What Is the Kingdom of God?

Is the kingdom of God, as many assume, merely a warm feeling in one’s heart, or a vague idea about someday ‘going to heaven’? Or is the kingdom of God more real, tangible and powerful than most people have imagined? Continue reading

Eternal Life Is of God

From the beginning of human history men have desired eternal life. Humans have gone about seeking it in their own way. Adam and Eve were looking for it when they sinned. Satan told them, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Yet they, and all humans who have ever lived prior to our time, have died (Hebrews 9:27), because eternal life is of God. Continue reading

Feast of Tabernacles Observance

When God revealed his law to ancient Israel, he commanded them to keep, besides the weekly Sabbath, a series of annual festivals. All of the commanded assemblies are rehearsed in Leviticus 23.

Among them is the Feast of Tabernacles, beginning in the seventh month of the sacred calendar on the fifteenth day of the month. It was to be kept for seven days (Leviticus 23:34). At the end of the eighth day, the last great day, or high day, of the feast, the festival season ends (Leviticus 23:36). In certain respects the eighth day is a feast of its own, with its own special meaning, though closely connected with the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles coincided with the fall harvest season in Israel, and was to be a celebration of rejoicing accompanying the great harvest of the fall season (Deuteronomy 16:13-15).

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The Kingdom Suffers Violence

The weekly Sabbath, and the Feast of Tabernacles, which we recently observed with others of faith at time of this writing, both are intended to point us toward the time when God’s Kingdom will be established on the earth. Each Sabbath, and each Feast of Tabernacles, if kept properly, gives us a small foretaste of the Kingdom, to be reminded and convicted of its reality.

They remind us that the promised Kingdom of God is not just a pie-in-the-sky, Utopian dream, but an actual change in the government of the earth that will occur. It’s called the Kingdom of God because it will be a Kingdom, a literal government, established by the divine intervention of God Almighty himself in the world’s affairs and it will be ruled directly by God in the person of Jesus Christ (Daniel 7:14; Revelation 11:15).

Part of the reality of that promised Kingdom, however, is the fact that human beings have an opportunity to be participants in it, to have a part in the Kingdom of God, not as mere flesh and blood human beings, but as Sons of God changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ, helping him to administer truth, equity and justice on the earth (Daniel 7:27; Philippians 3:20-21; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:2; Revelation 20:6).

But what will it take for that opportunity to become a personal reality for each of us? From a personal standpoint, what will it take for you to be in God’s Kingdom? Continue reading

Will the Levitical Priesthood Be Restored?

Question: It’s been taught that after Christ’s return the Levites will once again offer burnt offerings and other sacrifices. Why is this necessary? Will it be used as a tutor to train people the overall scheme of things? Or is it meant figuratively?

Also, Jeremiah 33:18, says there will always be a Levitical priest to offer sacrifices and offerings. But there have not been priests doing offerings since 70 AD. So, it looks like it means that, as the Levites have been offering up sacrifices all these centuries, it is in a figurative or spiritual sense rather than literal. In verses 21-22, of this chapter, God refers to the priests as His ministers. So maybe all these things (specifically the offering of sacrifices after the return of Christ) are merely a type of the spiritual healing that will become the norm on earth.

Can you give me some feedback on this? Continue reading