“Let Your Kingdom Come!”

CHRISTENDOM’S clergy claim that the kingdom for which Jesus taught his followers to pray is in the hearts of Christians and is a spiritual condition enjoyed by them, and that the Kingdom’s coming means the converting of all people to Christ and putting God into the governments of this old world. In support thereof they quote Romans 14:17 (NW): “For the kingdom of God does not mean eating and drinking, but means righteousness and peace and joy with holy spirit.”a

But if that is true then the prayer for the Kingdom to come will never be answered. For not only is godless communism making ever greater inroads on Christendom, but Christendom itself cannot be said to be God’s kingdom and is getting ever farther away from God’s principles of truth and righteousness. What Paul means at Romans 14:17 is that possessing righteousness, peace and joy with holy spirit is a requisite to our gaining a place with Christ in God’s kingdom, just as taking in knowledge of God and his Son is a requisite for our gaining everlasting life.—John 17:3.

Then, what is that kingdom? It is the mighty agency God will use to sanctify his name and to prove to all creation that he is the Supreme Sovereign. It is the kingdom concerning which God made a covenant with David, and which covenant Christ Jesus inherited as the offspring of David. And just as David’s typical kingdom was an actual territory and not merely a spiritual state of morality, so will be God’s kingdom.—Dan. 7:13, 14, 18, AS.

Instead of that kingdom’s reforming and converting all the governments of this old world, note what it will do to them: “In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, . . . but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” (Dan. 2:44, AS) So when we are praying for God’s kingdom to come we are praying for God’s kingdom in Christ’s hands to break in pieces and obliterate all the political systems of this world at Armageddon.

The year 1914 marked the beginning of this kingdom, for then the “seven times” of the nations, the 2,520 years of beastly rule, which began with the overthrow of Judah’s last king in 607 B.C., ended. An expression of this fact was the war in heaven resulting in Satan and his demons’ being cast down to the earth.—Rev. 12:1-12.

If the Kingdom has been established, does that mean that we are no longer to pray “Let your kingdom come”? Not at all. In the prophetic picture of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, the cutting of the stone out of the mountain without hands foreshadowed the Kingdom’s coming into existence or being established in 1914; while its coming against the image and grinding it into powder would constitute the complete expression of the Kingdom’s coming at Armageddon.—Dan. 2:31-45.

And as the stone then grew until it filled the whole earth, so Christ’s kingdom will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. In fact, of its increase there will be no end. (Ps. 72:8; Isa. 9:6, 7; Dan. 2:35) All those today who pray with understanding and sincerity “Let your kingdom come” will show their faith in that prayer by having a part in making that kingdom known in all the inhabited earth.—Matt. 24:14, NW.

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