This Sunday, we will see the arrival of the Kingdom of Christ with the arrival of the King himself. In light of that I wanted to help us think about the second petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” Since the fall, a cosmic war has raged between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). This conflict will endure until the consummation of all things. But the outcome is certain. A promised Seed will come from the woman, and He will, at great cost to Himself, crush the head of the Serpent. He will redeem His people fallen in Adam. He will reverse the noetic effects of sin, and He will defeat the Serpent. His kingdom will be established and endure forever (Is. 9:7).
This war is a conflict between two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of Christ (Matt. 12:25-30; Col. 1:13-14). Satan, throughout the Old Testament, tried to exterminate the line of Christ (Es. 3:9-15). Around Jesus’ birth, there was a satanic plot by Herod to assassinate the newborn King (Matt. 2:16-18). At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, Satan tempted Him in the wilderness to try and disqualify Him as the promised Savior (Matt. 4:1-11). Then, Satan tempted and used Judas to betray Jesus (Matt. 26:48-50; Jn. 6:70-71; 13:2, 27; 17:12).
This petition, “Thy kingdom come,” reminds us of the conflict between these two kingdoms, and it calls us to pray accordingly. We must pray imprecatory prayers against Satan’s kingdom (Ps. 68:1, 18). We must pray that the gospel will go forth unhindered by the schemes of Satan. We must pray that the church would not fall prey to the devices of the Serpent or be tempted to use carnal means to advance the kingdom. Perhaps the reason why we fail to pray the second petition of the Lord’s prayer is either because we are too concerned about building our kingdoms or we are so earthly-minded that we have made the kingdom of God like the kingdoms of men. We must pray that the Lord would preserve us in this kingdom and that He would preserve the peace and purity of our churches.
But in all of this, we must remember we are in the time of the already and not yet. Christ’s Kingdom has come. It was inaugurated at His first coming. But we wait for the fullness of this kingdom. This present age is evil (Gal. 1:4). The Kingdom of God is growing but in ways that are often imperceptible to the human eye and unmeasurable by man’s metrics (Lk. 17:20-21; Jn. 18:36). The wheat (seed of the woman) and weeds (seed of the serpent) grow increasingly throughout this age side by side in this world, but it is not until the day of judgment that they are separated (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43). The consummate fullness of the kingdom is not yet. But the day is coming when the Kingdom of Christ will fill the whole earth (Dan. 2:44-45; Rev. 11:15). This petition reminds us of the spiritual conflict we are in, strengthens our confidence that the gospel will go forth to the ends of the earth, and that the fullness of God’s kingdom will come at the return of His Son. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly (Rev. 22:20)!
In Christ
Pastor John Sweat Jr.