Let’s take a look at how Jesus introduced the kingdom of God, and what He was saying we should expect as the church.  And we’ll see that’s its even more as we see this day approaching us.  But the Lord speaking, in Matthew, Chapter 5, introducing the kingdom of God.  This is what the Sermon on the Mount was all about.  Jesus was introducing the kingdom.  This kingdom was going to run parallel with the kingdom of darkness, the kingdoms of this world.  Second Corinthians 4 makes it clear, the god of this world, Satan; amen?  We saw him when he tempted Jesus on the mountain.  Tempting Him with all of the nations, all of the power of the world’s system.  All He had to do was bow down and worship him.  Satan said, “These are mine and mine to give to whomever I would.”  Think about that.  And how many have been seduced over the years by that same offer but sold out a lot cheaper than that.

But don’t forget that this kingdom of which Satan is lord is running parallel right now to the introduction of the kingdom of God in Jesus’ ministry.  “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17).  Amen?  The church has been given the keys, the authority of the kingdom of God to represent Him, here, as His ambassadors.  This great kingdom for which we pray—He said to pray after this way: “Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done (in the midst of Satan’s kingdom) in earth as it is in Heaven.”  We’re to be the authority, here.  And as the church rises up, and as the church continues ministering in authority and power, Satan, trying to introduce the Antichrist at this hour, the man of sin, is going to bring persecution in an unparalleled way upon the kingdom of God, upon the church, that restraining power.  We are the restraining power as we’ve seen in Thessalonians, holding the Antichrist, right now, at bay.  What I want us to see, as we’re coming into this last hour, is that we’re going to be coming into times of persecution, times of affliction that are unparalleled in the history of the church.  Now, that should cause us to tremble. 

We’ve seen great persecution from the inception of the church.  The interesting thing, and what’s going to make this clear in our understanding, is how the persecution started in the first and second centuries.  The Gentiles, the pagans, the nations of the world didn’t persecute Christianity.  It was the religious segment that initially brought the persecution.  The Judaizers, as we saw.  The Sadducees, the Pharisees.  They were the ones that hated Jesus.  They were the ones that despised the church.  They didn’t do it out of ignorance.  There was no question in the mind of these leaders in the last days of Jesus, that He was the Messiah.  But they had their own kingdom.  And you’ll see that in the great parables that were spoken concerning the owner of the vineyard, and had gone away and said, “Well, they’ll hear my prophets.”  And they killed them.  “They’ll hear my son.”  They killed the Son, Jesus; amen?  Because they wanted to possess that vineyard as their own, that kingdom that they had already established.  The hatred of the Gentiles really was not of any magnitude until Nero pointed to the Christians as the source of burning Rome.  And in that time as the Christians, then, were earmarked in that particular way, the defiance shown as those who were defying the political, the natural kingdoms, the sovereigns of the land, is what brought about that persecution and solidified it, and it continued from there.  The same thing is happening in this hour.  We need to prepare ourselves for what’s coming.