There is no way for us to receive the Lord and yet set aside His authority. We should not say to the Lord, “I am too small to contain You, Lord, much less to contain Your throne.” Neither should we tell Him, “Lord, I want only life and peace; I do not want the kingdom and authority.” If we speak to the Lord in this way, the Lord will answer, “If you want life and peace, you must also receive the kingdom and authority. If you want the Savior, you must also receive the King. I am the Savior as well as the King. I was not only crucified but also enthroned. I passed through the cross, and now I am sitting on the throne. I come into you not from the cross but from the throne. As the Lord of lords and King of kings, I am coming into you with My throne.” What is this? This is an experience of the kingdom.
Although our outward being is small, our inward being is truly great, for within us there is a kingdom. We have a kingdom, a throne, and the King of kings—Christ, the Ruler of the kings of the earth—within us. This is our inward experience. I hope that all God’s children can see this.
We should never consider salvation to be a small matter. Some who have seen that salvation is not a small matter often pray, “I have been regenerated; I have God’s life and have become God’s child. This is a great matter!” We need to see, however, that the fact is actually greater than this. We must see that God’s kingdom, God’s throne, God’s King, and the King of kings are all in us.
The people on earth forsook the Lord Jesus, but the heavens welcomed Him. Furthermore, after the people on earth rejected Him, He as the Spirit descended from heaven. The Spirit came with the gospel, and this gospel is the gospel of the kingdom. When we hear the gospel and repent, we receive this Savior; this Spirit comes into us. What kind of Spirit is He? He is the Spirit flowing from the throne, the seven Spirits before the throne (Rev. 4:5). Once He comes into us, He gives us peace through the forgiveness of sins, and He gives us life as well. He also brings the throne into us; that is, He brings the Lord on the throne into our being. In this way our being becomes the heavenly kingdom; we have the authority, the throne, the King, the reigning, and the ruling within. Using a secular term, we may say that we have a government in us.
There is a kingdom in every saved one. What a gospel this is! Perhaps some do not accept this word. We may accept the fact that when we believe in Jesus, we have eternal life, but it is difficult to accept the fact that when we believe in Jesus, we have the kingdom in us. We may feel that it is wonderful to know that we have obtained eternal life, but we may not like to hear that the kingdom, the laws of the kingdom, and the King of the kingdom also are in us. Although some may not believe this word, it is based on the Bible. It may be that some initially agree with this word, but after seeing themselves still watching movies and quarreling with their family members, they simply cannot believe that the kingdom, the throne, and the King of kings are in them. This is truly difficult for man to believe.
I would ask you only one thing: “Are you saved?” As long as you are a saved one, there is life in you. Moreover, Christ is in you, the authority is in you, the King of kings is in you, and the kingdom is in you also. The One whom we have received is exceedingly great.
We should know that the greater a person is, the more forgiving and meek he will be. The experienced ones know that little children are easily offended. Whenever I visit a family, I am afraid of the children. I am not afraid that they will hit me, but I am afraid that I will offend them. Sometimes I tease them playfully, and they begin to cry. It is very easy for children to be offended; they are very young and are therefore narrow-minded. The parents, being adults, are different. They are not easily offended. For example, if I ask for another bowl of soup or break a glass, they will not have much of a reaction, nor will they make me feel embarrassed. Children, however, are different. If I take a piece of candy from a child, he will surely cry. Even if I return the candy to him, I may still not be able to calm him down and stop him from crying, because he is a child and is small-minded. We need to realize that our Lord is the King of kings; as such, He is a great person. It does not matter if we offend Him, but I say this not to encourage you to do so. If you say to Him, “I strongly desire to go to the movies,” He may say, “Go ahead.” He does not want you to go, but if you greatly desire to go, He will allow you to go. He is a very great person.
You may sometimes lose your temper, and although He does not like it, He allows it. However, it is certain that after you are saved and become a Christian, when you do things that are displeasing to Him, although He may allow you to do those things, you will not have peace within. If you are genuinely saved and are thus a genuine Christian, every time you do certain things, you will sense no peace within; rather, you will sense that you are rebellious and are doing things contrary to the Lord. You will sense that you are a disobedient and rebellious one. Perhaps you may console yourself by saying, “I did not steal or rob from others; I merely lost my temper a little. Besides, everyone has a temper.” Strangely, no matter how you try to convince yourself, you still will not have peace; He is still not responding in you. He is not like an earthly government, which would ask the police to stop you when you violate the law, but you know within that you are disobeying Him. You may give many reasons, and all the reasons may be logical, but your inward feeling will be contrary and disagree with you.
How do you know that you have a contrary feeling within? You know it by the fact that you cannot pray. A brother once told me that no matter where he went to hire a cab, he found that good cab drivers were nowhere to be found; almost every cab driver was unreasonable and tried to take advantage of others. Sometimes the brother would refuse to give in and would reason with the cab driver, questioning him, “Why are you trying to take advantage of me? You should have given me fifty cents in change.” The two would then begin to argue. This is a small matter; it seems that everyone should fight for himself and that it is reasonable to do so. The cab driver should have given him fifty cents in change, but he said that he did not have change. Hence, they began to argue again. No matter what, this brother demanded justice. This is reasonable in the eyes of the world, but he was not able to pray when he went home.
That he could not pray was truly a problem to him. All he did was quarrel a little, and his quarreling was reasonable. However, he could not pray when he went home. This was strange to him. When he sat at the dining table and was asked by his wife to pray and give thanks for the meal, he could not utter a word. The reason was that he had overthrown the throne within him. He had not conducted himself like a king or like one who had a throne and the King of kings within. Hence, he could not pray. Have you had this kind of experience? Sometimes a cab driver refuses to give us our change of fifty cents, but if we consider, “I am a son of the King of kings. I have the throne in me, and I have Christ in me. He is worth more than fifty cents. I do not care for the fifty cents anymore.” Strangely, when we arrive home, we will be able to kneel down and pray to the Lord immediately, saying, “O Lord, I thank and praise You that You are the King of kings, that the throne is in me, and that I am a son of the King.” We will be able to praise Him. How wonderful this is! This proves that there is a kingdom in us. This kingdom is the Holy Spirit, and it is Christ Himself with His throne and His authority.