7: The urgency of the kingdom

It was a beautiful early spring morning. I was sitting on the deck having coffee when Ingrid came out to join me. She had a serious look on her face.

"I think the Lord may be speaking to us about something," she said.

"What's that?" I replied.

"A phrase keeps coming to my mind: the urgency of the kingdom."

I thought, Aha, so that's what God has been saying to me in those passages I've been reading in the Gospels.

It's harvest time

Jesus also felt an urgency as he went around proclaiming the kingdom of God and healing the sick and demonized. Perhaps nowhere is this displayed more clearly than in chapter 4 of the Gospel of John:

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." So the disciples said to one another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?" Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor." (John 4:31–38)

Some Christians believe that Jesus' reference to the fields being white for harvest was a prophetic word for us today, that in times soon to come there will be a great worldwide ingathering of people into God's church. Perhaps this is so, but I don't believe that's what Jesus was referring to here. What he was simply saying to his disciples was that the time is short for doing the stuff—the works and words of the kingdom—so they should get off their ass and start doing the job they've been recruited for. I'm using colorful language here deliberately.

This interpretation is reinforced by another passage from chapter 10 in the Gospel of Luke. Not long after Jesus had trained and sent the Twelve out on their first ministry trip, he sent out an even larger group of seventy-two disciples. He told them to go to the towns he would soon be visiting, and after healing the sick there, they should proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near to them (Luke 10:1-9). But Jesus also told these disciples to pray something:

And he said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." (Luke 10:2)

But the words of this English translation don't convey the full intensity of the original Greek. The Greek verb translated here as pray earnestly has the meaning of being in want or need of something and begging for it as a result. And the Greek verb which is blandly translated here as send out is the verb usually employed when referring to driving out demons from those who are afflicted by them. So a better translation of Luke 10:2 might perhaps be something like the following:

Hey, guys, I need your help! I just can't train enough of you to do all the work God has given me to do. So unless you start training yourselves, and each other, we aren't going to have enough laborers to gather all the grain before the harvest time is over. So please—please!—beg God to find more workers for us and to drive them out of their comfort zones and get them out into the world. And to do it fast! Because the harvest will spoil if it isn't gathered up soon, and that would be a shame upon all of us.

How many of us pray like that today? How many of us really understand what it means to be a disciple?

Signs and wonders

In the Vineyard when we talk about signs and wonders, we usually mean power works like healing the sick, raising the dead and casting out demons. Wimber's books Power Evangelism and Power Healing not only provide instruction for Christians who want to learn how to do such works, they also provide guidance to churches and church leaders who want to "equip the saints" i.e. train members of their congregation in power ministry.

But there's another meaning of signs and wonders in the Bible, and this refers to God's acts of judgment on those who won't repent. Stephen, when he was making his defense before the council in Jerusalem, reminded them that when Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt he performed "wonders and signs" described in detail in the Old Testament (see Acts 7:36 and Exodus 7-12).

Jesus likewise in his final instructions to his disciples warned them about the signs and wonders that would take place as the end of the age drew near. He told them about wars, famines, plagues, and great signs from heaven (Luke 21:10-11). He warned them they would be betrayed and persecuted, but said it would be an opportunity to bear witness to him (Luke 21:12-19). He explained how Jerusalem would be besieged and destroyed, and that a period of time would follow when the salvation that the nation of Israel had rejected would be offered to all the other nations of the world (Luke 21:20-24, Acts 28:28).

Jesus then said that as the "times of the Gentiles" came to an end, there would be "signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken" (Luke 21:25–26).

I believe we may be entering this time. Global warming is causing sea levels to rise, putting coastal cities in danger affecting millions. Warming oceans are destroying marine ecosystems, and declining fishing industries may lead to poverty and hunger for many. Signs in sun, moon and stars may refer to the profusion of satellites orbiting the earth, some of which may soon carry nuclear space weapons that can disrupt the technological foundations of our modern existence or even rain down atomic bombs upon us. All this and many other things beginning to happen are causing panic in people's minds, and the drastic measures that governments are taking in response often seem to backfire and only make the lives of ordinary people worse.

The urgency of the kingdom. Perhaps in our own lifetime we will "see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory" (Luke 21:27).

Or perhaps not. Because only the Father knows the day and the hour.

Either way, we've been commissioned to do a job, and our focus should be on that.

And to do that job, we need to step out of our comfort zone and become the kind of disciples that Jesus wants, and needs, and begs the Father to send out more of into the harvest.

Sandboxes on the beach

I had a dream a few years ago. Actually it was more like a daydream. We were visiting a church where a family member of some close friends attended. I was sitting listening to the sermon, and I was bored. So my mind began to wander. And this is what I saw.

I saw a sandbox. There were children playing in it, and they were having fun. It was a safe place for them to play, because it had large wooden boards around the perimeter which acted as a boundary to keep the kids safely inside while keeping strangers out.

Not too far away I saw another sandbox with kids playing in it, making sandcastles and pretending to be kings and queens, engaging in contests and defending their turf.

Then I saw yet another sandbox, and another, and still another. The sandboxes were spaced well apart, and the children mostly stayed in the sandboxes where their parents could watch over them.

But then I noticed something astounding: the sandboxes were all situated on a beach! There was sand everywhere, endless amounts of it! But the children were staying in their sandboxes instead of stepping out onto the big, beautiful beach that surrounds them where they can have lots more fun. And although the beach might seem scary to them compared to the security of the sandbox, there was no need for the children to worry. Because there will always be Someone watching over them if they would just step out onto the beach.

Hear what I'm sayin'?

A disciple's song

I've included here at the end of this book a worship song that I wrote some years ago as it echoes the main theme of the book. Below are the lyrics, and on the next page is a leadsheet with melody and guitar chords. Enjoy.

Just like my Jesus

Help me to walk the way you walk

Help me to talk the way you talk, O Lord

Help me to do the things you do

I want to follow you Lord and serve you forever

Help me to love the way you love

Help me to care the way you care, O Lord

Help me to feel the things you feel

So I can follow you Lord and serve you forever

I want to be a servant of the Lord just like my Jesus

I want to know the favor of my God just like my Jesus

I want to be a servant of the Lord just like my Jesus

I want to know the power of your life in me

About the authors

Mitch and Ingrid Tulloch first encountered the Vineyard movement in the early 80s. Much impacted by the teaching and example of John Wimber, they started home fellowships and began praying for the sick. In the years that followed, they trained and provided oversight for ministry teams in several Vineyard churches and helped support church plants.

In their series of Simple Kingdom books, Mitch and Ingrid share everything they learned about worship, fellowship, discipleship, spiritual warfare, the Bible and other keys for advancing the kingdom of God the way Jesus and his first disciples did. You can download these books for free from their website www.buildplant.org. You can also contact Mitch and Ingrid directly at info@buildplant.org.