Going to Jesus

Gospel Tracts

 Select a tract to read:

• Tracts 1-50

  1. How I Received the Holy Ghost 2. Jesus Is Coming Again 3. You Must Be Born Again 4. Stir Up the Gift of God 5. The World’s Most Dreaded Hour 6. What is Salvation? 7. Stand Still in Jordan 9. Grieved Hearts 10. The Second Death 11. The Father and the Son 12. Suffering and the Saints 13. Cancer Conquered 14. The Church? 15. How Shall They Preach, Except They Be Sent? 16. Have You Received the Holy Ghost Since You Believed? 17. Patience 18. Alone With God 19. Tithes and Offerings 20. Prayer 21. The True Sabbath 22. The Besetting Sin 23. The Cry of the Righteous 24. What Will the Harvest Be? 25. Marriage and Divorce 26. Taking the Name of the Lord 27. The Keys of the Kingdom 28. Works 29. Politics and Believers 30. Unequally Yoked in Marriage 31. Coming Out of Babylon 32. The Forgiven Woman 33. The New Earth 34. The Sin of Silence 35. Freedom 36. Gods of the Gentiles 37. Why Some Are Not Healed 38. The Seven Pillars 39. Life, More Abundantly 40. Fear 41. The Comforter’s Testimony 42. This is My Friend 43. Conversion 44. The Time Is Drawing Near? 45. Songs in the Night 46. The Master’s Net 47. Trials are Opportunities 48. Receiving the Messenger 49. Seven Messages to the Seven Pastors 50. Keep Yourself Pure

• Tracts 51-100

  51. The New Birth 52. John the Baptist and Jesus 53. Denying Jesus 54. Bruised Reeds 56. The Wise and the Foolish 57. Holiness 58. Is Jesus God? 59. Christ or Christianity 60. Have Faith In God 61. Worthy to Suffer 63. Four Kinds of Soil 64. Communion 65. The Fullness of Time 66. Baptism 68. No Room 69. Crucified With Christ 70. Homosexuality and the Bible 71. The Kingdom of God 72. The Gospel of Christ 74. Perseverance 75. The Resurrection 76. Salvation 77. Sanctification 78. New Commandments 79. The Sacrifice of Christ 81. The Sound of the Spirit 82. The Wrath of God 84. God’s Compass 85. Perfection 86. The Abomination of Desolation 87. Antichrist 88. The Way of Grace 90. Relationships 91. The Vineyard of God 93. Subdued 94. The Spirit of Christ 95. The Blood of Christ 96. Spirit of a Serpent, Spirit of a Dove 97. Gluttony 98. The Lost Lamb 99. Scripture Burners 100. Bleating and Lowing

 

“The law and the prophets were until John.  Since then, the kingdom of God is preached” (Lk. 16:16). In saying this, Jesus was including John with the law and the prophets rather than with those in the kingdom of God. We know this, for Jesus said in another place that even though John was as great a man as had ever been born, “the least one in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Mt. 11:11).

No, John was not in the kingdom of God, for “the kingdom of God is . . . righteous-ness and peace and joy in the holy Spirit”, and the holy Spirit was not given to men until Jesus offered himself to the Father for our sins. As John the apostle explained, “the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified” (Jn. 7:39).

John the Baptist desired to be in the kingdom of God. When Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized, John at first refused; instead, he pleaded with Jesus to baptize him! “I need to be baptized by you,” he said, “and you come to me?” (Mt. 3:14). John the Baptist didn’t understand that Jesus had to suffer, die, and then return to his Father in heaven in order for the baptism of the Spirit to be given.

“The Kingdom Is at Hand!”

In being ignorant of the kind of kingdom Jesus would bring, John was like the other Old Testament prophets. All of them spoke of the coming kingdom, but none of them understood their own prophecies, “for no prophecy in the past came about by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the holy Spirit” (2Pet. 1:21). What was different about John’s message was that he prophesied that the long-awaited kingdom was very near. He cried, “Repent!  The kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

Jesus, too, preached this message. He “went to Galilee,” we are told, “preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, and saying ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand! Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mk. 1:14–15). Jesus emphasized the nearness of the kingdom when he said, “Truly, I tell you that there are some of those who stand here that will not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God come with power” (Mk. 9:1).

Jesus encouraged his disciples to desire above all things to enter the kingdom of God (Mt. 6:33). He also warned them that there were conditions which would have to be met before they would be accounted worthy to enter the kingdom; at the same time, though, he assured them that it was the Father’s “good pleasure” for them to enter in (Lk. 12:32).

In the Spirit

No one on earth but Jesus was in the kingdom of God while he lived among us because the way into God’s kingdom is to receive God’s Spirit, and Jesus had to pay the awful price for the Spirit to come to us. When Jesus told his disciples that they should pray for God’s kingdom to come, he was telling them, in effect, to ask God to send His Spirit, though they could not have understood this. Jesus was already in God’s kingdom, so that prayer for the Spirit is not “the Lord’s prayer”, as it is often called; rather, it is the disciples’ prayer – a prayer for the Spirit to come, and Jesus taught them how to pray it (Mt. 6:9–13):

You pray like this: “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Let your kingdom come.  Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, even as we forgive our debtors.  And don’t lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.  The kingdom, and the power, and the glory are yours forever.  Amen.”

A New and Living Way

God’s kingdom is not like earthly kingdoms. When Jesus told Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn. 18:36), he did not simply mean that his kingdom was somewhere else; he also meant that it was a different kind of kingdom. Most people in Israel were taught to expect God’s kingdom to come (Mk. 15:43), but Jesus alone understood that God’s kingdom would be spiritual in nature. The people expected the Messiah to set up an earthly kingdom and to deliver them from their Roman rulers, but Jesus explained that the kingdom of God would be invisible when it came (Lk. 17:20–21). Not yet having received the Spirit, however, none of his followers could have understood his words.

Conclusion

The prophecies concerning the kingdom of God will have their ultimate fulfillment when Christ establishes his eternal kingdom on the New Earth, when all wickedness will have been forever swept away. When that kingdom comes, “trouble will not rise up a second time” (Nah. 1:9). This eternal peace will be given to all who humbly submit to the present rule of God and are “translated into the kingdom of His beloved Son” by the power of the holy Spirit.

The kingdom of God on earth is called “the body of Christ”, and there is but one way for anyone to become a member: baptism of the Spirit (1Cor. 12:13). The body of Christ is not a club; it cannot be joined. It is a family into which we are born in Spirit.

If you have not yet received this “promise of the Father”, let me encourage you to trust in the one God sent to save you, Jesus. God gives His Spirit to everyone who obeys Him (Acts 5:32). And remember, Jesus said, “Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, it will be opened” (Mt. 7:7–8).