WHEN WILL the long awaited Kingdom appear? Repeatedly, over centuries of time the Jewish prophets looked forward to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. The end of the age will see the final abode of the redeemed on the earth when the Lord will finally declare
“Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God” (Rev.21:3).
No longer heaven will be our home for heaven will come down from God out of heaven (Rev.21:2).
From eternal ages past it was always the plan of God that God would dwell with man on an undefiled earth. But for thousands of years a conflict has raged while Satan sought to wrest our eternal home away from the God we love but always the Divine plan has been to establish an earthly kingdom where the Almighty reigned supreme.
God chose one place on earth where He would place His name (Deut.12:5,12,14,18,21,26) and that place was Jerusalem where Christ will reign on the throne of David but until then the earth is in rebellion and the kingdom is being contested by the great enemy of souls.
While the battle rages on earth the resurrected old Testament saints rejoice around the throne of God in a heavenly Jerusalem (Heb.12:22) where church age saints, the general assembly of the firstborn, wait for the transformation of the rapture to the Father’s house of many mansions, ever waiting for the time when the kingdom of God would be established on earth.
The plan of God was to establish the kingdom with Israel as His servant nation and the Church as a Bride for His beloved Son, sharing the throne of God (Rev.3:21). The New Jerusalem must ultimately come down from God out of heaven to the renovated earth but only when all enemies are under His feet. The eternal kingdom cannot be shared with Satan.
“For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet.” (1Cor.15:25).
For this reason the earth must be subdued and purged. This will occur with a bloody conflict that we refer to as Armageddon. Israel must be brought to repentance in the blood-bath of the Tribulation after which the Son of God will assert His great power and reign for 1,000 years.
After a thousand years, Satan will be released from the bottomless pit in sheol and all the deceased unsaved souls confined in sheol will be judged together with Satan and cast into the lake of fire for all eternity. Only then will there be a “new heaven and a new earth” and the eternal kingdom of God established on earth.
The path to the eternal kingdom was made possible when Christ our Redeemer left heaven two thousand years ago and returned to heaven “henceforth expecting until all His enemies be made His footstool.” For centuries God has been calling out from the Gentile nations a people to the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 15:14) to be His Bride and occupy with Him the throne of God in the New Heavens and earth.
The long years of Israel’s blindness must cease before the kingdom can be established on earth and only in the seven years of great Tribulation will Israel finally be humbled and look upon the One whom they have pierced. The time is drawing near when the Jews will repent and cry out to God. Already the nation has returned in unbelief to occupy the land but the signs are being fulfilled to indicate to Israel that the King is near.
Perilous times are here. The earth is filled with violence as it was in the days of Noah, perversion abounds as it did in the days of Lot in Sodom but one more sign must be given to Israel that Christ is about to return to establish the kingdom. Jesus said to the Jews,
“when these things begin to come to pass … know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand” (Luke.21:31) and Jesus said,
“Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. I tell you, in that night there shall be two in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. Two shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left” (Luke17:33-36).
During the terrible dark days of the Tribulation Antichrist will offer life to all who will worship him but those who seek to be spared the death penalty will lose their life and be condemned to the lake of fire eternally (Rev.14:9-11).
The great sign to the nation of Israel that this final period of seven years has come will be the sign of missing persons i.e. the Rapture of the church will happen “in that night”. Jesus said,
“the day that Noah entered into the ark…the flood came” and “the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all” (Luke 17:27-29).
This great sign to Israel will indicate that the seven years of Tribulation has begun and the Lord is about to return to establish the kingdom… that it is “nigh at hand”.
The sudden, global, disappearance of the Christians will trigger the final seven years of tribulation! Jesus said, “one shall be taken and the other left” and the disciples asked, “Where Lord?”
i.e. “Where will they be taken?” and Jesus said,
“Whithersoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.” (Luke 17:37).
BODY OF CARCASE?
Two similar verses should not be confused. In Matthew 24:28 Jesus spoke of the great Tribulation in the Olivet Discourse and indicated that at the end
of the Tribulation there would be awful slaughter which we call the battle of Armageddon and He stated,
“wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days… then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven” (Matt.24:28-29).
This verse has nothing to do with the Lord’s words “one shall be taken and the other left” and it is wrong to try and join the two. They are 7 years apart!
The Greek word for carcase in Matt.24:28 is ptoma which is “a rotting body” and in Luke 17 when Jesus answered the disciples question of “where would people be taken?” the Greek word is not ptoma but soma which means “a “living body”.
In Luke’s account the body is “taken” and the disciples asked “Where would it be taken?” but in Matthew’s statement the rotting carcase is NOT taken anywhere! It has nothing to do with the statement that “one shall be taken and the other left”. We repeat; they are 7 years apart!
After the battle of Armageddon the carcases will be left to rot and the eagles will pick the bones bare but when Matthew wrote “one shall be taken and the other left” he was referring to the same incident that Luke was referring to at the beginning of the Tribulation as a sign to Israel that the kingdom was “at hand” or near.
In Luke’s account the living bodies rise to whereever the living body is located and the same applies to Matthew’s account.
It is characteristic for eagles to feed on dead carcases but it is also characteristic for eagles to fly high in the sky catching the updraft of convection currents and rising to great heights.
Eagles carry their young in flight to prevent them crashing and God said of Israel
“I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself” (Exod.19:4; Deut 32:11).
In Deut.28:49 we read the eagle is swift and at the rapture the believers will be caught up “in a moment, in ”the twinkling of an eye” (1Cor.15:52; 2Sam.1:23; Jer.4:13).
Job tells us that the eagle dwells safelyon high and the church is a heavenly people (Job 39:28; Jer.49:16).
Psalm 103:5 indicates that those who are forgiven have their “youth renewed as the eagle” and at the rapture the bodies of resurrected saints will be made new like Christ.
Eagles “ fly away as an eagle toward heaven” (Prov.23:5). They can fly to great heights; to 20,000 feet and at the Rapture believers will rise up to heaven! Caught in the updraft!
While the Church is in heaven, gathered about our “living, risen redeemer” the nations on earth will be enduring the great Tribulation and the eagles on earth will be eating the carcases of the victims of the battle of Armageddon!
TAKEN OR LEFT
Some have suggested that those “taken” are “taken” in judgment and those “left” are the redeemed who survive the Tribulation and enter the millennial kingdom but the original Greek does not allow such an interpretation. The word “taken” in the original Greek literally means “to receive to ones self” and the word translated “left” to “put away”. It is translated “put away” in describing divorce.
So when will the kingdom of God appear on earth? It would not appear in the days of the Apostles; it would come after a long time when the King returned like lightning
in the heavens and the signs that it is near will be like the days of Noah and Lot and there is a global disappearance of indiviuals from the earth who are caught up to Christ in the air. The kingdom will continue until all rebellion is suppressed and Christ reigns universally. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.