The God of heaven shall set up a kingdom

By C. Eldon McNabb

In the days of these kings (the ten toes of the fourt­h kingdom) shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever” (Dan. 2:44).

In Daniel chapter two we read of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream concerning the succes­sion of the great powers of the world from Babylon unto the Kingdom of God. The king dreamed of an image of a man which changed in structural material from head to feet. Its head of gold was Babylon, and we can now see that the silver was the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians, the brass was the Greek empire, the iron and the iron mixed with clay was the Roman empire, and later became Roman paganism mixed with Christianity. We see it today as the United Nations with the Vatican riding upon its back. Those four were followed by “a stone (which was) cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet - Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great moun­tain and filled the whole earth.”

Daniel told the king, forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter and the dream is certain and the interpretation thereof sure” (Dan. 2:45). It is absolutely certain that the Kingdom of God, with the Throne of David established within it, must be established before Jesus can come and rule upon that throne.

The mountain from which that stone was hewn (not a moun­tain, nor some mountains, but the mountain) is what the Holy Scriptures call the moun­tain of the Lord’s House. It is the Churches of God which God began to raise up in 1903, and the Stone is a group of people which God brought out from among those churches during the latter part of that century. God has been working with that group for more than thirty years now; as they have diligently searched His word, if possibly they might come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God. God will shortly begin to cause that stone to grow, and form it into a nation, and give to it the glory of His Kingdom.

Each of those first three kingdoms rose to power and lost it to the next, but Rome rose to power, and has held it until now. The time has now come for the Kingdom of God to be given to a Gentile nation which is bringing forth the fruits thereof, as He said in Matt. 21:43. Therefore, it is ne­cessary for God to bring about the fulfillment of Daniel 2. I know that we tend to think that maybe King David will be resurrected for the job, or we picture Jesus overseeing the job in person, however, that would contradict Paul in Hebrews 4, “He that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His.” The truth is, Jesus must ful­­fill the prophecy, and sit upon the throne of another man who is foreshadowed by King David, and James, in Acts 15:13-16, declared that man to be a Gentile. Therefore, we are obliged to consider the matter further.

The Throne of David, and the Tabernacle of David, do not even exist today in their original sense, for the Kingdom of God has been taken away from Israel, and is held in abeyance until God shall give it to “a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matt. 21:43). David foreshadowed the New Testa­ment Throne of David within the Tabernacle of David (Isa. 16:5), when he pitched a tent at Jerusalem and put the Ark of the Covenant inside of it (2 Sam. 6:17), and when Jesus was here, He demonstrated to us how it should be.

In Isaiah 9:6,7, it is written, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: - Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” Jesus “set it in order” when He was here, with His appointment of the Twelve and the Seventy with James and John on His right hand and on His left. However, when the Church went into the dark ages, the Tabernacle of David, and the throne within it, was lost or destroyed. Accordingly, the “establishing” of it has not yet been manifested (Isa. 9).

In Acts 15, James declared that the Tabernacle of David would have to be built again, and that time has come. The Tabernacle of David must now be built, and the Throne of David set up within it. How can we possibly do that? Isaiah told us how: He said, “The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” Let us stir ourselves until it can be said of us, “The zeal of the Lord of hosts has eaten us up,” as we go about this grand and vital task for our Father which is in Heaven.

Let us consider that state­ment with Isaiah 16:5. He said, “In mercy shall the throne be established: and He shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and hastening right­eousness.” Insomuch as he said the throne shall be established “in mercy,” God has told us clearly that the throne will be established before Jesus returns. He shall sit upon that throne in truth, justice, judgment and righteousness.

From the ministry of John the Baptist until the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, The Kingdom of God was in transi­tion. That is what the Apostle Paul was referring to in Heb.8:13, saying, “In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” By the same token, the Kingdom of God is in transition again: The literal kingdom must once more be manifested, as Jesus said in Matt. 21:43. The time has now come, in the which that stone which was “hewn out of the mountain without hands must grow into a nation and a kingdom. Those of us who are part of the kingdom of God, being born again, must be gathered together into one nation, in the unity of the faith.

Jesus told us of this gathering together of the saints in Matthew 13, saying, “The harvest is the end of the world.” In that allegory of the end, which is the law of Jubilee in Leviticus 25, God showed us that He has given us a forty-nine year harvest at this end of the age, during which He shall command His angels to “Gather first the tares into bundles to be burned.” During the last seven years of the harvest, He shall send other angels to “Gather the wheat into His barn.”

That harvest of the tares began in 1962, when Vatican II was called, and the Ecumenical Movement was begun. Now the time of the gathering of the wheat is upon us. When those forty-nine years are finished, the transition from grace to the physical kingdom will be complete, and the offer which the Lord has extended us, in Rev. 22:17, shall be withdrawn, and no longer shall the Spirit and the bride say “come.” Accord­ingly, Jeremiah told us, “The harvest is past, the sum­mer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jer. 8:20). During the fiftieth year He intends to raise the righteous dead, translate the living saints to immortality, and have a wedding for Jesus and his new bride.

When Jesus comes for His bride, the Gospel, as we know it, will already have ceased to be preached, for the Bride will have lately been busy making her final preparations for her big day. That is besides the effect which the fierce storm of perse­cution and deception from that old serpent against Christianity shall have, under which the message of hope shall be effectively stifled. But the year of Jubilee shall come, at the end of which, Jesus, sitting upon the throne which we have prepared for Him, shall turn His attention to the task of taking over the world; wresting it from the tyrannical grip of the great dragon: that old serpent.

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallow­ed be thy name. Thy king­dom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven!;