospel of regeneration, which is a difference in kind.

John the Baptist brought a gospel that was intended to change man. Jesus brought a gospel that was intended to regenerate man. One requires the performance of the man, the gospel of demand, while the other requires the performance of another. One leaves you nervous and uncomfortable. You’re always wondering if you’ve measured up, completed the task, done it right. That’s why Israel ends up in translating the Law and breaking the Law down into hundreds and hundreds of interpretative laws.

For example, take the Law of rest. “You shall not work on the Sabbath.” It is the one that has the most laws under it because the issue is: what is work? And the nature of man is, if he is greedy or is wanting more than what the Lord has provided in a six day week and living under the Law of the Sabbath, then he will try to find a way around this law. The issue is – what is work?

For example, if you’ve got chickens and you raise chickens to produce eggs and egg production is a part of your provision, then can you eat an egg that is produced on the Sabbath? No! But if you have chickens who happen to lay eggs and those eggs are sometimes eaten and they do not go outside of the household, then an egg laid on the Sabbath, you may lawfully eat.

Or if you raise a crop and you are a tiller of the land and you come in from Sabbath services one day and as you are walking down your walk you’ve got roses there and there is a dead leaf on the roses, can you pick that leaf? And the Law goes further than that. If you can pick the leaf, can you pick off a dead twig, and then a dead branch, and then uproot a dead plant. And the Law adjusts for each one of those things depending upon the nature of a person’s work on the other six days.

I mean, that would get heavy, wouldn’t it? Some of us are living that way – burdened by whether or not we are performing, whether this or that is in grace or not. The difference is that the law of demand, the kingdom of demand, the reign of demand, depends upon our performance; where the reign of offer depends upon His performance. One leaves us with nerves on edge; the other leaves us with nerve to do whatever He asks us to do.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is the gospel of the reign that is offered. And because it is offered and we can choose to accept it or reject it, it is a gospel that is dependant upon a person’s accepting His performing. What is required for receiving the offer? The least in the kingdom of surrender or regeneration is greater than the greatest in the kingdom of demand.

That sounds a little like the words that Jesus spoke about John the Baptist. “He who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than the greatest…” And He is speaking of John the Baptist who was greater than any who had preceded him. And the difference between the two is the difference between the gospel of demand and the gospel of surrender, or offer. To receive the offer of His reign, simply requires the surrender of what? Our reign! The receiving of His will requires just simply the surrender of what? Our will! It is an offer that is received. It is not a demand that is made.

Now the day comes when that changes. The day comes when grace is no more. When Jesus returns, the economy will change. And then there will be a season of demand. Following that season of demand, because all that remains at the end of that millennial period, all that will remain are the surrendered, those who, with joy, surrender to the reign and the will of God in their heart.

When you see that the issue is surrender in receiving the offer, as opposed to performance to comply with the demand, you’ll then see the difference between much of the gospel that we are hearing today as opposed to the gospel of the reign. The reign is offered; it simply requires surrender to receive. The offer of the kingdom is accepted by surrender of the reign of self and the surrender of self, of will, and how that is possible.