Greetings, and welcome to the Beacon Broadcast from Beacon Baptist Church on Kirkpatrick Road in Burlington, North Carolina. The Beacon Broadcast is supported in part by the gifts of faithful listeners. If you'd like to correspond with Pastor Barkman and The Beacon Broadcast, or if you wish to support this radio ministry, write to The Beacon Broadcast, Post Office Box 159, Alamance, NC 27201. The Beacon Broadcast, Post Office Box 159, Alamance, NC 27201. Now with today's message from God's Word, here is Pastor Greg Barkman. Well today we're going to break into our First Peter series to take up a text in Matthew chapter 24. This will give us a little break, a little variety, and we'll return to First Peter at the first of next week. But today and throughout this week we're going to consider texts that have to do with the preaching of the gospel, with worldwide evangelism. Now here is our text, Matthew 24, 14. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. I think you would agree with me that this is an intriguing text. It is mysterious in some ways. But it talks about the work of evangelism as assigned to the people of God between the first and the second advents of Christ. It is part of the Olivet Discourse spoken by Jesus to his apostles. It is prophetic and it is, in some respects, controversial. But it is a clear statement that sheds light on the work of what we generally today call missions And it parallels teaching of other non-prophetic messages and passages which help to confirm and understand the words of this text. And so in this text we will consider the message, the field, the goal, and the culmination. So thank you for joining me on this Monday, July 14, as we gather together around the Word of God, as we consider this text in the Olivet Discourse, and do so because of radio listeners who support us so that we can continue teaching God's Word on this station. Now here's our text again, the words of Christ, and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. Let us consider, first of all, the message. Something is to be preached, and Jesus here calls it the gospel of the kingdom. and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached. Question, what is the gospel of the kingdom? Well, that is the primary message of Matthew's gospel. And our text, of course, is found in Matthew 24, 14, and it says, and this gospel of the kingdom, this gospel of the kingdom, this gospel that Matthew has been writing about throughout the previous 23 chapters of his gospel of his book that we call the gospel according to Matthew. It is the message of Matthew's gospel referred to here as this gospel. Now what is this? Well we could say it is first of all the message of salvation. The preceding text, verse 20 or verse 13 rather of Matthew 24 says, but he who endures to the end shall be saved. He's talking about salvation. He who endures to the end shall be saved, and this gospel of the kingdom will be preached. It is a message of relief, we could say, or of rest, as it is stated in Matthew chapter 11. Verses 28 and following, Jesus said, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. this gospel, the one that Jesus talked about when he proclaimed a message of rest and relief for those who would believe his word. And we could furthermore characterize this as a message of repentance. Here are the words of Christ in Matthew 4.17. From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent. for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And we read in verse 23, And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness, and all kinds of diseases among the people. And then this message went rather his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and Torments and those who were demon-possessed Epileptic and those and those In paralytics and he healed them great multitudes followed him and what is he doing? He is preaching to them a message of repentance. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so it goes. This gospel, as described previously in the book of Matthew in various ways, this gospel of the kingdom, it is the message of Matthew's gospel If you want to know, again, what it is, read the Gospel of Matthew and pay special attention to what he says about this Gospel, this message that has been proclaimed by Jesus and His apostles up until now. It is the message of Matthew's Gospel, it is the message of good news, because that's what the word Gospel means. Good news. And what is this good news? It is that sinners can be forgiven. That sinners can be cleansed of their sin. Sinners are in jeopardy. They need to understand that. And furthermore, all of us are sinners. There are no exceptions. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And those who are sinners, namely all of us, are in great danger because we must stand before God someday and give an account for our sins. Why? We defied Him. why we disobeyed Him, why we broke His law, why we did not yield to the One who gave us life, and who told us how He expected us to live. We have all sinned, and sinners therefore stand in great jeopardy before the Holy God, who is the judge of all the earth, and as sinners we have no hope except that Jesus came to save sinners. And that's the good news, that sinners can be forgiven and cleansed through the person and work of Jesus Christ. There is no hope within ourselves. We are sinners, and we are therefore condemned because of our sin. But the good news is that salvation is possible for sinners. Salvation is certain for sinners who repent and believe in Jesus Christ. And that is good news. I hope you understand that. I hope you feel that. I hope you agree with that. I hope you rejoice in that. I hope you realize that the gospel is good news to all who understand themselves to be sinners and are looking for a remedy for their sins. The message is the message of Matthew's gospel. It is the message of good news. It is the message of the kingdom. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached. Of the kingdom. This good news concerns a kingdom. In fact, it concerns the kingdom. It is THE Kingdom of God. It is the message of the Kingdom. Now, what does that tell us? Well, it tells us a number of things. Number one, that the Kingdom of God is present. It was present in the days when Jesus spoke these words, and it continues to be present today. Now that is not to say that there are not aspects of the kingdom which are future. That is not to say that every aspect of the kingdom has been fully and finally realized in the present. That would not be true. But it is also not true that the kingdom is future only and completely and totally. as some have mistakenly thought, because there are many statements in the New Testament to indicate that the kingdom is now. And this very message that Jesus is telling his apostles to preach is a message of the kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world, and so the kingdom is present. What else does this tell us? It tells us that kingdoms have a king. The very nature of a kingdom is that it is the domain of a king. That's why it's called a kingdom. We don't call the United States of America a kingdom. We can talk about the kingdom of England or of Great Britain, we can still talk in those terms because there is a king, even if the king there happens to be more of a figurehead because of the development of democracy and of parliament and of representative government. It is not the same kind of kingdom that it was in days gone by. It's not the same kind of kingdom that our forefathers rebelled against and broke away from in the American Revolution when they said, we will not have King George to continue reigning over us. We are determined that we will no longer be part of his kingdom, but King George, as he was in those days, who was the king of England, had a kingdom. And the reason it was called a kingdom is because it was ruled by a king. And therefore, when Jesus talks about the gospel in terms of the kingdom, he wants us to understand what that means. And this gospel of the kingdom, that means that there's something about the gospel that relates to a king. kingdoms have a king by definition they have a king if they don't have a king you don't call them a kingdom you call them a something else a republic a democratic Country you have other names for it, but when there is a king it is proper to speak of a kingdom and when you talk about a kingdom that immediately informs you that that Domain is ruled by a king now listen to me. We're talking about the gospel This has Serious implications for the gospel, for understanding the gospel aright. And the only problem is that my time is not going to permit me to get into it now, so I just simply have to say that to understand the gospel aright is to understand that it involves a kingdom and that it involves a king And if you will join me tomorrow on the Beacon Broadcast at the same time, we'll talk more about what that means. Until then, good day. May God give you His eternal peace.