THE KINGDOM HERALD

--> The Lord told The Parable of the Ten Pounds to let His followers know that, contrary to their expectation, His promised earthly kingdom was not to be established at the time of His First Coming. But more importantly, He wanted them to know that they had a definite part to play in securing their place in it. (See Luke 19:11-27.) In the parable, He told of a noble man who was to embark on a journey to a far country to receive a kingdom for himself. Before leaving, he called his ten servants and gave to each a pound , with the instruction, “Occupy till I come” (verse 13). On his return, he called the servants again to determine what each had accomplished with the money given to him. There was one who had made ten more pounds with the one pound he received. To him the master said, “Well, thou good servant: because thou has been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities” (verse 17). There was another who had with his pound made five more;

When the Lord taught us how to pray, the first request He told us to make was for the establishment of the kingdom: “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come ” (Matthew 6:9,10). The kingdom He had in mind here is not the present spiritual one, which He said “is [already] within you” (Luke 17:21). The one He enjoined us to speed up in prayer is the physical, earthly kingdom of which the prophet wrote, “In the days of these kings [the political leaders of the “latter days”] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom” (Daniel 2:44). It was the same one the Lord had in mind when He said to His disciples, “And I appoint unto you a kingdom , as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom” (Luke 22:29-30).  These words of the Lord actually drive home the distinction I am trying to make between the two kingdoms, for as the apostle wrote, “The [present spiritual]

Peter had reason to be concerned. Here he was, a former business owner, sold out to a man that many considered nothing but an impostor. But there was something about the Galilean that had captivated him from the beginning, and still convinced him of His genuineness. Yet, this whole new enterprise – Christianity, as it came to be called – that he and the other disciples had been introduced to, what was in it for them ? This was the question on Peter’s mind. In need of an answer, he asked the Lord, “ Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?” (Matthew 19:27.) How bold! Nevertheless, the Lord had a ready reply: “ Verily I say unto you, That ye who have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, o