Luke’s opening passage in the book of Acts is critical for us to understand in order to know what to do with ourselves, as individuals and as a corporate Body with a mandate. Paul, the Pharisee who spearheaded the Good News spreading as far and wide as possible in the century after these events took place, urged us Gentiles receiving this message to not be ignorant of its origin, lest our ignorance breed dangerous arrogance— we either didn’t listen, or deliberately rejected his admonition. At this stage, we are in desperate need of clarity as to what the Kingdom is— and is not— lest we give ourselves to a pursuit and pageantry that will burn when He comes on the clouds in power and glory. - Stephanie Quick, Kingdom Come

“Beware of manufacturing a God of your own: a God who is all mercy, but not just; a God who is all love, but not holy; a God who has a heaven for every body, but a hell for none; a God who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and broad in eternity. Such a God is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.” – J. C. Ryle 

Luke records that the resurrected Lord appeared to the disciples and taught them for forty days concerning the kingdom of God, after which "they asked him, 'Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?'" (Acts 1.3)

He didn't reply, "You foolish ones, and slow of heart. I just taught you for forty days that the kingdom no longer has to do with Israel. It's all about heaven now."

No, He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority." (Acts 1.6a) After forty days of hearing from Christ concerning the kingdom of God, it appears that it was quite natural to ask the question, and the Lord did not rebuke them for asking it.

He redirected them to thinking about receiving the Holy Spirit and carrying out the Great Commission, but He affirmed their expectation of the Father "restoring the kingdom to Israel" by calling it a "time or season" He "has fixed by His own authority." Have you considered this, brothers and sisters?

Instead of supporting supersessionism, Jesus' response set his disciples on the Gospel mission, while affirming the biblical expectation that at the appointed epoch, God "will remove ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom. 11.26) and reign as King over the reunited twelve tribes (Mt. 19.28), for "the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Is. 51.11)

According to the promise of our covenant-keeping God, He will "restore the kingdom to Israel" in perfect time. Will it not be an occasion of the profoundest rejoicing for all the redeemed of God to see wayward Israel return? Have you not prayed for this? Will you not rejoice to see it, Christian? Can you say that you understand the Bible and understand Gospel mercies if this is a moot point in your theology? May it never be.

My friends, this time is coming, it is "fixed by the Father's authority," and it will be a sight to behold.

"Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.” (Ez. 37.28)

"For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (Hos. 2.14)

Amen. Come quickly, Lord. -BA Purtle 

Those who argue for a realized kingdom generally string together a number of verses pulled severely out of context. If the kingdom had finally come, we ought to see paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter, of triumphant jubilation in the spirit of Rev. 19:1–9. 

Paul condemned a realized resurrection (2 Tim. 2:18) and a realized day of the Lord (2 Thess. 2:2), it would stand to reason that he would condemn a realized kingdom (1 Cor. 4:8). -John P. Harrigan

“The catchword glory is used wherever the final state of affairs is set apart from the present and whenever a final amalgamation of the earthly and heavenly spheres is prophesied. Glory is the portion of those who have been raised from the dead, who will thus become as the angels or the stars of heaven (Dan. 12.3; I Enoch 50.1; 51.4). Glory is then the mark not only of man, however, but also of conditions, the ‘state’ in which they live, the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 21.1ff.; II Bar. 32.4), or of the eschatological ruler (II Bar. 30.1)” -Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic  

With a clear reference to “that ancient serpent” (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), the Scriptures conclude with the eschatological fulfillment of Genesis 3:15 in an apocalyptic manner. As the “Christ” (Rev. 20:4, 6), Jesus will bring Satan into forceful submission by binding him in Hades for a thousand years and then throwing him, with the wicked, into Gehenna forever (cf. Rev. 20:10, 14; 21:8;22:15). Moreover, Jesus identifies himself protologically as the “Alpha” (Rev.22:6, 13), who will “repay each one for what he has done” (v. 12). Thus we see the “living seed” of Genesis 3:15 (as Jewish theologian Adolph Saphir described it) finding full fruition in the day of the Lord, Gehenna, and the resurrection. In this way the messianic seed of Adam is understood to be the arbiter of God’s apocalyptic end. -John P. Harrigan, the Gospel of Christ Crucified, p.124

Until the Church understands what the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus Himself taught concerning Jerusalem; until we grasp just why they wept over the Jewish nation; indeed, until we shed tears that are kindred to theirs, our eschatology will be muddled, myopic, and misguided.-BA Purtle 

It would seem that the phrase “this generation” in Matthew 23:36 must be understood as a particular kind of people; namely, the seed of the serpent who have been at enmity with the seed of the woman since Genesis 3:15. This fits with the way the term “generation” can be used to refer to both the righteous (Ps 24:6) and the wicked (Ps 12:7) in the Psalter (cf. Jer 7:29), and the phrase “this generation” has typological connections with those who fell under God’s wrath at the flood (Gen 7:1) and in the wilderness (Deut 1:35). Further along these lines, on the day of Pentecost, Peter urges his audience to repent and be baptized (Acts 2:38), and he “continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation’” (2:40). Paul, likewise, called the Philippians to be “without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation” (Phil 2:15).

What happens if we slot “the seed of the serpent” in for “this generation” in Matthew 24:34? The idea communicated would be that the seed of the serpent will not pass away, until all these things take place. This would explain the ongoing persecution Jesus describes his people facing throughout Matthew 24 until his coming. It would align with his statements about how when he returns he will judge the righteous and the wicked. And it would fit with the way that elsewhere the return of Christ results in the resurrection of the dead and the end of the age. - Dr. James Hamilton, Parousia: What the New Testament Says about the Second Coming

The bottom line is that any survey of the Old Testament will reveal the clarity, specificity, and driving emphasis of God's promises as He repeated them over and over again. All in all, in the book of Deutoronomy alone, the Lord reiterated the land promises to Israel nearly seventy times. Altogether, the promises are reiterated in one way or another more than two hundred times throughout the Scriptures. -Joel Richardson, When a Jew Rules the World

Many leaders will go to the grave with a noteworthy accumulation of endorsements, book sales, and money.

Paul went to the chopping block with an incalculable accumulation of prayers, acts of selfless love, rich relationships, Gospel proclamations, and scars.

Imitate Paul, brothers.

-BA Purtle

The Church’s witness of the Kingdom is not only by word, but also by deed. The Church witnesses to the righteousness and holiness of the coming Kingdom by walking in righteousness and holiness in this age. This is the thrust of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5-7; Lk. 6)  - John P. Harrigan

The good news of the Kingdom also inherently consists of bad news toward the wicked and unrepentant. Thus, the good news is consistently accompanied by a call to repentance unto the forgiveness of sins (cf. Mt. 3:2; 4:17; Mk. 1:15; Lk. 3:3; Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31; 10:43; 11:18; 13:38; 14:3; 17:30; 20:21; 26:18; Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; 2:13; Tit. 2:11; etc.).  - John P. Harrigan

HERE I would observe,

1. That we ought not to rest in the world and its enjoyments, but should desire heaven. We should “seek first the kingdom of God.” (Mat. 6:33) We ought above all things to desire a heavenly happiness; to be with God and dwell with Jesus Christ. Though surrounded with outward enjoyments, and settled in families with desirable friends and relations; though we have companions whose society is delightful, and children in whom we see many promising qualifications; though we live by good neighbors, and are generally beloved where known; we ought not to take our rest in these things as our portion. We should be so far from resting in them, that we should desire to leave them all, in God’s due time. We ought to possess, enjoy and use them, with no other view but readily to quit them, whenever we are called to it, and to change them willingly and cheerfully for heaven.

A traveler is not wont to rest in what he meets with, however comfortable and pleasing, on the road. If he passes through pleasant places, flowery meadows, or shady groves, he does not take up his content in these things, but only takes a transient view of them as he goes along. He is not enticed by fine appearances to put off the thought of proceeding. No, but his journey’s end is in his mind. If he meets with comfortable accommodations at an inn, he entertains no thoughts of settling there. He considers that these things are not his own, that he is but a stranger, and when he has refreshed himself, or tarried for a night, he is for going forward. And it is pleasant to him to think that so much of the way is gone.

So should we desire heaven more than the comforts and enjoyments of this life. The apostle mentions it as an encouraging, comfortable consideration to Christians, that they draw nearer their happiness. “Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.” — Our hearts ought to be loose to these things, as that of a man on a journey, that we may as cheerfully part with them whenever God calls. “But this I say, brethren, the time is short, it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it; for the fashion of this world passeth away.” (1 Cor. 7:29-31) These things are only lent to us for a little while, to serve a present turn, but we should set our hearts on heaven, as our inheritance forever.

-Johnathon Edwards, The Christian Pilgrim

John Calvin, the great expositor, never wrote a commentary on Revelation and never dealt with the eternal state at any length. Though he encourages meditation on Heaven in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, his theology of Heaven seems strikingly weak compared to his theology of God, Christ, salvation, Scripture, and the church… A great deal has been written about eschatology—the study of the end times—but comparatively little about Heaven… Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote an in-depth two-volume settitled The Nature and Destiny of Man. Remarkably, he had nothing to say about Heaven. William Shedd’s three-volume Dogmatic Theology contains eighty-seven pages on eternal punishment, but only two on Heaven. In his nine-hundred-page theology, Great Doctrines of the Bible, Martyn Lloyd-Jones devotes less than two pages to the eternal state and the New Earth. Louis Berkof’s classic Systematic Theology devotes thirty-eight pages to creation, forty pages to baptism and communion, and fifteen pages to what theologians call “the intermediate state”… Yet it contains only two pages on Hell and one page on the eternal state. 

When all that’s said about the eternal Heaven is limited to page 737 of a 737-page systematic theology like Berkof’s, it raises a question: Does Scripture really have so little to say? Are there so few theological implications to this subject? The biblical answer, I believe, is an emphatic no! In The Eclipse of Heaven, theology professor A. J. Conyers writes, ‘Even to one without religious commitment and theological convictions, it should be an unsettling thought that this world is attempting to chart its way through some of the most perilous waters in history, having now decided it ignore what was for nearly two millennia its fixed point of reference—its North Star. The certainty of judgment, the longing for heaven, the dread of hell: these are not prominent considerations in our modern discourse about the important matters of life. But they once were.’”  - Randy Alcorn, Heaven

“What is the cause of most backslidings? I believe, as a general rule, one of the chief causes is neglect of private prayer.

You may be very sure men fall in private long before they fall in public. They are backsliders on their knees long before they backslide openly in the eyes of the world.” -J.C. Ryle

”Now if you take the first coming as the "climax" of most of the Bible's storyline you are going to have to find ways of packing an awful lot of pesky OT covenant prophecy into the first half of the first century A.D.".  -Paul Henebury, The Words of the Covenant, p. 17-18. 

God's first words after the Fall were, "Where are you?"

It's only one word in Hebrew: אַיֶּכָּה (ayyekkah).

In that one word is compressed a whole theology:

-God seeks out the lost sinner.

-God welcomes him to confess.

-God desires his restoration.

-God works his redemption.

-Chad Bird

The covenant made with Abraham, to bless all nations by his seed, is not revoked; heaven and earth shall pass away, but the chosen nation shall not be blotted out from the book of remembrance. The Lord hath not cast away his people; he has never given their mother a bill of divorcement; he has never put them away; in a little wrath he hath hidden his face from them, but with great mercies will he gather them. The natural branches shall again be engrafted into the olive together with the wild olive graftings from among the Gentiles. In the Jew, first and chiefly, shall grace triumph through the King of the Jews. O time, fly thou with rapid wing, and bring the auspicious day. - Spurgeon, 1863

If the Gospel that one preaches does not culminate with a Jewish Man ruling the world, then it is not the Gospel of the New Testament. The Gospel today has been reduced to a simplified formula whereby one might "get saved," but it has been fundamentally detached from the coming kingdom that we are saved unto. - Joel Richardson, When a Jew Rules the World

The way of repentance proclaimed by Jesus is not a substitute for the message of the Torah, but its fullest and most powerful embodiment. Those unaffected by the sovereign claims of the Torah will likewise ignore the words of the resurrected Messiah. - Kinzer & Resnik, Besorah: The Resurrection of Jerusalem and the Healing of a Fractured Gospel

Many Christian worship songs boldly declare that Jesus is reigning. But the world is still filled with death, injustice, and lack. So either: 

1) Jesus is a horrible king, or 

2) He's sitting at God's right hand, *waiting*. 

I'm going with the latter. - Joshua Hawkins

Genesis 4 through Malachi 4 is not just "background information" to the "real story" of Jesus and the church. Unless we first understand what the Law, Prophets, and Writings meant for 1st century Jews, we don't have much of a chance of rightly understanding the words of Jesus. - Joshua Hawkinns

My teaching on Christmas and the Covenant. Notes. Audio 1. Audio 2. 

Restorationists realize that to properly understand the New Testament, one must first understand the Old Testament. The supersessionist method of interpretation, however, approaches the Bible in reverse. It begins with the New Testament and then seeks to reinterpret or completely revise the original meaning of the Old Testament. - Joel Richardson

“the essential secret [to preaching well] is not mastering certain techniques but being mastered by certain convictions.” - John Stott

Whenever someone says, “the Jews rejected Jesus,” (past tense) or, “the Jews reject Jesus” (present tense), to justify whatever theological/political position they are advocating, I always want to ask them: Can you show me any ethnic people group that has accepted Jesus 100%? Do all the people in your white American town believe in Jesus and obey him? In other words, it is fundamentally antisemitic (and unbiblical) to argue that a lack of 100% acceptance of the Gospel among the Jewish people is a justifiable reason to denigrate them, or to mark them out for special curses and judgment, because this is holding the Jewish people as a whole to a standard that is not being applied to anyone else. You’re turning the Jews into some kind of special villian just because they have Jewish blood, rather than including them as part of the rest of humanity, which is textbook racism and antisemitism. Not to mention that thousands of Jewish people in the first century did follow Jesus and more follow him now than ever before.  - Travis M. Snow

 “I am the Lord; I will speak the word that I will speak. . . . O rebellious house, I will speak the word and perform it, declares the Lord God.” Ezekiel 12:25

God does not predict the future like a soothsayer. He performs the future he has spoken. - John Piper

Theology 101: Tribalism is among the most harmful spiritual diseases of American Christianity today. Our highest allegiance should be to our common Lord, not to a denomination, seminary, theological system, or popular preacher.  - Dr. Michael Svigel

Go, labor on: spend and be spent, 

Your joy to do the Father's will; 

It is the way the Master went; 

Should not the servant tread it still? 

Go, labor on while it is day: 

The world's dark night is hast'ning on. 

Speed, speed your work, cast sloth away; 

It is not thus that souls are won. 

Toil on, faint not, keep watch and pray; 

Be wise the erring soul to win; 

Go forth into the world's highway, 

Compel the wand'rer to come in. 

Toil on, and in your toil rejoice; 

For toil comes rest, for exile home; 

Soon shall you hear the Bridegroom's voice, 

The midnight peal, "Behold, I come."

-Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), via BA Purtle 

Throughout the Scriptures, the Lord always links genuine teshuva (repentance and return to Him) with caring for the weak, the needy, vulnerable—the little ones. "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow." (Isaiah 1:16–17)

-Joel Richardson

It is the real governance of the age to come, and the righteousness and reward therein, that is a primary motivator of the human heart. The lack of a real government and real rewards in an ethereal “heaven” is one of the main reasons for the lack of discipleship and sanctification in the church today. - John P. Harrigan