When Will You Restore Your Kingdom

Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8)

Right before Jesus left His disciples for the last time, they asked, finally, about His kingdom. Some speculate the reason for Judas's betrayal of Christ was that it had, in fact, become clear that He did not intend to immediately establish His kingdom on Earth.

This makes a lot of sense, really. When you're in captivity, you long for freedom. When you sit under the reign of conquerors, you want a nation of your own.

But, Jesus was making it clear in Acts, this was the small picture. For these men, a nation for Israel was the outcome they were waiting for. It was the big -- and really, only, picture. I love the way Jesus gently corrects this view in verse eight. "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea..." and here's where he drops the bomb on them: not just Israel, but "... Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

His Kingdom is -- and has always been -- so much larger than just Israel. Israel remains His chosen people, to be sure; but they are a piece of the puzzle. They were the beginning of the Redemption, but not the end.

The point is not to sit and wait for the King to establish His throne. Scripture tells us that day will come. But Jesus tells us the point -- the big picture -- is that we make certain everyone else knows the Kingdom is coming, too. And that it's coming for them.